seven | taehyung pt.1
“Taehyung,” the descending angel looks around as he lands in the middle of the battlefield, lifeless bodies of brethren lay at his feet. “What did you do?” His voice is accusatory, laced with vengeance and the slightest bit of concern for his once friend when his eyes draw to the dark color emerging from his back.
Taehyung brings his pinion forward and with it a mighty gust. The elder doesn’t so much as blink. “The feather’s grew dark on their own accord,” he shrugs mockingly and shallow when his wings encompass him. “Like it?”
“They’re atrocious.”
Taehyung snorts. “Why? Because they’re not what our creator intended?”
“Because they have been touched,” he corrects. “They’re filthy and reek.” Hoseok’s eyes are unkind. He has heard, in passing, of the angel that has turned dark, a celestial that rejected heaven and found refuge among lesser beings, but he could have never imagined this.
Blood spills over to Hoseok’s heel, a wet substance he has all but grown accustomed to. His home has been faithless and divided as of late and Taehyung’s return home only solidifies the fact.
“Oh, don’t be crude Hoseok.” Taehyung spreads his wings as wide as he can in a final portrait to taunt his brother. “I bathed them in the blood of our brothers just for you. Can't you see I'm trying? I even brought you a present.”
He throws his ultimate weapon to it’s feet. Hoseok’s eyes widen and his jaw goes slack at the sight. The chains that bind your hands and feet are still intact as Taehyung speaks.
“Cute of you to think someone like her could measure up to my stature.”
Hoseok trembles your name when you collapse at Taehyung’s side. Lesions cover you from head to toe, dried blood used as an overcoat, there is not a inch of skin left unscathed. You stare up at your enemy, wide eyed and stunned in defeat, knees all but shattered from the mindless shaking, gasping for air you don’t want. He returns a look just as menacing and dark, far from the golden hues that they used to be. He motions to the garrison and the golden gates that stand in his way.
“Surrender,” he says bleakly. “Surrender and I promise your people will be safe.”
“My people,” you gawk, spitting blood and sending your once-lover a half look. His shadow trickles over your eyes and does little to help distinguish his flaws from his strengths and though you are supposed to play the former, Taehyung has you all but dead between his fist. You can’t bare to see him, the monster he’s become. “Last time I checked, they’re just as much your people as they are mine. More even! How could you just abandon the garrison? Abandon me?”
Tighter. His tendrils squeeze tighter at your throat to halt your already slurred speech and you can feel the edge of his presence pierce through what little skin separates you from your end. How Hoseok ever thought to match you against Taehyung in battle is foolish, naive and utterly hopeless. Your strength doesn’t hold a flame next to his, let alone put it out.
“Then beg me to break your pretty little hands.” The enemy takes a gentle hold of your bloodied knuckles. “Then maybe I won’t kill you, hm?” The look he gives you is not unkind, far from the adoring gazes they used to be, but less threatening, to say the least.
Nonetheless, “rot in hell.” You heave.
“I plan to,” he states plainly, trance cut short and turning his attention back to the just arrived.
“Has my absence taught you nothing?” He commands. “Did you think I would turn tail and run? Come back if ___ batted her eyes and asked me nicely?”
“I sent her in with sword and shield, did I not?” The older angel’s gaze does not leave your heaving body. His heart sinks to the ground when he sees you yet again stumble in your attempt to rise from the enemy’s feet.
“Then you will send her out the same way.” Taehyung raises his sword to your skin without even looking, cutting your cheek in the process.
There’s no use in crying. Even on the side of angels, Taehyung has never been one to show mercy and it would be foolish of you to ask him to start now. But the tears come all the same.
It sounds like breaking, glass shattering against the floor, missiles spewing across the ocean before an imminent doom - nothing breaks like a heart.
“Shh now,” he whispers, scratching the surface of your throat with his blade. You are not a stranger to the cold the piece of metal brings to your skin. You only flinch when a sudden warmth comes to pat the back of your head and begin to stroke your hair almost gently. Almost. He withdraws his blade.
“Just match your breathing to mine. We both know I’m going to hurt you regardless so there’s really no point having a panic attack about it. Come on, __,” he says. “Deep breaths. No need to cry now, that’s good. You can do it.”
You don’t even notice your unrhythmic breaths before he mentions it but they immediately cease when he pulls away.
There are a million things Taehyung wanted to do with you and this was not one of them. Taehyung doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cry as he lays your still body on the ground to join the hundreds of others he has just slaughtered.
“Taehyung, what have you become?” For the first time Hoseok's voice is angry.
“What I needed to be to keep my people safe. I would do so many awful things,” he continues quietly, resting his forehead delicately on yours, “to keep them from death.”
“You have gone too far.”
“No,” he cries. “I have just begun.”