taehyung focus
with taehyung's shirt damp and not being able to dry from the disappearing sun rays, taehyung shivers in the cool of the evening as a breeze flutters past him, feeling more like a gust of wind against his wet shirt. he rubs his palms up and down his upper arms, trying to cause some friction to warm himself up.

he wanders after a marching jungkook who powers ahead, one hand on the bicycle, steering it, the other casually slipping into his front jeans pocket. trailing just behind him, taehyung stares at jungkook's broad back, leather jacket fitting snugly, and his baseball cap tugged low to hide his features — giving a sort of mysterious vibe to the boy.

jungkook looks like the epitome of boyfriend. taehyung was not going to lie.

jungkook looks over his shoulder just then, catching taehyung off guard. he looks unimpressed as he stills his movements and waits impatiently for taehyung to catch up, foot tapping against the concrete as taehyung hurriedly jogs to meet up with him.

"sorry." he breathes out once he's standing besides him. jungkook stays mum but silently starts moving in the corner of taehyung's eye. taehyung turns to see him slipping off the very jacket taehyung was eying just seconds ago, and holding it out in taehyung's direction. taehyung blinks at the offering.

"are you gonna take it or not?" jungkook questions, tone brusque. taehyung takes it quickly before jungkook could make any other comment, and places it carefully over his shoulders, hesitant. immediately he gets a familiar whiff of faint cologne and sweat — a scent, taehyung's discovered, to be of jungkook's.

taehyung was wrong. jungkook is the epitome of boyfriend.

suddenly feeling a lot more bubblier, taehyung smiles at jungkook who's already starting to walk again, oblivious to way taehyung looks at him with happy smile on his face.

as the sun sets, taehyung walks alongside (a very boyfriend looking) jungkook in comfortable silence.

+

night follows on and they find a room at a dingy motel in town, named the pink palace — a quiet two storey building that doesn't get many visitors and due to this fact the nice owners of the motel lowered their price and allowed them to take the largest room reserved for honeymooners.
it's a pretty grotty place; snaking cracks and dents litter the pale blue walls and the carpet beneath their feet is rough and scratchy — nevertheless, taehyung's grateful for the owner's kindness.

taehyung enters the "honeymoon suite" with a plastic bag of pot noodles swinging in his hand. jungkook follows in after him, grappling with a few cans of sprite and trying not to shake them too much.

fifteen minutes later, after silently snacking on noodles and downing cans of cool sprite whilst watching old cartoons on the dusty television, taehyung's ready to get into bed.

taehyung's rustling under the stiff bed covers, trying to get comfortable with the scratchy sheets rubbing against his arms whilst jungkook makes his bed on a grubby couch, grimacing and spreading out extra blankets over dodgy looking stains.
once finished, he turns around and cleans up the mess they'd made when eating dinner; several pot noodles, chopsticks and empty soda cans sit on a scratched up desk, waiting to be thrown into the trash.

whilst jungkook throws the trash out and brushes his teeth in the tiny but terrorising bathroom, taehyung looks up at the yellowing ceiling and tiredly breathes outwardly through his mouth.

m'so sleepy, taehyung thinks as he turns on to his side to face a grotty wall full of scratches. taehyung lifts a hand in the air and lightly traces one deep scratch with his index fingertip whilst wondering if this old building would collapse anytime soon.

hope not, taehyung thinks, i need my sleep so please don't break and collapse anytime now to 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, taehyung asks the building's structure sleepily.

he hears the sound of water running from the bathroom, hitting the ceramic sink loudly. he listens to this sound as he drifts slowly in and out of sleep — the running tap water acting as a sort of white noise for taehyung to fall asleep to.

taehyung's back at the car park.

but this time the car park is in complete disuse; not one car is parked, no black SUV or vehicle is in sight. he's standing all alone in the middle of an large abandoned car park.

it's dark. the only source of light is weak yellow LEDs set in the ceiling's fixtures above but they flicker on and off unhelpfully, doing no justice to the darkness that seems to crowd taehyung's lone self. through the darkness, taehyung peers all around him, trying to find someone — jungkook, his parents, jae, anyone.

"jungkook? h–hey, jungkook. jungkook, where are you?" he calls, spinning round on the balls of his feet, looking everywhere around him and trying to find someone recognisable.

"there's no one here, there's no one here." taehyung repeats under his breath, fear wracking through his body as he stops spinning, coming to a standstill as the thought settles into his head.

he spoke too soon.

"kill me!" someone calls out behind him. he swivels round sharply to see the dead thug, looking not so dead, kneeling on the ground in front of taehyung, stained teeth on display in a wide grin. "please kill me!" he cries, mockingly.

he laughs wheezily when he sees taehyung's horrified expression.
"aigoo, what happened? why'd you look so scared for?" he questions, chuckling harshly before stopping abruptly, lowering his tone to a growl and rendering his facial expression as one of contempt. "you killed me before. kill me again. c'mon, taehyung. kill me. it was sooo easy to, wasn't it?"

gasping, taehyung stumbles back in pure fear when the man climbs to his feet, swaying dangerously close to taehyung's body. the man grins at taehyung's reaction.

"i–i didn't kill you." taehyung stutters as he steps back with unsteady feet.

"but you did, taehyung-ah. you let jungkook kill me and you didn't say a word, you just looked away!" the thug exclaims hysterically, taking a step forward in taehyung's direction. "you even forgot about me so easily!" n

"n–no! i didn't want you to die but you were gonna kill us—" before taehyung could finish his sentence, he turns on his heels and runs as fast as he could away from the now screaming thug. as he runs, he roughly swipes at the sudden appearance of tears and snot on his face with his sleeve, trying to clear up the blurred vision they cause.

his vision does clear up a few seconds later and he pulls his shirt sleeve away to see small bloody streaks staining the white. he stops running abruptly when he notices the streaks moving, he stops to watch the way the thin streak of blood runs up his sleeve, to his shoulder, down to his chest — stopping exactly where jungkook had shot the bullet into the dead thug's chest. taehyung gasps in fear when he looks up from his shirt to see jungkook standing a good metre away, his m9 pistol in his outstretched hand, aimed directly at his chest with that cute bunny smile, that taehyung adored, on his face.

that's when taehyung wakes up.

he wakes up to find tears and snot running down his face, his heartbeat rapid, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, his clothes damp—. clothes, clothes, taehyung thinks as he looks down at his shirt sleeve to see no streams of blood staining it — in fact, he's wearing a pale blue shirt, not a white one.

it was just a dream. just a dream, just a dream, a chant runs through his head, just a dream, it was just a dream, taehyung. there's no dead person coming to haunt you. it was just a dream.

he forcefully takes gulps of air, trying to calm his insane breathing rate as he looks round the room. he was in the now dimly lit motel room with jungkook near him, sleeping soundly on the couch.

taehyung runs a shaky hand through his sticky hair.
just a crazy dream. nothing's wrong.

who am i kidding? everything's wrong. letting jungkook kill that guy was wrong. crushing and liking jungkook is wrong. wrong, wrong, wrong — everything's wrong! how could i have let things go to this? how could i have laughed with a murdering kidnapping criminal today? how can i sleep in the same space as him—

the hand running through his hair comes to a stop at his fringe. he grips his fringe tightly in between his fingers and tugs hard, frustrated. you need to come back to reality, taehyung. throw your stupid crush away and do something; you're in the same room as a murderer, a kidnapper, a criminal, and you're just sitting here, doing nothing.
if you don't move, what happened to that thug, will happen to you.

that last thought stops taehyung from tugging, lets him drop his hand listlessly to his lap and makes him look over at jungkook who sleeps with his back turned to him.

i don't wanna end up dead, he thinks resolutely as he wipes his tears away with the back of his hand and gingerly slides out of bed, climbing out of the sweat stained sheets and padding uncertainly towards a sleeping jungkook.

he gulps hard as he rounds the couch and stands over a, as usual, shirtless jungkook, frantically darting his gaze around any telltale spots jungkook might have stored the key. he spots something glinting under jungkook's pillows — the room's key? it's something he'd have to tilt jungkook's head to the side for and grab.

it's a stupid plan. 100% likely to fail but taehyung's so desperate, he'll take his chances without contemplating his (lack of) choices.

with breath caught in the back of his throat, taehyung outstretches his arm, carefully flattening a shaky palm against jungkook's cool cheek. with his teeth biting his lower lip, taehyung gently pushes jungkook's head slightly to the side. he doesn't stir.
it's working so far.

taehyung goes for the glinting object, moving as quietly as possible. but before he could reach for the key under the pillow, a hand encloses round his wrist, tugging him hard forwards, on to jungkook's chest where he lands with a started squeal. with panic and desperation coursing through his veins, taehyung tries to push himself off but jungkook, who seems to have woken up when taehyung tried to move his head, holds taehyung's wrist tightly and effortlessly flips himself round so taehyung was on the couch beneath him with his hands pinned above his head, completely defenceless.

taehyung struggles under jungkook's body, squirming away from his hold and trying hard not to cry in front of the younger whilst doing so. but tears sting his eyes and before he knows it, hot tears are streaming down the corners of his eyes once again, sliding down his cheeks.

"trying to escape?" what looks like disappointment flickers on jungkook's face for a split second, but then it's hurriedly replaced by stony anger. he glares down at taehyung with a dark gaze, grip tightening round taehyung's too thin wrists.

"here i was, thinking that maybe you decided to accept your fate and stop the damn escape attempts but no. you're still adamant on leaving right?" jungkook growls. "you waited this long to make me feel less tense and then decided to leave — that was your plan right?"

taehyung shakes his head, crying too hard to answer him properly. his struggling turns slack, knowing it was futile to resist.
between cries, taehyung gasps out, "no, you were going to kill me! you were going to kill me like you killed that guy!" he sobs. "you did it in my dream and now you're gonna do it in real life!"

jungkook focus
"taehyung, im not going to kill you. it's not my job to—"

"you're a liar!" taehyung yells, suddenly, catching jungkook off guard.

"im. not. lying." he breathes, punctuating his words as he lowers his head closer to a frightened taehyung. "i was told to bring you to my boss unharmed." he grits out.

"you're still the world's biggest liar — you told me we'd stick together but you're just gonna dump me off the second you get a chance to! you're as worse as my fucking mom!" he screams, cheeks turning scarlet.

jungkook stiffens at the words "stick together" — he remembered that?

taehyung seems to have felt jungkook stiffening and he looks at jungkook, narrowing his wet eyes into determined slits with tears still streaming down his face, "don't make promises you can't keep, jeon."

jungkook stares at taehyung. this was a complete different side of taehyung — a side he'd never seen before. and he doesn't know how to deal with it.
using a gun to threaten taehyung to stop crying works but he feels like in this situation, it'll just worsen taehyung's state. same goes with any other type of violence.

he said something about a bad dream, right? jungkook's mind proffers.
when junghoon used to have bad dreams, you used to grab ahold of him and not let him go until he stopped crying/calmed down. jungkook stills.

so, what? cuddle him until his fears go away? forget it, jungkook.

. . .

sighing, jungkook loosens his grip on taehyung's wrists and pulls him upward at the same time as he shuffles backwards on to the couch. he hauls a snivelling taehyung up and firmly seats him on his lap, curling an arm round his waist and hesitantly placing his other hand on the lower back of his head, fingers interlacing with taehyung's hair.

swallowing hard, he holds on to taehyung's body firmly when he starts to struggle out of his hold, crying hard again as he does so.
taehyung, more that just frustrated, claws at jungkook's biceps, whacks him with his clenched fists, yells accusations and even bites him on the shoulder once as he cries uncontrollably.

jungkook silently endures taehyung's assaults and holds him close, waiting for the storm swirling inside him to cool.
a couple of minutes later after futilely wasting his energy, taehyung slumps his head against jungkook's shoulder and let's his arms limply fall to his sides. his loud cries turn to sniffs and the previous quietness of the room is slightly restored.

taehyung, through hazy watery eyes, studies the reddening bite mark he'd given to jungkook on his pale shoulder. the indentations aren't too deep but it's obvious to recognise the grooves as teeth marks. the marks give something for taehyung to focus on other than incessant amounts of blood and haunting dead thugs.

"have you calmed down now?" jungkook ventures out, his words distracting taehyung from analysing his damage on jungkook's body.

a few seconds pass before taehyung whispers out almost inaudibly; "you can't — you can't do this. you're not allowed to do this to me."

"i know," jungkook murmurs into taehyung's hair, "but you wouldn't have calmed down and stopped screaming if i haven't done it." he mutters, sounding all matter-of-fact as he pats the small of taehyung's back awkwardly, trying to maintain taehyung's calmness.
taehyung doesn't say anything, just blankly stares at the teeth marks embedded into jungkook.

"taehyung, listen to me, okay? i promise im not gonna hurt you — not just because my boss told me not to but because i don't want to. okay? so get the idea of me shooting you dead out of your head — it's not happening."

"and as for that promise of sticking together? i promise to stick together with you until it's necessary for one of us to part ways. until then, let's try not to kill each other and escape, hm?" he hums, casually placing his chin over taehyung's head.

taehyung raises his hand to his cheeks and messily wipes at the tears, mumbling a soft "mmm", feeling defeated and tired but wanting to believe in jungkook's promises.

"now, about this dream — do you wanna talk about it?"

+

jungkook doesn't know why he's being so nice. it's not like him to comfort his hostages, listen to them and make promises in order to stop them crying. he's dealt with hostages in the past having nightmares but he didn't care for any of them the way he did for taehyung. he'd simply just tell them to "shut the fuck up before i put a bullet through your forehead," and that was that: they'd shut up instantly.

but now, he's sitting on the stained couch with taehyung burrowing into his side and sleeping, softly murmuring in his sleep, with jungkook's now numb hand enclosed round his waist.
he'd fallen asleep after murmuring sentences describing his nightmare — sentences jungkook couldn't quite catch but knew it was something about the dead thug and him killing him. jungkook doesn't think much about it — it's natural to feel fucking scared and have nightmares after seeing a murder take place before your eyes.

taehyung drifts in and out of sleep as jungkook contemplates his actions.
why'd you comfort him? why didn't you just scare him into shutting up and leave him to cry himself to sleep?

maybe it's the fondness. maybe seeing someone you're fond of cry, makes you wanna console them. it's a good point but jungkook doesn't like it — okay, being fond for kim? that's okay, it's reasonable. but changing the way you do your work simply because you're fond of kim, isn't good. he's a hostage — he's nothing else to you.

but if he's just a hostage, why did you comfort him like that? why are you letting him hug you to sleep? you're caring too much about him— jungkook rubs his face with exhaustion, that's bullshit, you don't care. you don't care about any of your hostages. and you don't care about taehyung.

jungkook finds that hard to believe. because when taehyung was crying about jungkook killing him and breaking their promise he felt hurt, he felt betrayed when taehyung had wanted to leave and he felt like pure shit when taehyung cried into his shoulder.

why? he doesn't know why. doesn't know why he suddenly felt those things.
maybe it's because of the fondness again? his mind offers weakly but jungkook doesn't think so, knows it isn't so; it's something else. it's other feelings besides fondness—

wait . . . other feelings? what other feelings? feelings? do i have feelings for kim? what.

______________
well, that went 0-100 real quick.