The Fallen

VI : SACRIFICES

Jimin remembered the first time he'd seen Taehyung. He remembered the way his captors cowered in fear and whispered his name with terror in their voices.

The Blood-Winged Fallen has come.

But Jimin didn't feel fear at his name. It wasn't because of his relief that he was going to be saved, it was simply because Jimin just wasn't afraid of this Blood-Winged Fallen.

He remembered thinking that Taehyung looked less like a fallen angel and more an avenging one. He held so much power in just his stare that his intimidating black wings and weapons were almost rendered obsolete.

When Taehyung was done slaughtering the slavers, and the freed captives had run off into the night in desperation to taste their freedom and escape their terror, Jimin stayed.

Taehyung had been surprised, it was obvious in his expression, and he'd been wary. When Jimin thanked him, calm and sincere, it almost broke his heart to see how unexpected it was to Taehyung. He remembered thinking that maybe it was the first time he'd ever been thanked before.

He had helped to gather the bodies in a pile. Touching them was disgusting, but Jimin was without remorse or pity for the dead. He knew what they would have done to him; sold him off to the highest bidder for whatever sick whims they had. He recalled feeling Taehyung's curious and confused gaze on him the entire time, and watched with interest as Taehyung sprinkled powder over them that sparked in a blue fire that burned them all to nothing but ash. A fitting end, he'd thought, to people like them: total erasure.

It was an unusual beginning to a friendship that meant so much more than he could express out loud, but Jimin would never change what happened that night. It made him feel like worst person on the planet when he was hit with the full reaHannition of how deeply hurt Taehyung had been feeling over the last few weeks.

Jimin had spent weeks befriending the ex-lover of his most precious friend. A demon who had been the cause of Taehyung's worst pain and emotional torture. The source of almost all his inner torment and the lingering insecurities that kept him from feeling that he was more than just a fallen, that he deserved to be loved - that he was loved, even if just by Jimin.

Of course, his brother's played a large part in that as well, but the kind of pain that the abandonment of someone you thought was your soulmate was very different than broken familial bonds. The worst part of it all was that Jimin hadn't seen past the wall pretence that Taehyung had put up about it all. He should have known better, and the fact that he didn't made him so disappointed and ashamed of himself.

Jungkook had long since retreated into Jimin's bedroom, just like Jimin knew he would, but Jimin hadn't moved from the couch. He sniffled quietly to himself and stared at the closed door to Taehyung's room.

"I'm such an idiot," he whimpered, collapsing his face into the couch cushions to muffle his voice. He didn't want Taehyung to hear him feeling sorry for himself.

Part of Jimin had been so fascinated with the idea of Jungkook for so long, ever since Taehyung had first told him about their story, all the good and beautiful, and all the bad and painful. For a long time, he'd wanted to meet him just so he could punch the demon in the face for hurting his best friend. As time went on, he'd listen and remember different stories that Tae told, and he'd hear the fondness that Taehyung tried so hard to keep out of his voice, and he started to see beyond the pain. He started to see the potential demon behind the pain, to glimpse at who Jungkook was. He began to want to know him.

With the supernaturals going missing, and even Hobi coming up against wall after wall in the search for answers, Jimin's mind had turned to Jungkook. A demon that had once cast aside all prejudice in a time of war and fallen in love with an angel. On one rare day that Taehyung had allowed himself to feel brokenhearted in his memories, he had described the way that Jungkook loved him as headfirst and reckless, like so many of the things he did. Jungkook was the one who'd thrown away his fear and worries and taken risks for them to be together, Taehyung had been the nervous one between them.