This is NOT a chapter focused on the present timeline! It's another backstory chapter!

TAE POV:

"Hyung he won't come out. He won't eat. He won't even speak to us. He's locked himself away." I say with stinging eyes when I return with yet another untouched tray, insticnts writhing and pleading and begging with the need to take care of my only younger mate, with the coven's youngest. With that aching, gnawing need to hold him, help him...do something, anything for him.

But since that night.

Since coming back to the nest, drenched in his blood and clutching at a shuddering body that had gone frightfully still...since the time he'd awoken, he hadn't looked at us. Hadn't been able to even stay near us.

He'd taken the softly spoken offer that Jin hyung had given of a room and he'd bolted, had shut himself away, choosing to hide himself away, and yet every night without fail we could all hear the shuddering sobs and broken pained agonised sounds that slipped free of tightly pressed lips.

Yoongi hyung's eyes are bright crimson; pools of pain and sorrow in them as he takes the tray back, frowning as he spots that everything is as it is, untouched. He hadn't even come to the door, hadn't responded to my calls for the past hours, nothing beyond shaky sobs as he begged for me to go- so stuck in this mantra of pleas that he didn't hear a word I'd said.

The tray slams down onto the counter, hands trembling as his body curves over it.

Hyung looks shattered. Devastated.

"He needs to come outside. He's breaking apart inside, chip by chip. He's crumbling and I....it hurts. It physically hurts to feel him hurting and not being able to do something. I feel useless." He spits the word out, poisoned and venemous, dripping with resentment and hate for the feeling.

For being swamped with it once more.

And for feeling it because our youngest mate was hurting.

And we couldn't do anything.

Couldn't even hold him through each tremor that wracked his beaten, bruised body. Couldn't wipe away the tears I knew soaked his sheets and clothes.

Couldn't tell him how much he mattered and how much we wanted to help him heal.

I couldn't forget the sounds of agony and desperation and fear as he'd tucked himself away, made himself small and begged for us to let him go. That he just wanted to stop hurting.

Pleading for an end that he felt he'd never experience.

I couldn't scour the memory away from my mind. Not when it'd pushed me into one of the longest shifts I'd ever experienced. Not when I'd felt hopeless in my unshifted form and restless and antsy even after I'd given in to that battering urge, when I'd felt caged even then, unable to expel that feeling.

-------

"Please don't. Stay away!" were the first coherent words out of our mate's mouth.

When his eyes had finally opened, slowly as his eyelashes had fluttered, rising from where they rest against pale cheeks and sunken eyes.

Beautiful warm deep brown that had flickered red with alarm when he'd taken in the new surroundings, hands scrabbling on sheets as he'd tried to push himself upright, body buckling as his arms gave out, trembling because he was too weak, too battered, too drained.

And Hobi hyung's hand that had been hovering, fretting and trying to administer healing charms but he'd flinched, a visceral full body jerk away from his hand, curving protectively around himself, hand clutching his torso when his movement tugged at the stitches.

"Please don't. Stay away!" voice a trembling shriek. Eyes sparkling with tears at the pain but moving away from hyung's touch, shirking it rather than curving towards it.

There had been fear in his wide doe eyes.

Genuine unadulterated fear at the hand that approached him.

As if he was expecting the hand to deliver the pain rahter than ease it.

It had made the bond sear with his own agony and the crippling hurt from hyung as he'd shrunk back, hand falling away and the protective glow dulling. Turning shocked and stilted.

"We're not going to hurt you little one. We want to help you heal. We want to...." Joon hyung begins softly, voice imploring and beseeching.

But Jungkook flinches.

Flinches at the tall imposing figure standing at the foot of his bed and curves himself even smaller, a small ball as he tries to shield himself.

"I don't want anything, I don't want or need your help. Just please...go away. Move away from me." hushed whispers as he rokcs himself back and forth, shuddery gasps as he begins to drive himself into a panic.

And it requires genuine physical force and effort to tug me back, to be torn away from that clawing urge to get to Jungkook and make things better for him, hands curling against Jiminie when he plasters himself to my back, clinging on just tightly. Trying to move away from the cries of pain, from the cries begging for us to go.

To leave him.

It makes nausea and anger claw at my insides, bubbling rage at our mate hurting, at the state we'd found him in. At the conditions that compelled us to change him.

At the wounds we'd found on his unconscious body that weren't the result of a car accident. Not when a knife wound pierced his abdomen and bruises marred his body. 

Everything had pointed to abuse. 

And the thought that someone who was my mate, my soulbound, a piece of my very soul had been hurting, had been suffering for so long made something vicious writhe inside me.

And when we'd fallen back, wanting nothing more than to soothe him, to help him. When we'd moved back at his insistence, wet doe-eyes peered at us from over a hunched body.

Breathing laboured and struggling, raspy and shuddering in his throat.

And the metallic tang of iron slowly seeping in the air told us his stitches had opened. That he was hurting and bleeding.

But he still remained hunched over, fingers fluttering and spasming over where they curved over the shirt, where red was slowly seeping through fabric.

"Where am I? Why have you brought me here? Who are you? And why....why won't my mind switch off? It's like I can sense everything too clearly...too sharply. What's wrong with me?" he asks.

Breath hitching at the small instinctual jerk Yoongi hyung made forward, body demanding to soothe his mate, ability no doubt going haywire and struggling the most with trying to keep away when he could sense and feel every emotion Jungkook was going through.

Yoongi hyung shrinks back, eyes flickering red and brown.

The sight makes Jungkook's hand tighten around the red blooming across his shirt, has him holding out another hand, wavering and weak. And a set look on his face.

Something that's a mixture of desperation and rage and pain.

"I'm not...I'm not going to let you drain me. That's what I'm here for isn't it? You're one of...his. Seo Hyuk's. Finally came through with his threat to throw me to his vampires to drain me dry? Leave behind a carcass as he said?" he asks.

But this time his voice is tinged with wrath and scorn and hysteria. Looking all at once angry and all at once defeated and horrified.

My blood boils, sings and demands that I avenge my mate. That I bring the life he lost, the life he had to sacrifice peace. I want to....I want to feel nothing and yet I can't and won't ever forget this feeling.

Of the world around me crashing and splintering. Of my soul weeping and tearing and mourning for my mate. For the life he lived and endured before we met him, found him.

Why had fate been so viciously cruel to him?

"Seo Hyuk?" Jiminie asks, voice trembling.

The name sour on his tongue, dripping with disdain and hatred. It's one that burns across my mind.

"He threatened to have you drained dry?" Joon hyung echoes. Voice cracking with misery.

The gaze Jungkook gives him is startled and uncertain.

Perhaps unprepared for the way the tears spill over his eyes, the way he sees them shining in ours.

My hands curl around my waist and dig in.

Trying to restrain myself and hold back.

"You're not one of his then...? Then why am I here? Why have you cleaned me up and healed me? Why am I not dead?" he continues, avoiding answering the question and steadfastedly ignoring our eyes.

And his question makes a sob tear out my throat.

Has his head jerking up, eyes wide and red.

I see the skin of his hand stained red.

"Because you're our mate. And we couldn't let you die. Because you deserve to live a life past the one that you're free from." I whisper, taking staggering steps forward.

No longer able to resist. No longer able to hold myself back.

I ignore the others calling me back, alarm and distress on Jungkook's face as he watches my approach, shrinking away.

And when my legs buckle, knees slamming into marble I don't flinch.

Hands reaching imploringly to curl into the sheets at the edge of his bed.

"Because you deserve to live Jungkook. Because your life begins now. Begins and goes how you want it to." I say, head bowed, cold tears trickling down my cheeks.

I want him to live.

He has eternity to live based on his choices and no-one elses.

And yet my heart still shatters when his light warmth moves away.

"I want to be alone."

When his first choice is to be away from us.

--------

"Still no response?" Jiminie asks as he steps into the kitchen, eyes lined with red and drowning in a large soft sweater.

On some bad days Jiminie can't stand touch. On some days he compensates that need for warmth with clothes. On some days he remembers how his body was sold and hides every inch of it.

Right now he pads over in clothes that drown and hide his frame. But he curls around me, miserable and hurting as he tucks himself close against me and tries to fill that gap by holding on. By fussing over another mate.

Right now his own feelings of desperation meld with my own, heightens it.

And makes the sobs spill free, unrestrained and unmuffled as my head drops forward, the sight of the kitchen floor blurring.

"No response. Oh loves..." Hobi hyung confirms, voice soft and aching as he comes to hold us, arms tucking us both to him, pressing a soft kiss to my hairline.

The thought that Jungkook has no-one to hold him has the tears flowing harder, soaking Hobi hyung's soft green t-shirt.

"Hyung he's slipping. I can barely feel him now." I sob, hand fisting over my chest as if it'll keep that fading bond between us going. As if the agony that has slowly started to numb will slip away.

"We can't force him. But his neglect...him hurting himself. It's reaching a point of no-return. He hasn't fed once since he's been turned and he's refusing normal food. And the house has sealed his room. I physically can't get through to him." Jin hyung says as he enters, face tight and drawn when I glance over hyung's shoulder.

Hurting because he felt failed as the eldest mate. Failed as the coven head.

But then he stumbles, eyes a burnished gold as he grips at the counter. Body steadied immediately by Yoongi hyung who'd rushed forward.

Hyung goes still, unmoving as his body stiffens with a vision.

Long minutes stretching before he shudders, body convulsing as he slowly straightens. But his hands are stained red.

And mere moments later, the house shudders and groans.

Every fibre of it trembling as if it's foundations and core is writhing and crying out.

And then there's the sound of a loud cry.

"Jungkook!" that echoes through the house.

Joon hyung. And his cry had been horrified and pained.

And when we rush, heart clenching around nothing, in a painful vice that reminds me in that instant what it feels like to lose breath. It's to reach the sight of a still figure in Joon hyung's hold.

Eyes a burning crimson with a gaze that was unseeing.

And body frail under the clothes.

When Hobi hyung's hand curls around his wrist and the other settles on his chest, flat against skin, he shudders.

Drawing in air.

Harsh loud pants.

Gaze that slowly slips into focus bit by bit.

Eyes that begin to see.

And when he sees all six of us hovering fretfully around him, kneeling and curved protectively over his body.

He shakes and turns to duck his head away.

Tucked against Joon hyung's stomach.

But this time a shaky hand reaches to grip at Hobi hyung's retreating hand.

And his voice reaches out.

A weak whisper that curls around our tattered souls.

"Please stay. Please help me. I don't want to exist like this anymore. I want to live." He pleads.

I want to live.

It took an eternity in itself to get to this point.

And yet I'd wait an eternity more to hear it again and again.

He wants to live.

He wants to try.

Weak, drained, undernourished and hurting.

But with a soul that burned with a want for once.

And a heart that despite having stilled, yearning with its entirety.

Live. Live.

"Live Jungkook. Live for you." Jiminie whispers, hands pushing at the large sleeves of the sweater he wears to rest a hand lightly on him.

Shaking and crying when it's not shrugged off or flinched away from.

Instead, his body relaxes almost imperceptibly under it.

Allows it. Accepts it.

And that was all we needed. That's all we wanted.

For him to fight for himself. To live for himself. To give himself the chance he never got.

And to know that he had six people that would give up their own worlds to build his anew.

Six of us who'd give him our entire souls and sense of being if it meant he'd be whole.

Six of us ready to sacrifice everything and anything to help those wounds heal.

Six of us to become the balm for those pains.

And six of us to help him be Jeon Jungkook.

To take back the life stolen from him.

To take what was rightfully his.

(A SMALL DIVE BACK INTO THE PAST ONCE MORE WITH KOOKIE COS I WAS FEELING ME SOME ANGST SO THIS IS SELF-INDULGENT! BUT REMEMBER HIS FLASHBACK?? HE HAD SOME STRUGGLES ADJUSTING AND TO TRULY LETTING HIMSELF ACCEPT HELP BUT HERE WE ARE! THIS IS JUST A BONUS CHAPTER SO IT'S NOT CHRONOLOGICALLY PUT INTO THE PLOT OF HAE'S GROWTH! SO DON'T FRET AND DON'T BE CONFUSED LOVES! LET ME KNOW HOW IT WAS?? AND THE REASON IT WAS TAE'S POV WAS BECAUSE HE AND JIMINIE WERE THE ONES WHO WERE THERE. THEY WERE ALSO THE ONES TO TURN HIM SO IT MAKES SENSE THAT THEIR EXPERIENCE OF THEIR YOUNGER MATE HIDING AWAY COMES FROM ONE OF THEM! LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS?? WAS THE ANGST WRITTEN PROPERLY? I FEEL LIKE I'M LOSING MY TOUCH WITH MAKING MY OWN HEART ACHE! HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED....? IS THAT WRONG TO SAY WHEN IT'S ANGSTY?? BUT HOPE YOU DID! TAKE CARE AND STAY SAFE LOVELIES!)

Sometimes more than enduring and suffering. More than being in pain and being hurt and being torn down over and over. Sometimes more than that...the hardest and most painful thing to do is accept you need help and you can't do it alone. That you can't endure it alone. And that doesn't make you weak. One of the biggest strengths in a person is when they're able to accept their pain and reach out for help. It doesn't make you less of a person for it.

Borahae! 💜💜💜

PurpleQueenie <3