House Rules (BTS fic)

Rules: My Self-Hate, I Have.

Jimin went still—too still, scary still—when he came upon the pile. His jaw clenched and sharpened, willing his mouth to stay closed, afraid that if it opened something dark and horrible would slip inside.

He sucked in a breath through his nose, nearly gagging at the torn flesh, dried blood, and broken bones presented before him. One more glance at the mangled raccoon strewn across the pale grass and Jimin's little breakfast came back up his throat and out his mouth, falling much too close to the dead creature.

He had a unique reaction to it, for when Hobi had seen it, screams were released instead of vomit, a light-headedness hitting him when he had.

Jin didn't look directly at it, only seeing and identifying it in his peripheral vision and nothing else. He side-stepped it with quick precision, just as quickly begging it to leave his mind.

Yoongi did the opposite of what Jin had done, staring a hole through it. He scratched his head and continued to look, standing there for hours as he tried to decode what sort of complex meaning this meeting held.

Kookie paused as Jimin had, taking in the image and letting it take him over, excreting not vomit, not screams...but tears.

Tae was a completely different story, his mind somewhere else when he had approached the dead animal. His foot went into the dried-out animal, a gasp escaping his lips when he realized what he had done. He looked up at the others on Fire Hill, now all eyes turning to him. He was the only one, the only one not to notice it.

But that was only because of the other things on his mind.

They sat around their fire. Lighting it had become ten times easier than it was the very first time they were on the island, although it helped that they had seven brains working toward the same goal...or six now. Namjoon was somewhere on the island, but no one knew specifically where. When the question was inevitably asked, none of them knew for sure but could assume he was on Blue Cliff wallowing in his own self-pity.

So they sat at the fire with no food. Why? Because Namjoon was supposed to go out gathering with Yoongi, but since he never showed up, Yoongi forgot to go. Despite the occasional growling stomach, no one really cared or was motivated enough to find something to chew on.

"Does anyone wanna say something?" The question was open for anyone to answer, but as far as they were concerned, no one would.

Leave it to Tae to break that barrier.

"I made a plane." Heads turned to him now. Tae let his own head gain height, scanning the crowd of faces. He realized only now that maybe it was the wrong phrasing, mostly because of the look Hobi was giving him. "Well...I tried to, anyway." Tae paused again, eyes glazing down to the fire. "I...was trying to send a message to passing ships, or anyone for that matter." He rubbed his nose. "I love the island...but what if we don't make it out here? We can't stay forever." His voice had gotten lower and lower the more he spoke, eventually going into a whisper, but the night was so quiet that his voice carried nonetheless. "I want your help...I need your help."

Tae made valid points, points they could all get behind and goals they could all work toward...but the problem lied within the words he used: Help.

None of them felt very "helpful" lately, if not to the island, then definitely not to each other. So, if Tae was asking for help, of all things,

No one was offering it.

The deepest and darkest of the night came and they huddled in their pile again, having only three blankets that survived the crash and the clothes on their backs. The other blankets and clothes had been torn and Namjoon had seemed very lazy when it came to working on them. In fact, the man hadn't made a reappearance until the sun was threatening to start its reign over the sky again. Hobi, out of the corner of his eye, watched as Namjoon laid on the outside of the pile, sighing before falling asleep.