Chapter Text
Rain pelted down soaking Seonghwa and Yunho to the bone as the wind howled around them. They had been sent out to pick up something for dinner, none of the pack wanting to cook this late in the evening.
They walked down the street hand in hand as the restaurant was only a ten minute walk from the pack house. Yunho positioned himself so he was closer to the road, his alpha instincts needing to make sure his omega was safe and out of harms way.
“Do you have the list of what everyone wants?” Seonghwa looked up at the younger male.
“Yes hyung, I wrote it all down before we left” Yunho responded with a chuckle. They were nearly at their destination when Seonghwa suddenly stopped walking, pulling Yunho to a stop with him. He turned to look at his mates face and immediately became concerned. He hadn’t seen Seonghwa that worried and serious in a while.
“Hyung? What’s wrong?” Yunho whispered.
“Did you hear that? Or smell that?” Seonghwa’s voice came out rushed as he turned to look down the alley next to them. “It sounds like someone in pain” he added before he dropped Yunho’s hand and started walking forward. The alpha was quick to grab his omega’s arm and stop him from walking away into the unknown.
“Hyung, you can’t just walk into the alley. You don’t know who or what is down there” he tried to reason.
“Exactly the reason I need to Yunho. Someone could be hurt. I can’t just walk away without making sure they are ok”. Yunho knew he wouldn’t win the argument so instead he took his omegas hand and led them towards the alley.
“You stay behind me the entire time” Yunho murmured as they walked further. Now that they were in the alley Yunho could indeed hear and smell what Seonghwa was talking about. Tiny whimpers could be heard from further into the dark and cramped alley. The smell of mango had a sour edge to it but was also accompanied by the coppery scent of blood. Whoever this was, they were frightened and injured that was for sure. The scent was so strong that Yunho had to cover his nose. Seonghwa didn’t fare much better.
After a few more steps they could start to make out a small figure huddled between the massive bins a few feet ahead of them. The whimpers got louder and more desperate the closer the paid got.
Seonghwa started to push out his own calming pheromones, the smell of lavender surrounding himself and Yunho, helping to calm his alpha down as well. The elder took a few more steps closer before he crouched down infront of the small figure. It was a young boy, an omega, who looked to be a few years younger than himself.
The boy was shaking, head down and breathing fast. Seonghwa could see the bruises covering his face, neck and his arms. His heart broke for the small boy.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise” he whispered. “I’m Seonghwa, what’s your name?”.
As he spoke, the smell of rotten mangos increased, the boy huddling himself to make himself appear smaller which only led him to cry out in pain. Behind him he could hear his alpha huff out a large breath.
“Where are you hurt, sweet boy?” Seonghwa tried once again to get through to the injured boy. The response remained the same. More whimpers and cries of pain. But Seonghwa wasn’t going to give up. He stayed crouched by the boy for a few minutes before the whimpers seemed to calm down.
The figure moved slightly, the boys head turning so that he could take a peak at the man who was still beside him. Seonghwa could now see the boys eyes and the pain and fear that was present within them. He gave the boy a small smile of reassurance. The boys breath stuttered, but he didn’t look away. He held eye contact with Seonghwa for a few seconds before whimpering again.
“Oh baby, please let me help you”. Seonghwa’s omega was desperate to help the younger omega, to coddle them and protect them. The feeling was so strong that Yunho could feel it through their pack bond and knew that if he could feel it then so could the rest of the pack. It would only be a matter of time before their pack alpha called Yunho to demand to know what was happening.
Seonghwa reached a hand out slowly as to not spook the boy and pushed out more of this calming scent. “Can I take a look at your injuries? I want to make sure they aren’t really bad”.
The pheromones seemed to be helping as the boy slowly started to uncurl himself and turn towards the elder male. Once he had a proper view of the younger, Seonghwa had to hold back a gasp at just how bad the boy looked. He even heard Yunho’s breath catch behind him.
Tears threatened to fall, but Seonghwa held them back. Crying would not help the boy infront of him.
A phone ringing startled the poor boy making him whimper and whine once again. It seemed he had only just noticed that Seonghwa wasn’t alone. The boy looked up and locked eyes with Yunho, his nose catching the smell of Leather and Sandalwood. An Alpha. Immediately, he tried to scramble back and away from the pair, fear now taking over him. His omega screaming at him to run.
Realising what was happening, Seonghwa turned back to his alpha mate. “Can you leave us for a moment?” he asked, but it was clear what Seonghwa expected the answer to be.
“I am not leaving you alone with a stanger Hwa” Yunho growled whilst also answering the phone. “Yes Hyung, he is safe don’t worry” he answered who Seonghwa could only assume was Hongjoong on the other end of the call.
“You are clearly distressing him more Yunho. Just wait over there” Seonghwa argues back, arms flailing around in the air. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just simply turns back to the trembling boy infront of him. Taking a deep breath he reaches out again.
“This is Yunho. He is my alpha and I promise he won’t hurt you” his voice dropping to a soft tone.
“Lies” a small voice answered back. It took a moment to realise it came from the young omega. The voice sounded broken and strained.
“I would never lie to you. I promise you Yunho would never hurt you” the conviction in Seonghwa’s voice apparently strong enough to make Wooyoung stop trying to move away and look back up at the elder. The youngers eyes were filled with tears threatening to spill over and down his bruised cheeks. He looked so young and broken and scared and Seonghwa knew he couldn’t just leave him here.
He didn’t know how to describe the feeling in his chest, only that he knew that he had to take Wooyoung with them. He had to take care of this boy and protect him with everything he had. No matter what his alphas said.
“Hwa, Hongjoong Hyung wants us home. Now” Yunho’s voice carried through the alley and the boy trembled once again.
“Fine. But he is coming with us” Seonghwa’s tone left no room for negotiation.
“Hyung..” Yunho started but was soon cut off by the elder.
“No Yunho! Look at the poor boy. Bruised and bleeding and scared and I am not leaving him here alone” Seonghwa may as well have growled with how angry he was. The elder turned back to the young boy, extending a hand to him. “Please come with us. Just so I can at least take care of your wounds”. You could smell the desperation to help him in his scent.
The boy just stared. The lavender and Sandalwood scents consuming him whole. His breathing picked up, his chest hurt. He couldn’t breathe. His vision was blurring. He could hear a voice talking to him, but he couldn’t hear what it was saying. His hands were tingling. And then all he could see was black.
Seonghwa caught the boy as he passed out and his heart broke a tiny bit more. Quickly he scooped the boy into his arms and picked him up, turning to look straight at the alpha.
“He is coming with us. End of discussion” he grunted, and then walked past the alpha back towards the entrance of the alley. Yunho stood still for a moment, just watching his stubborn omega walk away. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. My god, Hongjoong was going to be pissed.
-
Yunho could only describe the walk back to the pack house as hell. The rain still fell around them soaking them even more, and it didn’t help that Seonghwa was carrying a still unconscious boy in his arms the whole walk back. He refused to let Yunho take over, growled anytime the alpha would try.
“He is scared of you. You are not scaring him even more” he had growled at him. Yunho didn’t want to point out that the boy was unconscious and therefore would not know who was holding him, for fear of his omega being even more pissed off.
Yunho opened the front door for Seonghwa and followed in behind him. As soon as they moved away from the front doorway, they were ambushed by the rest of their pack.
“Who is that?” “What the fuck” “Why is there a stranger in my house?!”
Multiple voices sounded over one another, startling Seonghwa. He cuddled the small boy closer to his chest as if protecting him from his own pack.
“Let me lay him on the sofa and I will explain everything” the omega grunted and pushed past everyone to lay the boy down. As soon as the boys body hit the sofa and his face could be seen, a gasp was heard behind him. Seonghwa turned around to see Yeosang holding onto Jongho for dear life. He looked like he had seen a ghost. Tears filled his eyes, his lime scent turning acidic and making everyone scrunch their noses.
“Yeosang?” Hongjoong, the head alpha, stepped forward to stand infront of the beta and cup his face in his hands. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s Wooyoung” the beta managed to say before the sobs took over his body. He ripped himself away from his mates and made a beeline for the unconscious boy. “Youngie” he cried as he pulled the omega into his arms.
The rest of the pack stood back and shared a look. They had heard Yeosang talk about his childhood friend Wooyoung before, multiple times actually. Could this actually be him? Had his friend that he had missed for so many years, finally come back to him?
“We found him huddled in an alleyway all bruised and bloodied and scared. I don’t know what happened. He hardly talked to me, wouldn’t tell me his name and was absolutely terrified of Yunho” Seonghwa informed the beta.
“Why is he unconscious?” San stepped forward from the corner he had been standing in. The usually quiet alpha knew that whatever the omega had been through must have been bad if Seonghwa had brought him back to the pack house.
“The poor baby had a panic attack and passed out in my arms. I couldn’t just leave him there. No matter what a certain Alpha wanted me to do” as he trailed of his sentence he turned to scowl at the tall alpha. All heads turned to look at said alpha.
“What?!” he asked. “He is a stranger! What’s to say he isn’t faking and has some grand master plan to steal from us or something”
“Wooyoung would never do anything like that!” Yeosang growled at Yunho. “He is the sweetest, kindest person ever” the beta added with a whisper.
“Yunho has a point Sangie. You may know this person but we don’t. We have to be careful” Mingi, a fellow beta, joined the conversation.
“I think we all just need to calm down and wait for Wooyoung to wake up and then go from there. I really don’t think that he was faking anything. The raw terror in his eyes was the realest thing I have seen in a while” the eldest of the group pushed out his calming lavender pheremones in an attempt to defuse the tension building between his mates.
“They must have done this to him” Yeosang whispered to himself, but his mates heard.
“Who is ‘they’ Sangie?” Jongho stepped forward slowly and kept his voice soft.
“His parents. They have to be behind this” the beta cried. “They always threatened to kick him out but I never thought they would actually do it”.
“How long has it been since you last saw him?” San tentatively asked the older beta.
“”6 years. It’s been 6 years since they moved him away from me” he whispered, his grip on the small omega getting stronger as the memories came flooding back to him.
A groan pulled the attention of all the men in the room, Yeosang springing up off of the omega in time to see his eyes open. The omega took a few seconds to look around and take in his surrounding before looking back at the beta sat over him.
“Sangie?” his broken voice cried out. The beta wasted no time wrapping his small friend back into his arms and crying along with him.
Meanwhile, whilst his mates were watching their normally stoic beta with the newcomer, Hongjoong stood back from the group, his mind racing. Ever since Seonghwa had walked in with the young omega he had felt a weird feeling in his chest. A pull towards the small boy. The alpha wasn’t naive, he knew exactly what the feeling was. The reason why he felt that pull, why he felt like he wanted to coddle and protect the young omega. Why his wolf was restless and begging to be let out. This small boy was their mate. Their missing piece of the pack. And the head alpha didn’t know what to do with the information.
He would keep it to himself for now. That was the best decision for the pack. At least, thats what he was telling himself for now.