The Last Of Us | tk ✓

fifteen | son of a bitch

Autumn snuck in to the underside of dry leaves, lifting them gently with a gust of chilly wind, plucking it oh-so sedately, a mere second of the crisp lamina aloft in the air, then falling, falling, falling, lying on the cemented pavement outside Yoongi's den, still.

Taehyung gazed, in a haze, timelessly, for his mind was too lethargic to float up through his overflowing thoughts that demanded his wonderment. He was rather exhausted to care, truth be told.

It took them — Jeongguk and him — three whole days to eliminate all the infected inside the boundary, costing them great deal of labour and injuries better tended to. Scratches and bruises coloured Taehyung's melanin skin, his knuckles. Muscles sore with excessive usage. Clothes so grimy it was implausible to identify their actual colour.

No bite marks, thankfully.

Jeongguk sat a few feet away, in a mumbling conversation with Yoongi, who, despite the tough-boy facade he's always chose to paint himself with, broke a grin on his face when him and Taehyung made eye contact, returned by a timid smile just in time, before the older's scrutiny returned to the other one.

Taehyung's goggling wandered back to Jeongguk, who's chattering away with little movement of his jaw, an impression of wearisome blanketed upon him, too evident to miss, with his frame slumped too deep in the comfy chair the trio have chosen to nestle in for the while.

How so opposite he appears to the Jeongguk he's encountered mid-fight, how so insouciant and at rest. Marvelling upon this, Taehyung recalled the small, but terribly enticing, gesture Jeongguk pulled before they were to head out for Yoongi's end of their covenant.

The brush of Jeongguk's pad of thumb tracing the corner of Taehyung's lips — ah, it made his tummy all squelching with pleasure, made him go like a sun-baking brick: hot and hard. Got carried farther, remarking where more those slim fingers could go.

Oh, boy. A tremor reverberated across his body, minute later for him to realise his underwear felt quite damp. Fortunately, none of them seemed to notice. Recollecting himself with the air of nothing-happened-here (it was fuming hard), his stare graced Jeongguk's.

Taehyung's heart halts for moment, as if caught in act. Yet, with a sad dip, Jeongguk looks the other way like he didn't care, with his dead-pan face, instantly drowning the high mood Taehyung reemerged from.

Only afterwards he got aware, Yoongi and Jeongguk were wittering about Areum, low tones mingled with melancholy and heroism. Taehyung himself missed her, how she was first one of the pair to embrace Taehyung's utter inexperience, consensual to the duty of protecting him at all matter.

Even if it was death itself.

A tinge of remorse tipped into the pot of his emotions, a drop just enough to diffuse in. He knew, even if he voiced otherwise, Jeongguk initially blamed Taehyung for her death...

It was true, though —

"Tae?" Jeongguk called out, backtracking instantly, "Hyung. Taehyung. We've gotta get up to his old pal's." His feet are firm on the grass already, regarding Yoongi for a swift glance, his legs advancing on Taehyung. "Get your ass up already." He's smiling a toothy smile, transforming him from fucking hot to simply cute as a button.

"Yeah," it came out dry, in Taehyung's mind, "Sure." He knew Yoongi was watching, waited for a beat for Jeongguk to back away from the close proximity, but he doesn't, so Taehyung stands with no other choice, their faces now three inches far.

Fuck, his cologne is so alluring. What the fuck?

Just before Taehyung could be fully content, Jeongguk sassily steps away, beginning to head inside the crumbling house for packing. It made Taehyung look like a fool, alongside the thought if Jeongguk meant to pull this off.

His eyelashes fluttering in the afternoon's sun's flare, he twists to sight Yoongi grinning from ear to ear, a little too much, really. Passing yet another one of his short smiles, Taehyung remained cautious of the fact that Yoongi was wary of him, and will be, so growing close to him was never an option.

Thus, he followed Jeongguk's suit inside, an impeccable confidence in his posture.

—

In front of them was a handsome house, close to a bungalow, but more of a villa touch to it. It seemed in pretty good of a condition, if not for the poisonous ivy dominating half of the roof and a lingering smell of rotten meat in the air.

Taehyung was pretty sure there was a dried up swimming pool at the back, a swing set or two. Wilderness of all kind blossomed generously, embracing the residence, unattended to for years, winding in and out of the tyres of the truck parked in front of the entranceway.

The truck. Sweet.

Yoongi howled in the wind abruptly, "Son of a bitch!" Trampling inside, fists balled, body quivering with resentment. Upon bursting inside right behind him, and seeing the appalled expression fixed on Yoongi's face, Taehyung traced his line of vision back to a half-decomposed body hung with a rope in the middle of the launch from the fan.

"Son of a bitch..." Yoongi's voice cracked, his shattered whisper running a shiver down Taehyung's spine.

Who retched, couldn't bear it anymore, vomiting all over the dusty carpeting.

Jeongguk scurried to his side and massaged his palm along the kid's backbone, concurring it was not just the scene of present that got the latter writhing and throwing up, but the severity of consciousness' revelation of taking down rabid humans, who were once, indeed, humans.

—

stay warm.
<3