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Yoongi feels someone shaking him awake but he stubbornly tries to stay asleep, clinging to the vestiges of a strange dream that’s already fading. He mumbles a weak protest but the voice whispers out, “Hey”. The shaking gets more insistent.
But Yoongi doesn’t want to be conscious, he wants to fall into an abyss where he doesn’t feel anything—certainly not the left broken wrist, the bone deep bruises on his right ribs that makes it hurt to breathe, the sharp pinpricks digging into his temples, the numerous injuries and bruises coloring his body, the constant exhaustion that pulls him down like sludge.
The voice whispers again, “Get up now. We need you.”
Those are the words that gets Yoongi to grudgingly open his eyes. Like a calling, he mindlessly starts to push himself up, as he cradles his left wrist to his chest. He watches the figure walk away and takes a moment to place whose back that is. It’s one of the few newcomers that survived. Everyone else had perished.
But he was also just like Yoongi, another monster.
The others didn’t avoid him exactly, but they certainly didn’t warm up to him as they had with Yoongi. Kyungsoo quietly kept to himself, not bothering to ingratiate himself with the rest of the survivors. But he was polite and helped around when needed, answered their inane questions on what he did before everything happened, where he came from, what he saw.
But they never asked him about that . They were either too afraid, or wanted to pretend that he was one of them—just another survivor. Once, Heeyeon noona curiously asked him about how it felt and while Yoongi wasn’t there for the answer, Heeyeon noona carefully avoided Kyungsoo from there on out. Or so Jeongguk whispered to Yoongi, confiding in him what he saw from Heeyeon noona’s shocked expression.
Yoongi only spoke with Kyungsoo a few times, both relating to mundane tasks on upkeep for their necessities but that was it. Yoongi was of course curious, but it didn’t extend beyond cursory greetings. Besides, Yoongi was too busy running errands for everyone.
So Yoongi silently follows Kyungsoo as they take the fire escape staircase to the rooftop. Yoongi limps along, the pain becoming more apparent as he walks up. He grits his teeth, wishing for his body to miraculously stitch itself back together.
When they reach the top, Kyungsoo leans against the edge, staring out at the cityscape.
Yoongi mimics him, but he ends up tightly gripping the edge with his right hand, the pain roaring back to life and reminding him once again that he’s still human. He feels a twist of both ugly relief and weary resignation.
“How much does it hurt?” Kyungsoo asks, still staring at some indiscriminate point of the city.
“What?” Yoongi gasps out as he slides down onto the ground, the perspiration from their walk up chilling him in the night breeze. The headache has become worse. He wants to dig his hands into his temples and take out that incessant stabbing.
He feels himself slipping so he tries to focus on his breathing, quieting everything else. It’s a trick that Namjoon once taught him. Not a trick , Namjoon had chided, a technique .
He takes large and noisy breaths, breathing out through his mouth. Filling his lungs with as much air as he possibly can without his ribs flaring, counting to five, and then exhaling.
“Does it hurt a lot?” Kyungsoo asks again. He’s crouching now, in front of Yoongi. His gaze sweeps over Yoongi’s frame, like he can catalog all the injuries that Yoongi has collected.
“Yeah.”
Kyungsoo tilts his head, a detached sort of curiosity etched into his features. Yoongi gazes back unflinchingly, too tired for whatever this is.
“What did you need?” Yoongi asks.
“What do you mean?” Kyungsoo asks, the smallest of frowns gracing his features.
Yoongi can’t muster up anything beyond his exhaustion. “When you woke me up, you said ‘we need you’.”
Kyungsoo lightly shakes his head, “I knew that was what would get you up. I just wanted to talk.”
Yoongi doesn’t respond, just relishes in the ground’s coolness seeping into his inflamed limbs.
“Do you know why you aren’t healing as quickly?” Kyungsoo sits across from Yoongi, folding his legs.
“I don’t know,” Yoongi whispers out, lying. It’s been two weeks since it’s been like this. The last time he was this severely injured, he couldn’t even make it back to their home base. Instead, he was found unconscious by Taehyung and carried back. It took three days for him to fully recover.
He’s terrified. That it’s taking too long, that he won’t be able to heal enough before the next scouting mission, before the next monster shows up, before their supplies run out, before—
“You have to embrace it.”
“I don’t understand.” Yoongi answers, his thoughts muddy again because he stopped his breathing exercise and he thinks flinging himself off the rooftop would hurt less than the vicious headache that came back.
Kyungsoo leans in, making sure he has Yoongi’s attention. His pupils widen, until his pupils expand to completely cover the whites of his eyes. “Work with your other side, and you’ll be able to heal faster, have more control than you can ever imagine.”
“Is that what you did?” Yoongi queries, watching Kyungsoo in a strange new light. The night can’t hide the fervent eagerness that colors his voice.
“You can say that.” Kyungsoo leans back, his eyes turning human again. “I work with it, but ultimately, I’m the one in control.”
Yoongi forces himself to focus on the words, not letting his mind drift to his physical pain or the gnawing loneliness that steadily eats him.
“You’re not like me,” Yoongi slowly says.
Kyungsoo shrugs, “I’m merely a step ahead of you. I’ve embraced it, but you keep fighting it. And I’m telling you that you don’t have to.”
“And what if I give into it completely?” Yoongi swallows.
They’d have to put him down like a dog. Like the rest of the monsters they killed.
Would they mourn him? Or would they shake their heads, sad but grim, and say ‘ It was bound to happen. Once you turn, it’s only a matter of time. ’ Would they forget the person he was? Was he even important enough?
“I can’t.” Yoongi whispers out. Doesn’t want to risk it.
“Then you want to live like this?” Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. He sounds politely disgusted.
“They need me.” Yoongi replies, his thoughts turning to his odd patchwork of a family that he once called strangers, neighbors.
Kyungsoo’s lip curls, “Then do it for them.”
“I can’t risk it.”
“But you’ll turn anyway.”
“I won’t.”
Kyungsoo’s face is blank for a second before comprehension dawns, “Oh. They’ll kill you before you fully turn.”
Yoongi nods.
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything more but Yoongi can feel his displeasure. Yoongi shuts his eyes. The temperature continues to drop as the night deepens.
“You’re 93’ right?” Kyungsoo comments instead, voice casually conversational.
“Yeah?”
“So am I.” Kyungsoo continues to speak formally. “Let’s be friends. I’m tired of having to be the only one.” Kyungsoo admits. “And it’s nice to know that you’re the closest I’ve found.”
“Okay.” Yoongi doesn’t know what’s going on anymore.
A jolt of pain shoots through his body as the pain flares sharply in his right leg. Yoongi’s automatic reaction is to clench his jaw tightly, pressing his lips hard to keep himself from screaming out. As he clutches his leg, he finds that Kyungsoo is stepping on it, moving the ball of his foot methodically—left and right, left and right.
Yoongi snarls and curls his right hand around Kyungsoo’s ankle to push him off. But Kyungsoo doesn’t budge, only presses down harder. Yoongi screams.
“You’re going to die like this—useless, broken, worthless,” Kyungsoo coolly murmurs.
In an instant, Yoongi swipes at Kyungsoo with his left leg but Kyungsoo must have anticipated it because he easily dodges it and jumps back. Yoongi’s eyes have turned fully black, he’s crouching forward, putting his full weight on his left leg.
“I don’t want to fight you.” Kyungsoo states plainly, holding his palms out like a peace offering.
“What the fuck?” Yoongi hisses.
The strange confession makes Yoongi pause, but he narrows his eyes at him, not letting his guard down. Yoongi doesn’t intend on dropping his guard, but he doesn’t know what to do. Kyungsoo isn’t moving, openly staring at Yoongi instead.
“Okay, okay.” Kyungsoo holds his hands up like he’s surrendering and has the smallest smile on his face. “I get it. I didn’t want to do this but nothing has worked so far. I don’t like threats, it’s external motivation. I’d rather it be something you chose instead of forced to choose. Much more interesting.”
Yoongi is fully alert now, on the defense, an alarm bell ringing in his ears, the instinctive feeling that he’s in the presence of a hungry predator.
Kyungsoo lightly scratches the side of his head, like this is new and awkward for him. It almost looks comical.
“Jeongguk-ssi, was it?”
Yoongi growls, imperceptibly shifting his body so that his back is to the exit.
“He’s fearless, isn’t he? Strong too, and so helpful. Doing everything he can to help all his hyungs.”
Yoongi stays his ground and Kyungsoo keeps his distance, hands behind his back.
“Do you ever hear him at night? The nightmares that he keeps having? The names he keeps crying for?”
“Don’t.”
“I find that one so interesting..mm what was his name?” Kyungsoo looks up like he’s pretending to think, “Ah, right. Seokjin-ssi. If he were anything like us, I might be in trouble.” Kyungsoo smiles to himself.
“Stop.”
Yoongi’s heartbeat starts racing. There’s no room for second guessing, this is the only way he can protect them. He breathes in and dives deeply, letting go.
When he opens his eyes, Kyungsoo smiles back at him, his body already rippling into his other form.
“There we go,” Kyungsoo encourages.
“Hyung!” Namjoon’s voice cuts clearly through Yoongi’s mind.
Yoongi whips around, seeing Namjoon coming out from the doorway. He has one hand on the door handle and in the other, he’s holding their makeshift of a molotov cocktail.
“Hyung, come back!”
Kyungsoo walks towards Namjoon.
“Come on, Yoongi hyung!” Namjoon looks so grim, determined.
It isn’t the urgency in his voice that gets Yoongi to move. It’s the fact that Yoongi knows Namjoon can’t throw or aim for shit. That this mixture of uncoordinated limbs and clumsy hands of a person knows he’s probably going to miss, probably only going to piss off a monster, and probably going to die—all to save Yoongi.
In a space of a second, Yoongi is in front of Namjoon, prying the smoking bottle from Namjoon’s hand.
Namjoon looks so startled. “Are you okay?”
“Namjoon-ah, go.” Yoongi gently replies.
“Seokjinie hyung is coming up with reinforcement. He’s bringing Jiminie and Heeyeonie noona.”
“No, go. I’ll be fine. Wake everyone, arm yourselves.” Yoongi gently pushes him with his left hand, pain be damned. Yoongi puts on his hyung voice, “Now, Namjoon-ah.”
Namjoon nods, lets his eyes roam Yoongi’s face for a second—a question or a prayer written into them, Yoongi doesn’t know. He disappears down the staircase, as fast as his long legs take him.
Yoongi clicks the door shut, leans his head against it for a second.
“It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay.”
He turns back towards Kyungsoo, already fully changed.
Yoongi throws the bottle at Kyungsoo, but Kyungsoo swiftly sidesteps it.
Yoongi lunges for him.