Chapter Text
So the knight remembers everything, but precisely this remembrance is pain,
and yet by the infinite resignation he is reconciled with his existence.
-Soren Kierkegaard
“Stupid, impossible little planet,” Yoongi grumbles to himself, whacking at the vines that hover up toward him like magnetized hands. They bloom in itchy rashes wherever they touch, but they seem to learn quickly: machete hurts.
He swings it up before they can get close, little spade-leafed ropes shying away. His face aches with the need to scratch, but he knows better than that. At least he's wearing long sleeves. He's made it this far, the distant edge of a galaxy on the other side of a jumpgate that wasn't supposed to be functional anymore, on a two year long trail of bought information that proved to be false five times out of six. But here he is, god damn it, head aching with dehydration when the water filters broke on his ship two days ago. He may not have enough fuel to get back out of orbit, but he's here, and it's a lush planet full of transformable resources, itchy vines or not.
Best of all, this is really it this time. Probably. His source swore this was the planet the prophet disappears to, had even told him the exact coordinates to slip through the pressurized clouds that cover most of the planet.
They all swore their information was on the up and up, though, so he remained wary and tempered his hope.
One of the vines manages to sneak its little tendrils around his neck from behind. “Fuck off would you! No cuddles!”
He whips around to brandish his machete in an admittedly immature hissy fit, mad at the burning itch crawling across his throat already. When he turns back around, he slams straight into the chest of a man who was not there before.
His machete is on the ground and he's not sure how. The sun was high in the sky just a second ago he's sure of it, but it's a low, simmering orb on the horizon now, all the vines hanging disinterested from the trees.
He gasps and stumbles away from the man. The prophet, without a doubt, terrifying energy humming around him.
But when he looks up into his face, it's all kindness, a sharp humility that's almost mournful, a smile that dimples his tan cheeks.
“Min Yoongi,” he utters as if he has uncovered a truth. “Just a name,” he whispers, as if to reassure away the look of fright in Yoongi's eyes. “There is so much more to parse together.”
It's then he notices it, the little twitchy dance of his fingers where they hang at his side, the pattern of which matches the dents in his attention, mind feeling like a skipping record.
“What're you doing?” he demands, forcing his eyes not to blink in time with the fingers.
“Don't you know what I do? You came all this way.” He almost sounds disappointed.
“No one knows what the hell you do. Only what you did.”
Sadness grips the man, jaw gaping with the breath that sticks in his throat. “That was an accident.”
“Yeah, well. No one much cares when a whole solar system disappears, do they. I'm just here to-”
“To kill you,” he says in unison, nodding at the jungle floor between them. He smiles sadly, and Yoongi feels bad. He hates feeling bad. It isn't helpful for his profession.
Stealing, that's fine, he doesn't feel bad about stealing, and that's the majority of his work. This hit though, the pay was astronomical, and something about the story of a prophet who annihilated a whole set of orbits drew him in, filled him with an obsession he couldn't explain even to himself. He'd had two whole years to reason himself out of guilt, painting this so-called prophet as a soulless mass murder of a fantastic degree, millions of lives destroyed.
This boyish, soft human in front of him, so open in his emotions, is ruining his good and triumphant moment. He looks up at him, eyes wet and wide. “Would you like to know my name?”
“Yeah alright,” he grunts, holding his gaze. Least he could do if he's going to kill the guy.
“Kim Namjoon.”
It has the same effect as when the man spoke his name a moment before, but different. It was like a gentle blast of light, a sunrise burning inside him from the toes up. “Kim Namjoon,” he echos. “What's that you're doing? In...inside,” he asks, vaguely motioning at himself.
Namjoon's eyes light up, sadness clinging to the shape of his mouth. “Would you like to stay with me, for a while?”
Yoongi gawks at him. “I'm here to kill you,” he reminds him.
“Okay. To detach me from this form,” he corrects him, and pets tenderly at his own arms. “There is no true death. But I will miss this body, the parameters by which it sees, and tastes, and comprehends you...”
Namjoon trails off, fingers click, click, clicking against nothing, eyes in an unsettling state of dreamy intensity as he stares at Yoongi, comprehending him.
“Whatever the hell that means,” he mutters, nervous at the attention he can feel mirrored in his body. Or, not in his body, but in his body, somehow.
“Kim Namjoon,” he finds himself repeating again.
A smile blooms so blissful on Namjoon's face. “Yes,” he agrees, fingers halting. “In my mind, we've stayed together for a while. The imagining of it was nice, maybe just as real. Maybe the world disappears and rebuilds every- time- I- blink- my- eyes,” he staccatos the words on heavy blinks and Yoongi feels each one flinch through his body like claps of thunder.
Namjoon just laughs softly like it's a good joke. “Still, I would like to see how it feels, in this body. Before you remove me from it.”
“See how what feels?” Yoongi shifts nervously and smooths the goosebumps that have cropped up under his sleeves.
“I would like to see how it feels to stay with you, for a while. In this body. So few things are.”
“So few things are what?” Namjoon asks in unison as the words come out of Yoongi's mouth. Yoongi wants to throw up. Namjoon just smiles.
“So few things are experienced in this body,” he clarifies. “Astronomically improbable, to exist in a form like this, in any form at all....” Namjoon's eyes dart in wonder across every inch of Yoongi.
He wonders why he's going bashful instead of running away screaming. Or getting his job over with already, after two and a half years of dogged effort.
The tall grasses crunch under Namjoon's soft foot falls, one, two and he's close enough to touch or kill so easily. He holds his hand out, palm up. “Just for a little while?” he pleads.
It's stupid maybe but he's terrified of that hand that tapped out patterns in thin air and knew him. Wild notions fly through his head, being burnt to dust at contact, being warped out to a void dimension when their fingers intertwine.
Nothing happens. He blushes. Namjoon smiles and the sun rises from Yoongi's toes again. “I have medicine for those rashes,” Namjoon tells him.
Yoongi had forgotten all about the damned itchy vines. “When I went to the trading station last-” Yoongi stops short, horrified. “When I went to the trading-” He claps a hand over his throat and whimpers. “Oh, those are my words,” they say in unison.
Namjoon pulls his hand from Yoongi's.
“What the absolute shitting fuck I can't say- oh.” Yoongi exhales a long, shaky breath when he realizes his words are his own again.
“I'm sorry,” Namjoon says with sincerity. “It's been a very long while since I've touched anyone. Can I try again? I'm sorry.”
He twitches in irritation and shyness and holds out his hand. “Yeah alright. Whatever really, it's whatever.” It's not whatever. He'd sell his ship to hold that hand again, and it's at that thought that he becomes truly terrified.
“Are you going to kill me?” he bursts out after a moment, wondering if he's being lured in like a sailor in siren tales of old.
“Oh, good! Those were your words!” Namjoon beams a smile at him. “No, I'm not. Why would I?”
“Because I'm here to kill you?” Yoongi suggests.
“That's true,” Namjoon nods thoughtfully, hopping up and over a shimmery black boulder and waiting for Yoongi to follow. He gasps quietly and slows to a stop. “Look, a feathery bird! They're so rare to see.”
There, to the left hopping from bush to grassy patch, is a bright blue bird, feathers sprouting from it's head in a long, loose arc. Force of habit, Namjoon's fingers begin to twitch, feeling out some pattern and tapping it into Yoongi's knuckles.
His eyes roll back in his head. Suddenly, he is bird, scurrying through the jungle grass, pecking for insects and seed, wary of the two tall humans nearby. Not a threat, his bird mind acknowledges, Yoongi can feel the cool grass registering beneath thin, scaly feet.
In an instant, it's ripped away. He falls to his knees and the bird flaps into the safety of the trees. Namjoon kneels beside him. “I'm sorry! I'm-”
Sobs fall in silent coughs from Yoongi's throat, fat, wet tears soaking his cheeks. He can't stop shaking. It was beautiful, so utterly profound, slipping into the existence of a bird, a small creature of no consequence, yet he feels it aching through every bone, an existence, unique and separate from his own and astronomically improbable, just as Namjoon said. It's heartbreaking; confirmation that he exists by existing in another. He is himself, he is a self, more shaped and contained that he ever knew, a bit of a miracle shaped like clay into an odd and perfect pattern.
It was only a moment in the busy soul of a bird, but it was a moment , more intimate and vast than any glimpse of god.
He lets Namjoon scoop him up onto his back and carry him the rest of the way, sobbing openly into his neck. He couldn't stop if he tried; face slimy with tears, maybe laughing or maybe wailing with the tender ache of existence.
There's a cup of tea in his hand by the time his tears have calmed to a sniffley shiver. It's a rustic little house, half metal hunks of salvaged spaceship, half pale wood and makeshift furniture. There's a fire in the fireplace and a hideous, furry little creature curled up on the chair beside him.
Namjoon appears from the other room with a jar in his hand, full of a brown cream. He kneels in front of Yoongi and dabs the substance carefully across the red bumps in lines across his cheeks and ears, neck and wrists. “That should help,” he says quietly, screwing the lid back on.
Exhausted from crying, Yoongi sniffs and stares at the man kneeled before him. “Are you god?” he asks.
The words spring tears forth in Namjoon's eyes. “No,” he smiles, and the tears trail down his cheeks. “Though they tried.”
He rests on his heels and places both hands gently on Yoongi's knees. “I could just show you, but... would it be alright if I told you, instead? With the words I have in this body? It would be nice, for a change.”
Yoongi nods. As if he could say no. The fire crackles, the heat from the mug seeps into his hands, feeling a lot like the only thing he has to hold on to. Namjoon doesn't speak, eyebrows peaking together.
“Are you afraid of me?” he whispers, and swallows down the sorrow when he hears Yoongi's “yes” before he speaks it. He nods, understanding.
“Is this okay, my hands here? I like to feel you, in this way.”
Having had just the quickest glimpse of how Namjoon feels in other ways, he understands. The utter delight of texture under fingertips, warmth generated from another so clearly defined, a soul there and a soul here. Separate, a miracle to slowly explore rather than become.
“Your hands are okay there,” he whispers. “And I'm- I'm not afraid of you, I'm just...afraid.”
They pause, staring at each other as the tiniest rhythmic pulses tap into his thigh.
“That's a lie,” they say in unison. Yoongi looks sheepish.
“I'm afraid and afraid of you,” he laughs nervously.
“I think my story will make you more afraid, and I'm sorry. I would like it if... if you would stay with me until you're not afraid.” He says it shyly, like he knows it's quite a favor to ask.
“Well. I'm not god. I was born, I was a child. I felt dirt under my fingernails, tasted those horrible chicken sandwiches at school, kissed a boy with peanut butter breath. Then, I was eleven. I tested very high for empathy on those standardized intelligences tests, did they have those in your star system?”
Sitting up a little straighter, Yoongi nods. “I tested high in objective rationale.”
That makes Namjoon smile. “Well. They took me to a special outpost the next semester, a very small learning center for people with my competencies. There, they... taught us to pattern. No. I taught them to pattern. No, I patterned, and they observed. They merely... removed my doors...”
It's silent besides the wind, Namjoon's fingers still, eyes wide as he exists in memory. Afraid, but Yoongi slides his hand across Namjoon's wrist.
“I became everything else and... everything has a bit of me in it. Kind of like god or... kind of like a child who can't sleep without a light on, I... They took away my doors and they just... watched...”
His hands slip off of Yoongi's knees, replaced with the heavy weight of his head leaning against his kneecap. “That's all. That's the story, really. I became everything else, they made me practice so they could watch, so they could learn it and teach. Everything has a door, with a lock I just... tumble the locks...”
Yoongi's chest aches, seeing in an instant where the story is leading. He can feel the tears warm against his knee and brushes his fingers across the top of Namjoon's scalp.
“When I was....maybe sixteen? I became the planet, the whole existence of it, and the particles between it and the next planet; do you know how many particles that is?” he demands. “I was every single one, in every direction, I was the sun,” he gasps in awe at the recollection. “I am still the sun, though it has died...”
For a moment, he can't carry on, too overcome with wet sorrow. “They never spoke before, but one of them asked me, 'what do you see?' I got scared,” he whispers. “What do you see? What do you see? What did I see? I was just Namjoon, trying to see in words, everything was open, I- I got so scared and I dropped the pattern before I could close the door, so many doors.”
He sits up on his knees, wet eyes pleading Yoongi. “I was so scared. I had to find some doors, I... I was only sixteen. I made a door for myself and everything was gone. I didn't know that everything was gone, I thought I had just closed the doors. The observers in the room with me, they didn't know either until we looked at coordinates and realized we weren't even in the same quadrant of space anymore. I didn't know, until the news hit the display banners, solar system obliterated by mysterious birth of black hole...”
Namjoon collapses into sobs, powerful hands looking weak as they cover his face. “So many lives,” he cries. “They're out there still, of course, but I yanked them out of their bodies, their chance to know in this form. I just wanted to come here and...not become anymore. I thought they knew it was an accident, but they sent you for... for justice. I understand,” he says, so small, so infinite.
“There's nothing just about killing someone for past crimes,” Yoongi mutters, feeling sick. He knows already, he can't do it. Maybe he could, if there was hintings that Namjoon would kill again, lose control again, but it's not true and he knows it in his bones.
He came all the way out here, nearly as way out as a human can come, to live small and harmlessly, and he did not deserve to die. Yoongi feels bad, and he hates feeling bad.
“I'm not gonna do it,” he tells him, in case it isn't obvious.
Namjoon looks up, wet eyes full of careful wonder, and considers him a moment. “But why not?”
He snorts and sips at his tea. “Can't you just- clicky clicky and find out,” he says, waggling his fingers in imitation.
“Yes,” Namjoon answers seriously and sniffles. “Though it would take some time and effort to isolate the pattern in that way. And anyway, I would rather hear the words you choose for me.”
He gives his tea another nervous slurp and stares at the fire, shrugging a shoulder. “There's no point. It was unintentional, what happened. Just an accident. They don't execute people for accidents, especially when they've tried so hard to not let it happen again. There's just no point, wouldn't accomplish a single bit of good.”
“But I killed all those people, all those histories, species, aeons of evolution, patterns that will never form in those ways again! Don't you think it would be just for me to be punished?”
Yoongi studies him, guilt filling his eyes and twisting his face. A friendly being who has isolated himself in the most extreme way, who can experience reality in a way no one else can but so readily starves himself of it, so readily accepts death.
“No. No I don't.”
Maybe it's disbelief or maybe relief that breaks over Namjoon's face. His fingers begin tapping gentle little patterns into Yoongi's shin. Probably reading him, and Yoongi finds that he doesn't mind.
The fire crackles, the ugly creature beside them sighs in its sleep, rain begins to plink-plonk on the metal roof.
“Do you know when you're doing that?” Yoongi asks, nodding at Namjoon's fingers.
“Oh,” he breathes, jerking his hand away. “Sorry, no I- it's just what I do. Is it... is it rude?”
Yoongi shrugs and tries not to smile at the childish worry pinching his brows together. “Nah. Not unless you're like, spying on my most embarrassing memories or something.”
A big smile stretches across Namjoon's firelit face. “No,” he chuckles, and it's not all that convincing. He props his chin on Yoongi's knee and gazes up at him. Yoongi finds himself wanting to touch, to give affection to such a beautiful, vulnerable man.
It's a jarring, scary feeling after only a handful of hours. He keeps his hands to himself.
“You're tired,” Namjoon assesses. “I have only my bed. I would like it, if you stayed close and slept beside me, though I understand if it's too strange for you.”
Blushing furiously, Yoongi scowls at the blunt words but doesn't look away. “Why do you want me close?” he whispers.
Namjoon smiles, serene like warm cinnamon. “You're an expression of the infinite; it feels so nice to touch you. Like water, like old books, but electric and so intricate.”
Goosebumps trail in waves down his shoulders and arms at the words spoken so softly in firelight and wind. He doesn't get it but he wants to get it, like a riddle answer he can feel traveling through the back of his brain.
“Okay,” is all he can manage to answer. “Let's go to bed then.”