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Taehyung thought it was a good idea. He thought that Jungkook was ready to be back around noise and lights and people, in command of his senses for the first time since returning from the war. It has taken months. His mission - black ops - had consumed him. He’d spent too many weeks locked into his Sentinel headspace and no matter how hard Taehyung had tried to tether him to earth, when they returned home he’d worried Jungkook would never fully come back to him.
But slowly, Jungkook has begun to adjust. Day by day, he has become a man before a Sentinel again.
Today, though, it’s too much.
Taehyung picked a quiet bar, inviting a couple of their friends to spend the evening with them. Things had gone well. Jungkook drank two beers and laughed along with Jimin and Yoongi’s stories of everything that happened while they were away. Taehyung kept a gentle hand on his thigh beneath their table and didn’t once reach out into his head because he wants Jungkook to feel human now that they’re home. It has worked that way for more than two hours, until a group of slightly rowdy men enter the bar and Taehyung feels Jungkook tense up.
They aren’t a threat. Just a few drinks in, roaring with laughter, and maybe louder than they ought to be. But Jungkook’s senses spike and Taehyung doesn’t have to go digging in his mind to feel them.
His own Guide instincts are triggered.
‘Can you keep it down a little?’ says Yoongi, ever bold, ever brash. ‘My friend is a Sentinel.’
They turn to look. They don’t argue, even after a decent amount of alcohol has threaded their bloodstreams, and perhaps it’s because they know Sentinels can be dangerous. They stare, eyeing Jungkook, and one of them claps a hand down on Yoongi’s shoulder with an apology. Most people know that Sentinels have served, and if they don’t treat them with respect they at least feel a degree of intimidation. Another shouts, too loud, for the bar to pour another drink for Jungkook. A soldier. A round for the soldier and his friends.
It’s too much.
Maybe it’s because they’ve spent more time outside than they have done in weeks. Maybe Taehyung should have known to take Jungkook home an hour ago, taking the win and calling it a day. Maybe it’s just that his Sentinel is so tightly wound - a coiled spring - ready to burst at any given moment because that’s what the military taught him. That’s the frame of mind he had to live in for months of operations. All it takes is the slightest disturbance to trigger him. A simple shout.
But Jungkook turns rigid in his seat. His hand jerks and he knocks over Jimin’s drink. His eyes roll up far enough to show a clear strip of white. Taehyung is up and out of his chair before Jungkook can slip sideways, catching him with a firm hand to his arm. Though he doesn’t need contact to guide him, it helps. He bears Jungkook’s weight and slides him to the ground.
Yoongi is almost as quick to react as Taehyung. He crosses to the bar to ask them to turn the music down, and Jimin moves their chairs out of the way as Taehyung lays his Sentinel down on his back. People fall silent. They stare and Taehyung wishes they wouldn’t but he ignores them - most of them won’t have seen a Sentinel and Guide work together in the flesh and he knows why they want to look. It’s a morbid curiosity.
He focuses his attention only on Jungkook. ‘Okay…’ he says aloud. ‘Jungkook? Can you hear me?’
Of course Jungkook can hear. He can hear like no one else in the world. But that’s the problem. When Taehyung presses his palms to Jungkook’s temples and reaches out to him he finds Jungkook’s head filled with noise. It’s not just the sound of Jimin whispering to Yoongi or the creak of chairs pulled back, but the cacophony of car engines and horns beeping and evening chatter from outside. It’s the rustle of bird feathers where they come to roost at this time of night in the building rafters and it’s the whistle of wind high above the city.
Do you see the desert, Jungkook? He doesn’t say that aloud. He reaches it out to him through their soul bond and hopes that it cuts through the noise. He’s calm, drilled to do this in war, under fire - it hardly unsettles him to do this in a bar downtown, so close to their apartment. Closing his own eyes, Taehyung massages his Sentinel’s temples in the hopes that physical sensation might drag him away from the noise.
Jungkook twitches.
It’s still there, today. There’s no wind. There isn’t anything to feel but the sand between your toes. What can you hear?
His Sentinel is in his zone and his face is expressionless, as unanimated as his body. Taehyung smooths the sweaty hair back from his forehead and tries again. This is a guided pathway they’ve taken together many times. The desert is Jungkook’s quiet place. There are other routes Taehyung guides him through but this one is almost always the most efficient and can be relied upon.
The noise that he can hear in their shared mind is deafening but his own voice cuts through it.
Look up at the sky. Flat blue. Listen. Listen for me, Jungkook. It’s all quiet.
There is nothing in the world like the voice of a Guide. No drug has this effect, no meditation, no training. Taehyung’s voice is commanding but calm, the only thing that can truly control a Sentinel. His Sentinel. His voice is deep and rich and thrums with energy and Jungkook latches on to it. The roar of sound fades to background noise once he attaches himself to the thread of Taehyung’s voice instead.
‘Taehyung - ’ Someone whispers, and he shakes his head, squeezing his eyes tighter shut. They don’t need to do anything. He doesn’t want anyone else to do anything at all.
My voice. You can hear my voice. I’m your oasis.
I hear you.
Jungkook’s Sentinel voice is rougher than his speaking voice and Taehyung does not hear it so much, but when he does it makes him shiver. And it’s good, because it means Jungkook isn’t lost in his zone. It means he’s found him and when they walk together in that desert it means they’re safe. Taehyung has talked him down a thousand times but it still gives him the same rush of relief, of pride, that it did the first time.
Good boy. He strokes Jungkook’s hair and opens his eyes. Jungkook isn’t completely with him, but his body has relaxed and his eyes are moving beneath his lids. It’s better to see him moving or settling than stiff and rigid. Listen to the breeze. Can you feel it too? Can you hear the open sky?
Can hear Jimin sniffling.
At last, Taehyung smiles. He cradles Jungkook’s head gently in his lap and massages his temples until his eyes flutter open. Jungkook looks dazed but conscious, and only when he gives his Guide a weak smile does Taehyung exhale and look around the bar. The bartender has dimmed the lights and the music is switched off. Jimin is looking down, but he’s definitely shed a tear.
Taehyung knows it’s hard for them to see their friend like that. Jungkook is the only Sentinel in their friendship group, and they’ve all known Taehyung since school but it was after his Guide instincts started to show that he signed himself up to the register and met Jungkook, a Sentinel in need of a Guide. When he brought Jungkook to meet them the first time they were all nervous but they treated him like he too had been their friend since school. Taehyung has always been grateful for that.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jungkook croaks.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ hushes Taehyung. He presses his finger to Jungkook’s lips for good measure. ‘You came back to me quickly today.’
Jungkook sits up slowly and his dark hair flops over his eyes. He looks embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry!’ he repeats, to what is left of the crowd in the bar.
‘Sorry?’ The barkeep shakes his head. ‘Sentinels are more welcome than anyone in my bar! We all know the work you do.’
They do the things no one else can or will. So much information is classified that people will never know the extent of the Sentinels’ service, but Taehyung thinks they must make up stories in their heads. Everyone keeps very quiet, like they’re afraid of triggering Jungkook again. Once, when things were bad, Taehyung wrapped a dark scarf over Jungkook’s eyes because his vision was so out of control and guided him home with his hands as well as his words.
Jungkook stands and slips to his seat. Two different people pour him a drink, but he only sips on cold water. Everything else is just another trigger to his senses. Taehyung stands behind him and massages his shoulders. As he digs his fingers in, Jungkook covers one hand with his own and squeezes it, leaning back to his chest. ‘Thank you,’ he murmurs.
‘Just doing my job,’ Taehyung smiles. He leans down to kiss the corner of Jungkook’s lips.
‘Guide job or boyfriend job?’
‘Both.’
At what moment back down the line Taehyung fell in love with his Sentinel, he doesn’t quite remember. Their soul bond was made long before, but Jungkook had been so upfront with him, telling him that their relationship as Sentinel and Guide never needed to be romantic or to be physical. They’d worked together some months before Taehyung had found the courage to kiss him, late in the night, far from here under an open sky where Jungkook’s senses felt most soothed.
He hasn’t looked back since that night.