Chapter Text
Nam-gyu’s world tilts on its axis in a swirl of beautiful technicolor.
Mingle. Mingle – with the stupid song and the stupid platform and their stupid, stupid dance. All bright lights and shouting, this thick dreadful something in the air that Nam-gyu is better off ignoring than trying to name. His attention is elsewhere, anyway. Focused. Zoned right the fuck in on the link of elbows and the terrible, wide-spread grin that had come just seconds before the platform threw them all off-kilter in its dramatic, thundering halt.
Thanos’ grin, of course. Bright and beautiful. The perfect cocktail of every best and worst thing about this place: some terrible mix of wild ultraviolet and spilled, sticky red. Staining, splattered, hidden in the dip of a subtle dimple and speckled across 230 like it outright belonged there. Something to wear loud and proud – more than a name or a number. A prize. Some honor in it. Some proof of invincibility, surely. Some hidden message in the crimson flecked constellations that promise that Choi Su-bong will never die.
He seems to believe it so, anyway. Sure acts like it: untouchable. Surely it’s easy to play god when the whole world shifts to center you as it does for Thanos. When you’re large enough to have guaranteed some undeniable, unavoidable orbit – and a mixed bag of orbiters, honestly – that steadies you front and center. Thanos holds his own just fine, there. Maintains his point at the center of the universe as naturally as he’d stand beneath a spotlight, and owns it just as easy. Picks up all sorts of debris on his way, but. But–
Two. Gyeong-su, then Se-mi, then Min-su. Nam-gyu. Chosen effortlessly, no question about it: two. Bullets whizzing and useless bits of brain and other matter scattering themselves about – open space, unmoored. None swept up in Thanos as easily as Nam-gyu is. Nothing close enough. Nothing – no one – that matters as much. Because he was chosen. Nam-gyu was, always. Each and every time. All until there were two.
Itching, fraying, stuttering; some unintelligible string of words that get them from the platform to the door. Clawing through obstacles, kicking and shoving and giggling all the while, unrestrained. Nam-gyu recalls no other feeling like this one. Such abject giddiness, such belonging. Two.
It’s easy, here, to twist fate as Thanos does. Nam-gyu’s been invited, after all. Knows, just for a moment, the way that it tastes: pressed bitter between teeth in pretty, colorful tablets at the beginning of each and every game; less acrid this time around. Easier to swallow. Perhaps to do with the game itself; perhaps just Thanos, but Nam-gyu is on top of the world. Feels more alive than ever – even here – as he and Thanos leave everyone else behind.
Two. Just two.
The room they land on is bright red. Suits them – suits Thanos – well. Casts him all rosy; fitting. It makes Nam-gyu laugh. Screams swallow the sound.
“You and me, my boy.” The words come with gunfire. Nam-gyu catches them all, though – doesn’t miss a single syllable. Hard to when he watches Thanos’ lips as he does. “My Nam-su.”
My. Nam-gyu finds himself laughing again, too elated for anything else that matters. Thanos hears it for sure this time, Nam-gyu is sure, because he smiles back. Doesn’t even matter that it was wrong. My.
Takes root in Nam-gyu’s chest and blooms, warm and new and real. Winding between ribs and taking hold of his quick beating heart – my. Thanos’. His. Nam-gyu feels weightless. He’s never been anyone’s anything. Someone’s something. Worth choosing, and worth choosing first. The very shape of him is made of stitched together almosts and could have beens.
Never with Thanos, though. Never in here, where he is protected, picked, limitless.
But – “you mean it?” – he asks.
Just to be sure. Just in case. And what is he even asking, anyway? He’s overthinking, probably. Looking for some grand meaning that simply does not exist. Some hidden message that means what he thinks it means, something that says what he so badly wants to hear Thanos say: you matter. You’ve always mattered. You matter the most.
Nam-gyu moves before he can hear the answer.
Thanos’ cheek first. The smallest dip of his dimple – Nam-gyu’s been staring at it the whole time they’ve been here. Thanos smiles so much that it’s hard not to fixate on, and even more so when it’s smeared with blood as it is.
Nam-gyu’s stepping forward, grabbing hold of his jaw and licking it clean before he can think better of it.
Copper, salt. Thanos’ surprised little gasp, his open mouth. Nam-gyu’s eager for it all, chases it all. Shifts his lips to slide against Thanos’ and tastes – simple. All that Thanos is, was, ever will be at the tip of Nam-gyu’s tongue, and his for the taking.
My. Nam-gyu understands. He feels the same. Drunk on it, his blood absolutely singing. My, my, my. All his life, he’s longed for exactly this. Born for exactly this moment: the draw back and the glimpse of all that’s finally his, all his, but it’s–
All wrong. All wrong, and fast.
Wrong, wrong, wrong; something decidedly and specifically off about it. Nam-gyu’s vision hazy, Thanos’ features blurring – skin melting right through Nam-gyu’s fingers where he once held Thanos’ jaw tight. With it, the red of the room goes all muddy with him, swirling together into some warped, marbled thing, and their voices blend right into the soup of it all.
Suddenly, Nam-gyu can’t hear him anymore. Can’t feel him anymore. Feels – feels – all sick, hot. The walls of the room closing in on him, the air growing thicker and thicker until he can hardly breathe at all. Whatever warmth sprouted between his ribs chokes him, now. Weaves its way into his throat and clogs it all the way. He tries to call out to Thanos, but he finds it’s no use. Two. Just the two of them, as it should be. Always destined for it, from the very first time they met. Going red and runny and melting into one until–
One.
Nam-gyu is upright in an instant.
Some trembling, chest heaving, raw throat thing he is. Bones vibrating, blood all hot. All wrong. This staticky press of old cotton sheets on skin and with sweat that makes it all stick, a heart beating ceaselessly against the cage of Nam-gyu’s ribs like it aches for nothing more than an escape. No real life in it, ironically. Feels all... hollow. Shallow.
Always does, nowadays. Something about being just one.
Nam-gyu swallows, and tries to take it all in. Blinks – slow. The room is familiar. His. No red, no gunshots. Trades steel-lined bunks and tinny speaker classical for his mattress on the floor – no bedframe – and the shrill sound of an alarm that invites another day.
A miracle, he’d say, if he were any less himself. If he were any more grateful. Six months since he’d been tossed half naked onto the cold, damp pavement, trembling and bound. Near freeze-burned by the memories and by the hollow cusp of frigid November – alone – as he’d stumbled back into the real world and tried his hardest to figure out his place in all... this. A distinct before and after about it all, now. Some cruel, unyielding torture in being one.
Begging for his spot back at Pentagon hadn’t helped. Had only made it worse, really; Nam-gyu’s found he’s doomed to blurred recollections of the during that come in flashing club lights, this awful ache that kicks up in his chest on the comedown of every high. All better – should be better, because he’s alive, and he’s got the money, but – just isn’t. Just some awful, unnamed sting of all that’s empty now, bright purple flashes in the darkest places that he looks for shapes in but can’t ever quite make out. The bile he tastes on the back of his tongue when he stares too hard at patterns in cracked bathroom tile. Not the same, no, but still all–
Filthy. Tainted, every last bit of his life. Blood soaked. Nam-gyu can feel it beneath his fingernails, still – in the grooves of rings he can’t even bear wearing anymore. Hot, slick crimson – thick, rich, Thanos – burning. The smell clings just as bad. All this time later and still somehow spilling fresh; the slow seeping bloom of red on numbered green.
Nam-gyu left to clean up the mess, of course. To tug the fork free from Thanos’ ribs and dirty his own hands, to snap when someone else got too close. The fury of blunt metal and mangled skin, Nam-gyu going overboard; he’d thought – he’d thought Thanos was done for. Dragged him back and held firm on the wound through the night when he wasn’t. Kept him alive. Scared and shaking and as small as Nam-gyu had ever seen him, but alive. Now?
Nam-gyu doesn’t know. Not like he’s heard from the fucker the entire time they’ve been out, and his socials are all dark. It’s entirely possible he’s already long dead. Bloated and water-logged, rounding out his plans to take a dip in the Han River after all. Nam-gyu wouldn’t blame him for it. He certainly entertains the same sort of thought, these days.
Doesn’t change how it feels, though.
Lonely – which is laughably fucking juvenile. Cold. Terrifying. Empty. Like there’s no one left alive who could ever understand.
And Nam-gyu kinda hates that. Hates that a lot. This thrilling, fleeting taste of being known, of being seen – of not being cast out and laughed at; called junkie, yes, but not with bite. They’d been one in the same, after all. How warm. How lovely.
How fucked. Mutually, undeniably, probably eternally. Just fucked.
Fucked enough to find some meaning in all of it, though, really. Some fun. In clasped hands and gunshots and Mingle, in a scene where Nam-gyu is chosen each and every time, and dreams of it even still. Where the end twists itself into a moment when he’d had the guts to make it matter – the playing god – and close the gap. Lick the blood clean for real, drink down the gasps as they come. Where everything to straighten out the shaky lines of what it all means had actually happened, rather than the smiles caught on heavy breaths, staring at one another in the relative silence – his question unanswered. The tension so thick Nam-gyu can taste it still. Mourns not acting on.
It’s what wakes him up when he dreams of this, usually – the nice ending. It’s out of character for him; it gives him away. As if Nam-gyu would dare break free from orbit to allow himself a true taste of the star itself. As if.
But it leaves him hard anyway. Fantasy or not, the proximity still drives him. Brushing fingers and shared breath and an arm around his shoulders: the mere idea of it all. The feeling’s too big to do anything with – typical. Excites Nam-gyu like nothing else, though. Reminds him of a cliff’s edge and tastes more like home than the pathetic life he’s come back to, blood soaked tracksuit a better fit than his own skin.
It’s also much, much better than the loose, aimless worrying. The crossfade of shitty bars where the flashing lights never compare to what was, the endless refresh of an Instagram page seemingly abandoned. So what else is he to do but lean into it?
Nam-gyu’s always sure there’s something wrong with him whenever he does. Spitting hot and shameless into his hand and pushing past his waistband to curl around himself, he wonders how it might feel if it were Thanos doing it. Or, better, if it were Thanos’ cock he could spread the slickness over, rather than his own. He dreams of that sometimes, too. One of his favorite endings to the scene. Follows the slammed shut door quickly, usually; features Nam-gyu closing the distance and taking just what it is that he wants so badly. Enamored openly instead of swallowing it all, drinking down all that’s beautiful and golden and right about Thanos to soothe what’s rotten about himself, to fill in any and all of the gaps. To own and claim and take from – give – to have Thanos warm and all his in his hand.
To own anything at all. To taste what it is to mean something, to show someone what they mean back. Common ground in the ugly. Craving, need. Love, in some twisted, too soon way. Intense and right away and all Nam-gyu has, no matter how desperate and disgusting devotion looks on him. The way it twists itself into what surely comes off as begging. Pathetic.
But Nam-gyu comes either way. It builds all eager and tears through him violently – countless shards of the almost and the maybe and the could have been. Less than a minute after and he’s already feeling the loss again as the memory of his dream starts to blur at the edges, real life crowding back in alongside his consciousness. From the top of the world to the bottom of the heap again, all courtesy of the one and only Choi Su-bong.
Nam-gyu wipes his filthy longing onto the sheets. Where else do feelings like this go? Nam-gyu wishes he knew. He’s all but bursting at the seams with them. Made of all he isn’t and never what he is, and doomed to burn with it forever. Just sort of – floating. Waiting for it all to make sense. He’s not sure it ever will. Life, and the fact that he’s still living it at all. Loss. All the worry and the way he finds himself starving and never full; all the times he itches to act but never does.
Love, and all things like it. Whatever it looked like then: clasped hands and giggling and this winding, awful panic, blood beneath Nam-gyu’s fingernails, and – now. Whatever this is. All that’s left behind, empty. One. With only one left out there who understands.
So he pulls out his phone again, pulls up Instagram. Lets all the old and familiar pictures of Thanos populate on his screen. Nothing new. Nothing real either; all flashy shit, cheap, ugly, phony, but–
Nam-gyu can’t really do anything else but this. Can’t let it go, either. Compulsive.
He flips through the photos a while, like something might change.
He’ll keep refreshing.