Chapter Text
Mark stands frozen just outside the door to Taeyong’s office. He shouldn’t be listening to this. He should walk away.
“All I’m saying is that your judgment might be a little clouded in this!” Ten says sternly, as close to yelling as Mark has ever heard him.
“And when I want your advice I will ask for it,” Taeyong snaps and Mark flinches at his tone. Taeyong never lost his temper, never had a reason to when a simple suggestion was more than enough for anyone in the Pack to listen. Even on the rare occasions when he became annoyed with one of them, Taeyong usually just left the room to cool down before talking things out.
The silence is telling that Ten is just as taken aback by Taeyong’s tone as Mark is. “Taeyong, as your Emissary it is my duty—”
“Your duty is to protect the Pack and be an advisor in mortal affairs. Not meddle in my personal life. You have—”
“Well then as your friend, I’m saying t—”
“Just drop it, Ten! It’s not even that big of a deal! You’re—”
“It affects the whole Pack! You’re putting us all in danger wi—”
“Enough.” Taeyong says with blatant Alpha Persuasion, and Mark has to choke down a whine. He’s heard Lucas and Yuta complain about Taeyong’s Persuasion before but he’s never personally heard it. He clenches his hands into a fist to stop them from shaking.
He shouldn’t be listening to this.
Silence saturates the air and Mark tries to calm his racing heart, certain that Taeyong will hear it.
“As you command. Alpha.” Ten bites out, voice displeased, and then footsteps are heading towards the door. But before Mark can even think of making a run for it Taeyong is speaking again, his voice heavy.
“Wait, Ten. I— I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I just— I’m not— You know I will always put the Pack first. I would never...” Taeyong trails off and hearing his Alpha sound so distressed is infinitely worse than hearing him angry.
A weary sigh comes from Ten. “Taeyong, I’m not doubting your ability to protect the Pack. I’m on your side here; I’ll always be on your side. I just want to make sure you’ve thought this through. There’s so many ways this could go wrong and I’m afraid you’ll get hurt no matter what.”
“He would never hurt me,” Taeyong says quietly and it’s his vulnerable tone that finally pushes Mark to turn away from the door and get away from the conversation he should never have heard in the first place. But he’s not quick enough and he catches Ten’s final incriminating words.
“Forgive me if I don’t trust a Jung.”
Mark rushes as quietly as he can down the stairs and to the front door, not stopping till he’s outside on the front porch, the warm summer night grounding him as he tries to process what he’s just heard.
In the seven years he’s been a part of the Lee Pack, he has never known Ten and Taeyong to be anything other than in complete agreement with one another. So naturally, he wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that they were arguing over Hunters. And not just any Hunters: a Jung. The Hunter family their Pack had a decades-long feud with.
Taeyong led them with few rules, but he had strict rules that they were to stay out of the Jung’s way. Impressed upon them that if they ever crossed paths with one of them they were to turn around and come straight to either him or one of the hyungs.
And those rules had never really been applicable to the Pack until the Jung patriarch and his family moved to Greenville a few months ago. Mark had the misfortune of running into one of them with Doyoung the first week they had moved here. He had never given the feud much thought, but the hateful glare the Hunter had given him had sent every instinct he had into overdrive. Doyoung had all but dragged him home and made him swear to never go near them.
But for all his warnings and concern, Taeyong had never seemed worried about the Jungs in regards to himself. And why should he? Taeyong was their Alpha. He was strong. So it just didn’t make sense that Taeyong had sounded so distressed. Had sounded almost defensive. His last words echo in Mark’s head: ‘He would never hurt me.’
“What are you doing out here?”
Mark jerks around and comes face to face with his Alpha. “Hyung! I was just… getting some fresh air?”
Taeyong raises a disbelieving eyebrow but doesn’t call him out on his obvious lie. “You should be in bed, you don’t sleep enough as it is.”
Mark doesn't know what he was expecting, but Taeyong looks the same as he always does. There’s no sign of tension anywhere in his body, just genuine concern in his eyes.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says awkwardly and cringes as a heavy silence falls between them.
“I’m taking the pups on a run tomorrow,” Taeyong says, apropos to nothing. “I’m headed over there now to spend the night. Would you like to join me?”
Mark smiles. “I would like that.” He hadn’t been able to spend as much time as he would have liked with the younger members of the Pack recently. Chenle, their youngest, was going through his rebellious phase where he thought it wasn’t cool to hang around ‘a bunch of old farts’ and Renjun, Jeno and Jaemin were only encouraging him, claiming Chenle needed his independence.
But they weren’t as sneaky as they thought they were by half.
If Mark could see it was all a ploy to stay in the guest house by themselves then Taeyong definitely knew what they were up to. Still, Taeyong had been letting the kids stay in the guest house on the weekdays for the past few months pretty much by themselves, with only one or two of the hyungs spending the night there to make sure they didn’t stay up all night playing around.
“Sicheng and Yuta are there now,” Taeyong says as they start heading the 100 acres or so across their property towards the guest house.
Mark doesn’t even try to hide his smile. “I’m sure Yuta-hyung is enjoying that.”
Taeyong shoots him a conspiratorial wink. “Yuta just loves having Sicheng’s attention stolen by our Renjun. I’m sure he made the pups go to bed early so—” Taeyong stops and sniffs the air. “Do you smell that?” he asks.
Mark sniffs the air. “Is that smoke?” he asks, catching only the barest traces of something burning.
Taeyong’s eyes widen, his face whitening, and then his body is twisting and jerking as he shifts into his Alpha form.
“Hyung!” Mark yells out in confusion, taking a step back from Taeyong’s large werewolf form. But Taeyong ignores him and darts off into the forest with a snarl. “Taeyong-hyung!” Mark cries out, shifting into his own werewolf form and running after his Alpha. He’s nowhere near as fast as Taeyong but it’s easy to follow his scent and it only takes him a few seconds to realize Taeyong is headed straight for the guest house.
Mark races through the trees and terror shoots through him when he gets close enough to see the light from a giant fire. The furious roar of his Alpha fills the night sky and he pushes himself to run faster. When he finally breaks through the tree line and stumbles into the front lawn, he feels like he can’t breathe when he sees the guest house completely engulfed in flames. His heart nearly stops when he sees a sobbing Chenle kneeling in the grass over a familiar form.
“Chenle!” he yells and rushes over to the distraught teenager.
Mark has just enough time to make out Chenle’s soot covered face, pale skin peeking through tear tracks, before Chenle throws himself into his arms. He’s saying something but between his face squished against Mark’s chest and his hysterical sobbing it’s near impossible to make out what.
Mark looks down at Sicheng’s still form, likewise covered in soot, and strains to hear a heartbeat. It takes a second too long to find and it’s several degrees too weak, but it’s there. He rubs a hand up and down Chenle’s back, desperately trying to calm the shaking pup, and tries to think of what to do. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay. Can you tell me what happened? I need to help Sicheng-hyung but I need to know what happened.”
“He— we didn’t— it just—” Chenle sobs.
Mark makes a low rumbling sound in his throat, trying to mimic the noise Doyoung makes for Jeno when the younger gets overwhelmed, and prays that he’s doing it right. It must be somewhat similar because Chenle’s violent shaking settles some.
“The ceiling— it just— it just collapsed. The fire was everywhere and it just fell and Renjun and I just— just stood there and then Sicheng-hyung was there and he tried to cover us and it all fell on him and— and then he didn’t get up and then Yuta-hyung was there but Renjun’s leg was pinned and he could only carry two at a time so Renjun insisted he take Sicheng-hyung and I— I left them hyung! I let Yuta-hyung carry me out and I left everyone in there! And Alpha ran in there and what if he gets hurt too! They haven’t come out and—”
Mark pulls Chenle back into a hug before the boy can work himself up even more. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I got you. It’s okay,” he murmurs into his ear as he looks over his shoulder to assess the damage on Sicheng.
There’s a nasty gash on his left arm and now that Mark’s focusing he can smell burnt skin and fresh blood. He needs to look at Sicheng’s back.
“The fire’s everywhere!” Chenle sobs. “It’s so hot in there. I couldn’t breathe. Hyung, I couldn’t breathe.”
“Chenle. I need you to listen to me, okay? Listen to me.” He holds Chenle by his shoulders and looks him in the eyes. They’re bloodshot and borderline hysterical. “I need to look over Sicheng-hyung, okay? Can you sit down on his other side for me? Facing away? Sicheng-hyung needs you to be strong for just a moment, okay? All you have to do is sit with your back to him. Can you do that for us?”
Chenle sniffs but nods in understanding and starts to limp his way back to Sicheng. One of his pajama pant legs is torn and covered in blood and Mark curses at not realizing it sooner. No wonder Yuta had to carry him out. But Sicheng’s pulse is growing weaker by the second so he forces himself to ignore Chenle’s leg and focus on the elder.
Mark kneels next to the unconscious Sicheng and carefully turns his limp body over. He nearly gags when he gets a full view of his ruined back, the smell of burnt flesh near suffocating. Splinters of wood and shards of glass protrude from red and black blistered skin and what isn’t burnt looks to be scraped raw, slowly oozing out bright red blood.
Mark watches closely, but Sicheng doesn’t appear to be healing.
He bites the inside of his cheek and, trying not to think about it, places both hands on the burnt skin. Agony soaks into his hands and creeps up his arms as he takes some of Sicheng’s pain into his body and forces some of his own energy into Sicheng, trying to speed up the other’s natural healing ability.
“You’re doing so good Chenle,” he says through gritted teeth. “Just keeping facing that way okay? Everything’s going to be okay.”
Mark wants to scream as Sicheng’s pain infects him, black streaks running up his forearms. He’s done this for some of the Pack members before, but helping with a scraped knee is nothing compared to this.
A loud bang startles him as a figure bursts through the front door of the house. Yuta jogs towards them carrying someone in his arms, their arms wrapped around his neck and their face tucked against his shoulder, a blanket covering their face. Yuta stumbles up next to them and with a horrible cough he collapses onto his knees. He gently extracts his charge from his arms and pulls the blanket away from their face.
“Jaemin!” Chenle yells as he jumps up and limps over to a stunned-looking Jaemin, pulling him into a fierce hug. Chenle starts sobbing again but Jaemin just stares off over the younger’s shoulder.
Mark desperately wants to ask what happened, ask where everyone else was, if everyone was okay, but Sicheng’s body is sapping all his energy. The elder wasn’t healing half as well as he should be and Mark is terrified to pull his attention away for even a second.
Yuta’s hands are suddenly pressing against Sicheng’s ruined back, right next to Mark’s. “Hyung,” Mark whispers. “Your hands.” Yuta’s palms are red and raw.
“Door handles. I’m fine,” he says in a raspy voice that brokers no argument. But then he explodes into a coughing fit that lasts for much too long and has him doubling over. He puts his hands back on Sicheng, black lines tracing up his hands, but only lasts a few seconds before he pulls away with a grimace and another nasty cough. “I can’t,” he chokes out, sounding furious with himself. “I used too much energy on Jeno. I’m gonna pass out.”
Before Mark can ask what the hell that means, a crash comes from the house and he whips around in horror as part of the house collapses into itself.
“NO!” Jaemin screams, finally snapping out of his daze. Mark doesn’t stop to think, instincts guiding him, as he jumps up and grabs the teenager around the waist to prevent him from running back into the burning house. To prevent him from foolishly running to his death. “Let me go!” Jaemin screams hysterically. “Jeno and Renjun are still in there! Let me go!”
“Taeyong-hyung is in there,” Mark says as calmly as he can. Yuta is lying on the ground next to Sicheng, half unconscious and coughing up black gunk as his lungs try to repair themselves. He’s weakly holding Sicheng’s hand whose pulse is still much too weak. Somewhere behind him Chenle is still crying. He can’t have Jaemin losing it right now. “Alpha will get them out. He’s saved Jeno before, remember? He’ll do it again, trust him,” Mark says and hopes he isn’t making things worse.
“Alpha is in there?” Jaemin asks in a small voice. He sounds so terribly young and Mark belatedly realizes the teenager is probably in shock.
“Yes, Alpha is in there. Alpha protects us right? So you don’t need to worry about Jeno and Renjun right now. Chenle needs you. Can you help Chenle?”
Jaemin nods and, with eyes that look too unfocused, goes back over to Chenle and they all but collapse in each other's arms. Mark kneels back down at Sicheng’s side and starts pouring his energy into him again. The older is no longer actively bleeding and most of the debris has worked itself out, but the blisters look as painful as ever and his skin is still singed black.
Yuta coughs again from where he’s lying on his back and Mark flinches in surprise. He had honestly thought the older had passed out already, his body’s healing ability draining what little energy he might have had left.
“Jung,” Yuta says and spits out a blood clot. “A Jung started the fire. Shot Jeno.”
Before Mark can even begin to comprehend the horror of that statement a furious roar pierces his eardrums and he has to cover them least they rupture.
And then Taeyong’s terrifying Alpha form is crashing through a window on the second floor, the limp forms of Jeno and Renjun tucked under each arm and a dead body clenched between his jaws.