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Namjoon can't help but imagine something rolling down. Off the mountain with a steep slope, strewn with gravel and covered with rocky sharp ledges. It spins like a ball, bounces on another bump, slows down, and then accelerates again, continuing to rattle rocks under it.
Thinking about when things started to roll down at breakneck speed, Namjoon remembers a winter day when the hunters of the pack headed deep into the woods with the firm belief that this time they would return with a large carcass instead of bony rabbits. They were supposed to come back with venison, or at best with a bear. Instead of a bear, they dragged Taehyung.
Namjoon looks at the boy in front of him and mentally stumbles over the word. It is not a boy, but an adult man - he is slightly inferior in height, he can see a sharp jawline from under the grown curls, and the stranger's broad shoulders confidently straightened. But then Namjoon looks at his face and groans mentally – he looks like a kid. Lost, nervous, though he tries not to show it. And obviously a loner. His scent is clean, without the slightest hint of the pack's mark, and there are two options: either he was expelled or he ran away.
Ran away. In winter. Empty-handed.
Most likely, he's a traitor. Or, at the very least, he's desperate and stupid. Namjoon lazily studies his eyes and cannot understand which option is true.
As Yoongi stood aside with his arms folded on his chest, Namjoon notices in his mind that the older one did not pull up a chair in his usual position. And most likely he didn't do so so that the stranger wouldn't feel more burdened than he is right now.
The dull sound of the index finger tapping on the wooden surface of the table sets the rhythm of thinking about how all this looks like groundless compassion - as if the hyung should care how unpleasant it is for the wolf to stand in the center of the room while others try to examine him.
Yoongi is not an asshole, but neither is he sentimental to uninvited guests after 24 hours in the woods, which brought nothing but a headache.
Would've been better if it was a rabbit, Namjoon thinks and tries not to roll his eyes. Instead, he says:
'We're not desperate enough to resort to cannibalism,' he'd throw a sharp look at Yoongi, but he won't even try, knowing that the older one won't get touched.
The man in front of him flinches and swallows frantically.
'We found him on the western border.'
'However, you found anything useful?' Namjoon asks amicably, examining the small scratches on the stranger's arm. He hears hyung snorting.
'Introduce yourself,' Namjoon demands from the wolf in front of him. He has his lips pressed together, his eyes darting, but his shoulders are still kept back in an unnecessary bravado.
'Taehyung, 21 years old,' Namjoon lifts one eyebrow when the stranger doesn't continue.
'Which pack? What position do you take?' He presses, irritated.
'I don't have a pack,' Taehyung primly replied and took his hands behind his back. Namjoon looks down to see Yoongi's frowning eyebrows focused on something. The man deduces that Taehyung is trying to hide his shaking hands. After a second he continues more neutrally, 'I was engaged in various small assignments. Here and there.'
This time, Namjoon's twisted eyebrow is clearly having a bigger effect.
'Helped in the cavalry and the kitchen mostly. I had some time to moonlight at the carpenter.'
Apparently, Yoongi caught something because he asks:
'Omega?'
The stranger frowns before him and seems to hesitate. As if this is a question that requires time for reflection.
He ends up nodding.
Taehyung is anything but an omega. His face is pebbly with sturdy bristle, his figure is sturdy, and his voice is too low. Namjoon never considered himself too susceptible to gender socialization and liked to think of himself as a person with broad views, who's not judging others on stereotypes. But here he is, in his office, with a faint smell settling down with something oily at the tip of his tongue, trying to justify the fact that the wolf in front of him looks too manly for the omega as if masculine omegas don't exist.
Namjoon takes a heavy breath.
When Taehyung is escorted out of the office and the door closes tightly behind him, Yoongi speaks.
'The western border is empty,' he said, gaping at the flashes of fire in the fireplace, immersed in his thoughts, 'I thought I had lost my sense of smell - the air was crystal clear. But Jihoon said the same thing to me, and the boys I sent to search for traces found nothing. As if everything alive had vanished.'
'Maybe Taehyung hunted them all up,' Namjoon tried to joke, not knowing what to say. Before he could finish, he knew it wasn't funny. The pain suddenly shot into his temples, and he clenched his teeth.
'He's probably from the Im's pack,' Yoongi continues, 'They're the only ones who border us in the direction. And in that case, they somehow decimated all fowl. A long time ago.'
'Or we have new neighbors that we hitherto didn't know about' Namjoon is thinking about which psychopath will migrate with his pack in early December. In this case, Taehyung becomes somewhat more valuable than uncaught rabbits. If defectors settled down near them, it is safer to know about their existence before they decide to declare themselves.
***
There aren't a lot of omegas in their pack. And that's one of the reasons why bringing Taehyung here was a bad idea. Even though he is clearly not the best match - too bony, low muscle and fat, has an unhealthy appearance, stealthy, silent... the list goes on. And for all the other reasons, he is an outsider.
As it turned out, it didn't stop his alphas from openly showing interest. They start to heat the fireplace when Taehyung walks into the room, they started giving completely inappropriate gifts in the form of jewelry and fur coats and, the cherry on top, putting food on his plate. After a couple of incidents, Namjoon began to call the alphas on the carpet in his office, filled with angry heavy smell, figuring out why they were wasting their unsound food supplies in such a lavish way. He was the angriest at the hunters who somehow crept into the ranks.
When the number of Alphas who suddenly needed knocking some sense into became absurd, Namjoon assigned this task to Seokjin. He was convinced that Alpha, who by his mere presence was pressing as if your spine were about to break, could deal with the banal intimidation. But after a while, as the village gathered in their dining hall, - a room with two long tables, one of which was headed by a leader - Namjoon saw how Seokjin unobtrusively moved a piece of meat from his plate to Taehyung's who was sitting next to him. Namjoon had to retract the order and waste more time on the shameful jerks.
Even though the behavior of the pack's alphas could have been predicted - a new face among those around you your whole life certainly added dramatic colors - but Namjoon had no idea that his inner circle would succumb to the trend. And Seokjin's case kind of opened Namjoon's eyes - since when did Taehyung move to the Pack Alpha side of the table?
The realization of what was happening felt like a stark chimney fire, when for the first time in a while you tear away your overstrung dry eyes from the paper. The point is. Namjoon suddenly began to notice. How Jimin pats Taehyung's hair in a gentle gesture while passing by with his plate; how Yoongi kindly calls the stranger ¹Taehyung-a'; how Hoseok presses his nose against Taehyung's cheek in the middle of the dining room. Only Jungkook was relatively detached, but because of this, Namjoon had to watch how his little alpha slowly melted and wait for the inevitable moment when Jungkook will start giggling warmly at the table with omega.
Namjoon thinks he's being dramatic. However, no matter how much he tried to convince himself of it, he can't get rid of the lingering sensation in his chest. On the other hand, he doesn't know how he should feel about his loved ones finding a pup they want to take care of. He could have just let them play house.
At one point, Jiminnie habitually rubs his nose against Namjoon's neck, and he thinks everything is fine, but the next second, Jiminnie pulls back, allowing the cold air to crawl through his breathing-heated skin and flee to the opposite side of the street with a loud 'Taetae'.
Namjoon feels like something is slipping out of his hands, but he doesn't realize what exactly. It's like he's trying to catch air.
People Namjoon regularly sends to check the western border are not reporting any changes. Quiet, empty, and improperly fresh for the rich forest. He falls asleep with a sense of uneasiness, and anxiety awakens him before the sun rises.
An unfounded sense of danger haunts him day after day.
'You look tired,' Jiwoo is standing in his office. She's one of the best hunters in the pack and just like Hoseok, she has no filter on her mount to allow such unnecessary comments.
She finished reporting what Namjoon had already known. The western border does not change. The smell of prey is absent, and so is the smell of foreign wolves. Everything is stable. However, Jiwoo continues pacing in front of him, and Namjoon waits for her to gather her thoughts together to say what she wants. Something more personal and what makes her hesitate.
'I am anxious to go to the western border,' she confesses in a few minutes, and Namjoon raises his head, tearing away from the form on his desk. He looks at Alpha, waiting for an explanation.
'Rationally I realize that this is our territory that no one else has marked. But every time I go in there, my hair stands on end,' she wrinkles her nose like she doesn't believe she's saying it, 'Like it's me who is trespassing.'
'Like you're trespassing,' Namjoon repeats her words thoughtlessly, trying to understand.
'Yes,' she nods. 'It feels like I'm doing something wrong. Sometimes I feel like I'm being followed, but it's all clear. We even checked the tree tops.'
'I hear you,' says Namjoon, thinking that his anxiety is no longer as unfounded as he thought it was, 'You're free to go'.
He decides to go survey the border with the pack in a few days.
***
Namjoon watches from the porch as Sana carries out into the street her firstborn, who came into being a month ago, and he's flooded with tenderness. Mine, his gut purrs, and eyes caress a puppy in her hands, covered with a rare pup's fluff. It's his. His pack. And his pups he's protecting.
And then he watches Sana hand over a puppy to Taehyung, who is standing in the street with red cheeks - it's unclear whether it's from cold or because of the precious thing in his hands - surrounded by Namjoon's loved ones. And suddenly he feels like something's wrong. He suppresses the menacing growl that emerges from the depths of his throat when he sees Taehyung staring at the little creature with sparkling eyes. Wrong. It's dangerous.
Dangerous, growls the alpha inside Namjoon, and he spends every effort to persuade him.
There's Jimin and Yoongi near them. They will not let anything happen to the pup. His pack will keep the babies safe, and if something happens, they will immediately protect the helpless creature from Taehyung. Sana, at the slightest hint of danger, would rip his head off to protect the pup.
But when he looks at her, he sees the maternal tenderness with which she looks at the omega carrying her child. Nobody looks at outsiders like that. That's how you look at your pack.
Could she? Namjoon thinks absently and turns around to go back inside. Reports on the village's reserves and cost forecasts until the next full moon are waiting for him there.
He wants to howl.
'You think too much,' whispers Hoseok while stroking Namjoon's hair.
He agrees with him - too much. But it is his duty. To count all the possibilities of the occurrences to reduce the risks to a minimum.
His life isn't all about stress, it just so happens that when you're protecting someone, you have to focus on the danger. And if Namjoon's thoughts are destined to be filled with something dark to prevent these fears from becoming reality, he is ready to go for it. Still, it's a low price to pay to protect the smiles on the faces of his loved ones.
He is exposed to tender movements, allowing himself to dissolve in his hyung's hands for a moment.
'Jungkookie misses you. You rarely leave the office. You'll soon be covered with mold,' he teases quietly. 'You should rest more.'
Namjoon grunts incoherently to say yes. Yes, he should. No, he can't
'We're having dessert at dinner tonight. Seokjin-hyung decided it is time for a canned apricot. He and Taehyungie made jam.'
Namjoon feels his body tensed, even though he's trying not to show it. Taehyungie. An outsider who somehow infiltrated every aspect of his life and now continues to weave into the routine of his inner circle with invisible strings. An outsider who is allowed into the kitchen. An outsider whose name is mentioned in his – Namjoon's - house as if it were the most natural thing.
Suddenly, he feels chipper enough to gently escort his hyung out. Alpha feels anxiety twisting his belly and a lump across his throat, which is becoming less and less phantom with each minute. He thinks he'll vomit from the slightest smell of apricots.
He didn't go to dinner that day.
***
This time the Yoongi's hunting party is dragging a shiny bear carcass to the village. This time the party is dragging Yoongi himself.
Namjoon watches their convoy from afar until the figures on the horizon become clearer and feels a sense of déjà vu. He presses his palms into his eyes and tries to let the air out of his lungs in a steady stream. Seokjin stands silently behind his shoulder and the rhythmic crunch of snow under his sole due to the periodic tapping of his foot does not help. But at least he's not talking.
'We didn't see what exactly happened,' reports to Sunoo, while others are moving Yoongi on the bed in faithhealer Jung's house. He's conscious, but he hasn't said a word, only gritted teeth show how hyung must be in pain right now.
'He's either snagged on the jaw, or the bear completely bit through the leg.'
'Snagged,' hissed Yoongi through his clenched teeth, and faithhealer irritably waved a piece of cloth at him.
'I see yours snagging,' she grunts, knowingly and confidently taking up the job, 'You got your leg chopped funkily'.
Yoongi continues to be silent, staring angrily at the canvas. Namjoon stands behind the healer's back and cannot find the strength to look. Therefore, Seokjin shifts sideways and makes an impressed whistle while looking at Yoongi's leg.
'Funkily, indeed,' he spills pensively. 'Will he be able to walk?'
Namjoon thinks he's about to faint.
'We'll see,' with the same tone woman answered and Namjoon sank onto the floor next to the bed.
'Another one,' Jung mutters irritably, threading a needle, 'Young man, you hear me? Put the tincture under his nose!'
Namjoon hears hyung's heavy foot moving to the closet in the corner of the room, growling to the hunters to make them get the fuck out and rattling glass and clay bubbles.
A few moments later Namjoon choked on the smell of alcohol burning his mucosa and banged his head against the corner of the bed, trying to distance himself.
'Dammit, Namjoon-ah', Yoongi grunts, and the younger one feel hyung's hand on the back of his head. His arm was bent at an awkward angle, but Namjoon did not move for a while.
Taking a deep breath, he climbs to his feet, sliding his palm on the arm of his hyung, not wanting to detach, and looks towards his legs.
Two lacerations on the right thigh. A bunch of scratches seems insignificant in comparison to that. Madam Jung has already started sewing up one of the wounds, and Namjoon's hand has thoughtlessly rushed to Yoongi's palm to squeeze it in his.
'Maybe better do it in wolf form?' unabashedly asks Seokjin behind his back, and who'd know how grateful Namjoon is because his own voice will surely fail him. 'Regeneration should go faster.'
'Boy, there's nothing to regenerate yet,' faithhealer snorts. Namjoon looks at her, thinking that if he will get through this day, his hair will be as grey as the old lady's. 'You think, what, he's supposed to re-build up the meat on the bones? First, we will mend the flesh, and then your wolf will waddle. Otherwise, the wolf will be healthy, but on his own two feet will be with a pattern.'
'But it'll look solidly, won't it, Yoongi-ya?' Seokjin scowls and Yoongi hums something in response.
Namjoon looks at the smirk of his hyung, which is not touching his eyes, and wonders how he can hold out like that. As a Pack Alpha, Namjoon was horribly smeared on the floor because his hyung was hurt, he was injured, Namjoon had fucked up, and he wasn't there when it happened, and he couldn't protect his...
'Erase your snot, we have a serious question on our agenda,' Seokjinnie looks at him derisively and slides his thumb under Namjoon's nose, although he is absolutely sure that his face is dry. 'Our head huntsman will lie down for a while. What shall we do?'
Namjoon blinks and tries to pull himself together, stop being overly sentimental and abstract from the hyung's loud breathing from the bed. Yes, he is in pain, but he is alive and will be taken care of. He must start thinking about the village.
Head huntsman. How much will it weaken them? Many alphas are close to Yoongi in skills, and together they may well replace him. Namjoon needs to rethink the attack plans and the core team. They have a whole bear, which is good, but Namjoon prefers not to see the other one with the same losses.
'I will figure it out,' he concludes, calculating the scale of the work ahead.
Seokjin puts his cold hand on Yoongi's forehead, combing sweaty bangs back.
This is something Namoon hopes to never see again.
***
At Jiwoo's request, Namjoon redeploys her to a hunting party, and she is no longer engaged in reconnaissance of the western border. He puts Kyungsoo in her position, relying on his keen sense of smell, and assigns Hoseok as a precaution.
On their first expedition, Namjoon goes with them to assess the situation himself. He's standing in his wolf form, scanning the area with his dirty red eyes, trying to pick up something. Remembering Jiwoo's words, he raises his head and looks at the tree crowns. He can find nothing among the branches, obviously. So he keeps going. He leads a pack at a dimensional pace, allowing Kyungsoo to track any minor changes in the odor, and wading through the thicket.
As Kyungsoo approaches him at the beginning of the formation, Namjoon briefly howls into the air to give a signal to the closing Hoseok and rushes forward.
He moves between the trees, waiting for the scent of a foreign pack to reach them. Unfamiliar or Im's, who for some reason decided to expand their borders - it does not matter. They need at least some specifics.
They run for ten minutes, twenty, thirty. Kyungsoo stays quiet and intervals between slowing down and catching up with the leader again. Namjoon stops. It doesn't make any sense. If there was a pack that came so close to Kim's border, they would at least have caught their exact scent. They're chasing a ghost.
In the northwest is the territory of the nearest pack of Im Jaebeom. In the east – Namjoon's. If they're exploring in the wrong direction, it can only mean that the outsiders are on the perimeter of the village, which is impossible.
They return and after an hour Namjoon again stops near the border and treads on the ground, allowing the wolves to scatter around.
Namjoon turns into a human form, ignoring his nakedness, and appeals to Kyungsoo.
'Dig snow,' he says.
The wolves around them begin to gather again, raising their ears so as not to miss the leader's words.
'Dig to the ground.'
Namjoon comes up to the tree, briefly threading his nails on the rough bark, and transforms again. He sniffs into the oak tree and slams his paw into the hammered snow, starting to work like the wolves around him. About ten minutes later, he thinks his idea will yield no results, and he's ready to recall the order. However, Kyungsoo breathes out in surprise and starts to chew quietly, as if trying to taste the air around him. And he starts to dig up the point he's been working on with more force.
After a while Namjoon understands. The smell is heavy and rotten. It breaks out of one single point, like the stench of a poisonous plant in which fruit was inadvertently crushed. Namjoon is getting closer.
The ground Kyungsoo excavated absolutely reeks of decaying carrion. Namjoon looks into the murky eye of the rabbit's face and doesn't know what to do.
***
Namjoon sits next to Yoongi on the porch, trying to help hyung to get out more often until his leg stops shooting pain with weight transfer.
They watch as Seokjin fools around with Jungkook, spoiling the younger with attention. They're messing in the snow and Jungkook's funny laughter echoes all around. Namjoon feels his shoulders and jaw relax, and then, his teeth clatter against each other, when Taehyung runs up to them and falls directly on his hyung and Jungkook. Namjoon wants to tell him to get the fuck out of there, to stop bothering his youngster from swimming in attention, but he keeps quiet and makes himself watch as an outsider plays with his pack. How he smashes his drooling lips into his hyung's cheek, and how Seokjin feigns resentment, building a fake disgust on his face.
The sun's rays hit right in the face, and hyung on his right side is smiling with watery eyes. It is a bitter irony that the sun came out with the arrival of the stranger, and began to softly lick the wolves with its warmth.
Namjoon imagines himself snapping Taehyung's neck.
***
'Hyung!' Jungkook breaks into Namjoon's office with frosty air but, paradoxically, his presence seems to make the room warmer.
Namjoon feels his fatigue rising out of his body with a blizzard behind wooden walls, and smiles lovingly at the youngster who approaches his desk. Jungkook is uncomfortably lying across Namjoon, knocking the air out of him and resting his body on armrests. This position cannot be comfortable in any way but they both ignore it.
Jungkook burrows his nose into Namjoon's neck and silently chuckles when the older sniffs into his shoulder to mark him in return.
They sit for a while in silence filled with their sniffles and the crackling of burning logs.
'I and hyungs are going into the woods tomorrow,' Jungkook mutters on Namjoon's shoulder. 'Come with us.'
Namjoon puts his hand on maknae's head and sighs.
'Hyung,' Jungkook whines and kicks moodily.
'This is a difficult time, Jungkookie. I've been busier than usual,' Namjoon whispers with regret.
'You haven't been out with for a hundred moons.'
But Taehyung doesn't get off of you, thinks Namjoon and with horror tries to hide such thoughts as far away as possible.
'I know. I'm sorry,' he moves his hand down the youngster's back soothingly while he's snorting resentfully. 'I promise to sort this out by the next time.'
Jungkook pouts and does not get off Namjoon until it's supper time. Youngster leaves early so Alpha can finish tagging the map alone. With a light smile on his face, Namjoon takes more air into his chest, as if he wanted to absorb the smell that Jungkook left. The smell of his youngest, mixed with the members of the pack. Except for one note that feels superfluous and incorrect. It was as if black paint had been dripped on the picture. Namjoon tries not to think that his loved ones allow Taehyung to mark them, and squeezes the feather in his hand so that it snaps easily, leaving black ink smudges in papillary lines on his palm.
***
Namjoon enters his parents' house the next day and obediently sits at the table, trying to pretend that the situation is not extreme. The former leader of the pack, who retired and passed the title to her only child, frowns, and her wrinkles seem deeper than they really are because of the uneven lighting.
'The prey went missing in the west about twenty nights ago, but I couldn't have guessed it was dead.'
'It couldn't all die,' said his father, muttering wheezily to himself as he swayed thoughtfully back and forth in his chair.
'The first snow came after about ten nights from the previous moon,' said the old man, 'Ours had been regularly climbing westward at that time.'
Namjoon hums, trying to remember how they missed what was going on right under their noses. How they didn't notice the dead carcasses at point-blank range during almost the entire moon until they were hidden under the snow.
'We ignored the west just before the first snow,' mom says. She stares at Namjoon, 'The border is farther from the settlement to reach the big prey, we have to go much deeper into the thicket.'
Namjoon can feel his face turning red. Yes, he said it himself. And that's how he reasoned his decision to send hunting squads east and south, where the border is closer and bigger game is more common.
These gatherings were passing in a hurry. The cold began abruptly and earlier than they expected. They were far behind the stock plan, and hunts had to be planned to minimize losses. So Namjoon decided to ram the winning points.
'Maybe the hunters didn't go there, but we do a perimeter sweep every day. A mountain of small corpses, you could smell it.'
The excavated ground no longer obscures the stagnant corpse smell that reaches the settlement's border, and the pack had to move deliberately to shove the snow back in the hope that the stench would dissipate soon.
'So they showed up a few nights before the first snow. And they began to rot faster as the moisture increased,' mother continues with a stone face, tapping her index finger on the tabletop.
'Sounds logical,' Namjoon exhales and blinks fast.
Mom takes a soft breath while putting a mug of herbal concoction in front of him and gently runs her fingers through the back of his neck. All this - his home, the smell of old familiar furniture, the care of his parents - makes him feel so small. It's like he's an immature, pathetic kid who decides to play grown-up but all he gets is a bruise on his knee and a mess for his elders to clean up.
Does he have the right to lead the pack? Be a leader? Does he do well in his duties? Last night's show - no. Namjoon wants to go outside and scream until he rips his throat out. He wants to fall into the nearest snow bank and hope that he suffocates.
Namjoon looks at the people who have entrusted him with the honor of leading this pack, taking care of it, and contributing to the prosperity of the village, and feels the burning shame of how he has let them down.
'By the way, didn't lostie come from the western border?' Namjoon sips loudly from the mug and at first, doesn't even understand his father's question. For a second, he gets angry that Taehyung is mentioned even by his parents now but then remembers that he actually came from the west.
Namjoon wonders. How long did Taehyung wander the forest without a pack? Five days? Ten? A full moon? Was he near the western border when the animals began to die? Did he see this?
Namjoon leaves his parents' house, grinding his teeth, and summons Taehyung to his carpet.
***
Taehyung doesn't look anything like in front of the others. Even his features seem to be deformed. He wipes his palms on his trousers, and his expression looks unfamiliar without smile wrinkles.
'How long have you been away from your pack?' Namjoon asks.
'I can't say for sure,' mutters omega, and even his voice seems to be lower without the giggling tone with which he talks at the table to others.
Namjoon allows him to duck the question and instead of trying to get the details out from Taehyung, he decides to go straight.
'On the side where you showed up, there was a pile of carrion. What do you know about it?'
Stranger's eyes widened and Namjoon was again confronted by a child, whom he had first seen almost the full moon before - insecure, confused, and frightened.
'So you're that ill-mannered, huh?' he utters irritably, wanting to finish it soon.
'I... Yeah, I know about it. I just forgot', mutters Taehyung and hides his hands behind his back.
'I'm not gonna have an abstract conversation with you. We're talking in question-answer format, and you're now refusing to cooperate with the Pack Alpha, who gave you a roof over your head.'
'It was an attempt to keep the wolves away,' Taehyung swallowed, 'I stumbled upon the gnawed rabbit and... thought it would be a good idea to mark the area with carrion. No one would go on the smell of dead when it's obviously necessary to get fresh meat before the cold. I climbed trees, thinking that under direct sunlight decomposition would go faster, but... I was wrong.
Of course. Of course, he was wrong, which sunrays on the eve of winter will accelerate decay? Stupid, stupid, troubled, bloody stranger Taehyung who for some fucking reason smells like Namjoon's pack.
Namjoon's memory gives him a glimpse of him looking at a nervous Jiwoo, who tells him she was being watched from the trees. Trees that were marked with a corpse stench. No wonder.
'You're saying now,' he growls desperately, 'That the wildlife hasn't died, and it was you who killed all?'
'Not all!' A strange voice suddenly jumps up, 'It was ten rabbits I left there at most! And a couple of bones after eating. Not all.'
Ten rabbits. The stinking carrion must have frightened away the rest of the game, and now the west will be empty for a while because all the prey has scattered and will not appear until the smell will be subsided. Namjoon thinks he'll have to bury all the sources of the stench when thaw will come. He can't let his wolves do this kind of dirty work, mopping up shit for...
'You're a fucking jerk,' Namjoon leans forward, not caring at all how he affects the outsider in front of him. The last thing he will worry about is that his pheromones forcibly suppress the omega which provokes his headache for the last few weeks, 'Do you even realize that on dead smells wolves, on the contrary, go?'
Taehyung looks morbidly in front of him, his pale facial skin contrasts ugly with the fireplace flames behind his back.
'There's not a pack that's going to ignore the suddenly appearing carrion near their territory. You're fucking lucky it snowed in just a few nights.'
Namjoon turns his eyes to a map that closes an entire wall and decides to clear it up.
'Who did you have to scare off?'
Although he has his hands behind his back, it is still possible to understand that Taehyung's fingers are shaking, just like when they first met, and Namjoon realizes that he is talking to him for the first time since he allowed that mutt to roam his territory.
'Who the fuck did you scare off?'
Namjoon knows an acceptable answer. The only option. And most of all, he wants to hear that stupid statement of fact, land his ass in his old chair, exhale, and kick the son of a bitch out of his office.
'From my pack,' he says in a quiet voice.
And Namjoon is lowered into the chair. But not for the reason that he would like. But because he is in some deep shit.
Not from other stray wolves. Not from packs based at different points in the endless forest. But from a very specific pack. His.
He's being fucking followed.
'Your pack,' Namjoon repeats, 'The leaders' names?'
Taehyung looks like he's about to cry. Suddenly Namjoon wants to weep too, knowing that he has allowed a stranger omega to mark the corners of his village with his smell, without even thinking that Taehyung may have a bloody pack on his tail.
A damn pack that can come and defy.
That can hurt his wolves.
Taehyung's lips tremble, the tear rolls off his cheek and lands on Namjoon's carpet. It makes him angry again. He begins to growl, but Taehyung stumbles before the alpha can say anything.
'Hwang Taegyu is Pack Alpha, Hwang Soomin is Pack Omega.'
Namjoon blinks, and he thinks the world is tilting in front of him. Hwang Taegyu. This is the alpha he saw a dozen moons ago. A few winters ago. Even before he took the rank of Pack Alpha from his mother. This name hangs in the air like a piece of a puzzle that completes the picture.
Hwang Taegyu whose pack has settled in the south and much farther from the rest of the neighbors. Too far. It will take them about five hours of running without stopping.
Namjoon feels incompetent because of how many things he has overlooked or refused to see. The smooth nose line, the curvature of the upper lip, and Taehyung's neat rounded chin are one-to-one the features of Hwang Taegyu's face.
Of course. Fucking obviously, no pack will be looking through the winter snow-covered forest for one escaped omega. Taehyung either has very high self-esteem, or he has full confidence that the pack has reason to send search engines after him.
Escaping of omega from the Pack Alpha family sounds like a good reason.
Did he run away? Or did he get kicked out? Namjoon blindfolds the man in front of him, who sank his teeth into lower lip to muffle his sobs.
Yes. Perhaps it is indeed an escape. Hwans are not dumb enough to kick out one of the higher omega in winter, dooming to death. Namjoon does not know if Hwang Taehyung is Taegyu's brother or son, but any of these titles place him at the top of the pack hierarchy. He couldn't have been provoked to leave by wolves because they wouldn't be able to say anything to him. So, it was contributed by someone higher. Someone who can't be put in his place. Someone who can neglect a possible hazard from the Pack Alpha.
This means it was Pack Alpha himself.
Namjoon moans quietly and massages his bridge. He could feel sympathy. He could have debated the immoral abuse of authority by the Pack Alpha, who uses power not to protect but to destroy his own wolves.
But, quite frankly, Namjoon doesn't give a single shit about dramatic aspects of Taehyung's life. He marked Namjoon's pack with a red dot for the Hwans' to visit at any moment.
And looking at omega's distorted face, Namjoon hopes he understands. That he clearly fucking knows that all those people who were kind to him, who cooked for him every day, who gave their pups in his hands, are at risk.
He needs to get rid of him. And do it immediately.
'Where do you sleep?' Who will notice your disappearance first, asked Namjoon, burning with anger at himself, for not even having traced exactly where the mutt was staying in his village.
'At Jiminnie's house...'
'Jimin-seonbaenim,' Namjoon bellowed.
'We're the same age', Taehyung protests, and alpha thinks if he doesn't shut up, he's gonna have to snap someone's neck right now.
'But you're not on the same level.'
And that's all it takes. Because a mutt can't call Namjoon's inner circle disrespectful even if he's twice as old as all of them combined.
Taehyung swallows and stares at the floor with glass eyes.
'Before the sun rises, you leave this village,' Namjoon orders. You stay in this house, and I will personally make sure. I don't care where you go, but you're gonna mark every tree in your path to keep your trail from us.'
'Jiminnie only goes to bed after me,' Taehyung shakes his head. Alpha prays to all the gods he's ever heard of to be forgiven for the cruelty he now feels towards the omega in front of him.
Damn Jimin and his damn hyper-responsibility for someone else's pups. Jiminnie, who will probably never forgive Namjoon if he finds out.
'Jimin frolicked in the woods today and will pass out as soon as he gets home.'
'He didn't run that much,' said Taehyung again, and Namjoon wonders if he cannot behave properly in principle.
Stop.
'Were you with them?'
Taehyung stands still, with his shoulders back and face wet, and he looks so pathetic when he nods hesitantly.
'How often did you get out of the village?'
'That was the first time.'
Namjoon is laughing.
Taehyung may not leave now, says his inflamed mind. What's the point if he has already marked the closest to the pack glade.
It looks like he said the last one aloud. Taehyung shuddered, but he had the shame to keep silent.
In the case that Hwang's dogs have picked up Taehyung's trail, they have a maximum of one night left. And it will be for sure only if tomorrow at the same time far-off neighbors don't deign to pay a visit. Namjoon can't even kill him now.
'You're leaving', Namjoon's voice ends up being somewhat soft, 'Right now.'
Taehyung lets out a long sob.
The door to the office opens without knocking or permission, and there are only five people who allow themselves to do so. Namjoon watches how Seokjin drops his fur coat, and he feels that his migraine is growing stronger.
The older one raises his eyebrows, but says nothing. Even after seeing Taehyung's crying face, he first takes a serious look at Namjoon.
'He's Hwan. From Hwang Taegyu's. And there's a tail behind him,' Namjoon wearily reports with his hand flying through the air.
One of the traits of Seokjin's, which Namjoon envied shamelessly, was the ability to grasp the essence of the problem instantly. Hyung pursed his lips and approaches Namjoon without looking at omega. And some evil worm in Namjoon's heart feels vindictive satisfaction at seeing hyung confidently heading to his side as if he wasn't the one feeding off his hands and coddling Taehyung lately.
Seokjin leans his hip on the back of Namjoon's chair and stays silent. And then he says:
'I and the kids went for a walk today. Southeast.'
Namjoon wants to kiss him.
'I know. Thinking if we should cut the jerky for the guests,' he says, but hopes that Seokjin will understand what he means.
'His wolves don't get far. To track Taehyung here, he had to send a unit deliberately at us for surveillance. Irrational and unlikely,' Seokjin registers calmly, 'But I'd get the meat just in case.'
Taehyung before them rubs his cheeks with the back of his hands, muttering something indistinct under his nose. Seokjin's tone softens:
'I came to tell you that Jungkook's probably ill. Gamboled in snow and is sitting like a heater.'
Namjoon closes his eyes.
***
They sit in Namjoon's office all night, and when the first rays of sunlight fall on the fur carpet in the room, Taehyung shudders at a horn signal from the south.
Seokjin gets on his feet first and puts a coat on his shoulders with a stone face. Namjoon follows him and walks out on a lane where the hunters are already running on the southern border. He ignores the faces of elderly peering out of the windows and does not look towards his parents' house when he passes by.
Behind him, he can discern Seokjin-hyung's heavy confident steps and the quiet rustle of snow under Taehyung's uneven steps.
At the edge of the forest, there was already a part of the wolves that stood in a semicircle, covering the border houses. Hwang Taegyu stands in front of the forest thicket, on the border of the Kim clan, while his wolves line up with the same bezel among the trees.
'Kim Namjoon! Long time no see. Look how you've grown since the last time,' the Pack Alpha is wrinkled, but not old; he looks about thirty years and confident at all fifty.
'Hwang Taegyu,' Namjoon nods, not letting his eyes wander from the other alpha's glance, 'What has brought you here?'
'My old young friend,' he laughs, 'You see, there's been a misunderstanding, and just so happens you've got my fugitive. I understand, bogart on someone else's isn't honored on our end. I am willing to give you my sincere thanks for looking after my wolf at such a difficult time for all of us.'
Namjoon hums under his breath, making it clear that the guest has been heard, and runs a fleeting glance at the foreign wolves standing behind the leader. It's somewhere around 30, most of them are broad-shouldered and lanky, which makes it clear that the visit was not for a return of honor.
He brings his attention to Taegyu, who stands with a nasty grin on his face and disparagingly raised eyebrows, and has no desire to deal with slippery characters in the bloody dawn when his wolves are not even dressed.
Namjoon doesn't turn around - he doesn't dare look away when Taegyu says:
'I think it's time to pick up our lostie. Taehyung,' his harsh voice echoes through the quiet forest district, 'It's time for you to go home.'
Namjoon hears uneven footsteps behind him and watches the omega as he enters his field of vision with peripheral eyes. Taehyung slowly crosses the distance between the two packs, turning frantically at Namjoon, pleading with him to do something. The Pack Alpha doesn't even turn in his direction.
But the other turns: Hoseok jumps to Taehyung, taking him by the hand behind his back, protecting him from the Hwans, but he does not keep balance and lands on his ass - Namjoon thinks this is a good reason to finally see.
He looks at the omega, and the thing he wants most is to be somewhere else. He wants to yell at the whole meadow, he wants to sink his hand in his hair, and he wants to turn around silently and lock himself in his house until the problem will resolve by itself. But instead, he looks at Taehyung sitting on the snow, his cheek pressed to Hoseok's leg. Pants are soaking up lone tears of silent acceptance. Hyung's hand rests on Taehyung's head in a caring gesture, picking through omega's strands, and Namjoonn sighs deeply. It would have been easier if it had been Jimin - he's scary in anger but temperamental enough that his emotions cloud his mind. Namjoon would have been able to force him down, get rid of Taehyung, and pretend that this had never happened - because it would have been the right thing to do. His job was not to indulge the whims of others against safety but to protect them.
But Hoseok isn't Jimin and in his rage, he only becomes more calculating. He will not shout and point his fists at someone else's face, he will stand as he stands now, in a defensive position, clinging onto Namjoon with a burning furious gaze, and will aim at his neck to rip his throat out. Clearly and specifically: there's a goal, there's a result.
Namjoon looks at Taehyung again and notices Hoseok's hand on his head jerking the salted strands. On the right, there is a muffled Jimin's growl, which he was unable to suppress. Despite everything, Namjoon ignores him. The wolf which quietly dropping tears in the snow looks anything but dangerous. Too thin to hurt. Too broken to do anything about it. But Namjoon's gut perceives omega differently.
He feels the burning stares of the pack on his cheek and turns away.
There are too many thoughts in Namjoon's head that give him the chilling terror. Some of them are about how exhausted he is. That the responsibility on his shoulders cannot be shifted even by the cavalry, but he still tries to kick and pull the cart, digging the ground with his feet. That he wants to give it all up, even if it means he needs to kill himself. That his people are in danger, and he feels unusually young in this meadow, standing in the middle of two fires, waiting for the ashes to reach him.
He wonders when his pack gone fuck up? Since when did his wolves start baring their teeth in his direction as if he were the main danger, even though Namjoon had always been and would be their main protector? Why after dedicating himself to these wolves, pledging to defend them at the cost of his own life, they are willing to go against him because of a boy they know for less than a month?
Seokjin stands a few steps away from Namjoon completely quiet, ready to accept the leader's decisions regardless of his own beliefs. Namjoon's grateful for this. If they survive, he will tell this to the elder's face. The Alpha saw how Yoongi limped to the meadow and stood somewhere behind him, and he's just hoping that someone will take the wounded hyung away. He hopes that vulnerable Jungkook stays in the сabin until the end and that no one will find him.
He wants to be at home. Near the smoldering fireplace and spicy wine, which warms from the inside. Sometimes Namjoon thinks that he fucked up way too many times as a leader.
Taehyung has to go. Winter will be long, their main hunter is out of action and will not be able to resupply. The roof of the shed made from dry logs began to leak. Everyone knows that. They're standing on a rock in the middle of a raging ocean and losing their balance. War with a neighboring pack will be unpleasant.
A war with his own personal pack over a decision would be even more unpleasant.
So Namjoon pulls his coat off his shoulders and with regret throws it into a snowdrift, hiding dreams of warm alcohol in the back of his mind, when the hairs on his forearms rise from the cold. Watching the snow soak his beloved hide, symbolizing the point of no return, Namjoon thinks about how many children and old people are now in their cabins and how many will not survive this winter because of fucking Hwang Taehyung. The half-naked man turns to outsiders - showing a willingness to shift immediately - and tries to make his voice as less tired as possible when he says:
'I don't think we can help you with that.'
He may not be a very good leader. He has made many mistakes and is likely to do as much if his life will be long. He's probably making one right now, at this very moment. Namjoon is bad at a lot of things: he can't draw, his jokes are always ridiculous, and he's incredibly clumsy for the Pack Alpha. But despite all that, there's one thing he's always been good at.
For his pack, he rips his enemies with bare hands.
He may have weak hyung, he may have a sick youngest, he may have pack members who bear their teeth dangerously at him, but that's okay. It's okay, he thinks, even if none of his wolves are able to stand on their own feet, Namjoon will cover them all. He's not the best alpha, but he's cruel when he's supposed to be. And this brutality will never be directed at his loved ones.
He will defend his pack unconditionally. And apparently, Namjoon has overlooked when Taehyung became a part of it, and all he could do was silently reap the fruits of his negligence by standing as a human shield against the threat.
Namjoon looks with remorseful eyes past the Hwans at the sun rising from the horizon, which makes the snow around him glitter.
He watches Taegyu swaying softly on his feet, shifting weight from one to the other, and the moment Namjoon notices that the alpha is turning one foot a little bit backward, he lets his eyes flash red.
The color with which snow debris on Kim's Pack territory will be soaked with.
As his bones break to grow back together in wolf form, he listens to the howls of wolves from behind, who have also begun to change their shape. Namjoon hopes that in the chaos of battle, Taehyung will be killed unnoticed.
That would solve most of his problems.