Work Text:
It’s clear. Not simple. Not straightforward. Certainly not easy. But it’s clear.
Protect.
Protect, a small voice had whispered inside of a four-year-old Jo Yeong. A small child with a child’s view of the world— really only the understanding that there were tears on the older boy’s face where it hurt little Jo Yeong to see, and the tears needed to go away. Protect.
Protect, that same voice had whispered as Yeong grew older, understood more, and, most importantly, came to care for Lee Gon. It was this voice that spurred him on as he mastered techniques from sword fighting to horse riding to guns to hand to hand combat. The Unbreakable Sword was a title Yeong had both been given freely and earned with his very blood. Protect.
Protect, was the instinct that screamed something was wrong, wrong, wrong as the king disappeared and reappeared again; that looked into the eyes of a devastated Jeong Tae-eul as she watched the king nearly dying from poison and kept her away for fear that perhaps she wasn’t who she said she was; that waited in the bamboo forest until Lee Gon came riding up and swore not to leave his side. Protect.
It shouldn’t be complicated. It was never complicated before. There was always one goal for Jo Yeong that superceeded any and every other.
Protect Peyah. Protect the king. Protect Lee Gon.
Only now there are two. The king whom he’d grown up with and protected stood at Yeong’s side, fighting with skill; but on the ground lay a young child.
Lee Gon and Lee Gon. Yeong could not protect them both.
It’s a decision that Gon himself makes in the end, making eye contact with Yeong across the room, a simple nod as Yeong leans over, shielding the child with his body, looking toward his king.
Stay with him. Stay with me when I needed you more.
It’s a decision that made sense, the child needs protection and the king has a duty that Yeong cannot shield him from. So Jo Yeong let Lee Gon go— and stayed right by his side.
***
Sheltering the helpless child with his body was instinct for Yeong, made only easier by the fact that the child was a young Lee Gon. But as the king turned to go and carry out the final piece of his mission Yeong grew more aware of the uniqueness of the situation.
This child is his king. This child is the child he grew up with, the child Yeong remembers crying so heart wrenchingly in his earliest memories of Gon. This child just minutes ago experienced a trauma and heartbreak that would change his entire life, forcing him far too early into burdens his young heart and small shoulders should never have had to bear.
Yeong looked around the room, his heart beginning to shatter into small pieces. The broken glass, blood, snow, and bodies was the stuff of nightmares, the bruises around Gon’s neck beginning to show in livid colors.
Yeong had heard of all this before, but he hadn’t seen it. He’d grown up hearing in hushed tones of the bloody scene, broken glass and bodies as young Gon had been found laying on the floor covered his father’s and his uncle’s blood. Yeong hadn’t seen it— but he’d seen the aftermath.
He’d seen the way Lee Gon woke up screaming for years until he grew old enough to wake with a sharp gasp, fright clearing from his eyes. He’d seen the way the king had flinched from physical contact unless it was clearly telegraphed and only from a choice few. To the public their king had grieved heartbreakingly but had recovered well, always grieving his parents, but stepping up to his responsibilities. But Yeong had watched his friend breaking down in private, overwhelmed by the decisions that fell onto his young shoulders, never really recovering from the trauma of that night.
Yeong hadn’t been lying when he’d told Kang Sin-Jae that the king slept under the shadow of death.
Yeong had seen the aftermath and now he was seeing the event itself, more gruesome and horrible for the young child than he had even imagined.
Only this time— Yeong was here with him.
He was holding the child Lee Gon, cradling him in his arms. Gon felt tiny, bleeding, and helpless and Yeong wanted nothing more than to reverse time even further to stop this small child from losing things he’d already lost— both his father and his innocence.
Yeong felt the bullet wounds in his own flesh, felt the pain sucking the breath out of his body, but all of that was secondary to the young boy laying unconscious in his embrace.
He stroked the child’s cheek, his fingers shaking as he gently felt for a pulse. His touch was weak with loss of blood, but his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly as he felt the beating of Gon’s heart. Yeong’s own heart tightened as he grew intimately conscious of the steady beat. There was no age or version of Lee Gon that Jo Yeong wouldn’t die for, but this young child brought out an extra protective fire in his belly.
Helpless.
That was a word that Yeong had never associated with Lee Gon. The king had always had a security detail but he’d always been able to fend for himself in Yeong’s memory. The king had grown up far too fast and had learned how to fight early, his protection detail was necessary and Gon understood the importance of letting others protect him, but Lee Gon was no maiden in distress.
This child Lee Gon had none of the king’s proficiency. He was simply a boy, half-conscious, going into shock, clinging to a stranger for protection and comfort.
Yeong desperately gave as much as he could, trying to pour out the years of affection that he had for the older counterpart into the small, grieving, injured boy.
Yeong could feel the heartbeat racing under his fingers, the soft child’s skin heated with fever, and somehow these sensations drowned out the extreme pain of Yeong’s own injuries. His vest had taken far too many bullets leaving his ribs a mess, but not all of the bullets had hit the vest and by all accounts Yeong knew he should be in agonizing pain. He was, in some corner of his brain that he had relegated to the unimportant as the child became the only thing he was conscious of.
His heart was splitting into two jagged halves as he held the boy, the ache only furthered as he felt the small hand innocently reach up to grasp weakly at his arm.
Instinctively Yeong covered the small hand gently with his, holding him as tightly as he could without bringing the child pain.
It was, in reality, only a few minutes that Yeong was allowed to hold the child, but he never remembered it in moments. It was a precious, precious thing that he had been given, the opportunity to bring comfort and protection to the boy who Yeong never been able to protect before. He’d protected him later, but to hold and care for Lee Gon on the night when he arguably needed such love the very most was a gift beyond imagination.
Yeong heard the palace staff racing down the hall, beginning to wail before they even saw the full extent of the tragedy, and the practical part of his mind took over even as his heart protested leaving, extracting himself out from under the boy and laying him down with utter gentleness before dragging himself away.
Yeong slumped against the brick wall, the pain finally taking its rightful place in his consciousness as the wails of the staff grew louder as they saw the devastation.
Tears slipped down Yeong’s cheek.
Jo Yeong was crying. Crying as the pain washed over him in waves, as too much blood left his body, yet his tears were not for himself. Jo Yeong was crying for the child Lee Gon who would wake up without a father, without a mother, and with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Jo Yeong was crying for the king Lee Gon who at that very moment was sacrificing the things he held most dear to bring order to the worlds. Jo Yeong was crying for his dear friend, whom he wasn’t sure if he would ever see again. He might die in this place - he hoped that over the thought that Gon might die - but if he died he had died fulfilling his duty to the fullest.
His only regret, as darkness flitted at the edge of his vision and slowly took over, was that if he died could not protect the king for the rest of Lee Gon’s life.
***
Gon knew that new memories were forming, could almost feel the small changes that were occurring with every change he and Yeong had made, but he let them be for now.
There was no time to explore new memories.
For now Lee Gon had succeeded in his mission - Lee Lim was dead - and immediately embarked on another one— get Yeong.
His faithful friend had followed him to the end and now that the worlds had been saved Yeong was Gon’s only priority.
Jo Yeong will not die tonight.
Gon could never remember the specifics of exactly how he managed to get his friend away, only remembering the ghostly pallor of Yeong’s skin, the blood drying on it with striking contrast, and the moan of pain that wrenched Gon’s heart as he lifted his captain over his shoulder.
Perhaps it was adrenaline that made Yeong feel hardly heavier than a young child, but Gon spared hardly a thought as he raced to the bamboo forest, muttering apologies under his breath as Yeong threaded in and out of consciousness.
“Peyah...” Yeong’s voice was weak.
“Shhhh, shhh, Yeong-a, I’m all right, just please, please—“ please don’t die.
They made a predictable splash as they returned to the bamboo forest, quickly discovered by the guards. No one knew why or how the king had appeared carrying the hardly conscious Captain Jo, both of them covered in blood, and no one ever would except perhaps one very perceptive old woman. Gon deflected the many questions with urgency,
“Captain Jo needs help, now!” The guards scuttled to obey.
The next hours, almost a day, were a blur to Gon. Questions from everyone that he couldn’t— wouldn’t answer, uproar and panic in every part of the castle, flustered attendants cleaning him and dressing him, doctors looking grave and shaking their heads, a room that even he, the king, was barred from, where Yeong lay.
Finally, finally, in the wee hours of the morning Prince Buyeong laid a gentle hand on Gon’s shoulder. Gon started, the sudden realization that his actions had made it so the prince never died in the first place flooded him with a weary triumph. He stood and flung his arms around the older man. The prince was taken aback by the unusual emotion but didn’t comment on it, gently returning the embrace and stroking his nephew’s head.
“The surgeries are finished,” he said quietly. “Captain Jo is sleeping. He’s still in danger but he’s survived this long and I have hope, Peyah. You may see him if you’d like.” Gon nodded mutely, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion and relief before he shakily made his way to Yeong’s bedside. He sank in a sort of controlled fall into the chair with the prince staying steadily by his side.
“Yeong-a,” Gon murmured, voice choking off as he took in the sight of the faithful captain laying on the bed, face almost as pale as the white pillowcase his head rested on. Yeong was still; very, very still, and looked frighteningly fragile.
Gon gently laid his hand over the limp one laying on the covers, his warm fingers curling around Yeong’s cool ones as he willed some of his warmth into his friend. He sat quietly for a minute before Prince Buyeong touched his shoulder.
“You should get some sleep, Peyah. He’s in a medically induced coma, he won’t know you’re here.”
Gon shook his head. “I’m staying with him.”
“Peyah, you are exhausted—“
“I can sleep here.”
The prince let out a quiet breath, but nodded. “Rest well, Peyah.” He left the room quietly.
In the dim, relative quiet of the room, with his friend in a critical but stable condition Gon finally could allow his mind to wander.
The new memories that had formed as he had rewritten the story of his life for a third time had been murmuring for attention and at last he paid it. There were now two version of the night where everything had begun from his perspective as a child. The first was the original, the mysterious rescuer that had turned out to be himself. The second was the newer version, not one rescuer but two.
His memories of the fatal night had always been relatively clear— or at least not faded, it was no surprise that they were still so. In both versions he’d been protected but in one of them he’d been cared for.
Gon remembered it— a memory he was seeing for the first time yet had also looked back on for years.
Amidst the grief, horror, and trauma of that horrible night, Gon remembered the arms that had enclosed him in an protective embrace and sheltered him from the horror of everything that had happened. He remembered the warmth of the man’s body in contrast with the sticky coolness of the blood drying on his own skin, and the hard cold of the stone he lay on.
He remembered the fear that the embrace had chased away, the security and utter safety in the man’s arms. Amidst the horror around them, the thing that stood out most was the stranger’s protective love.
It had changed this second version of his life for the better.
Gon could remember his child-self clinging to the mysterious man who held him so gently, and he could remember a childhood of growing up remembering that embrace.
This vivid memory was one he had revisited often in this other, slightly different version of his life. There were not many differences between the first time he had grown up and the second version— really only two. He had still wondered about and searched for his rescuers (both of them) but less often had he wondered with hurt why they did not come for him. There had been too much care in that embrace for him to wonder if he’d been abandoned by them.
The second was that touch had held comfort for him. The touch of strangers and servants had still been something he’d held a traumatic aversion to, but touch from three people in particular had been a solace, more so than the ‘first’ time he had grown. Lady Noh, Prince Buyeong, and Yeong were the ones who could comfort Lee Gon with just a few moments of contact.
Yeong’s embrace that night had not changed much outwardly, but it had given young Lee Gon something safe to remember about that night, and that had made a radical difference to him.
Gon’s hand tightened over Yeong’s as he explored the new memory and it’s effects.
The embrace— it was more than protection. Because Jo Yeong had never simply protected him. Yeong had long ago taken on a far heavier burden than simply keeping Gon physically safe. From the moment Yeong had handed him the small sustenance in front of the thousands who watched their king grieving, from when he’d burst into sympathetic tears at the sight of Gon’s grief, Yeong had shouldered a burden of loyalty and care for Gon in every respect.
Jo Yeong would not only take bullets for him, he would cradle Lee Gon in his arms after doing so.
It wasn’t that Gon had never realized this before but sitting at Yeong’s bedside, praying that his friend would recover from his wounds as he sorted through these precious new-old memories of his dear friend, Yeong’s care for him had became almost tangible.
And quietly, holding Yeong’s hand between both of his own, tears slipped in rivers down the king’s face.
“Don’t leave me, Yeong-a.”
***
Yeong could feel Gon’s eyes tracing over the still-healing scars, red and puckering his skin.
It was three weeks since the fateful night when both of them had left to complete a mission neither of them knew they’d return from. Over a week of that time was a haze of fever and pain to Yeong, he remembered little beyond a hand that rarely let go of his and a voice that begged him to stay. A voice he wouldn’t disobey.
It would still be a few weeks until he could resume full duties as the captain of the guard and he had some painful physical therapy in the future, but he was very happy to be leaving the hospital room. He changed out of the light hospital shirt and trousers into more familiar clothing with relief as Gon stood quietly nearby.
Yeong could see the slight increase of tension in his friend’s jaw, the look of suppressed guilt in Gon’s eyes as his gaze softly traced the new scars. These were certainly not the only scars Yeong had gained in service to Lee Gon, there were others— though these had been by far the most dangerous. They would not be the last scars either; both of them knew that.
Both of them knew that Yeong would willingly follow and protect Gon to the death, that it was a decision Yeong made daily with full knowledge of the danger and sacrifice required, and that Yeong never regretted these decisions that he made. With all this in mind Gon should not feel guilty when his loyal friend got hurt. But that didn’t mean Gon didn’t feel guilty, and both of them knew that as well.
“I insisted on coming with you, you’ll remember.” Yeong broke the silence with a small smile, verbally fighting back against the thoughts he could read on his friend’s face.
“Ah.” Gon looked mildly startled for a moment at being so easily read, but he returned with a gentle smile of his own. “Yes, I do remember that, Yeong-ah.” He looked down briefly, “I could have ordered you to stay behind.”
“Respectfully, Peyah, I wouldn’t have obeyed.”
“Yah!” Gon looked offended, “you can’t just disobey a king’s order!” He swatted at Yeong who dodged it easily with a slight smile that for anyone else would be the equivalent of a very wide, mischievous grin.
“Of course not, Peyah.” The words and tone were respectful. Too respectful. It was a game Yeong loved to play; as the rest of the palace and public saw the devoted, respectful bodyguard, the sarcasm and subtle jabs toward his friend never passed over Gon’s head. Gon exclaimed over the disrespect with a noisy huff of air as laughter danced in Yeong’s eyes while the rest of his expression remained impassive.
The light moment was broken a few seconds later as Yeong sucked in a breath of pain as he struggled to don his shirt. Gon was by his side in a moment, holding the shirt at a better angle to make it less painful for Yeong to slip his arm through the sleeve. Their eyes met as Yeong slowly did so, the irony of the situation gripping both of them in their switched roles. But while Gon gave a slight smile, Yeong just ducked his head and pulled away to button the shirt.
They were both quiet for almost a minute.
If there was ever a time, Gon thought, to speak of what had happened that night, the time was now. Before Yeong returned to his duties and Gon to his throne, before both pretended that they never knew of the many worlds and timelines. Gon absently toyed with his sleeve before breaking the silence with a soft,
“Yeong?”
Yeong turned toward Gon, eyebrow raised slightly at the unusual use of his name. It was always ‘Yeong-a’ or ‘Yeongie’ between them, a nickname or an affectionate honorific, the more formal ‘Captain Jo’ or ‘Jo Yeong’ only if others were around.
“Yes, Peyah?”
“I remember you holding me.”
Gon was standing in his usual resting position, hands clasped behind his back in the kingly position, but he wasn’t quite looking at Yeong.
Yeong looked down with a small nod, a slight smile on his lips.
“I suppose you would.” He finished buttoning up the shirt for lack of anything else to do. He wasn’t sure he wanted to speak about that moment, it was a memory that was precious to him and he didn’t want to be teased about it.
“Yeong-a...” There was a plaintive unsurety to the quiet call, something about the way Gon almost shyly avoided his captain’s gaze - so uncharacteristic of the man who’d been a king for so long - that Yeong studied him with a gentle curiosity.
No, it wasn’t the king who was speaking to him, or his friend who wanted to tease him. This was just a boy— the boy Yeong had held in his arms. Yeong understood the plea that Gon didn’t even know he was making.
There was a lost look in the young king’s eyes, the look of a man who didn’t know where to begin looking for his love, of a man who had almost lost his best friend and closest confident, of a man who had too many memories, of a man who needed—
Stability.
Care.
Protection.
Gon saw Yeong’s face soften as he called his friend’s name. He was not sure why he was doing so or what he was asking for, only sure that there was something he needed from Yeong, something Yeong could give. Yeong’s response still took him by surprise.
The younger man approached with a swift surety and quietly wrapped his arms around the king.
“Yeong-a,” Gon murmured in surprise, but Yeong only tightened the embrace ever so slightly.
It was a gesture with two different lifetimes worth of meaning attached to it. An embrace like this between the king and his captain was less uncommon in the newer set of memories than it was in the original, but it was still unusual, even more so from being initiated by Yeong.
But it felt the same as it had in Gon’s memories.
Yeong was weaker from his injuries, smaller because Gon was larger, but the embrace was the same. Warm care, steady strength, protection, kindness, loyalty— Gon sank into the embrace with a vulnerability he’d show to no one else, fighting back rather un-king-like tears. He felt Yeong’s hand move to his shoulder, squeezing with a comforting pressure and managed a small laugh.
“I’m not a child anymore, Yeongie,” his voice was rough and broke a little at the name, undermining his words. Yeong smiled a bit but didn’t move to let go.
“I know, Peyah.”
Gon wrapped his arms around Yeong, more gently, so as not to hurt his injured friend, and let himself bury his head in Yeong’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Yeong-a,” he whispered.
Neither needed to say for what.