Work Text:
“Wait, please –“
Jungkook stumbles after him, trying not to trip over discarded logs and thick patches of thorns. He outstretches a hand, trying to grab the back of his coat, but his fingertips only manage to lightly brush the fabric before it moves out of reach.
The path had long since grown wild. Wind rattled the crooked fingers of the bare branches that rub together to click and creak, as if the gnarled roots ripping in and out of the ground like some sort of sea creature were trying to curl harder into the soil. The sunset has not dimmed the sun entirely, but the dark doesn’t care here.
Jungkook’s steps are loud, crunching sticks under his heel. It echoes, in the silence of the twilight, in the watching whispers of the trees, and a steady throb of pain in his ankle only makes him clumsier. He can’t catch up.
“Wait!”
A cold sweat on the back of his neck, an imprint of fingernails scraping down the length of his spine. The burn of eyes on his back, but when he turns to look, there is nothing, and no one. The path behind them had been swallowed up, in the shadows of the coming night.
The uneasiness winds once, twice, around his throat.
Jungkook hurries, to fall behind.
“Jimin! Wait!”
Jimin’s steps are quiet, and he parts through the winding patches of bare dirt and rotting flowers like he knew exactly where to place his feet to make them bend around him. He almost disappears without passing a glance over his shoulder, and the trees press in eagerly until Jungkook trips forward.
Eyes on his back. Feathers hidden in-between the mushrooms, the colours dull and dimmed, but no birds in the trees.
Wherever Jimin is leading him, it grows darker, and colder, until the trees start to peel and the grass starts to wither, and the wind pinches tight against Jungkook’s face. He has no choice but to follow, turning back not an option.
“Where are we going? What –“
Jimin stops in his tracks. Jungkook almost runs into him, and he reaches for him, but Jimin is looking at something behind him. He’s never seen this expression on his face before, and the grip on his throat tightens.
The tease of fingernails on his spine trails up and up, but he doesn’t dare to look. Without their movement, the forest is completely silent, as no forest should ever be.
“Come on. Quickly,” Jimin says in no more than a whisper, the first thing he’s said since he dragged Jungkook into the forest, and walks deeper into the dark.
The sap bleeding from the trees is black. Fog, or cold, pools at their feet, winding around their legs, the sunset too far away.
Each repeating tree and stone strips away the idea of time. The throb in his ankle is enough of a gauge.
Jungkook glances behind him, a nervous, scared little thing he regrets at once. The shadows move behind a husk of a tree.
When he turns back to Jimin, he’s stopped.
They’d reached a small clearing where nothing grew. It was a small, wobbly space that was neither quite a circle nor a square, life undecided on how much it wanted to crawl away. It was surrounded by trees that were no more than trunks, having melted with age that hollowed out its core, yet they remained in the moment of after-death. Dead, shrivelled pieces of grass lay in the dark soil, flattened as if they were trying to stretch as far as their roots would allow. Here, the fog lingers on the edges, and the sky above the clearing is dark.
In the middle of the clearing rests a shrine. It has crumbled, lost to the time that took its builders long ago, the moss growing in the cracks of carved stone making the faces contort grotesquely.
Before Jungkook can ask what it’s doing here, deep in the forest that has long since grown over the last traces of its worshippers, Jimin moves his hands to cover his face, and he lets out a gasp that echoes in the cup of his palms.
There’s a man tied to the shrine.
The rope that winds around the man’s arms and legs holds him immobile against the stone, no slack or give at all. His eyes are covered by a stark white piece of cloth that sinks into the sockets, tight enough to see the imprint of his eyes screwed up under them. Gagging his mouth is another white cloth, yet this one is stained where he’s bled.
Blood drips from the man’s fingertips, and the dark soil drinks every last drop before it can settle on its surface.
Jungkook staggers back a step, almost crossing the threshold back into the forest. He blinks, wondering if the man will disappear, but he remains. It unsettles his stomach, and the silence is deafening. He opens his mouth, to ask perhaps, but he finds himself speechless.
“Oh,” Jimin lowers his hands, and his breathing is quick, watery. He takes a step forward, looking up at the man. He knots his hands into his sleep clothes tight enough for his knuckles to pop, once he stops himself from reaching out.
“He’s still alive,” Jungkook says, with a certain amount of horror, and it’s true. The man’s chest barely moves, and one of his fingers twitches.
The wind ruffles the man’s hair, and if he knows they’re there, he doesn’t react.
“Jimin,” Jungkook swallows. The cloth in the man’s mouth is stained with his blood in a way that almost makes it look like he’s smiling. Painted lips, stretched like a clown’s. Far too wide for it to be anything but unsettling.
Jimin comes back to himself then, and he breathes in deep. It’s hard to tell if he’s shaking from the cold or not.
“Help me get him down.”
In a daze, Jungkook approaches, taking a knife he hadn’t known Jimin brought. The ropes around the man look like someone had tied them in a hurry. It’s a tough, coarse rope that seem to fight their attempts to cut through it. The dark makes him think that the rope is healing itself, but he dismisses it as his eyes tricking him.
The man groans, choked by the pain, and Jimin shushes him softly, his hands trembling where they grip the knife. They’re both careful not to touch the raw skin under the ropes.
When the ropes finally yield, the man almost collapses to the ground. He’s heavier than he looks, all sharp elbows and blood-soaked skin, and Jungkook tries not to gag at the smell of his blood so close.
With both of them fumbling to hold him in a way that won’t hurt the cuts the ropes had hidden, they manage to lay the man down on the ground, his back against the dead grass. His arms and legs are rubbed raw, and he has no strength but to jerk them every now and then. His breathing through his nose is rough, and his eyes struggle against the cloth.
The shrine is empty without its offering, the faces blurred with age frowning.
Jimin gently slides the knife under the cloth around the man’s mouth, and the man stills. His nostrils flare, trying to see them through the cloth while his arms twitch. When it falls away, Jungkook moves it from his lips, discarding it with the ropes that coil nearby.
Without the gag, it’s easier to see the jut of his cheekbones, the slight curl of his hair that is slick with sweat and dew. A face unsuited to the prison, unfitting of any crime.
When Jimin frees his eyes, they fly open at once.
His eyes are completely pitch black.
Jungkook’s heart leaps into his throat. The fingernails on his back threaten to sink in, and he almost jumps up, his ankle protesting until Jimin firmly grabs his wrist.
“It’s okay,” Jimin pulls him back down. His eyes are damp, but he doesn't tear his gaze away from the man for long.
“Jiminie.”
The wind has quieted in the clearing, and the man groans softly, wincing at the ghost of the ropes. His black eyes are dull, the light in them dim as he blinks.
Jungkook grabs Jimin’s hand from the vice it was around his wrist, holding it tight, and he swallows.
Jimin closes his eyes, his breathing shaky as he lets the man’s voice wash over him, and opens them after a moment. He doesn’t look at Jungkook. It's almost like he can't decide whether or not to cry or grin.
“Jimin,” The man whispers, hushed like it was a prayer.
The ropes are not just rope, the cloth not ripped from a shirt, even though he cannot see what true traps he cut through. Jungkook glances at the knifes they’d discarded in the clumped soil besides them. The blade did not gleam as he’d expect, and if he could let go of Jimin’s hand, he doesn’t doubt that the iron would weigh heavy in his palm.
There’s a reason the dark chokes the sun in this part of the forest, and why everything died near this shrine. A part of Jungkook wants to laugh, or scream, but he doesn’t. He should, but he bites it back.
The look of raw despair on Jimin’s face keeps him from running.
“You came,” The demon half-heartedly licks his lips, the black of his blood dried on his chin. Where the cloth was tied around his face has left deep, red outlines around his eyes and mouth.
Something rustles near the stone, and Jungkook can barely spot the wisps of black feathers at the bottom of the shrine as the wind unsettles them. The demon’s true form is leaking out of his wounds, and the mere thought of it makes Jungkook shudder.
“Taehyung,” A few tears run down Jimin’s cheeks, and the soil takes them. The name causes the trees surrounding them to shift, the ones already not a husk, and the wind curls around them.
“Jimin,” Jungkook warns, but he falters. The demon rolls his head in his direction, and the sight of his empty eyes twists his insides.
Jimin hunches his shoulders, and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I’m freaking out.”
The demon – Taehyung, although the name sounds wrong in his head, a power he hadn’t earned – sinks his fingers into the soil, the pain a soft moan the wind swallows.
“Jungkookie,” Jimin turns to him, and the dark gathers in his tears, “I’m sorry.”
“Jiminie,” Taehyung repeats, so soft for a voice far deeper than Jungkook was expecting, and his eyelids flutter, “I knew you’d come.”
Jimin slides his hand out of Jungkook’s grip, and he pulls Taehyung’s hands out of the soil. The dirt smudges on his own hands, and Taehyung’s are clotted with his blood. Their hands slot together easily, and Taehyung doesn’t squeeze back.
“Of course,” Jimin leans forward, until his knees are almost touching Taehyung’s side, but he lingers on the cusp of contact. He holds their conjoined hands on his thigh, where the burn around Taehyung’s wrist from the cursed ropes blossoms blood into his trousers.
Taehyung smiles weakly, as if enjoying a joke no-one else heard, the blood cracking around his lips. His teeth are stark white in the twilight grey that settles uncertain over them. It doesn’t suit a demon.
“This wasn’t how I was supposed to see you again,” Jimin’s voice cracks, and he ignores Jungkook looking at him.
The demon is small on the ground, the shadow of the shrine creeping towards him. Jungkook’s legs tremble, remembering the shifting path of the forest that won’t lead him home if he runs now.
He waits for the attack, but Taehyung is looking at Jimin through half-lidded eyes, his hand limp in Jimin’s smaller one, bleeding without care in favour of tearing his throat to talk.
“They caught me,” Taehyung breathes, and he lets out a wheeze, “I wanted to get you the book.”
“Tae,” Jimin laughs, but he’s crying, “Look at you. They almost killed you.”
The trees whisper between their branches, and the cold listens around them. The night is fast approaching. Confusion tastes like fear, but Jungkook can see in the grey the look in his friend’s eye, and he quiets. The silence lets the two of them drift away together. Letting them forget he’s there, interrupting.
Jungkook’s fingers are bitten by the cold, and the sound of his shirt tearing is loud. He rips off a strip from the bottom.
“Taehyung,” Jimin says, and it means more than a name. He bites his lip.
When Jungkook ties the strip of his shirt around the bleeding cuts of his arm, Taehyung startles, jerking with a cry. He has no strength to fight, and Jungkook holds his hands up at once, almost tripping to move back.
“It’s okay,” Jimin is quick to reassure, to no one in particular. He adjusts the cloth on Taehyung’s arm, shooting Jungkook a ghost of gratitude.
Taehyung turns to look at him, and Jungkook tries not to squirm.
“You’re Jungkook?” He asks, and fresh blood trickles from his lips. It’s his own, but the back of Jungkook’s neck goes cold.
He wasn’t expecting the demon to know him, and Jungkook stiffens. His heart stutters in his chest, and he can feel the same terror that freezes a rabbit in a headlight.
Instead of remarking on it, Taehyung continues, unfocused, “Jiminie’s best friend. Wanted to meet you.”
“Um,” Jungkook glances at Jimin, but Jimin is staring at the imprint of the blindfold on Taehyung’s temples, “Are you, uh, okay?”
When Jimin makes a choked off cry in the back of his throat, Jungkook immediately looks behind them, the sensation of being watched squeezing his head almost painfully tight, but the dark weaving in-between the trees have retreated now that Taehyung is free. The trees do no more but glower at them.
But Taehyung’s hand has fallen through Jimin’s. His skin flickers, the quickest glimpse of the dead grass under him coming into view. Taehyung’s head is rolled towards Jimin, his hand outstretched where it fell, his fingers fading in and out of view. Breathing ragged, his entire form starts to waver at the edges, each seam of him slowly unpicking itself.
“No, no,” Jimin shoots out a hand to grab at him, his eyes wide and panicked, but he touches empty air, “Not yet, please. I haven’t seen you in months. Don’t go.”
“I have to go back, Jiminie,” Taehyung’s chest barely moves when he breathes, and his eyes are nearly closed, the black just peeking out, “I need to heal. You know I can’t stay long up here.”
The clouds have condensed above them, and the first drop of water splashes the moss outside the clearing.
Jungkook stays silent, still confused and scared, but he moves closer to Jimin.
“No,” Jimin pleads, and his voice wobbles. He almost makes to stand, if Jungkook didn't tug him back down, “They’ll try to kill you again.”
“They won’t. It was to hurt you, to hurt me more. Lesser demons can’t win against me.”
He reaches for Taehyung, only to pass through his arm. The blood stains in the soil remain, the only reminder he was ever there. Jimin balls his hands into fists, and he heaves.
“Don’t go,” Jimin whispers, tears curling from his eyelashes, diluting the black of the blood in the soil, “Please don’t leave me again.”
Taehyung’s eyes snap up. He looks like he wants to say something, but whatever it was, he doesn’t.
Instead, he reaches out one of his hands, fading into view just in time to see him grit his teeth against the pain of doing so, and grabs Jimin’s knee.
“I love you.”
Taehyung smiles then, strained by the pain, and Jimin places his hand where Taehyung’s won’t solidify. Scratching himself to try and grab hold.
“I’ll see you again. It’s easier not to say when, my love,” Taehyung manages to say, although he’s weaker, like it’s taking more effort than he has.
Struggling for breath, he makes a deal, although he fails to ask for something in return, “I promise. I’ll always come back to you.”
When Jimin reaches for him again, Taehyung is gone. A dark cloud of black smoke coils in the space Taehyung was. It bleeds black ichor from its edges, its movements sluggish and weak. It lingers, for a second, darker than the night around them, before it sinks into the ground.
The wind breezes through the clearing, and the strips of cloth they’d cut away limply flap in its wake. The piece of Jungkook’s shirt is crumpled amongst the grass, stained near black.
A few droplets of rain sound near them, and both of them are shivering now. Jimin bows his head, curling his hands in the bloodstains on his thighs. If he’s crying, he doesn’t want Jungkook to see.
The shrine looms over them, in the dead clearing, and the eyes seem to blink at them, pieces of cracked stone almost looking like hands reaching out for them the minute they turn their backs.
They need to leave. The forest is unsettled in the absence of its sacrifice, and nature despises a void.
“Jimin,” Jungkook says quietly, and he carefully places a hand on Jimin’s shoulder. He doesn’t shake it off, but he does shrink under it. “Come on.”
Jimin doesn’t fight him when he pulls him to his feet, when they cross the threshold of the clearing. He glances back at the shrine just once, but it remains empty.
In the dark, the forest refuses to part, the overgrown path they’d followed having disappeared in the maze of trunks and thorns, and the sensation of being watched is heavier than ever.
“Come on,” Jungkook grabs his hand, feeling the congealed blood and dirt stuck in the crooks, and waits until Jimin slowly laces their fingers together, the only sign he’s hearing him.
The rain is more of an indecisive mist that mixes with the fog creeping between roots, the taste of the water heavy in the air. When he blinks, Jungkook can see the white of the gag in Taehyung’s mouth, stained with the blood of a smile, and he shakes off the feeling. The steady throb of his twisted ankle is forgotten, almost.
He can’t make sense of what he’s seen, what he’s found out. The demon hadn’t tried to hurt them – he was vulnerable, but he made himself weaker. Jimin had known him, and had known he was trapped. What glimpses he got in their short conversation was sufficient to paint a clear enough picture.
The fear is still inside of him, and he thinks it will be until they find their way out, and he’s got answers.
But when he stands in the trees, the dark settling over what familiarity he had, his feet don’t move. The forest is noiseless. Whatever is watching them is content to wait in the corner of their eyes, lingering just out of view when they turn to look.
Just as he starts to panic, the first of the mushrooms pulls itself out of the soil in front of his feet. It struggles to hold itself upright, the jut of its head drooping under its flimsy stem, but it pushes through the foliage far faster than any normal mushroom would.
The next one grows a distance away from the first, the next one further ahead, and ahead. Winding through the snarls of roots, the looming mounds of soil. They begin to glow, one by one. The light flickers, weaker than a firefly’s dance, some spluttering out entirely in the grasp of the shadows. Yet they glow, ever so slightly, to form a path that stretches beyond.
A show of gratitude, perhaps.
In his grip, Jimin’s hand squeezes.
“You never told me. Why?” Jungkook doesn’t take his gaze from the mushrooms. It’s not an accusation, and the bolder drops of rain smack against the crooked branches above them.
He feels more than hears Jimin sag, stood close enough for their shivering to warm the other. He waits, and Jimin sniffs.
“It hurts, Jungkook. He’s not powerful enough to stay.” He pauses, and he adds, quiet, "With me."
There’s still tears in Jimin’s voice, and they follow the mushrooms.
“We can never – We can’t be together.” Jimin utters, and it pains him to say. He shakes his head, and brushes his foot against the mushroom hard enough for it to buckle.
“You love him.”
The last of the mushrooms stops near the end of the forest. They can see the civilisation they left behind. The glowing lights that the clouds shy away from, the bustle and hustle of people running into each other and running after their own lives and loves. The forest shrinks away from it, bitter in its depths. The mushroom turns to dust.
Later, Jungkook will ask Jimin how he knew that Taehyung was there, and Jimin won’t answer him until he’s drunk and crying one night and he says that he felt him calling to him. Later, Jungkook will make Jimin tea and get him a fresh pair of pyjamas, and sit close to him even though it won’t help. Even later, Jungkook will see the shadow in Jimin’s bed before it disappears in the moment Jimin comes through the door.
Now, Jimin doesn’t wipe his tears, and he smiles, a broken thing, and says, “Of course, Jungkookie.”
“Of course, I do.”