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Yoongi is currently on patrol at the edge of his pack’s border, the rain falling so hard he can hardly see a foot in front of him. He is drenched from heat to toe. He’s never been so grateful for the warm blood of being a wolf in his life. Granted, he wasn’t actually a wolf. Their pack had stopped being able to morph into a wolf, but they still held as many attributes of it as they could in human form.
He had volunteered for the nightly patrol, unable to sleep. He gave the excuse of it being his duty when asked why he wanted the night shift, but in reality he just didn’t want to fight his own inner demons. He didn’t want to fight the memories that kept him up every night. Out here with the rain and something to distract him, it put his mind at ease.
The wind blows, punching the droplets of water in his face, but with it, a familiar scent fills his senses; a scent of rain and jasmine…a scent he has refused to let himself think about for years but still haunts him.
He’s on alert, walking towards where he thinks the scent came from. He has to see if it’s real or if it’s just a figment of his imagination.
Just beyond his pack's border, lies an omega from Yoongi’s past. An omega that Yoongi vowed to forget.
“Yoongi?” The omega's voice is barely a whisper, but Yoongi heard it as if it was as loud as a cannonball. His ears trained to hear that voice anytime it had anything to say. The omega is shivering from the cool air, his clothes soaked. Even his scent, though there, is barely recognizable. If it hadn’t been so engrained in Yoongi’s senses he’s not sure a normal person would even recognize it.
Every instinct in Yoongi’s body is telling him to run, to get out of here as fast as he can. But…he finds himself picking the omega up in his arms and taking him back towards his hut.
“Why are you…Yoongi what do you have?” Namjoon begins friendly, but he can see the alpha tense up when he smells the omega in his arms. “Yoongi…”
“I have to, I can’t let him die,” Yoongi argues. Namjoon just nods and allows him to pass.
“I’ll cover the rest of your watch.” Namjoon says without another word.
Once inside the hut and out of the rain, the omega’s scent is more troublesome, the scent of the rain no longer masking it. It’s unstable, as if the omega is inches from death.
Yoongi wastes no time taking the omega to his room and undressing him. He has to get him out of the wet clothes. He dries the omega off with a towel and sits him on the bed, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry Yoongi…I didn’t….I’ll leave once the storm is gone…” Jeongguk begins speaking quickly, still barely a whisper. His broken scent still spiking from stress.
“Shhh,” Yoongi tries to shush him. All he was worried about right now was helping the omega get back to looking alive. He has dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept in days. “Lay down and sleep.”
“Yoongi, please,” Jeongguk begs but for what, Yoongi isn’t sure.
“Sleep,” Yoongi uses his alpha voice he usually doesn’t use with Jeongguk to get him to listen. It works, Jeongguk wrapping the blanket around him tighter as he lays in Yoongi’s bed and closes his eyes. It doesn’t take long before he’s softly snoring, a sound Yoongi has missed.
Yoongi takes a seat across the room, watching as the omega sleeps for what seems like the first time in a while.
He thinks back to when they first met, Jeongguk wandering into their territory lost, a warm but non-threatening omega just looking for somewhere to belong. He remembers being drawn to his scent immediately, how his scent felt like home. A scent he can now barely smell, that feels like it’s slowly slipping away.
Jeongguk had been a young omega then, barely of age. Yoongi wasn’t much older, just the son of the pack alpha still trying to find his place in the pack. They accepted him, clear that he had nowhere else to go. Yoongi’s first official job in the pack was to keep an eye on the omega to make sure he behaved, a job he gladly accepted.
Jeongguk wasn’t a threat to them whatsoever. He was just a young, scared omega who had run away from home looking for a new one. And Yoongi… He wanted to be that home for him.
Their relationship started out cordial, Yoongi almost like a bodyguard. Everything was going fine, they got along fine and Jeongguk understood his place even if he liked to push the boundaries every once in a while.
It all changed when his heat hit. Yoongi had never spent a heat with an omega before, but he could smell the stress and arousal on the omega and he had to check on him. That led to Jeongguk begging him to stay and Yoongi being too weak to tell this beautiful omega no. He took care of Jeongguk as best he could, as softly as he could. The trust between them that had built over time culminated in a bite that no one expected, not even Yoongi. But it felt so right.
He looks in front of him at the healed bite on Jeongguk’s neck peeking out from underneath the blanket and his hand goes to his neck where his own bite still resides.
“Damnit, Jeongguk,” Yoongi whispers as he wipes the tear that escaped his eye from his cheek.
Yoongi would’ve done anything to keep them together, even after his own father had forbidden the match as Jeongguk didn’t truly belong in their pack. But he belonged to Yoongi, and Yoongi had planned to just leave, leave it all behind for Jeongguk.
But Jeongguk, stubborn Jeongguk leaving in the middle of the night leaving only a note saying “don’t come after me.” It had left Yoongi heartbroken, even more so after hearing the I told you so from his father
Yoongi watches as the omega he would’ve given up everything for lays before him, finally back in his bed where he belongs. He then decides to dry Jeongguk’s clothes. As he picks up Jeongguk’s pants a bottle falls out. Suppressants. Why would Jeongguk have suppressants? It wasn’t something wild pack members usually went for..unless…
Jeongguk losing his scent… he was doing it purposely. But for what reason? Why would Jeongguk want to lose the scent that is so much a part of himself?
He tucks the bottle back into Jeongguk’s pants and lays them out on a table in the living room before returning to the bedroom to watch over the omega.
He isn’t sure when he falls asleep, but he wakes to the sound of an angel calling his name, the voice that he’s missed so much.
“Yoongi?” He opens his eyes and Jeongguk is sitting up in the bed, only his eyes visible from beneath the blanket he’s cocooned himself. Those big beautiful eyes that hold all the secrets of the world. “Where are my clothes?”
“They’re in the other room,” Yoongi tells him with a yawn. “They needed to dry.”
Jeongguk tries to stand but is unsteady. Yoongi jumps out of his chair and rushes forward, taking the omega in his arms to steady him.
“What are you doing to yourself?” Yoongi asks, almost demanding it. “I saw the suppressant bottle. Why are you trying to lose your scent?”
Jeongguk can’t look him in the eye, no matter how hard Yoongi stares at him. Why would Jeongguk want to do something that could cost him his entire life? Why would he want to experience scent-death?
“I’m not…” Jeongguk answers weakly as Yoongi sets him back in the bed. “I’m trying to break the bond.”
Yoongi goes quiet, unsure of what to say to that. Why would Jeongguk go to such extremes to break their bond? Did he hate Yoongi that much?
“I can’t bear to feel your pain anymore,” Jeongguk sniffles. “You were my first bond. My only bond. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t…I couldn’t…”
Yoongi sits on the bed and pulls the omega into his chest, wrapping his arms around him as the omega begins to sob into him. They sit like this until the cries soften and Jeongguk falls asleep again.
So Jeongguk could still feel him. Could Yoongi feel Jeongguk? Or had he gotten so good at pushing it all down that he just didn’t notice. Even after all these years, Yoongi’s pain was still palpable to Jeongguk. Of course, sweet, kind, loving, Jeongguk would want to get rid of feeling the pain. It was a pain he caused by leaving.
Yoongi’s father did not approve of the match. While Jeongguk was a perfectly fine omega, he wasn’t suited for the future pack alpha according to him. Yoongi had no words, he couldn’t fight his own father. He was still young, he’d be banished forever. He considered leaving, and was about to suggest it to Jeongguk when Jeongguk told him he was leaving and not to follow him.
Yoongi has been a shell of a person since that day. He looks down at the omega who’s head is now in his lap and begins running his fingers through his hair. He scratches at his scalp which is something he loved when they were together before their lives came apart. Jeongguk rouses a bit, but his scent is weak and he looks like he could pass at any second. His chest is moving as if he’s struggling for breath.
Yoongi begins to panic. This can’t be the end. It can’t.
“Jeongguk,” he begins shaking the omega. “Jeongguk you have to wake up. Baby, you have to wake up.” Jeongguk is practically limp in his arms.
He moves them so Jeongguk is laying on the bed and begins scenting him as much as he can. It’s all he can think to do because maybe if he strengthens their bond it will save Jeongguk. He scents him on his neck, his chest, his stomach, his arms, his thighs, anywhere he can get to. He’s sure he looks like a mad man but he doesn’t care. He keeps at it as he begins to hear the rumble of packmates outside his cottage.
But the longer he does it, the more Jeongguk’s breathing evens out. The more he scents him, the more alive he seems. It’s as though he can see their bite marks glowing as their bond strengthens again.
“Yoongi?” Jeongguk looks up at him with his big eyes full of questions.
“Shhh, let’s go,” Yoongi wraps Jeongguk in a blanket and picks him up bridal style. He knows being with Jeongguk won’t be accepted as his father already forbade it years ago. But…he can’t bear to lose Jeongguk a second time. And this time, he has no one to answer to. He is the pack alpha.
When he opens the front door, there’s a hush across those gathered outside his cottage as they see the still weak omega in his arms.
“Yoongi…” Namjoon says with a warning in his tone.
“Take care of them,” is all Yoongi says before he walks past the crowd and into the trees.
A year later…
Yoongi is at his desk, a desk he built with his own hands, writing a letter to Namjoon. While he can’t show his face within the pack's territory, Namjoon and him meet just outside of the boundaries to exchange items and pleasantries. Namjoon keeps him updated on how the pack is doing and Yoongi updates him on Jeongguk and their life together.
“Do you regret it?” Namjoon had asked him once. It was still fresh so Yoongi didn’t have an answer for him yet.
But as Yoongi sits at his desk, the slight scent of rain and jasmine overtakes him and he can say with one thousand percent certainty his answer is no.
Jeongguk drapes his arms around Yoongi’s shoulders and kisses his cheek.
“Let’s go to bed,” Jeongguk says sleepily. “It’s perfect weather for sleep.”
Yoongi looks out the window, seeing the snow quietly and softly falling outside. He was right, it is the perfect weather for sleep. The letter can wait. Yoongi sets down the pen and stands. Jeongguk takes his hand and leads him to their nest where he climbs in and pulls Yoongi after him.
“Thank you for saving me. And for choosing me.” Jeongguk says after they settle into bed. It’s not the first time Jeongguk has thanked him, and he’s sure it won’t be the last.
“I would choose you again and again in every lifetime.” Yoongi leans in and kisses at the bite mark on Jeongguk’s neck, inhaling the still somewhat broken scent of jasmine. “You still smell like winter rain.”