Chapter Text
Bam was falling.
At least, he thought he was falling. There was a loud roar in his ears and a sensation that was vaguely reminiscent of tumbling helplessly downward at a speed too fast to comprehend, but the small part of his mind that was still capable of engaging in such thoughts could tell that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
If he had just been falling, that would be one thing. It would have been simple enough for him to summon a pair of wings and halt his progress as he’d done countless times before, but when he tried to do the same now he found himself unable to, shinsu slipping freely from his control in a way it never had before.
It was only then that he realized that even though he was falling (he was still pretty sure he was falling) he couldn’t feel the wind on his skin, or his hair blowing past his face.
He felt nothing. No air, no sense of up or down, no heartbeat… just nothing. And when he pried open his eyes (did he even have eyes?) it was only to find that the Tower was gone, and he was surrounded by nothing but pure void as far as the eye could see. It was a space deeper than darkness, and when he stared into it, he felt a profound sense of terror that resonated somewhere deep down in his soul, and he had to look away.
He fell for what could have been seconds or an eternity, whole lifetimes passing by in the space between breaths. He couldn’t remember when his fall had started or what he had been doing that had led to it, only that it had to have been something awful if it merited such a punishment. He fell until he began to wonder if perhaps he’d always been falling like this, if maybe there was no end to this expanse of nothing and his life and the memory of not-falling had just been a delusion this whole time.
But no sooner had the thought occurred to him, the darkness lifted slightly and he finally felt something:
Impact.
When he came back to himself, Bam realized he was sprawled face-down on a hard surface—although it was not, he noted, completely without give. He was briefly pleased to discover that he could even feel his limbs and extremities again, although he was still met with little success when he attempted to move them. This inability registered in his mind as only vague disappointment, since his face was pressed hard against the ground and it would have been nice to be able to adjust his position into something less awkward.
The pain didn't sink in until a few seconds later. It was not as much as he’d expected after falling for such a long time, but overwhelming when compared to the nothingness of before. He was almost grateful for it, except that it made him all the more aware of how uncomfortable the position he’d ended up in was. He really would appreciate being able to turn his head, even just the slightest bit.
And that’s when he felt it.
The cold.
It was bone-deep and all-consuming, punctuated by tiny wet pinpricks on the exposed side of his face that sent small shocks to his nerves everywhere they touched. The chill crept into him relentlessly, starting from his fingertips and seeping inward, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling cold like this before. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there for, shivering in the dark as the numbness slowly set in, before he finally felt his trembling calm and his worries slowly begin to dissipate. His awareness faded away, and he drifted.
*
When Bam awoke, it was to the realization that he was being shaken. Or rather, that someone was shaking him.
His initial, instinctive reaction was to lash out in panic at having let his guard down enough for an enemy to approach him unawares. If he’d been in his usual condition, the other person would have had their neck snapped in that first move, but Bam was cold and tired and quickly found that he lacked the energy to do more than twitch feebly in place. It must have been enough of a movement to alert the stranger to his newfound consciousness, however, because a second later he felt the hand on his shoulder still, and a voice from nearby instead began rapidly speaking soft, urgent-sounding words in a language that he couldn’t understand.
Bam managed to force his eyes open a crack, just enough to make out a few blurry details of his assailant in the dim lighting. Their face was close to his, and he got just the faintest impression of snowflakes caught in eyelashes and long wavy blue hair spilling over white fur.
Garam Jahad?
He barely had time to wonder before his vision darkened and he slipped away into unconsciousness once again, the alarmed babble of the person who'd woken him following him down.
*
Bam drifted in and out of consciousness. He had no way to measure the time he spent in that state—all he knew was that he spent his few cognizant moments awash with agony, teeth chattering with cold while his skin throbbed to the beat of his heart like it was on fire. It was as if his body couldn’t decide whether it was to die by freezing or burning, so it chose to allow him to experience both for fairness’s sake.
But even those sensations paled in comparison to the one that lanced through him when he woke long enough for his sleep-muddled mind to become aware of where he was.
When Bam opened his eyes, it was only to find that he was lying on his back, staring up at the rocky dome of the roof stretching out above him in the same way he had countless times before. The smell of earth hung heavy in his nose, giving the impression that he’d been buried alive, but he knew with sinking clarity that it was far worse than that.
He was back in the cave. Back in his cave, the one built to contain an aberration like him, a thing that had been abandoned by the rest of the world.
And he was alone.
The despair that hit him was immeasurable.
“Rachel?” he rasped aloud, surprised by how much pain the simple action of speaking brought him. “Rachel… Rachel….”
“Hush, Bam,” a gentle voice answered from somewhere nearby.
Bam couldn’t turn his head, but he knew even without looking that the voice did not belong to Rachel. He might have expected this realization to be a cause for alarm, except that the voice knew his name—the one he still thought of as his real name, the one that no one called him by anymore—and the sound of it crept in through the cracks in his heart and resonated with a part of his soul that he thought he’d separated himself from long ago. It was nostalgic yet distant, like a cherished childhood memory, like something to be treasured but ultimately surrendered to the passage of time, left in the past where it belonged.
But how was that possible? No one ever came down to him from the light, no one but Rachel had….
He felt a cool hand on his cheek.
“Go to sleep, Bam,” the voice continued, still in that same soft tone. “I’m here now, and I’ll stay with you.”
Yes. Stay with me forever.
That long-lost part of him practically purred with satisfaction, and it was enough to convince him that it would be alright to do what this person said.
“Okay,” he agreed, allowing his eyes to flutter closed once more. He felt the hand move from his face to his hair, stroking gently, and he allowed the soothing motion to lull him to sleep once again.
*
The next time Bam regained consciousness, he found that the pervasive cold that had been his constant companion throughout his fits of near-waking had finally receded, although it had been replaced by a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion. The burning sensation in his skin, on the other hand, didn’t appear to have abated in the slightest, and the dry heat of it only became worse as he began to stir.
Bam returned to this reality reluctantly, roused further by discomfort, and found himself greeted by the sight of a stone ceiling. He vaguely recalled waking at some point in the night and panicking at the sight of it, but found himself unmoved now despite the fleeting recollection of that fear. He could see that the quality of the stone he had near-memorized was different here than it had been in the cave he’d been trapped in for so many years, light in colour and smoother, and the roof lower, creating a space that was much more compact than the one he remembered.
It was also, he noticed, clear that this cave was already someone’s home. There were personal items piled up in the corners and even what seemed to be a neat fireplace with a chimney built in the middle of the room, inside which a fire was blazing merrily. It might have been a cave, but Bam could say with certainty that it was nothing like the one in his memories.
It didn’t mean he should lower his guard, of course, but it did make him feel a bit better. His memories held considerably more fear for him than people did, after all. Even if they were enemies, Bam could handle mere people.
He made a move to sit up and was forced to abort the motion halfway through, his muscles stiff and screaming in pain. He slumped back, gasping from the effort as he struggled to regain his bearings. It was somewhat terrifying for him to realize that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this weak. Even more alarmingly, there also seemed to be some kind of weight on top of him that held him down and prevented him from moving. His first thought was that his captors had bound him, but closer inspection revealed that the weight was simply due to an excessive quantity of heavy woollen blankets and furs that had been layered on top of him.
This discovery calmed him at first, at least until he’d shifted the blanket pile enough to realize that under the lowest layer, there was also an arm that did not belong to him. A pale, bare arm that stretched across his chest before coming to rest on his shoulder, radiating warmth everywhere it touched.
… Everywhere it touched Bam’s own, very bare skin.
Stiffening, Bam’s gaze followed the arm to its source and he realized what kind of situation he was in—that someone was in bed with him, their warm, naked body curled around his own like it belonged there. The realization filled him with fear and then disgust, and he summoned all of his limited strength to try to push the person away… and stopped.
A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eyes drew his gaze, and Bam froze in place, hands still gripping the covers and mind ground to a complete halt as it struggled to process what it was seeing.
What… was the Firefish doing here?
The first thought that managed to fight its way to the surface of his tumultuous mind was that he had made a mistake, that maybe this was some other shineueh and not the one he’d thought it was at a glance, but there could be no denying it. The familiar glowing fish was making slow circuits in the space above where he lay, painting curling images in the air in its wake. Bam could do little more than stare at it as the obvious implications of its presence began to sink in.
... It can’t be.
“Bam?” A voice, sleep-roughened and heart-wrenchingly familiar, asked. The arm that curved around his upper body squeezed slightly, and Bam’s heart gave a helpless pang at the sensation. “Are you awake?"
He would have wondered if he was hallucinating, except that he was fairly sure even his own mind wouldn’t dare taunt him with this fantasy. He would drive himself mad, retreating into impossibilities like this one. It was irresponsible and dangerous, he knew that. He’d known ever since he’d first realized that owning something was the first step to losing it.
But no matter how much he reminded himself what a bad idea it was, Bam was a moth to his favourite flame, and he wasn’t strong enough to stop himself from turning toward the source of that voice.
The first thing he noticed about the person next to him was blue hair and pale skin. That alone wasn’t enough to confirm or deny his suspicions, since Khun family colourations were common enough in the upper levels of the Tower, but Bam felt his heart skip a beat regardless. The person was also likely male, he noted, heat rising to his face as he realized that his bedmate was indeed as unclothed as Bam was, bare shoulders above the blankets hinting at the expanse of smooth flesh beneath.
But it was his face that truly had Bam spellbound, because no matter how much wishful thinking he indulged in, he knew that was the one thing that couldn’t be faked or mistaken.
It was true that members of the Khun family, both legitimate descendants and otherwise, were not rare. Bam had personally encountered many Khuns during his climb both as allies and opponents, and he had recognized things in them occasionally—the shape of their brow, the angle between neck and jaw, or the precise number of seconds they allowed themselves to sustain a laugh for—but Bam generally preferred not to notice such things. It only made it harder when they’d do or say something that broke the illusion later.
This Khun was different. His hair wasn’t the same as Bam remembered, tumbling past his shoulders in messy waves rather than brushing them in a neat bob, but his blue eyes were fixed on Bam’s in concern, and that face was definitely, undoubtedly his Khun’s.
Bam felt tears spring into his eyes, drinking in the sight of a person he hadn’t seen in an unthinkably long time.
“Khun,” he said, suddenly finding himself at a loss for words.
There was no sentiment, no phrase that existed in any language that could encompass what he was feeling, so he didn’t bother trying.
But luckily for Bam, Khun Aguero Agnis had always been unmatched when it came to understanding him, and didn’t need the crutch of words to do so. He studied Bam for a few seconds longer before the corners of his eyes crinkled, a slow smile stretching over his face. It was one of his real smiles, not a smirk or a simper, broad and just a little bit crooked the way Bam remembered it.
Wordlessly, Khun pressed closer, his arm tightening around Bam’s back while he twined their legs together under the covers, as if worried he would slip away from his grasp. “Bam,” he sighed as he settled comfortably into place, contentment audible in his voice.
Bam craved the contact far too much to shy away. He decided then and there that it didn’t matter if this was a hallucination or not, he had waited far too long to be able to justify passing up an opportunity like this one.
So, being careful not to dislodge his friend’s hold, Bam snaked his own arms around Khun’s waist, pulling him in as close as humanly possible before burying his face in the crook of his neck—the closest he could get to an embrace without moving from their current position. It felt safe and warm in a way that made the tears that had been gathering in Bam’s eyes flow all the more freely, speckling like dewdrops on pale skin, but if Khun noticed he didn’t say anything.
They lay like that for a while, simply breathing together as the Firefish continued its languid patrol overhead. Bam was vaguely aware that he was sweating from a combination of ambient heat and the fire that seemed to burn him from the inside even now, and he knew he probably smelled wretched. Khun’s hand was also straying dangerously close to the fourth, fifth and sixth ribs on Bam’s left side, but even though his heart started in momentary alarm at the proximity, he still couldn’t bring himself to pull away.
The pressing questions that had been piling up in Bam’s mind even as he luxuriated in Khun’s presence still demanded to be let out, however, and he eventually drew back just enough to be able to see his friend’s face again.
“Khun. How did you…” he croaked through a throat that felt like it was lined with sandpaper. He tried again. “I had no idea you were this close behind us. How did you manage to catch up so quickly?”
Khun didn’t respond immediately, although his expression shifted, uncertainty creeping in where there had been only quiet happiness before. It hurt Bam to see it, but he knew that they had many things that needed to be discussed, and waiting wouldn’t make it any easier on either of them.
When Khun finally spoke, his voice was serious, and eyes searched Bam’s face. “I didn’t catch up to you, Bam,” he said levelly. “That would be impossible, considering the last time I managed to get my hands on any reliable information about you, you had already cleared the 100th Floor and were showing no signs of stopping.”
Bam was momentarily distracted by a brief rush of pleasure that Khun had apparently still been checking up on him even after all this time, although confusion quickly took its place.
If Khun hadn’t caught up, then why… how was Khun here?
“But somehow,” Khun continued, still watching Bam’s expression with those tactician’s eyes, “despite it supposedly being impossible, I found you lying unconscious out in the snow yesterday evening, your Pocket broken and your skin so cold I thought you’d already frozen to death. Bam, how on earth did you get here?”
Now that he actually thought about it, Bam had never figured out what had happened, what explanation could possibly describe how he had come to be lying in the snow where Khun had found him. The last thing he could remember before the strange falling sensation had been… well, it had been taking the 118th Floor Test with the rest of his team. But there was no connecting point between those two things in his memory, and no sign of his team anywhere. Which could only mean….
“... Khun, where exactly are we?” Bam asked, a worrying possibility occurring to him for the first time.
Khun answered promptly, clearly having anticipated the question.
“We’re on the 81st Floor.”