Chapter Text
Life is a slippery slope.
That’s all that would come to Seokjin’s mind when he thought about the near-apocalyptic disaster his life had become. There were never any major events that tossed him from one path to another like a book character on a hero’s journey - no massive earthquake that drove rifts into his morality or otherwise abruptly changed who he was as a person. Everything started small. Little things happened. Little things built the foundation so slowly and inconspicuously that Seokjin never realized how far his fate had spiraled away from him until it was too late.
It wasn’t a secret that their father was less than ideal when it came to well-rounded parental figures. He was often working late and when he wasn’t, he usually had a bottle of alcohol in hand. The little things. The little changes. It started as just beer. Then it became a shot. Then it became two. Then the glasses were forgotten in favor of the bottles themselves.
Little things. It started as just yelling. Throwing things. Pushing. The first time their father hit Seokjin, Taehyung had been four. Or maybe he’d been five – Seokjin couldn’t remember. Sometimes the details slipped away from him.
Other details stuck with him like stench on a rotting corpse.
Like the day he had to push Taehyung into his closet. He remembered the little boy’s dark eyes wide with fear as Seokjin shut the door, frantically whispering for him to stay put. He remembered how his father pushed him over and pulled at his hair and hit him. He remembered how he was drenched in alcohol when his father threw the mostly-empty bottle at him.
Seokjin could still smell the urine that soaked the carpet in the closet when he finally let Tae out hours later, after their father had passed out on the couch. Even though he needed to go to the bathroom, Taehyung had obediently listened to Seokjin and stayed in the closet. He remembered taking Tae into the bathroom and cleaning him off with a warm washcloth, kissing him and whispering soothing words to calm his little brother. He remembered the young boy’s fingers as they gently touched the bruises swelling on Seokjin’s face, his quiet voice as he asked his older brother if it hurt. Taehyung was six. Seokjin remembered that.
Seokjin felt nothing but anger and hatred for their mother, for killing herself, for forcing them to live in terror. Taehyung was just a baby, and Seokjin knew he had to protect him like their mother never could. Even if it meant one less meal. Even if it meant two more blows. His father had yet to lay a hand on Taehyung, but Seokjin knew that if he did, it would start small. Those little things. Seokjin would never let their father hurt Tae.
There was a time in which Seokjin thought that their father couldn’t help himself. He believed his lies – that if only he would be good, listen to him, do as he said – then he wouldn’t have to beat him. He thought that the alcohol made him the way he was, like he couldn’t control himself, it wasn’t his fault. Their father would cry as he sobered up, holding Seokjin tight in his arms and begging for forgiveness, promising him that he would be better – that everything would be better.
It never got better.
When teachers started asking questions, the bruises on his face and arms faded away, but the bruises on his chest and back grew darker. That was when Seokjin tossed out any delusion that their father wasn’t perfectly aware of how he treated his eldest son.
Since Taehyung was five, he would sneak into Seokjin’s room and snuggle up with him beneath his ratty comforter. Even after Seokjin spent the next year saving up all the coins he’d been stealing from the dryer or from the pockets of his father’s dirty jeans to buy Tae a nice, soft blanket, the little boy would simply drag it over to Seokjin’s room where the elder brother would burrito Taehyung up and cuddle him until he fell asleep. Seokjin would set his alarm early for the next morning so he could carry Tae back to his room before their father found him out of place.
Seokjin remembered when Taehyung would wet the bed and cry because he was embarrassed, but Seokjin was never mad at him – and he most certainly never punished him for it like their father surely would. He would just kiss Tae’s head and help him clean up the mess. He remembered how Tae promised him that he would work really hard to be a good boy. He remembered that Tae was eleven the last time he wet the bed.
Seokjin remembered the day he’d talked back to his father and how red the drunkard’s face had turned. Seokjin had been angry, so angry – so, he talked back. He told his father no. No, he would not make him a TV dinner. When his father grabbed his arm and twisted it almost to the breaking point, Seokjin screamed as loud as he could, praying that the neighbors would hear, and someone would take him and Taehyung far away from their hell.
Seokjin remembered being dragged into his father’s bedroom and being stripped naked so the man could beat him with a leather belt, leaving red welts across his arms, legs, and back. He remembered blinding pain as the bones in his fingers broke beneath boots in punishment for trying to guard his body from the blows.
He remembered his father had left him dizzy and weak on the bed with a promise to strangle him if he made any noise. He could hear him answer the door, faking his surprise at arrival of the police. He showed off his healthy, happy boy Taehyung and – look how sweet he is, I could never hurt him, he doesn’t have a mark on his body!
Homemade splints didn’t quite do the trick. Crooked fingers served as a reminder of what would happen if he disobeyed their father again.
When Tae was six, he met Jimin. Jimin was always bright and happy. Seokjin knew that Tae needed Jimin, so he made sure to bring Tae to the park so they could play together. The two often just followed Seokjin around like a train of ducklings behind a mother duck. Jimin never came over to their house – he didn’t need to know what went on behind closed doors. Seokjin was willing to do anything to ensure that Jimin and Tae stayed friends. Tae deserved to have something normal in his life.
Seokjin would take care of Taehyung when he had his fits – uncontrollable sobbing that left the young boy weak, sometimes crying until he vomited or passed out. The fits came and went, sometimes triggered by an event – like when Seokjin found a few quarters and bought Taehyung a popsicle that almost immediately slipped out of the younger brother’s hands – but sometimes came out of nowhere. Seokjin would hold him and comfort him and try to muffle the cries so their dad wouldn’t hear.
When Taehyung was seven, Seokjin found out he was ten. He stared down at the tattered paper that was his birth certificate that he’d found while cleaning one day. Their father had never celebrated his birthday – only Taehyung’s. For some reason, Seokjin had come to accept the fact that maybe he didn’t have a birthday. Surely at some point he’d had one, but it must have been taken away from him. The little yellowed page told him otherwise. He was a normal boy, just like Taehyung. That year, he and Taehyung held a celebration for Seokjin in the form of a whispered Happy Birthday song underneath their blanket late at night and a cookie Taehyung had stolen from school.
Seokjin remembered the month their father refused to let them wash their clothes. He had to swallow his pride to bring his and Tae’s laundry to school to ask Hoseok to wash it for them. He was twelve. They stood next to a flowering tree near the far end of the school’s soccer field as Seokjin sobbed in front of his friend with his little bag of dirty clothes, and Hoseok had held him and told him everything was going to be okay.
There was something about letting himself become so vulnerable to Hoseok that Seokjin hated. It shredded at his insides like he’d swallowed a stack of knives. Seokjin started avoiding him. Hoseok had always been his best friend, but by the time a year had passed, the two never spoke. Hoseok moved on, finding a group of new friends, and never spared Seokjin a second glance.
Slowly but surely, the beatings died down. Seokjin wasn’t entirely sure what led to the change. Maybe it was because Seokjin was getting older, a bit taller and broader. Maybe his father was too drunk to bother. There were still occasional fits of rage, but nothing nearly as bad as Seokjin had dealt with in the past.
Seokjin would clean their rooms and wash their clothes before their father got home from work. The older brother would make a small meal for them with whatever food was available in the fridge – not too much though, or his father would notice. He would help Tae get up in the morning. When he packed his brother’s lunch, he made sure that it was at least twice the amount of food that Seokjin had. He’d found that apples were cheap and kept well even beneath his bed.
By the time Tae had turned eleven, he practically lived in Seokjin’s room. They didn’t bother hiding the fact, either, and their father neither noticed or cared. They would kiss each other good night and fall asleep cuddled comfortably together only to wake up all tangled up in each other’s limbs. As long as they didn’t do anything that drew their father’s attention, the two lived peacefully within their own world together.
It worked out well when Seokjin was in middle school and Tae in elementary, but high school started an hour earlier. Seokjin remembered taking Taehyung with him every morning and dropping him off at Jimin’s house even though it meant it would take an extra thirty minutes to get to school. He remembered kissing his brother a hundred times before he left him, telling him not to cry and that he would come pick him up after school.
And then Seokjin met Yoongi.
Seokjin was fifteen. Yoongi was a broody, dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-clothed teen who transferred to their school in the last half of freshman year. And Seokjin was obsessed. He didn’t understand why he was so keen on getting the other teen’s attention. Yoongi never really seemed to care about anything but listening to music and writing in his journals.
He released butterflies in Seokjin’s stomach in a way he’d never experienced before. At first, he couldn’t recognize his feelings for what they were. He thought the teen was cool, that’s all. That’s what made him attempt small talk every day. That’s what made him blush and fidget when the younger teen turned his gaze towards him.
Or because he was lonely. Definitely because he was lonely. Since he and Hoseok stopped talking, Seokjin never went out in search of a new friend. Who would want to be friends with him, anyway? Everyone knew him as the weird kid who smelled bad and flinched when people stood too close to him, the one who stuttered when he spoke and cried when confronted.
But Yoongi was new; he didn’t know all that about Seokjin. In those first few weeks as Seokjin worked up the courage to talk to the other teen, Yoongi could have yelled at him – could have sent him away for being creepy or stalkerish – but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything when Seokjin began sitting a few seats closer in class each week, or when Seokjin began sitting at his table at lunch despite the fact that Yoongi certainly looked like he wanted to be alone.
Before Seokjin ever managed to say anything, Yoongi started talking. His voice was gruff, speech slow and casual, and it made Seokjin’s heart flutter. Yoongi just talked. For days, he would talk without any response from Seokjin – about music, about the lyrics that he’d been trying to write or his poetry, about books he was reading. He talked about how the new school differed from his old school and how much it sucked to not have any friends.
Seokjin told him that they could be friends. They were the first words he’d ever said to Yoongi, and it was the first time he'd ever seen Yoongi smile.
He wanted to be with Yoongi always. His heart raced whenever they were close, and he was always hoping Yoongi would lean against him. Sometimes when they sat on Yoongi’s couch, Seokjin would sit a little bit too close so that the backs of their hands would brush together. Other times when they were hanging out, he would pretend to fall asleep, letting his head rest against Yoongi’s shoulder.
Despite his rough exterior, Yoongi was kind and thoughtful. After realizing Seokjin never had enough food, during lunchtime Yoongi would complain about how his mother packed too much food and begged Seokjin to take it off his hands otherwise he would get fat and ugly. Seokjin wasn’t so dumb that he didn’t recognize what Yoongi was doing, but he wasn’t about to turn down the food.
When Seokjin had panic attacks after confrontations with other students, Yoongi was there to stand up for him, to hold his hand and say soft words until Seokjin felt better. Seokjin would cry and apologize for being a burden, but Yoongi always assured him that he wasn't. They were friends. Friends took care of each other. Seokjin always felt like Yoongi did a lot more of the caring, but still Yoongi told him it was fine.
As summer came up, Yoongi also suddenly had old clothes that he didn’t want anymore and asked Seokjin to take them off his hands. Seokjin pretended not to notice that some of the ‘old’ clothes were in Seokjin’s size. Then, Yoongi’s mother had unearthed some of Yoongi’s ‘old’ clothes from years ago that were perfectly in Taehyung’s size. Seokjin was convinced that Yoongi was actually an angel in disguise – as close to a blessing a person in hell could receive.
He remembered how his father had backhanded him so hard he blacked out for a few minutes because he’d thought Seokjin had stolen the clothes. It was the first time his father had hit him in over a year. The clothes were thrown out that night.
He remembered the concern on Yoongi’s face when he saw Seokjin’s black eye. That look made Seokjin feel sick to his stomach. He didn’t want Yoongi’s pity. He couldn’t have Yoongi’s pity. He wouldn’t let Yoongi see him as weak as Hoseok had seen him. He and Taehyung had been roughhousing. That was the story he told Yoongi.
It was late summer when Seokjin finally came to terms with his sexuality. He was gay, and he was in love with his best friend Yoongi.
The revelation had come to him in the middle of the night. He remembered the musty scent of his dirty pillow as he choked out sobs as quietly as possible so he didn’t wake Taehyung up who was resting so peacefully beside him. He was ashamed and embarrassed – he wanted to die.
But then Tae tossed his blue blanket over Seokjin’s body and curled up against his back, arms wrapped around his waist. Seokjin grasped Taehyung’s hand. If only Taehyung knew. If he knew the thoughts that Seokjin had about his friend, Taehyung wouldn’t love him. He wouldn’t hold Seokjin. He’d wish he had a new, less-perverted brother. So, Seokjin did everything he could to keep his dark side away from Taehyung.
But then Seokjin went and ruined it all.
It was another one of those detailed memories.
It was early afternoon. The air had a cold bite to it but also had a nice fresh scent. School had been scheduled to let out two hours early, so Seokjin knew he and Tae would have a few hours to themselves before their parents got home. They loved days like those because it gave them more time to hang out with Jimin and Yoongi.
As much as Seokjin loved his brother, he also loved the half an hour he had between getting home and leaving again to pick Taehyung up from school. The relief he found in that time was like a weight lifting off his shoulders. He knew something was wrong with him – no one else pleasured themselves as often as he did. He was sick – perverted – but he couldn’t stop his urges.
With Tae living in his bedroom for the past year and a half and fear of his father hearing him in the bathroom, Seokjin had little to no other opportunities. Of course, that wasn’t counting those shameful nights when he quietly got himself off while his brother slept peacefully beside him.
When he was alone after school, he had a magazine he’d found lying in the street. Seokjin would start with that, but his thoughts always drifted towards Yoongi, and the magazine was left forgotten in favor of fantasies about the pale teen.
After picking up Taehyung, they went straight to Jimin’s house. Whenever they had time, they would go over to play games with him and Yoongi. Usually the younger two would lay stomach down on the ground, fingers mashing on the controller buttons with skill that made Seokjin wonder if Tae had been born with a Playstation in his hands. The two would tease and laugh and their in-game fighting would often lead to them wrestling around.
Seokjin loved days like those. He loved watching his brother play, ignoring all the hardships in their life. He loved sitting on the couch next to Yoongi who was comfortable enough to sit shoulder to shoulder so he could show Seokjin whatever was going on the screen of his phone. Seokjin was thankful that he had managed to work out all his stress earlier. Sometimes being around Yoongi was difficult. Seokjin could smell his friend’s clean scent. He always smelled like he’d just gotten out of the shower and pulled his clothes right from the dryer. Seokjin used to be self-conscious about his own smell, but Yoongi never mentioned it.
Seokjin considered himself lucky that his friend didn’t mind hanging out Taehyung and his friend. Jimin had turned thirteen not too long ago, just two years shy of Seokjin and Yoongi’s fifteen, but few sophomores would be willing to hang out with seventh graders. Ever since they’d introduced Yoongi and Jimin, Taehyung insisted that if he was hanging out with Seokjin and Yoongi, Jimin had to come with, too.
Seokjin knew that sometimes Yoongi and Jimin would hang out even if Tae and Seokjin weren’t there. A part of him was jealous. Yoongi was supposed to be his friend. Being jealous of his little brother’s friend was ridiculous, though. Jimin was a cute kid and almost hilariously opposite from Yoongi’s stoic disposition. Once he got past the stupid possessiveness, Seokjin thought that their friendship was actually quite cute.
Like every other time when Seokjin and Tae visited, Jimin’s mother supplied them with mountains of food, even stuffing their pockets full of pre-packaged baked goods to hide beneath their beds if they ever got hungry. Seokjin would always blush and insist they didn’t need it, but never protested enough to keep them from walking away with full arms. He always wondered if she knew, or if she just thought they needed to eat more because they were so thin.
The two brothers got home with a bit of time to spare only to realize there was a note on the kitchen whiteboard that showed their father would be out for an event that evening. Seokjin remembered the gleeful look in Taehyung’s eyes when Seokjin told him to go grab his blanket, because they were going to watch a movie before they did homework. Seokjin started cleaning up the living room as Tae rushed down the hall.
The house smelled as awful as ever, the moldy, boozy smell saturating the carpets. Seokjin wished he could open the windows to let in some fresh air, but if he let in the cold, then they’d need to keep the heaters running, and their father hated a house that was too warm. There was a pile of the disgusting man’s clothes on the ground by the recliner that reeked, so Seokjin snatched them up to deposit in the back bedroom.
Taehyung had taken far too long to have just grabbed his blanket, so Seokjin stuck his head into his room to see what he was doing. He stopped short when the boy shot upright, a guilty look on his face. Seokjin frowned before noticing the magazine in Tae’s hands. Dread filled his stomach. Judging by Tae’s expression, he knew exactly what the magazine was for, and what it meant about Seokjin.
Tae whimpered and made a motion to drop the magazine, but Seokjin had already stomped over and snatched it away from him. The boy flinched, his eyes widening in surprise at the aggression he’d never seen from his older brother. He cried out in fear when Seokjin grabbed his wrist, twisting it hard, yelling at him to stay away from his things. The younger boy’s knees gave out immediately, and he shrieked as Seokjin dragged him to the door and threw him into the hallway.
Seokjin slammed the door as hard as he could. His whole body was shaking, trembling with adrenaline. He looked down at the magazine and its lewd images. They stared back at him, mocking him. It was disgusting to think that just a few hours before he had been looking at those pictures for pleasure. Seokjin grit his teeth and muffled a scream of anger, the rough vibrations burning his throat. He shredded the magazine, pulling and ripping the material relentlessly just to leave it in pieces littered across the carpet.
Breathing heavily after his outburst, the white noise that had filled Seokjin’s ears slowly started to fade, and he realized he could hear Taehyung in his room, sobbing.
Shame and regret gripped Seokjin’s heart. Tae had looked up at him with a fear that Seokjin had never seen directed towards him. His eyes had been wide, full of tears, his fingers shaking when Seokjin snatched the magazine away. Seokjin could still feel how his brother had completely ragdolled beneath his grip, letting himself be thrown around like Seokjin used to do when his father came after him.
Seokjin stared down at his hands, a sense of helplessness coming over him. He collapsed on his bed and curled up, crying and silently begging forgiveness from Taehyung. How could he expect Tae to forgive him, though? His father often apologized for hurting him, but Seokjin had learned long ago not to trust his words.
Now Tae would never trust him again. Seokjin wouldn’t blame him. He knew that he’d done the unforgivable. He was no better than his father. Taehyung would fear him. Taehyung would be disgusted with him, knowing what he was.
Seokjin cried so hard he was sure that he was going to shrivel up and die. He cried so hard he didn’t even realize someone had entered his room until a little blue blanket was tossed over his body.
Startled, Seokjin lifted his head. Through tear-blurred vision, he saw his little brother standing by his bed, red streaks down his face. Before Seokjin could say something, Taehyung crawled on the bed and began tucking the blanket around Seokjin’s body, just like Seokjin used to do for him.
Seokjin couldn’t stop the sobs from returning as Taehyung worked, meticulously stuffing the edges of the worn-out material between Seokjin’s chest and the bed before clambering over him to do the same along his back. Seokjin sobbed harder than he ever had in his life, his body wracked with every forceful outcry and gasp for breath. He squeezed his eyes shut as his brother finished tucking him in as best he could with the old blanket.
Taehyung squeezed between Seokjin’s arms and cuddled against his chest, his eyelashes brushing against Seokjin’s collarbone every time he blinked. He waited patiently for Seokjin’s cries to calm until they were nothing but hiccups. Taehyung lifted his head and gently kissed his brother’s cheek. “I love you, Seokjin.”