don’t get sentimental (it always ends up drivel)

by bittersweet_serendipity

Summary:

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with a sense of rising dread.

The object itself poses no issue. Round, shiny, entirely harmless. He shifts the item around his ringed fingers, examining the blurry, muddled reflection that shines back at him through the sphere. The issue isn't the object itself. It’s the color.

Light blue, the same color as the sky outside in the real world. Slowly, he turns his head towards where Nam-gyu stands in the crowd, his own plastic ball held tightly in his grasp. Blood red instead of blue — they’ve been placed on opposing teams.

— — —

(Thanos gets stuck in a time loop.)

Notes:

For the sake of this fic, this an AU where the bathroom fight never occurred, and team thanos (besides gyeong-su, obviously) all made it through the lights out fight unscathed! Hope you enjoy <3

Chapter 1: reality unwound

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with a sense of rising dread.

The object itself poses no issue. Round, shiny, entirely harmless. He shifts the item around his ringed fingers, examining the blurry, muddled reflection that shines back at him through the sphere. The issue isn't the object itself. It’s the color.

Light blue, the same color as the sky outside in the real world. Slowly, he turns his head towards where Nam-gyu stands in the crowd, his own plastic ball held tightly in his grasp. Blood red instead of blue — they’ve been placed on opposing teams.

Alarm bells begin to ring in the back of his head, loud and insistent. Fuck, he should’ve seen this coming.

Thanos makes a good show of being unbothered, because realistically speaking, he really should be. He always knew there was a high chance they’d find themselves in this position. Since the very beginning, Thanos has routinely reminded himself that his partnership with Nam-gyu is conditional, an alliance formed due to circumstances. It’s smart to have people to rely on in situations like this. That’s all.

He smiles lazily at a stress-stricken Nam-gyu, giving him a nonchalant half shrug. He tries to get his point across without words. “It’s fine. Don’t stress it.”

His carefree demeanor only serves to make Nam-gyu’s frown worsen. His eyes dart from the ball in his hand and back to Thanos in a continuous, jittery motion, appearing appalled at the situation he’s been placed into. Has he not stopped to consider this possibility? Not even once?

Thanos walks over to the other side of the room, ignoring the few looks of pity he gets thrown his way. He’s had Nam-gyu attached to his hip since the start — it’s clear that their separation is noticed by not only themselves, but also the players around them. How many of them are already beginning to view them as targets, weaker without their other half to rely on?

He watches silently as more players walk up to the gaudy machine, assigned a team by pure chance alone. Min-su gets placed on red alongside Nam-gyu, and neither looks thrilled with it. Se-mi gets blue, and while he tries to sidle up beside her immediately, speaking of partnership and teamwork, she seems rather uninterested.

“We don’t even know what the game is yet,” she says curtly, eyes glued to the emptying dispenser. “Teamwork might not even be an option.”

Thanos likes Se-mi’s bluntness and no-nonsense attitude. She’s a good person to keep on standby, the type of player who’s levelheaded and quick to act. What he doesn't like, however, is how swiftly she brushes him off.

“I’m lending a helping hand over here, señorita.” He grins confidently. “I’m The Legend Thanos! You can trust me, okay?”

Se-mi turns to face him fully, though her gaze flickers behind him for just a moment, eyes narrowing in muffled interest. The distraction is fleeting, and she returns her attention back to him quickly enough to make him believe he imagined the momentary blip. “...Lend a helping hand after the rules have been announced.”

Thanos tuts at the dismissal, but doesn't get the chance to comment on it further. As the last ball empties out of the machine, a guard steps up to the podium, addressing them all in the same commanding, yet emotionless drawl as always.

“The game you will be playing is hide-and-seek. The blue team must either find the exit and escape within thirty minutes, or stay hidden from the red team until the time is up.”

Ripples of discomfort wash over the crowd of players in harsh, steady waves. Thanos keeps his gaze forward, swallowing his discomfort and clenching his jaw.

“What about the taggers?” Another player pipes up. “Just like when we played as kids, all we have to do is find the ones hiding?”

“The red team, the taggers, must find members of the blue team and kill them within thirty minutes.”

Discomfort turns to outright fear. Thanos spares a glance across the room towards Nam-gyu, who stares right back at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Jaw agape, expression stricken. Thanos looks away as if he’s been seared.

“Kill them?” A woman speaks up, voice trembling with agitation.

“Yes,” the guard clarifies. “The red team must find the blue team and kill them. If you fail to kill any opposing players, you will be eliminated.”

A guard hands Thanos a blue, rectangular box. He turns it over in his hands, popping it open with furrowed brows. A childishly designed key, bright and bulky. Team blue has been given keys to escape their captors, the guard explains. Fear morphs to something different, more violent; unfiltered outrage. Sparks of anger begin to burst out of people, harshly worded complaints from members of the red team as they speak of unfairness, gesturing wildly with their hands. The same hands that, soon, will be forced to kill another.

“We understand your concern,” the guard says, though their voice holds no sympathy. “That’s why we’ve prepared a small gift for team red as well.”

Thanos turns and watches as Nam-gyu, alongside other members of the red team, open up the bright red boxes that are offered to them. Sharp, silver knives, with flashy handles and reflective gleams. Thanos watches Nam-gyu run the corner of his knife along the pad of his pointer finger, a thin trail of blood appearing against his skin. He stares down at the weapon unflinchingly, emotionless. Foreboding curls deep within Thanos' gut.

“Before we start the game, we will give you one last chance to change your fate. If any of you are not happy with your role, you may switch roles with someone on the opposing team before the game starts.”

Thanos looks down at the key in his hands, rotating it as he weighs his options. Giving them the chance to switch is good…it’s great, actually. He’s much more accustomed to killing than hiding, and if both him and Nam-gyu are on the same team together, they’ll be an unstoppable duo. Just like they're supposed to be.

Perfect! Thanos glances back over at Nam-gyu, expecting to see him staring back at him in relief. Instead, he sees him with a hand clamped on Min-su’s shoulder, leaning towards him and murmuring something in hushed whispers. His smile is sly, but his eyes are sharp. His grip is so tight on poor trembling Min-su that Thanos is sure it must hurt, aggressive enough to bruise.

Thanos narrows his eyes. He’s not very fond of how intensely Nam-gyu seems to hate the other members of their team — it’d be better for all of them if they had a little more trust in each other.

(Though, he supposes he’s not one to talk after the incident with Gyeong-su. At the time, he really did think that his dear fanboy would get up and find another group in time. It’s not his fault he stayed on the ground for a few beats too long.

It’s not his fault. It’s not. If he repeats it enough times, surely it’ll ring true eventually.)

As the groups begin to disperse, Thanos watches Nam-gyu stride toward him instantly, dragging a shaky, stumbling Min-su behind him. He seems giddy, almost unnervingly so, as he shoves Min-su in front of him like a sacrificial offering at an altar.

“Don’t worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you,” Nam-gyu pats Min-su on the shoulders, grinning like a cat with a canary caught between its teeth. “Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

“Aw, really?” Thanos coos. He feels a little bit bad, being so pushy towards someone so pathetically nervous all the time. But, given the situation, he thinks he deserves some serious leeway. “That’s so kind of you, my little boy Min-su! So kind. Maybe you’ll receive a medal of honor for it, once we all get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah, of course,” Nam-gyu giggles into his jacket sleeve, cruelty lacing his tone. “Totally.”

“Get off of him,” a voice sounds from behind them. Thanos turns to see Se-mi appear at his side, sending a glare in his direction. “Really? You’re resorting to threatening him?”

“Uh, no? I said he’d receive a medal of honor for it. That’s the opposite of a threat, señorita.”

“Nobody asked for your input, bitch,” Nam-gyu curses. “Min-su already agreed, so you can drop the martyr act. Right, Min-su?”

A long look is exchanged between the two men. Min-su looks utterly miserable in every single way imaginable, while Nam-gyu’s eyes are narrowed in fierce aggravation. “Right?”

“Hey, Min-su,” Thanos cuts in. “I’ll protect you if I run into you. Okay? It’ll be easier for you this way. You won’t have to get your hands dirty.”

“You don’t have to,” Se-mi reminds. Nam-gyu shoots her a look of such intense disgust that Thanos wonders if he somehow missed some sort of encounter between them. What could Se-mi have possibly done to deserve such blatant, unapologetic hatred?

“It’s okay,” Min-su says eventually, his voice so quiet that Thanos nearly misses it. “I think…it’s better this way.”

“Of course it is.” Nam-gyu nods eagerly. “Go on, go on. Switch!”

Min-su looks at Thanos with a frown, glassy eyes staring at him nervously. He must be hoping for Thanos to change his mind, to side with him and assure Nam-gyu that actually, he’s completely fine with being a hider, and that he should leave Min-su the hell alone.

“Please don’t,” Min-su pleads wordlessly via wide, panicked eyes, like an animal being led to a slaughterhouse.

Thanos grins at him toothily, animalistic and insistent as he holds out his key, offering it up for trade. “What’re you waiting for, huh? Hand it over. Switch.”

– – –

“This color suits you better, hyung,” Nam-gyu says once Thanos is clad in red instead of blue. They stand tucked away in a corner, away from the rest of the crowds. It’s clear that Se-mi and Min-su are far from pleased with them, and have resorted to huddling up together on the far side of the room.

Thanos can tell by the way Nam-gyu’s eyes linger on his neck that there’s only one thing on his mind. He’s sure that in approximately five seconds the man will start pawing at him and pleading for pills — might as well cut to the chase.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says dismissively. “You want a pill, right?”

Nam-gyu perks up immediately, expression brightening. “Yeah, of course. I won’t be able to do anything without it.”

Thanos makes a sound of faux disapproval. “You really are a junkie.”

Not like Thanos is one to talk. Nam-gyu’s smile twitches downward, but reappears in full as Thanos pulls the cross out of his shirt, popping it open with a hum of excitement.

“We’re running low,” Thanos reminds, “so don’t go asking for any more during the game. Okay?”

Nam-gyu nods eagerly. “Mhm. Yeah, I won’t.”

Inside one ear, out the other. Thanos can tell that Nam-gyu is hardly listening to a damn thing he’s saying, too fixated on the sight of pills to pay any attention to anything else around him. Thanos plucks a pastel colored tablet from the cross and hands it over wordlessly, watching as Nam-gyu places it flat on his tongue. He even makes a quiet sound of pleasure as he retracts it, swallowing dutifully around the quickly dissolving drug.

“Damn, you take these things like a whore.”

Nam-gyu blinks owlishly. “...What?”

“Nevermind,” Thanos dismisses, popping a pill into his own mouth. For the record, he swallows it normally, without letting out a breathy, moaning noise at the taste of a disgusting, bitter tablet. He’s excited about the buzz that’s about to thrum throughout them, of course, but Nam-gyu sure has an interesting way of showing his merriment.

Admittedly, though, he really hadn't meant to say that thought out loud. Whoops.

“We should come up with a game plan,” Thanos redirects.

“Dude, did you seriously just call me a-”

“Nam-su, focus,” Thanos insists, tucking his cross back in his shirt. “Come on, who should we kill? Who should we weed out of the competition?”

Nam-gyu scowls at him for a few fleeting seconds before letting out a quiet sigh, examining the room. “Any of them. Doesn't matter who.”

Thanos drags a hand through his hair, squinting at a familiar face clad in the color red. “Aw, fuck. MG Coin switched to red. I was hoping we could finally take him out…”

“Maybe if we’re lucky, he’ll somehow fuck up and get himself killed,” Nam-gy snickers, covering his mouth with the tips of his fingers. “The guy is such a goddamn moron, he’ll probably get his own knife turned against him. Don’t you think?”

Nam-gyu looks at him coyly, and Thanos chuckles in the face of such a catty insult, like some sort of cliché mean-girl. “I sure as hell hope so.”

“Min-su will be dead in the first five minutes, I’d guess,” Nam-gyu continues carelessly. Thanos opens his mouth to refute it, but a large part of him is still irked with the man for choosing X, and realistically speaking, he’s sure Nam-gyu is right.

Thanos looks down at the knife in his hand, brand new and shiny, and then back up at the players in blue milling around nervously. All he has to do is find a person to kill, and he’ll be set. This is fine. Manageable. With the drugs running through his system, maybe even fun.

He’s killed before. He can easily kill again.

– – –

“Thanos, look! Look at the stars, dude!”

Nam-gyu twirls in a slow circle, staring upwards with a dazed smile. With drugs now pulsing through them, the environment seems far more vivid. For a second, Thanos forgets what they're supposed to be doing as he stares at vibrantly painted stars against dark blue walls.

“Nam-su, let's start looking.”

“Nam-gyu.”

“Yeah, sure. Gyu.” Thanos pumps his hands in the air, hollering loudly. “Let’s get it!”

“Shh!” Nam-gyu holds a finger up to his lips. “It’s hide-and-seek, dude!”

“Right, right.” Thanos nods sagely. “Just follow my lead, boy!”

Nam-gyu trails closely behind him as they make their way down winding hallways, poking their heads through cracked open doors. Silence is frequently broken by thundering footsteps and blood-curdling screams, speakers overhead announcing which players are eliminated and which ones pass. They catch sight of a woman in blue, only to watch her be stabbed by one of their red teammates before they can get to her in time. They spot a man soon after, but lose sight of him after Nam-gyu trips on a bloodied corpse.

“Nam-su,” Thanos says disapprovingly as he tugs him to his feet. “Come on, boy. Get it together!”

“Gyu. And, it’s not my fault there was a dead person in the way,” Nam-gyu grumbles, peering down at the wide open, glazed eyes of the pale body. “Hey, isn't it crazy how unnatural the eyes of a dead person look? It’s like looking at a doll. Or, maybe some sort of statue.”

“Nam-su,” Thanos groans. “If you don’t get it together and start pulling your weight, I’m never giving you a damn pill again.”

Nam-gyu wraps his hands around Thanos’ arm, jostling him slightly. “I only tripped one time! I won’t do it again, okay? I’m good at this.”

“At what? Killing people?”

Nam-gyu nods, an oddly proud gleam in his eyes. “Of course. What else?”

…Freaky. Thanos is suddenly very, very thankful that he has Nam-gyu on his side.

“Just don’t trip again,” Thanos says, keeping their arms interlinked. “And, stay close. For safety.”

“Yeah, man.” Nam-gyu leans against him. “For safety.”

– – –

It takes them a concerning amount of time to corner someone. A woman, her hair tied into a tight ponytail, cowers in the corner of a darkly colored room, her hands held up in poor self defense. Her vest reads 044.

“Halt!” she shrieks. “Don’t– don’t you dare do anything foolish! The Gods of Heaven and Earth are watching over me, and if you do anything to me, they’ll–!”

“Oh, here we go. Why does everyone feel the need to talk so much before they die?” Nam-gyu complains, twirling his knife deftly between his fingers. “Such a waste of air.”

The woman makes a wheezing noise of panic, eyes darting around the room in a frightened attempt to look for a possible escape route. An impossible task — Thanos and Nam-gyu are blocking the only possible way out.

Even with the drugs in his system, something about this seems wrong. Thanos has directly caused the deaths of others, but he’s never plunged a knife into someone with his own two hands. Will he live to regret this?

His knuckles tighten against the handle of his knife. This is no different than the people he shoved down in the first game, or kicking Gyeong-su out during mingle. He needs to focus.

“Sorry, lady,” Thanos offers with a shrug. “Just doing what I have to.”

The woman’s panic grows, hands gesturing wildly as she attempts to convince them against killing her. But the clock is ticking, and neither of them have time to spare. Thanos takes a step forward, intent to kill, but he doesn’t get the chance to. Nam-gyu acts quicker, rushing forward and digging his knife into her abdomen without hesitance. She sinks to her knees as Nam-gyu pierces into flesh, tugging sharpened steel out of an open wound. She lets out a cry of agony, falling to hear knees as blood splatters on the ground beneath her with a wet splash.

“You…” she chokes through a mouthful of blood, fingers clawing at the flooring beneath her, nails scratching against her own dispelling blood. “Both of you…will die a thousand times over…I swear it…”

Nam-gyu makes a sound of indignance, delivering her another unrelenting stab. Followed by another, and another, and it’s only when the body stops moving entirely that Nam-gyu stumbles back to his feet.

“Player 044 eliminated. Player 124 passed.”

“Did you see her eyes?” Nam-gyu asks as he turns back towards him, eyes glittering with an emotion Thanos can’t pinpoint. Blood soaks his hands, wet and dripping, his body splattered with crimson. “Did you see it?”

Thanos scowls. Blood pools at their feet, seeping against the white soles of their shoes. “You took the kill without even asking, jackass.”

“We’ll find another.” Nam-gyu waves his hand dismissively. “We have time. I don’t think I’ve heard Min-su get eliminated…think of how easy it’ll be to kill him if we find him. When we find him.”

Thanos makes a noise of disgruntlement. The time they have is limited, and while he’ll kill Min-su if necessary, he'd rather not resort to it; upset as he is with him for picking X, Min-su is still an old teammate.

Thanos has already killed one teammate, and he’d prefer not to have to kill another.

But if push comes to shove, he’ll do what needs to be done.

– – –

Time is running out, and despite the fact that Nam-gyu has already passed, he shakes more and more with each passing second.

“Why the fuck is everyone already dead?” Nam-gyu says through grit teeth, sharply turning a corner and tugging Thanos along with him. “I swear I saw that MG fraud kill multiple people…that asshole is sabotaging us all. Fuck, fuck, fuck–!”

“Hey.” Thanos stops abruptly, tugging his arm out of his grasp.

Nam-gyu skitters to a stop, turning to stare at him incredulously, his lips pressed into a tight line. “What–?”

“Look, boy.” Thanos points at the clock overhead, slowly ticking down to his demise. Thirty-one seconds.

“We have time,” Nam-gyu insists, grabbing onto the sleeve of Thanos’ jacket, smearing blood against the cloth. “If you hurry–”

“Cut it the fuck out, Nam-su,” Thanos snaps, tearing his sleeve out of his grasp yet again. He knows, realistically, that he shouldn't fault Nam-gyu for taking the kill from him. He’s only playing the game as he ought to, and it’s Thanos’ own fault for not acting faster. If he hadn't hesitated, their roles would be switched.

But Thanos has never been good at taking the blame, and in the face of death, kindness turns cruel.

“You seriously think I have the time to do anything now? If you hadn't been stumbling around like some sort of drunkard, I would’ve found someone at the goddamn start.”

“It’s gyu,” Nam-gyu cuts off, his tone shrill. “Gyu, gyu, gyu, it’s fucking Nam-gyu!”

Thanos drags a hand across his face, making a noise of frustration. He looks around helplessly, hoping for someone to pop out and offer him an easy kill.

His prayer goes unanswered, as prayers so often do.

“Su-bong,” Nam-gyu spits his name out like venom, bloodied fists clenching in anger. Thanos bristles at the usage of his real name instead of his stage one; a reminder of who they are, and what they’ve done together. “You’re such an asshole, always acting like you’re so much better than me, like you don’t remember what we did back at the club. Like I’m just some sort of average fucking fanboy.”

The clock reaches twenty, and for the first time, Thanos begins to feel legitimately fearful. It rises throughout him, slow and steady, a painful, freezing agitation. “Hey–”

But Nam-gyu continues to speak, gesturing wildly with his blood-soaked hands. “It’s not my fault you couldn't find someone to kill. It’s not my fault you hesitated. It’s not my fault–!” His voice cracks, anger dissipating to misery. “You’re…you’re such an idiot.”

Thanos’ throat seizes, words sticking painfully in the recesses of his throat. What can he possibly formulate that will be a meaningful string of last words spoken?

Words of comfort to a man already grieving. Words of anger and blame, to absolve himself of personal responsibility in his last moments. Words of uncharacteristic kindness, “thank you for sticking by me for this long.” Words of panic and fear, a quick explanation that dying by his own hands and being killed by the hands of another are so very different.

Ten seconds. Thanos hopes that, at the very least, it doesn't hurt.

Nam-gyu takes a step forward. “I’m sorry, hyung, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

The words are mumbled softly, barely able to be heard at all as Nam-gyu presses himself closer. For a brief moment, Thanos thinks he might be offering him a hug, a shoulder pat, or some form of physical comfort. Instead, slickened hands reach hastily under his jacket, tugging persistently at the chain around his neck.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Thanos laughs humorlessly, letting the man tug the chain up and around his head in a state of bafflement. At the very least, Nam-gyu has the decency to appear ashamed as he clutches onto the cross.

“I need them,” he mumbles, lips twitching into a frown. “I need…”

“Yeah, whatever. I get it. You made it pretty damn clear that all you were after this whole time were the pills,” Thanos sneers. The clock hits zero.

“Time’s up!”

“That’s not true!” Nam-gyu grips onto him, hands digging into Thanos’ shoulderblades, eyes wild and frenzied. His desperation is so palpable that Thanos can nearly taste it. “It’s not– it’s not just the pills!”

“That so?” he scoffs, despite the ice cold dread that clings to him. “Doesn’t really seem like it.”

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says, as if pleading with a higher power to save him. His eyes dart anxiously behind him, and the sound of a gun loading is enough to let Thanos know what comes next. “Su-bong, please–”

“Please what, Nam-su?”

Nam-gyu’s face falls deadpan, his grip loosening against him. For a moment, he looks like an entirely different person, and if Thanos didn’t know any better, he’d say that a morbid pleasure flickers deep within his corneas. The silence that falls between them in these few short moments is more painful than the bullet wound that is soon to follow.

“It’s Nam-gyu,” he says vacantly.

A gun fires, blood pours, and a flame is extinguished in a matter of seconds. Nam-gyu is doused in the warmth of his inner fluids, though Thanos isn’t alive to see it, and he falls to the ground with a sickening thud. Alive one second, gone the next.

Reality unwinds, threads tearing away from each other and reformulating into something new. Something different, but fundamentally the same.

Eyes reopen, slow and methodical.

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with a sense of rising dread.

Chapter 2: a tapestry undone

Notes:

If you can pinpoint what game soundtrack titles I’m using for the chapter names you get a gold star. It’s not Persona for once, surprisingly!

The ball falls out of stiff fingers, hitting the ground with a grating clink.

Thanos blinks rapidly, holding a hand up to his forehead with a sharp inhale. There should be a bullet wound in his head. He should be dead.

“…Next,” the guard calls out after enough time passes to be described as awkward. In the back of his foggy, dazed mind, Thanos can hear overlapped murmuring from behind him, rippling words of confusion and annoyance. “What the hell is he doing? Why is he just standing there?”

The ball remains stagnant on the ground in front of him. Thanos removes his hand from his forehead, expecting to see his palm doused with blood, but sees nothing of the sort. He flexes his fingers a few times, feeling the cartilage move within him. He’s breathing, he’s moving, he’s thinking. He’s himself. He’s entirely and wholeheartedly alive.

…Holy shit.

“Fucking junkie.” Thanos hears an older man mutter as he dips down to pick up the sphere assigned to him, stumbling over to his side of the room with his head hung low. “He doesn’t have a clue in the goddamn world.”

If Thanos weren’t so baffled with his current predicament, he’d likely pinpoint the man muttering insults and pick a fight with him right in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, he’s rather preoccupied; he clenches onto the blue sphere with a clenched jaw and tense shoulders, the subtle pang of a fading headache eating away at his skull.

With quivering fingers, he tugs his cross out of his jacket and checks his supply, carefully counting each pastel colored pill. He must’ve taken extra and hallucinated the whole damn thing — there’s no other feasible explanation.

…He’s not missing any. He has the exact amount of tablets left that he’s supposed to do.

Thanos remembers the sound of the gunshot, how it’d felt to feel a bullet slice through his brain before being plunged into nothingness. He remembers Nam-gyu’s blank expression, his twitching, bloody fingers holding onto Thanos’ cross.

He presses the palm of his hand to his mouth and represses the urge to gag.

“Wow,” a voice pipes up beside him. “You’re really worked up about this, huh?”

Thanos turns toward Se-mi, who looks up at him with narrowed eyes.

“…What? I’m fine, señorita—“

“You look like you’re about to hurl,” she scoffs. “Are you really that stressed about being separated from Nam-gyu? I have to say, I didn’t expect you to be so openly distraught…”

There’s a curious gleam in her eyes as she examines him, head tilted in careful consideration. Thanos swallows down his unease and glances at her with what he hopes is a display of nonchalance, though he’s sure it looks more like a pained grimace, if anything. “I’m fine. The shitty food they gave us earlier is just messing with my stomach.”

Though, Se-mi’s words do hold truth; separation from Nam-gyu is one of the many factors that’s causing him stress. Nam-gyu, whose emotions had pinballed from flaring anger to uncharacteristic devastation in the face of Thanos’ death. Nam-gyu, who had used Thanos’ final moments to reach for the pills in his cross instead of offering a gentle caress or comforting gesture. Nam-gyu, who had looked at him so strangely before the gun fired, regarding him in a manner that can almost be described as cold as the wrong name wormed its way out of Thanos’ lips for the last time.

He’d claimed so intensely that it wasn’t just the drugs he stayed for, grasping tightly against loosened shoulders. His teeth had clenched as he begged for understanding, all while refusing to offer a sensible explanation. Thanos’ throat tightens as he recalls the flurry of emotions, an onslaught of words and actions shoved into a brief thirty seconds.

…He must have imagined it. He must have.

But if that’s the case, why is every instruction spoken and action taken by those that surround him the exact same as he remembers it? It’s as if he’s been plucked from one reality and placed into another, a second chance to save himself.

Thanos doesn't believe in God, but he can wrap his mind around the aspect of fate. He’d been stopped by the salesman before tossing himself off of a bridge, slapped and ridiculed, but still alive. And now, he’s witnessed his own death firsthand, felt the split second contact of a bullet piercing his skull, and been sent back to the start of the game in a cruel twist of fate.

Why is it he’s being kept alive, despite the fact that he so openly craves death?

As he’s handed a blue box with a key placed delicately inside, just as he was before, he considers turning to Se-mi and explaining to her that he’s been through this before, and that he already knows how all of this will play out. When he glances over at the other side of the room after the guard announces the possibility of switching teams, he’s fully aware that he’ll be met with the sight of Nam-gyu digging his nails into Min-su’s shoulders, murmuring sinisterly into the curve of his ear. He’s right. Of course he is — he’s seen this all before.

The weight of the cross is heavy around his neck. He knows, without question, that nobody will believe him if he attempts to explain what he’s been through. It’s a cold, dreary acceptance, realizing how little meaning his own words hold; not only to his peers, but also himself.

As Nam-gyu begins to stride towards him with Min-su in tow, Thanos comes to a concrete conclusion — he’ll do exactly what he did last time, up until they find player 044. He’ll take the kill, ensuring his survival, and then double his efforts to find someone for Nam-gyu. Surely if they look a little bit better, it’ll all turn out just fine.

Just like last time, a sacrifice is offered to him, trembling and afraid. “Don’t worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you,” Nam-gyu pats Min-su on the shoulders, grinning like a cat preparing to pounce a mouse and rip it to shreds. “Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

“Aw, really?” Thanos coos. He should make an effort to make his interactions as similar as they were before, shouldn’t he? “That’s so kind of you, my little boy Min-su! So kind.” A brief pause as he sifts through his thoughts, remembering the words he said prior. “Maybe you’ll receive a medal of honor for it, once we all get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah, of course,” Nam-gyu giggles into his jacket sleeve. He does that a lot, Thanos realizes suddenly. Covering his palms with his sleeves and giving himself sweater paws, that is. It’s a rather cutesy habit for a grown man to have. “Totally.”

“Get off of him,” Se-mi cuts in, right on cue. “Really? You’re resorting to threatening him?”

“I said he’d receive a medal of honor for it. That’s the opposite of a threat, señorita.”

“Nobody asked for your input, bitch,” Nam-gyu sneers. “Min-su already agreed, so you can drop the martyr act. Right, Min-su?”

Another look is shared between them. There’s something uncanny about the way Nam-gyu’s features twist when faced with Min-su’s meek demeanor, like watching an art piece twitch its painted expression into something sinister.

Nam-gyu is so blatantly intent on being on the same team as Thanos, even if it requires directly threatening another; but is it because of the pills, or because of Thanos himself? He’s having an increasingly difficult time pinpointing both Nam-gyu’s thoughts and feelings, and the reasoning behind the actions he takes.

Thanos knows he wouldn't be paying any of this a second thought if he hadn't seen the way this plays out before, and that in itself leaves him irritated. He shouldn't be spending his time mulling over the meaning behind the look in Nam-gyu’s eyes before Thanos dropped dead in front of him, because he shouldn't even remember it in the first place.

He drags a hand across his face, sighing tiredly. “Min-su. I’ll protect you if I run into you. Okay? It’ll be easier for you this way. You won’t have to kill anyone.”

“You don’t have to,” Se-mi reminds, and Thanos watches attentively as once again, Nam-gyu glares at her in revulsion. His hands even tighten around the hilt of his dagger this time, as if he truly wants nothing more than to kill her.

“It’s okay. I think…it’s better this way.”

“Of course it is. Go on, go on. Switch!”

Min-su stares up at him with wet, fearful eyes, but Thanos doesn't bother to grin down at him this time. He holds out his key with expectancy, because he knows that no matter what, he’ll get his way eventually.

“Hand it over,” Thanos says, and Min-su follows through with a flinch, as if the words have caused him physical pain.

– – –

“This color suits you better, hyung.”

Se-mi and Min-su, just like the first time around, pair off at a distance. Nam-gyu sways next to him, eyes locked on the chain that travels under his neck, eyes glittering with unhidden desire. “…Hey, we should probably take some—“

“Enough about the fucking pills, man.”

It comes out harsher than intended, and Nam-gyu stiffens in clear surprise. Thanos mentally curses himself — so much for staying completely on track. It just so happens that every time Nam-gyu brings up the drugs (which is very, very often), it serves as a bitter reminder of what their alliance is based on.

This isn’t a beautifully blossoming friendship that will last for eons and never be broken, or whatever other cliché bullshit they flaunt around in movies. This is an essential partnership based on drugs, and the shared desire to feel differently than themselves.

As for what occurred between them in Club Pentagon; a one-time affair. They never brought it up again after the fact, so why bring it up now?

(Nam-gyu’s hands had moved expertly in the darkness of the club, an impish smile doused in shadows. Thanos wonders if Nam-gyu routinely offers to jack off his clients, making sure they have a particularly pleasurable experience to ensure the good club-ratings he so expertly strives for.

He didn’t seem to care when Thanos called him ‘Nam-su’ back then, tucked into a corner, away from a bustling crowd. Why the sudden change, he wonders?)

Nam-gyu lips twitch downwards, fingers shaking and eyes unfocused. “Thanos…we have to kill people this time around. Now more than ever, we need those pills.”

“I know,” he grunts, tugging the cross out of his jacket. He has no intention of not taking a pill this time, and he knows Nam-gyu will spiral into panic if he denies him one. But, the candy colored tablets don’t change the steadfast irritation he holds at Nam-gyu for how he’d acted in his final moments. Hallucination, vision, curse…Thanos doesn't know how to classify it, and can hardly bring himself to care. All he knows is that Nam-gyu had moved quickly to snag his cross, and despite the fact that he’s been given the chance to change his grisly fate, the feeling of something being taken from him remains stuck to him, crawling under his skin and hardening into something close to loathing.

Inwardly, he attempts to remind himself that none of this matters. This time will be different, and as long as they take things a little more seriously this time, it’ll all end up fine.

“You’re acting strange,” Nam-gyu murmurs as Thanos places a pill against his palm. He takes it just as he did last time, breathy noise of appreciation and all. Every action Nam-gyu displays is tauntingly deliberate — the slow movement of his throat as he swallows down the tablet, the steady exhale, the brief wince at the unsavory taste, followed by eyelids fluttering in relief.

Thanos refrains from calling him a whore this time around, because it’s absurd that he let such a thing slip out of his mouth in the first place. He does, however, tap his fingers against Nam-gyu’s temple in an exaggerated show of reprimand. “I’m fine. You need to focus up, my boy. One wrong move, and you’ll end up with a bullet in your skull at the end of this.”

“You’re so serious all of a sudden,” Nam-gyu tuts. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kill someone.”

Thanos scoffs, thinking back to the brutality behind Nam-gyu’s actions back during his first run of this, unforgiving as he brought his knife down upon a stranger. Smiling while blood-soaked, holding his slickened weapon up like a trophy prize.

“I know you can,” Thanos says assuredly. “But you have to be fast. Don’t go tripping over anything, okay?”

“Of course not,” Nam-gyu snickers. “I’m not some sort of fucking idiot.”

Thanos smiles, but can’t bring himself to laugh.

— — —

Nam-gyu does, in fact, end up tripping again.

“Nam-su,” Thanos says reflexively, noticing the flicker of aggravation it earns him in response. He knows that the kind thing to do after seeing how drastically the incorrect name-calling affects Nam-gyu, would clearly be to stop it.

It would’ve also been kind if Nam-gyu had been more focused on him instead of the pills right before he died. Neither of them are fit for kindness, Thanos thinks. It’s better for them to stick to what they know.

“Gyu. And, it’s not my fault there was a dead person in the way.”

Thanos links their arms together before Nam-gyu has the chance to start chattering on about how strange corpses eyes look — it’s not the sort of thing Thanos wants to hear twice. “You have to be faster. Come on, stick close. For safety.”

“Right, of course.” More focused this time, Thanos picks up on the delighted trill of Nam-gyu's voice, and takes note of the way his arm holds securely onto his own. “For safety.”

The pills aren’t quelling his rising agitation. Thanos swallows down his nausea and propels himself forward, taking the same path they did last time.

If the drugs refuse to aid him, what else is left of him?

He doesn’t have the time to dwell on it. It’s beginning to feel like he never has the time to do anything. Time itself is beginning to sicken him, the construct of its creation weighing heavily on his shoulders, stripping him of the words he wishes to say and actions he has yet to bring forth.

If Nam-gyu can sense his uncharacteristic worry, he doesn’t mention it. As time ticks down, the events unfold just as Thanos expects them to, a rapid flurry of screams and missed opportunities. They come across player 044 just as he knows they would, huddled in a corner in palpable fear, yet still managing to hold her head high, with her eyes narrowed in defiance.

“Halt!” she shrieks.

Thanos lurches forward without hesitation. He can’t tell if the sharp noise of surprise comes from himself, Nam-gyu, or the poor victim in front of him. All he knows, in the quick seconds that follow, is that the woman before him is horrified. Her eyes are wide open, mouth agape in a soundless, disbelieving scream, and as he digs his dagger deep within her chest, twisting the blade against squelching flesh and pumping veins, he feels a small morsel of guilt for doing so. Curses fall from her lips as blood pools in her mouth, sliding against the wall Thanos has pinned her to and hitting the ground with a thunk.

“You’ll die…a thousand times over…” she mumbles as life is stolen away from her once again, eyes glazing over like an upturned fish.

The words settle inside his brain, icy and unforgiving. She’d said that last time, hadn’t she? Surely she can’t mean literally. Surely she’s not the one who…

“Player 044 eliminated. Player 230 passed.”

“You killed her without even asking me,” Nam-gyu complains behind him. Thanos turns, blood soaked and frenzied, to see Nam-gyu chewing absentmindedly on his fingernail, pupils darting across each expanse of the dead body before him. “But, damn…that was so fucking cool, hyung. The way you didn’t even hesitate, the way you carved your knife into her stomach, all the way to the hilt in one clean push…”

Nam-gyu mimes a stabbing motion, biting his lip with a giddy smile. Thanos stares at him worldlessly, the metallic stench of fresh blood strong enough to send a shiver of disgust through him. “Are you usually this easy to impress, or are you putting on a show just for me?”

“I’m not easy to impress,” Nam-gyu denies, stepping forward and wiping his fingers across Thanos’ cheek. Not a caress — a firm swipe. It’s important to differentiate the two, otherwise Thanos might start thinking of things he shouldn’t.

“Look at you, man…you’re covered in blood,” Nam-gyu says, pulling his hand back to examine the smudge of blood that stains his fingertips. He seems to be in awe of something, but of what, Thanos has no idea. “…Did you see her eyes? Did you see the way she—?”

Thanos’ heart flutters in his ribcage, a reminder of what’s to come. Nam-gyu hasn’t killed anyone yet, and if they don’t manage to find someone, then…

“Quickly,” Thanos interrupts sharply. “You still need to kill someone.”

“So assertive! Aren’t I so lucky to have you?” Nam-gyu coos sarcastically, breaking into a fit of giggles, laughing exuberantly despite the corpse beside them. Thanos swears he sees her finger twitch. “Oh my god, dude, you need to relax! Take another pill, or something. And, hey, throw me another one while you're at it!”

Thanos gives him a long, hard look, entirely unamused. “This isn’t funny.”

The seriousness of his tone causes Nam-gyu to pause, chuckles fading to silence as he looks at him in surprise. “…You really are acting strange. What’s going on with you? You’re supposed to be all, like…” Nam-gyu pumps his hands in the air, cheering his next words in English. “‘Let’s get it!’ What happened to that, huh?”

“What happened to you saying you aren’t a fucking idiot who trips, and then immediately tripping?” Thanos snipes irritably, gripping a blood-soaked hand against the sleeve of Nam-gyu’s jacket. He knows he’s acting out-of-sorts, but it’s difficult not to, considering the situation. “Come on, dude.”

With a noise of confused annoyance, Nam-gyu lets himself be dragged back into the hallway, Thanos’ grimy, blood-covered palm sticking persistently to green cloth. He tries to recall which way they went last time so he can move in the opposite direction, but each corridor looks the same, and as he surveys his options, he’s unable to recall which way they rushed through prior.

He’ll have to go with his gut, then. All he has to do is find someone for Nam-gyu, and they can both get out of here together. Easy. Quick. Simple. Efficient.

– – –

Difficult. Slow. Complicated. Useless.

Thanos pounds his fist against a locked door, cursing the team blue member that locked themselves inside mere seconds prior. If he had been a little bit quicker, by just a second, a millisecond–

“I’m going to die,” Nam-gyu says bluntly. There’s forty-two seconds left on the clock, and Thanos is starting to shake more than he ever has in his life. He feels like he’s bordering on hysterics, feverish panic thrumming through his body and mind. He hadn't felt like this back when he was the one dying; why the sudden change?

Nam-gyu doesn't shake. He stands rigidly, hands clasped tightly around his clean, unused knife. His eyes are blank, like a porcelain doll preparing to be tossed away and shattered to bits, its purpose served, but not completed. Delicate, as all vessels are. Composed, even in the face of death. What is it that has managed to switch their roles so drastically?

“We still have time left,” Thanos protests, surprised to hear himself mustering the same meaningless excuses Nam-gyu did when their roles were swapped.

Thanos can see the clock tick down out of the corner of his eye, and each second wasted is more agonizing than the last. In the face of despondency, Thanos realizes how drastic of a mistake he’s made. He’s been so focused on saving himself, that he hardly spent any time considering the possibility of losing Nam-gyu in the process.

This is a partnership of necessity. It’s also a partnership of shared experiences, of free drinks and sweetly whispered words in messy rooms behind a bar. “Do you remember?” Thanos wants to ask, though he already knows the answer. “Do you regret it?”

Instead, he says nothing, and Nam-gyu watches the clock diminish with an almost serene expression. “Can you do me a favor?”

There’s something so intensely outrageous about Nam-gyu’s lack of fear that he wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. The clock hits twenty seconds.

“What?” Thanos croaks. The blood on his hands is beginning to feel so impossibly wretched that he wishes for nothing more than to rip his own skin off.

“When I die, watch my eyes,” Nam-gyu murmurs. He steps forward, widening his eyes and pointing at his pupils expectantly. “Watch carefully, okay?”

Fifteen. Thanos makes a noise of unbridled despair, a sound so unlike himself that even Nam-gyu himself manages to appear surprised by it. “What the fuck are you talking about, Nam-gyu? I’m not going to–”

“Seriously?” Nam-gyu interrupts with a scoff. “You only get it right when I’m about to die? Figures.”

Ten. Ten seconds for Thanos to somehow get across the fact that even if their alliance is built on their need for drugs, it doesn't change the fact that he’s enjoyed their time together. As much as Thanos loathes to admit it, he doesn't think he can do this without him. He needs Nam-gyu's constant presence even more than the air he sucks into his lungs. He needs the fragile, falsified comfort. He needs everything to start over again, just once more, so he can finally get this right.

Five. Nam-gyu stares at him directly, unblinking, and Thanos meets his gaze with steady unease. The blood on his hands should be coating Nam-gyu instead. What has he done? Thanos opens his mouth to deliver a fumbled apology, but the words refuse to leave him. He can’t. He’s incapable of it.

“If you don’t win this thing,” Nam-gyu says, close enough for Thanos to count each individual freckle across the span of his face, “I’ll find you in death and kill you again.”

“Time’s up!”

Thanos nods slowly, jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. “I will. I’ll win for you. I promise.”

He shouldn't make promises he can’t keep, but both of them are already well aware of his habit of doing so, and the words seem to offer a flimsy veil of comfort regardless. Nam-gyu’s eyes dart down to the cross that disappears under Thanos’ shirt, and this time, he doesn't fault him for it. He can see the unspoken question swirling within glassy eyes, feeble and desperate. “If I take another, do you think it’ll hurt less?”

But as it so often is, their time is short. Thanos can see a guard approach in his peripheral vision, steadfast in their approach. Nam-gyu darts his eyes back upwards, focusing intently on Thanos’ own eyes, and manages one last smile before death.

“Su-bong,” he says, the name spoken softly instead of in anger, a gentle cadence instead of harsh and unforgiving. There’s something lurking beneath his poise, a jarring sense of fear. Thanos can see it, in his last moments. The primal, gripping panic of being faced with the inevitable.

Nam-gyu opens his mouth to say something else, but a gun fires before the words are spoken. The last sound he makes is a shaky inhale, a crackly, frightened noise that holds far more emotion than any word could ever hope to bring forth.

Thanos jolts as a bullet travels through Nam-gyu’s temple, cracking through the fragile barrier of his skull, spraying blood in its wake. In an odd display of obedience, Thanos does as he was asked and keeps his focus on Nam-gyu’s eyes as he teeters, falling to his side with an ungraceful thump.

Blood splatters Thanos’ face, warm innards from a man once alive, now dead. Thanos looks down at Nam-gyu's gaunt, slackened face, and the greyed, glossy film that covers his corneas. He does not blink. He does not move. Wide, jittery pupils stay fixated on dull, lifeless ones, and somewhere distantly, he swears he can feel the muffled sound of a crying child.

Thanos’ vision tunnels, his senses fall numb. The transition is painless, but mentally fatiguing. There's the droning sound of a sinister chuckle, detached from himself and the world itself.

And then, in a blink, the reality that surrounds him reconstructs. “Once more?” Something voiceless asks, without noise, thought, or meaning.

Eyes reopen. A heart begins to beat.

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with a sense of rising fear.

Notes:

They definitely got all up on each other at club pentagon, I know it in my heart

Chapter 3: eyes on me

Notes:

Another quick warning for gory descriptions! <- this will be very prevalent in a majority of chapters

Across the room from him, Nam-gyu is alive. Breathing, swaying on his feet, staring down at the dagger in his hands. Thanos stares, openly and brazenly, as if afraid the man will disappear entirely if he takes his eyes off of him.

He watches as Nam-gyu tests the edge of his knife along his pointer finger, slow and methodical. His actions are all entirely the same, down to each worried crease of his brow and subtle shift of his fingers. If Nam-gyu remembers what has occurred, recalling the sharp crack of bullet firing directly into his head, he shows no sign of it.

When the guards announce the possibility of switching, Thanos surveys the familiar sight of Nam-gyu digging his hands against Min-su’s shoulders, nasty threats wriggling out of a catty, cruel grin. Unforgiving, as he always is when it comes to Min-su.

The Nam-gyu across the room is bright and living, a stark contrast to the bloodied heap he’d been reduced to in the last loop.

Loop…that is what this would be classified as, right? A time loop? So, now he’s expected to save not only himself, but Nam-gyu as well? Thanos drags a hand through his hair with a noise of grievance, attempting to gather himself as Nam-gyu approaches him yet again.

“Don’t worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you,” Nam-gyu pats his sacrificial offering on the shoulders and gives him a small shove forward, blissfully unaware of the rejection that awaits him. “Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

Thanos swallows his unease and forces the words out of his mouth, resisting the urge to linger on the syllables. Prolonging the words won’t stop their descent. “I don’t think I should.”

He’s never seen a smile fall so quickly in his life. For a brief moment, it feels as if the entire world stops and holds its breath, multiple pairs of eyes staring at him in unfiltered dismay.

“...What?” Nam-gyu laughs sharply, without humor. “Dude, come on. Who the hell would rather hide than seek?”

Min-su cowers at this, chewing nervously on his bottom lip. Thanos can feel Se-mi slink up beside him, watching the interaction unfold closely from the sidelines. He doesn't have to look in her direction to know she displays the same level of surprise as his other teammates.

“Hiding sounds easy. Less work, you know?” Thanos shrugs, displaying an air of nonchalance. He’s already tried seeking twice, and it ended horribly each time. Perhaps the universe is telling him to stick with what he’s been given — which, in this case, is a blue ball and vest. “I feel bad for you, Nam-su, having to get your hands all dirty.”

It’s meant to be a lighthearted joke, but it only serves to make Nam-gyu’s grip on Min-su tighten. He shoves the man forward again, harsher this time, enough to make him stumble with a gasp of surprise.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says, an animalistic gleam in his eyes as his grip tightens on the handle of his dagger. “Take the fucking knife.”

Breathes are held in surprise, eyebrows raise, words fall silent. Now, this is an unexpected turn.

Thanos is well aware of the power imbalance between them. Nam-gyu is always the one clinging to him, never vice versa. (...Rarely vice versa.) Thanos is the one with the drugs, the popularity (progressively tanking popularity, but still), and the self-assured attitude. Despite the front that Nam-gyu puts up, Thanos can easily pinpoint the flickers of insecurity that peek through the cracks. In the partnership they’ve formed, it’s very clear who is the leader and who is the sidekick. Nam-gyu is supposed to speak harshly to everybody except Thanos. That’s the rules of the game they’ve worked out between themselves.

Nam-gyu’s eyes flicker down towards the chain around his neck. The realization of what causes his upsetment leaves a sour taste in the recesses of Thanos’ mouth.

“What, you think I won’t give you a pill just because we’re on separate teams?” Thanos scoffs, fumbling the necklace out of his jacket. “C’mere, junkie.”

“I’m not–!” Nam-gyu stumbles through his words. “Hyung, do you seriously think a piece of trash like Min-su will be able to kill anyone? You’re sentencing him and yourself to death. Just– just think for a second–”

“I can hide just fine.” Thanos clicks the cross open, counts the pills. The same as always. Never enough. “And, you should have more faith in our little boy Min-su.”

“Min-su isn't my boy,” Nam-gyu grits out. Min-su begins to look between the two men like a child watching their parents spiral into a heated argument. Thanos would likely find it funny, if the circumstances were different. “Min-su is a cowardly little shit who can’t do a single fucking thing without whimpering like a kicked dog.”

“Enough,” Se-mi cuts in sharply, glaring at Nam-gyu as Min-su fiddles nervously with the dagger in his hands. “He clearly doesn't want to partner with you. Just drop it.”

Nam-gyu snaps his gaze towards her in a manner that can almost be described as frenzied. “What’d you say, bitch?”

Thanos pinches a pill between his fingers and holds it up, displaying it as if presenting a treat to a dog. “Hey. Nam-gyu.”

The correct use of his name causes Nam-gyu to freeze entirely, staring at him in thrumming, palpable shock. “...Huh?”

Thanos takes a step forward, ignoring the two pairs of eyes that stay stuck to him, and takes hold of Nam-gyu’s elbow with his free hand. “It’s better this way, man. I’m a great hider, and if we run into each other, we can help each other out. Just because we’re on separate teams doesn't mean we can’t work together.”

Nam-gyu blinks at him, dumbfounded. “...Oh. I guess that could work. But, it’d be so much better if you–”

“You need to relax, my boy.” Thanos gathers Nam-gyu’s free hand into his own, pressing the tablet into his clammy palms. “We’ve made it this far. Have some confidence, man!”

Nam-gyu peers down at the drug, slowly inching towards acceptance. “You’re quick, right?”

“Of course!”

With a sigh, Nam-gyu places the pill against his tongue and swallows. “Don’t go dying on me, okay?”

“I promise.” Thanos nods, an attempt of comfort wrapped in falsity and doubt.

– – –

“I’m surprised you want to stick with me, señorita,” Thanos says as he navigates the maze with Se-mi at his side, fiddling with the key around his neck absentmindedly. “You’re usually rather stand-offish, you know?”

“If your drug-buddy finds me, he’ll kill me,” Se-mi mumbles. “I’m hoping you’ll talk him out of it, if push comes to shove.”

“Nam-gyu wouldn't kill you,” Thanos lies. He knows, without a morsel of doubt, that he would. “You’re our teammate!”

“Don’t play dumb,” she sighs. Exhaustion clings to her with a steady grip. “You’re not that stupid.”

Before he’s able to counter her words, they jump at the sight of a woman clad in red turning the corner ahead of them, up towards the far-end of the star-clad hallway. Thanos lets out a muttered curse as her head swivels toward them, desperation pouring from each sharp movement she takes, intent to kill.

The woman breaks into a run, her dagger held tightly in her fist. Se-mi and Thanos move in unison, feet thumping harshly against flooring as they propel themselves forward. A scream sounds in the distance, and despite the fact that Thanos popped a pill the second he stepped into the arena, it doesn't free him of his panic entirely. The exhilaration outweighs his agitation, but given the nonsensicality of his situation, he knows how quickly his own emotions can turn.

They reach a door in tandem, and Thanos fumbles to fit his key into the lock. In his invigorated state, it takes him seconds too long to realize his key doesn't match with the lock showcased to him — his key displays a square, not a circle. Se-mi shoves him to the side with a grunt, sticking and turning her own key into place with immediate efficiency. They stumble inside as the door swings open, slamming it back shut just in the knick of time. With a screech of frustration, the team red member bangs uselessly against the door.

“Damn, señorita! You’re quick on your feet,” Thanos claps, whistling in appreciation. The room they’ve rushed into is small and cramped, painted a lighter shade of blue with another cracked ajar door in front of them. The dead corpse splayed out in the corner, splattered in crimson, ruins the calm cadence of the prettily painted clouds that surround them. “We almost got our asses handed to us!”

“And whose fault would that be?” Se-mi grumbles.

“Uh…I don’t know, the game makers?” Thanos scoffs. “Hey, this is even more of a reason for us to stick together. Our keys are different!”

“I gathered that, yeah.” Se-mi wipes sweat from her brow, arm shaking. “...That was a close call.”

It’s clear that she’s attempting to stifle her panic, make it less noticeable. But sweat drips down the side of her neck, and her chest heaves with each breath she takes. Thanos has never been good at offering comfort — he clears his throat, offering her a quick pat on the shoulder. “...You okay? Need the Great Thanos to rap you a song to get your mind off of things?”

“No.” Se-mi shakes her head rapidly. “God, no.”

“Okay, damn!”

“Player 035 eliminated. Player 098 pass,” the speaker overhead blares.

“Has Nam-su passed yet?” Thanos asks, running his tongue along his teeth in annoyance. “Fuck, I wasn’t paying attention when we were running…”

Se-mi looks at him curiously, blinking slowly. “...What’s with you two?”

“What do you mean?” Thanos makes his way towards the other door, peeking his head out and surveying the hallway presented to them. All clear — he gestures for Se-mi to follow him as he creeps his way out of the cramped space.

“It’s just…I don’t know. You seem to care about him.”

“He’s my boy. My second in command.” Thanos shrugs.

“Aren’t you nervous?” Se-mi asks lightly.

“Nam-su is ruthless. He’ll make it out just fine.”

“No, not about that. I mean, aren't you nervous he'll kill you?”

Thanos pauses, turning to stare at her in bafflement. “...What?”

“He’d get the drugs all to himself if he did. I’m just surprised you haven't considered what he’d do for that cross of yours, considering his…harsh demeanor.” Se-mi crosses her arms, throwing a cautionary glance behind her. “Nevermind, forget I said anything. He seems pretty fond of you himself, so just…” she waves her hand dismissively, as if attempting to wipe away her already spoken words, to start over with a clean slate. “Just forget it.”

“If Nam-su wanted to kill me, he wouldn’t have wanted Min-su to switch with me in the first place,” Thanos says, surprised at the intensity that laces his own tone. It’s true that Nam-gyu is fixated on the pills more often than not, but Thanos does have faith that he wouldn't directly kill him over it. “I know him better than anyone in this shitty competition. I know what he would and wouldn't do.” He puffs out his chest. “Besides, he wouldn't be able to kill me. He’s a sloppy fighter. He’d be no match for someone as skilled as me!”

Another lie. Nam-gyu does fight sloppily, but his actions are brutal. Thanos likes to think he’d be able to overpower him, but realistically, he’s not so sure. If they were to fight, they’d likely both leave the altercation equally bruised and bloodied.

“You’d kill him first?” Se-mi asks. This is starting to feel like an interrogation, Thanos thinks bitterly.

“Does it matter?”

“You wouldn't," Se-mi answers on his behalf. “You wouldn’t be able to kill him, would you?”

“I’d kill anyone to save myself,” Thanos answers bluntly. “Anyone would. It’s human instinct.”

He’d claw and bite at anyone attempting to kill him, violent and unforgiving. When he dies, he needs it to be by his own hands, on his own time.

They bypass another body, and Thanos recognizes it as the woman he killed last time around — player 044. Her body is stiff and bloodied, eyes wide open and blank. An ill omen, for reasons Thanos can’t pinpoint or explain. Her pupils seem to follow him as he passes, though he knows his frazzled state of mind is playing tricks on him.

“I don’t think you could,” Se-mi murmurs, her words so quiet that Thanos almost misses them entirely.

“Huh?”

“I don’t think you could kill him,” Se-mi reiterates. “…There’s something different about you.”

Is this chick seriously psychoanalyzing him in the middle of fucking death game? Of course there’s something different about him; one would assume that understanding what it feels like to die, even for the briefest of seconds, tends to change a person. He can only hope that Nam-gyu’s end was as quick as his own.

(Why does he care if Nam-gyu’s death was painful? Why does he care about anything, anybody besides himself? The fragility of his own swaying, shifting thoughts unsettles him.)

Irritation buzzes through him like a live wire — he’s not sure what Se-mi’s getting at, and there’s no point of such useless hypotheticals. Each time he looks back at her, he’s met with the same strange, unreadable expression, as if she’s solving a puzzle just by looking at him.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Thanos grumbles. “I killed Gyeong-su, didn’t I? What makes you think any of you are so different?”

Cowards often turn cruel under scrutiny, and fear is a trait that grips every mortal being. Thanos is no different, as much as he so desperately wishes he was, and he takes this chance to bolster himself with false aggression, making himself appear stronger than he is.

(Aggression and a lack of care does not equate strength. He’s weakened and scared, and he’s only making this unfortunate truth all the more obvious. Even drugs can’t change the core of who he is.)

“But, you regretted it,” Se-mi counters. They’ve adjusted to a slow walk, conserving their energy for when they next need to run. “Almost immediately, you wished you hadn’t.”

“Are you trying to conduct a fucking therapy session right now, or what?” Thanos snipes. “I don’t know if you’re aware, señorita, but we’re in a pretty high tense situation. I need to be focused if I’m gonna be protecting you, okay?”

“I’m not trying to distract you,” Se-mi scoffs. They pass by another door left ajar, and Thanos stills at the sound of something heavy and wet, muffled gasps of air. “All I’m saying is that–”

The realization of watchful eyes honing in on them through the crack in the doorway is made too late, and by the time Thanos makes a noise of alarm, the door is already slamming open, banging against the wall with a sickening crash.

In the past few days, Thanos has seen enough death to make his head spin. He’s had the drugs to lessen the blow, but each time the effects begin to wear off, thorny agitation wraps tightly around his heart. A gunshot to the head, a knife sinking into a fragile body — it always happens so quickly. It’s baffling, to come to terms with the fact that so much can change in a few minuscule seconds. In half a second, an entire life can be destroyed. In one second, a person can be rendered dead.

It takes exactly one second for the knife, clutched in the hands of a burly, steadfast man, to pierce Se-mi’s windpipe. In the next second, the dagger is removed with a wet schlick. By the third and fourth second, Se-mi has fallen to a heap in the ground, gurgling and bloody and twitching in delayed surprise. And by her fifth, final second, she’s undeniably dead.

The neck, when pierced in certain areas, sprays so much blood in such startling succession that it renders a person dead in seconds. There’s no time to wrap a wound, to say goodbyes, to clasp hands together and pray. There's hardly even time to think. The wound appears, blood pours from flesh, and then it’s over. There’s no time for anything. When is there ever?

“Player 380 eliminated. Player 096 pass.”

The most baffling aspect of it all, Thanos thinks, is the fact that he can do nothing except stand and watch. It all happens so quickly, such rapid and determined violence, and it’s the sudden brutality that renders him unable to move. How can something so awful occur in only five seconds?

The man clad in red spares him one last glance, an almost mocking cadence glimmering beneath beady eyes. Thanos stands rigidly, though he knows he should be running — but the man makes no move to kill him, because he has no need to. He’s already passed. Thanos can nearly hear the wheels turning in his brain as he backs away. “I need to conserve my strength. I need to win. I need to make it out alive.”

And then, just as quickly as he appeared, he leaves, slinking back through the door that he burst from.

Thanos swallows thickly. The stench of blood makes his throat burn, searing his nostrils severely enough to make him hack up a cough. Se-mi, slumped in a puddle of her own fresh blood, stares lifelessly at the ceiling. Goops of crimson pour from the hole in her neck, and despite the mess, Thanos crouches down to reach his hand across her face, gently closing her eyelids.

“Player 125 eliminated."

Shit. Did he get his knife turned against him, or something? Fucking idiot. Cowardly, scared, trembling Min-su who can’t even hold a fucking knife right. The dumbass probably dropped his weapon and got his ass handed to him. Fuck.

Thanos drags a hand through his hair, his breath coming out in a shaky, unstable huff. So much for protecting his teammates. It’s just one wrong move after the other when it comes to him, isn’t it?

…He needs to find Nam-gyu.

— — —

There’s five minutes on the clock when Thanos finally manages to find him.

The first thing Thanos notices is that Nam-gyu looks far too clean. There’s no blood coating his knife, his hands are spotless, and his vest is hardly even wrinkled.

“Hyung! There you are,” Nam-gyu cheers once he sees Thanos approach, twirling his knife with a pleased grin. “Took you long enough! I’ve been all over this damn place. I was starting to think you broke your promise and keeled over.”

“Have you killed anyone yet?” Thanos asks, straight-to-the-point despite already knowing what the answer will be.

Nam-gyu sighs heavily, a dramatic display of self-pity. “No, not yet. The little roaches are faster than I expected. I almost caught one, but that fucker MG took the kill from me.” With a grunt of frustration, Nam-gyu holds up his hands and mimics a throttling motion. “I sure wish that he was on team blue, so I could’ve ripped the little shits throat out.”

“You’ve got five minutes, man,” Thanos says, keeping his voice level. He’s rather embarrassed by his display of panic last time around, and feels the need to gather himself and act accordingly. He passes Nam-gyu in strides, gesturing at him to follow. “I’ll help you track someone down. Quick, my boy.”

“You’re so helpful, hyung,” Nam-gyu singsongs, following swiftly along behind him. “Real chivalrous, you know?”

Thanos grunts as Nam-gyu tosses himself against his back as if attempting an impromptu bear hug, snickering as Thanos stumbles under the sudden weight.

“Dude—“ Thanos gripes in amused exasperation as Nam-gyu slides off of him, sidestepping back to Thanos’ side with his hands held politely behind his back.

“Did you hear?” Nam-gyu asks suddenly, lips twitching into a smile. “Over the speaker?”

“Hear what?” Thanos asks, eyes darting towards the clock. Four minutes, forty-three seconds. He’s so tired of being so fucking nervous. The drugs are supposed to combat this, but the aspect of looping has jumbled him so greatly that even the effects of the drugs seem to have lost their hard-hitting flair. He can feel the effects, but it all seems much more dull and muted in comparison to how it ought to feel, the high of the drug fading quicker than it should. Which, objectively, makes very little sense.

But, so does being sent back in time. Thanos is really in no place to discuss what does and doesn’t make sense.

“The bitch and the coward,” Nam-gyu says, his throat fluttering as he takes a small, euphoric intake of breath. “Both of them are dead.”

In the eyes of the average person, such an excitable reaction to the death of others is sure to be described as horrific. Thanos, on the other hand, is well accustomed to Nam-gyu’s oddities, and was expecting this reaction. Maybe if he hadn't seen Se-mi die directly, he’d jest about it along with him, just for the sake of keeping the mood light, pretending not to care just to further tighten his grip on the last teammate he has left, soothing a wild animal into a state of ease. Because now, without Nam-gyu, Thanos will truly be left with nothing; nothing except the pills. The pills that hardly seem to do a damn thing for him anymore. The pills he planned to swallow before tossing himself to his demise. The pills that Nam-gyu seems to place on a higher pedestal than both Thanos and himself, always talking about them and grabbing for them and placing them delicately against his tongue, eyes locked onto Thanos as he does so like he’s putting on a show of it. Pills, pills, pills, it’s always about the fucking pills.

Not like Thanos can blame him — he does the same thing, doesn't he?

The issue here–the focal point, the metaphorical screeching of a violin as it reaches its climax–is that Thanos is left with one singular teammate, and now more than ever, he feels the need to cling. This is a direct slap in the face to the dynamic they’ve so carefully laid out for themselves; Nam-gyu is the person who clings, not Thanos. Thanos isn't a clinger, because he doesn't actually need a team. He’s perfectly fine by himself. Entirely capable.

At least, that’s the persona he displays. Deep down, however, Thanos knows he’ll be left weak without anyone to rely on. The act of sharing his drugs with Nam-gyu has spiraled into a ritual of sorts, a religious act of sanctity. Tablets pressed along roofs of mouths are equivalent to hands clasped tightly in prayer, and locked eyes are a display of devotion.

(Devotion to what? The drugs, themselves, or each other? Thanos refuses to search for an answer within this question, because he knows the answer will trouble him.)

Without this sacred act to rely on, what will be left of him? Thanos would rather not discover this firsthand.

“Yeah, I heard,” Thanos murmurs. “Se-mi was…”

Nam-gyu’s smile drops. Strike one. “Se-mi was what? Were you with her?”

“Yeah, dude. It’s better to stick with teammates–”

“That bitch hardly classifies as a teammate.”

“Classified,” Thanos corrects, ignoring the burning stare of Nam-gyu’s gaze beside him. “I watched her bleed out and die right in front of me, man. Not exactly thrilling.”

Nam-gyu stops walking entirely, eyebrows furrowed in dismay. “Not exactly thrilling?” Strike two.

Thanos offers him a smile, though it doesn't reach his eyes. “Yeah. It was real messy, you know?”

Thanos could say that it’s actually perfectly normal to feel guilty and upset after seeing someone die directly in front of you. He could say that Nam-gyu is the odd one in this situation, the one with the concerning, unstable mindset. But these words would eventually wrap around to become hypocritical, and the accusations stay stuck, heavy and lethal within his throat.

The knife twirls absently within Nam-gyu’s hands, a twisting silver snake waiting patiently for its time to strike. The two of them are akin to a vulture and a carcass, and when the bird descends, its hunger will be satisfied in a sloppy mess of blood and guts — which is which? Thanos has exactly four minutes and six seconds to figure it out. He should think this over carefully. He has a feeling it’s important.

“What would you have done if I had been the one to kill her, huh?” Nam-gyu asks. He begins to walk again, his grip held tightly against the handle of his knife. Distantly, a scream rings out, muffled by the layered walls of the maze.

What would Thanos do? He has no idea. He certainly wouldn't be pleased, that’s for damn sure. Se-mi may have voted X, a direct and blatant betrayal, but it doesn't change the fact that she’s still essentially a teammate. Sort of. Kind of? Whatever — the point is that Thanos holds her on a higher pedestal in comparison to the rest of the people (roaches, as Nam-gyu so frequently calls them) that he’s stuck with. So, naturally, he’d be irked if Nam-gyu decided to hone in on and kill her specifically.

On the other hand, if asked who Thanos values more overall, he’d have to choose Nam-gyu. Nam-gyu is the one he shares his drugs with, the one he lets crawl onto his bed, the one he knows from outside the games. He feels as if Nam-gyu is tethered to him, an important aspect of getting him out of this alive.

“I don’t know,” Thanos offers honestly. “I’d be glad you were able to pass, I guess.”

“You guess,” Nam-gyu scoffs. Strike three — the tides change, irreversible in their transformation. “You fucking guess? Really?”

“Jesus christ, Nam-su, what the fuck do you want me to say? That I’d jump for joy?” Thanos complains. “It obviously wouldn't be ideal, but…”

“But, what?” Nam-gyu stops walking again, regarding him coldly. Three minutes, fifty five seconds.

“But, you’re what’s most important,” are the words that ring through his head.

“But I’d deal with it and move on,” is what he settles on saying instead. He swears he sees Nam-gyu’s eye twitch.

“Deal with what? The loss of your chosen whore of the week?” Nam-gyu sneers. “Would you say the same thing if she killed me? Would you even give a damn at all?”

“Nam-su–”

“Gyu.”

The correction is sharp and forceful, a barking command instead of a mumbled rectification. Under the glare of a man scorned, knife held tightly between bony fingers, Thanos feels a flicker of unease. It’s at this precise moment that Thanos comes to understand that in the scenario, right this very moment, he is the rotting corpse, and Nam-gyu is the starving vulture.

This brings along the next questions of importance. If hungry enough, will a vulture devour the flesh of a loved one? When its beak digs into oozing meat, will guilt consume it as it fills its stomach? In the end, when nothing but bones are left, will the vulture truly feel satisfied? Will it be worth it?

He has exactly three minutes and forty-one seconds to figure it out. The corpse is already dead and unable to move, therefore unable to change the course of what’s to come. Preparation is all that’s left for him.

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos says carefully. A formless, meaningless apology.

“You only ever say it right when you want something.” Nam-gyu scowls, and Thanos grimaces at the truth of the accusation. “You never mess up Se-mi’s name. Or Min-su’s. Always so respectful, so attentive towards the two fuckers who abandoned you.”

“Respectful and attentive?” Thanos repeats in disbelief. “You have to be kidding–”

“Even back at the club, it was always Nam-su. Nam-su, I promise I’ll pay you back. Nam-su, just one more free drink. Nam-su, your hands feel so good–”

“Hey–!”

“Didn’t feel as good as the girls drooling over your cock, huh? Well, god forbid I didn’t get on my knees in the middle of a fucking work shift. God forbid I take my eyes off of you for five fucking seconds. Are you really that starved for attention?”

Shame curls in his gut. This is a break in the rules of their avoidance game — they aren't supposed to bring this up. They aren't supposed to discuss it.

“It’s not like I was aiming for exclusivity. Of fucking course I wasn’t. But, a thank you would've been nice,” Nam-gyu continues. “Thank you, Nam-gyu, for the free drugs and handjobs and late night discussions over free drinks and drugs. Is that so difficult?”

Thanos isn’t stupid. He knows that pretending to hardly recognize Nam-gyu when they first bumped into each other at the start of this was particularly cruel. Outright mean, even though Nam-gyu went along with it in stride. What they did at Club Pentagon, a handful of moments consisting of deft fingers and soft gasps, have been locked away in the recesses of Thanos’ mind. He’s supposed to be a ladies man, always having a girl on his arm, always señorita this and babygirl that. He’s not supposed to indulge in men, and yet he continues to do so — and it’s Nam-gyu’s hands in particular that have caused him so many sleepless nights. To get so worked up from a standard handjob (a handjob from a handsome club promoter, to be more specific) causes him nothing but embarrassment.

He likes Nam-gyu. He likes the way he laughs at his jokes and hangs on his arm, and the fact that he always made an effort to stop and chat with him over drinks. He likes Nam-gyu a lot.

That in itself is the issue.

“Thank you,” Thanos murmurs, though he knows the words have been spoken too late to mean anything.

Silence befalls them, time thrown to waste. Three minutes, four seconds.

“Hey,” Nam-gyu says suddenly, “I don’t think I’m going to find anyone in time. I think I’m going to die here.”

Thanos begins to shake his head, a feeble denial of what he knows will come to fruition, but Nam-gyu trudges forward without question. “And you know what, Su-bong? I don’t think you’d even give a shit.”

The allegation is vicious, but also entirely untrue. After how closely Thanos has kept Nam-gyu by his side, does he truly believe that Thanos would look down at his corpse and feel nothing? He opens his mouth to deny the claim, to defend himself, to make the man in front of him understand the worth that he holds.

His mouth remains agape. He says nothing.

“I’ve only got a few minutes left,” Nam-gyu says, “and you’re still not running. A little strange, don’t you think? Do you understand the position you’re in?”

Blue and red, opposing forces. This was never going to work; he should’ve recognized this from the beginning.

“Yes,” he croaks.

“Then run.”

“Why would I?” Thanos swallows against the dryness of his throat. “I know that you won’t. I trust you…you’re my boy.”

“Your boy?” Nam-gyu repeats sardonically. “I thought that title belonged to Min-su.”

“Nam-gyu–”

“You really think I can’t do it? You think I’m not capable?”

Thanos knows that Nam-gyu is entirely capable — it’s not about ability, it’s about intention. Nam-gyu can kill him, but Thanos has faith that he won’t. This display of trust flies directly over Nam-gyu’s head; yet another act of miscommunication.

And yet, it’s because of this inner faith that Thanos stays perfectly still as Nam-gyu strides forward and pushes him against the nearest wall. He doesn't move as a knife dips under his jacket and shirt, poking against bare stomach. Not enough to break skin. Not even enough to sting. A warning wrapped in hesitance.

“Why aren't you scared?” Nam-gyu mutters. Their faces are close enough that they can feel each subtle, shaky breath against each other, warm and inviting. Nam-gyu stares, eyes wide and unblinking, and despite everything, Thanos is endlessly thankful for the sight of the life that thrums throughout his corneas.

The honest answer is that Thanos has good reason to believe that his death won’t stick. If he wasn’t faced with the absurdity of timeloops, he’d admittedly be behaving quite differently. His trust would likely plummet to doubt, and he’d be making a solid effort to heave Nam-gyu off of him.

The circumstances this time around are different. He’s already been faced with his own death and Nam-gyu’s — if he’s forced to pick one scenario to live through again, he already knows which one he’ll pick. A knife to the stomach is preferable to watching the light fade from Nam-gyu’s eyes.

Earlier, he’d said he’d kill anyone to save himself. His lies continue to build.

Nam-gyu’s shoulders shake, his hands trembling so fiercely that it can only be described as convulsion. Still, he’s careful not to let the steel against him dip inwards and cause any damage; Thanos can tell that Nam-gyu doesn’t wish to hurt him.

“I don’t think you’d be able to kill him,” Se-mi had said, confident in her own words. Thanos now realizes that she was right.

Nam-gyu, even while in such a state of madness, is beautiful. The flickers of guilt, fear, confusion, hatred and affection that morph together, intangible and inseparable, are all innately human. The sweat that beads against his forehead, the wheezing breaths of palpable devastation, and jittery movement of his pupils are all proof that he is alive. Thanos brings a hand upward, steadfast. Nam-gyu flinches, expecting a slap or punch, some form of fighting back. Instead, Thanos lays his palm against the curve of Nam-gyu’s cheek, letting it rest lightly against clammy skin. The action is uncharacteristically gentle, so absurdly forgiving of the knife pointed against his stomach that it causes Nam-gyu to let out a garbled, broken gasp.

“What are you doing?” The knife presses deeper, but only slightly, bringing forth the slightest of stings. “Why are you letting me do this?”

Why? That’s a good question. Thanos wishes he had an answer for it.

Nam-gyu swallows, his throat bobbing as he purses his lips, leaning against a warm, open palm. “There’s something wrong with you.”

Thanos smiles weakly, and brings his other hand up to grasp at the knuckles clamped around the knife. “I know.”

Nam-gyu attempts to pull his hand back at the contact, jolting under the steadiness of Thanos’ palm. “I can’t,” he admits brokenly, his voice a mere whisper as acceptance washes over him, understanding that his inability of being able to kill Thanos will result in his own untimely demise.

“I know,” Thanos says again. “But, I can.”

Dying at his own hands and dying at the hands of another are two very different things. But guiding the hands of another, helping them plunge a knife into his stomach — this he can come to terms with. As long as the hands he guides belong to Nam-gyu, it’ll all be worth it.

He knows that if he’s too slow with his guidance, Nam-gyu will struggle and pull back entirely. Because of this, Thanos slams the knife inside the soft flesh of his stomach in one harsh tug, keeping his hand firmly pressed against Nam-gyu’s knuckles. The abject horror that encases Nam-gyu’s features is even worse than the wet sound of entry, and the cold sting of metal sliding inside flesh.

The first few seconds pass by uneventfully. Despite Nam-gyu’s increasing terror, all Thanos feels at first is a cold, unnatural tingling. But when Nam-gyu’s eyes dart downwards to examine the wound in shock, Thanos’ eyes dart down along with him, and it’s the sight of the knife nestled so deeply within him, blood bubbling up from the edges of the dagger, that causes the pain to flare.

Cold discomfort switches to searing, heated agony in a matter of seconds. Blood drips down him in goops of crimson, sticky and hot, and the hand cradling Nam-gyu’s cheek falls to grasp harshly at his shoulder, an attempt to help himself remain upright as he makes a muffled sound of pain. Nam-gyu tugs the knife out of its place snugly situated within Thanos body with a yelp of fear, a hasty, delayed action made out of frenzied panic. The removal of the dagger only doubles the pain, the air against a fresh, gaping wound bringing along a harsh coldness mingling with sizzling heat. With a crackly breath, Thanos begins to slump to the ground, blood pouring out of him in endless streams of red. The dagger falls uselessly out of Nam-gyu’s hands as he sinks down alongside him in fright.

“Why– why would you–?!” Nam-gyu shrieks, hands fumbling against bloodied flesh, pressing persistently in a poor attempt to stop the bleeding. The action is made in a hasty effort to help, to reverse what’s already been done, but shaky fingers can’t quell the pouring of blood, and hands against raw flesh only causes undue pain.

Still, Thanos finds it fitting. Fingers against a gaping wound and a beak against a rotting carcass aren’t all that different. He’s morbidly happy that the last person to touch him in this instant will be Nam-gyu, his hands doused in Thanos’ innards. It’s filthy, grotesque, and agonizingly painful.

In such a state of raw panic, Nam-gyu has never looked more alive.

“You idiot,” Nam-gyu grits out, blood oozing from beneath his fingertips. His breaths come out in sharp, hasty bursts, intercepted by soft, guttural noises of grief. “You promised…”

Thanos fumbles to reach for the blood-soaked knife, left abandoned on the ground beside him. Each breath he heaves is more painful than the last, and as he tugs Nam-gyu’s slickened hands off of him, pressing the hilt of the knife into his slippery palm, he can only hope he gets his wordless plea across. “End me quickly.”

His mouth is tangy as blood begins to rise, and he doubts he’d be able to get the words out even if he tried. Understanding dawns on Nam-gyu quickly, eyes flickering between the knife to Thanos' pained expression in repetitive jolts. “I…I already told you I can’t.”

Thanos shakes his head in quick disagreement, swallowing a mouthful of blood with a grimace. If he had the energy to speak, he’d reassure him that a knife to the heart given to him by Nam-gyu’s hands, in this scenario, is something to be cherished. “There’s no reason for a vulture to falter before taking a mouthful of its meal – take what you’ve been offered,” he’d say, earnestly guiding bloody hands to a beating heart. “Eat me whole, and don’t leave a morsel of meat behind.” In death, Thanos wants to be savored.

Instead of saying anything, Thanos attempts to ignore the wet splattering of his pouring blood, and once again fumbles his own convulsing hands against Nam-gyu’s shaking ones, bringing the hands and the knife held within them to his heart, tapping the edge of the knife against his chest.

“No!” Nam-gyu jolts away immediately. “No, you’re fine, you can get through this. I can save you, I can…”

The irrationality of his own words dawn on him slowly, replaced with misery as he watches the continuous blood-flow. Nam-gyu spares a look behind his shoulder, seeking out the nearest time counter and groaning at the sight. One minute, four seconds.

Thanos tugs more persistently against Nam-gyu’s wrists, a blubbering, wordless plea as his body thrums in agony. Nam-gyu looks back at him, eyes swimming with sorrow, the same two words pulsing through his being. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

But Nam-gyu has always been so good at following instructions, and they both know what needs to happen next.

A knife is raised, carefully aimed for the death to be instant. His eyes focus, his jaw clenches. No words are traded, because everything they wish to say is unable to be formulated in such a short amount of time. There’s no need to speak — both of them are fully aware of the meaning behind this act.

Knife plunges into heart. Beak plunges into festering flesh. It all ends in an instant, and while Thanos can hear the broken sound of prolonged, agonized weeping as the world around him falls away, he pretends that he can’t hear a thing.

Even as consciousness restructures, Thanos denies himself of the truth.

Notes:

I have not been stabbed in the stomach before, so I apologize if this is inaccurate. I made a solid effort! ^_^;

Chapter 4: the witch

Notes:

Everyone who comments ily. Everyone who reads ily. Mwah. Kisses on the forehead for everyone!

This time, it takes longer for him to be placed back to the beginning.

The lapse of thoughtlessness lasts longer, though Thanos is only able to take note of this as he slowly begins to return to himself. A knife to the stomach, a knife to the heart — these forceful entries of metal against flesh stay rooted within him, a faded, buzzing feeling of discomfort and unease.

What also clings to him, alongside the subtle ache, is the feeling of gentle fingertips against open flesh. Desperation encased in agony, watchful eyes examining a torrent of blood. Softly spoken words only uttered when ensured the other is dead, apologies followed by gratitude followed by sobs and weeps and pathetic displays of regret. Words that Thanos is unable to make out entirely, yet still nestle around the confines of his heart, to later be pieced together and adored. Blood-soaked fingertips entwine with the palm of a dead man, unspoken words made clear in the connection of skin. “Why did you do this? What did you get out of it?”

Thanos is unable to answer. He falls away from himself and is pieced back together again all in one fluid motion, skin and bone teared away and restructured, heart clumsily put back together, cells reshaped and mended. The process is agonizing — at least, Thanos thinks it’s supposed to be. All he’s really aware of in these short, yet equally endless moments curled inside a space without time, is the heaving breaths of something other than himself.

When he opens his eyes again, he’s thankful to feel no pain. How many times will he be able to go through this before his being ceases to restructure?

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with a sense of rising resolve.

He spares a glance back at Nam-gyu, who stares back at him with the same look of nervousness he always does, stress-stricken and baffled. Instead of offering a nonchalant shrug or lazy, uncaring smile, Thanos looks at him with grim determination.

There’s two more methods he hasn’t tried yet. If these fail him, only then will unshakable, all-consuming panic truly begin to penetrate the walls he’s built up around himself. Only then will he begin to break.

Thanos walks over to the same spot he always does, exhilaration pulsing throughout him. The wet, squelching sound of knife tearing into skin stays tucked away in the corners of his mind, a hushed reminder of what it feels like to die, to be killed by the hands of another.

The hands that killed him had belonged to both himself and Nam-gyu, gentle guidance leading to a painful end. And yet, despite the torment, there’d been an undertone of something almost loving. This time, Nam-gyu’s first course of action had not been to reach for the cross – in the face of blood and guts, Nam-gyu had moved with the goal to prevent an unpreventable death. This in itself is akin to an admission of care.

Above everything, Thanos is the most baffled by his own actions. Killing himself—more specifically, guiding Nam-gyu into killing him—for the simple fact of wanting to save another. Such an act of complete self-sacrifice doesn't exactly align with what he stands for; he’s supposed to only care about himself and his drugs. His self-absorbed demeanor and lack of concern for others is what has gotten him this far, and it’s what’s supposed to continuously carry him to victory. Wasting time on others doesn't get him anywhere. It’s a weakness, a burden, and an unnecessary risk. People are flimsy, and far too easily broken.

The unspoken rules of the game that he’s worked out between himself and Nam-gyu have turned dangerous. Blood-soaked hands against the exposed flesh of his stomach haunt him, and while he’s sure the broken sobs that had followed him into death must have been formulated by his own fading consciousness, he can’t help but wonder if the soft, muted noises of despair were real.

“Wow. You’re really worked up about this.”

Thanos turns to see Se-mi; without a hole in her neck this time, thankfully. He breathes a soft sigh of relief, palming absently at the back of his neck. Clammy, a sign of nervousness — not good. He needs to get his act together.

“Duh, senorita,” Thanos scoffs. “Nam-su and I being on separate teams isn’t exactly ideal.”

“Still…I didn’t expect you to be so openly distraught.”

Ugh, he’s heard this all before. And, for the record, he thought he was doing a pretty stellar job at appearing resolute instead of distraught. “I’m fine.”

He’s been saying that phrase a lot lately. Not once has it been truthful.

As the guards voice delivers the same clipped, short words of instruction they always do, and voices of outrage are once again brought forth, Thanos tries to formulate a way to convince Nam-gyu to switch with him.

Thanos on red, Nam-gyu on blue – that’s the only combo he hasn’t tried yet besides both of them being hiders, and Thanos isn’t fond of the idea of neither of them having knives. If Nam-gyu agrees to switch, then Thanos can seek out and protect Nam-gyu. It’ll all work perfectly fine. This is the loop that’ll work, he can feel it.

(Or maybe what he feels is the wide, probing eyes of player 044 from a few feet ahead of him, her head cocked in feline curiosity. Has she always made a point to look at him like that?

…Creepy.)

As Nam-gyu approaches, Thanos squares his shoulders and prepares himself for what he’s sure will end up blowing up into an argument. Thanos knows Nam-gyu well enough to know he won’t give up his knife without a fight, and the mere insinuation of Thanos asking to switch with him despite offering up Min-su will likely offend him more than the incorrect name calling and dismissal of their Club Pentagon interactions combined.

This is a risky move. But, Thanos feels compelled to try it nonetheless.

Nam-gyu licks his lips as he shoves Min-su forward. Thanos is starting to think that Nam-gyu would rather kill his sacrificial offering himself instead of displaying him on an altar, waiting for blood to be drawn from another.

“Don't worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you. Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

Thanos says nothing. With furrowed brows, he chews idly on his bottom lip, eyes darting between the two men in front of him. How should he go about this? He’s never been good at planning things out…

“Hyung?” Nam-gyu’s smile falters, his grip on Min-su tightening, a hunter making sure his prized, wounded catch doesn't break from its confines and run away. “Hello? Earth to Thanos?”

“Listen, my boy,” Thanos starts carefully. Uncharacteristically careful — Thanos never thinks before he speaks, and the sudden change makes Nam-gyu frown, while Min-su squints in bewilderment. “I have an idea.”

“Is the idea to take Min-su’s knife and help me kill some of those team blue shitheads?” Nam-gyu smiles, the action clearly strained. When his only answer is an uncomfortable silence, he licks his lips again—a nervous tick—and lets his smile fall, eyes narrowing in dismay. “...What else could you possibly have in mind, dude?”

“I don’t want to switch with Min-su,” Thanos says, noticing the small breath of relief the younger man heaves at the admission. Thanos nearly scoffs — Min-su has nothing to feel relieved about. If the last loop is anything to go by, being on the red team does nothing good for him. The poor guy is pathetically wimpish…it sort of reminds Thanos of how he behaved when he was younger. Back when he was unapologetically Su-bong instead of Thanos. “Nam-gyu, I want to switch with you.”

Nam-gyu’s mouth drops in such unparalleled shock that Thanos considers backtracking immediately and writing it all off as a shitty joke. Even Min-su looks appalled, eyes wide and disbelieving, and Se-mi, who Thanos knows stands just a few steps behind him, inhales in obvious surprise.

Thanos may put on a show of not caring what others think of him, but even he is bound to wilt under such scrutiny. Fleetingly, he wonders if Nam-gyu would believe him if he talked of timeloops and warm hands pressed against him in death. Words of hatred turning to words of regret, devotion shown in the form of a knife to the heart.

Thanos feels, as he so often has throughout his life, completely and utterly alone. He’s stuck in a death game, facing incomprehensible horrors, and now on top of that, he’s been thrown into something even more absurd. Something that isn't even supposed to exist. Thanos knows he isn’t a good man, but does he truly deserve this?

“Listen,” Thanos begins, swallowing his discomfort. “If we switch, I can find you and protect you. It’ll be easier if only one of us has to kill. Look around, dude. There’s not an endless supply of key-carriers to kill, and the arena is fucking huge. You’ll–”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nam-gyu scowls. “We don’t even know what the arena looks like yet.”

Thanos falters, mentally cursing himself. Shit, this isn't going well at all. “Uh, I assume the arena is big. It’s probably, like…a maze, or something.”

Nam-gyu looks at him as if he just uttered the most idiotic string of words to mankind. Just this once, Thanos can’t really blame him. “Hyung. You clearly want a knife, right? You want a knife, I want a knife, Min-su wants a key. You seeing a pattern here?”

Smarmy little shit. If this fucker could just wrap his head around the fact that Thanos is trying—very desperately trying, at that—to get them both out of this alive, this would all be so much easier.

“I don’t…” Min-su speaks up, shuddering in predetermined fear. “I don’t want a key.”

Nam-gyu looks unhinged. There’s really no other way to describe it or put it delicately; the man looks entirely out of his mind. He looks at Min-su as if he’s weighing his options, thoughts spiraling into madness. “Should I take the knife in my hand and kill him? Will the guards shoot me if I bury my knife into Min-su’s throat? Is it worth it to risk my life to end the life of the trembling man in front of me? When he fragments into pieces, dead at my feet, will the pleasure of seeing him dead be worth the inevitable bullet to my head?”

“Min-su, you little shit–”

“Nam-su–” Thanos says reflexively, wincing as Nam-gyu pointedly redirects his glare. “Nam-gyu, my boy, I’m trying to protect you. I’m telling you, man, it’s much easier to hide. As long as you’re fast, you’ll be fine. You won’t have to overpower anyone, or deal with chasing people down–”

“Do you seriously think I’m incapable of killing?” Nam-gyu scoffs. “Hyung, I can handle myself just fine. If Min-su would just–”

Thanos resists the urge to grab onto Nam-gyu’s shoulders and shake him. Instead, he takes a step forward and grabs onto Nam-gyu’s wrists. One of his hands still loosely hangs onto his knife, clean and pristine. “That’s not the point, Nam-gyu. It’s difficult to explain, but I have a plan here, okay? Seriously, dude. You trust me, right?”

The delay is long enough to cause offense, but Nam-gyu slowly begins to nod under the earnest intensity of Thanos’ gaze. “Yeah. ‘Course.”

“Then trust that I’ll protect you. You’re my boy, okay? I can’t have anything happen to you,” Thanos declares, and while he knows he’s laying it on thick, the words aren't necessarily untrue. In this case, his dedicated words hold truth — inwardly, though, he refuses to admit the depth of such honesty.

Nam-gyu looks at him with a permanent grimace. The words seem to relax him, but he still seems irked by the aspect of not having a knife. Thanos squeezes his hands gently around Nam-gyu’s shaky wrists, a form of reassurance. A prayer constructed by the act of skin-on-skin contact.

“Two,” Nam-gyu murmurs eventually, eyes narrowing. “Two pills, and then I’ll switch.”

“Two?” Thanos gawks. “Dude, come on. We have a limited supply, and you can’t take two at once–”

“Then, I can’t switch with you.”

Thanos takes a deep, steady breath as impatience consumes him. He must be in hell — how is it that Thanos is the sensible one between them right now? Absolutely fucking absurd.

“Do you have a death wish?” Se-mi scoffs. “Teetering near overdose isn’t going to help you hide.”

“Two pills won’t make me overdose, you dumb bitch,” Nam-gyu spits out his words like venom, glancing behind Thanos’ shoulder to sneer in Se-mi’s direction. “What’re you even here for, anyways? Why don't you take your useless little puppydog Min-su and fuck off.”

“Fine, fine, holy shit,” Thanos redirects, squeezing Nam-gyu’s wrists again to refocus him. “Two pills. Switch with me, and I’ll give you two pills, okay?”

Thanos can tell by the way his muscles twitch that Nam-gyu is chewing persistently on the inside of his cheek, teeth gnashing against flesh. “...Pills first. Then we switch.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, man? What happened to trusting me, huh?”

“Thanos, come on.” Nam-gyu frowns. “Me agreeing to switch at all is a sign of trust. Just give me the damn pills so we can get this over with.”

Thanos lets go of his hold on Nam-gyu in order to fumble his cross out from under his jacket with a sigh. This is far, far from ideal. Two pills won’t send Nam-gyu careening into an immediate overdose, but it’ll cause a sharper, more intense high, and an even harsher comedown. They’ve only got five pills to last the both of them for however long the games last — if Nam-gyu takes two, and Thanos takes one, that’ll leave them with only two pills in total. One for each of them.

“Your withdrawals are going to be fucking insane,” Thanos mutters as he clinks open his cross, a religious relic meant to save, but only ever causing harm.

“And yours won’t be?” Nam-gyu snipes. “I’ve already told you, man. I’m experienced.”

Thanos knows this, not only because Nam-gyu has shown him the leftover marks on his arm from countless injections, but also because he’s seen it firsthand. At the club, he’s seen Nam-gyu snort lines with ease, lining up white powder carefully on any flat surface he can find, hunching himself forward and dragging his nose along it like a man possessed, straightening up with a wild, albeit forced grin once he’s finished. He knows what sort of highs Nam-gyu is used to.

But, no amount of experience takes away from the harsh reality of withdrawals.

“Just don’t start wigging out, okay? Hide, and hide well. I can’t protect you if you die before I find you.”

“You’re acting all responsible, like some sort of parent. It’s…gross.” Nam-gyu admits with a wince. “You’re supposed to be all, like…‘let’s get it!’”

It’s the second time he’s been faced with Nam-gyu imitating him, waving his hands in the air as he copies Thanos’ burst of English. Despite the unfortunate situation, Thanos has to admit…it’s just as endearing the second time around.

“Nice impression, man. You’ve been practicing?” Thanos snickers.

“‘Let’s get it!” Nam-gyu repeats again, though far more subdued this time. “…I’m saying it right, aren’t I?”

“Uh-huh. Very impressive.” Thanos smirks, placing the pills in the palm of Nam-gyu’s hand. “You’ve been paying close attention to me, huh?”

Instead of answering, Nam-gyu hones in on the pills splayed out on his skin. He licks his lips slowly, deliberately, and places one in his mouth — pastel blue against a pink tongue. Eye contact is held, as it always is (this is an important part of the ritual, and breaking it would render them both unsteady in their devotion, spitting in the face of their own falsified ideals), and when he swallows against the tablet, Nam-gyu smiles like a man reborn.

Thanos wants to tell him that it’s not a good idea to take another, that they need to be sensible and conserve what they have. Tipping too far could render them both dead, and while death doesn’t seem to stick for Thanos, he’s not exactly sure how it works for the rest of them. Hell, he doesn't even know how it works for himself. There’s many things about what’s occurring to him that he doesn’t know, like why the loop resets when Nam-gyu dies, but not Se-mi or Min-su. Is it because of the drugs? Connection? Or something else, something other that Thanos still can’t quite pinpoint?

He can’t voice any of this, because Thanos isn’t supposed to be sensible. He’s wild, crazy, unpredictable. He shouldn’t care if Nam-gyu takes one or two pills or the entire damn supply…well, no, that’s not quite right. Obviously Thanos would care if Nam-gyu took his entire goddamn supply of drugs. The point he’s trying to make here—to himself, to the world, to whatever is pulling the strings behind all of this—is that he should be caring about himself. Not Nam-gyu.

But, that’s simply not true. If it were, he wouldn’t have helped Nam-gyu stab him in the fucking stomach last time around. He wouldn’t have sacrificed himself like a deer bounding up towards the barrel of a loaded gun. He wouldn’t have taken comfort in the fact that Nam-gyu seemed distraught to see him die — proof of connection. Proof of care.

Nam-gyu takes the second pill and places it between his teeth, smiling wolfishly. He seems to be having a fantastic time torturing him like this, all impish and giddy at the fact that he knows he’s doing something Thanos doesn’t want him to. Like he’s the one in control, for once.

Nam-gyu swallows down the second pill, grinning coyly in the face of concern. “See? I’m just fine. Perfectly fucking swell, actually.”

With a sigh of grievance, Thanos makes quick work of taking his own pill — his one, singular pill, because apparently Thanos has to be the voice of reason between them now. What the fuck type of bullshit reality has he been thrown into where he’s the responsible one? Insanity. Legitimate, actual insanity.

With a breezy laugh, Nam-gyu hands over the knife. “You better do a good job protecting me, alright?”

“Of course, of course.”

“And, Thanos?” Nam-gyu says suddenly, his smile dropping as Thanos places the key in his hand. “For the record, I'm not stupid. I know why you did this.”

Thanos freezes, blinking at him in surprise. Nam-gyu stares back at him blankly, as if he’s been struck with a sudden case of all-knowing omnipresence. Thanos furrows his eyebrows as he picks apart Nam-gyu’s words — does he know about the loops? Does he remember?

Unfortunately for him, his strike of unluckiness continues in stride. The guard announces that time is almost up, and Nam-gyu loses his sudden seriousness as they make quick work of switching vests.

“Keep your promise, okay?” Nam-gyu reiterates as the hiders begin to make their way to the arena. The glowing design of a knife gleams on the wall behind him, an upside down cross illuminating a fallen angel.

“I will,” Thanos says, and while his words hold confidence, the only thing he can think of as he watches Nam-gyu leave is how fragile he looks. How fragile everyone looks. So quick to bleed, to break, to be rendered destroyed.

Nam-gyu doesn’t turn back to look at him as he leaves. Thanos feels, in some indescribable way, that salvation has slipped through his fingers.

— — —

“…I don’t think I can do this.”

Thanos heaves an impatient sigh. Ten seconds in, and Min-su is already admitting defeat. “You’re the one who wanted to keep your knife, bro.”

Min-su trails along behind him timidly, the exact opposite of threatening. Thanos spares him quick glances as he makes his way through the maze, and each time he does so, he’s met with the same wide-eyed, nervous glare.

Admittedly, he doesn’t really want Min-su to be following him around like this. As mean as it sounds, it’s simply not ideal for Thanos’ situation — as much as he’d like to, he doesn’t have the time to help Min-su find and kill someone. His focus here is finding someone for himself to kill, and finding Nam-gyu, and if he stumbles across Nam-gyu with Min-su in tow, he has a feeling the situation will turn sour quickly. Nam-gyu has made it clear he has a jealous streak, and Thanos is sure that if he sees him buddied up with Min-su, it’ll only exacerbate it.

…Thanos wonders what Nam-gyu’s so jealous about.

Still, he doesn’t want to whirl around and tell Min-su to leave him the hell alone. Thanos certainly isn’t a nice individual, but when it comes to his teammates (even the ones who picked X like little fucking cowards), he likes to think he’s rather kindhearted.

…Maybe ‘kindhearted’ is pushing it. But, it’s not like he wants to accidentally, inadvertently cause Min-su to spiral into further panic and die because of it. There’s something so utterly miserable about the man that Thanos can’t help but feel an almost parental want to protect him to his best abilities.

But, it’s not like Thanos can kill someone for Min-su. If he wants to get out of this alive, it’s up to him.

“Tell me if you see my boy Nam-su,” Thanos calls behind him. “And, this should go without saying, but don’t kill him. Obviously. Okay?”

“…Okay,” Min-su murmurs.

“Hey, that didn’t sound very reassuring.” Thanos turns to deliver a disappointed glare. “I know you two don’t like each other, but if you hurt him, I’ll have to kill you.”

The words are spoken plainly, as if the admission is obvious. Min-su gawks in the face of bluntness (and very blatant favoritism). “But— but then you would die!”

“So what?” Thanos says flippantly. Not like it matters. He’ll just loop back again. “All that matters to me is protecting Nam-su.”

…Okay, wow. He needs to tone it down a bit; he’s starting to sound like a possessive ex-lover. Even Min-su seems startled by it, giving him a slack-jawed look of disbelief. Thanos wants to tell him that he needs to suck it up and get his act together—maybe he should deliver some type of inspirational speech about how viewing human life as trivial comes real handy in situations like this—but before he can think of anything worthwhile to say, Min-su speaks up again.

“You won’t kill Se-mi, right?” Min-su mumbles, rubbing nervously along his knuckles, fingers squeezing the hilt of his dagger in shaky unease. “You’ll protect her too, won’t you?”

Thanos pivots to wag a disapproving finger in Min-su’s face, though he doesn't break his stride as he does so. “Who do you think I am, my little boy Min-su? You and her both betrayed me by picking X; made me real fucking angry, man. But, I’m not going to murder you because of it. Seems sort of overkill,” Thanos snickers, “literally.”

“It’s just that…Nam-gyu said…” Min-su makes a pitiful little noise, yet another show of cowardice.

“He said what?” Thanos probes.

“He said if I didn't give you my knife, he’d kill Se-mi. Then he said, after the game ends, he’d figure out a way to kill me too.” Min-su swallows nervously. “‘I’ll rip you apart from the inside out until there’s nothing left of you’...that’s what he said.”

The sensible reaction to this would be admonishment, dismay, and overwhelming dislike. Instead, Thanos is fairly ashamed to admit it sends a thrill throughout him, knowing how committed Nam-gyu was to being paired with him. He must be saying such awful threats each and every loop, whispering into Min-su’s ear like some sort of devil on his shoulder — damn. Is he fucked in the head for finding that hot?

(Yes. Absolutely, without a doubt. He’s actually rather glad he doesn’t have the time to stop and think about it critically.)

“Don’t worry about it.” Thanos waves his hand dismissively. “Nam-su is just dedicated.”

“Dedicated…to what?”

“To being my second-in-command,” Thanos boasts proudly. “Duh.”

Min-su looks at him in a way that makes Thanos feel like he’s missing something. That stupid, scrunched up expression that manages to say, “Really? That’s what you think?” without actually saying anything at all.

He’s hardly thrilled with Min-su’s continuous disbelief, but before he can comment on it, he startles at the sound of a door slamming open behind them.

They whirl around in unison, knives raised in mutual preparation. Much to Thanos’ delight, not just one person makes their way out of the door, but two. Perfect! One for him, one for Min-su! As long as Min-su can gather enough resolve to kill someone in the next few following seconds, they’ll both be safe.

As the pair of women glance at them in surprise, Thanos recognizes one of them as player 044. Again. Damn, it’s like this lady is haunting him, or something. This time, however, another lady is with her, clinging harshly to her arm like a puppy who refuses to let go of a chew toy.

They both look equally horrified, but it does nothing to stop Thanos from taking immediate action. He has no time for hesitation — he’ll kill whichever one he manages to latch onto first. It makes no difference to him which one ends up in a neatly wrapped casket.

Unfortunately for him, the pair are quick on their feet. They scramble into a mad dash in precise unison; isn’t the shaman supposed to have far more than just one follower? He wonders what happened to the rest of her little sycophants.

Whatever, not important. What’s important is getting the kill he needs to get out of this alive, so he can focus on what really matters.

He can feel the rapid pitter patter of Min-su rushing along behind him, likely tripping over his feet like a fucking moron. Ugh, that’s mean — but, really, Thanos is still excessively annoyed at him for choosing the wrong damn button.

They reach a fork in the maze, and the shaman shoves her minion to one side, while she takes the other route, clearly hoping for the other woman to serve as a distraction. Cruel. Smart. Thanos can appreciate her commitment to putting herself first.

Not that it’ll matter in the end, of course.

As the other woman hits the ground, Thanos hears something snap. A sharp, harsh crunch, like a pair of teeth crunching into an apple; she must’ve broken a bone. She lets out a wail of pain as she lays on the ground, clearly injured. Thanos could easily take the chance to redirect and kill her, but the shaman is already starting to slow down, and he’s still got his sights set on her.

“Min-su, get that one!” Thanos orders, continuing his rapid descent without stopping to check if Min-su is actually taking his generously offered chance to make it out of this alive. Very generously offered. Thanos thinks he deserves an award for his astounding amount of generosity, actually.

…If Min-su doesn’t take that damn sacrifice, Thanos might really lose it on the poor guy.

Thanos’ moves are calculated. He’s quick on his feet, spurred with the need to kill, and prey can’t run forever. Just as he knew she would, the shaman ends up trapped in a room, unable to escape through the exit that Thanos blocks. She knows that soon she will be nothing but a rotting corpse, and still she stands tall in the face of a man prepared to kill. Tall, yet trembling and afraid. Her emotions contradict themselves, a whirl of unpredictability.

“Wait,” she commands in one heaving breath, holding her palm out in a halting movement. “I know the tribulations that you face. I know what you seek.”

If it were anyone else, Thanos would pay no mind to babbled words of nonsense, and strike without waiting for more. But, he’s killed this woman before, as has Nam-gyu, and each time she’s muttered something eerily similar to his current predicament. And now, as she stands in front of him speaking of tribulations and knowing something, Thanos pauses.

The hesitancy makes the woman give a lilting shriek of delight, clasping her hands together eagerly. “I am Seon-nyeo, shaman of the sea. And you…you are unraveling. Your skin, your mind, your entire being itself. You’ve been cursed.” She nods slowly, pointedly, as if she’s delivering true wisdom upon him. “I can feel it radiating off of you in stifling, powerful waves. Whoever put you under such a curse must have been a very powerful being indeed…”

Thanos swears he feels his eye twitch. “…What the fuck are you talking about? Do you seriously think that making up a bunch of bullshit will stop me from killing you?”

“No! Wait, halt—“ Seon-nyeo insists, resuming her prior stance of holding her hand out in front of her, her back pressed flush against the wall. “I speak only in truths! Your aura…is filthy. It’s been tainted, and now you are stuck…” she takes a step closer, eyes narrowing as she examines him closely. “Yes…that’s right. You’re stuck in a grainy film, constantly replaying the same events over and over…isn’t that right?”

Thanos swallows thickly against his rising nausea. “…How?”

Seon-nyeo tilts her head. “Hm?”

“How do you know about the loops,” he grits out. “How the fuck—“

“Because I can sense it, you insolent fool,” she tuts. “I have already told you of my abilities. I—“

“Who cursed me then, genius?” Thanos snipes. “Tell me who.”

“As if I could know such a thing,” Seon-nyeo scoffs. “I can only sense the waves of energy that you—“

“It’s you,” Thanos accuses suddenly, pointing the dagger in her direction. She jumps back with a yelp, fear returning to her in seconds. “You’re the one who did this to me, aren’t you? I should’ve known, ever since the first fucking loop. You told me I’d die a thousand times over, and now I’m actually dying over and over and—“ he cuts himself off with a shrill, slightly unhinged laugh. “You son of a fucking bitch. It’s all your fault.”

“Me?” Seon-nyeo blinks in surprise. “Surely…surely not…!”

“Undo it,” Thanos orders. “Take the curse away, or I’ll kill you again.”

“I can’t undo a curse I don’t remember setting upon you to begin with!” Seon-nyeo exclaims with a scowl. “Curses are everlasting. Nothing can save you now except for your own flimsy ideals. Don’t you understand?” She grins, unhidden in her mockery, as she already knows what fate awaits her. “You are trapped in a loop, haunted by uncertainties. As long as you remain unable to articulate what landed you here, you will continue to wait in stagnancy. Dying again and again…and, I’m sensing that someone else is stuck with you.”

Thanos takes a step closer. He raises the dagger slowly, but the shaman does not flinch.

“It is not just your own fate you hold in your hands, but the fate of another. The fate of someone you deem important,” she observes. “The torment consumes you both, and it will continue to do so until you look inside yourself and stare into the eye of the thing that resides within you.”

Nonsense. It’s a complete load of fucking nonsense. Poetical bullshit instead of a direct answer. The woman that stands before him, resolute and confident in her flowery words, is out of her mind. She’s crazy, abnormal, completely insane.

She’s a talking, living, breathing corpse.

Dagger meets flesh. There’s no point in drawing out the inevitable, and Thanos has no time or patience for words he can’t decipher. He feels no guilt for killing her this time around — instead, there’s a morbid pleasure in seeing the way her face twists into pain, falling in a heap at his feet.

She curls in on herself, compacting herself into a small, feeble position as she dies. Her dying words are choked out through mouthfuls of blood, but still manage to sound eerily, uncannily clear.

“The eyes that watch you…hold no remorse for what you go through.”

— — —

The stars painted along the walls of the maze, when stared at for long enough, begin to look like eyes, pupils residing in the middle of the globs, swirled and watchful. Thanos is starting to believe that they blink in tandem with him.

He doesn’t know where Min-su ended up, and he still hasn’t found Nam-gyu. Eighteen minutes on the clock.

This is fine. This is manageable.

Thanos tries to pay no mind to the words Seon-nyeo uttered before dying, just as he similarly ignores the blood that sticks between his fingers and the eyes that seem to follow him along the walls.

When he finally comes across Nam-gyu, he’s knelt beside the corpse of an older man clad in blue. He stares into the glassy, deceased eyes of the stranger, a morbid curiosity thrumming throughout his every movement. Thanos watches, dumbfounded, as Nam-gyu reaches a finger out and pokes the corpse's cheek, like a cat hooking its claw into a dead mouse, viewing it as a toy to play with instead of food to sustain it.

Even to Thanos, it’s a fairly disturbing sight. But, it’s Nam-gyu, and he’s so thankful to finally see him that he can’t spend too long being off-put by his increasingly strange behavior.

“Nam-su,” Thanos calls out, causing the other to jolt in surprise. “You should be paying closer attention, my boy. What’re you doing?”

“Hyung,” Nam-gyu breathes out the word like a softly-spoken prayer, shooting to his feet with a quickness. “…You already passed, right?”

“Yeah, I got that freaky shaman lady,” Thanos says, taking a step forward. Nam-gyu steps back in unison.

Thanos pauses, but only briefly. “Hey, what’re you—?”

Another step forward. Another step back. Thanos stills, baffled to be met with jittery, distrusting eyes.

Distrust? …No, that can’t be right. He must be reading this wrong. Surely, he must.

“Nam-su—“

“Gyu.”

Another step forward. Another step back.

…Fuck. Fuck this guy! Fuck Thanos’ shitty luck, and that stupid shaman lady and her talk of curses, and this goddamn time loop for messing with his head. Fuck everything that has led him to this exact point in time, because in what world, in what plausible scenario, would Nam-gyu distrust him so avidly after everything Thanos has done for him?

“Dude, seriously?” Thanos gripes. “I gave you two pills and begged to protect you, and you’re standing here inching away from me like I’m gonna pounce you.”

“You could pounce me, if you wanted. You could kill me with that bloody knife of yours. Of mine. It was originally mine, so it’d be particularly ironic. What a way to go, huh?” Nam-gyu rambles, licking his lips before continuing, “I meant it when I said I’m not stupid. There’s only one reason you would’ve wanted to switch with me and not Min-su — you must’ve been thinking, ‘if I take out the fucker who keeps taking my drugs, I’ll get more for myself’. You must have at least considered it.”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Thanos grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose in unparalleled frustration. If this guy jumped any higher to dumbass conclusions, he’d end up in goddamn space. “Nam-su, if you seriously think I’m over here plotting your murder, you’re out of your damn mind. What happened to trusting me, huh?”

“I do trust you,” Nam-gyu says, which makes Thanos laugh. Loudly. Because, clearly, he absolutely does not. “Come on, hyung. You were acting so strange about not wanting to switch with Min-su. Can you blame me for jumping to conclusions?”

“Uh, yeah. I can, actually,” Thanos grunts. “Because I haven’t thought about killing you even once, and if I was so worried about my damn pill supply, I wouldn’t have given you two pills to begin with.”

Nam-gyu frowns. “…I do trust you. I’m just…I don’t like not having a knife, okay?”

“I thought the two-pills-at-once combo was supposed to negate your nervousness,” Thanos scowls. “You’re being contradictory as hell right now, man. I busted my ass to find you, and I’ll keep busting my ass to protect you. I figured after how close I’ve kept you, you’d be able to get that through your thick fucking skull.”

Thanos knows that, realistically speaking, Nam-gyu’s feelings are valid. From an outsider's perspective, his reactions and requests at the beginning of all this were undeniably suspicious. If the roles were switched, and Thanos were in Nam-gyu’s position, what would he truly believe?

…Naturally, if Nam-gyu was so incessantly persistent about having a knife and Thanos not having one, he’d have to assume, reasonably, that Nam-gyu had turned against him. He’d likely assume Nam-gyu was aiming to steal the drugs off of his corpse, just as Nam-gyu now believes Thanos plots to kill him to keep more drugs for himself without having to deal with the hassle of someone pestering him for more.

Thanos winces at his own lack of foresight. Man…it always comes back to the damn pills, doesn’t it? Little pastel tablets from fucking hell.

(Little pastel tablets that he’d be nothing without.)

“Listen, Nam-su—“

“Nam-gyu.”

“I seriously want to protect you, dude.”

“What are you, a bodyguard?” Nam-gyu raises an eyebrow. “What’s with the sudden protectiveness? You’re acting so weird.”

It’s more than a little depressing that Nam-gyu is so unfamiliar with kindness from Thanos that being faced with it leaves him suspicious. Almost depressing enough to make Thanos self-reflect on his tendencies. But, no, of course not. There’s not enough time for that. Never enough time.

“What do you want me to do here, man? Give you the knife?”

A brief beat of consideration. Then, to Thanos’ dismay, Nam-gyu begins to nod slowly. “…Can you toss it over?”

“Toss it?” Thanos gawks. “You’re a fucking asshole, man. Can’t even trust me enough to walk it to you?”

“Hyung—“

“Come take it,” Thanos repositions the knife in his hand, palm against the hilt, sharpened steel pointing at himself. “Come on, my boy. You said you trust me, right?”

Nam-gyu sways on his feet, chewing persistently on his bottom lip. Each second of prolonged hesitancy is a further twist of the knife — Thanos helped this fucker kill him in the last loop, and yet he hardly trusts him at all in this one. What a joke. Acknowledging the fact that he’d act similarly in his position does nothing to lessen his offense.

“Do you really think I’d let just anyone crawl up on my bed and take my pills?” Thanos scoffs. “You think I’d be searching for you everywhere to make sure you’re okay if I didn’t…”

If I didn’t care. The last word stays stuck in his throat, unspoken and unaccounted for. Still, the half-exposed admission seems to calm him, and Nam-gyu begins to take slow steps forward.

The pills may momentarily lessen the shakiness of Nam-gyu’s hands, but the jolting movements of his eyes remain the same. His pupils dart quickly across the expanse of Thanos’ face, his body, the knife, the surroundings. He drinks in the sight of everything in quick, clunky movements. At the core of everything, he remains the same. No amount of bitter tablets or lasting injections will change the truth of who he is.

And who Nam-gyu is, at the very center of himself, is continually distrusting and blatantly insecure. Thanos doesn’t come to this conclusion in an insulting manner, but in understanding. Nam-gyu truly, avidly seems to believe that Thanos doesn’t care for him as much as he should. And, really, how can Thanos be mad at him for thinking such a thing, after some of the things he’s said and done?

Thanos won’t apologize, because he hardly ever does. He does, however, hand over his knife gently. He lets Nam-gyu’s fingers linger against his outstretched palm, plucking the weapon from his hand in slow, languid movements. He lets Nam-gyu take away his form of protection, allowing the action to drag on slowly and methodically. And he watches, silently, as Nam-gyu stares down at the dagger, and then raises his head back up at him.

“Oh,” he says dumbly. “…I wasn’t expecting you to actually give it to me.”

“You’re a fucking idiot, dude,” Thanos says, though his words hold no real heat. “The great legend Thanos never goes back on his word.”

“…Right,” Nam-gyu draws out the word, sarcasm lacing his tone. Yeah, okay. That’s pretty deserved, actually.

“Looks like taking two pills didn’t calm your nerves as much as you hoped they would,” Thanos laughs dryly. “You’re a nervous wreck, my boy.”

“Nah, man. I feel like I’m floating…stepping on clouds and shit. Totally worth it.”

“So, the lack of trust was just a personal thing?”

“Hyung.”

“What? Kind of impossible not to dangle that over your head.”

Now equipped with a knife, Nam-gyu’s fear of Thanos killing him seems to have evaporated entirely. He sidles up next to him, hooking their arms together with an impish smile. “Maybe I was just testing you.”

“Is that right?” Thanos smiles wryly. Damn, this guy's mood switches faster than anything he’s ever seen; likely a side effect of the spike in pill intake.

“Of course.” Nam-gyu nods rapidly. “A test!”

A lie, and they both know it. His distrust, despite being temporary and swiftly wiped away, had still been palpable and real. Thanos wishes Nam-gyu could remember the last loop, the way he’d let Nam-gyu kill him. He wishes he could articulate the fact that, if necessary, he’d let him do it again. He wishes he could understand the depth of his own conflicted feelings towards Nam-gyu, and then speak them aloud.

He wishes for a lot of things, but most of all, what he really wishes for is to get out of this alive, and break the hellish time loop he’s been trapped in. It’s only loop four, and he already feels like he’s losing his damn mind.

Nam-gyu’s arm links firmly with his own, and for just a second, Thanos allows himself a moment of relief. With Nam-gyu having a knife and being glued to his side like this, they should both end up fine. He seriously doubts any other team red members would want to pick a fight with a team blue being protected by one of their own.

This is it. Surely, this must be the loop where they survive, and the cycle of death is broken. He’s done everything right so far. Now all he has to do is keep everything right.

“I’ll try to keep my offense in regards to your shitty attitude to a minimum,” Thanos jokes as they make their way down another winding hallway, snickering at the elbow in the ribs it earns him in response.

“Come on, hyung…you’d be the same way,” Nam-gyu grins wryly, twirling the knife in his fingers.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Thanos switches topics deftly, for both their sakes. “What were you poking at that dead guy for, anyways?”

“I was looking at his eyes.”

Damn, again with the eyes? Frankly, Thanos is getting real tired of all the eye-talk — the shaman lady talked about eyes watching him, Nam-gyu keeps mentioning eyes over and over, and now the stars painted along the walls are beginning to resemble eyes. It’s downright suffocating.

He fears that saying so would only make him sound pathetic, so instead, he gives Nam-gyu a quick glance from the corner of his eye, probing him to continue.

“They look so strange, when the light fades from them. It’s like looking at a doll.”

The doll connotation; yet another form of repetition.

“That’s freaky, man. No wonder you were all stressed out.”

“I guess you’re right,” Nam-gyu hums. “Even an extra boost of drugs isn’t enough to totally take me out of it. I kept looking at his eyes, and I couldn’t help but think…will I look that retched when I die?”

“Retched?” Thanos snorts. “My boy, if you die, your looks will be the least of your worries.”

“Bodies are so weak. Flimsy. It’s all so fucking gross, don’t you think? All the blood and bones and nerves that are swimming around inside us? All wet and mushy.”

“Ew, dude.”

“I’m just saying,” Nam-gyu drawls, abruptly leaning against him in full, head clunking against Thanos’ shoulder. “…I’m glad you didn’t kill me.”

Nam-gyu is warm. So incredibly, enticingly warm, and Thanos is struck with the sudden urge to wrap him up in his arms, to squeeze him tight and hold him close. The want is so intense and sudden that it’s almost overwhelming. The two of them are sweaty, bloodied (Nam-gyu, with a few splotches of dried blood from previous games, and Thanos, with currently drying blood from his run-in with the shaman) and undeniably unclean. Even still, Thanos wants to gather Nam-gyu against him, to feel the pulsing feeling of him alive against his chest.

Thanos nearly trips over his feet — what the hell is he thinking about? Whatever train of thought that is needs to be cut off immediately, before it plummets into thoughts better left buried.

He manages to keep himself upright as he gathers himself, and Nam-gyu’s head remains nuzzled against his shoulder.

…Nam-gyu really does have some serious mood swings.

“Clumsy,” Nam-gyu tuts.

“Not as clumsy as you, Nam-su,” Thanos jests. “Remember the time you—“

He cuts himself off quickly, clanging his jaw shut and flinching at the clink of his teeth clacking together. It’s an incredibly close call; he was about to ask if Nam-gyu remembers tripping over a corpse and ruining their chances at what should’ve been an easy kill.

But, obviously, Thanos is the only one who recalls anything from the prior loops. Something close to melancholy settles within his chest.

(Is this what Nam-gyu felt like when Thanos put on a show of not remembering their brief times spent together at the club?

…He hopes not. It’s almost nauseating.)

“Do I remember what?”

“Nevermind.”

“…Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Calling me the wrong name. It’s Nam-gyu. Gyu. I’ve told you enough times to make your ears bleed.”

They reach an intersection within the maze, and Thanos swivels his head as he decides which path to take out of the multitude of options presented to him. “I know,” he groans, somewhat petulantly.

“Then why do you keep saying Su?” Nam-gyu grumbles, impatiently tugging Thanos down the nearest corridor. “Nam-su this, Nam-su that. It sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Thanos mutters.

The truth of the matter is that Thanos simply likes giving out nicknames. It’s his go-to maneuver for letting someone know he likes them. The first time he said Nam-su had been reflexively, and he’d actually been hoping Nam-gyu wouldn’t catch on to what he was implicating. Now, it’s starting to seem like it’d have been much better if he caught on from the start.

“‘Su’ means beautiful,” Thanos says bluntly.

“Hm?” Nam-gyu halts, his head shooting off of Thanos’ shoulder. “What?”

“‘Su’, in certain contexts, means beautiful,” Thanos explains, clearing his throat awkwardly. “And ‘Nam’…that means south, doesn’t it? Or, southern? Something like that, right?” A brief pause. Thanos barrels on once he realizes Nam-gyu is waiting for him to continue. “Nam-su…it’s a nickname. Southern beauty. You know, because you’ve got, like…objectively pretty features.”

Thanos turns to gauge Nam-gyu’s reaction. Their arms are still linked, and now that they’ve slowed to a stop, Nam-gyu stares at him openly. He really is beautiful, and while Thanos can rely on the word ‘objectively’ as much as he likes, he knows it’s due to personal taste. The light splatter of freckles across his cheeks, his sharp bone structure, the dark strands of hair that curl around pale skin; Nam-gyu is beautiful. Completely, unbelievably gorgeous.

Thanos swallows against excess saliva. “I’ll stop calling you Nam-su, though. If you really want.”

Nam-gyu opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He seems profoundly shocked by the admission, and it’s only when his face starts to slowly flush red that Thanos begins to understand the type of effect the explanation has had on him.

“It’s— what—? Do you—?“ Nam-gyu stumbles over his words, starting and restarting chunks of sentences before craning his head downwards with a frustrated grunt. Thanos smiles despite himself; he didn’t know Nam-gyu was even capable of becoming so flustered.

“I guess…I don’t mind,” Nam-gyu chokes out eventually, “if you call me Nam-su.”

“You sure?” Thanos grins, nudging the man beside him with a snicker. “You seemed pretty upset—“

“I don’t care anymore, okay?” Nam-gyu insists. His head is still angled down, but Thanos can see clearly that the tips of his ears are red. Cute. “You can…alternate between the two. Or, whatever.”

“Okay, Nam-su,” Thanos singsongs, resuming their slow pace. “Nam-gyu, Nam-su, Nam-gyu, Nam-su—“

“Not literally, dumbass!”

Suddenly, they both jolt at the sound of a high pitched scream, one that sounds far too close by to not cause alarm. Thanos tightens his hold on Nam-gyu’s arm, spotting a slightly cracked open, large dark green door. Thanos pulls Nam-gyu alongside him, rushing inside and slamming the door shut behind them after giving the room a quick once-over, making sure it’s clear of other players.

The room is painted light blue, with clumsily painted apple trees stretching along the perimeters. With his back pressed against the door, facing forward, he takes notice of what resides in front of him.

“Holy shit,” Nam-gyu breathes out in awe. “Hyung! Thanos, it’s the exit!”

The large, imposing door in front of them, covered in dark red handprints, has the word EXIT labeled above it. Despite the unnerving nature of the door, it causes Thanos to heave a sigh of relief. Finally, a streak of good luck.

Nam-gyu rushes forward, fumbling his key into one of the locks. Thanos glances over his shoulder as he shoves his square-shaped key into the lock, twisting it eagerly and turning the doorknob.

Nothing happens.

“There’s three keyholes,” Thanos observes. “…Must need all three to get the door open.”

“Fuck,” Nam-gyu curses, inhaling sharply. “Fuck!”

Nam-gyu slams his palm against the door in frustration, and Thanos exhales in disappointment. Figures.

“Dont stress it, man. You’ve still got my knife, and I can protect you with my bare hands,” Thanos boasts. “You’ll be alright.”

“Okay, macho man,” Nam-gyu snorts. “I can handle myself just fine. What’s with the sudden surge of protectiveness, anyways?”

“Can’t let a pretty face like yours get ruined, my boy.”

Nam-gyu laughs sharply. “Hey, didn’t you say that looks are something I shouldn’t be worrying about in death?”

“Can’t let your stellar personality go to waste either.”

“That sounded sarcastic,” Nam-gyu complains.

“Only a little.” Thanos reaches forward, wrapping his fingers against Nam-gyu’s wrist. “Hey, why don’t we just stay in here until time runs out? Maybe if some other blues run in, they’ll have enough keys on ‘em to get us all the fuck out of here.”

“But, what if seekers show up?” Nam-gyu counters. “I’ve seen a couple of them teaming up — we’ll be sitting ducks, trapped in here if they find us. We’ve only got one knife.”

“And my fists.” Thanos holds up hands, formed into knuckles, and even mimes a few punches for extra measure.

“…Dude, for real?”

“Duh!”

“I don’t know…” Nam-gyu trails off doubtfully, wincing as a scream rings out distantly. “I think we’d be better off in the corridors, that way we can run if we get outnumbered.”

“I doubt we’ll get outnumbered, dude,” Thanos says. “But, if you insist. Just stay close, yeah?”

“So chivalrous,” Nam-gyu teases, striding towards the door that leads back to the corridor. He props it open, surveying the area, but turns back around as Thanos says his name. “Huh?”

“I do remember, you know,” Thanos admits suddenly.

“Remember what?”

“The club. …The things we did there.”

Nam-gyu blinks in surprise, baffled by the delicately worded admission. His eyebrows rise, mouth opening slightly. “…What makes you bring that up?”

Thanos isn’t quite sure himself, but he makes a solid effort to verbalize it. “I guess I just want you to know that I enjoyed my time with you. I probably should’ve said that sooner.”

Nam-gyu’s expression softens, unbearably fond. “Want to know something?”

“Hm?”

“I was so nervous earlier, even with the extra pill in my system. But even when I feared for a moment that you’d kill me…I think a part of me would’ve let you. If you needed to, in order to pass…I think I would’ve wanted you to. If I have to die by someone else’s hands, I only want it to be you.”

In comparison to the last loop, it’s achingly similar to Thanos’ own ideals, a direct mirroring of his thoughts and actions. Thanos’ chest burns, not out of anger, fear, or negativity, but out of desire. Unfiltered, deeply-rooted yearning.

“Nam-gyu-“

He freezes at the sound of something wet. A squelch. A sound he’s heard far too many times not to recognize.

Nam-gyu gasps, harsh and painful, the knife falling uselessly from his fingers — the knife that was supposed to protect him, now rendered meaningless. His hands grasp helplessly at his stomach, fingers wrapping uselessly around the metal that’s pierced through his stomach from behind. Eyelids flutter in disbelief. Fingers convulse. Blood pours.

The removal of the knife is done with a twist, unnecessarily brutal. It causes Nam-gyu to stumble forward, falling into Thanos’ quickly outstretched arms with a garbled noise of agony. They sink to the ground in unison.

The blood—there’s so much of it, copious globs of it pouring out without delay—stains the cloth of Thanos’ tracksuit, his hands, the floor. It bubbles out of Nam-gyu’s twitching figure in an endless stream, gushing and streaming and—dear god, he didn’t even know a body could hold this much. It’s sick. Everything about this is so absurdly cruel.

Thanos accepts, in this moment, that he might truly be in hell.

Thanos spares a glance upwards. For a split second, a mere moment, he sees the familiar face of Myung-gi looking down at him. His expression displays guilt, but not nearly enough to matter.

And then he’s gone, just as quickly as he came and killed.

There’s no time to fester in his rage. Not yet. Nam-gyu’s breaths are labored as he trembles, one of Thanos’ arms wrapped securely around his shoulders, propping him upwards, and the other being used to press his palm diligently against an open wound.

He’s doing the exact same thing Nam-gyu did in the last loop, clumsy actions made out of startled fear. His hand shakes against warm, open flesh. The noise he makes in response to this realization is one that seems like he should be incapable of making. A groan, a wail, a grunt, a tearless weep. Does it matter? Does anything, in moments like these?

Blood pools beneath clenched teeth. Each breath is wetter, more crackly and agonized than the last. Glossy eyes look up at him, lidded and preparing to close. A hand reaches upward, shaky and blood covered.

In his final moments, Nam-gyu presses his slickened palm against Thanos’ cheek. The stench of blood is sickening. It’s beautiful. It’s him.

It’s akin to something gentle. Lips pressing a chaste kiss to a forehead, a carefully worded goodbye. It’s soft, which is something neither man is accustomed to. It’s unlike them; something they could’ve been, if only they’d been given the chance.

But their chances have run short, and if the stars painted crudely on the walls outside the room they reside in really are composed of watchful eyes, they only squint in mockery at the display. A formless, shapeless, shrill laugh of glee.

Thanos isn’t dying, but his vision fades in time with Nam-gyu’s death. The hand falls from his face, the blood is stripped from underneath his fingernails.

It’ll all restart again. He knows this.

He also knows that at some point, sometime, something is going to break

Notes:

These absolute morons 💔💔💔 (lovingly) “oh hey let me turn my back to the open door that leads to corridors where killers are running around and have a convo with you 😹” absolute foolishness <- says the man who is writing them to be so foolish. Stressing myself out w/ my own writing over here wtf 💔

Also, this is the second time I’ve had Seon-nyeo appear in a thangyu fic to deliver riddles LMAOOO I love her so much. Like seriously. So much. One of my fav characters in the whole entire show, my dearest amazing wonderful queen…such an underrated diva 😿

Chapter 5: I’m taking what I’m owed

Notes:

Thanos loses his damn mind in this chap icl

Also! There’s mentions of suicide in this chapter, and suicide is a topic that’ll pop up continuously as the story progresses. Please keep this in mind. Stay safe <3

Thanos is beginning to understand that in the moments he loses consciousness, being plucked from himself in the face of Nam-gyu’s death, he’s not simply passing out. He’s dying, just in a different way.

It’s as if they’ve been tethered. Nam-gyu’s death directly causes Thanos’ body to shut down, his heart and organs and brain all slowing to a unanimous stop. For whatever sick, twisted reason, Nam-gyu dying immediately causes Thanos to keel over along with him, skeletal fingers clawing at the recesses of his skull, dragging them down in pairs.

The moments spent in transferral are difficult to explain, and even more difficult to fully comprehend. Even when entrapped inside a void of nothingness, a lack of consciousness and concrete thought, there’s always the distant feeling of something watching him. If he listens hard enough, he swears he can hear something blink.

It’s exhausting, in every possible aspect. The restructure and replacement of a body and mind must be difficult work, Thanos assumes, and whatever has decided to torture him seems intent on dragging the process out longer each time it happens. Dying, then snapped back to living, piecing back nerves and flesh with practiced ease.

Thanos is shackled, chained to the aspect of a clock stuck on a repeating number. He’s, in certain terms, unkillable. What does momentary immortality mean to a man who wants to die?

As Thanos’ vision begins to return to him, the familiar sight of the loop's starting point slowly morphing back into view, he thinks of how Nam-gyu had looked up at him with his stomach torn open, bleeding in his arms. He’d gazed at him tenderly, eyes lidded and breaths shallowed, and he’d used his last morsels of energy to press his palm against Thanos’ cheek.

Everyone always looks so small when they die. A shriveled-up version of themselves. Unnatural looking, despite the fact that each human meets the same end eventually. It’s the most natural thing on the planet — but, it doesn’t look that way.

Seon-nyeo has curled in on herself in death, compacting her bony figure together as she chokes out words of warning. Se-mi has slumped to the ground, neck carved open, stumbling and thumping against the ground, unmoving. Nam-gyu has blinked up at him, mouth filled with blood, shaky and pale and grotesquely, disturbingly beautiful. Filthy. Disgusting. Ethereal.

All of these things have happened, concrete fixtures in reality — but, have they really? If a slate is wiped clean after an event occurs, and the event is forgotten by everyone, does that mean the event has ceased to exist? Or does it simply exist elsewhere, inside a different pocket of time? Still real, just somewhere removed from where Thanos has now been set.

Thanos isn’t cut out for psychological bullshit like this. He’s not the type of guy to sit around and think heavily about the world and what comprises its components, or about what makes a human brain think. If the most intelligent people in the world are incapable of deciphering the meaning of life, then Thanos sure isn’t going to waste his own time mulling it over. None of it matters, anyways. People are born, they live, they die, and that’s it. It’s over.

Except, it isn’t over. Not yet. Not for him. What a fucking joke.

Physically speaking, it feels as if Thanos has been turned to liquid. He resides in a cup, safe and natural, and then he’s poured abruptly on the ground. Hastily, moving with purpose, someone (something?) cleans him up with a rag, wiping up the spilled contents and abruptly squeezing him back into the cup.

Now Thanos is back at the beginning — he’s been squeezed back into the metaphorical cup, but parts of him surely still remain on the ground he was spilled on. He feels incomplete. He feels as if he’s been handled by something that hates him. Wringing a rag, wringing a neck; not much difference, is there?

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with a sense of rising anger.

He turns his head sharply towards the crowd. First, his eyes find Nam-gyu, clad in red and worriedly furrowing his eyebrows, jaw clenched with discomfort. It’s a relief to see him upright and standing after seeing him in such a pitiful state last loop, weakened and bleeding. The imagery of a knife sticking through his stomach sticks to his brain relentlessly, and Thanos has to pull his gaze away entirely to snap himself out of it.

His eyes land on Myung-gi.

Smarmy, self-assured, piece of fucking shit Myung-gi. The man who ruined his life with his crypto coin videos, his voice traveling out of Thanos’ phone during early mornings after sleepless nights, worming its way under his skin and burrowing into his bones, altering his life for the worse. “You have to act quick — it’d be foolish not to invest! Trust me, I’ve been watching the stocks. Let me explain…”

Myung-gi, the so-called upstanding man who had stuck a knife through Nam-gyu’s flesh, then walked away as if it were nothing, as if he hadn’t robbed Thanos of something so important. He’d delivered Nam-gyu a harsh death instead of the gentle one he deserved, and he’d scurried away like a cowardly rodent after the act was finished.

Thanos is going to kill him.

The desire settles deeply within his chest as Myung-gi blinks back at him with subdued confusion, eyebrows twitching downward in concern. Thanos is glaring at the man with what he’s sure can only be described as murderous intent. He wonders if somehow, Myung-gi knows that he’s about to die. Thanos wonders if he knows how much he plans to make it hurt.

He’s sure that his abrupt, seemingly unprompted expression of fury seems peculiar to those around him, but as Thanos makes his way to the same spot he always does, he can’t bring himself to care. He’s a wild, starving animal, scorned by a hunter and intent on vengeance.

There’s something deeply, viscerally unsettling about this loop. It’s only just begun, and there’s nothing noticeably different, but he can already sense it. His body shakes, thrums with electrical exhilaration.

He’s never wanted someone dead so badly in his life. Maybe this is the way to break out of the loop; killing the man who always ruins everything for everyone, equivalent to scum on the bottom of Thanos’ shoe. Useless fucker – maybe he should crack his jaw before slicing him open, just to really prolong the endeavor. He was so close last loop, so painfully fucking close–

“What’s wrong with you?”

Beside him, Se-mi peers at him with her arms folded, picking him apart with her gaze alone. Her words are spoken plainly, her puzzlement intermingling with clear curiosity.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Thanos grunts. He’s not in the mood for small talk; if he had it his way, the guards would talk a little faster, starting the games quickly so he can get this all over with and destroy the core of his problems.

“You look angry,” she says bluntly. “Like…unnaturally angry. Are you mad about not being paired with Nam-gyu?”

Over the timespans of each loop, Thanos’ emotions have pinballed into nearly every category he can think of, and the feelings that plague him only seem to intensify each time he resets. He has no desire to attempt to explain to Se-mi—to anyone, for that matter—about what he’s been through. There’s no point; it’d be like attempting to call someone who’s already changed their number. A waste of his goddamn time. Nobody will believe a word he says.

“Sure,” he says plainly, continuing to glare at the back of Myung-gi’s head. He’s in a substantially awful mood — it turns out that having someone he cares about bleed out and die in his arms is far from pleasant.

(No matter how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise, he does care for Nam-gyu, far more than he should. He shouldn't be spending so much time thinking about him; how broken he’d looked splayed out in front of him, his throat seizing as he struggled to breathe past the crimson that’d pooled under his tongue. The messy revulsion of being covered in another's innards, (is this what devotees feel like when doused in the blood of God?) and the way he’d switched from distrust to blind faith, hanging on his arm with smiles and quips despite the horrific situation. And Thanos, in his expected similar fashion, had laughed right along with him.

Nam-gyu is like a puzzle, and Thanos can’t find the first piece to even attempt to piece him together.)

“Hey,” Se-mi says again, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Huh? What?”

“Damn, you really are out of it,” Se-mi mumbles. She looks at him strangely, as if he’s doing something wrong. Then again, he supposes he is doing something wrong. It’s not like he’s supposed to be glaring daggers into the back of Myung-gi’s skull with a disturbing amount of bloodlust. He’s never done that in a previous loop — is he breaking a rule? Are there rules to begin with?

…The room feels smaller. Is it really, or is he imagining it?

Thanos has had bad trips before. Really bad trips — hours, days spent curled in balls on tiled flooring, vision swirling and stomach heaving. He’s taken too many pills and hallucinated, seeing things that aren’t there and left unable to stand because of how shaky his legs are.

This, despite his long list of awful, freakishly bad trips, is leagues worse. It feels like his brain has been taken from his skull, pulled apart, and tossed back inside of him all scrambled. This must be what people feel like when they lose their mind.

After the guards announce the possibility of switching, Thanos redirects his gaze to Nam-gyu, watching the familiar way he grasps onto Min-su’s shoulders, whispering threats that Thanos is now aware of.

“I’ll rip you apart from the inside out until there’s nothing left of you,” Nam-gyu must be saying, licking his lips as he does so. Bloodthirsty, sick in the fucking head.

Thanos grins, staring over at him appraisingly, and when Nam-gyu’s eyes flit over to him briefly, his own smile sharpens, eyes glittering with morbid accomplishment.

Stunning. Unearthly beautiful under the harsh lighting of the room.

“You’re staring at him like he’s your long lost lover,” Se-mi snickers. “You’ve practically got hearts in your eyes. What is with you?”

Thanos turns back towards Se-mi with a sharp glare and a petulant tone. “Shut up, girl! I’m looking at him normal.”

Se-mi gives him a disbelieving look, eyebrows raised in subdued amusement. “You’re looking at him like you want to eat him.”

“I don’t want to eat him, you freak—“

Their conversation is interrupted by Nam-gyu’s rapid approach, dragging Min-su along with him like a fisherman reeling in his latest catch. The meal, gasping for breath and preparing to die, is shoved forward carelessly.

“Don't worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you. Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

Thanos stares (a bad habit that gets worse each loop), and wonders if the press of a palm against his cheek is proof that Nam-gyu likes his company alongside the drugs. He wants to ask for a verbal admission of this, but of course, he can’t. Such a question would make him appear pathetic, small, inadequate, insecure. Which is wrong, a direct contradiction of himself; a direct contradiction of who he tells himself he is. But telling himself he’s something doesn’t make it true, and there isn’t a single human being alive that can’t be qualified as weak.

“Hyung?” Nam-gyu murmurs after a stretch of silence. He gives Min-su another slight shove. “Hello? Earth to Thanos?”

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos says, stepping forward (shoving Min-su to the side in the process, in a manner that can only be described as blatantly, though not purposely rude) and gathering Nam-gyu’s wrists into his palms. He blinks up at him with wide eyes, likely baffled by the correct usage of his name — damn, is he gonna have to explain the nickname shit all over again? What a pain in the ass. “I have a plan.”

“You—?” Nam-gyu’s eyes dart down to the colorfully painted fingernails that rub circles against his skin. Thanos has come to realize that Nam-gyu often responds in kind to skin-on-skin contact, slowly soothed by firm, gentle touches. He must not be used to being handled so softly. “…What plan?”

“Look.” Thanos points towards the other side of the room, where Myung-gi speaks to player 222 (is she his current lover, or ex-lover? Thanos doesn't know, and he doesn’t necessarily care) in a hushed voice, face twisted up in impatience and doubt. “That girl—the one you said might be pregnant—see? He’s going to switch with her.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah…I guess it seems that way,” Nam-gyu murmurs, squinting as Myung-gi hands over his key. “What’s it matter?”

“It matters,” Thanos says, turning back to Nam-gyu’s confused expression, “because I’m going to kill him.”

He raises his eyebrows in surprise, and for whatever weird, probably fucked-up reason, the admission causes Nam-gyu to flush. “Oh!” The confidently spoken words seem to nudge Nam-gyu towards a state of ataraxia, blissfully serene at the thought of their mutual enemy dying. “That’s such a good idea, hyung. We need to take him out while we have the chance.”

“Creepy,” Se-mi mutters behind them. Min-su nods in subdued agreement.

Objectively speaking, it is a bit creepy, the way Nam-gyu’s eyes light up at the prospect of it. He licks his lips like a coyote gearing up to jump a fence and descend upon livestock, or perhaps just an average human preparing to lead a chicken to slaughter. Myung-gi being a metaphorical chicken…ha, that’s a connotation Thanos can definitely get behind.

(It’s a bit sardonic that even in metaphors, it’s so easy to make the human counterpart out to be the monster.)

He’s glad that, at the very least, Nam-gyu seems pleased with the anger Thanos is directing towards another. At least one of them is in a good mood because of it all, because Thanos sure as hell isn’t. The amount of rage festering inside of him does nothing except remind him of his father, of the cruel words he’d spit out while drunk out of his mind.

…He needs to focus.

“I’m gonna send that fucker straight to hell,” Thanos continues, grinning at Nam-gyu’s steadily increasing excitement. “But, my boy…I can’t kill him if I’m a seeker.”

Nam-gyu’s expression shatters instantly. “What?”

“Didn’t you hear the instructions, dude?” Thanos tuts. “Seekers can’t kill each other. If I stay as a hider—“

“If you’re a hider, you won’t have a knife,” Nam-gyu interrupts.

“But, you will,” Thanos insists. “I’ll find you, we’ll stick together, and when we find that MG Coin fucker, you’ll give me your knife and I’ll gut him alive. Sound good?”

“Mm…sounds faulty,” Nam-gyu frowns. “What if we aren’t able to find each other?”

Thanos is sure he’ll be able to find Nam-gyu just fine — he’s been through enough loops now to know the general area of the arena that Nam-gyu tends to spend his time prowling around. It’s not like he has the layout of the maze memorized. Far from it. But, he’s at least getting used to recognizing certain doors and dead ends.

Unfortunately for him, he can’t actually reveal this outright without sounding even more crazed than he already does. He’ll have to muster up a particularly convincing charade.

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you haven’t had your pill yet,” Thanos snarks, letting go of Nam-gyu’s wrists in order to grab the cross around his neck, popping it open with ease. “C’mere.”

“Thanos, I really don’t know if we should—“

“Open.”

It’s sort of demeaning, ordering someone around so openly. Nam-gyu would be entirely in the right if he were to get upset with him for treating him like a dog, his words practically correlating to “open your mouth for a treat!”

But, as he has been since the beginning of all this, ever since they first laid eyes on each other among the sea of other players, Nam-gyu has been particularly obedient to Thanos in particular. His hesitation lasts for about two seconds, and then his mouth falls open in preparation.

For what it’s worth, Nam-gyu does appear rather embarrassed about it, and the little scoff of disbelief Se-mi makes behind them certainly doesn’t help lessen it. But alongside the embarrassment is a subdued pleasure, barely distinguishable behind the flecks in his eyes.

Thanos thinks Nam-gyu gets off on this sort of thing, which only makes the act of pressing a pill against his tongue all the more thrilling. He almost wants to take it a step further and tell Nam-gyu to close his lips around his fingers, suck against his digits to really show his appreciation. “If you suck well enough, I’ll give you another,” he could say, and Nam-gyu would surely lap against the pads of his fingers like a man starved.

But, he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t — he needs to hang onto at least some semblance of sensibility. The only reason he’s even thinking about it is surely due to how pent up he is. Nothing personal. Nothing that holds actual meaning. His brain is frazzled, that’s all.

The transaction is brief. The pill is pressed into Nam-gyu’s mouth, Thanos’ finger barely makes contact with his tongue, and then he retracts. Nam-gyu closes his mouth, swallows dutifully, and neither of them comment on the fact that Nam-gyu’s face has turned a flushed, pinkish hue.

“I’ll find you,” Thanos repeats, plucking a pill from his supply for himself. Embarrassingly enough, he thinks he’d have a harder time killing someone without the drugs to rely on. “It’s a great plan, my boy. Don’t you think so?”

Nam-gyu starts to nod, knife held firmly in his hands, and Thanos inwardly cheers at his successful coercion. His eyes dart back over to Myung-gi, now clad in a red vest and armed with a dagger, murmuring soft words to player 222 — sugarcoated promises of protection, Thanos assumes.

Promises mean nothing. Myung-gi’s end will not be quick nor kind, and Thanos will feel no guilt when he kills him.

— — —

Se-mi doesn’t stick around this time. Thanos thinks his behavior unnerves her, and she likely doesn’t want to be around to witness his murder plan pan out. She distances herself from him immediately, and Thanos watches as she disappears around a corner without so much as a glance behind her.

He also notices that, before she rushes down a corridor with her lackeys in tow, Seon-nyeo pauses to stare at him. Their eye-contact is brief, and while Thanos knows the logical thing to do would be to press her for more information, he feels the need to avoid her. There’s something wrong with the woman, something notably out of place, and he feels like each word traded between them adds another nail to his slowly sinking coffin.

Thanos takes a moment to refocus on the task at hand. He doesn’t need freaky, nonsensical words from a shaman who can ‘see auras’ to get through this. He needs to kill Myung-gi. This has to be the way to break the cycle.

He’s seen the familiar brick corridors so many times now, but they always cause the same flicker of dread.

(Is he imagining things, or were the scattered, lightly sketched eyes not present in the last loops, pasted sparingly along the night sky mural?

He’s overcome with a compulsion to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness. For what? To whom?

…He wonders if it’s possible that his surroundings are fracturing alongside his brain.)

Thanos rubs his thumb idly across the cross around his neck, thinking back to how each loop has differed. In one loop, Nam-gyu’s first response was to reach for the cross. In another, he’d instead reached to cup his palm along his cheek.

Which does Nam-gyu care for more; the drugs, or Thanos himself? The question repeats in his head, just as incessant as the loops that plague him, and he has a feeling that something, somewhere, can hear the constant repetition of his own fraying thoughts, and is laughing at the irony of it all.

Thanos isn’t even entirely sure why he cares so much to begin with. Nam-gyu is a man who is blatantly, knowingly dependent on drugs. He was dependent on them before the games, and his intense need has traveled alongside him dutifully into their current predicament. In this sense, Thanos is his holy grail, a savior, a blessing upon him.

The pills around his neck are, at least. And naturally the pills belong to Thanos, an extended part of himself, what makes him whole, what makes him true and real, which automatically correlates to him being the holy grail, the savior, the blessing—automatically correlates to him having meaning—automatically correlates to him, in technicality, being the drugs. In which he means, the drugs are him, and he is the drugs, and the tablets are only a part of himself transformed into something different, something smaller, something tangible.

In which case, one would assume that when Nam-gyu takes a pill he’s actually taking a part of Thanos and eating him whole. A heart presented to him on a plate, carefully digging a knife and fork into tendons. The real question to discern from this is whether or not Nam-gyu digs his cutlery into the meat of Thanos’ heart (his cheekbone, his hip, his eye, his chest, his spine, his thigh, and so forth) with contempt or appreciation. The following question, regardless of the answer that unfolds for the first, would be whether or not Thanos would care either way, as long as he’s being chewed, swallowed, and consumed.

The various blues meant to resemble a night sky feel more like a display of the deep sea. A scream sounds distantly — Thanos thinks he might be drowning.

Thanos stills suddenly, his grip tightening on his cross as he keeps his head on the swivel. Fuck, what’s wrong with him? He can’t think straight, he can hardly even think in a manner that makes any sense at all. What is this — loop five? Loop five and he’s already losing his fucking mind? What a goddamn joke.

His mindset isn’t supposed to jump around like this, dipping from bizarre to hypocritical to morbid absurdity. The drugs are supposed to combat this. The drugs are supposed to make him himself.

(Though, realistically, it’s the absence of drugs that causes the raw truth of who he is to fight its way to the surface, gasping for air and making its presence known. He knows this, but he’s always been so good at feigning ignorance.)

He considers taking another tablet. It seemed to do Nam-gyu well, last time around. Ah, right. That must be why he reached for Thanos’ cheek instead of his drugs during the last loop; he already had two pills in his system. Of course.

It’s important that he stays realistic about the groundworks of their relationship.

He then considers, after the fleeting thought of popping another pill, taking his entire supply in one go. It’d kill him, he’s sure. An uncomfortable, painful death. A filthy one, likely filled with excessive vomiting and shaking and mindless torment.

He considers it for much longer than he should.

Thanos snaps back to attention at the sound of the announcement overhead, listing the elimination and passing of two players he doesn’t recognize by number. He shoves the cross back under his vest, perturbed by his own thoughts. Overdosing won’t save him — he needs to see this through. He needs to kill Myung-gi.

“Player 044 eliminated. Player 124 passed.”

Thanos breathes a sigh of relief, quickening his pace at the sound of another high-pitched, muffled shriek. Sounds like Nam-gyu honed in on the shaman again. Good. That’s what she gets for wasting his time with her weird, metaphorical bullshit. Ramblings of a crazy woman, more like.

Fuck, he really can’t stand that chick. He can’t stand Myung-gi, he can’t stand the guards, he can’t stand anybody in this goddamn hellhole, except, for whatever reason, the man intent on taking his drugs.

(His drugs, which don’t seem to be having their overwhelmingly strong desired effect anymore. Fucking absurd.)

Thanos makes an immediate u-turn at the sight of a seeker bursting through a door up ahead, tackling a nearby hider to the ground and delivering a harsh series of stabs to their chest, ignoring their screams of agonized fear. He rushes around a corner, but to his dismay, slams into somebody else; more notably, someone wearing red.

Thanos stumbles to the ground with a grunt, only to be slammed with more weight before he has the chance to get up. His back bangs against the ground as his attacker clambers on top of him, breathing heavy and raising a steady, bloodied hand in preparation.

A pause. The eyes of the attacker meet the eyes of the victim.

“Hyung?”

…Oh, for fucks sake.

“Nam-su, you dumbass,” Thanos groans, lowering his arms that he’d raised in defense. He’s as thankful as he is exasperated. “What the hell, man?”

“I didn’t know it was you!” Nam-gyu exclaims, lowering the knife as he peers down at him apologetically. He’s straddling him, for a lack of a better word, and Thanos should certainly be taking initiative and telling him to get the hell off.

Instead, Thanos stares.

Nam-gyu is covered in blood. Which is to be expected, considering the announcement that he just killed someone, but it‘s still a rather surprising amount. Blood is splattered on his vest, his chin, his forehead — a trail of blood even trails from the left side of his nose, dribbling down his top lip and pooling along the small gap of his mouth.

His free hand (the one not holding onto the knife), rests splayed across Thanos’ chest, drenched in fresh blood. It’ll be sure to leave a handprint right where Thanos’ heart resides. Nam-gyu stares right back at him, meeting his gaze with slow intakes of air, eyes wild and frenzied.

“You’re drenched,” Thanos murmurs, cringing at his choice of wording paired with the far too sultry tone of voice. Whoops. Honest mistake. “In— in, you know…blood.”

Nam-gyu laughs shrilly, swiftly (albeit, ungracefully) standing to his feet. “Uh, yeah? Not sure what else I would be drenched in.”

A bloodied hand is offered. Thanos takes it without hesitation, blood smearing against skin as palms linger against each other, (a mutual tether, a proverbial red string of fate) and allows himself to be heaved to his feet.

“Damn, you’re heavy as hell!”

“Shut the fuck up, dude.” Thanos elbows him teasingly. “Can’t believe you knocked me to the ground and pulled a knife on the great, the one and only Thanos–”

“I didn't know,” Nam-gyu insists, rolling his eyes with an amused scoff. “Seriously, bro, you have to be more careful.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘course,” Thanos says dismissively, eyes darting towards the nearest clock. “We’ve got seventeen minutes to find Myung-gi and kill him.”

“You’ve got seventeen minutes,” Nam-gyu reminds, jutting his bottom lip out dramatically as he stares at the dagger dangling in his fingertips. “I can’t kill him. I wish I could…”

“Bloodthirsty,” Thanos tuts in faux disapproval — ironic, considering the fact that a few minutes ago, while wandering aimlessly through star clad hallways, he’d been mulling over how difficult it’d be to dig the sharp end of a knife directly into the parietal lobe of Myungi-gi’s brain. Disgusting, filthy, unhinged, abnormal. He needs to get a grip on himself. “Don’t act all downtrodden, my boy. You’ll stay with me and help me look for him, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“See? You’re helping me. So, we’ve got seventeen minutes left.” Thanos gives him a friendly clap on the shoulder, but pulls back as Nam-gyu winces. “Woah, what–?”

“That shaman freak had to go and make things difficult,” Nam-gyu gripes, rubbing at his shoulder with a grimace. “I handled it fine, obviously, but the bitch clawed at me like a wild fucking animal. Slammed her hand right into my damn nose when I stabbed her,” Nam-gyu wipes at the blood under his nose with a huff, but it only causes the liquid to smear further across his splattered face. He looks feral. “Started clawing at my shoulders and spewing a bunch of bullshit about spiritual shackles and ‘the eyes within’-”

“Huh?” Thanos perks at this, looking at Nam-gyu expectantly. “She said what?”

“Nothing.” Nam-gyu waves his hand dismissively, much to Thanos’ dismay. “It was nonsense.”

“Right, but…” Thanos wracks his brain for an excuse to explain his sudden interest, but comes up with nothing. “What’d she say specifically?”

“Uh…it really doesn't matter. I barely even remember, it was just weird.” Nam-gyu shrugs, squinting at him in confusion. “I think it was something along the lines of… ‘the eye within you has shackled you to another, spiritually tying you together…’” a brief pause as Nam-gyu wracks his brain. “‘You’ll never remember but you’ll always find yourself back at the start, your aura is fracturing’…Just a bunch of random, poorly veiled threats. It was so stupid, dude, you should’ve seen her face.”

Nam-gyu laughs. Thanos, in turn, feels nothing but bone-chilling dread.

“…Oh my god, hyung, you’re not actually freaked out by shit like that, are you?” Nam-gyu bites his lip to cover up a mocking snicker as he tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. “Thanos, dude, come on.”

“I’m not freaked out, jackass,” Thanos snaps. He restrains from giving into his instinctual desire to reach forward and wipe Nam-gyu’s face free of blood.

“Right, right,” Nam-gyu giggles, twirling the knife deftly in his fingers.

Thanos gives a soft sigh of grievance, grabs onto Nam-gyu’s bloodied hand, and begins to walk without further comment. If Nam-gyu is bothered by the sudden hand-holding, he says nothing.

As they walk, Thanos tries not to let the supposed words Seon-nyeo spoke to Nam-gyu tumble around his brain. He needs to stay focused, and he can’t waste time trying to dissect words that are already cut up into small, inedible pieces.

A part of him is well aware that the sensible course of action would be for him to abandon the thought of killing Myung-gi, and instead focus on keeping the both of them safe and out of trouble. Last time he tried the combo of him being a hider and Nam-gyu being a seeker, Nam-gyu hadn’t been able to find anyone in time. This time, for whatever reason, Nam-gyu has found and killed someone. They're in a pretty good position here.

But, Thanos is rarely very sensible, and each time he thinks back to Nam-gyu’s dying expression and the way his palm had felt pressed against his face, he festers with rage at the person who ruined what should have been a perfect loop.

The fucker needs to die. Thanos is doing the universe a favor. Performing a public good.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu muses, bloodied fingers twitching against the back of Thanos’ hand. “When you kill Myung-gi, make sure you don’t get hurt, okay?”

“I’m a great fighter, my boy. Don’t stress it,” Thanos boasts. “That run-in with the old guy was just a fluke.”

“That guy pissed me off,” Nam-gyu grumbles. “He must’ve thought he was some sort of big-shot, getting involved in our business like that, even though it had nothing to do with his ass.”

“It was kinda funny when he kicked you in the knee, though,” Thanos jokes, grinning impishly as Nam-gyu turns to glare at him. “That shit had you groaning and rolling on the ground, dude!”

“Yeah, well, it was really funny when he started choking you out,” Nam-gyu scoffs. “You were all like, ‘Please, I’m sorry sir, please let me go’-”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You might as well have.”

Before Thanos can come up with a quip to fire back, he sees a red-vested man turn the corner ahead of them, and is briefly filled with homicidal glee. His cheer turns to disappointment as the man turns to face them head-on. It’s not Myung-gi. Damn.

The man, clean enough for Thanos to conclude he hasn't killed anyone yet, locks in on Thanos’ blue vest, eyes lighting up with pre-determined victory. Then, his eyes dart over to Nam-gyu, and finally, fall down to their intertwined hands.

Nam-gyu tugs Thanos closer, smiling wolfishly as he raises his knife coyly towards Thanos’ neck, miming a slicing motion. “This one’s mine.”

The man, whose vest reads 007, makes a noise of unbridled despair. “That’s–!” he sniffles, adjusting his glasses with a trembling hand. “That’s cheating! You already killed someone!”

“Nothing in the rules states I can’t kill multiple people,” Nam-gyu says, glancing at Thanos from the corner of his eye, offering a catty smile, “and I’m saving this one for my final meal.”

(Thanos knows that Nam-gyu is putting on an exaggerated show to get 007 to leave them alone, but he’d be lying if he said the purr in Nam-gyu’s tone didn't make him shiver. Not with fear, exactly. Something warmer, almost searing.)

“But…!”

“Hey, four-eyes,” Thanos says, “You seen MG Coin anywhere? The crypto scammer?”

The man blinks at him wetly, clearly not understanding what he’s getting at. Thanos heaves a sigh. “Player 333. On the same team as you? Has a smarmy, punchable face?”

“333…?” The man sniffles again, harsher this time. He points from the direction he came from, slowly and timidly, as if he’s not sure he should be giving them this information to begin with. “I just…I just saw him a few minutes ago, back that way…”

“Well, would you look at that; the mama’s boy really is good for something. Who would've guessed?” Nam-gyu snarks. He turns to Thanos, disregarding 007’s existence entirely. “Remeber, he’s the one who got berated by his own mother back at the beginning. What a fucking loser!”

Thanos snickers as he watches the man swallow, throat bobbing nervously as he admits defeat and continues along a separate corridor, disappearing from sight. As Nam-gyu lowers his knife again, Thanos gives him a humored glance. “Your final meal, huh?”

Nam-gyu licks his lips, languid and deliberate. “Mhm. I bet you’ll taste good.”

It’s meant as a joke, a running gag of sorts. But the sight of Nam-gyu’s tongue sliding against blood-splattered lips only serves to make Thanos flush, and he snaps his gaze forward before the latter can take notice of it. “We should hurry if we want to catch MG in time.”

“Right,” Nam-gyu agrees, letting himself be tugged along, and Thanos can tell by the lilt of his laugh that his fluster hasn't gone unnoticed.

– – –

They find Myung-gi with his knife buried inside a woman’s back.

It’s a cruel reminder of what he did to Nam-gyu the last loop, and only hastens Thanos’ thirst for revenge. Him and Nam-gyu, their hands still connected with Seon-nyeo’s blood sticking between their palms, watch from behind a nearby corner as the woman—player 120—slumps inside the room with a soft, broken noise of pain. As she falls, Myung-gi catches sight of something (someone?) inside the room. His face morphs into one of horror, something stronger than just guilt. He remains frozen in place, and while Thanos can’t fathom what he must be seeing to cause him so much turmoil, he knows that Myung-gi hadn’t portrayed such strong emotion when he twisted a knife, unnaturally harsh inside Nam-gyu’s stomach. Unforgivable.

Nam-gyu, who leans closely over his shoulder, holds out his blood-soaked knife for Thanos to take, giving his hand a quick squeeze. “Quick. Careful.”

Up close like this, Thanos can pinpoint each freckle that dots along Nam-gyu’s blood-soaked face. His eyes are wide, an odd mixture of excitement and nervousness. He licks his lips again, and the sheen of spit it leaves in its wake makes Thanos shudder.

“Make him hurt,” Nam-gyu whispers. Thanos nods in rapt agreement, and in a moment of pure impulse, he moves his hand to wipe at one of the many speckles of blood splattered across Nam-gyu’s cheek, a caress hidden under the guise of something helpful.

Thanos takes the knife that’s offered to him. “I will. Stay here while I deal with him.”

They let go of each other's hands — the blood that has soaked between them sticks, suctioning their palms together for longer than it ought to, and their skin separates with quiet, filthy squelch. A premonition, a warning; it’s the shaman's blood that sticks between them, as if leaving them a carefully worded message from the dead. Don’t separate.

The warning is discarded. Hands fall away from each other, and Thanos ignores his nerves as he steps fully around the corner. He’s not some sort of coward who can’t manage to kill one measly man, and Thanos isn’t the type of person to forgive and forget. Even if he doesn't remember it, Myung-gi has crossed a line that will never be forgiven; a sin to be punished for in every timeline.

The knife feels light in his hand. Funny, isn't it, how something so small can cause so much damage?

Myung-gi hastily closes the door, planning a hasty escape from his kill—an animal killing for sport instead of survival—but stills at the sight of Thanos’ slow approach. A sharp inhale, a choked intake of breath. Thanos wonders if Myung-gi is aware of how drastically he’s ruined people's lives; there was a girl Thanos used to hang out with at the club every so often, a cheery young woman with access to all sorts of pills. She’d talk about Myung-gi’s videos with stars in her eyes, absolutely ecstatic at the thought of the cash she’d rake in by following his advice. She talked about it excessively, bordering on obsession, and when it’d all blown up in her face, just as it had for Thanos, Nam-gyu, and countless others, she’d locked herself in the bathroom of her shabby one-room apartment, swallowed an entire bottle of pills, and killed herself.

When Thanos himself stood on the edge of the bridge, preparing to toss himself to his death, falling for Myung-gi’s scam wasn’t the only reason behind his craving for death. It was the major driving point behind it all, because with a debt so staggering, Thanos felt it was impossible to come back from. But it was also due to the fact that his rapping career had failed, he’d disappointed his mother, and he’d run out of milk for his cereal that morning. It made him pause his dreary morning routine, and when he started thinking about how he’d have to go to the store, pick up and purchase milk, hold the carton in his hands, give it to the cashier, talk to the cashier, walk around a store, walk to the store, walk out of the store, walk anywhere, leave his house, perform basic necessities, eat cereal, eat anything–

It made him want to die. His lack of milk in the morning for the stale cereal he’d already poured into a cracked and glued back together bowl pushed him so far over the edge that he headed to the nearest bridge without giving it much further thought, coming to the conclusion that killing himself was the only way to solve the state of disarray he’d managed to work his way into.

Debt, disappointment, and an empty carton of milk.

It’s Myung-gi’s fault for scamming him, ensuring success without knowing what the fuck he was talking about. It’s Myung-gi’s fault that Thanos disappointed his mother, because maybe, just maybe she wouldn’t have been so utterly crushed at Thanos’ failure of a career if he hadn't managed to plummet his savings alongside it. It’s Myung-gi’s fault that he didn’t have any milk that morning, because if he hadn’t been in so much fucking debt, he’d probably have a fridge full of milk cartons, and the thought of going to a store and risking his card declining at the checkout counter wouldn’t have been the thing to send him careening towards thoughts of suicide. It’s Myung-gi’s fault for ruining the last loop, for killing Nam-gyu right after the man admitted to only wanting Thanos to be the one to kill him, if push came to shove. It’s Myung-gi’s fault for making this all so difficult, for killing hiders despite already being safe from elimination.

And what exactly has Thanos gotten in return, for having to face this continuous string of faults and life-ruining events? A hasty apology, a subdued roll of the eyes, an explanation made out of necessity: “it ruined my life too”, as if that makes it any better. Faces of distaste, not only from Myung-gi, but other players as well, as if Thanos is the one in the wrong for making a big deal out of things. A round of applause when Thanos is the one beaten, but silence and upsetment when Myung-gi is in his place. A knife entering the stomach of the one player in this shithole that Thanos can actually stand.

That’s what it’s earned him. Strife, misery, and vile displays of cruelty.

It’s almost laughable, when all compiled together. Laughable in the sense of complete disbelief at the workings of life and fate and ‘godly plans’, or whatever other things people rely on to get through things. What a load of shit; all of it carefully constructed to drive Thanos insane.

Maybe he should take it a step further. Maybe he should say it’s Myung-gi’s fault that he’s addicted to pills. It’s Myung-gi’s fault he’s trapped in this loop. It’ll be Myung-gi’s fault when Thanos inevitably dies and gets sent straight to hell. It’s Myung-gi’s fault for existing, for breathing, for being alive to begin with, for having a heart and a brain and thoughts and feelings.

Everything that has ever happened to Thanos is everyone's fault except his own. If he’s ever stepped out of line, it’s the fault of the shoe instead of the foot attached to the leg that he moves and he chooses, mentally and purposefully, to step over the line. It’s the fault of the shoe for making direct contact with the ground, the part of the ground over the line, the line that he now currently steps over as he approaches a man with the intent to kill.

“What are you doing?” Myung-gi asks, taking a step back as Thanos takes a step forward. His eyes dart towards the dagger clamped in his hands, and then back towards his face, eyes wide, aghast. “Hiders aren't supposed to have knives. How did you–?”

Distantly, Thanos thinks he hears the muffled sound of a baby cry. Nonsensical — he must be imagining it. Unimportant — he needs to act quickly.

Myung-gi holds his knife out in defense, eyes flitting across the expanse of Thanos’ face with palpable unease. His breath catches. He’s legitimately frightened in the face of the demeanor Thanos is displaying, uncannily bloodthirsty, uncharacteristically silent.

Thanos could take the time to explain, if he wanted, that he plans to make this hurt. He could explain the grave sin that Myung-gi committed in a past timeline, the sin of killing Nam-gyu with malice and a twist of metal. He could verbalize his hatred, or at least try to, but he’s not sure he’d be able. Thanos has never hated anyone in his life as much as he hates Myung-gi, the one and only MG Coin.

So, he says nothing. There’s no point in it; both men are fully aware of what will happen next.

The fight that follows is so blurry within Thanos’ own jumbled mind, that it’s difficult to recall it in its entirety. It reminds him of when he’d try to make out muffled conversations as a child during family gatherings, tucked away in his room as evening continued its steady descent, adults shooing away children so they could discuss things openly. It was all so much simpler back then. A child in a room, a curious ear pressed against a door, trying to understand the intangible.

Nothing about the fight that commences between Thanos and Myung-gi is intangible, but it feels somehow distorted. The blood, the grunts of pain, the slicing of metal against meat; it’s all very, sickeningly real. Real, and yet somehow managing to feel inexpressable.

It’s a sweaty, bloody, harsh ordeal. Knives are swung, missing the mark more often than connecting. Nails dig into skin, exclamations are yelped, a plea to wait, to stop, to think about the actions that are being committed.

Myung-gi is left frazzled by whatever he saw in the room moments prior — this much is obvious, and Thanos is thankful for his opponent's lack of grace. Finally, Thanos is the one with the upper hand.

Not to say that the fight commences without consequence. The first blood spilled is from Myung-gi’s body, as Thanos is able to work his dagger into the flesh of his opponent's shoulder. He savors the cry of pain it earns him in response, but his relishment only lasts for a brief moment. Myung-gi thrusts his knife forward with ferocity.

It’s less of a stab and more of a slice. All things considered, it’s actually not that bad — one clean cut, stretching right across Thanos left collarbone, thin and bright. It’s a scratch, and while it’s an expansive one that causes blood to bubble up and pour out in oozing goops, it’s not enough to kill. It does, however, leave a lasting sting of pain. It hurts, which in turn catches Thanos off guard.

Myung-gi is in a far worse state. The stab wound in his shoulder is deep and bloody, a gory expanse of exposed flesh. Even if he did manage to get away from Thanos now, he could very well bleed out and die. Thanos can tell that Myung-gi is well aware of how dire his situation is due to the way his eyes shine with pained panic, inhaling large gulps of air as his chest heaves. Thanos’ heart thumps erratically in the confines of his ribcage, and Myung-gi seizes the fleeting second of inaction to raise his leg and slam his foot directly into Thanos’ chest.

The action is clumsy, and sends both of them careening in separate directions; Thanos, shoved backwards by the impact of a foot slamming into his chest, and Myung-gi, stumbling backwards and falling on his ass due to an embarrassing lack of balance. Thanos clenches his jaw as he slams against the ground, pain thrumming throughout him in heated, unrelenting waves.

“You fucker,” Thanos grunts, nails dragging across flooring as Myung-gi attempts to stumble his way to his feet, clearly intent on running away as he clutches onto his bloodied, torn open shoulder, face white and doused in sweat; a moth attempting to flutter away after being seared by a burning flame.

But Myung-gi’s actions are sluggish, just as slimy and slow as the blood that oozes from his shoulder, and as Thanos hurls himself forward, latching onto the man’s ankle, the flurry of his thoughts intermingle and melt into one.

“I hope Nam-gyu’s watching. I hope this hurts Myung-gi as much as a knife in the stomach. I hope he’s offered no mercy in the face of death. I hope he’s scared, I hope this means something, I hope this makes me feel better about everything wrong that’s ever happened to me.”

He pulls at Myung-gi’s ankle, yanking him harshly across the ground. The man is sweaty, blood-covered, completely frenzied. He's horrified, but he still manages to have the same stupid expression he always does, complete bafflement at his own approaching death. “This can’t be happening to me,” he must be thinking, the self-centered jackass.

Thanos winds up for a steady slash, grinning in crazed delight at the man beneath him.

“Please,” Myung-gi chokes out, “I’m sorry, I said I’m sorry—“

To give credit where it’s due, he makes a good show of checking all the boxes. He lays heavy emphasis on the ’sorry’, he looks at him pleadingly, and Thanos can practically see the gears turning in his head as he tries to think of what to say next, what other excuses he can pull out of thin air to garner sympathy from a man who wants him dead.

“I have a kid.” Those will be his next words, Thanos assumes, and as cruel as it is, he couldn’t care less. Words mean nothing to him — he’s taking what he’s owed.

The knife descends. Quick, sharp, with one singular purpose to fulfill.

(Nam-gyu had looked soul-shatteringly angelic in the face of death.

Myung-gi does not.)

The first stab brings about a disgusting amount of blood, the tearing squelch of skin being torn, ripped apart with a wet, splattering noise, loud and unnerving. He carves the metal into the soft flesh of Myung-gi’s stomach, and he twists before pulling the dagger out. Myung-gi howls, writhing in agonized torment. Thanos readies himself for another blow.

The second stab is more brutal. He buries the knife into Myung-gi’s unmarred shoulder, listening to the crunch of bone meeting metal. The man beneath him outright sobs. Thanos’ actions are abhorrently cruel, but when he thinks back to the weight of Nam-gyu in his arms, it only makes him want to double his efforts.

The third stab is carefully aimed, delivered straight in the middle of his chest. Thanos knows he should draw this out—make it hurt more, turn it into a real drawn-out punishment, just to prove a point—but he can’t quite help himself. Thanos watches, crazed and hysteric, as the light begins to fade from Myung-gi’s eyes.

Four. One more jab to the chest. He’s dead. It’s over. The intercom overhead announces the elimination of player 333 in the same monotone voice it always does.

Five. Six. Seven.

It’s an unnecessary display of derangement, stabbing a vessel that’s already been robbed of its life. The blood is copious, drenching not only the corpse of the man who ruined his life, but also Thanos himself. It’s so warm, sickeningly so, and his body shakes with feverish disgust.

The knife slips out of his fingers, clattering in a pool of blood, and Thanos stares down with heaving breaths at the destroyed, flimsy body laid out before him, fragments of fleshy chest on full display. This was supposed to feel fulfilling. It was supposed to fix everything. The blood was supposed to rejuvenate him, to make him feel whole again.

The only thing Thanos feels is sick. He’s covered in the innards of another, with viscera under his nails and clumps of crimson in his hair. No matter how harshly he sucks in gulps of air, it never seems to be enough to satisfy his lungs. If he looked in the mirror right now, would he feel fulfilled at what he’s done? Would he feel justified in his actions?

Thanos thinks that if he were to look in a mirror right now, he’d want to die.

“Su-bong.”

Thanos looks upward to be met with the unblinking gaze of Nam-gyu. He’s not sure what he expects from him, after having him see such an unhinged display of an unnecessary murder. Disgust, abhorrence, fear, distrust. Thanos’ gaze is blurry, sweat and blood dripping past eyelashes, and it’s difficult to make out Nam-gyu’s expression. His voice is level, betraying no emotion at all.

Thanos cranes his head downward. He’d rather stare at a decimated body than be forced to meet Nam-gyu’s gaze, because if his orbs hold any sense of hostility, Thanos isn't sure if he’ll be able to take it. What a revolting exhibition of cowardice.

Fingers grasp each side of Thanos’ face, tilting his head upwards. Nam-gyu crouches in front of him, paying no attention to the body at his feet, and stares at the bloody mess that qualifies as Thanos’ face.

Nam-gyu doesn't appear unsettled. He looks enraptured.

Despite the fact that Nam-gyu spent the entirety of the fight watching from the sidelines, he breathes just as heavily as Thanos. Sharp, choppy intakes of air, broken into small bursts and long inhales. Jolty, erratic. He gathers Thanos’ face fully in his palms, gentle and steady, like an angel preparing to bestow a blessing upon him. Thanos resists the urge to clasp his hands together and begin to pray. Not to a God he holds no belief in, but instead to Nam-gyu. “Is this a sacrifice worthy of you?” he wonders, staring at Nam-gyu, the man he’s supposedly tethered to, the man who looks at him with such adoration, even in a situation that doesn't call for it.

“Your eyes…” Nam-gyu trails off, enrapt, in awe, his face flushed pink.

“Time’s up!”

The announcement itself is a shock – it’s over. Nam-gyu has passed, and both of them have finally crossed the finish line alive. Thanos breathes a broken sigh of relief, covering Nam-gyu’s hands with his own, pressing Nam-gyu’s palms further against his bloodied, dirtied skin.

And instead of sneering in revulsion, Nam-gyu grins. He smiles like a man about to devour something truly exquisite, a saint holding in his hands the face of a worshipper, a devotee, a creation worth savoring.

Thanos could cry, if he felt the ability to. But he refuses to display such a raw piece of himself, even though Nam-gyu's palms fit so meaningfully against him, fingers trailing against wet cheekbones. More than anything, Thanos is simply thankful for the fact that they’ve finally made it, and that he was right in his assumption that Myung-gi’s death would bring them salvation. He can worry about the horror of it all once they finally get out of here, when they get home with the money and return to a new sense of normalcy.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu breathes out, teetering forward just close enough for Thanos to feel the heat of his breath on his lips. Their fingers overlap, twitching against each other. “Your eyes are–”

He blinks, and the moment is over. There’s no tunneling vision, or momentary death. It’s one brief, hasty blink, and when his eyes reopen after the split second of darkness, he’s back where he started.

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands with…no, that can’t be right. He did everything correctly. Both he and Nam-gyu lived.

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands, and begins to realize that there’s truly no point in anything at all.

Notes:

😲

Chapter 6: a prison of flesh

Notes:

This chapter is 10k oh my heavens. If I accidentally skimmed over any typos or anything while proofreading I give you all permission to start pelting me with rocks <3

Thanos brings a trembling hand up to his face, feeling for phantom traces of blood. But he is clean, unmarred, and not who he was mere seconds ago. He’s stuck in a prison, unaware of where the key has been hidden.

As he makes his way to the spot in the crowd he always does, staggering his way past his fellow players, he can do nothing except recall the tearing sound of a knife entering flesh, and Nam-gyu’s unsteady, heightened breathing. Nam-gyu had looked at him like he meant something, eyes wide with admiration. He was so beautifully alive—they both were.

And now it’s all over, once again leaving Thanos behind with misplaced memories.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Thanos feels legitimately and wholeheartedly terrified. It’s a different fear in comparison to brief panic that seizes him when faced with a sudden life or death situation. This is prolonged, aching horror at the thought of being trapped within such a gruesome time loop permanently. Because, if saving both himself and Nam-gyu isn’t the key out of this cage, what else could it possibly be?

His sins crawl under his skin like maggots. As he glares weakly at the back of Myung-gi’s stupid fucking head, he can’t help but think that killing him was the exact opposite of what he should’ve done.

The room is smaller this time, he’s certain. Just a little bit. Barely even noticeable. The players that surround him stare up at the guard, listening in fear to the rules as they always do, a group of fish all intent on swarming the same piece of slowly lowering bait.

Thanos runs a hand through his hair, letting out a shaky breath of air. This is bad. This is really, really bad. So bad, that he needs to start actually thinking. Fuck, okay. Quickly, quickly…he never has much time.

He should start with what he knows.

Fact 1: Nam-gyu is an important and integral part of what Thanos is going through. He doesn’t know why, but he is. If Nam-gyu dies, the loop restarts. If Thanos dies, the loop restarts. If they both live…the loop still fucking restarts. Complete bullshit, each and every aspect of it.

Fact 2: His drugs aren’t having their desired effect, but in the same vein, he knows they must still be working in some sense, because he’s not going through withdrawals. Unless this entire timeloop bullshit is actually one extremely long hallucination caused via withdrawal…but that seems unlikely. Thanos knows this is real. He can feel it.

Fact 3: Se-mi and Min-su seem to hold no importance at all. It feels mean, phrasing it so bluntly, but whether they live or die simply doesn’t seem to matter. This raises the question of why Nam-gyu is the only one that Thanos is seemingly ‘tethered to’ as the shaman put it. Is it because they were together when Nam-gyu killed her back in the very first loop? That seems the most plausible, he supposes…

Fact 4: Killing Myung-gi did nothing. Sinking a knife into Myung-gi’s skin offered him no relief, and the only good part about the bloody, gory situation was the way Nam-gyu had looked at him after the fact. Even at the sight of Thanos so covered in filth, shaking in the aftermath of such an extreme act of violence, Nam-gyu had touched him so gently. Even if Thanos is stripped from body and mind completely, he knows that he will never, ever forget this.

(…Despite the fact that the same thing can’t be said for Nam-gyu.)

Fact 5: There is no God that will come to save him from the hell he’s been placed in. Thanos will have to save himself. And, of course, Nam-gyu.

Fact 6: The shaman. Player 044. Seon-nyeo. Whatever alias he uses to refer to her doesn't matter; what matters is that she’s deeply intertwined in the spiderweb of this shitty situation. If Thanos is staying up to date, it’s safe to assume that the version of her in the first loop placed a curse on him and Nam-gyu before keeling over dead. Why she chose to have Thanos remember the loops and not Nam-gyu is beyond him, and he has no idea how she even managed to conjure this awful situation up to begin with.

Which brings him to his next course of action — he needs to have a serious, long-winded conversation with Seon-nyeo. Without killing her this time…unfortunately. Killing her never seems to do any good, and if there’s even a small chance that she might possibly happen to know how to make the loops end, he figures he should get on her good side.

With all of that out of the way, this brings Thanos to acknowledge his plethora of questions.

Question 1: Why the fuck aren’t his drugs working like they usually do?

Question 2: He hasn’t slept or eaten in any of the loops — is this eventually going to catch up to him and knock him dead? That’d be sort of stupid, if he ended up randomly keeling over and actually, permanently dying because of a lack of sleep and food. This seems unlikely, considering he doesn’t feel all that hungry…he does feel rather tired, though.

Question 3: Resetting this time around was so quick it made him visibly jolt in surprise. One blink, and that’s it — a stark contrast in comparison to how resetting has felt during past loops, always drawn out and agonizingly uncomfortable, the feeling of his cells being placed back in order. It makes him sick if he thinks of it for too long, so he tries to push the memories of it out of his mind, but the question is still an important one. Why the sudden change? Is it because both of them were still alive?

Question 4: How many more loops will pass by before he caves in and digs the stupid, gaudy dagger into his own bumbling throat out of pure desperation alone?

Question 5: Is he the same person he was in the first loop, or is he different versions of himself all stacked into one shaky, trembling body? He wishes he wasn't so damn afraid. He hates feeling like a coward. He isn't one. He’s so much more than what his body makes him appear to be.

Question 6: What’s with all the talk and imagery of eyes? Is something truly watching him? Is there something in the universe that truly hates him enough to enjoy watching his suffrage so closely? What was the end of Nam-gyu’s sentence, the words he’d spoken with such awe? “Your eyes are…” His eyes are what?

Question 7: Which does Nam-gyu favor more; the drugs, or Thanos himself? This question rings tirelessly in his mind, but Nam-gyu has portrayed actions that could be applied as an answer to either, so it’s impossible for him to know for sure without asking outright. Nam-gyu is a mesh of hypocrisy, pinballing from hate to adoration in the blink of an eye. Which emotion is the truth, and which one is being used as a coverup for the latter?

Question 8: Why does he care so much about how Nam-gyu views him?

Question 9: If Thanos were to bring up what they did together back at the club, would Nam-gyu respond in kindness or aggression? Would he be glad at the fact that Thanos finally acknowledged it, or would he be upset that it took him so long to do so?

Question 10: If Thanos were to take Nam-gyu by the hand and lead him to the creepy, brightly lit bathrooms, would he let Thanos fuck him against a bathroom stall door, or would he tell him he’s out of his damn mind for suggesting such a thing in the middle of a death game? Not that they actually have the supplies for all of that — whatever, the important inquiry here is whether or not Nam-gyu would be interested in Thanos proposing the idea of sex. Handjobs are very different from penetrative sex, after all. They’ve never even kissed — that’s not the type of relationship they had. Even calling it a relationship seems overboard. It was a…friends with benefits sort of thing. It’s normal for friends (acquaintance, associate, allies, etc.) to jack each other off every once and a while, right? Not that Nam-gyu ever asked Thanos to return the favor. It was always Nam-gyu with his ringed fingers around Thanos’ cock, and then he’d say some stupid sensual quip and scurry off, probably to go rut into his own hand in the privacy of the nearest bathroom stall or cramped closet. But, why? Why didn't Nam-gyu ever ask for Thanos to get him off in turn? Why did Thanos never offer? He’s never even seen Nam-gyu’s dick before…what a damn shame.

Question 11: What the fuck?

Question 12: Let’s get back on track. Clearly, his mind is a bit jumbled. Stupid fucking timeloop. Stupid brain, stupid seedy club and its stupidly handsome promoter with stupidly warm, wonderfully calloused hands squeezing around him just right, chuckling into the curvature of Thanos’ neck like he knows that he’s handing him a sexuality crisis on a silver platter.

The above declaration doesn't qualify as a question. Try again.

Question 12: Final question, for the sake of Thanos’ sanity. Are his surroundings changing subtly, just a little bit, or has he simply lost his mind?

Statement 1, in reference to question 10: It’s important to be aware of the fact that it’s perfectly normal to imagine what it’d be like to fuck the guy he’s sharing his drugs with, and he shouldn’t look for deeper meaning where there is none. His relationship with Nam-gyu is all about give-and-take, a continuous trading of favors, and since Nam-gyu has given him a handful of handjobs in the past (just to help loosen him up, get him in the mood to party, as any good friend would), it’s only natural that Thanos would want to repay him via fucking him raw and passionately in a grimy bathroom. Totally natural. And, if he spends a certain amount of time (Detail 1: Notice the lack of clarification on how much time exactly is spent thinking of this subject) thinking about what Nam-gyu would taste like on his tongue (Detail 2: Notice the lack of clarification on if he means Nam-gyu’s lips pressing softly against his own, their tongues intermingling in tandem, or if he’s referring to sucking him off in the bathroom like a cock-hungry slut. Detail 3: This is absolutely fucking mortifying either way) then that doesn’t mean anything either. It’s natural. He’s just horny because he’s gone so long without a decent lay.

Fact 7: ‘Lie’ and ‘Statement’ are interchangeable.

…Thanos is beginning to confuse himself. Why’d he think listing things would be a good idea to begin with?

“Don't worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you. Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

Thanos jumps. He actually, literally jolts in surprise, because he’d been so caught up in his own frenzied thoughts that he somehow missed the sight of Nam-gyu trotting towards him, pulling Min-su along with him. His embarrassingly obvious flinch of surprise causes eyebrows to raise.

Thanos can hardly focus on the mortifying display of cowardice. Instead, he focuses on Nam-gyu — alive, tangible, blissfully unaware of how gently he’d held him after witnessing such a brutal act.

“Hyung?” Nam-gyu blinks, flustering under an unbroken stare. “Uh, dude, what're you staring at?”

In place of an answer, Thanos brings his hands upwards, and gathers Nam-gyu’s face into his palms.

He’s not sure why he does it, and he’s certainly not sure what type of response he’s expecting. Maybe there’s a part of him that needs reassurance, needs to feel the warmth of Nam-gyu’s body on his hands, just to prove that he’s not a fabrication of his fraying mind. Maybe there’s a part of him that yearns to see the surprise that flits across Nam-gyu’s face, the stuttering eye movement of shock. Thanos presses his palms against Nam-gyu’s cheeks, watches his freckled skin smush slightly under his hands, and smiles; a shaky, nervous display. Shaky and nervous are two words that should never be used to describe him. God, this is awful.

“My boy,” he says, and he sounds a little hysterical even to his own damn ears. “You trust me, right? I’m your buddy? You believe everything I have to say at face value?”

(Thanos is pretty sure that nobody on the face of the planet believes what he has to say at face value. Still, though, he might as well ask.)

“Uh,” Nam-gyu says with an ineloquent grunt. “What the hell are you talking about–?”

“Listen, Nam-su–”

“Gyu.”

“Su, Nam-su. Southern beauty.”

“Southern what?”

“Nam-su means southern beauty. I’ve told you this before.” Thanos frowns. “You really don’t remember? Not even a little bit?”

“You…!” Nam-gyu flushes beet red, throat bobbing as he swallows. “You’re so fucking high, man.”

And, there it is. The expected accusation, the allegation he can’t even fully deny. He lets his hands drop from Nam-gyu’s face with an irritated groan, looking up at the ceiling as if praying for it to suddenly cave in and kill him.

“I’m not high, asshole.”

“Well, excuse me for saying so,” Nam-gyu says sarcastically, and while Thanos is too busy aimlessly looking upward to see Nam-gyu’s expression, he’s sure the man must appear baffled, redness still clinging to his skin. “You’re acting weird, dude. …But, look, you need to switch with–”

“I’m not switching,” Thanos says, looking back down sharply and drinking in Nam-gyu’s befuddled expression. “You need to switch. We both need to be hiders; it’s the only method I haven't tried yet.”

His words make no sense to the two men in front of him, but Thanos can’t be bothered to care. Internal dialogue, spoken words; what does it matter?

“Method? What method?” Nam-gyu scowls, tensing up at the prospect of his sacrificial lamb being denied so briskly. “Thanos, what the fuck are you talking about? Seriously, man, how many pills did you take?”

“Shut up,” Thanos gripes. “This isn't about pills, this is about…”

About what? The fabric of time and space? Thanos spares another quick glance towards the ceiling — why the fuck can’t his prayers be answered just this one time? Why can’t the ceiling plummet and kill him just once?

“Look, Thanos,” Nam-gyu starts, using that stupidly slow tone of voice, trying and failing to cover up his impatience. “You need to switch with Min-su while you still have the chance, okay? Us both being hiders doesn't even make any sense, and I’d rather keel over and die than switch with that bitch Se-mi, if that's what you're insinuating–”

“I’m stuck in a timeloop, okay? I’m stuck in a repetitive, fucked up timeloop, and I’ve seen you die over and over, and I’ve died over and over, and we both lived until the end last time, and now I’m still back here listening to you say the same bullshit you always do, and I’m starting to think that this is actually hell itself. But, there has to be some way out, there has to, and I’m pretty sure that freaky shaman has the answer–”

He can barely get his full rambled, poorly articulated explanation before Nam-gyu starts laughing. The fucker covers his mouth with his palm and starts laughing in the face of his distress, chalking it all up as some sort of joke or pill-induced hysterics. Min-su, on the other hand, looks entirely appalled, his mouth ajar and eyebrows furrowed.

“Fuck you,” Thanos spits, because while he knows the reaction isnt necessarily unwarranted, it still stings.

“Thanos, come on!” Nam-gyu exclaims, his laughter dwindling to a quiet wheeze, his posture morphing into a slight grimace as he begins to take notice of Thanos’ legitimate anger. “What are you even saying?”

With a sound close to a growl, Thanos grabs harshly onto Nam-gyu, colorful nails encircling a pale wrist, and yanks. With a yelp and ungraceful stumble, Nam-gyu allows himself to be dragged behind Thanos as he strides across the room, headed towards one person in particular. Min-su is left standing alone in befuddlement, looking around the room in disbelief, as if expecting someone to jump out and explain that he just witnessed a very elaborate and well planned out prank.

“Hey! Hey, what the hell–?!” Nam-gyu fumbles to keep up with Thanos’ quick pace, and his loud exclamations of surprise cause multiple players to turn in bewilderment. “Thanos, you fucking idiot–”

Thanos’ memory is starting to feel like a punishment in itself. “Quiet, Nam-su.”

“Nam-gyu.”

“I said it means southern beauty, you fucking dipshit. That’s, like, textbook flirting 101! You’re supposed to be tripping over your feet with fucking joy and gratitude,” Thanos hisses, and he knows he’s making a damn fool of himself, but this entire loop has already been nothing but embarrassment, and none of it even matters, because it’ll all be forgotten in the end. “You know, Nam-su, when girls get a specially chosen nickname from me, they start blushing and fawning. As they should, because that’s standard fucking procedure–”

Nam-gyu digs his heels in and rips his hand from Thanos’ grip, staring at him in shock. “Are you– are you saying you’ve been flirting with me like I’m some bitch at the club?”

People are staring. Really staring. Blatantly wide-eyed and curious, like bystanders watching a couples quarrel.

“No, I’ve been flirting with you like you’re you from the club,” Thanos leans forward to murmur, eyes darting along the faces of the players who stare, watching them duck and attempt to hide their obvious eavesdropping whenever his eyes land on them. “Unless you like being referred to as a bitch. What, are you into that sort of thing?”

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says lowly, warningly, his eyebrows furrowed and face painted red. Thanos can’t quite tell if he’s furiously offended or astoundingly turned on — he’ll cross his fingers and hope it’s both. “What the fuck is with you?”

(Statement 2: Flirting with a guy doesn't mean he has legitimate feelings for him. Staring at Nam-gyu’s freckles and the soft, pink plushness of his lips and the curvature of his ass is normal and fine and totally, probably, maybe not as perverted as it sounds.)

“I’m trying,” Thanos says, grabbing back onto Nam-gyu’s wrist, beginning to tug him again, "to show you!”

“Show me what?”

“Her!”

Seon-nyeo, who stands looming over her small group of followers with her hands clasped together in prayer, turns to squint at them, looking them up and down appraisingly. “Well, well…what brings vermin like you knocking on my door, hm?”

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says beside him, voice clipped. “I’d rather not waste my time—our time—talking to some religious nutcase.”

“Can you just hold on a second? I’m about to prove something to you, you impatient little shit.” Thanos stares pointedly at a progressively exasperated Nam-gyu before turning back to the shaman. “Listen, lady. You can tell, can’t you?”

Seon-nyeo examines her nails as if she’s bored out of her mind. “Do you speak of your fracturing aura, or the loneliness that eats away at your heart?”

“Oh, brother,” Thanos mutters, rolling his eyes and gesturing somewhat wildly at Nam-gyu, who stares at him as if he’s grown a second head. “Can you just tell him? Tell him all that weird bullshit you told me in the last loops.”

“Loops? Oh my god, you’re still on that?” Nam-gyu sighs in irritation. “Hyung, we don’t have time for this. Let me see your cross.“

“Jesus, man, enough about the fucking pills for a second!”

“If you could just show me how much is left—“

“I shouldn’t have to show you shit—“

“Enough!” Seon-nyeo claps her hands between them, holding her arms in the shape of an X. “Cease your incessant babbling! It is no wonder the Gods of heaven and earth have tethered you so — you’re both utterly foolish.”

“See!” Thanos snaps his fingers, nodding rapidly. “See, Nam-su? We’re tethered, she just said so!”

“Tethered in fate, in death, in religious devotion.” Seon-nyeo nods sharply, clasping her hands together as if in prayer. “The two of you are bound by your past, present, and future. And you, the purple one, are the only one who recalls it. Stuck in an endless loop, a repeating cycle of agony and terror.”

“I have a name, jackass,” Thanos snipes. ’The purple one’…seriously? How is it that the shaman can tell he’s stuck in a time loop just by looking at him, but can’t tell his name?

“Did you guys plan this out beforehand, or something?” Nam-gyu scoffs. “Dude, why are you spending time with such a freak—”

“I’ve already gathered that this is your fault,” Thanos says, ignoring Nam-gyu’s noise of offense at the interruption. “You cursed me, or whatever.”

“Me?” Seon-nyeo blinks in surprise, appalled at the mere possibility. Then, she squares her shoulders, staring at him as if he is nothing but a bug about to be squished under her shoe. “Well, I must’ve had a very good reason to do such a thing! After all, the tribulations you face are truly treacherous.”

“Yeah. I’ve gathered that.” Thanos tries to quell his rising anger. He needs this to go at least somewhat smoothly if he aims to get any answers at all. “It’s because we killed you, back in the first loop. If I say sorry, will you…un-curse me, or whatever? Because, I’m getting real sick of this shit.”

“Curses cannot be undone so easily.” Seon-nyeo sneers. She puts on an air of confidence, but Thanos can tell by the flutter of her eyes that she’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable. “And, your aura…it’s truly stifling.”

“There has to be a way out, though,” Thanos says, ashamed at the desperation he exudes. “It’s not like I’m stuck forever, right? If you’re the one who cursed me, you have to know how to fix it.”

“…Are you certain it is I that cursed you? Or are you relying on the safest assumption?” Seon-nyeo murmurs. “When faced with guilt, our brains become a very powerful force of nature…”

Thanos swears he feels his eye twitch. “I don’t have time for riddles.”

Seon-nyeo rolls her eyes, a prolonged and petulant display of annoyance. “I am a vessel for the words that the Gods of heaven and earth deliver to me, but this does not mean I have all of the answers you seek. I am certain of one thing, though; there is a way out. You simply must find it.”

“There is a way out, you simply must find it,” Thanos repeats incredulously. “That’s literally common fucking sense!”

Seon-nyeo holds up a halting hand, eyebrows furrowing in frustration. “And, as I was about to say…” She adjusts her jacket with a dramatic flair, taking her time to draw things out. “…I’m not very fond of offering advice to a man who has killed me in an alternate timeline. But, your soul suffers so intensely, and I don’t consider myself relentlessly cruel. …Not to this extent.” She frowns, flickers of guilt flitting across her face. “Your time spent in repetition is not endless. You must find the exit quickly; every bell tolls eventually, and if you run out of time, the end you’ll be delivered to will be a harsh one. Unrelenting and cruel.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Thanos presses. “How much time do I have left? How many more loops?”

“I cannot tell for certain. But if your surroundings are still the same in their entirety, then I’d say that’s a good sign that your time is still plentiful.”

Thanos nearly chokes on air. “They…they aren’t.”

“Hm?”

“The room is smaller. And, in the maze, the pictures on the walls…there’s these freaky eyes that weren’t there in the beginning, and—“

“What?” Seon-nyeo pales, and the amount of fear that washes over her does absolutely nothing to quell Thanos’ nerves. She clears her throat loudly, eyes darting around the room as if afraid of being watched. “If your surroundings are changing, it means you’re losing grip on reality. Which means, of course, that you’ll eventually reach a point where reality itself falls away from you entirely. You’ll be left in listless nothingness for eternity.”

“So, if I don’t figure a way out of this loop in time, I’ll be stuck in purgatory forever?” Thanos laughs sharply, but it holds no humor. “Great. Fucking fantastic. You put a curse on me, and you can’t even tell me how to get out of it?”

“I doubt it is I that is at fault—“

“Fuck you!” Thanos bursts. “You said it, back in the beginning! You said I’d die a thousand times over—“

“If the words I spoke to you caused your guilt to formulate, transforming into the cage that now holds you, that is nobody's fault but your own,” Seon-nyeo snarls. Fake niceties are dropped, replaced with the truth of who they are and what they stand for. Thanos, a man on the brink, fading between life and death, and Seon-nyeo, a woman who claims to have heavenly insight; do her words hold truth, or is she simply bolstering herself, building lies upon her shoulders to appear larger than she is? Her followers stare at her in reverence, unaware that their dedication and faith will be rendered useless in the face of death. Seon-nyeo will not save them, and neither will the gods they pray to so avidly.

“Your time is running short, but looking to me for guidance will not save you. There’s nobody who knows the answer to breaking the cycle except you.”

“But, I don’t know.”

“You do,” Seon-nyeo fires back, lips curled in distaste. “You simply refuse to stop and think, to understand the things that confine you. Look to the man you are tethered with,” Seon-nyeo gestures to Nam-gyu, who stands in stupefied silence, “and think about how the tether was formed to begin with. There are layers to the guilt that confine you — but me telling you outright won’t help anything at all.”

“Telling me what outright?”

Seon-nyeo closes her eyes in unparalleled frustration, taking a deep, long-lasting breath. “Perhaps you should just…try things you haven’t tried yet. I'm sure you’ll come to a conclusion eventually.”

“I’m not relying on ‘maybe’s’ and ‘eventually’s’ when I’m on a time limit that’ll plunge me into fucking purgatory if I don’t figure shit out in time,” Thanos grits out. “Nothing you say even makes any sense. A few loops ago, you talked about eyes watching me, about how I need to look at the eyes within — is everything you say a load of bullshit? Are you torturing me on purpose? Because, look around, lady.” Thanos gestures around the room, spreading his arms widely. “The game's about to start. I can easily kill you, you know? Drop the shit.”

“You don’t even have a knife! Foolish man…” Seon-nyeo scoffs. “The eyes that watch you don’t belong to me; your anger is misguided. Have you stopped and considered, for even a moment, that the eyes belong to you?”

Thanos blinks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Before he’s able to get a word out, he startles at the feeling of a hand wrapping around his elbow, giving him a firm shake. “Hyung.”

For the first time since the beginning of the encounter, Thanos shifts his full attention to Nam-gyu. Thanos is faced with the same baffled fear that he himself displays mirrored back at him, a flurry of complete bewilderment. Nam-gyu’s eyes dart between Thanos and the clock, mouth ajar with a wordless plea.

He considers the situation from Nam-gyu’s perspective, clueless and blindsided by his glorified drug dealer, listening to the ramblings of a crazy woman and not understanding a word. Suddenly, Thanos feels bad—excessively so— for leaving Nam-gyu floundering with so much information that he’s unable to piece together.

“Listen, Nam-gyu. I know none of this makes sense, and I know it all sounds batshit insane, but I have been through this before. I’ve seen you die, I’ve felt myself die, and both of us being hiders is the only combination I haven’t tried yet.” Thanos isn’t a man who pleads, but just this once, he might have to — they have one minute left to switch. “Please, Nam-gyu. Switch with someone. We can hide together, okay? It’ll be fine.”

(He claims it’ll be fine, but when has it ever, in any of the loops, been anything close to fine? If lying is what it takes, then so be it.)

Nam-gyu’s eyes flit down to the cross around Thanos’ neck, lips pressed in a thin line. Thanos already knows what words are coming next, and this only heightens his irritation. “…Two pills.”

“Yeah…I’ve heard that one before,” Thanos says wryly, gathering the cross into his hands, cold metal against warm palms. A huff, a bitter tablet, an injection; Nam-gyu’s desire for it all is laid bare for anyone to see, and despite the fact that Thanos feels the exact same, it feels akin to an open wound each time Nam-gyu’s eyes travel to the cross instead of Thanos’ gaze. He’s well aware of his own blatant hypocrisy, and he’d rather claw out his own throat than admit it, but he craves Nam-gyu’s attention just as much as Nam-gyu clearly craves his respect.

Nam-gyu opens his mouth to say something, but his words stay stuck in his throat, a beautiful display of inner conflict. How did Thanos not notice, back at the club, how deeply entrancing every aspect of Nam-gyu is? Each subtle twitch of his lips, flutter of his eyelids, and shift of his fingers against the handle of his knife is another example of angelic divinity, human, whole, alive, somehow otherworldly despite being made of flesh and blood.

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos says again, and he’s not exactly proud to say that his voice hitches into a whine as he plucks two pills from the cross, holding them out for Nam-gyu to inspect. He hates having to beg; it makes him sick to his very core. “Please.”

Thirty-five seconds left. Trembling fingers dart out to enclose around bitter tablets, stuffing them both in his mouth quickly, rapidly, as if afraid of Thanos grabbing them back before he can consume them. He crunches the tablets between his teeth with a wince of disgust, and turns toward the shaman, who remains watching them with her head tilted in catlike curiosity.

“Do you…?” Nam-gyu holds his knife out with a defeated sigh. “Do you want to switch?”

There’s a brief moment of hesitation before Seon-nyeo smiles, sharp and sinister. Her followers, all clad in blue, do not. And as Nam-gyu and the shaman hurry to switch, Thanos watches a girl drop to her knees, hands clasped together as she breaks into tears. Without her leader, all hope is seeped from her in seconds. “God…God has abandoned me…!”

Quite the contrary, Thanos thinks. God was never there to begin with.

— — —

Thanos has to admit — it’s a little funny to see Min-su’s bug-eyed stare when he realizes that Nam-gyu has switched to blue. He stares, mouth dropped in utter shock and awe, as he watches the hiders filter out of the room, Nam-gyu among them. The poor guy is completely out of the loop.

…Pun not intended.

Thanos gives poor, miserable Min-su a small wave followed by a thumbs up and an obnoxiously loud shout of encouragement, (“You got this, bro!”) but Min-su only continues to stare, unblinking and frozen in shock. And in turn, Thanos cheering him on before leaving makes Nam-gyu look at him like he wants to rip his head off.

“Are you going to explain what the hell is going on?” Nam-gyu murmurs as the group is led towards the arena, watching intently as Thanos swallows his own singular pill. “Time loops, man? Seriously?”

With two pills pulsing through his system, Nam-gyu seems to be walking with a lighter cadence in his step, but it doesn’t erase his unease in its entirety.

“Lower your voice,” Thanos gripes, wincing as Se-mi turns to squint at them from the head of the group. “C’mon, dude, I don’t need everyone in the arena thinking I’ve lost my mind.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the most believable thing in the world,” Nam-gyu grumbles. “I can’t believe I gave up my knife for this shit…”

“You heard the shaman, man. We’re tethered,” Thanos muses. “In every loop, we’re tied together. If you need more proof…”

Before they enter, Thanos quickly explains a rough description of the arena, speaking of brick walls and painted stars, pulling Nam-gyu close and murmuring into the shell of his ear. When they finally reach their destination and are allowed inside, stepping into the wide, expansive maze, Nam-gyu looks around with wide eyes.

“…Oh,” Nam-gyu says dumbly, spinning in a slow circle as he examines each crudely painted star. “…What the fuck?”

“And,” Thanos continues, instinctively grabbing onto Nam-gyu’s hand and leading him down a wide corridor without delay. He doesn’t bother seeking out Se-mi and asking her to join them, because he knows Nam-gyu would flip his shit if he did so. Besides, whenever he pairs up with Se-mi, it seems to go badly for her. She’s quick on her feet; he’s sure she’ll be just fine on her own. “I know what you whispered to Min-su earlier.”

Nam-gyu snorts. “Yeah, right. There’s no way you could’ve heard—“

“I didn’t hear you say it myself. Min-su told me a few loops ago,” Thanos reiterates, “You threatened to kill him and Se-mi if he didn’t switch with you, right? ‘I’ll rip you apart from the inside out until there’s nothing left of you.’”

Nam-gyu pales, hand tightening in Thanos’ grip. “How the hell…?”

“Believe me now?” Thanos grins humorlessly. “You’re a real sick ticket, aren’t you, threatening to gut someone so wimpish?”

The words aren’t spoken in cruelty, but instead admiration. Nam-gyu flushes under positive praise, as he always does, and makes a shrill noise of disbelief. “Man, this is insane. What happened?”

“Huh?” Thanos uses his key to unlock a door, pleased to see it fits perfectly in the square-shaped keyhole. He takes a moment to examine the key around Nam-gyu’s neck, the one that previously belonged to the shaman — triangle. He tucks the information away in the back of his brain for future reference. “What do you mean?”

“In the other loops,” Nam-gyu repeats, using his free hand to wrap around Thanos’ arm, clinging to him. The more pills he takes, the touchier he gets. “What happened?”

Thanos nearly laughs at being asked such a loaded question — where does he possibly start? How can he manage to explain each horrible thing they’ve gone through? How can he stand here, walking down the same corridors with the same man, and explain past events of gunfire and knives digging against flesh? Metaphorical vultures devouring carcasses, the feeling of looming over Myung-gi and stabbing him in repetitive slashes, being doused in blood—Nam-gyu’s, Myung-gi’s, Seon-nyeo’s, his own—seeing the light fade from Nam-gyu’s eyes.

But he supposes, if he really digs down deep, there were some good parts as well. Nam-gyu has said his name in anger (“Su-bong”, dripping from his mouth like poison as he accuses him of not caring for him at all), but he’s also said it in reverence, soft and sweet. Nam-gyu has held his face so delicately, cupping his face like he’s holding something special. In some loops, Nam-gyu aims for the cross. In others, he aims for reassuring touches.

The only good to come from any of this are moments of attention that Nam-gyu has given him. And while Thanos hates to admit it, that in itself is rather telling.

“Too much to explain,” Thanos settles on eventually. “But it’s been a pain in my fucking ass, that’s for damn sure.”

“How have I died?”

“Does it matter?”

“If I started spouting off about time loops, saying that I’ve seen you die before, wouldn’t you want to know how?”

Thanos sighs, because he knows exactly where Nam-gyu’s coming from. “In one you got shot for not finding someone to kill in time. In another, you got stabbed in the back—literally—by Myung-gi. I’ve died in all the rest.”

“Myung-gi? That fucker got the best of me?” Nam-gyu gripes. “Ugh. Gross.”

“I killed him for it, the loop after,” Thanos muses, “and we both lived. You held my face after I killed him. We were both fine, but I still…”

“Held your face?” Nam-gyu furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Like this.”

Thanos takes a quick scan of his surroundings, then pauses their fastened pace, taking hold of Nam-gyu’s hands and placing them on either side of his face. It’s an unnecessary, self-serving action — the warmth of Nam-gyu’s palms always seems to calm him, though he’ll never admit so out loud.

“…Why?” Nam-gyu asks plainly, squeezing the apples of his cheeks.

“I don’t know. Go ask your alternate self.”

“…This is all so weird,” Nam-gyu mumbles, removing his hands (much to Thanos’ chagrin) and crossing his arms with a sharp shake of his head. “Aren’t you nervous?”

“About what?” Thanos asks, though he’s already well aware of what Nam-gyu’s referring to.

“About getting stuck in purgatory, or whatever?”

Thanos swallows down his rising nausea. Of course he’s worried. He’s more than just worried; he’s horrified. “Nah, man. I’ll be fine. Nobody can take down the legend Thanos!”

“…Doesn’t it hurt? Dying?”

Damn, this guy sure has a lot of questions. It’s to be expected, but this is exactly why Thanos avoided bringing it all up in past loops. It’s exhausting, having to explain such traumatic events to someone who just scarcely believes him, all while ignoring muffled screams and making sure to dart behind corners at any sight of the color red.

“No, it feels like sunshine’s and rainbows and everything nice in the world,” Thanos deadpans.

Nam-gyu blinks at him mutely.

“Yes, dumbass. Obviously it fucking hurts,” Thanos huffs. “A bullet to the head, a knife to the stomach…not ideal.”

“Did Myung-gi get you too?” Nam-gyu shakes his head with an aggrieved sigh. “I hope nothing good ever finds its way to that guy. Life ruining fucker. I hope it hurt real bad when you killed him. If you did…if it’s even real.”

Thanos could grow snappy, if he wanted, and say that yes it’s very much real, and if Nam-gyu doesn’t believe him after being handed solid evidence, he can fuck right off and find someone else to cling to for the remainder of this shitty death game. But that would be unnecessarily mean, a buildup of rage being directed at the completely wrong person, and Thanos is far too busy thinking about the fact that the person that stabbed him wasn’t Myung-gi; it was Nam-gyu.

(Well…it was more of a joint effort. But, still.)

“It wasn’t…” Thanos starts, then trails off apprehensively.

“Huh? Myung-gi didn’t get you?”

“It was you,” Thanos admits awkwardly. “You’re the one that stabbed me.”

It seems almost like a lie, to phrase it in such a manner. Then again, Nam-gyu did push him up against the wall. He’s the one who held the knife to his stomach. “I can’t,” he’d said honestly, so miserably conflicted.

Nam-gyu says nothing. His silence is one of utter shock, Thanos assumes, and he barrels on out of what feels like necessity. “Well, I sort of made you stab me. You were holding the knife to my stomach, but you were running out of time and saying you couldn’t bring yourself to kill me, so I took your hands and I pushed the knife…”

I pushed the knife into my flesh. I helped you kill me, and I’d do it again, and again, and again…

“It doesn’t matter,” Thanos finishes lamely. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Except, it does matter. It matters a lot, because the cold sting of metal and gushing heat of blood had been so terribly agonizing, but Nam-gyu’s touch had been so grotesquely nice.

Being alive in itself is disgusting. Bodies are gross, flimsy things, and to live, to breathe, to think in itself is to put forth copious amounts of effort. Death is the final act of filth, a vessel disposing its contents. As Thanos had died, he’d felt sticky and uncomfortable, and even as his body dispelled its own inner liquids, unraveling its flesh like a blooming, rotting rose, Nam-gyu had touched him firmly. He didn’t shy away from him, or look down at him in disgust, or fumble for the chain around his neck. Nam-gyu had looked at him, bloody and dying, and saw him for himself. He’d looked into his eyes, understood the plea that shuddered behind his corneas, and took aim directly for his heart.

That matters. To Thanos, that matters more than anything.

“I killed you?” Nam-gyu asks. He sounds unlike himself. As they continue to walk, Thanos refuses to look over at him. He can’t.

“I guided your hand. It was a mutual killing,” Thanos chokes out. “It…I don’t know. At the time, it seemed better than watching you get shot. I wasn’t really in the mood to see your brains splattered everywhere again, you know?”

It’s a poor attempt at a dry joke. Nam-gyu doesn’t laugh.

Silence falls between them, and for a drawn out moment, the only sound to be heard is muffled, thumping footsteps and faraway shrieks of terror. The smell of blood is stifling, but Thanos can’t pinpoint if the stench is a recollection from his memory, or a byproduct of the corpses that are are surely piling up within the maze.

“Have you killed me?”

Thanos turns slowly, forcing himself to drink in the sight of Nam-gyu’s discomfort. “No. ‘Course not.”

Discomfort melts into something sharper, all-consuming. “Really? Not even once?”

“You seriously think I’d kill you?” Thanos scoffs.

“I killed you, so I figured—“

“We both killed me, if we’re being technical,” Thanos interjects. “Just forget it, okay? It doesn’t matter.”

“But, if we’re tethered…” Nam-gyu looks at him strangely, wearing an emotion that Thanos can’t pinpoint. “…Nevermind. How do two people become tethered, anyways? It’s all so strange…” Nam-gyu hums absently, tapping a finger to his temple. “Must be the pills messing with my brain.”

“It’s not the stupid fucking pills,” Thanos gripes. “Sometimes I think—“

He cuts himself off abruptly. This isn’t a path he should go down. But Nam-gyu looks at him intently, eyes narrowed in dangerous curiosity.

Thanos pulls him into a nearby room. He closes the door behind them, takes a moment to make sure they're alone, and makes quick work of crowding Nam-gyu against the door. (To stop unwanted entry, of course. Nothing more.)

“If you had to choose between me and the pills, which would you choose?”

It’s laughably pathetic. The words are spoken with such pitiful insecurity that it makes his insides squirm in revulsion, disgusted at his own murmured question. But Thanos has already accepted the fact that this loop will end in failure, as well the one after that, and after that — forever ending in strife until it all fades to nothing. The cage that traps him is one made of his own flesh, his own self, and if the key is formed due to personal growth and acceptance, or whatever other poetic fuckery the shaman was getting at, then Thanos fears he’s as good as dead. He’s not designed for it. He’s incapable, and Thanos has known from a very young age that there’s no point in trying at something he knows he’ll never succeed in.

He’s already tried that once, with his failure of a rapping career. And, look at where that’s landed him.

Nam-gyu stares up at him, his back against the door, lips pursed in careful consideration. His eyes flit from the cross to Thanos’ eyes, a continuous repetition. In the end, it’s the eyes that Nam-gyu lingers on, almost as if his pupils are drawn to it against his will.

“You,” Nam-gyu says, though he seems displeased with his own admission.

“Sure took you a while to answer.”

“What would you choose?” Nam-gyu asks, an edge to his voice. “Between the pills and me?”

Thanos pauses. Somehow, he hadn’t stopped to consider what his own answer would be, if the question were turned around and hurled at him instead.

The pills. Of course he’d choose the pills. At the end of the day, Thanos is who he is, and who he is knows that he’d choose the drugs, because the disgusting little tablets are the only thing in his life worth living for. He’s spent so long telling himself this; how could one man suddenly derail such a core aspect of who he is?

“You,” Thanos says, and he’s shocked by the fact that he means it.

“You don’t have to lie,” Nam-gyu reminds gently, a second chance offered in shaky hands.

“It’s not a lie, jackass. Why do you always do that?”

Nam-gyu settles his hands on Thanos’ shoulders, fingers twitching against the cloth of his tracksuit. “Do what?”

“Act like I don’t give a shit about you. I do.” Thanos presses his palms to each side of Nam-gyu’s face again, just for the sake of familiarity, grabbing onto events from past loops and crudely attempting to recreate them, roles switched or otherwise. “You’re such a dick, always making me spell things out for you. Acting like I like others more than you, when you’re the only one I share my pills with and let hang off my arm like some cliché jealous girlfriend. Doesn’t make any damn sense.”

The sudden contact makes Nam-gyu’s breath hitch, and he blinks rapidly under the intensity of Thanos’ gaze. “Thanos—“

“It’s Su-bong. One loop, you say my name like you hate me, the next, you say it like it’s the hymn of a prayer. You’re so…” Thanos squishes his face, just as he did earlier, and the sound of Nam-gyu’s breath stuttering is something to be savored. “You’re so fucking strange. It’s like everything you do is hypocritical.”

Everything they say, every word they speak and action they follow through with is grounded in hypocrisy. This much is clear to see; they say in tandem that they care for each other more than the drugs, but their bodies thrum with a different answer. Without the drugs, Thanos is nothing, and he knows that Nam-gyu feels the same.

Without the tiny tablets, his body is rendered feeble, trembling, and afraid. The mere hypothetical is enough to render him stressed beyond belief — he needs the drugs. He needs it more than the air he breathes, the nerves and bones within his body, and the heart that thumps within his chest.

But in turn, both his body and mind also need Nam-gyu. Why?

Brightly colored nails span across lightly freckled cheeks; the same nails that have plucked pills from a cross and dug into human flesh, blood coagulating beneath nails. Perhaps Nam-gyu is similar to a pill in human form, waiting patiently to be swallowed and dissolved, only meaningful when rendered disintegrated.

There’s bags underneath Nam-gyu’s eyes due to how little he’s slept over the course of the games, and when his tongue dips out to swipe across his lips, Thanos takes note of the teeth indents that cover the tip of his tongue — he must bite his tongue a lot, accidentally or otherwise. His hair has lost its carefully styled fullness over time, now rendered flat and greasy. He smells of nothing but sweat.

Thanos doesn’t think he’s ever wanted someone so badly in his life.

Which, of course, must be because he’s pent up and losing his fucking mind. He refuses to accept any other answer as truth.

There’s the slightest indent along the bridge of Nam-gyu’s nose, and as Thanos teeters forward, he wants nothing more than to press his lips against skin. Nam-gyu looks so pretty in blue, freed from the red of seekers' vests and blood.

They're so close, impossibly close, and Thanos has plunged too far into his own thoughts to stop and question exactly what he’s doing, to consider why Nam-gyu leads him forward instead of shoving him away.

“Funny, that you’re correcting me on your name. Did you make up that ‘southern beauty’ bullshit on the spot?”

Nam-gyu’s breath is heavy on his lips, warm and searing, and despite the harshness of his words, they aren’t spoken with legitimate anger. Thanos knows what Nam-gyu is doing; he’s goading him, sinking a hook inside a wriggling fish and dragging it out of water.

A hook tearing into the scaled skin of a fish. A vulture's beak burrowing inside searing, rotting meat. A heated breath fanning across the plush lips of another, each person entrapped within inaction.

Thanos could kiss him, if he wanted. It’d be so easy — he’d barely even have to move.

…But, he can’t. Thanos is built for meaningless makeouts in bars and clubs, mindless movements of tongues and lust. What he isn't built for is whatever thing has begun to unravel between him and Nam-gyu, something far more than sexual desire.

Their lips brush against each other, just barely, and in an instant, Thanos pulls away, letting his hands fall from Nam-gyu’s face. Is it self-punishment, self-preservation, or a cruel mix of the two?

Nam-gyu looks at him in a manner that can only be described as disappointed, and before Thanos can come up with any semblance of an excuse or explanation, the door on the other side of the room (that is, the one Nam-gyu isn’t leaning against), swings open with a slam.

“...Min-su?”

To put it bluntly, Min-su looks like a wreck. He’s caked in sweat instead of blood, and he trembles so fiercely that Thanos can hardly wrap his head around how he’s standing upright at all. He lets out a broken sound of despair at the sight of them, and Thanos knows exactly why — in Min-su’s eyes, despite the fact that both Thanos and Nam-gyu are hiders, they don’t count as candidates for a kill. In the end, they’ll always be teammates.

(There’s also two of them. Min-su knows his chances are close to zero, and it’s written all over his face.)

He gives them both a dejected look of failure, eyes flitting over to the clock that resides in the room along with them. Twenty minutes left.

Min-su doesn't bother saying anything—likely because of the way Nam-gyu glares at him as if wishing for him to drop dead on the spot—and scurries away like a dog with its tail between its legs.

“I’m going to kill him,” Nam-gyu says suddenly. “Not now. But, someday. Have I killed him yet? In any of the other loops?”

“Of course you haven't, man. Jesus.” Thanos squares his shoulders, still gathering himself from the feeling of Nam-gyu’s breath on his lips. “You do keep mentioning weird shit about eyes, though. Freaky ass fucker.”

“Eyes are the gateway to the soul,” Nam-gyu muses, trotting over and linking his arm with Thanos’ as he pokes his head out into the hallway — a familiar action, a source of comfort. “Hyung, when we get out of here together with that cash prize, swing by the club, okay? I’ll give you a crash course on eye dilation."

“...What?” Thanos pauses, turning to stare at Nam-gyu quizzically. “What does that even mean?”

“Because sometimes eyes dilate when…oh, nevermind.” Nam-gyu waves his hand dismissively. “Forget it.”

Thanos wishes he could forget a lot of things. Unfortunately, he doesn't think he’ll ever be able to forget anything at all.

– – –

The thing that’s trapped him here must have a particularly cruel sense of humor, if it's the cause of what happens next.

Nam-gyu, the clumsy motherfucker, trips down a flight of stairs. A team red bastard ends up chasing them around for a frankly embarrassing stretch of time, and when they reach the familiar staircase that Thanos has seen so many times before, Nam-gyu trips.

The crunching sound of a bone being twisted, a pained cry of agony. The distasteful sounds alone are enough to make him sick.

It’s miraculous that Nam-gyu isn't killed right then and there, splayed out at the bottom of the staircase, face twisted in discomfort with nothing but Thanos to protect him. Thanos, who’s frayed with nerves and pent up fear of the ticking clocks that are placed frequently around the arena.

(He doesn't want to start over again, and the sight of numbers counting downward is enough to leave him in a state of muffled panic. “I may not be a good man,” Thanos pleads to a higher power that he holds no belief in, “but I don’t deserve this. If I clasp my hands together, will you save me? If I hold the cross above my head and pray for repentance, will you save him? If I kill myself, one final act of sacrifice, will you save us?”

“Besides yourself, who else have you considered killing in order to get out of this?” A formless voice asks him. Not a God or an omnipresent being, but an inner voice that rings from himself. “How low are you willing to stoop?”

Thanos can’t bring himself to answer. Something truly sinister approaches.)

Somehow, it’s Seon-nyeo who ends up saving them. She appears suddenly, grabbing onto her fellow seeker (who Thanos now recognizes as 007), clutching onto his shoulders and claiming she’ll curse him to an eternity of hellfire if he lays a hand on either of them. In a twisted sort of way, it’s sort of funny, the way that both Nam-gyu and Thanos stare upward at the bickering seekers at the top of the stairs, open-mouthed and gawking. The fact that Seon-nyeo of all people has dedicated herself to helping them (if she weren't covered in blood and already secured a pass, he’s sure the situation would be very different) is baffling in itself, and the most laughable part of it all that player 007 actually listens to the stupid, falsified excuse of a curse, and rushes away in a fright.

What’s not funny, however, is the fact that Nam-gyu’s ankle is twisted into a wholly unnatural position.

After frightening her spineless teammate away, Seon-nyeo adjusts her bright red vest and looks down at them with a self-appraising grin, smiling down at them proudly, eyes locked on Thanos as her next words are uttered. “I expect repayment for this deed in the future. You understand, yes…?”

Oh…that’s what this is. She’s helping him in the hopes that he’ll spare her in future loops.

“Yeah, yeah.” He waves his hand in a shooing motion, far more focused on the poor state of Nam-gyu’s ankle, puffed up and purple. “I’ll consider us equal now, after all of your useless babbling earlier.”

It’s probably not the smartest idea in the world to talk down to a woman who has a knife clenched in her hand, but he knows she doesn't have it in her to kill another; frankly, he’s surprised she managed to kill even one person. Despite the persona she displays, he knows that she’s just as scared as the rest of them, and as she scowls down at them, murmuring arrogant words of dismay and dislike before leaving them alone once again, Thanos is hit with the sudden realization that, deep down, they are likely far more similar than he’d like to admit.

“Hyung,” Nam-gyu murmurs through clenched teeth. “...I’m going to die.”

“What? It’s a twisted ankle, dude, not a fucking stab wound,” Thanos scoffs, though he can’t bring himself to look at the fracture without grimacing. “It looks painful, sure, but it’s not life-threatening.”

“No, I mean…” Nam-gyu clunks his head against the wall behind him, exhaling shakily. “I can’t…I’m not going to be able to stand, let alone walk.”

“You can lean on me–”

“Thanos, there’s no way I’ll pass whatever the next game is.”

“Don’t worry about that right now, dumbass. We haven't even finished this game.”

“You don’t get it,” Nam-gyu grumbles, wincing as he reaches his fingers down to trace the large bump on his ankle, retracting immediately. “If this timeloop shit is real, and you reset again after this, what if I just…cease to exist?”

Thanos blinks at him in surprise. “...What?”

“Not to get all existential,” Nam-gyu laughs bitterly, “but if all of this revolves around you, and you’re sent back to the beginning, then…” he shrugs. Small, defenseless, completely giving up in a matter of seconds. “I think I might die. I think we all might die.”

“Wow, Nam-su. That sure makes me feel great about the situation I’m stuck in.”

“I didn't mean it like that. I’m not blaming you, and I’m probably wrong anyways,” Nam-gyu says, but the worry in his eyes says otherwise. “It’s just that all this talk of tethering and death and purgatory…doesn’t matter if I’m high or sober, it’s fucking insane either way.”

“Tell me about it. Try being the fucker forced to relive it.”

“...Right. Sorry.”

Thanos heaves a sigh, poking his head out of the doorway to catch a glimpse of the clock. They’ve got roughly five minutes left — he shouldn't spend the last minutes of this loop misplacing his irritation on Nam-gyu’s shoulders.

…Maybe he’ll get lucky. Maybe this time will be different, and nothing will reset.

(Thanos is not a merciful individual. If the eyes that surround him are an extension of himself, he is well and truly doomed.)

“Do you really not remember?” Nam-gyu asks suddenly, his voice muddled with pain. “What happened at the club…?”

Thanos remembers it vividly. The pulsing lights fading from one color to the next, the stinging smell of Nam-gyu’s cologne, traversing into private rooms under the guise of wanting to take drugs in privacy, and instead ending up with Nam-gyu’s hands dipping under his belt.

“I remember,” Thanos admits, his mouth dry.

“Damn,” Nam-gyu scoffs after a moment of silence. “You look like a guilty, sad little puppy. Cut that shit out.”

The wry smile that curves along Nam-gyu’s face is a welcome one, and the teasing jab makes Thanos laugh lightly, despite everything.

“You probably do that sort of thing with a lot of your clients at the club, yeah? Making sure they're all happy and satisfied, or whatever.” Thanos shrugs. “I figured…well, it’d be easier for both of us to just sweep it under the rug, you know?”

Nam-gyu’s smile dims, replaced with a look of dumbfounded confusion. “What?”

Thanos flounders for an explanation. “‘What happens at the club, stays at the club’, or whatever—“

“Hold on…I’m not some sort of glorified prostitute, you fucking dickhead,” Nam-gyu curses, though he seems more baffled than legitimately angry. “Do you—? Oh my god, dude, you seriously think I go around giving handjobs to every guy that walks into the club?”

“Um…maybe?”

“You’re lucky my ankle is fucked up, you asshole, or I’d start beating the shit out of you,” Nam-gyu groans, rubbing his face with his hands as he shakes his head in dismay. “You’re so stupid.”

Thanos feels like he’s wading in waters he shouldn’t be. “Then, why…?”

“What do you mean why?” Nam-gyu looks at him tiredly, suddenly appearing nothing but achingly exhausted and despairingly disappointed. “You already know. Quit pretending.”

Thanos swears he feels his own heart stutter within the fragile confines of his chest, a violent denial stirring within him. Quit pretending — as if it’s that easy. As if someone like Thanos, with his entire self built upon layers of falsities and lies, could ever be capable of it.

“Thanos—” Nam-gyu pauses. “…Su-bong. If you reset again, if you have to go through another loop…I think you should kill me.”

The admission is startling; so much so that Thanos visibly reels away in dismay. “Huh?”

“The only way to break a tether is to cut it off at the source, right?” Nam-gyu heaves a breath. “You should at least give it a shot. For your own sake.”

“I’m not going to kill you, for fucks sake,” Thanos says, moving from his crouched position to fully sit down beside Nam-gyu. “Why would you even say that, man?”

“Mm…I don’t know. Maybe it’s the pills talking.” Nam-gyu smiles, but it’s so plastic and fake that Thanos can hardly bring himself to look at it. “Tethered in fate, in death, in religious devotion…that’s what she said, right? I wonder what that’s supposed to mean.”

Fate, death, religion; Thanos doesn’t care for any of it. All he knows for certain is that he’d rather stick a dagger down his own throat then be forced to relive the same experiences over and over, and the thought of purgatory makes him want to crawl out of his own skin.

“I wish you didn’t have to forget,” Thanos confesses quietly. One minute on the clock. “If us both being hiders doesn’t work, I really don’t know what else to try.”

“I just told you another option.”

“I already said I’m not killing you,” Thanos says, but his voice falters, and they both know how quickly his resolve can crumble. “It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“It’s something you haven’t tried,” Nam-gyu corrects. Out of every loop yet, Thanos doesn’t think he’s ever seen him appear so pathetically defeated, eyes downcast and melancholy. “I don’t have anything waiting for me out there, man. Nothing. No family, no people I really care about. Do you know what I plan to do with the money, if I get out alive with it?”

Thanos bites his tongue. He can’t bring himself to ask.

“I’ll blow it all on drugs and kill myself,” Nam-gyu says, and he grimaces at his own quietly spoken words as if he’s been stabbed in the gut. “I can pretend I’ll do something good, that I’ll better myself and make the most of it, but it’s all a lie. I know how it’ll end. It’ll always be the same.”

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos says his name aimlessly, an offer of support in the form of an already grieving voice.

“There’s no point in any of this. For me, there’s just…there’s nothing. There’s never any point.”

What else is there to say? How can Thanos possibly comfort a man who shares a mindset so strikingly similar to his own? He’s suffocated by everything he wants to say and do — unspoken words and continuous inaction formulate into a metaphorical noose around Thanos’ seizing neck. Soon, it’ll surely tighten around him harshly enough to render him dead.

Nam-gyu bows his head like a disciple preparing to have holy water spread across his forehead, waiting to be blessed and forgiven for his sins. “I don’t want you to die. So, you better do anything it takes to live.”

“Time’s up!”

Thanos knows what’s coming before it occurs. A blink, and then darkness; vast, endless, and all-consuming. It lasts longer than last time, a taste of what's to come if he fails to conjure up a solution.

“How low are you willing to stoop?” The voice asks again, eyes watching him carefully from a place he can’t pinpoint.

Thanos doesn't reply. They both already know his answer.

Notes:

Nam-gyu over here giving possibly the worst advice known to mankind all while thinking he’s making a worthy sacrifice 💔

Chapter 7: two miserable wretches

Notes:

This chapter is lowk sick and twisted and I feel like I need to apologize in advance. Believe it or not, this story genuinely DOES have a happy ending. We’ll get there eventually, I promise ^_^

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands. His fingers tighten around bright blue plastic, unintelligible, mocking whispers sounding in the recesses of his brain.

His jaw clenches, eyes darting up at the guard who stares down at him. Always standing and staring with the same stupid fucking mask, expressionless, inhuman. He wonders what resides underneath the covering — are they smiling down at him in twisted amusement? Do they feel any sort of guilt? Do they have families to go back to? When (if) they go back to their friends and family, will the faces that greet and welcome them with open arms be aware of what they’ve done, what they’ve seen, and the sins that they’ve committed? When they pass strangers on the street, and their faces blur past, will they remember the blurred faces of those who ran for their lives, away from them, the ones clad with guns?

“I don’t want you to die, so you better do anything it takes to live.” The words echo in his brain, pulsing throughout his system as he wrenches his gaze away from the masked thing that stands in front of him. Thing, instead of human — because, after everything they’ve done, how could Thanos possibly refer to them as such?

Though, is he any better? Guards putting a bullet inside players heads, Thanos pushing players to their demise via harsh shoves and brutal kicks. Are they really all that different?

It’s so strange…Thanos has done so many awful things while stuck in this place, but Nam-gyu has never shied away from him in entirety. While others look at him in disgust, Nam-gyu gazes at him with admiration and curiosity.

(It must be falsified. There’s nothing admirable about Thanos at all, and the only thing interesting about him is his outward appearance. Bright purple hair and boisterous words to cover up the fact that he’s just as mundane as every other person is. That’s just the way life is. It’s not his fault.)

He pops a pill before he even reaches his spot in the crowd, and doesn’t bother attempting to be secretive about it either. It’s not like any of his fellow players really give a damn, and it’s clear the guards couldn’t give less of shit about the drugs either. What are they going to do; walk up and take the things right from his hands? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. He’d kill himself for an early reset, and it’d all amount to nothing, as it always does.

The pill is bitter, as it always is, and slinks down his throat the same way it always does, in the same pace, giving him the same feeling and the same lousy, halfhearted effect.

In the end, it’s all the same. That much, obviously, has made itself very clear.

As knives and keys are handed out, Thanos glances over as Nam-gyu drags the edge of his dagger along his finger, watching the small slice of red appear across pale skin. A small, miniscule cut. Barely noticeable. Non-important.

Thanos is in distress. There’s no other way to word it — the blunt truth of his mindset is that it’s abysmally awful, plummeting into such a state of appalling dread that it seems impossible to pull himself out of it.

Will his mother miss him, if he fades to nothing? Will Nam-gyu wonder where he went, if purgatory consumes him? Will either Thanos or Su-bong be grieved over, or will both of them be forgotten in their entirety, reduced to names that mean nothing, with no story to tell in his absence?

Thanos wants to go home. It feels like such a petulant, childish thing to admit as he stares down at the key in his hands. But at this moment, the only thing he craves is to be back in his shitty apartment, curled up on his messy, unmade bed. He wants to take Nam-gyu by the hand and lead him inside, pointing out all of the stupid pictures he has hanging up of his childhood dog, and listening to all the stupid quips Nam-gyu is sure to make at his unsightly state of living.

He wants to sleep. He wants this all to end.

Is this what the other players felt like, watching the O’s win instead of X? The all encompassing foreboding of a quickly approaching demise? The O patch on Thanos’ tracksuit seems to mock him. Thanos is glad that, at the very least, he has the blue vest to cover it up. He feels abruptly disturbed by his own past choices.

He thinks back to the girl who had sobbed and cried before the game of mingle, pleading with the rest of the players to vote X so that they could all go home. A pathetic display — Thanos remembers thinking her a fool. None of them have anything to return to, so why vote anything but O? What difference does dying make to an already walking corpse?

Now, Thanos isn't quite sure. He’s just…he’s so tired. He wants a decent bed to sleep in, and no amount of drug-induced exhilaration will change that.

The cross trembles in his hand. He’s considering things that shouldn’t be given a first thought, let alone a second one — multiple things, all bombarding his brain at once

His hands move on autopilot. He shovels a second pill into his mouth before he can convince himself otherwise.

Thanos takes notice of a small patch of mold growing in the corners of the high ceiling, unnoticed by all, a non-important blip in an otherwise clean and perfected room. It won’t be long until the rest decays along with it.

Feet pattering, a quick approach. A sacrificial beating heart presented on a plate.

“Don't worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you. Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

Nam-gyu; the hook tearing into a fish, the vulture consuming a corpse, the pen gliding across paper, permanently altering it. Angelic and unrelentingly cruel, a mesh of shaky hands and sharpened smiles. The scared fawn and relentlessly bloodthirsty hunter shoved into one vessel, forced to cohabitate, and melting into each other until entirely indistinguishable, each one unable to be separated from the other.

Nam-gyu, both beautiful and violent, both an angel and devil. He is the maw that opens and waits to consume Thanos whole, his bites fluctuating between unrelentingly harsh and gentle, savoring chews.

Nam-gyu, whose fingers always enclose around pills with palpable eagerness, eyes sparkling as if the tablets are a long lost lover, the only thing able to satisfy him. A tongue darting along reddened lips, an opening mouth waiting patiently for a tablet to be pressed against tastebuds. Eyes fluttering at the attention it gets him in response.

Thanos looks at Nam-gyu, fully looks at him, examines him for who he truly is. Before him is a poisonous, wilting flower. Will he pluck it from his stem and throw it aside, or attempt to nurture it back to health, despite knowing the risk of pricking his finger on its thorn?

The real question, the question that’s been thrumming in the back of his mind since the very beginning, is the same query that was murmured to him back when he was entrapped in nothingness. How low is he willing to stoop?

Nam-gyu looks at him impatiently, and gives Min-su a small shove. Thanos gathers himself, and ignores the turmoil that begins to consume him completely. He knows exactly how to line things up in his favor. He’s done this before, after all.

“Nam-gyu. I have a plan.”

Fingers enclose around a stem, squeeze against greenery, and prepare to pull.

— — —

Thanos on blue, Nam-gyu on red. Thanos makes an effort to replicate the loop where he killed Myung-gi as much as he can, because he knows it’s the one that’ll leave him with an opening. This is the one where Nam-gyu hands him the knife readily.

This is the one that’ll hurt.

To be fair, Thanos is far from thrilled with how things are unfolding. Frankly, if it weren’t for the drug-induced buzz swimming through his veins, he’s sure he would hardly be considering it. But Nam-gyu’s words repeat in his head in a constant thrum, and as Thanos enters the arena, he’s disturbed by the fact that it truly does seem more cramped, just a little bit, as if the walls are slowly but surely closing in on him completely. As Thanos traverses down a hallway, the shaman stares at him; instead of her usual catlike curiosity, she appears entirely and wholeheartedly disturbed at the mere sight of him.

That in itself should be a sign that he’s taking a step onto the wrong path, shouldn’t it? But, the walls corridors are becoming smaller, the eyes painted on the walls are becoming larger, and Thanos is becoming so, so very desperate. Purgatory…fuck, who the hell wants to be stuck in purgatory?

He’d told Se-mi, in one of the earlier loops, that he’d kill anyone to save himself. It’s human instinct, he’d said.

It’s true. It is human instinct. He’s only going along with what’s biologically coded within him. It’s not his fault. He’s been handed a half-dead butterfly, and it’s now his responsibility to pin it up and display it. Naturally, he ought to take it out of its misery first.

Responsibility…that’s right. It’s his purpose. He has to do this. He has no real choice.

…Will Nam-gyu have a funeral, if Thanos kills him? He’d said he has no one outside of the games, but is that really true? Does he literally, truly have nobody, or is it more of a feeling of having no one, as opposed to complete and undeniable absence? Surely there’s someone, right? Someone that would take note of Nam-gyu’s disappearance — his co-workers at the club, for example. His clients. Clients like Thanos. Clients who, apparently, don't receive customary handjobs just for showing up and partying at the club.

As Thanos retraces his steps, he considers the slim possibility that Nam-gyu is right, and that killing him is the only way to break their supposed tether, therefore rendering the loop broken. What then? He kills Nam-gyu, and walks into the next game alone? He’s been so caught up with the absolute fuckery of this time loop that he’s hardly stopped to think about the fact that, no matter if he gets out of this particular game alive or not, there’s a very high probability of the games continuing.

He should be happy about that. More games, more money. More risk of himself dying…but, who cares, right? More risk of Nam-gyu dying…no, that’s not right. In this hypothetical, Nam-gyu is already dead.

How is it that taking one pill throughout the loops has done barely anything for him, but taking two has thrown him so off balance? He’s too focused on how many steps he’s taking right now in comparison to how many steps he’s taken in past loops, in comparison to how many steps he would’ve taken to step off of the bridge, in comparison to how many steps he’s taken to kill others (a harsh shove to the ground, a swift kick to the stomach, a quick stab to the chest and neck) in comparison to how many steps he’s taking on his downward descent to hell.

One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of…

This is all the same. It’s important for him to remember that he’s been here before, to fight through the haze of his thoughts and gain control of himself. He doesn't want to kill Nam-yu, he’s simply scared of running out of time. Who wouldn't be scared in his situation? He’s not weak, nor is he a coward. It’s important to remember this as well. This might be the most important thing to remember of all.

One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of…

Has walking always been this wobbly? Now that he thinks about it (he’s been doing so much thinking lately, it’s really rather troubling), did he take two pills, or three? Did he take a third, reflexively, after handing Nam-gyu one? Is that why his eyes had widened just a fraction as he watched the scene unfold?

…No. His memory must be getting jumbled. He’ll blame it on the exhaustion that steadily eats away at him. His fatigue is mixing with the high of the drugs, and it’s certainly not mixing well.

One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of…

He steps in a puddle of blood, innards squishing beneath the sole of his shoe. It’s not normal for humans to be faced with the sight of this much bloodshed, he assumes. He wonders if this will all end up having detrimental, irreversible side effects on the psyche of his brain. Or, perhaps the drugs have already done that.

One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of…

It’s absurd that he’s even considering killing Nam-gyu, after the horror he felt holding onto him as he died, the loop that Myung-gi killed him. But, back then, Nam-gyu had said moments prior that if had to be killed, he’d want it to be by Thanos’ hand…is that a sign in itself?

One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of…

Spit pools under his tongue, reminding him of the warm, sticky feeling of blood gathering in his mouth, dipping between teeth and permeating his tastebuds. Dying is so painfully uncomfortable. Does he really have it in him to put Nam-gyu through something so filthy? Does he have it in him to turn Nam-gyu into a disconnected lump of blood and torn flesh?

His pace fastens. One foot in front of the other—why should Thanos be the one to die, and not Nam-gyu? Why is it that he’s the one suffering so intensely? His body fizzes with pent up emotion; he doesn’t want to bring Nam-gyu harm, but Thanos has proven that hurting people is one of the only things he’s good at. One foot in front of the other—his position in this paradoxical time warp is a precarious one. It’s not Thanos’ fault they’ve been tethered like this, so why should he take blame for cutting it apart and decimating it entirely? One foot in front of the other—he’d pushed Gyeong-su down without any hesitation. This is only a repeat of things he’s already done. God is clearly punishing him…not that he believes in a God to begin with. Wouldn’t it be funny, Thanos thinks, if Nam-gyu is legitimately a form of divinity, and this is all some sort of weird, fucked up test of faith and morality? Wouldn’t that just be hilarious?

One foot in front of the other. This is his one thousand, four hundred and fifty fourth step—he’s been counting along in the back of his head, meticulously, as some form of personal torture to punish himself for thinking about killing someone he cares for so intensely (why does he care? Why, why, why?)—but then he trips, steadying himself with a palm on the side of the wall. Fuck, now he needs to start over. He’s so tired, so sick, and so, so doped up on drugs.

One, two, three, four…what was he thinking about again? Right, right; angelic divinity and Nam-gyu. He’s sure Nam-gyu would be just thrilled to know that Thanos sees him in such an otherworldly light, with his cute overbite and muffled mocking laughs. Always hanging on his arms like a little devil on his shoulder. Except, also, metaphorically, the little angel. Maybe he’s both. Maybe he’s everything. Maybe he’s the thing that traps him here.

(Always someone else’s fault, and never Thanos’. Never.)

Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one—fuck, he can’t even count right! Absolutely pathetic. He ought to feel ashamed. Now he’ll have to start all over again for a second goddamn time.

Why is he doing this? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. One, two, three…

He’s losing his mind. This much is very apparent, because in no other scenario would Thanos be thinking about if it’s worth it to see Nam-gyu’s eyes glazed over and dead if it means a slim possibility of saving himself. But, of course, Thanos knows himself, because he is himself, and he knows that he’s self-serving. He knows that he’s capable of killing, and he knows that Nam-gyu is just another person in a sea of strangers. He’s just a person. That’s all. That’s it. Nothing more.

Gyeong-su was a person. The individuals that Thanos shoved in the first game were people too. A person, in technicality, is the most important thing that a person can be.

…That doesn’t make much sense, does it?

“Am I out of my mind?” Thanos murmurs to himself in the desolate corridor as the intercom drones overhead.

“Yes!” the voice over the intercom says. Except, of course, it doesn’t actually say that, and it instead drones on more player numbers that have been eliminated alongside the ones that have passed, which in turn messes up Thanos’ mental counting for the third (fourth?) time. His brain feels fuzzy, like mold is growing within it and across it, dipping between its folds. Maybe it’s the same mold he saw earlier, carefully suctioned in a corner of the ceiling.

He sees a team blue member get tackled to the ground and stabbed repeatedly in the chest, and for a moment Thanos forgets himself. He looks down at the blueness of his own chest and emptiness of his hands, thinks to himself oh, right, and turns around quickly, his feet thumping loudly against the ground.

Thanos has lost count of his steps again, and gives up on attempting to restart. He convinces himself, in the hasty steps that follow, that this is an incredibly bad omen.

He turns a corner, slams into a man clad in red, and stumbles to the ground with an embarrassingly loud yelp.

It’s Nam-gyu. Even through the haze of his drug-addled mind, he’s able to understand that he’s been through this before.

A heavy weight on top of him, his back pushed against the ground, rendering him out of breath. A bloody hand raised in preparation.

A pause. The eyes of the attacker meet the eyes of the victim. Nam-gyu doesn’t know it yet, but this time, their roles are switched.

“Hyung?”

What had Thanos done at this point, last time he went through this? Had he smiled in relief, “Nam-su, my boy!” Had his lungs seized in reassurance, electrical and all-consuming? Had his hands come to rest on Nam-gyu’s calves, gripping against the weight on top of him, resisting the urge to roll his hips upwards?

You’re drenched. That’s what he’d said last time, all low and sultry, like he was in some sort of cheaply made, poorly acted out porno instead of a death game in which he almost just fucking died. What a goddamn joke — what’s wrong with him? He doubts that there’s much normalcy in looking up at a man doused in blood and considering running his tongue along the liquid in an effort to clean him, trailing gentle bites against dirtied skin. It’s all animalistic, down to the way he wishes to care for him, and the way he plans to hurt him.

“Damn, it’s you! Sorry, man.” Nam-gyu lowers his knife, and Thanos nearly warns him against it. “Don’t let your guard down, Nam-su. Don’t be so stupid!”

There’s a wildness in Nam-gyu’s eyes that can only be attributed to the fact that he just killed someone; the shaman, if Thanos remembers correctly. Ironic, considering she’d helped them in the last loop in hopes of being saved on the next. In all terms and purposes, Nam-gyu really is drenched—in blood, in sweat, in liquified madness.

The way he lowers the knife, holding it loosely at his side, is so overwhelmingly trusting, like he has no fear in the world that Thanos could turn this against him. Yet another form of irony; Thanos thinks back on the loop where Nam-gyu had accused him directly, assuming that Thanos planned to kill him to keep his drugs to himself.

Thanos thinks that his criminal, ferocious descriptions of killing Myung-gi leave Nam-gyu enamored. In this case, enamored and defenseless go hand-in-hand.

Originally, at the start of all of this, Thanos figured that he’d replay the loop until Nam-gyu hands him the knife directly, and then follow through with what Nam-gyu specifically told him to do in the last loop, and kill him. “It’s not like it matters,” he told himself, “because it’ll likely start all over again anyways. I’m just making sure. Any average person would, if put in my situation. I’m not in the wrong here. Really, I’m not.”

But there’s something particularly cruel about telling Nam-gyu he’ll kill Myung-gi, and then turning around and killing him instead. Such a blatant display of betrayal, sickening and revolting in every possible aspect.

Then again, everything about this is cruel. No matter how much Thanos tries to convince himself that there’s nothing wrong with plucking an already wilting flower, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s ruining something worth saving.

The thing that tethers them is affection, lasting touches that make them drunk on each other; more importantly, the thing that tethers them is fragile. Easily broken, like a thin piece of glass or a delicate bone. As Thanos reaches subtly for the loosely held dagger, he knows the eyes scrawled on the corridor walls watch him carefully.

“Have you stopped and considered, for even a moment, that the eyes belong to you?” Seon-nyeo had said, arrogance seeping from her tone. Thanos wonders if every version of himself from every loop stands watching, wisps of who he once was and what he once knew, examining the scene play out with bated breath.

He wonders if they hate him as much as he hates himself, for what he’ll do next.

“Hyung, are you—?”

Colorfully painted nails wrap around a pale wrist, knife swaying loosely between lithe fingers. Thanos sees the exact second that the situation dawns on Nam-gyu, watches the rapid action of light being sapped from corneas. In a matter of seconds, adoration turns to distrust, and all it takes is fingers wrapped firmly around a wrist.

“Sorry,” Thanos croaks. Barely a whisper, barely a legitimate apology.

Violence bubbles beneath the surface, carefully waiting to erupt. Thanos could wait, like he originally planned, until the knife is handed over directly. But waiting never gets him anywhere, and if he doesn’t act now, with the drugs in his system swirling at their peak, he knows he’ll never act at all.

Nam-gyu is a sloppy fighter. Unrelenting and viciously brutal, but still sloppy. Thanos has seen him fight enough people by now to know what moves he relies on, and because of how caught off guard Nam-gyu is, it takes hardly any effort at all for Thanos to shove Nam-gyu’s weight off of him and clamber on top of him in place, switching their positions with ease.

The dagger falls uselessly to the ground, clattering loudly beside them. Thanos has chosen the path of a fool, and now he must see it through.

Nam-gyu writhes under Thanos’ grip, hands clawing wildly at shoulderblades. “Forgive me,” Thanos thinks as he presses his elbow down against Nam-gyu’s collarbone, ignoring the screeching insults and harsh drag of nails against skin as he uses his free arm to reach blindly for the fallen blade, “forgive me for delivering you such a cruel fate, forgive me for empty prayers, forgive me for the drugs that pulse throughout me.”

“Stop it!” Nam-gyu yelps, a flurry of beating arms and heightened shrieks. Disbelief and hatred meld into one. “You fucking bastard, what the hell are you–?!”

Thanos’ palm encircles the hilt of the already bloodied dagger. The weapon is raised, swift and ready to strike. Nam-gyu ceases all movement, one hand latched fiercely in the roots of Thanos’ hair, tugging harshly, and the other fisted against Thanos’ bright blue vest. He freezes, looking up at him like a mouse about to be swept up in the talons of a hawk.

The worst part of it all is how heartbroken he looks. Heartbreak doesn't seem like an emotion Nam-gyu should be able to express — too raw, too emotional. And yet, in this exact moment, Thanos thinks he might be watching a heart legitimately shatter right before his eyes, his expression glazed with an anguish so palpable that it renders Thanos unable to move.

With heartbreak comes not only devastation, but rage. “How could you?” the question seethes in Nam-gyu’s throat, unspoken but still made known. “After everything I’ve done for you, how could you possibly do this to me?”

Thanos’ hesitation rewards him with a fierce shove. Another tumble, another roll, and before Thanos can do a damn thing, they’ve switched positions again. Nam-gyu hovers over him, prying the weapon from Thanos' stiffened fingers and raising it with a grunt of anger.

Thanos barely puts up a fight at all. There’s no use; he’s made a fatal misstep, and now he’ll pay the price for committing an unforgivable sin of blatant blasphemy. Nam-gyu–his boy, his drug buddy, his God–dripping with the blood of another, fuming with malice. There’s a brief exchange of rapid blinks and heaving breaths as Thanos lays dormant below him, making no attempt to fight back. He’s given up, and they are both well aware of it.

“I would've given you the stupid fucking dagger, you selfish asshole,” Nam-gyu seethes, droplets of blood falling from the raised knife, splattering against Thanos’ cheek. “You couldn't wait just one second?”

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos says meekly — meek! What a miserable turn of events, to describe himself in such a manner.

“Don’t,” Nam-gyu warns, pressing the tip of the knife to Thanos’ shuddering throat. “Don’t you dare. You think if you say my name right, everything will suddenly be okay? You think I’ll forgive you for being a lying piece of shit, spouting all that nonsense about killing Myung-gi?”

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos tries again, softer, though he knows he probably shouldn't.

“I can’t believe you tried to kill me,” Nam-gyu fumes, leaning downward so that the heat of his breath ghosts Thanos’ cheek, “after all the shit you’ve put me through. After everything I’ve done for you.”

Even if Thanos had the gall to defend himself, he’d be unable to. In the end, he hasn't always treated Nam-gyu with the utmost respect. Lying from the start, pretending to hardly recognize him. Calling him a junkie, despite the hypocrisy of doing so. Cruel jokes meant to cover up the fear of losing him, “I thought I was with you the whole time, Min-su!”

And Nam-gyu, as merciless and sharp-tongued as he is to everyone else, had brushed it all off. A grimace, a wince, a laugh made through grit teeth, always bending to Thanos’ every whim. He took it all in stride, because he needs the drugs that Thanos guards so closely, and perhaps there's a part of him that needs Thanos’ company along with it. Nam-gyu let all of it slide, and what did it earn him? A murder attempt? A spineless, cowardly man as a partner?

Thanos’ sight is blurred, a hazy mesh due to the excess of drugs he's taken, but he can still see the vengeance that flits around Nam-gyu’s features, repetitive and never-ending. For the first time in a long while, Thanos wishes he were sober.

“You’ve always treated me like a fucking idiot,” Nam-gyu murmurs, seemingly more to himself than the man he’s about to kill. “But I thought…I thought we were…”

“I’m sorry,” Thanos murmurs, a shock to both of them. Since when is Thanos ever one to apologize so earnestly?

For a moment, Nam-gyu stills. He drinks in the sight of Thanos beneath him, desolate, miserable, a man who’s given up on everything in a matter of seconds. A moment of consideration and confusion, “what happened to you?” asked in the form of a scowl.

The moment ends almost instantly, and Nam-gyu’s expression falls blank. It’s a hauntingly chilling display of a man finally buckling under pressure and taking decisive action, resorting to the violence he’s always wished to act on. “Liar.”

The knife plunges downward. Thanos flinches, face screwing up in predetermined pain; except, the pain doesn't come. There are no torrents of pouring blood or agonizing, torturous pain. There is only a knife, slammed into the ground beside Thanos’ neck, a purposefully missed target. Nam-gyu keels over, his head thudding against Thanos’ collarbone as he heaves a series of shaky, heavy breaths.

“I can kill you,” Nam-gyu mutters, despite the missed mark. “You think I can’t? I can. I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you…”

No matter how many times a lie is repeated, it doesn’t change the reality of what remains within them. And the reality, the never-changing and strengthened truth, is that neither of them can bring themselves to kill each other, no matter how fiercely they sometimes wish to.

“I love you,” Thanos thinks as Nam-gyu slumps against him, shaking and sweaty and filled with rage, mumbling words of violence against a sweaty neck. Thanos will never say it aloud, nor will he linger on the sentiment or accept it as truth. But deep down, within the recesses of his brain, the thought blossoms like a flower doused in sunlight.

“I hate you,” Nam-gyu murmurs, his words reverberating against Thanos’ skin. “I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life.”

The flower is not plucked from its garden, but instead torn up with a harsh, ruthless tear, and crushed beneath a muddied shoe. As Thanos feels warm breath against his skin, blood from Nam-gyu’s kill smearing against him, he comes to the conclusion that those words alone are worse than any knife plunged into flesh could ever serve to hurt him.

Fingertips curl against Thanos’ neck, snakelike and lethal, clutching against the chain that resides wrapped around it. Nam-gyu yanks it free in one swift tug, and Thanos watches, motionless, as Nam-gyu stumbles to his feet with the cross clutched harshly in his palm; he may not be dead, but his eyes are glazed over in a manner that makes him appear like he might as well be. He stares down at Thanos, unmoving, as if he is nothing at all. A bug, an insect, a thing to be dismissed and wiped away.

Nam-gyu grits out a string of insults as he begins to walk away, clicking the cross open and eagerly stuffing a pill in his mouth. “Fucking dickhead,” Nam-gyu mutters absently, leaving both Thanos and the dagger behind, “thinks he’s so much better than me. Always Nam-su, Nam-su, Nam-su…”

In a daze, Nam-gyu continues talking to himself in mumbles as he leaves. Thanos props himself up, grabbing onto the knife with a shaky exhale. Idiot…he left behind his own weapon.

Thanos leans his back against the wall, clutching his legs to his chest. Even when faced with Thanos attempting to kill him, Nam-gyu still couldn't bring himself to kill Thanos in turn. “I can’t,” is applicable in every loop, it appears.

“I can’t either,” Thanos says vacantly, his softly spoken words muffled by a distant scream. There’s no way he’ll ever be able to kill Nam-gyu, after everything he’s seen and everything they’ve done. Thanos shouldn’t care, and yet…

Wouldn’t it be a cruel twist, if for whatever reason, this was the loop that stuck?

(Wide eyes staring up at him in dismay, a heart shattering into pieces. Adoration, hate, love, and rage striking through a tethered pair in perfect, beautiful unison.)

Thanos points the tip of the abandoned knife at his own jugular without an ounce of hesitation. The eyes drawn on the wall seem to roll simultaneously, a metaphorical shake of the head, the disappointment as evident as the grief is stifling.

“I’ll do it right,” Thanos says, as if saying it aloud will change things for him. “Next time, I’ll do it right.”

“No,” the eyes seem to taunt, “you won’t.”

Metal plunges into a feeble throat. Thanos knows that the eyes are right, and that in itself is more agonizing than a knife stuck firmly in his neck will ever manage to be.

Notes:

Hate and love are closely interlinked.

Chapter 8: a kiss from a thorn

Notes:

I’m about to pull a crazy maneuver called putting heavy angst and heavy messy dirty sweaty crazed desperate smut back to back ✌️…please re-check the tags, icl this chapter is crazy smutty to the point that I’m actually rather embarrassed to be putting it on main like this. Which is sort of silly bc I post smut quite frequently these days…lol. It’s also the longest chapter yet at almost 13k words…woaw

(In a few hours, it’ll be my birthday ^_^ 🎉 thank you again to everyone who comments on and reads my work, you’ve all made my days so much brighter and have given me something to look forward to ❤️ I wish you all the best >_o)

The place Thanos resides in is dark, and while he sees nothing but inky blackness, he knows he isn’t alone.

For a moment, he wonders if he’s finally dead. If this is it, the final straw, the plunge into an endless purgatory of nothingness. It’d make sense, he supposes. He’s paying the price for making such an egregious mistake. Attempting to kill Nam-gyu…what the hell was he thinking?

Violence is such an easy thing to turn to, in times of stress. So quick. If it works, he’s free, and if it doesn't, Nam-gyu will forget anyways. Simple, easy, effective.

Except, Thanos had managed to somehow pick the most miserable possible path, the most blatant form of betrayal — for what reason? Personal punishment? A feeble hope that, maybe if he makes things as awful as he possibly can for himself, something somewhere will take pity on him? Nam-gyu had looked so thrilled when Thanos explained his plan about killing Myung-gi, as if their partnership had been furthered to an unbelievable, soul-altering extent. And what had Thanos done in return?

He’d destroyed it. He’d taken a form of blossoming love, and crushed it in his palm out of pure, unfiltered cowardice. Him, the legend Thanos, Choi Su-bong; a complete and utter coward, ever since his first breath, and all the way down to his inevitable last.

The guilt is crushing. A gross, pulsating emotion that stems in the core of his being and branches out to every single cell in his body. Infectious, never-ending.

“Why me?” Thanos wants to ask, a petulant whine in the face of the thing that watches him in the corners of a darkened space. “Why do I have to suffer from all this guilt?”

What a selfish thing to ask! How can he possibly wonder such a thing, after everything he’s done? He’s tried so hard over the years to bolster himself into something strong, something more than human, because there’s nothing more human-like than hating the humanity of oneself. He tried so desperately, despite his squeamish discomfort, to become something else. Something new, different, exciting; something to leave a lasting impression. All of that effort, and yet his lasting impression is akin to a bug squashed under a napkin and quickly swept aside.

And yet, even while taking this all into account, there are pieces of him infused in the slowly pulsing lights of Club Pentagon, in the streams of sunlight that had filtered across his face as he stood on the ledge of the bridge, in his recordings of old demos for raps that had only a few brief seconds of spotlight before being covered up by the next charming newcomer on the scene. There’s so much of him that’s been touched by the world, and given to the world differently in return…can that ever truly be wiped away in entirety? Does Thanos really want it to?

…No. He doesn't think he does.

A vicious yearning grips him, all at once, like a punch to the stomach. A yearning to see Nam-gyu again, to go back to how it used to be between them, free from the overwhelming fear of being murdered. A yearning to drink another crisp can of soda, to hear another stupidly overplayed song for the umpteenth time, see a cat in a window. It all feels almost ridiculous, thinking of such miniscule things as reasons for wanting to live for a little while longer. But, that’s really all there is. And if that's it, then why not stick it out a little while longer?

…Though, Thanos doubts there’s any point in hoping for release from the pocket of time he’s been trapped in. The thing that’s placed him here is so much more than him, but in the same vein, it's strikingly similar. The eyes blink in tandem with his own.

Does he deserve a second chance? A third? A fourth? A fifth? Does he deserve anything at all?

The scenery around him blurs, transforming into something muddled and faded. Momentarily, he is someone other than himself. Memories trapped in time slowly find their way back to him.

A woman sprawled out on the ground, bodies piled around her. Thanos stands, looming over her, blood splattering his face and a dazed, drugged look swirling in his eyes. Her death is instant, but the fear is lasting, and the exclamations of “Green light! Red light!” ring relentlessly in her brain. She dies; Thanos has killed her.

Gyeong-su, pushed to the ground in shock. He watches Thanos, a man he holds to such high esteem, leave him for dead without a morsel of hesitation. The death is not instant, and the guards take their time picking him apart. He dies; Thanos has killed him.

Seon-nyeo, clawing at Thanos’ shoulders as he digs a knife into her stomach. She crumples to the ground, spitting curses as blood pours from her feeble body. Despite how high she holds herself, looking down on her supposed subjects as she speaks of Gods and higher powers, she knows, in this exact moment, that the only thing she’s ever had to rely on is herself. She’s more frightened than she’s ever felt in her life. She dies; Thanos has killed her.

Myung-gi, a vessel being reduced to nothing but disconnected blood and guts. Unbearable amounts of torment delivered with malice and the intent to cause pain. Thoughts of agony are the only thing capable of buzzing throughout his head, and as life is seeped from him, he can’t help but find it fitting that he’s dying at the hands of a man whose life he’s ruined. He wishes he could’ve brought himself to care. He dies; Thanos has killed him.

Nam-gyu, writhing beneath him in misery and hatred. Wide eyes staring up at him in betrayal, a sin that will never be forgiven. “I hate you, I’ll kill you, I hate you, I’ll kill you!” Even when Thanos gives up and relents, Nam-gyu’s breath remains unstable, and his mindset has shattered beyond repair. He does not die, but he no longer feels alive. Thanos has robbed him of what’s most important to him — their fragile partnership.

One after the other, Thanos flickers through the eyes of those he’s killed, both emotionally and physically, witnessing his madness from other perspectives. The blood that stains his hands and coagulates under his fingernails is unable to be washed clean, a physical manifestation of the guilt that has plagued him for so long.

It’s stifling, witnessing so many different thought processes and emotions firsthand. Fear after being mindlessly pushed, disbelief at being abandoned so readily, rage taking form in the manner of a curse spoken through a bloodied mouth, torment layered with understanding, “I know why you're doing this, but I still don’t forgive you.”

The most confusing, contradictory mesh of sentiments resides in Nam-gyu. Thanos can hardly manage to decipher it to its full extent — resentment and adoration intermingle, a constant push and pull between hate and love. A desire to become Thanos, to embody his boldness, but also wanting to be a permanent fixture beside him. He needs to be either equal or more than, but feels he is neither. He fears betrayal, but yearns for Thanos’ appreciation, his recognition, his devotion. He wants to be held in high esteem, but in return, he gets called the wrong name and placed in the center of jokes.

“I hate him. I hate that he refuses to acknowledge everything I’ve done for him. I hate when he treats others with respect, but can’t bother to deliver me the same treatment. I want to kill him, to prove that I’m real, strong, and ultimately better than him, which in turn means I’m better than everyone.

I love him. I’m devoted to him, to what he stands for, to the drugs around his neck. I want him to acknowledge me, to look at me like he did back at the club, to touch me without hesitation or restraint. I enjoy his company as much as the bitter, tiny pills, and that in itself is frightening. I can never kill him, because in doing so, I’d be killing a part of myself in turn. Killing him isn't what I really want — when everything is said and done, what I want is to be cherished.”

Some of the trailing thoughts that zip throughout him are akin to a gentle kiss on the cheek, while others are as painful as a knife to the chest. How can so many conflicting emotions reside inside one man?

It all ends just as quickly as it all flies past in a whir, and before Thanos can attempt to fully comprehend everything in full, he’s returned to what he once was. Himself, back inside the expansive, eternal darkness.

This time, however, there’s something different. A door is situated a few feet in front of him, large, imposing, and a blank color of light blue. It looks familiar, but there’s something slightly out of place about it that leaves Thanos unnerved — still, he feels as if it means something. Is this the way out of his own carefully constructed cage?

He takes a step forward, and all at once, his sins are laid bare across him, phantom hands of those he once killed joining in tandem to hold him back from escape.

A sweaty hand grasping at his ankle, the narrowed eyes of Myung-gi glaring up at him in mockery. The weight of Nam-gyu hanging on his arm, cheek rested snugly against his shoulder as he whispers words of loathing and fondness in intermingled unison. Fingernails scratching against his scalp, a ragged intake of breath as Seon-nyeo prepares a specially designed curse. Another hand, this time on his other ankle, paired with the pleading stare of Gyeong-su, begging to not be left behind again. Perfectly manicured nails wrapped firmly around his neck, pushing harshly against flesh.

The whispers and wails of those he’s killed and betrayed rattle him enough to make his teeth chatter. As he trudges towards the door, outstretching his hand towards the handle, the hands that hold him back reach forward along with him, each one dripping with freshly spilled blood.

“Just one more chance,” Thanos thinks as he grabs onto the handle, blood-covered hands imprinting themselves along the expanse of the pastel blue door. Seeing it covered in handprints like this makes him realize where he’s seen it before — it’s the exit from the game arena. “This time, I can save us.”

Us, in reference to himself and Nam-gyu. Nothing can bring back those he’s already killed, and it’s not like he can magically put a stop to the games and save everyone. All that matters is himself and Nam-gyu, tethered until the end. He should’ve realized that from the beginning; why is it that it took Nam-gyu proclaiming his hatred for him to realize that there’s no comprehensible way that he can possibly make it out of this without him?

Thanos twists the doorknob. There’s a click as the door cracks open, paired with a breathy laugh of complete disbelief, unspoken words of bafflement. “I can’t believe it. You still want to try, after everything?”

Nam-gyu had sounded so desolate when he described the fact that he has nothing waiting for him outside of the games, so certain that he’d die from drugs no matter what he did. If Thanos is to live…he wants to be a person that Nam-gyu can rely on.

…Ironic, all things considered. The groundwork of their relationship is shaky, and Thanos outright betrayed him in the last loop. Now, he stands here and thinks of reliance and trust. What a hypocritical fool — he can’t tell if the thought comes from himself, or the thing that watches him.

The door begins to creak open, wood pushing away from bloodied fingertips. The whispers fall quiet; why is it that out of every tormented soul that clings to him, Nam-gyu’s is the only one that offers him any semblance of comfort? He smells like a rotting corpse, leaned up against him like a heavy weight. If Nam-gyu has to decay, Thanos wants to hold him gently as he does so. He hopes, despite all he’s done, that Nam-gyu would do the same to him.

“Try a little harder this time,” they all murmur at once, words overlapping in uncanny synchronization.

The door opens, but he’s unable to see what resides within it before it all fades away, taking the hands that cling to him along with it.

His deliverance back to reality is a swift one, a hasty repair of a torn open neck. His esophagus repairs itself, his throat is sewn closed, blood is replaced, poured within its necessary caverns. And then, just as he’s used to, he’s placed back at the beginning once again.

Thanos stares down at the ball in his hands. This time, he needs to do things right.

He ignores the cold remorse that clings to his heart as he turns to glance at Nam-gyu, who stares at him with the same look of concern he always does at the start of everything. So openly worried at the thought of being separated from him — a stark contrast in comparison to how he’d looked at him with intent to kill.

Thanos swallows against his rising nausea as he makes his way into the crowd. He needs to stop thinking about the last loop at all; it makes him sick each time he thinks back on it, on how viciously Nam-gyu had struggled against him, and the fear he’d portrayed due to Thanos’ actions. Foolishly, he thought he’d be able to shoulder the amount of mental hardship that doing such a thing would bring forth. He figured, he’s already killed one teammate — why not make it two? Why not take the unsavory path, as a personal punishment due to his own muddled hatred for his past actions? Why not stick a knife through his own throat and hope, pathetically, that it’ll finally all be over?

He wasn’t thinking straight, that’s all. Nam-gyu is important to him, and sitting around wondering why is wasting his progressively limited time; he needs to get over the embarrassment of attachment, and stomach the fact that regardless of if he likes it or not, he yearns to keep Nam-gyu close. Thanos has grown far too fond of his catty insults and shaky hands, and if killing him really does turn out to be the only way out of this cage, then he’d rather be trapped for eternity.

…The thought of endless purgatory still scares the shit out of him, though. He needs to find the metaphorical key out of this nightmare, and he needs to do so quickly.

Thanos fiddles with the cross around his neck. He stares down at the silver metal, rubs his thumb along the designwork. Clicks it open, examines the pills that reside within.

Blue, pink, yellow; tiny little tablets that Thanos has relied on for so long. Heightened highs and crashing lows, bitterness against his tastebuds, dutifully swallowing without anything to wash it down — these are all things that Thanos is so accustomed to, it’s practically second nature. He doesn’t know how he’d continue on without it.

Grainy, colorful things that make his body feel like he’s melting into mist, a fuzzy feeling of forgetting the truth of who he is and what the world around him consists of. And when it ends, he’s left more hollow than he began, and has to act hastily to reach another high, by any means necessary.

An idea begins to form. It isn’t one that he likes.

“Don't worry, hyung. Min-su will switch with you. Isn’t that right, Min-su?”

Nam-gyu presents his sacrifice as proudly as he always does, lips curled into a giddy smile, and oh how desperately Thanos craves him. Ever since that disastrous last loop (so much for not thinking about it, huh?), having Nam-gyu spew such words of hatred and look at him like a bug about to be squished under his shoe, something festering has begun to consume him. And it’s all because of those three words that took root in his mind, body, and soul. When faced with a man who wanted him dead, Thanos laid motionless below him and thought I love you.

It can’t be true. Thanos knows he’s incapable of such a thing, surely he must be. The thought of him loving Nam-gyu is utter absurdity. He doesn’t even know why he thought it.

He doesn’t know much of anything anymore.

Something must’ve misfired in his brain. His heart had been pounding so hard within his body that he’s half surprised it didn’t burst right out of his chest; his body must’ve mistaken fear for love. Besides, it’s not Thanos’ fault that Nam-gyu had appeared so angelic while looming over him, prepared to kill, covered in sweat and blood. Dripping with bodily fluid, both from himself and another.

Disgusting, all things considered, but it still doesn’t change how desperately Thanos wants it. Sweat, grime, dirt and all.

He thinks back to the thoughts he’d drowned in when trapped in transferral, a repetitive swing between love and hate, a noisy mess of conflicting hypocrisy. Though, doesn't Thanos’ own brain function similarly? One loop, he considers taking Nam-gyu to the bathrooms and fucking him against the stall. In the next, he rejects all ideas of wanting him in such a manner, coming up with a plethora of excuses to rely on, claiming that his own inner thoughts are ultimately meaningless. Thanos knows who he is, he knows what he likes — except, this in itself is a blatant lie. Thanos knows what the pills like, what the pills drive him to do. The pills, as he’s mulled over prior, are a part of himself, infused in a different form. He is the tablets, the tablets are him—and, hey, isn't it funny that every time he’s killed someone, he’s had drugs pumping through his system? Except, he supposes, the pretty girl from the very first game, who died because Thanos couldn't keep his mouth shut for five goddamn seconds. He just had to point out that goddamn bee, had to put on a show of flirtation; everything he does is always such a fake fucking show. A commotion, a dramatic, overenthused flair to make himself known, remembered, and revered.

She’d looked so empty, dead on the ground in front of him. He knows without a doubt that out of the many hands that clung to him, hers had been the ones wrapped persistently around his neck.

It’s no wonder that’s when the drugs made their first grand appearance. Ever since that moment, it’s been nothing but swallowing pills and falling into hazy, nonsensical enthusiasm. Nam-gyu, with his bottomless eyes and pleading expression during the second game, one quick exchange of pills as they stare at each other in mutual ecstasy, followed by another, and another, and another, until the pills and Nam-gyu become inseparable in Thanos’ own mind. But then, if the pills are a part of Thanos, but also a part of Nam-gyu, does that make them one in the same? Their eyes, their fingers, the blood that makes them — they both have the same drug coursing through them. So, really, it’s no wonder Thanos was able to peek inside his thoughts when stuck in transferral. So similar, yet so different. A perfect pair, while also managing to be from entirely different puzzles.

Nam-gyu’s smile twitches downward as he’s met with silence on Thanos’ behalf. “…What? What’s wrong?”

If Thanos craned his head upwards, he’s sure he’d be met with more mold spreading across the ceiling. He wonders what the probability of the entire building collapsing and crushing him dead is; at least then, he’d die standing side by side with Nam-gyu. What more can he bother asking for?

“Hey,” Nam-gyu places his hands on each side of Thanos’ shoulders, scowling as he gives him a little shake. “What’s with you? Have you taken a pill yet?”

Thanos nearly laughs. No, he hasn’t taken a stupid fucking pill yet. He’s shocked, really, that when he weaseled into Nam-gyu’s thoughts, it wasn’t an endless torrent of “pills, pills, pills, pills,” because that’s all the fucker seems to talk about.

…Alright, now he’s just being a bit mean. And, frankly, absurdly hypocritical. His brain feels like it’s been scrambled, tossed, and haphazardly put back together. If his head is so insistent on recalling Nam-gyu’s thoughts, he should recall the positive ways of how he viewed them.

I love you…maybe Thanos miscalculated that one. But, if it’s not a miscalculation, if Nam-gyu truly does adore him, desire him, cherish him, then maybe…

Maybe what? What’s next? What is Thanos supposed to realistically do in this situation? Get on his knees and pledge eternal devotion? Kill himself in repentance for everything he’s put Nam-gyu through, and hope his blood is a worthy sacrificial offer to the deity before him? Lean forward and sink his teeth into his neck, like biting into a crisp, fresh apple, just for the sake of tasting Nam-gyu’s blood on his tongue, proof of the fact that he’s alive?

(It always circles back to violence. Why is he forced to function this way?)

“Is he okay?” Min-su murmurs, watching with furrowed brows as Nam-gyu gives him another shake. “Um…Nam-gyu, he looks a little—“

“He looks fine,” Nam-gyu grits out, angling his head behind his shoulder to shoot a glare in Min-su's direction. “And, I don’t remember giving you permission to speak.”

Se-mi starts to say something from where she stands a few feet behind Thanos, chiding words of rising aggravation. But Nam-gyu doesn’t respond — he says nothing, because he’s far too focused on the fact that Thanos is reaching his hand up to cup his jaw and angle his head back forward.

“Hyung?” Nam-gyu looks at him, utterly perplexed, his hold on Thanos’ shoulders loosening as he tries to understand the rapidly progressing situation at hand. “What’re you—?”

What is he doing? Thanos wishes he knew. Offering himself up as an apology? Giving into his own constantly ignored desires? Trying to prove a point? “I’m the one you want, not the drugs. I’m so much better than the pills you swallow — though, in the jumbled mess of my brain, the pills and I are one in the same. So, in all technicality, it’s safe to assume that you need me as much as you need the drugs, as much as I need you, as much as I need constant assurance and attention and feedback (negative, positive, it never really matters), as much as you need positive reinforcement. We’re so painfully similar; we’re so painfully different.”

It takes a second for Thanos to realize he’s kissing him.

Nam-gyu is stiff, standing rigidly in shock, as Thanos sucks his bottom lip between his teeth like it’s his last fucking meal. Great. Wonderful. This could very well be his last loop, and he’s standing here lapping at Nam-gyu’s mouth like a mutt in heat in front of an expansive crowd of strangers. He’s pretty sure he can hear Min-su gasp in shock, making repetitive sounds of complete bafflement, as if he’s watching explicit pornography instead of two men kissing. If Thanos were in a better state of mind, he’d probably pull away and call Min-su a massive virgin loser and laugh right in his stupidly shocked face.

(A dumbass insult, admittedly, but Thanos is clearly preoccupied.)

Nam-gyu makes a high-pitched sound of surprise against his mouth (a whimper, to be precise), gasping as Thanos continuously rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, slow and gentle, fingers grasping lightly at his jawline. He knows, in the back of his mind, that what he’s doing is foolish. It’ll all come back to kick him in the ass, and sucking face with his drug buddy in front of literally every single player is a poor decision on his part. But Nam-gyu tastes so good against his tongue, and he’s been through this bullshit so many times now that he can’t even manage to be bothered by the fact that he’s kissing a man in front of strangers, or the fact that he’s enjoying the hell out of it.

(He also notes, very importantly, that Nam-gyu melts into the touch rapidly. Opens his mouth easily, letting Thanos lick eagerly into him. It’s really no wonder Min-su made all those stupid noises of bafflement — the way they're going at each other is actually a little obscene. Is he just overly honed in, or are the wet noises of their mouths against each other egregiously loud?)

It lasts roughly five seconds. Very quick—because they're just so generous and conscientious to their fellow players—and when Nam-gyu pulls back, face red and lips slicked with spit, he stares at Thanos as if he just went through something absolutely otherworldly.

The dagger lays stagnant and forgotten at their feet. Thanos never even heard it clatter.

“What…?” Nam-gyu opens, closes, and reopens his mouth in a repetitive cycle. “Why…?”

What and why are two very valid questions that Thanos absolutely does not have the answer to. His own actions are starting to catch up to him as he stares at Nam-gyu’s flustered expression, rapidly blinking in complete astonishment. He’s pretty sure he hears someone covering up a surprised laugh with a series of coughs (Se-mi, he assumes), and as Thanos shifts his gaze to the side, he sees Min-su looking between them in palpable shock and awe, red in the face. What’s he so flustered about? One would assume that a grown man would be able to watch people kiss for a bit without acting so damn scandalized.

“Um,” Thanos chokes out once the silence becomes legitimately unbearable. He needs to play this cool, act smooth and self-assured. Maybe he can write it off as some sort of crazed, very forward joke. “I…don’t know why I did that.”

…Hm. Okay. Well, that actually happens to be the exact opposite of cool, smooth, and self-assured. Literally the complete opposite.

(“Is he high?” Min-su murmurs to Se-mi as she sidles up beside him.

“When isn't he?” she responds with a disbelieving shake of her head.)

If he listens hard enough, he can nearly hear the walls themselves sigh incredulously, as if the building surrounding him is a living beast itself. At this point, it’d hardly surprise him. He needs to focus, but now that he’s gone and pressed himself against Nam-gyu so brazenly, how is he supposed to think of anything except the barely audible noise of surprise that was made against his lips?

Fuck. He really must be losing it.

“Holy shit, Thanos, how many of those pills did you take?” Nam-gyu mumbles as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, scanning the room with an air of nervousness. He must be hoping nobody saw – which is obviously not the case. Countless people are staring at them, including both the shaman, who covers her mouth with her hand, her lips in the shape of an ‘o’, and Myung-gi, who is nodding to himself in understanding, as if thinking to himself, “ahh, yes, I see. I should've known this all along.”

…This is fucking mortifying. If the way Nam-gyu shuffles his feet, awkwardly bending down to pick up the dagger he dropped, it’s clear he shares the sentiment.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu mutters after a loud, grating clear of his throat, “you need to–”

“I know. I know I need to switch,” Thanos exhales, dragging a hand through his hair. He’s starting to think that he could get on his knees and start sucking Nam-gyu off, and the guy would still manage to choke out the words “you need to switch with Min-su,” at least twice. Absolutely fucking absurd.

…Should he switch with Min-su? Thanos has no goddamn clue. He’s tried every obvious method. What else is there for him to do?

It’d be nice, Thanos thinks bitterly, if something, somewhere, could answer his pleas. But how can he expect anyone to piece together the thoughts and feelings and pleas that consist within him when he can’t even do so himself?

The drugs around his neck hang around him like a heavy weight. He sees the way Nam-gyu’s eyes flit down towards them, likely assuming that Thanos is high out of his mind. It’s not like Thanos would kiss him while sober. Thanos, as himself, would never kiss him. No, of course not. It’s not in his nature.

“When everything is said and done, what I want is to be cherished.” These words–Nam-gyu’s words, his inner thoughts made clear–echo in Thanos’ head like the aftershocks of a crashing cymbal. Why can’t Thanos be the one to cherish him? What reason does he have to not show affection to the man before him, after everything they’ve been through together?

“I’ll be right back,” Thanos chokes out robotically, sidestepping Nam-gyu with an awkward, jolty pat on the shoulder. “Stay here, my boy.”

“Huh? What? Hey, wait…!”

Thanos pays Nam-gyu’s bewildered exclamations no mind, but by the sound of pattering footsteps behind him, it’s clear he isn't listening to Thanos’ request to stay put. That’s fine — he can still follow through with what needs to be done. The pills in his cross seem to rattle mockingly at him as he strides towards the nearest guard, and his fingers tremble at the mere thought of what he’s about to do, but he pushes forward nonetheless.

If he is the pills, and the pills are himself, as his deluded brain has seemed to convince itself, then it’s important to realize that he is nothing but cells and molecules. Bodies lose little pieces of themselves often (skin cells, for example; human bodies are always shedding.), and then they repair efficiently. This will all be fine. He is only cells. He is only a body. He is only a vehicle of flesh.

“Hey,” Thanos approaches a guard with his shoulders squared. “I’ve gotta use the bathroom.”

The response is unnervingly immediate. “Denied.”

“…Dude, come on. People just started switching. I know I’ve got time, so just let me take a leak real quick, yeah?”

“Denied.”

Thanos swears he feels his eye twitch. “Why don’t you lead me to the bathroom before I take this knife,” he grabs onto Nam-gyu’s wrist, holding up the hand that clutches onto his dagger, “and plunge it directly into my fucking neck and kill myself. Okay?”

The last word is spoken in English, paired with a dazzling, probably rather manic looking smile. There’s a brief lapse of silence, before Thanos lets Nam-gyu’s wrist drop and sighs dramatically, loud and overzealous. “Look, bro, don’t you think it’d be kind of a hassle if I bled out and died right here? My blood would get all over you, man, and then you’d have to go change out of your shitty costume.”

Thanos keeps a steady gaze with the faceless guard, eyes wide and expectant. Seconds tick by until finally, the guard relents, letting out a soft, barely audible sigh of annoyance. Ha! Thanos never thought he’d be able to get a guard to display any emotion at all. Weird…it’s bizarre, thinking about the fact that an actual human resides within the freaky costume.

Thanos watches closely as the guard goes to speak with one of their colleagues, likely requesting assistance with leading them to the bathroom, only turning away when Nam-gyu begins to tug persistently at his shoulder. “What’re you doing?”

And as he looks at Nam-gyu, whose face is still tinted red, Thanos can’t bring himself to answer.

He knows Nam-gyu will resent him for it, when the deed is done.

— — —

The guards make them hand over their knife and key before entering the bathroom.

Thanos can understand the precaution of taking the dagger—wouldn’t want players killing each other in the bathrooms before the game even starts, after all. Dying on a bathroom floor…what an awful way to go. Ugh, it makes him shiver just thinking about it. Taking his key seems a little overboard, but he supposes it doesn’t really matter.

“Hyung,” Nam-gyu murmurs the second they enter the bathroom, following close behind Thanos as he heads for the nearest sink. “…Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Cut the shit, Thanos.”

Thanos heaves a sigh, grabbing onto his cross and staring down at it with a scowl. “…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Nam-gyu repeats with a scoff. “You shoved your tongue down my throat in front of fucking everyone and you don’t know—?”

“Do I need a reason to kiss you?” Thanos gripes. “I just felt like it.”

Nam-gyu makes a sound that sort of sounds like he’s being strangled. Dramatic. “In front of everyone? Really?”

“Man, come on. They’ve seen us crawling onto each other's beds and popping pills into each other's mouths. I’m pretty sure we could fuck right in front of everyone and the surprise would only last for, like, two seconds maximum.”

“Thanos!”

“What?” Thanos snipes, but keeps his eyes trained on the enclosed cross that shakes in his hands. He needs to hurry before he loses his resolve. “You’ve literally had your hand wrapped around my dick before, dude. What’re you acting all prudish for?”

“Oh, so now you remember?”

Thanos frowns, clicking the cross open with a trembling thumb. This would all be so much easier if Nam-gyu remembered the damn loops. “Nam-su—“

“Nam-gyu.”

“It means ‘southern beauty’,” Thanos grits out, feeling like a broken record. The pills stare up at him mockingly. “It’s…I’m trying to compliment you, for fucks sake.”

Nam-gyu offers no response. If Thanos were to look up in the mirror right now, he’s sure he’d see Nam-gyu behind him with his mouth agape and eyebrows raised. Instead, Thanos keeps his eyes on the tablets.

One, two, three, four, five. Thanos counts the pills carefully and appreciates the sight of them, as if that’ll change anything at all. His hand shakes. Fuck. He doesn’t know if he can do this. It sort of feels like he’s trying to convince himself to cut off his own arm, which is an absolutely insane comparison to make, which is yet another reason as to why he needs to do this.

Thanos lets his eyes flicker upwards, a quick glance at the mirror in front of him. He sees Nam-gyu staring blankly down at his feet, likely mulling over every time he’s been called Nam-su and taken offense to it without registering the intended meaning. His hair hangs loosely around his face, free of the globs of blood that have stuck to it in past loops. Thanos looks at himself, the shell of a man he once was. He lacks his usual boisterous charm, and in its place, he appears frightened and scared. It takes every last bit of strength to stop himself from keeling over and vomiting into the sink in front of him.

The sink. The pills. Right. He has a purpose here. A goal to accomplish. Something he hasn’t tried yet. The pills are really more of a parasite than an actual extended part of himself, aren’t they? An abnormal growth. A part of himself that is only latched to him due to poor circumstances. Something that should be removed with haste, but isn’t due to the fact that Thanos has grown used to its presence.

All this talk of cutting a tether at its source; what if this is the tether? The retched tasting tablets and their bitter, grainy aftertaste? What if what Thanos really needs to do is take a cleaver and slice off a part of his own body—the drugs—to free himself of the supposed tether that holds him back? What if the entire time, Thanos and Nam-gyu have been the sacrificial lambs, and the pills have been the thing that consumes them, that leaves them bloody and forgotten and a lump of flesh and bones?

That’s right. Of course. It’s the tablets that are at fault. Not Thanos, not Nam-gyu. It’s the stupid fucking pills. The pills that have ruined him completely, yet also are the only reason he’s made it this far to begin with. He knows he wouldn’t have been able to make it through any of the games without the high of the drugs to rely on — he should be thanking them. He should be holding the tablets up as a makeshift God and praying.

Except he doesn’t, and he won’t, because even if the pills are the only thing that’s gotten him this far, the pills are also the catalyst for those he’s killed. He pushed Gyeong-su down during mingle because he was so drugged out of his mind that he could hardly understand the fact that it wasn’t actually just a game, and that kicking him out wasn’t a silly prank that they’d laugh over later. He’d killed him. Thanos had killed Gyeong-su with a ruthless lack of care, and he’d done so because he couldn’t fully comprehend his surroundings.

Would he have still kicked him out, if sober? Thanos doesn’t know. Maybe he would’ve. But he likes to think that just maybe, he would’ve handled the situation with a little more grace.

He doesn’t need someone to hold his hand and tell him it’s alright and that he did nothing wrong; he knows what he’s done is wrong. He’s made wrong decision after wrong decision, both in and out of the timeloop, and now all he wants is to make one good decision. All he wants is to get Nam-gyu out of this alive.

Thanos could sit and clutch at his head in despair and agony if he wished, desperately attempting to convince himself that he doesn’t like Nam-gyu as much as he acts like he does. He could pretend that kissing Nam-gyu means nothing, that hearing Nam-gyu’s words of hatred and love mean nothing, and that the fact that he spends so much time sitting and staring at Nam-gyu like he’s some sort of art piece being displayed at a museum means nothing. “It all means nothing,” he could repeat in his head like a mantra. He could, but he doesn’t, because lying to himself is ultimately meaningless. The words have already blossomed within him, back when Nam-gyu pressed the tip of a dagger to his throat.

There’s only one reason that Thanos consistently chooses Nam-gyu over every other player, why he lets the man cling to him, and why he welcomes the continuous touch.

And despite that, he’d still attempted to kill him. He’d popped a countless number of pills, let the drugs outweigh his actual self, and for a brief moment, truly aimed to kill him. The fact that he’d given up so quickly is irrelevant, and the act itself is irreversible.

He tips the cross over in his hand, watching each pill clatter against his palm. One, two, three, four, five. Five little tablets designed specifically to make his life a living hell, under the momentary guise of heavenly enlightenment. How can something so tiny and lightweight manage to take such an effect on him?

“Hey,” Nam-gyu murmurs behind him. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to consider if the tablets are a part of my skin and bones and circulatory system, and if dumping them down the sink will be akin to gutting me alive,” he thinks.

Thanos drags a tongue across his teeth, and instead says, “I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

There’s a heightened worry to his voice at the sight of their entire pill supply being poured into Thanos' hand at once. A hand curls around his shoulder, a warning.

His hand trembles. Can he really manage to make it through the game without the drugs to rely on? Can Nam-gyu? This could very well be the thing that kills them.

“Thanos?” Nam-gyu gives his shoulder a slight shake, his voice wavering in uncharacteristic fear. “…Su-bong, what are you doing?”

Thanos bites the inside of his cheek so hard that he’s surprised it doesn’t draw blood. It feels unnatural to hear Nam-gyu sound so scared. He thinks that Nam-gyu fears the loss of the drugs more than he fears the act of dying, and somewhat sourly, Thanos realizes he feels the exact same.

A deep breath, fluttering eyes, teeth biting against a tongue. His hand tilts in one sharp, janky movement, and the pills fall into the sink without delay.

“No! Fuck, fuck, fuck–!”

It’s one of the most miserably depressing scenes that Thanos has ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Nam-gyu lurches over the sink like a man possessed, grasping frantically at quickly falling pills. But his fingers are shaky, and the tablets fall quickly, clinking down the drain in rapid succession. In a final act of desperation, Nam-gyu shoves his fingers down the dirtied drain, attempting to drag the pills out of the grimy pipe. Thanos knows that if Nam-gyu really were able to drag a pill out, even while covered in sludge and filth, he’d still take it out of necessity. Thanos’ guilt compounds and grows. Guilt for giving Nam-gyu any pills to begin with, guilt for liking Nam-gyu more than he should, guilt for wanting him while refusing to truly respect him.

Seconds of useless floundering pass by. Thanos stands and watches as Nam-gyu retracts his fingers from the drain, muck covering his fingers, pooling beneath his nails. He grasps onto the edges of the sink hard enough to turn his knuckles stark white, shuddering as he remains hunched over in despair.

“Nam-gyu–”

“Fuck you.”

The words are spoken with unparalleled ferocity, spit out in the form of a hateful snarl. Thanos winces, frowning as he watches Nam-gyu straighten himself, sniffling as he begins to dutifully wash the dirt from his fingers.

Thanos has managed to distress Nam-gyu so much that he’s nearly reduced the man to tears. Fuck.

“I didn't mean–”

“You didn't mean to what, Thanos?” Nam-gyu says, scarily calm as he begins to dry his water slicked hands. “You didn't mean to purposely throw away our only chance of making it out of this shithole alive? How can you seriously expect me to kill someone while sober and going through withdrawals? You might as well take a gun from one of those stupid shithead guards and shoot me, just to get it all over with quickly.”

Thanos attempts to reach out to him, to offer some sort of comfort, and in turn, a self-serving action to relax himself. Thanos may be the one who dumped the pills, but Nam-gyu isn't the only one feeling the rise of panic. Regret begins to gnaw away at him, just as fiercely as his guilt.

Nam-gyu shrugs off his touch with a shove, backing away from him as his jaw clenches with fury. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Hm? You kiss me in front of a crowd like you’re starving, even though you’ve spent our entire time stuck here pretending you barely know me, as if I haven't gotten you off multiple times. You slobber all over me in front of everyone, and then you drag me in here and dump out our drugs right in front of me… are you– are you trying to punish me, or something? Make me feel like I’m in hell just for the sake of it?”

“That’s not–!”

“Getting my hopes up and then turning around and being a complete selfish asshole. Real clever, Su-bong. I don’t even know why I bother acting surprised.” Nam-gyu sneers. Thanos is glad the guards confiscated his knife before letting him in here — his anger is so viscerally prominent that Thanos thinks if Nam-gyu had the chance to right now, he really might kill him.

“I didn’t slobber, you fucking dickhead,” Thanos snipes, “and the drugs are…they were mine. Not ours. I was trying to do you a favor by sharing them, but then I…I realized we’re better off without them.”

Nam-gyu clenches his fists repeatedly at his sides. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, man. An epip-phony, or whatever.”

“Epiphany, you moron.” Nam-gyu inhales slowly, dragging his hands through his hair. “...I seriously can’t fucking stand you.”

Thanos makes a sound of annoyance. “Yeah. I know.”

“I hate you,” Nam-gyu chokes out, but his words are shaky, and it’s clear he doesn't believe his own words. “I hate how much I…”

Nam-gyu pauses, touching his fingertips to his lips. He scans Thanos like he’s calculating him in his entirety, trying to reach an endpoint to his own frazzled state of mind. For a moment, his face goes entirely blank, like a computer rebooting itself, dimming to nothingness before switching back on. Then, slowly, an onslaught of emotions pour over him at once. Anger, misery, desperation, adoration, devotion, hatred, love, panic, fear; everything, all compacted into one.

It all circles back and returns to a mixture of frustration and desire, everything else becoming a distant flicker. Thanos stands wordlessly, the cross around his neck regrettably empty, as Nam-gyu stares at him like a cat preparing to catch a fish.

Abruptly, Nam-gyu strides (stumbles, more accurately put) towards him, a quick and sudden approach. Thanos half expects a long, slow, painful death to be bestowed upon him by the man he’s scorned, for hands to dart out towards him and wrap around his neck, squeezing until blood vessels pop. A fitting form of punishment, Thanos assumes.

Instead, Nam-gyu digs his nails into each side of Thanos’ shoulders, propels himself forward, and slams their lips together.

Slam isn't used as a hyperbole. The action is a harsh clash of lips, tongue, and teeth, and Thanos grunts at the initial pain of such forceful contact. For someone who just accused Thanos of slobbering over him, Nam-gyu’s actions are almost laughably hypocritical — he licks into Thanos’ mouth like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, wet and messy and entirely ungraceful.

Admittedly, out of everything Thanos expected in response to him throwing away their pills, he never stopped to consider this one. Nam-gyu moves his hands upward wildly, one hand grasping firmly at the side of Thanos’ face, and the other gripping harshly at his hair. Thanos welcomes it all in earnest, opening his mouth against vigorous lips, allowing entry with quickly matched fervor. He ought to feel embarrassed by how openly he whines into Nam-gyu’s mouth, by how rapidly he lets himself be pushed against the nearest tiled wall. He’s Thanos, the suave, overly-flirtatious ladies man. He’s not supposed to take pleasure in playing the submissive role.

Right now, Thanos doesn't give a damn. He’s never felt more like himself in his life.

“Fucking bastard,” Nam-gyu murmurs breathlessly against his lips, pulling back just enough to breathe while still keeping contact. “I hate you. I– I love–”

You. The last word is punctuated by a harsh bite to Thanos’ lip — not hard enough to draw blood, but surely enough to leave the skin bright red and irritated. The action is paired with an unrelenting pull of his hair, and the dual pain wrenches an obscenely loud moan from Thanos’ lips.

“Fuck,” Thanos groans as Nam-gyu drops his hands to make quick work of unzipping the rappers jacket, latching onto exposed collarbone without hesitation. Thanos’ hand takes purchase in Nam-gyu’s hair, greasy and unwashed and absolutely perfect, fingers tightening against black strands as marks are dutifully sucked into his skin.

“Getting this worked up from some simple foreplay?” Nam-gyu tuts against the curve of his neck, slinking one of his hands downwards. He presses his hand against Thanos’ hardened cock, palming him through the fabric of his pants. “What, are you some sort of virgin?”

“Fuck you,” Thanos groans, though his words lack any real aggression. Nam-gyu bites him like a dog biting the hand that feeds it, rolling skin between his teeth, licking across deeply imprinted indents. “Nam-gyu…”

“Now you say it right,” Nam-gyu scoffs, moving upwards to nip at the shell of Thanos’ ear. “Did you make that ‘southern beauty’ shit up on the spot?”

“I didn’t make it up,” Thanos grumbles, hissing at a particularly firm press of Nam-gyu’s palm against his length, twitching underneath his touch. “You…fuck. Do you always do this to guys you get mad at, or am I a special case?”

The sarcasm earns him teeth clenched around his ear, tugging unkindly. “Take a guess.”

“It’s better this way,” Thanos murmurs, trailing his fingers gently across Nam-gyu’s scalp. “I know you’re mad at me, and I know it doesn't make any sense but I can’t…” his eyes flicker towards the door, the knowledge of their time limit weighing heavily in his mind. “It's too much to explain right now. Just trust me, okay?”

“How can I? You’ve promised me so many things back at the club, Su-bong.” Nam-gyu pulls back to look him in the eye, pupils blown wide. “You never paid me back for the drugs even once.”

“This is different,” Thanos insists, shivering as Nam-gyu moves his hand to trail his finger along the waistband of his pants, teasing and slow. Thanos distinctly remembers each time Nam-gyu initiated a hookup at the club, his gaze always flickering downwards, paired with a bitten lip, like he had to refrain from the thought of drooling at the mere thought of Thanos’ dick. Thanos had accepted eagerly each time, making sure to display an air of nonchalance, as if he hadn't been dreaming about it the night prior.

The first time after it happened, Thanos half expected to never see him again. He came across Nam-gyu’s fingers, said ‘thanks, dude,’ and continued his night out at the club as normal. When he’d got home, he’d laid in his shitty, stiff-as-cardboard bed, fell asleep, and dreamed about Nam-gyu stripping him slowly, teasingly, and then fucking him raw into one of the plush, soft couches in the club. He’d woken up, dripping in the aftereffects of his own orgasm, and pledged to himself to ignore he ever dreamt it up at all. He’s Thanos, for fucks sake. He likes women, and has sex with them very frequently — a few handjobs from a guy and a dream about getting fucked by him doesnt mean anything. It’s a misfire in his brain. Besides, he’s thought about being the one fucking into Nam-gyu plenty of times, so it’s not like he’s always leaning into submissive fantasies…!

Hm. This isn't really helping his “I don’t like guys, I don’t like Nam-gyu” case. Thanos is starting to think he might truly be the most hypocritical person alive.

“Different how?” Nam-gyu asks, his eyes wide and unblinking, his fingers trailing across Thanos’ pelvis.

It’s different because this time around, he’s being haunted by the imagery of Nam-gyu dying. He’s seen his brain matter splattered out on the ground, pink and squishy and unable to formulate thought. He’s had his blood cover his hands, warm and sticky and blindingly red. He’s seen Nam-gyu slump forward and die directly in front of him, and if it happens again, he’s really not sure if he’ll be able to handle it. He hardly feels real anymore, after such listless time spent in nothingness. But right now, with Nam-gyu’s hands gliding across his skin and his teeth against flesh, he feels alive.

Thanos heaves a soft sigh as a plea, gathers Nam-gyu’s face in his palms (a reminder of past loops, of who he once was and who he now is), and presses a gentle, lasting kiss to Nam-gyu’s forehead.

Nam-gyu’s skin is clammy, his hair smells like sweat, and Thanos’ lips make an embarrassingly loud smacking noise when he pulls back. It probably looks a little silly from an outsider's perspective, but to Thanos, it might just be the most meaningful thing he's ever done; his devotion is displayed via a sweet, lasting kiss on the forehead, and by the way Nam-gyu stares at him after the fact, face flushed and mouth agape, he’s sure the meaning behind it is displayed well enough. At least, as well as it can be formulated in this particular situation.

“I can be better than the drugs,” Thanos murmurs, pressing their foreheads together, a man stooping down to pray only to be met with the matched imagery of an angel. “The pills…sometimes I think…”

“You think what?” Nam-gyu whispers, as if afraid of being overheard. An understandable fear; Thanos is sure the thing that watches them is listening in intently.

“Sometimes I think that my body is more made up of pills then it’s made up of myself,” Thanos says, “like it’s replacing me, you know? The tablets fell down the drain; it feels like I’m down there right along with them.” A brief pause as Thanos lets his eyes flutter closed. “I shouldn't have given you the drugs in the first place. They must be straight from fucking hell…I hate them. But, fuck, I love them.”

“...You’re starting to sound like me.”

Thanos laughs — a soft, snorting sound of amusement. It’s a noise unfitting for their location, one filled with genuine mirth. He doesn't think he’s ever made a sound like that before. Not in front of Nam-gyu, at least. He always makes a point to make his laugh more boisterously loud and overexaggerated than it really is, just like he does with everything else in his life.

As his eyes crinkle open, the ghost of a laugh on his lips, he sees Nam-gyu staring back at him, his anger diminished into a mere fizzle.

“Why’d you kiss me?” Thanos asks.

“Why’d you kiss me first? Why’d you dump your pills down the drain?” Nam-gyu fires back wryly. “I guess not everything can be properly explained, huh? Some things aren't meant to make any sense.”

Thanos reaches forward, tucking a piece of hair behind Nam-gyu’s ear, watching intently as he leans into his palm. “Do you still hate me?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Nam-gyu answers honestly.

“I hate you a little bit too,” Thanos agrees. Somehow, it sounds like a confession of love.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Nam-gyu leans forward, and this time, instead of a crazed slam of lips crashing against each other, the kiss is gentle and slow. They move against each other like they’ve got all the time in the world, languid movements of tongues dragging against each other. Hands travel persistently up Thanos’ back, dipping beneath his shirt and jacket, fingers trailing up along the knobs of his spine. Thanos wishes more than anything that they could strip themselves bare and feel each other in their entirety, bodies pressed against each other.

But they lack both the supplies and time to indulge in what Thanos truly wants, so instead, he’ll settle for what he has.

“You think you can be better than the drugs? That you can offer me some sort of high that the pills can’t?” Nam-gyu murmurs when they pull back for air, his breath warm and heated against his lips. “Prove it.”

Thanos is running out of time, in every possible sense imaginable, and he wants Nam-gyu to understand the depth of his emotion so badly that it hurts. If this is what it feels like to hate and to love, Thanos isn’t sure if he’s wired correctly for it. He’s so horrendously enamored; it’s unlike himself to fall so deeply into the pit of his own feelings.

Prove it. Thanos nods, curt and determined, and lowers his head, lips latching against skin.

Nam-gyu tastes earthy. He tastes, to put it bluntly, like a man who hasn’t showered in a while — which, for obvious reasons, he hasn’t. There’s speckles of old dried blood that reside splattered across his skin, small, pinprick reminders of past games. Thanos drags his tongue against grime without hesitation, savoring the taste of Nam-gyu’s skin flat against his tongue.

“Mark me up,” Nam-gyu pleads, voice cracking with want. “Need everyone to know that I’m…”

They’ve been away from the group for a while; Thanos is pretty sure anyone with a working brain has come to the conclusion after their little show earlier that they didn’t traverse into the bathrooms for any purpose except this. Still, he has no intention of denying Nam-gyu his request.

“Need everyone to know that you’re what?” Thanos asks after taking a moment to carefully suck against flushed skin. “That you’re mine?”

Thanos has always thought that the whole “you’re mine” schtick that tends to play out in fantasised sex scenes is sort of ridiculous. It’s overly-possessive to the point of being laughable, and he distinctively remembers that one time, during a quick hookup with a girl from the club, she’d said those exact words into the shell of his ear, and he’d had to stop himself from outright snickering.

Yet here he stands sucking marks into Nam-gyu’s neck, murmuring those exact words like he’s been waiting to say them his entire life. Nam-gyu nods frantically, letting out a quiet little “uh-huh,” of agreement, his voice breathy and strained. Thanos leaves a particular deep bite below his jawline, a reward for making such pretty noises.

Thanos drags a hand beneath Nam-gyu’s shirt, pressing his palm up along the curve of his waist and bones of his ribcage, only stopping when his fingers graze his pec, all while making quick work of sucking bright red marks along his neck. Nam-gyu squirms as Thanos presses his thumb persistently against his nipple, rubbing against the sensitive nub.

“Hyung,” Nam-gyu gasps, bucking mindlessly at where Thanos leg presses against his clothed, hardened dick. “Thanos, I’m…”

“You’re sensitive,” Thanos finishes for him, smiling wolfishly against his collarbone as he presses more persistently against his nipple, relishing the way Nam-gyu trembles against him. Each poorly contained whimper presses Thanos further, biting harder, rubbing more firmly.

“Been dreaming of this,” Thanos admits, something he’d never openly say if not for the fact that he knows, deep down, that this’ll all end up looping over again, and this moment of shared desire and tenderness in the aftershocks of anger will be forgotten. He might as well lay out his thoughts, because in the end, it all returns back to nothing. “Been dreaming of you.”

“Then why…?” Nam-gyu leans his head back further, giving Thanos full access to lap at his jugular. “Why’d you pretend not to remember?”

The real answer is far too long and convoluted; there’s no time. “Thought it’d be easier if I ignored it.”

“Ignored–” Nam-gyu cuts himself off with a hiss, jolting as Thanos gnaws on yet another portion of bare skin, leaving sloppy kisses in its wake. “Ignored what?”

“How much I like you,” Thanos says quietly, hoping for his admission to be covered up by keening whines and soft gasps. “How much I think about you. Whenever I saw you with other people at the club, giving out drinks with a girl on your arm…it drove me fucking insane.”

It did. God, it really did. He’s convinced himself for so long that his festering jealousy was due to annoyance that Nam-gyu was paying his other clients attention instead of him; Thanos wanted the free drinks, the free drugs, the occasional free handjob, because of course, Thanos is the only one deserving of such attention. It drove him up the fucking wall—the drugs—the club—Nam-gyu—himself—his own thoughts—the wet dream of Nam-gyu fucking him like he’s some sort of whore, having him bent over and moaning into a pillow like a girl. Insanity. Fucking ridiculous; how was he expected to look Nam-gyu in the eye after all of that? Nam-gyu probably went home and smoked a cig and had a completely normal ass night after their first little session together, while Thanos was left with his world rocked and a persistent sexuality crisis.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, his spoken confession to both himself and Nam-gyu will be filtered within their brains as meaningless sounds jumbled together in the cadence of words, but unable to be registered as such.

Thanos is not a lucky man. At this point, this statement is factual.

“Huh?” Nam-gyu grasps suddenly at the sides of Thanos’ face, pulling him up to make eye contact. “What?”

“...What?” Thanos asks innocently, letting his hands drop as he examines his handiwork. It looks somewhat like someone has attempted to gnaw Nam-gyu’s neck off completely. Damn, he doesn't think he’s ever seen someone with so many hickeys in his life.

“You…!” Nam-gyu licks his lips, heaving a breath. “You always acted like you didn't even care.”

Thanos shrugs awkwardly. It’s not his fault that sometimes he plays the nonchalant act a little too well.

(...Well, actually, it’s entirely his fault. There’s literally nobody else that could possibly be at fault for that.)

“You’re so stupid,” Nam-gyu says, his breathing growing progressively erratic. Thanos is starting to wonder if he’s about to cream himself over the mere act of Thanos telling him that he likes him. That’d be sort of sweet, actually. Is Thanos weird for being turned on by that? …Whatever. “Such a fucking idiot.”

“Hey,” Thanos starts to say, holding his hands out in befuddlement and readying his defense. But Nam-gyu’s words hold a far different heat than anger, and he pushes forward and presses a long lasting kiss to Thanos’ lips before he can get another word out.

Nam-gyu spares a nervous glance to the door that leads out of the bathrooms as he pulls back, fisting his hands against Thanos’ blue vest and pulling him backwards. “Quick.”

Thanos lets himself be led (dragged) into the nearest bathroom stall, making quick work of shutting the door behind them and crowding Nam-gyu against it. There’s a brief pause between them as Nam-gyu’s eyes flicker to the vest clutched between his fingers, while in turn, Thanos takes in the sight of the red that adorns Nam-gyu. Blue, red, opposing teams, and a lack of time.

It seems to hit them in unison that the probability of them rejoining the group and having time to switch is close to none. This is it — Thanos on blue and Nam-gyu on red. When the games begin, they’ll have to deal with the cards they’ve been handed.

“Don’t think about it,” Thanos chokes out, despite his own rising nerves. “It’s fine.”

A flicker of irritation. “If you would’ve just switched when I told you to–”

“Nam-gyu, there’s no time,” Thanos stresses, and with a somewhat pathetic mewl, Nam-gyu grinds his hips against Thanos’ leg in agreement. “Trust me. It’ll be fine.”

Nam-gyu nods, chest stuttering as he exhales. “Su-bong…”

Thanos downright shakes. Hearing Nam-gyu breathe his name out like that is enough to leave him reeling, and instead of worrying about the inevitable, Thanos wants to spend their short time together making Nam-gyu feel good. Just this once, he wants to forget about his surroundings and indulge in Nam-gyu’s touch.

“I want to make up for lost time,” Thanos murmurs, pressing another chaste kiss to Nam-gyu’s lips, “for all the times I could’ve fucked you at the club.”

Nam-gyu attempts to muffle a whimper as he lets his head clunk against the stall door, leading Thanos’ hands to the hem of his pants. “Please…”

“Please what?” Thanos hums. “Want me to get you off? Want my hands on you?”

“Mhm. Wanna cum for you,” Nam-gyu whines. His blunt wording sends a shiver through Thanos; his dick, more specifically. They’ve hardly even done anything, and Thanos already feels like he’s about to burst.

“Of course you do, baby.” Thanos gives his hips a squeeze. “I’ll treat you so good.”

Their hands move in tandem, tugging Nam-gyu’s pants off and letting them pool around his ankles, quickly followed by his thin pair of boxers. And while Thanos knows they don’t have any time to waste, he can’t help but stop and stare at the sight in front of him.

Nam-gyu is fucking big.

It’s actually a little bit of a blow to Thanos’ fragile ego, if he’s being honest. Nam-gyu is easily an inch bigger than him, while also being thicker in girth. The tip is flushed a pretty shade of pink, a pearly bead of precum beading at the slit, and Thanos swears he sees it twitch under his gaze.

“You’re staring,” Nam-gyu mumbles, face flushed.

“Can’t help it.” Thanos trails a finger up the underside of his dick, whistling in appreciation. “Look at you, man. You’re fucking packing.”

Nam-gyu bites his lip to muffle a moan, and by the way precum begins to drip down his cock, it’s clear that the attention affects him well. Cursed timeloops be damned — being able to witness Nam-gyu in such a state of disarray is a blessing in itself.

“Turn around,” Thanos says, teasing his thumb across the slit. “Hands on the wall, babygirl.”

“Babygirl?” Nam-gyu reiterates with a hushed laugh, though he follows the instructions diligently, shuffling around and bracing his hands on the stall door. “I’m not one of your bitches from the club.”

The reminder is spoken in a chiding manner, as if Thanos has momentarily forgotten who he’s hooking up with. Thanos starts to explain that it was said out of reflex, but trails off into intelligible mumbles as he drinks in the sight before him.

“Holy shit,” Thanos reaches forward in awe, grabbing shamelessly at each side of Nam-gyu’s ass, spreading him open as if preparing for entry (oh, how dearly he wishes he was), “huge dick and a huge ass? I think I’m in heaven.”

Nam-gyu mewls, his name dripping from his lips like honey. “Su-bong…”

“Love it when you say my name like that,” Thanos says honestly, pressing his hard-on between Nam-gyu’s ass and groaning at the warmth of it through his pants. “Damn…I wish I would’ve fucked you when I had the chance.”

“When we get out…” Nam-gyu murmurs, and he sounds so unsure of their survival that it makes Thanos’ chest ache.

“We will,” Thanos reassures, though he hardly believes his own words. “We’ll get out with the prize money, and when we do, I’ll fuck you like you deserve. Nice and slow, with…nice music and rose petals, or some shit.”

“Rose petals?” Nam-gyu snickers, pushing back against him eagerly. “Feeling romantic?”

“Only for you,” Thanos grunts, positioning his hand in front of Nam-gyu’s mouth. Nam-gyu gets the memo without being told, and licks a long stripe of spit along Thanos’ palm.

“I’m gonna need more spit than that to get you off, my boy.” Thanos punctuates his words with a languid roll of his hips. “Come on, really slobber over it for me.”

“Pervert,” Nam-gyu teases, but there's an excited lilt to his voice, and he moans openly as he licks persistently at Thanos’ palm, dousing his skin in saliva. It won’t be as slick as lube, and he’s sure the spit will dry fast enough to make things a bit rough, but it’ll work.

“There you go,” Thanos makes quick work of wrapping his hand around Nam-gyu’s dick, pumping with a fast-paced rhythm. “You like that? Like the way my hand feels around your cock?”

The sudden contact of a warm hand moving along his length at such a brutal pace and the steady movement of Thanos’ clothed dick grinding against Nam-gyu’s bare ass, paired with the way Thanos leans against him to murmur sinful words into the shell of his ear all adds up to leave Nam-gyu reeling. He spasms against the stall, grasping for purchase where there is none, his cheek smushing against the door as Thanos ruts into him. Despite the lack of penetration, it manages to feel like the both of them are fucking in tandem, sweaty and wild and unapologetically loud.

“Feel that?” Thanos speaks into the curve of Nam-gyu’s neck, briefly licking at the flushed, damp skin. “You’ve got me so fucking hard, Nam-gyu. You look so good like this, so perfect…”

It’s been made clear that Nam-gyu is unaccustomed to praise; the words wrench out a long, drawn out groan, followed by garbled pleas for more. “Please, please, please…!”

“Come on, baby. Let everyone know how good I make you feel,” Thanos says, the amount of precum leaking from Nam-gyu’s length working as a natural lubricant. It’s a good thing the bathrooms are a decent enough distance from the game room — Nam-gyu is loud, and Thanos is far from quiet himself. There’s absolutely no feasible way the guards keeping watch outside can’t hear them. If this is somehow against the rules, and they march inside to shoot them dead, Thanos will die a happy man.

But, he doesn't want to think about dying right now. He’s thought about it enough to last a lifetime, and in this exact moment, the only thing that matters to him is Nam-gyu. The way he rocks against him, the way his cock feels, slick and pulsing in his hand, the scent of sweat and sex, death and life. It’s all so much.

It’s also, in a general sense, rather irrational. If the version of Thanos from the first loop was notified that at some point in time he’d be getting Nam-gyu off in a shabby bathroom stall, he likely would have keeled over dead from pure shock alone, or some other display of overdramatic bullshit. As if he hasn't thought of this exact scenario regularly; bafflingly hypocritical.

It’s not only the mold in corners of the ceilings and the eyes painted along the walls that have changed as the loops have progressed. He himself has fundamentally changed. Is that what the shaman had meant, when she told him to look at the eye within himself?

Thanos quickens his pace as Nam-gyu’s whines pitch higher, his body trembling as he approaches release. He whimpers a continuous string of words, “I can’t hold it, please let me cum, Thanos, I’ll be good, I’ll be so good,” and Thanos knows that he will be. Nam-gyu has always been good to him, even when he’s cruel to others.

Thanos mumbles three words into the curvature of Nam-gyu’s slick, salty neck as he works him through his orgasm. Three words followed by fierce, bruising kisses pressed along his jaw, as if the wildness of his bites will discount the gentle lull of his words. Cum spills across Thanos’ hand, spurting against the door, dripping onto tiled floor. It’s an incredibly messy affair, and Nam-gyu twitches and gasps in the aftershocks of such a blissful release.

Nam-gyu stands slumped against a bathroom stall door, dripping in his own cum, sweat dripping down his neck and pooling in the curvature of his collarbone, strands of greasy hair sticking to a reddened, clammy face, and his neck covered in bite marks.

“You’re beautiful,” Thanos says, and deep within himself, more than ever before, he hopes this is the loop that counts. For once, he can confidently say that he truly wants to live. More importantly, he wants Nam-gyu to live alongside him.

The praise causes Nam-gyu’s flush to deepen, and as he looks behind him to offer a pleased smile, his eyes dart down to Thanos’ still hardened length. With a soft gasp of realization (taking notice of their diminishing time, Thanos assumes), Nam-gyu grabs onto Thanos’ hand and maneuvers his fingers into scooping cum off of his softening cock.

“What are you–?”

“You can–” Nam-gyu gasps, shuddering from oversensitivity. “You can fuck my thighs, if you use the cum as lube.”

Thanos thinks that, for a brief moment, his brain completely short circuits.

“You don’t have to–” Nam-gyu starts to backtrack.

“I think you might be an angel,” Thanos blurts suddenly. “Nam-gyu, really…I swear I’ll get you out of here.”

“Hyung,” Nam-gyu laughs lightly, a sad cadence to the noise. “If you wanted us to get out of here, you should’ve kept those stupid pills.”

“There’s so much more to it than that,” Thanos wants to say, but the clock is ticking, and he needs to move with purpose.

Nam-gyu groans, brazen and wanton as Thanos spreads cum between his thighs, hastily moving to pull his length out of his pants and slather as much of the liquid onto his cock as he can. He shivers at the dirtiness of it all; gathering warm, spilled semen and spreading it between Nam-gyu’s thighs and his own twitching cock. It’s nothing short of obscene. Nasty. Messy. Filthy.

Thanos has never been more turned on by anything in his life.

“Squeeze around me, baby,” Thanos grunts into Nam-gyu’s ear, sliding his hardened dick between Nam-gyu’s plush, cum-soaked thighs, and keeping his hands firmly situated on Nam-gyu’s hips. They moan in tandem at the squelching schlick of skin-against-skin, and Thanos takes a brief moment to admire the sight of being nestled right below Nam-gyu’s ass like this, with the heated contact of thighs enveloping a good portion of his length.

“You ever thought about me fucking you like this before?” Thanos asks as he begins to move. He obviously well aware of the fact that he isn’t fully, actually fucking him, but what’s wrong with a little roleplay? “I bet you have. I can tell how badly you wanna be filled up by how good you clench around me.”

“I’ve…I’ve thought about it,” Nam-gyu admits breathlessly, “a lot.”

Now, that’s a boost to his ego. Thanos doubles his efforts, pistoning into the warm tightness of Nam-gyu’s pressed together thighs with enough force to drive the man to his toes, their skin slapping together in fastened repetition.

“Have you?” Nam-gyu whimpers, still shivering from the comedown of his own orgasm. “Have you thought about…?”

“Thought about fucking you? Being fucked by you? Both, my boy,” Thanos groans, laying everything out on the table for Nam-gyu to see and hear, every last bit of it, because he knows it’ll all be forgotten.

(His heart thrums with endless pleas. Please let this one end well, and please don’t make us start again. Please let this one be remembered. Please don’t make it hurt.

At the beginning of all this, Thanos had asked himself a question. What does death mean to a man who wants to die? Now, the question has shifted. What does death mean to a man who wants to live?)

The relationship he has with Nam-gyu is built on the basis of drugs, but now the drugs have been discarded, and while Nam-gyu is clearly upset at his act of ditching the pills for no apparent reason at all, Nam-gyu still remains beside him. Even with the drugs thrown out of the equation, Nam-gyu still kissed him, pressed against him, and led him into a small, cramped stall to indulge himself with him. Even without the drugs, there's want, care, and tenderness poking its head to the surface.

Maybe that’s the real reason Thanos tossed away the tablets to begin with. To see if Nam-gyu would stay.

…He did a hell of a lot more than just stay, that’s for damn sure.

“I need you,” Nam-gyu mewls at a particularly harsh thrust. “C’mon, Su-bong, please…”

Hearing his name spoken with so much unrestrained desire is what sends Thanos careening over the edge, quivering against Nam-gyu as he cums, muffling his broken moan with another bite to Nam-gyu’s neck. His seed drips down the door in front of them, pooling on the ground with continuous drips.

As they both come down from their respective releases, breathing heavily against each other, the reality of their situation begins to return to them. No drugs, separate teams, and a flurry of conflicting emotions.

They clean each other up in silence. The realization and acceptance of the upcoming game is a harrowing one, and their indulgence has faded into fear of losing each other.

“We’ll be fine,” Thanos reassures as Nam-gyu stares desolately at the blue vest that clings to him.

But as the bathroom door creaks open, and a guard's voice rings out to proclaim they’ve run out of time, Thanos knows that Nam-gyu hardly believes his words.

After all, Thanos is not a lucky man.

Notes:

“Do they realistically have time to be doing all this?” man idk maybe the guards are listening in and are calling their colleagues like “yo make the players spend more time switching teams, these guys are fucking in the bathrooms like CRAZY”

“Isn't it a little self-indulgent to have these two get all up on each other crazy style after how depressing the last chapter was?” Uhmmm yeah so about that, I actually picked up a cursed amulet a few months ago and it said if I don’t somehow incorporate thangyu smut into every single thing I write I’ll actually explode into a million trillion pieces and get set on fire and disintegrate and melt into the ground 🫤yeah, it’s reallyyyy crazy…feel free to send me get well soon flowers and chocolates and whatnot ❤️‍🩹

I jest, I jest. Anyways. Tfw you get super mad at your homie so you just start making out w/ him. Average Nam-gyu reaction. Moron. Stupid idiot. I love him

Chapter 9: I meant it

Notes:

Thank you for all the birthday wishes on the last chapter ^_^ you’re all so awesome, I’m so lucky to be surrounded by such kindness <3

(Once again, just as with every chapter in this story, warning for gory imagery, unsettling descriptions, and derealization. Stay safe!)

The walk back to the arena is awkward.

The sex was a wonderful distraction, but it unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that without the drugs to rely on, both of them are left in shambles. Their shaky limbs and muddled mindsets paired with the mortifying knowledge that the guards currently escorting them back to the arena both clearly heard their rendezvous in the bathroom stall makes for a rather uncomfortable atmosphere. Thanos wishes the guards weren’t here to begin with, that way he could discuss things with Nam-gyu without having to worry about them breathing down his damn neck.

It doesn’t help that they both look like complete wrecks. Messy hair, marred necks, reddened lips, sweat-slicked skin; it’s no mystery what they’ve been up to, to say the least.

“It’s unfair,” Nam-gyu says quietly, twirling his knife in his fingers, “to expect me to kill someone without drugs.”

It takes a moment for Thanos to muster up a response, because in all honesty, he’s still mulling over how nice Nam-gyu had looked with his shirt pulled up and Thanos’ thumb on his nipple. So sensitive. If they’d had more time, he would’ve drawn it out longer, teased him until he was a shaking mess.

Time, time, time. He’s so sick of not having enough of it.

“I know,” Thanos murmurs eventually, trying (and failing) not to linger on thoughts of Nam-gyu’s bare skin. The more he thinks about it, the more he begins to believe that Nam-gyu truly might be a form of divinity. “There really is a reason why I did it, you know. It’s just hard to explain.”

“I think you’ve lost your mind,” Nam-gyu responds bluntly.

“I haven’t!” Thanos exclaims. Indulging himself in Nam-gyu, letting himself glide across wet skin, having their scents intermingle, saying words with such raw openness — it might just be the best decision he’s made out of every loop. Not just out of pure lust, but out of yearning. A want to show himself, his actual self to another.

“Uh-huh,” Nam-gyu says dubiously. “Well, it’s still unfair.”

“…I know.”

“It’s not that I can’t kill someone,” Nam-gyu explains carefully, quietly. “I can. It’s just that it’s sort of a difficult thing to do. Physically speaking, I mean. It'll be hard to aim a knife with shaky hands.”

“Right.”

“What if I aim for the heart, but my hand shakes, and I accidentally stick my knife into someone's ribcage? And what if the sound the knife makes against the bone reminds me of that guttural, throaty sound I make reflexively when I shoot up—I actually don’t like syringes very much. Have I told you that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I don’t. There’s nothing pleasant about sticking a needle in my skin. Except the rush of drugs, obviously. Anyways, my point is that whenever I inject myself like that, my body makes these weird grunting, inhuman noises, like it’s physically rejecting what I’m doing, and I’ve always thought it sounds like a knife scraping against something. It doesn't even sound like it’s coming from a body at all. It sort of freaks me out. I have to blast music to drown it out, but it never muffles the noise entirely, and there’s no real way for me to escape it. And, obviously, the drugs are more important then some stupid fucking sound, so I suck it up and I deal with it like any other average person would.”

“...Right.”

“What I’m saying is that, if I misaim, and the knife slides against bone—actually, if the knife slides against anything—what if it reminds me of that noise, which reminds me of the injections, which reminds me of the drugs, and then I get distracted in that exact moment and let myself get killed? This is a pretty likely scenario, you know. This could really happen. We have to think of the variables here.”

“Nam-gyu.”

“It’s not– look, it’s not like I can’t do it. You’re thinking I can’t, aren't you? I’m telling you, Thanos, I can kill any one of those fuckers, I really can. It’s just that without the drugs, my hands– you’ve seen my hands, you see how bad they shake. The pills…you keep telling me to trust you, and I do, but I just can’t fucking believe you dumped them like that.”

It’s odd, seeing someone rapidly spiral downward in real time like this. Unnerving, because Thanos knows he’s been in this exact position before, and will probably be entering his own altered version of it soon. Even more unnerving because it’s Nam-gyu.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“If I had the pills-”

“But we don’t. We don’t have the pills, so you’ve got to think about something else, man.”

Ironic, coming from Thanos, who has thought of the pills exactly twenty-three times in the last minute.

“I can’t,” Nam-gyu says simply. “Like, literally. I literally can’t.”

A brief lapse of silence after a soft sigh of regret weaseling its way from Thanos’ lips. A few steps of quietude followed by a whispered confession.

“I think I’m going to die.”

“What? No!” Thanos admonishes. (His reaction is slightly delayed, because he’s busy considering the probability of success if he were to run back to the bathrooms, somehow dismantle the sink he tossed his pills down, and pluck them from grimy sewage to swallow them down into his stomach.

The probability of success is zero.)

“Realistically speaking,” Nam-gyu begins, voice trembling with uncharacteristic worry.

“No. Fuck no dude. You’re not dying.” Thanos nudges him in the side, forcing himself to smile as he tries to ignore the sheen of sweat beginning to form on the back of his neck. “How else am I supposed to fulfill my promise?”

“Which one?” Nam-gyu asks wryly, lips twitching upwards into a teasing smile.

“Paying you back for the drugs and free drinks.”

“What about the promise of nice music and rose petals, huh?” Nam-gyu jokes.

Thanos flushes — damn, he’d forgotten he’d even said that! God, how embarrassing…though, the idea of fucking Nam-gyu into a soft bed filled with petals while romantic music plays distantly in the background like some stupidly cheesy romantic cliché actually sounds kind of nice. Holy shit, when did he get so sappy?

Maybe they’d let their fingers intertwine, allowing their bodies such continuous closeness that it’d begin to feel that they were never separate forces to begin with; a tether so strong and connected that their bodies meld into one. Thanos isn’t accustomed to slow, sensual sex. He’s used to rough, quick hook-ups in cramped places with girls he’ll never see again, moments in time that are meant to feel good, but not meant to last.

The bathroom stall had been cramped. It’d been quick, and the way Thanos smushed Nam-gyu against the stall door as he used his cum-slicked, squeezed together thighs as a personal fucktoy, slamming into him hard enough to lift him to his toes, had been rather rough. That being said, it’s so drastically different in comparison to all of the hookups Thanos has had in the past, because this time the sex meant something emotionally. Thanos had murmured words of adoration into Nam-gyu’s neck, and he’d meant every single word.

“Hello?” Nam-gyu tugs on the edge of his jacket. “Hyung, I was only kidding.”

Thanos clears his throat, unable to verbalize how desperately he wishes to make the fantasy a reality. “Right, right. Listen, Nam-gyu, most of the people on team blue are a bunch of cowards. You’re so much better than them, my boy, you’ll be able to kill them just fine.”

“But, if I don’t–”

“You will,” Thanos says with authority, refusing to accept any other possibility as truth, “and when we both get out of here together, we’ll pay off our debts and blow cash on booze and fancy, rich-people shit like we deserve.”

Nam-gyu hums distractedly, examining their surroundings with unease. He picks at the skin around his cuticles as if wishing to peel his skin off like the outer shell of a tangerine, laying his flesh bare and pulsating like the juicy innards of an edible fruit.

As they walk, close enough for their shoulders to brush, Thanos thinks of the mold that grows in the corners of the ceilings. He thinks of the eyes that watch him, of each loop that has ended in death and agony, and he can’t help but wonder if this itself is the hellish purgatory that awaits him. Not nothingness, but the same animalistic, unforgiving torment over and over again.

“We’ll be fine,” Thanos mutters, but it sounds like the listless murmurings of a madman, and Nam-gyu’s only form of response is a small, disbelieving shake of his head.

— — —

Given their unruly states, the amount of stares they earn themselves upon arrival is nothing short of absurd.

As the guards begin to drone on about time being up and the game about to start, Nam-gyu makes a solid effort to straighten out the wrinkles in his clothes, rubbing self-consciously at his marred neck. For a man who begged to be marked in the heat of the moment, he seems rather embarrassed by his appearance now that he’s faced with so many baffled stares.

Thanos, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. Maybe it’s the constant repetition that has left him unaffected by public perception, or maybe he’s too focused on trying to come up with a half-baked plan on the spot to worry about it, but somehow the fact that it’s so glaringly obvious to everyone that sees them that him and Nam-gyu just finished fucking each other in a grimy bathroom doesn’t offer him any lasting mortification.

He should be beside himself, having the intensity of their intimacy be on such blatant display. He should want to cover up the fact that he’s let a man sink his teeth into his neck and suck at sensitive skin, taking pleasure in strong hands grasping at his shoulders.

Instead, Thanos lets his fingers trail absentmindedly along the reddened indents and darkened bruises with appreciation. The truth of it all is that no matter how many times he repeats in his head that he likes women, he’ll always like Nam-gyu far more.

“Hey,” Nam-gyu murmurs as the guard continues to speak. “Hyung, what do we—?”

“Don’t overthink things,” Thanos instructs, keeping his voice low. “You’ll be able to take someone out with no trouble at all, my boy. Don’t worry about anything else.”

Nam-gyu, who has returned to picking persistently at his fingers, tears at a small piece of skin by the nail of his thumb, unbothered by the blood that beads in response to its removal. He looks at him with jittery eyes, filled with misery due to their separation. Their lack of drugs is a brutal hit; in past loops, having the same drug pulse through their bodies left them feeling connected even when on separate teams, an invisible link between them. Now, the pills are gone, and Thanos feels as if letting Nam-gyu out of his sight will cause him to disappear forever.

If their deaths are eternal, will their rebirths blossom in the same consistency?

“The pills,” Nam-gyu murmurs absently, tapping a hand to his forehead in constant, fidgety repetition. “I…Thanos, I really don’t think I can—“

There’s no time for Thanos to offer Nam-gyu the comfort he deserves, and even if there were, Thanos isn’t sure if he’d be capable of doing so. Thanos is many things, and comforting isn't one of them. He thinks he’s truly incapable of it, but then again, he used to think he was incapable of admitting his affection for Nam-gyu, so what does he really know? Nobody will ever know him more than himself, and even he is left confused by his own being.

Without drugs, who is he? With drugs, who is he? Within the pills, does a part of his soul reside, still stuck in the grimy pipes of the sink, forgotten and left to disintegrate? Does breaking a tablet in half equate to the harsh breaking of a bone?

Dwelling on it is meaningless. He’s so much more than a tiny little tablet. And so, in turn, is Nam-gyu.

“You can,” Thanos interrupts, pouring as much confident reassurance into his words as he can muster, watching restlessly as his fellow hiders begin to gather at the exit door. He’s out of time, and it’s time to leave. “We’re gonna get out of here, my boy, and when we do, I swear I’ll make up for…”

As depressing as it is, there’s too many things for him to list. But Nam-gyu understands what point he’s getting at; a roundabout apology for pretending not to remember him and their long, late night talks spent over weed and drinks, and for dumping their supposed salvation down a sink drain.

Nam-gyu traces his fingers along his neck with a dazed, distant look, sentimentality lacing each curve of his face. “...I wish we had more time.”

Thanos can only bring himself to nod in miserable agreement. In the end, it always comes down to a lack of time. He gives Nam-gyu’s palms one last encouraging squeeze before parting ways, and as he looks back to see Nam-gyu milling with the rest of red-clad seekers, he looks more feeble and alone than Thanos has ever seen him before. A fallen angel, abandoned, exhausted, and left to be eaten by the horrors of mortality.

Thanos turns and leaves before he loses the willpower to press on.

– – –

“You’re bleeding,” Se-mi observes bluntly as they walk towards the game arena.

“Huh?”

“Right here.” She points at the side of her own neck for reference, and Thanos copies her action with furrowed brows. When he pulls his hand back, the faintest sheen of blood covers his fingertips.

…Looks like Nam-gyu bit hard enough to draw blood.

“It looks like someone tried to eat you,” Se-mi deadpans. “Funnily enough, Nam-gyu looks similar. What a crazy coincidence.”

She snickers a little to herself, and as much as Thanos wants to get mad at her for so blatantly poking fun at him, he can’t bring himself to. Because as she muffles a laugh into the palm of her hand as the doors to the game arena open up, she looks bright and amused and alive.

Betrayal of choosing a separate team from him aside, Thanos still views Se-mi as a teammate. He doesn't want her to become a part of the ghosts that haunt him; he wants her to live.

“I figured you two had a thing going on from the start,” Se-mi continues, walking into the starting point of the maze and looking upwards at the star-clad ceiling with narrowed eyes, “but I didn't think you’d be so open about it.”

“Give it a rest.” Thanos scowls. Depending on his differing behaviors within the various loops, Se-mi either chooses to stay with him in hopes of being spared by Nam-gyu if they run into him, or becomes off-put by his emotional instability and distances herself from him immediately.

This time, she seems to want to stick with him.

“So, what way should we go?” she asks conversationally. “Or, do you still not forgive me for picking X?”

If the X’s would’ve won, Thanos likely wouldn't be stuck in this wretched time loop right now, so it’s a little difficult to stay mad at her for it. Speaking of time loops — he should try to lob some more questions out of the shaman before she slithers out of his sight. He scans the open area quickly, letting out a groan of frustration at the realization that Seon-nyeo and her groupies have already managed to scurry away. Shit.

…Well, whatever. He doesn't need her and her shitty, indirect answers. He can figure this out on his own.

“You’re acting weird,” Se-mi says blandly. “I’m not partnering with you if you’re too high to think even remotely straight.”

“I never asked to partner with you,” Thanos tuts. “Besides, you’re only pairing with me in hopes that if Nam-gyu runs into us, I’ll convince him to spare you, right?” Se-mi’s shoulders tense, but Thanos barrels on before she can confirm or deny what he already knows as truth. “You’re welcome in advance, señorita.”

Se-mi breathes a sigh of indignation. “Uh-huh, thanks.” Her next words come out as a quiet mumble. “Though, he’ll probably find a way to kill me anyway.”

“I won’t let him kill you, so quit stressing,” Thanos pats her shoulder, giving her a light jostle. “We’re a team! I’ll do us all a favor and look past your betrayal, ‘kay?” Thanos whistles, choosing a path to walk down with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Damn, aren’t I just so considerate?”

What I’m doing right now is irreversibly cruel, Thanos thinks sourly to himself as he follows Se-mi down a narrow corridor, trying to ignore the eyes painted in the centers of the stars that paint the ceilings. Because no matter what way he twists it, there’s one main reason that he’s keen to keep Se-mi by his side this time around.

In every single loop, Nam-gyu always offers Min-su to him as a sacrifice, always so devoted to his cause of making them switch. This time, if Nam-gyu finds them before he’s passed, Thanos will naturally have to take the role of a worshipper offering a lamb to be slaughtered. Naturally, if he has to choose between Nam-gyu and Se-mi, he’ll choose Nam-gyu.

Sensibly, he’s sure that Se-mi is well aware of this. She’s taking a risky chance, because she knows that if she finds Nam-gyu alone, he’ll likely try to kill her regardless if he’s already passed or not. Thanos may shove her forward as an offering if Nam-gyu finds them while still needing a kill, but if Nam-gyu finds them while already passed, Thanos will at least attempt to talk him out of it then.

It’s all rather horrific, in Se-mi’s case specifically. Thanos is practically viewing her as a ritualistic sacrifice instead of a living, breathing human being. Se-mi has thoughts, feelings, goals and aspirations just as much as any other person, but as she walks beside him, he has trouble differentiating her from a person and a listless vessel filled with sloshing meat and bones and flesh.

God, that’s disgusting. What the hell is the matter with him? Now that he thinks about it, he hardly knows anything about Se-mi at all. He never bothered asking. He never asked Min-su anything all that important either. Even with Gyeong-su, he hardly asked anything other than stupid, self-absorbed questions like “how much of my merch do you own?”, and “can you recite my lyrics by heart, since you’re such a big fan?”. Do any of them have significant others waiting for them outside in the real world? Family, friends, co-workers? How heavily will they be grieved? If they die due to his own actions, how long will they haunt him with words of ridicule and hatred?

…It’s the lack of drugs that’s leaving his mind so jumbled and his heart so jittery. That’s it. That’s all.

“You look like you’re gonna be sick.” Se-mi frowns, fiddling with the key around her neck. Thanos feels like he’s forgetting something important…

He sure feels like he’s going to be sick. Thanos has pressed close against divinity and thrown away his guilt as well as he’s currently able to; if this isn’t the loop that sticks, he may as well give up entirely.

(Divinity in reference to Nam-gyu, and his guilt in reference to the pills. It seems fitting to view Nam-gyu as angelic and the pills as nightmarish. If Nam-gyu is otherworldly, Se-mi is a sacrificial offering, Min-su is forgotten entirely, and Gyeong-su is a ghost that haunts him, what does that make Thanos?

He supposes he’s only human. How painfully ordinary. If he can’t be compared to something interesting, he might as well die.)

“Hey, can you focus?” Se-mi says snappishly once they reach a door, using her key to pry it open. “If you keep walking around like a zombie, you’ll get yourself killed.”

Her hand rests on the doorknob. Hand. Not meat-claw, hunk of flesh, bony apparatus, or whatever other freakish terms Thanos’ brain tries to come up with to make Se-mi seem unlike a human. She is a human. He shouldn’t be thinking about her possible yet preventable death. There’s a very high chance Nam-gyu won’t have to resort to killing her; they might not even run into him at all.

As Thanos rests his hand on the door to press it open as he follows Se-mi’s fastened pace, he swears he feels a heartbeat pulse underneath his fingertips. It startles him so greatly that he yanks his hand away with a jolt, making a sound of alarm as he takes a quick, baffled scan of his surroundings.

“What?” Se-mi flinches at his display of trepidation. “What is it?”

Eyes along the ceiling, a heartbeat within the wood, the subtle shifting of the walls, as if the building itself is slowly breathing, moving, alive. Fuck.

“Hey, Se-mi,” Thanos grabs onto her flesh-covered bone (her arm). “Do you see that?”

“See what?”

Thanos stretches his arm upwards, pointing at the scrawled eye that resides in the center of one of the many stars.

“The star?” she asks impatiently.

“The eye.”

“...What eye?”

Thanos takes a deep, heaving breath, rubbing fiercely at his head. A dull ache echoes within his brain, insistent and unrelenting. “Nevermind.”

“How many of those things did you take?” Se-mi mutters, shaking her head in dismay.

“None.” Thanos snipes. “Fucking none, you asshole. I dumped them down a fucking sink.”

“Okay, okay, relax.” Se-mi raises her hands in mock defense, glowering at him before continuing to walk. “...I’m surprised your buddy didn’t kill you for that.”

“So am I,” Thanos grunts. Instead, Nam-gyu had pinned him against the wall and kissed him breathless. Why does he stay with Thanos, despite everything he’s put him through?

“I hate you. I love…”

Does Nam-gyu really…?

“Did you dump the drugs before or after you guys got frisky?” Se-mi raises an eyebrow.

“Girl, what the hell is your problem?”

“Sorry, sorry. Just figured I’d ask.”

Before Thanos can admonish any further, or think back to how perfectly his own heartbeat had aligned with the pulse that thrummed beneath wood, he’s interrupted by a nearby door slamming open.

For a moment, Thanos flashes back to the loop where Se-mi died before him, falling into a heap of her own spilled blood and rendered dead in seconds. He prepares to see a flash of red hurtling towards them, but instead is once again face-to-face with the shaman, her face damp with sweat and her chest heaving with sharp, short breaths, fumbling to lock the door behind her.

Beside him, Se-mi loses her tension. “Thank god.”

“Thank…thank the Gods of heaven and earth!” Seon-nyeo says in a manner that seems to be correctional, clasping her hands at the sight of them, two sweaty palms held together in rapture. “Two of you! Oh, perfect, perfect…!”

She scurries towards them with a razor-sharp smile, her eyes locked on the keys around their necks. While Se-mi takes a step back in clear unease, Thanos stays rooted in place, watching wordlessly as the shaman approaches him. She grabs onto the key hanging around his neck, examining it with wide, glittering eyes. “Square! Oh, what a blessing from above, now all I need is…”

With her fingers still clutching onto his key, Seon-nyeo glances upward, as if just now realizing that the object is attached to a person. Her smile falters, eyes widening just a fraction as her breath catches in her throat.

“You…! Your aura is–!”

“Filthy? Fractured? Awful?” Thanos glares. “I know.”

A moment of unspoken understanding passes between them, and Seon-nyeo gathers herself with a noisy clear of her throat. “...Right. You’ve been here before.”

It’s not phrased as a question, and while Thanos is used to the shaman knowing of his predicament, it still manages to unnerve him. Each loop, she seems to catch on even faster; Thanos assumes this isn’t a good sign.

“You.” Seon-nyeo turns her attention to Se-mi, whose look of confusion is almost comically intense. “What shape is your key?”

“...Circle,” Se-mi answers reluctantly. “Why?”

Seon-nyeo lets go of Thanos’ key to clasp her hands together again, sniffling as she cranes her head upward. “Thank you, thank you for answering my prayers…!”

Thanos opens his mouth to either outright ridicule her, ask her if she’s seen Nam-gyu, or perhaps a weird mix of the two, but pauses as the reasoning behind Seon-nyeo’s sudden euphoria begins to dawn on him, reason slowly drilling into his brain, working its way through the fog and mush that consume his thoughts.

“The door,” Thanos says in a daze. “The exit door…!”

Seon-nyeo smiles so widely that Thanos registers it as unnaturally freakish, well-maintained nails clutching onto his clean, blue vest and giving him a shake. “Yes!”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Se-mi asks, stepping back forward with wide, curious eyes. “What door? What exit?”

Man, Thanos sure is sick of explaining shit. “There’s an exit door in the maze that only opens up with one of each key. We’ve got all three right here.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Se-mi gawks. “Are you…are you guessing?”

“It’s no guess! I’ve seen it with my very own eyes.” Seon-nyeo nods slowly, moving away from Thanos to clutch onto Se-mi’s shoulders. “A door, an exit, a blessing from above! With all of our keys combined, we’ll be able to escape from this hellish maze that we’ve been entrapped in!” Seon-nyeo releases Se-mi in order to brush herself off, abruptly looking around in unease. “We can only hope that the tortured souls do not cling to us as we leave this threshold…”

Too late for that, Thanos thinks bitterly.

“Wait, but…I don’t understand.” Se-mi says slowly. “How’d you…?”

Thanos shuffles impatiently under Se-mi’s confused gaze, trying to ignore the churning of his stomach. Stupid fucking lack of pills.

“He is entrapped in a cycle—“ Seon-nyeo begins, her voice low and dramatic. Thanos cuts her off before she gets going on a spiel, “Time loop. It’s a time loop.”

Se-mi laughs shortly. “Right, right…”

“As much as I would love to stand around here and bestow you fools with my everlasting wisdom,” Seon-nyeo says, upturning her nose, “the longer we linger, the greater the chance of our lives being stolen from us.”

“What about Nam-gyu?” Thanos blurts. “I can’t leave without Nam-gyu.”

“Nam-gyu…he is the man you’re tethered to, correct?” Seon-nyeo asks with a tilt of her head. Thanos is thankful that at the very least, her weird-ass abilities allow her to catch on to his situation quickly. “The one with the greasy black hair and sour attitude?”

Thanos doubts Nam-gyu would be thrilled with the description, but he nods along regardless. “Yeah, yeah.”

Her eyes flicker downward. “The one who attempted to devour you, to tear open your skin with the desire to crawl inside of you and rest upon your beating heart?”

“Uh…” Thanos looks at her quizzically. “I don’t know about all that…”

“Considering how he’s marked you, I wouldn’t even be surprised if the next time around, his brain manages to latch on to…” she trails off, tapping a finger to her chin as she examines him. “…perhaps, perhaps…but, perhaps not.”

“You’re so fucking exhausting to be around,” Thanos says without hesitation or any act of sugarcoating, taking twisted enjoyment in the offense it plasters across her face. “Can you talk normally for five goddamn seconds, you freak?”

He’s laying the festering hatred on a little thick, isn’t he? He should probably make a point to be a little nicer to her, as he keeps reminding himself throughout the loops, because of the hand she has to play in all of this. She also quite literally has a key that leads to their escape — but, what does escape matter to him if he leaves without Nam-gyu?

(So much for rejecting attachment. What a complete mess.)

“Are you guys being serious? Is this some sort of joke?” Se-mi pipes up again, and if Thanos deludes himself enough, he can equate the shimmering of her skin under the light of the maze as akin to the scales of a wet fish. More accurately, a fish with a hook through its gills. More specifically, a fish that’s been caught by something, someone. More particularly, a fish that has to die because it’s been taken from water, wrenched out of its home in one swift pull, and therefore, naturally, its only option now is to die via an offering to something starved. This is just the natural course of things for a fish. Many fish go through this. This really isn’t something to dwell on.

How is he supposed to ensure Nam-gyu’s survival, bringing along a walking corpse for him to kill with his shaky hands and rattled brain, if they all walk through the exit foots as a trio? A trio lacking Nam-gyu?

Thanos thinks he might throw up. Not only because of the way his lack of drugs is affecting his stomach, but also because of the way his brain is managing to view Se-mi as something non-human. She isn’t a fish, or a corpse, or an animal unlike a human and therefore incapable of morality and human expectations. She’s herself. She’s Se-mi. What is he doing?

He’s not cut out for this time loop shit, Thanos concludes. Too grotesque, too mentally fatiguing. Funny that he thinks this, after how flippantly he’s spoken of death and gore during his stay here.

Seon-nyeo begins to guide them through a doorway as she speaks, and they follow along without any direct instruction. They fall into their roles of followers easily, and Thanos is irritated to admit that he now understands how Seon-nyeo snagged her devotees (the ones she has now abandoned) so easily. As annoying as she is, she has a way of speaking that commands unwavering attention, as if she has the power to make someone drop dead if they dare to ignore her.

If she really is the one who caused this loop, then who’s to say she can’t? Thanos shudders, and hopes that neither of his temporary teammates pick up on it.

“Purple one,” Seon-nyeo begins.

“Thanos,” he corrects.

“Don’t interrupt the messages I have to deliver upon you,” Seon-nyeo fixes him with a wide-eyed stare, whirling around to point her finger in his face. “Lest I cut you down!”

“Cut me down with what? Your key?” Thanos rolls his eyes, swatting her hand out of his face. “Come on, keep walking and quit talking so damn loud. It’s like you want to get us all killed.”

With a withering scowl, Seon-nyeo turns and continues to walk. “You’re lucky you're of use to me. You’re also lucky to be within the range of my intellect to begin with — behold!” She points towards a nearby corpse slumped on the ground. Beside it, a streak of blood is marked purposefully along the wall. “I have marked the way I went, and now, due to my guidance and heavenly insight, we’ll be able to make our way out of here—!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Thanos interrupts again. Whoops. Bad habit. “Look, do you have any more information about the looping shit, or what? I don’t really give a damn about finding the exit if Nam-gyu isn’t with me. This changes nothing for me. You get that, right?”

“Well, it certainly changes something for me and her,” Seon-nyeo scoffs, pointing expectantly at a permanently befuddled Se-mi. “So I expect you to come along with us willingly, yes?”

It’s beginning to feel like bugs are crawling underneath his skin, and a distant scream causes the feeling to exacerbate. Thanos hates feeling so jumpy, and he hates the thought of others seeing him so fidgety and blatantly himself even more. But, what else is there for him to do?

“…Whatever. Sure. But, you have to explain more about the loops while we walk, okay? You’ve done an absolute shit job of explaining it in every single loop prior.”

“Somehow,” Seon-nyeo smiles unkindly. “I very highly doubt that.”

She continues to stride forward with her head held high in self-assured confidence. Yet, through this veil of poise, she keeps herself alert, ready to skitter away at the slightest sound or sign of danger.

Se-mi stays silent. Thanos thinks she’s given up on attempting to fully understand the situation at hand.

“Thanos,” Seon-nyeo draws out his name in a mocking manner, walking quickly but carefully, stepping over bodies as she follows her own markings. “I may be unable to pinpoint the exact number of times you’ve been here, but I can tell by the stench of your aura alone that it’s been far too many. And this one…this one is different, isn’t it? You’ve indulged in something, and in doing so, you've strengthened your tether despite previously attempting to break it off entirely. Quite the change in mentality, hm? Humans are such fickle things…”

“Indulged in something,” Thanos scoffs, rubbing his neck as his words become encased in sarcasm. “Wow, I sure wonder what that could possibly be referring to.”

“…I was only trying to put it delicately,” Seon-nyeo grumbles. “Ahem. You’ve…intermingled. Taken pleasure in the rippling movements of flesh—“

“I get it,” Thanos grits out. Jesus fucking christ, what has his life come to?

“Right, right.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Of course, that isn't the only different aspect of this loop, correct? Those little things you always keep on you, you’ve disposed of them. Yes?”

“...How’d you tell?”

Seon-nyeo makes a small movement of excitement, clutching her hands into fists and shaking them in self-appreciation. Oh, okay. She literally guessed.

“I can tell due to my prowess,” Seon-nyeo insists, “and, of course, your shaky limbs, sweaty disposition, overall frightened expression and fidgety fingers and–”

“Okay,” Thanos cuts off with an aggrieved sigh, flinching at another faraway screech. He really doesn't need to hear a list of his glaringly obvious withdrawal symptoms that could very well stack up enough to somehow render him dead.

“I don’t know what you did with them, nor do I particularly care. I do wonder, though…why?”

“Why didn't I take the pills?” Thanos reiterates. Something, somewhere, is breathing alongside him and copying the movements of his retracting lungs. Who? Where? “Because I haven't tried it yet.”

“Because you’re more than a pill, or a tablet, or a drug made small, tiny, and consumable.” Thanos watches the way Seon-nyeo’s head bobs in front of him, nodding in slow agreement. “Yes, of course. They are not a part of you — you’re aware of this, I’d assume?”

“I guess not,” Thanos says, though he isn't quite sure. How is he supposed to know? He usually swallows the things whole. It’s not like he stops to bite them in half and examine their insides. Maybe if he did, he’d be met with a gooey, bloody, fleshy mass. Parts of himself, compacted into a consumable form. Parts of himself to be consumed by himself, in turn making him himself, which he notably must not have been prior.

“You guess? Are you not aware of your own human form? Are you not confident in what you are, the body you control?” Seon-nyeo scoffs. “That’s rather embarrassing, to hold so little understanding of yourself. You are not a pill.”

“I know,” Thanos says defensively. “Obviously, I know that.”

“You’re human. You’re a person.”

“I said I know.”

“Right, well, moving on.” With another dismissive wave of her hand, the topic is changed, her pace fastening. “The issue that plagues you is that you refrain from seeing the full picture. Instead, you see separate pieces.”

“Same metaphorical bullshit as always,” Thanos sighs. He’s approximately five seconds away from giving up on the conversation in its entirety.

“What do you think is the cause, you foolish man?” Seon-nyeo turns back to leer at him. “Surely you must have some ideas?”

Of course he has ideas. It’s just that none of them make much sense, and if he were to explain them out loud, he’d make himself appear out of his mind. Maybe he really did toss himself off of that bridge, and this is all a fabricated hallucination brought on by his own death. A personal hell, constructed just for him. Maybe he never even made it to the bridge to begin with. Maybe he really did have milk in his fridge, only for him to find out it was expired after drinking it (or maybe poisoned?), and he’s currently convulsing on his kitchen floor, imagining all of this as he dies. Dying due to expired milk. Expired or poisoned. Can’t forget the poison route. Is that even possible? To die via milk?

He nearly laughs. What a ridiculous train of thought.

“I truly do feel sorry for you,” Seon–nyeo murmurs, though it seems to be more to herself than her two newly acquired followers. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so viscerally tormented.”

“Player 100 eliminated. Player 124 passed.”

Thanos wipes at the sweat that continues to permeate his head, breathing a shaky sigh of relief. Good. If he can just figure out a way to stop the loops now, they’ll both be safe.

There must be a way out.

“Of course there is,” Seon-nyeo says, and it’s only then that Thanos realizes he’s said the words out loud. “Do you want my honest opinion?”

No shit, he wants her honest opinion! That’s what he’s been asking for the entire fucking time! “Yes,” he stresses, desperately attempting to muffle his annoyance.

“I think that there are many different variables that have led to your entrapment. The focal point, however, is the guilt that consumes you. Perhaps it is guilt for those you’ve killed within these games, or your treatment of both others and yourself. Extreme and poorly maintained shame; you radiate with it.”

“So fucking what?” Thanos curses. “In past loops, you told me I’m going to get stuck in endless purgatory if I don’t figure things out in time. You say that eyes are watching me, then make weird comments about the eyes belonging to me, as if that makes any fucking sense at all–”

“That’s it. That’s your answer right there, don’t you see?” Seon-nyeo asks. “It is not a God that traps you here, nor an omnipresent being.”

Abruptly, Seon-nyeo whirls around, her eyes wide and unblinking. Se-mi, who’s been eerily silent up until this exact moment, makes a noise of frightened disorientation, glancing between them in bafflement.

Seon-nyeo jabs her finger against Thanos’ chest, her pointer finger pressing against his vest. She doesn't speak, as though saying the words aloud will cause the world around them to crumble. But as Thanos holds her steady gaze and feels the purposefulness of her pointed, outstretched finger, the words take root in his mind without being spoken at all.

It is not a God that traps you here, nor an omnipresent being.

It’s you.

– – –

When they reach the door that Thanos recognizes as the one that leads to the room with the exit, Seon-nyeo stops them before going inside. She prays in front of the door for seconds that drag on for far too long, muttering something about protection spells and asking for blessings from the Gods above to ensure that killers won’t await them when she opens the door. Thanos wonders if she actually holds any real belief in her prayers, or if she’s simply grown so accustomed to saying them that she feels it's the only thing she has left to rely on.

“Hurry,” Se-mi probes, which causes Seon-nyeo to shush her and restart completely.

Thanos rubs his temples with quickly rising aggravation, keeping a lookout for any possible seekers waiting to pop out and ambush them. He replays the new information he’s gained in his head like a mantra; if it's himself that traps him here…well, first of all, how does that even work?

Poor Se-mi looks like her head is about to burst. Apparently, listening to such existential ramblings so suddenly has thrown her into a state of downright miserable confusion. Ironically, Thanos feels rather similar.

When Seon-nyeo finally opens the door, ushering them all inside. Being face to face with the door like this reminds him of his freakish vision of bloodied handprints pressing against the blue painted door. If Seon-nyeo were to press her hands along the prints of the wall, Thanos is sure that at least one of the sets would be a perfect match.

Hardly any words are spoken. Seon-nyeo and Se-mi stumble forwards in tandem, and Thanos only joins them out of what feels like necessity. They twist their keys with a quickness, wasting no more time, and when the door creaks open, Seon-nyeo outright shrieks with joy.

It feels wrong, being here without Nam-gyu. Thanos doesn't like it all.

The room before them is shrouded in golden light, a safe room of sorts, adorned with a plush couch and plates of fresh food. It’s been so long since Thanos has gotten the chance to sit down, relax, and eat. The sight is tantalizing — naturally, Se-mi and Seon-nyeo stumble inside instantly, and Se-mi is so thrilled with the success that she doesn't even bother attempting to shove the shaman off of her as she clutches excitedly to her arm, jostling her with glee.

If Thanos were the version of himself from the first loop, there’s a good chance he’d waltz inside feeling like he just hit the jackpot. He’d let his concern for Nam-gyu fizzle in the back of his brain, and step forward into safety with an air of confidence and relief.

Even now, he realizes that in all technicality, stepping into safety wouldn’t be a bad thing for him to do. Nam-gyu has already passed, so there’s no need for him to worry too intensely.

None of the rationality changes the fact that being away from Nam-gyu like this feels strikingly, hauntingly wrong. Thanos feels that if he steps over the line and into the room, it’ll somehow be equivalent to sentencing Nam-gyu to death.

They have to be together. That’s how tethers work, right?

When Seon-nyeo turns to look at him, there’s consideration and understanding that laces the jolting movements of her eyes. Se-mi, on the other hand, looks at him in uncovered dismay. “What are you waiting for?” She seems to be asking him wordlessly. “What’s happened to you?”

A part of him wants to apologize to her for how he’s treated her this loop, not outwardly, but inside his own mind. Her skin no longer resembles that of fish scales or the soft fur of a sacrificial lamb. She’s a person, and despite how many people Thanos has thoughtlessly killed, he’d like to avoid it from now on if at all possible. He’s sick of resembling the gaping maw that digs into flesh, or the pair of hands that grasp cruelly at the wings of a bird that attempts to fly away. For once, he’d like to look into a mirror and see himself, instead of a compound of bones and meat meant to resemble him, but somehow not managing to.

Seon-nyeo steps forward, careful to keep herself from stepping back over the line into the maze. Now that she’s reached the exit, there’s no chance she’ll risk re-entering the maze entirely. She does, however, move to gather Thanos’ palms within her own, wiry fingers against warm knuckles. Narrowed, glittering eyes regard him like a saint preparing to bestow wisdom upon a worshipper.

“If you stay stuck contemplating every single thing you’ve ever done wrong, every misstep and misfortune, stagnancy is the only thing that will ever await you,” she says, her fingers resembling that of pale spiders that cling to him. Frightening, but not malicious. “This is all there is, you foolish man, so press onward. Unclench your jaw, and release yourself from your own entrapment.”

Thanos soaks in the words and thinks back on the suffrage he’s endured, of his time spent with Nam-gyu, with himself, with both life and death. His jaw unclenches.

“I wish you luck,” Seon-nyeo says lightly, releasing his hands, “because you will surely need it.”

– – –

Looking at things from a logistical standpoint, what Thanos is doing right now is ridiculous.

Nam-gyu has passed. He’s safe, and the likelihood of anything happening to him is incredibly low. All Thanos is doing by searching for him is putting himself in unnecessary danger. What will he do when he finds him? What purpose does this serve?

Ultimately, it’s rather selfish. Thanos wants to see Nam-gyu alive with his own two eyes, verifiable truth that the announcer overhead didn't lie about his success. Besides, Thanos has grown scarily accustomed to outrunning seekers. Despite his exhaustion, he’s sure he’ll manage just fine.

Time passes uneventfully, a blur of running through cramped corridors and stepping over bodies. At one point, he hears the announcement overhead announce Min-su’s death, and it causes his stomach to lurch with such severity that he has to pause to catch his breath.

Min-su, that spineless fucking coward. Can’t even manage to keep himself alive when he’s equipped with a knife. Fuck. The fact that he cares so much about it boggles his mind.

He ventures down a familiar corridor, and peeks inside a room to see a small group of women huddled together, one of which holding a baby. With his mouth agape in shock, he steps away from the slightly ajar door — wouldn't want to cause a panic to someone who just gave birth. Thanos doesn’t consider himself kind, but he’s not the type of asshole to want to bother a woman with her child.

…He really can’t believe it. Giving birth while trapped in a death game? Damn, that’s a whole new level of fucked up! Does that mean there’s been a baby somewhere in the maze during every single loop? Huh…it’s sort of crazy that this is his first time seeing a literal baby in the maze. Though, now that he thinks about it, he does remember hearing something that sounded like a baby crying back when he was about to kill Myung-gi. He’d chalked it up to his own imagination, because obviously there can't be an actual living, breathing, wriggling-around baby in the games. That’s just absurd. Laughably ridiculous.

Well…! Guess it wasn’t his imagination, then. That makes it even more wretched, doesn't it, that he killed Myung-gi right outside the door that holds his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend, Thanos assumes, because who would want to date a sleazy crypto scammer, anyways?) and his child? That would mean the first thing the baby heard of its father would be the muffled, gurgling spillage of his guts and inner fluid. God. That’s so fucking awful.

His mind feels staticky as he spirals into the thought of being a small, defenseless baby in a place like this. This moment of disturbed consideration paired with his increasingly painful headache and queasy stomach leaves him momentarily distracted, his mind fixated on things out of his control. By the time he hears the rapid pitter-patter of the approaching footsteps of a beast, his chance of running has escaped him.

Thanos knows who it is before he even manages to catch a glimpse of their face. Of course he does; he’s been in this area of the maze before, and he should know by now that Myung-gi, at this specific time of the game, surveys it like a hawk hunting for prey, slinking around with snake-like prowess.

One would think that at this moment, as Thanos’ back slams against the ground and Myung-gi looms over him, his dagger raised and ready to strike, that Thanos would inwardly chide himself for his own stupidity. Ignoring the exit and instead choosing to wander around like a fucking moron in hopes of the small chance of running into Nam-gyu, just to see him, just to make sure he’s breathing and upright.

Thanos certainly isn't omnipresent, but somehow, he knows that exiting into safety wouldn't have been the right choice. It may have been a momentary way to stay alive, but it wouldn't have served as an actual solution to the loop. The solution resides within himself…he needs just one more time spent in transferral to see if his suspicions are correct.

This certainly isn’t his desired way to go out, but it’s not like he has much of a choice. It’s a damn shame that he wasn't able to come across Nam-gyu as he originally hoped…it would've been nice to see him one more time before resetting, to see his beautifully marred neck and kiss him breathless again. One last streak of self-indulgence before once again being consumed by a self-imposed void.

“Did I look like this when I raised my knife in preparation to kill Nam-gyu?” Thanos wonders, examining the wild, bloodthirsty look in Myung-gi’s eyes. He certainly hopes not. Everything about Myung-gi is rather unsightly at the moment.

“Sorry,” Myung-gi chokes out, not sounding the least bit regretful. The second the half-assed, poor excuse of an apology leaves his mouth, his lips twitch into a barely susceptible smile. There’s a part of Myung-gi that’s thrilled with the position he’s found himself in; it’s clear by the way he moves, the way his eyes dart across his face and his fingers twitch, convulsing unnaturally along the hilt of his knife, that he thinks Thanos deserves this. “This is what you deserve for belittling me,” he must be thinking, “this is what you deserve for hating me.”

Thanos braces for impact, for the blow of a knife buried in his chest. He squirms, hoping pathetically that the pain won’t follow him into death as a clinging ache he won’t be able to shake.

Metal digs into a pale throat, slicing through a fragile windpipe in one harsh cut, steel protruding from a spluttering thyroid. Except, it isn't Thanos’ neck that’s been decimated. It’s Myung-gi’s.

A knife has been stuck through his neck from behind, leaving the tip of the dagger on full display for Thanos to see sticking out of the man's body. The amount of blood that pours, as it always does when it comes to neck wounds, is utterly revolting. Bodily fluid gushes out in globs of crimson, pouring over Thanos’ face with garbled splutters. In death, Myung-gi’s face contorts into something both fearful and disbelieving. It’s almost as if in the timespan of three short seconds, as Myung-gi grasps aimlessly at his mangled neck, he attempts to figure out the meaning of life and purpose of death, his eyes flitting around, rolling back, fluttering, and resetting. Pondering, contemplative. What a smarmy motherfucker, managing to appear analytical as he dies.

His eyes glass over before he can find whatever answer he’s looking for. Myung-gi topples over as the knife is removed with a wet, fleshy noise, falling onto Thanos in a heap. The weight of it makes him wheeze, and he writhes for a few brief, panicked moments, before finally shoving him off of him, wiping haphazardly at the blood that splatters his face, dripping off of him in goops as he props himself up.

Before him, a bloody knife clutched in his hand, is Nam-gyu.

At first, Thanos feels elation. It’s Nam-gyu! Perfect, this is just what he wanted! He’s alive, he’s safe, Thanos can see him and confirm this to be true.

Adoring elation melts into horror-stricken realization. His chest seizes, body stiffening. Thanos stares up at Nam-gyu, drinking in the sight of him shaking and blood-covered. For a long, drawn out moment, the only sound between them is that of their own gasping, tormented breaths as the nightmarish reality of the situation dawns on them in shared unison.

Seekers aren’t allowed to kill each other.

Aren’t allowed — such a steadfast rule. Yet, beside him, Myung-gi bleeds out from the wound in his neck, the wound delivered by Nam-gyu, a teammate, someone he’s supposed to have some form of twisted fellowship with. Nam-gyu has killed him.

Oh, Nam-gyu. How dearly Thanos loves him.

The amount of suffocating adoration that pierces through his devastation is enough to leave him wondering if he’s lost his mind. Back in the loop where Thanos killed Myung-gi, stabbing him repeatedly in a show of revenge-fueled rage, Nam-gyu had looked at him as if he’d fallen in love right then and there, his face flushed as red as the blood beneath them. Thanos hadn’t wanted to admit the possibility of it at the time (love is such a strong word, and while he so consistently claims not to be built for it, he’s beginning to realize that the claim is blatantly untrue; he’s been nurturing it throughout every loop, nourishing a rotted, wilting flower into a beautiful, flourishing bloom), but looking back on it, he sees the truth for what it is.

Even with the additional devastation of this situation, Thanos assumes he must appear similar. Enraptured, devoted, and in awe.

That being said…this is it. Right now, right this instant. This is when Thanos begins to berate himself for his stupidity and selfishness. He’d been so intent on seeing Nam-gyu again, only to get him killed in turn. What a fucking joke.

“Nam-gyu—” Thanos breathes out his name with unparalleled meaning, hundreds of apologies, confessions, and explanations compacted into one quietly uttered name.

“I know,” Nam-gyu chokes out, his voice wobbly and so terribly, terribly small. “…I know.”

The guards won’t come for him until the game ends. Wouldn’t want them clogging up the maze, Thanos assumes. Such a well-thought little scheme this all is, isn’t it? From the brightly colored stars (with eyes that watch him) to the doors (with heartbeats that match perfectly with his own) created with the cruel intent to creak loudly when opened.

Thanos knows this, and somehow, Nam-gyu seems to catch on to this fact just as quickly. There’s ten minutes left on the clock. What can be said in ten minutes?

Because of the blood he’s been doused in, Thanos feels uncomfortably warm and sticky. Even in his state of filth, Nam-gyu reaches for him without hesitance, and Thanos reaches back with matched vigor.

Their arms interlink, blood smearing between them, and they stumble a few feet away from Myung-gi’s body before finding a suitable place to sit, sliding down a wall and taking refuge in the hallway, sitting side by side in reciprocal understanding.

Thanos is well aware that he’s the one at fault for this, in a plethora of ways. He’s the one who chose to dump the pills, the one who decided to step away from the exit and return to the maze, the one who didn’t pay attention to his surroundings well enough and let Myung-gi catch him off guard. If it weren’t for all of these factors, Nam-gyu wouldn’t have had to kill a fellow seeker, and he’d be perfectly fine.

He tries, rather pathetically, to conjure up some sort of defense for himself. Dumping the pills won’t be the thing to make the loops stop — Seon-nyeo’s words echo restlessly in his head, and he’s beginning to understand things that he hadn’t given thought to prior. What he does and how he views things within the transferral that follows this loop will be the deciding factor of his fate, he’s absolutely sure of this.

Nam-gyu, obviously, isn’t aware of any of this. He thinks his death will stick. And while Thanos is almost entirely certain it won’t, when has luck ever truly been on his side?

“I shouldn’t have tossed the pills,” Thanos admits softly. How fitting, for the drugs to be the first topic of discussion to be brought up in the ten minute timespan of conversation they have left before Nam-gyu dies. “I shouldn’t have lied.”

“Lied about what?” Nam-gyu curls his legs inward, holding his limbs tightly to his chest. Shaky, sweaty, attempting to make himself appear smaller. “You have a tendency to lie pretty damn often, man.”

The words are far from nice, but it’s clear Nam-gyu doesn’t mean them cruelly. It’s a poor attempt at a joke. “I said everything would be fine.”

“You’re apologizing for trying to comfort me? Of all the things to apologize for…” Nam-gyu snickers into the palm of his hand. How can he manage to laugh at a time like this? “You’re so strange. What was all of that about, anyways? In the bathroom, and before?”

“Nam—“

“Kissing me in front of everyone, tossing the drugs, letting me tug you into a stall and…” Nam-gyu trails off in disbelief. “I mean, really, I can’t believe we did that. While everyone else was switching teams, you were scooping my cum off of a stall door and using it as a makeshift lubricant. Really think about it, hyung, about how insane that is.”

…Now doesn’t really seem like the best time to be discussing this, with a corpse only a few feet away from them. But they’ve only got roughly nine minutes left, so really, what other time is there?

“Do you regret it?” Thanos asks, though he fears the answer.

“I regret the fact that you didn’t switch,” Nam-gyu answers after a beat of consideration. “But if you’re asking if I regret the act itself…no. Of course not. I’d do it all over again if we had the time.”

Thanos sniffles, rubs harshly at his stinging nose. This is fucking awful. Reset or not, the fact that Nam-gyu won’t remember what they’ve done together makes him downright miserable. The sex was quick and rough and filthy, but it meant something. It was loving. It was a display of devotion and trust.

Trust…look where that’s got them.

“Why aren’t you killing me?”

The question earns him a blank stare. “…What?”

“After everything I’ve done,” Thanos’ voice cracks pitifully, “you should want to kill me. I totally fucked us over, Nam-gyu. I threw out our drugs. I went searching for you and ended up indirectly killing you. I’m not even explaining anything to you, and you’re just…going along with it. It’s my fault that you’re—“

“Don’t be stupid. I killed that fucker because I wanted you to live. Killing you wouldn’t even make any sense.” Nam-gyu picks at the blood under his nail, leaning his shoulder against Thanos’. “Not to sound all…I don’t know, cheesy? But there’s not really a point in me living if you’re dead.”

“How can— how can you even say that?” Thanos chokes out, scrubbing his face with his bloodied hands, uncaring of the blood transferral as he speaks into his palms. “Don’t you hate me? A part of me, at least? Just— fuck, Nam-gyu, you should’ve let me die and just focused on the hate so it didn’t hurt. That way you could’ve lived. Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

He sniffles, his throat burning and his head pounding. He’s about five seconds away from sobbing like some sort of weeping widow. Nam-gyu ought to make fun of him for such an egregious display, such a lack of masculinity.

(What an awful aspect of the world, to label the act of crying as ‘not masculine’. Everyone cries. It’s the most human thing a person can do.)

“Su-bong,” Nam-gyu murmurs, his voice breathy and soft, a gentle cadence that seems unfitting for Thanos’ name. He can’t recall the last time someone referred to him with such care in their voice. “Hey, look at me.”

There’s shuffling, and then fingers curl around Thanos’ wrists, tugging slightly. With another pitiful sniffle, Thanos lets his hands fall to his lap. He hasn’t cried yet, but his eyes are wet and glazed, and there’s a lump in his throat that refuses to let up. He feels horrible in every way imaginable.

Nam-gyu sits kneeled in front of him, and while he’s fidgety and clammy from the lack of drugs, he somehow manages to look fairly calm, despite his approaching death.

“You know, back at the club, most of the people that came in didn’t even look at me,” Nam-gyu explains, his voice low, as if sharing a secret. “The big-shots that came in, the regulars; I only served one purpose to them, and it was to deliver them drugs and booze while I stroked their shitty egos. They never looked at me, because to them, I didn’t really exist.”

His breath falters, and Thanos sits, and looks, and listens. It’s often forgotten how important it is to simply look.

“To be honest? When you first started coming around the club, man, I thought you were a fucking asshole.” Nam-gyu smiles slightly. “Always ordering the most outrageous shit and getting my name wrong. It pissed me off. But you looked at me when you said things, right in the eyes, and that in itself was enough. It’s because of that that I started striking up conversation, giving you free stuff, and you seemed to like talking to me, which made me feel embarrassingly fulfilled. Pretty fucking pathetic. It’s no wonder I ended up initiating more.”

Thanos blinks rapidly under Nam-gyu’s probing gaze, desperately attempting to fight against the persistent stinging of his eyes.

“There are times where I think I hate you, others where I wish to be you. There’s so much to you that I don’t understand…I think what I really hate is that I’m unable to pick you apart fully, to truly understand every bit of you. Maybe if there was more time, I’d be able to. But there isn’t. I thought, for a while, that you were using me in here as a necessary alliance, that you didn’t actually care about me at all, despite everything we’ve done together. But when you kissed me, when you held me against yourself so persistently…I still don’t know what brought you to act so abruptly, but whatever it is, I’m thankful for it. It meant a lot to me, the things you did and said in those moments.”

Nam-gyu falters, digging his teeth into his bottom lip self-consciously. “And— and I’m sure it was just a heat of the moment thing when you said that you…well, you know, but I think…I think that if we actually gave it some effort, if we somehow got out of here, we could somehow manage to—“

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos interrupts, watching intently as Nam-gyu’s mouth clamps shut. “I love you.”

“…Oh,” Nam-gyu breathes out. “Oh.”

“I love you so fucking much, you asshole,” Thanos wipes furiously at his eyes. It’s a confession not only to Nam-gyu, but to himself. “Shit, this is so unfair. I wish…”

I wish you could remember, is what he wants to say. Instead, Nam-gyu’s fingers trail upwards to cup at each side of Thanos’ face, and he leans forward without any further hesitation.

It’s entirely unlike the kiss they first shared in the bathroom, bruising and angry. It’s gentle and slow, a closemouthed kiss of two lips pressed softly against each other in mutual understanding. Nam-gyu tastes of blood, bitter and metallic, and as his fingers splay across Thanos’ skin, he’s well aware of the spilled blood that smears underneath his fingertips.

“I love you too, you bastard,” Nam-gyu mumbles against his lips, unable to remove himself fully. “I love you…”

It’s spoken as a reverent prayer, and Nam-gyu follows his words up with a plethora of long-lasting kisses. Firm, yet tender. Thanos doesn’t want the moment to end, but he knows such a thing is impossible. A never-ending moment doesn't qualify as a moment at all.

“You’re so much more than pills and drinks, Nam-gyu,” Thanos admits as they pull back for air. “You’re you. You’re everything.”

His words cause Nam-gyu to inhale sharply and press further, one of his hands traveling upwards to rest in Thanos’ hair, paying no mind to the clumps of body tissue that cling to strands of vibrant purple as he licks softly at Thanos’ lips, a polite request for entry to which Thanos obliges instantly.

There’s an edge of desperation to their movements now, as the clock continues to tick downwards. Thanos tries to recall if there’s ever been a moment in his life before the strung together seconds he currently exists within where he’s felt this much fondness towards another, and comes up with nothing. He’s never craved touch so intensely before, and the thought of losing it leaves him uncannily frightened.

Stupid fucking Myung-gi and his bullshit crypto, ruining their lives once through money laundering schemes, and then ruining what they built from the rubble with one singular raise of his knife. Thanos knows there’s no point in getting sentimental — with or without the current outcome, he's sure the loop would reset no matter what. Regardless, there’s a certain type of grief in knowing Nam-gyu will lose the memories of such tenderness.

Thanos used to think he wasn't made for soft kisses and light touches. Now, it’s delivered upon him while he’s covered in the blood and guts of another. Nam-gyu has just killed a man via a knife to the back of his neck, and he kneels in front of him and kisses Thanos breathless as his last and final act, the bow at the end of a play, a look of bittersweet acceptance as the curtains slide to a close.

“I’m sorry,” Thanos shivers as Nam-gyu pulls back, licking at reddened lips. “I don’t want you to die, I can’t–”

Another kiss, firm and quick as a manner to silence him, because childish pleading will get them nowhere. There’s nothing to be done. Nam-gyu has killed, and now he has to die.

“It’s okay,” Nam-gyu mumbles, detaching their lips to rest their foreheads together, bloody, clammy, and sticky. “I don’t have anything waiting out there for me, man. No family, no people I really care about…” Nam-gyu trails off, eyebrows furrowing in what almost looks like recollection. “Have…have I told you this before?”

The words creep up his spine like a skittering centipede. Nam-gyu has said those exact words to him…just not in this loop.

“Time’s up!”

Thanos’ fingers tighten around Nam-gyu’s shoulders, as if clutching onto him will somehow save him from death. This can’t be happening, not yet, because there’s still so much for them to say and do before the slate is wiped clean again. He needs to ask Nam-gyu why and how he seemed to remember telling him something from a previous loop, more information to rely on. He needs to hold Nam-gyu close. He needs, hopelessly, to not see Nam-gyu’s brain matter splattered outside of his body.

“Wait–” Thanos attempts to turn his head, to stand to his feet, as if there’s something he can do to put a stop to what’s unfolding. There isn’t. Time is incapable of waiting.

“It’s fine,” Nam-gyu says sharply, redirecting Thanos’ gaze and holding him firmly in place. He smushes their foreheads once again, breathes in the smell of blood and sweat and grime, the lingering scent of torn open flesh and nerve tissue. “It’s fine.”

It isn’t. It’s not even remotely fine, but it’s the cards they’ve been dealt, and there’s nothing more to be done but end the game and accept defeat.

“Your eyes,” Nam-gyu says, and despite the fear that flickers in his corneas, he seems equally as enraptured, “have always meant so much to me.”

Thanos keeps his gaze locked forward as bright pink swims in the corner of his sight, because he knows that’s what Nam-gyu wants from him. He wants him to watch, to see him from beginning to end, from truth to fragmentation.

“When this ends,” Thanos speaks over the clicking aim of a loaded gun, “I hope you remember.”

A bang, a thud, and it’s over.

Notes:

I was gonna wait to see if anyone would notice in the comments before mentioning this, but since I talked abt it on my tumblr already — the chapter titles are all named after a soundtrack from Slay the Princess!! I take a lot of inspiration from this game in a general sense, and I’ve had so much fun matching soundtracks from the game to each chapter >_o absolutely life-changing game fr

Also, this is the second time I've written a thangyu fic where one of them starts tripping so hard that they start to believe the building around them is alive lmfaoo. There’s something so intriguing to me about applying the act of a heartbeat, a pair of lungs breathing, eyes blinking, etc. to an object that isn't actually alive. Very freakish and unnerving. Which is, if you haven't guessed, my favorite type of thing to write ^_^; before I got my current job, I was actually aiming to be a psychological horror book author :p

Chapter 10: the moment of clarity

Notes:

an interlude within time.

It’s a blessing in itself that Thanos falls back into darkened nothingness so quickly.

There’s the briefest second where Thanos feels blood against his face, hears the thump of Nam-gyu’s body hitting the ground, and in a blink, it’s over. Out of all the gore Thanos has witnessed, seeing Nam-gyu’s eyes turn lifeless always sticks with him for the longest, leaving him disoriented and disturbed, a bruise on his heart that’ll never heal.

Thanos knows there’s a reason behind why the eyes that surround him blink in time with his own. There’s purpose behind the way his heart beats in tandem with the pulsing thumps that reside within the walls of the maze, and there’s intention in the subtle shift of the corridors, an inhale and exhale that goes unnoticed by everyone except him. He gets it now. At least, he thinks he does.

Thanos used to think that he’d die young. Curled up in a ditch with unfathomable amounts of drugs lacing his system, or maybe beaten to death in a brawl started by his own loudmouthed insults in a shady bar. Something gruesome, unsightly, but forgotten quickly in the eyes of the public who have their own bills to pay and lives to lead and strings of plastic formalities to speak, “no, no, of course I care. It’s just, well, it’s a little bit difficult, isn't it? To pay attention to every single headline?”

The point here is that Thanos wasn't expecting to live this long. It didn't seem to be in his nature, and wishing or hoping for anything otherwise felt outrageous. And yet, he has lived (he survived with what he was given, to be more blunt), despite not really caring if he died or not. Cue suicide attempt, cue the salesman, cue being sent to the games, cue Nam-gyu, cue time loop, end scene.

A continuous string of repeated let downs. He should've pieced it together back when the loop restarted even when they both lived — the cruelty of such a thing is unthinkable. Whatever traps him here must have a certain, extreme amount of hatred for him to torture him so relentlessly.

Who else is capable of hating him so intensely except himself?

Thanos has always viewed personal punishments as a form of repentance. As if, somehow, the act of worsening his own life is a fair trade off for the lives he’s negatively impacted in turn.

He tanks his career and disappoints his mother, so he ups his drug dosages by double because he knows it’ll leave him in a pained, anxious state of mind. The crashdown of the high will hurt, just as it ought to.

He lets Nam-gyu get him off at the club, accepts his free drinks and drugs and makes pleasant small talk to him about stupid, mundane bullshit like sleep schedules and favorite drinks (“I heard there’s a tea that helps you sleep better…hey, don’t laugh, I’m serious!”). It’s nice, relaxing. Nam-gyu is entertaining to talk to, and he looks at him like he’s an actual person instead of a client to squeeze money out of and then leave to rot. His hands feel nice, so impossibly warm against his skin; but that’s not right, is it? Thanos isn’t supposed to like men like this, and he’s sure he’ll fuck up the nice thing they have going on regardless, so he shouldn’t get attached. His mother wouldn’t approve, he assumes. His father, he’s sure, is rolling in his grave. So, when he sees Nam-gyu again, he feigns ignorance, and watches the way Nam-gyu’s eye twitches as he regards him with an air of unfamiliarity. “What’s your name again? Oh, right, right…man, I barely remember you!”

Seeing the flicker of aggravation and dismay in Nam-gyu’s face is akin to witnessing the first crack appear in a fragile vase. It hurts, just as it ought to.

He attempts to kill Nam-gyu out of a feeble hope of ending the loop, an act of selfish self-preservation made due to fear. The decision is so wretched that Thanos feels he has no choice but to choose the most difficult course for himself, a metaphorical twist of the knife that’s already buried in his stomach. He makes the abandonment severe and unforgiving as a personal punishment for himself. It hurts, just as it ought to.

“Have you stopped and considered, for even a moment, that the eyes belong to you?”

Iterations of him, more like. Judgement being cast on him from past versions of himself — which in itself is just as frightening as the illusion of a God leering down at him. Not to say that Thanos is anywhere near a God, but instead insinuating that his own mind, body, soul, or perhaps a mix of the three, have somehow intersected and flourished into something tangible out of pure self-hatred alone. And with this self-hatred born from spilled blood and broken promises, comes forth the aspect of a time loop, yet another self-imposed punishment. A part of himself wagging a taunting finger in his face, “I’ll only let you out if you figure out what caused this!”

The eyes within the crudely painted stars must, in some way, belong to a part of him. A part of himself has slithered out of his body and manifested into reality as a separate entity; separate, but still himself. Which would accurately explain the heartbeat within the door (himself) and the subtle breathing of the walls (himself), because while he is not literally one with the building that entraps him in each loop, his general psyche and frame of mind affects it. His mind grows hazy; the mold begins to grow. His heart splits in two via emotional heartbreak; a faint crack is spotted along the infrastructure of a nearby wall. He begins to succumb to stress; the walls press in closer around him.

“As long as you remain unable to articulate what landed you here, you will continue to wait in stagnancy.”

Thanos has never been all that good at articulating. He couldn’t even manage to articulate his own lyrics correctly on stage, faced with the smiling, glittering faces of excited fans. What a monumental let down.

But, he can try. And from his understanding, what’s landed him here is due to his own personal grievances.

“Are you certain it is I that cursed you? Or are you relying on the safest assumption?”

When faced with guilt, the brain becomes a very powerful force of nature. That’s what the shaman had said, weaving her spiderweb of truths within his brain, surely aware of how long it’d take him to reach an understanding. She scuttles around in his mind like a spider, skittering about, causing discomfort and unease. Her purpose, however, doesn’t appear to be as sinister as Thanos once thought. He has no idea how she’s able to tell that he’s stuck in a loop, but a majority of her supposed otherworldly powers seem to be just as overly exaggerated as her religious devotion.

She didn’t curse him directly, but it’s the words she spoke as she died that was one of the final blocks set atop a tower beginning to shake, seconds from collapse.

“If the words I spoke to you caused your guilt to formulate, transforming into the cage that now holds you, that is nobody's fault but your own.”

He doubts it is only Seon-nyeo’s death and dying words that have caused this, but instead a mixture of every verbally displayed sense of despair, shame, and betrayal. Gyeong-su’s small, pitiful “please…?”, before Thanos pushed him to the ground, Nam-gyu’s clipped words and falsified laughs every time Thanos poked fun at him, the girl from the beginning, laughing brightly, naively, before being shot in the skull.

A prison of his own making, decorated crudely with his own eyes, lungs, and nervous system. Except, it isn't entirely him. It’s something other, something else, something not fully tangible, but still born from his own frenzied state of mind.

It’s him, but it also isn’t. As if that’s supposed to make any sense at all. It’s rather cruel, Thanos thinks, to make him think so intensely about such nonsensical ideas of existentialism, when he doesn’t particularly like thinking very hard about anything at all. Topics like these are always such a damn hassle…

What’s the protocol for this, Thanos wonders? Has he hit the jackpot here, finally understanding that he’s the one to blame for his own suffering? Is he finally free, now that he’s come to realize that his own self-hatred and guilt have taken root in his cognition, within the world itself, flourishing into a supposed time-warping entity?

Perhaps that’s why the effects of the drugs seemed to fluctuate, not easing his paranoia when he took just one, but spiking him into a frenzied high when he took multiple and delivering harsh withdrawals when he took none. His mind kept choosing to fixate on Nam-gyu instead of the pills, and because of that, given the way his thought patterns unknowingly affected the reality around him in these hastily created pockets of time, placed away from reality while still being a version of reality in its own right, the pills lost their flair when he really needed them. More accurately, when he managed to convince himself that he needed them.

Another form of punishment, he’s sure, from the thing that traps him here. Himself.

This raises the pressing question of how this all came to be in the first place. As in, how is any of this even remotely possible? How is it that at this moment, as he’s suspended in darkness, a dam breaks, and information flows over him in crashing waves, sudden clarity of how his cage was created?

What good is understanding the means of the time loop's creation if there’s still no key to be found?

“The torment consumes you both, and it’ll continue to do so until you look inside yourself and stare into the eye of the thing that resides within you.”

It’s pretty twisted that Nam-gyu has to suffer because of Thanos’ personal grievances, but he supposes there’s no way around it if they really are tethered. No amount of fiery insults or acts of violence can break what holds them so closely…why is that? Maybe a part of Nam-gyu is embedded in this just the same as Thanos, swept into it all due to the binding necessity of their partnership.

It’s a dizzying, suffocating amount of information to encase him all so suddenly, and despite the sudden clarity, there’s still doubt in the sensibility of these answers — not to mention the things left unanswered entirely.

The most important thing to be aware of is that his entrapment is a manifestation of his own guilt and self-hatred. Thanos is made abruptly aware of this fact while suspended in nothingness, but still can’t manage to figure out what that means for him in the long run. It’s not like he can magically snap his fingers and change his entire mindset and wash away all guilt.

Not feeling guilty isn’t even fucking feasible, after everything he’s done. Even if he puts on a front of not caring, of being unaffected by the cruelty and selfishness he’s portrayed both during the games and during his entire life, it all amounts to nothing. It’s impossible to hide the truth from himself.

All this talk of keys and release…there’s no point in praying for an answer to be set upon him when it’s himself that’s at fault for his entrapment. He has to prove to himself that he wants out. That he truly, unequivocally wants to live.

Thanos thinks, and has thought for a long while now, that the world itself is cruel. He spent a majority of his childhood peeking through keyholes before entering rooms to make sure his drunken father wasn’t stumbling about, wanting to avoid his nonsensical ramblings and irritated gaze. As a teen, he drank and smoked and skipped classes despite the fact that he didn’t really mind the coursework. He simply had an image to maintain, and so he sat and listened to teachers drone on, looking at him sadly as they explained to him how much further he could go if he put his mind to it.

Adulthood only served as a means to further his addiction, waltzing in and out of clubs without having to produce fake ID’s. He drowned himself in one night stands, pressing bodies onto himself with the illusionary thought of the act only serving as something to make himself and his chosen partner of the night feel good, and that’s it. Inwardly, he yearned for connection that he could never obtain; their skin was always so cold against his own, and sounds of pleasure always turned to quick goodbyes.

Nam-gyu’s presence is warm, and it has been since he’s met him. Thanos watched as Nam-gyu demeaned his co-workers at the club, and then walk over to him with the most fake, plastic smile Thanos had ever seen, going on his memorized spiel of: “Hello, my name is Nam-gyu, I’ll be making sure you enjoy your night tonight. What do you need from me? Any specialized drinks or food or…?”

And Thanos had looked. He’d looked, he’d smiled, and he’d said some stupid joke about how Nam-gyu smelled floraly. “Get with any ladies tonight? I bet you have, huh? Look at you, your hair is all ruffled! Congrats, man!”, holding his hand up for a high-five. Really, truly, a ridiculous interaction.

The falsity of Nam-gyu’s smile had melted into something real, wholeheartedly amused. Thanos didn’t know it then, considering the fact that he was drunk enough to raise legitimate health concerns, but he thinks that must’ve been his first time being faced with real life divinity.

Even still, Thaos could tell Nam-gyu envied him. And Thanos…well, what can he say? It gave him an ego boost, seeing jealousy seep from the pores of another, though Nam-gyu did a stupendous job of covering it up. As Thanos’ frequency within the club heightened, he began to realize just how severely Nam-gyu seemed to hate his job. He was snappish with his co-workers — not just catty, snide comments, but legitimate cruelty hurtled at each other at every turn. While Thanos originally thought watching the club's staff bicker in corners of rooms was funny, it became less so when he saw the light fade from Nam-gyu eyes each time he had to deal with a shitty client or sinister co-worker, his eyes shuddering and resetting, blank and lifeless, as if purposely dehumanizing himself just to get through a shift.

It was a depressing sight to witness. Thanos tried to convince himself that he didn't care, because a few conversations and a few handjobs didn’t make them friends, and it’s not his place to jump in like some sort of knight in shining armor every time a sleazy client calls Nam-gyu a “stupid whore” for forgetting extra ice in their drink.

(But if he accidentally trips the sleazy fucker on his way out, causing him to fall face flat on the ground like a moron, that’s neither here nor there.)

Conversations, handjobs, free drinks and drugs…but not necessarily friends. Friendly acquaintances, maybe. It’s not like Thanos ever asked him for his number — no, no, of course not! Asking for a number could lead to asking for a date which could lead to asking for a kiss which could lead to something romantic, loving, passionate, meaningful. Something like, for example, Thanos fucking into Nam-gyu’s squeezed together thighs, pushing him against a stall door, and murmuring I love you into the crook of his neck.

Ah, well, would you look at that! They already reached that point, even without trading numbers. Stellar.

Thanos had thrown away a massive chunk of their budding friendship, relationship, whatever when he pretended to hardly remember him, but there is beauty in ruin, and Nam-gyu had somehow decided against abandoning Thanos right then and there. Nam-gyu spent their time stuck in the games rebuilding it, and somewhere along the way Thanos realized he never really wanted to destroy it to begin with, and began helping along with the restructure.

Maybe it’s his own brain that he’s trapped in. The metaphorical bindings of his cage could very well be built via his own brain tissue, squirmy and slimy and covered in cerebrospinal fluid.

…Fucking ew. Ugh! What’s with the gross ass metaphoricals? If Thanos had any awareness of his corporeal form, he’d be shivering with disgust right now.

Alright, back to the issue at hand. Let’s say, hypothetically, Thanos’ mind has somehow turned against him due to self-loathing and shame, trapping him in a tortuous time loop. The question remains on how he’s supposed to get out; how can he convince his own brain to let him free?

“Do you really want to live?” a voice echoes throughout the space he resides, formless and shapeless but undeniably real, familiar, himself.

Does he? Dying would be the supposed ‘easy way out’ (though, is anything about death really easy?), and would serve as an escape from his ever-growing pile of issues. Debt, a failed career, a disappointed mother, a shitty apartment in an even shitter complex, a dynamic with Nam-gyu that he actually enjoys, and therefore terrified of accidentally destroying. Getting out of the games alive and with a hefty pile of cash won’t magically solve his issues, and similarly to Nam-gyu, the likelihood of blowing all his earnings on drugs is unfortunately very high. Thanos has never been good when it comes to impulse control, after all.

If he wanted, Thanos could crush his own self under his own shoe like a bug to be discarded. But he doesn't — he pauses, his foot carefully positioned, hovering, waiting, trembling with a want to crash downward, but stopped by an even stronger desire. The desire to live, feel, and exist.

It’s strange, wanting to live when he’d just recently stood at the ledge of a bridge, preparing himself to jump. He’d stood, wind ruffling his hair, and wondered how much the impact of his body splatting against cement would hurt. He considered if he should take another way out. Something more dramatic, maybe, to keep himself ingrained in the public's eye for just a bit longer.

What awaits him in death is unknown. Thanos doesn't know if it’ll be pleasant or painful or nothing, doesn't even know which option he deserves. But he knows that life, despite its tribulations, is spectacularly short. Thanos is a man wallowing in debt, a failed career, familial issues, and a want to change, despite not quite understanding how to do so. He has no idea what he’ll do if he gets out of here…but if he gets out with Nam-gyu, and if they try, maybe Thanos can finally learn how to stop running away.

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Thanos wants to live and experience both.

What is it the shaman had said? “Unclench your jaw, and release yourself from entrapment.” He remembers Nam-gyu had mentioned something about that back during one of their first interactions at the club, tapping his fingers lightly on the edge of Thanos’ jaw, teasing and coy. “So tense! Loosen up, man, it’s a club!”

(Thanos had been tense because of how stupidly fucking pretty Nam-gyu was, and sexuality crises tend to leave people a bit on edge. Instead of saying that, he’d used it as an excuse to ask for more free alcohol. “How else am I supposed to loosen up, huh?”

…Nam-gyu’s ringed fingers squeezing around his cock turned out to be a great alternative.)

Thanos hasn't cried in years, but as Nam-gyu kissed him sweetly and whispered words of affection to him, Thanos had sniffled and his throat had burned, overcome with emotion. How can “I hate you,” blossom into “I love you”?

There’s something oddly beautiful about it all. The hypocrisy, the fear of speaking their own thoughts, the adoration and devotion. Thanos has never experienced anything quite like it. In times where he expected comfort, Nam-gyu reached for the cross. In times where he expected abhorrence and disgust, Nam-gyu kissed him and fell into his touch with unwavering want.

When Nam-gyu expected partnership, he received betrayal. When he expected abandonment, he received steadfast trust and dedication.

So similar, yet so different. That’s the real beauty of it all, isn't it?

Thanos isn't sure if he can love like he’s supposed to, and doesn't know if Nam-gyu can either. But they can try, just as everyone else always does, and that’s enough for him.

He unclenches his jaw. There’s no words to be spoken with the thing that has trapped him, because it already knows his thoughts and feelings and the conclusion he’s come to. It knows that Thanos meant the words he spoke to Nam-gyu. It meant something when he guided Nam-gyu’s hands to kill him. It meant something when he resented Nam-gyu for taking the pills off of his neck, and it meant something when he loved him for pressing his palms to his face. Each word and action holds unparalleled meaning.

There’s an understanding within himself as reality returns to him, a recognition of finality. This is it, his final chance at forging his own path. There will be no versions of himself watching and judging him from spaces he can’t pinpoint, no more hearts pounding within walls or breaths echoing around him. This is the end of the loops, and the start of something new.

There will always be a portion of guilt, shame, and hatred that resides within him, like a petulant child clinging harshly to his hand, tugging and pleading for attention. Selfishness will always be a part of himself, curled inside his ribcage, resting snugly inside his being. These things exist, and they likely always will, in some form. But Thanos will exist alongside them, and it’s up to himself to manage them as best as he can, and to continue living despite it.

This is all there is, and all there ever will be.

Thanos returns to the beginning, one last time.

Notes:

I know this is rather short, but I’m sure the next two chapters will wind up being pretty long, because I’ve still got lots to cover :p I’m really looking forward to it! ❤️

I’ll try to work overtime to get the next chapters out as quickly as possible. I gotta lock in!!!

Chapter 11: together again

Notes:

Chugged a coffee and stayed up until 2am to write the entire last half of this tbh 🤫

The ball in his hands is the same bright shade of blue it always is, shimmering under fluorescent lighting. Thanos turns the object around in his hands, colorful nails contrasting against sky blue, and accepts irrevocable finality.

He doesn't turn to look at Nam-gyu — not yet. The lack of recognition or understanding of what they’ve done in prior loops is sure to haunt him, despite the euphoric relief of having Nam-gyu be alive. Spectres of Nam-gyu, versions of himself forgotten and discarded, will always reside in the recesses of Thanos’ mind. The knowledge of this is harrowing, but what’s done is done, and what Thanos needs to focus on at the moment is making this count. His last chance, his final bow at the end of a stage performance.

There is no mold blossoming along the corners of the ceilings, or faint cracks winding across walls. The distant lull of labored breathing is unable to be pinpointed, and if Thanos were to press his ear to the nearest wall, he’s sure there’d be no heartbeat to speak of.

The absence of nightmarish intricacies doesn't change the gruesome reality of the situation itself. Thanos will need to tread more carefully than he ever has before. There is absolutely no room for mistakes.

As he walks to his usual space in the crowd, he takes note of the fact that the harsh side effects of withdrawals have been lifted, a steadfast return to suspected normalcy, the true beginning. A blank canvas preparing for paint to glide across it, for actions and words to shape it into something new.

Everything continues just as it always does. When Thanos is given his familiar square shaped key, he handles it with unparalleled care. Square, circle, triangle; this is what matters. This is what will ensure their escape.

For once, he actually has a plan. And a pretty well thought out one, in his humble opinion. It all hinges on getting Seon-nyeo and Nam-gyu to switch.

Thanos and Se-mi both being on team blue offers them two keys; square and circle. Seon-nyeo holds the final key to unlocking the exit door—triangle. If Thanos can convince her to switch with Nam-gyu, something he’s done before and should have no issue pulling off again, then that’ll leave Nam-gyu, Se-mi, and himself as a trio of key bearers, each one with a differing key to set themselves free of their entrapment.

This does, however, leave Min-su out of the equation entirely. He’ll have to stay as a seeker, but that never really ends up good for him, as far as Thanos is aware…Min-su constantly trembles like a live wire, and it always causes his knife to get turned on him. He’s too easily frightened for the task of killing someone.

But, maybe if Seon-nyeo helps him out…Thanos wonders if he could somehow convince them to work together. Seon-nyeo never seemed to have any trouble passing, after all. Maybe her steadfast, overbearing demeanor can do Min-su some good, if she somehow agrees to take him under her wing.

Alright, alright, good! It’s a good plan! Soon enough, Thanos will be voting X to get the fuck out of this place (he’s not risking any more games after this timeloop bullshit, that’s for damn sure) with Nam-gyu on his arm, looking up at the familar mass of utility poles that surround his neighborhood, relieved to see the sky again. He’ll bring Nam-gyu to his apartment, curl up in bed with him, and they’ll finally sleep. A real, blissful sleep, without the worry of cameras and guards watching over them.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Thanos inwardly chides himself as he glances down at his fingers, moving them slowly, feeling the life that thrums within him. Don’t mess this up.

He knows Se-mi is loitering a few feet away, glancing at him curiously (“what’s with that look of determination?”, she must be thinking), and as the guards announce that they’ve been given time to switch, he turns to see the familiar sight of Nam-gyu dragging Min-su towards him, fingers digging into Min-su’s blood red vest.

“Don’t worry, hyung. Min-su will–”

Thanos waits for Nam-gyu to speak the rest of his designated line…but he doesn't. The strangest thing occurs; their eyes connect, and Nam-gyu stops speaking entirely. He freezes, eyes dancing across the expanse of Thanos’ face, drinking in the sight of him with an expression that displays confusion, shock, the faintest glimmer of recollection. It’s like trying to watch someone fight through their own hazy, jumbled memories.

And then he sniffles, shakes his head as if trying to dispel his own thoughts, straightens himself back into order, and continues on as if the momentary blip never occurred. “Min-su will switch with you. Right, Min-su?”

Wrong. Everything about what just occurred was wrong.

“What was that?” Thanos asks bluntly, face blank and tone barren. “Why’d you do that?”

Nam-gyu tilts his head, mouth opening and closing in repetition before allowing his words to tumble awkwardly from his throat. “Do what?”

“That,” Thanos says, which really isn’t all that helpful. “The— the stumbling over your words, and shit. You’re not supposed to do that.”

Nam-gyu’s look of discomfort strengthens, lips twitching into a frown. “Not supposed to? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Thanos recalls the way Seon-nyeo had examined his marred neck in the last loop, eyes narrowed in consideration. “Considering how he’s marked you, I wouldn't even be surprised if next time around, his brain manages to latch on to…”

…No fucking way. Surely not, right?

Despite the momentary abnormality, Nam-gyu looks at him like he truly doesn’t know a thing. It must’ve been another wave of déjà vu instead of an actual moment of remembrance.

Thanos tries to quell his disappointment. It’s probably better this way…besides, if he’s having moments of déjà vu, then there’s still a chance he could remember what they’ve done at some point, right?

Whenever that point is, it’s not now. Nam-gyu picks at the skin around his nails like a doll removing its own parts, and while it’s odd to watch him act out of his own self-imposed script, Thanos doesn't have the time to dwell on it.

“…Nevermind,” he chokes out, sparing a glance behind him to gesture at Se-mi to come closer. “Come on, everyone huddle up! Group meeting!”

“Group meeting?” Nam-gyu scoffs. “Hyung, you do remember that these two morons betrayed you, don’t you? They—“

“I know,” Thanos cuts in. Knowing Nam-gyu’s insistence on being a duo instead of pairing with a full group, this’ll likely be difficult. “This is sort of hard to explain, but you’re all going to have to have to trust me, okay? I know how to get us all out of this.”

“Is that right? The legend Thanos has a master plan?” Se-mi snorts.

“Yeah, actually. I do.” Thanos puffs out his chest proudly. “There’s an exit in the arena that leads to safety, and it needs three keys to get inside. Circle, triangle, and square. I’ve got square, Se-mi has circle, and she,” Thanos points at where Seon-nyeo resides close by, talking animatedly to her small group of followers, “has triangle. So—“

“The shaman?” Nam-gyu frowns. “What does that religious freak have to do with anything?”

Min-su starts to shake his head slowly. “I don’t remember them saying anything about an exit…”

“How’d you know I have a circle key?” Se-mi turns her key over in her hands, glancing up at him with wide eyes. “…Seriously, how’d you—?”

“Look,” Thanos heaves a heavy, bone-weary sigh. Having to explain shit over and over is such a fucking pain. “You guys can laugh and point and not believe me all you fucking want, but I’ve done this shit before. I’ve been stuck in this time loop, time paradox…thing. But, this is the last one—the last loop, I mean. Don’t ask how I know, fuck, it’s such a pain in the ass to explain. I just- I know what I’m doing here, okay? I know how to get us all out, as long as you all listen.”

Three pairs of eyes stare at him in varying levels of disbelief. Se-mi is the one to break the silence with a strained chuckle, pointing expectantly at the cross around Thanos’ neck. “How many of those tablets did you take, huh? Are you hallucinating, or what?”

Min-su pulls a face that makes it abundantly clear he thinks Thanos is high out of his mind. Thanos waits for the telltale sound of Nam-gyu’s snickering laughter, the final nail in his lowering coffin.

But, for whatever reason, Nam-gyu doesn't laugh. He doesn't default to the assumption that Thanos is tripping on drugs or losing his mind completely. In fact, he doesn't even appear all that disbelieving to begin with. Confused, maybe. Baffled, definitely.

“I believe you,” Nam-gyu says, his eyes hardening into quick acceptance. Three words. Simple, plain, blunt, and unwaveringly trusting.

As nice as the sentiment is, it doesn't make much sense. The last time Thanos started spouting off about time loops, Nam-gyu had laughed, and it’d taken quite a bit of convincing to finally get it through his head. It was an all around standard, expected reaction.

Why is this time so different? Why does Nam-gyu trust him so readily?

The immediate faith leaves Thanos dumbfounded. “Uh…really?”

“Just a few minutes ago, I was looking around the room, and I could’ve sworn I’d seen it before. It was pretty freaky, actually,” Nam-gyu admits sheepishly. “And I feel like…I don’t know, I feel like there are memories that I can almost remember, but I can’t quite…” He makes a grasping motion with his hand, then shrugs in defeat. “Man, I don’t fucking know. Maybe I’m losing it, maybe we’re both losing it. But, you’ve already got me this far, so at this point I’d trust you with anything.”

It’s meant as a lighthearted joke, but there’s heaviness behind his words that leave them both stunned. There’s a flicker of something different in his eyes, something that doubles as recollection, but doesn’t quite fit inside the definition entirely. Nam-gyu flushes under the weight of his own words, ducking his head in embarrassment.

Thanos is a mesh of every version of himself from every loop stacked upon each other and formulated into himself. The Nam-gyu in front of him, running his fingers along the backs of his knuckles with weary bags under his eyes, is the same. Reaching for the truth of what he’s been through and memories that have been stolen from him, fingers grazing against factuality, but not managing to grab hold of it entirely.

Thanos is hit with the sudden urge to gather Nam-gyu into his arms and hug him, squeeze against his shaky body and plead with him to remember, to seek out the faint signals within his own mind and recall the things they’ve done together. The brutality laced with love, devotion mixed with necessary violence, and vulnerability in its rawest form.

But there’s no time for grand displays of affection, and Thanos still has the fragile wisps of an ego to protect — he’ll save such things for when the two of them have privacy. He needs to focus. Besides, if memories are to dawn on Nam-gyu gradually, a slowly approaching wave lapping at the edges of his brain, it’s surely better that way than remembering everything all at once. Having his brain be stuffed to the brim so abruptly would likely leave him staggering.

Min-su, whose mouth has dropped open so wide that Thanos has to resist the urge to reach his hand over and nudge his jaw back upwards, begins to shake his head again. “Uhm…an exit…? Are you sure…?”

“Absolutely, bro.” Thanos nods sagely, watching intently as Nam-gyu straightens his posture to glare at Min-su in a commandeering manner. Somehow, Thanos finds it remarkably endearing. “Nam-gyu, my boy. You have to switch with the shaman and be a hider with me and Se-mi here.”

“A hider?” Nam-gyu frowns. “Thanos, I don’t know if-“

“All three of us can get out through the exit if you switch with her,” Thanos says, taking hold of Nam-gyu’s wrists. His eyes flicker downwards, the contact of their skin bringing forth cognizance. “We’ll be safe. We’ll be together.”

For a long, drawn out moment, Nam-gyu keeps his eyes glued on the colorfully painted nails that clutch gently across his wrists. Then, he steels himself with a sharp, curt nod. “Okay. Like I said, I trust you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Se-mi scoffs to herself, rubbing her temples in disbelief. “What about Min-su, then?”

“Min-su can fuck off and find someone to kill on his own,” Nam-gyu snipes. “We clearly don’t need him. We haven’t needed him from the very start of this shitty-”

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos interrupts, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. “C’mon, man! Teamwork is key.”

He cringes the second the words leave his mouth, grimacing with embarrassment. What’s next, is he going to start rambling on about the power of friendship? Fucking hell. If he keeps having to say corny shit like that, he might be sick.

“Listen, Min-su,” Thanos redirects, “once we find the exit, we’ll be going through it instantly. We can't just sit around and wait for you to maybe find the exit along with us. You don’t know how to locate it like I do, bro, so you’ll have to get it together and kill someone. It’s not like anyone will switch with you, and I don’t even know if the exit counts for seekers. It’s too risky.”

Min-su, a sacrificial lamb being told to turn to violence no matter the cost. The knife in his hand trembles, and by the way Se-mi eyes the metal in his hands, it’s clear she’s just as uneasy as he is.

But even a lamb can turn, open its maw, and chomp down on the thing that chases it. Anything, at any point, can turn to violence if shoved harshly enough. It’s not ideal, but as of right now, there’s not many other options laid out for him.

Nam-gyu throws a jibe at Min-su for his pathetic display of cowardice, and Thanos moves to rest his hand on the small of Nam-gyu’s back, pressing his palm against him in hopes that the man takes it as an affectionate form of the wordless plea, “man, please shut up for a second.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine if you stick with Seon-nyeo,” Thanos attempts to reassure, trying not to grow impatient with the shaky man before him. The game hasn’t even started yet, and Min-su already appears to have given up. “Just don’t let her dumbass way of speaking rile you up, and don’t throw away any golden opportunities.”

‘Golden opportunities’ meaning ‘people to kill’. Damn, it really never gets any less morbid.

“Seon-nyeo?” Min-su parrots nervously. “The shaman?”

“Yes, dude. C’mon, keep up.”

“Keep up?” Se-mi repeats in dismay. “You’re spouting off about time loops and exit doors and-!”

“It’s a good plan, isn’t it?” Thanos says proudly. “Ha, you all better thank me real good when I get us all out of here alive-”

“Well, well, well,” a voice sounds from behind him, the familiar pitter-patter of fastened yet purposeful steps approaching him. “A lost soul has traveled to me and whispered in my ear the tribulations you face. It appears you seek my aid, just as you’ve sought me in past lives, forever in need of my excellence.”

As if somehow alerted of her name being spoken among strangers, Seon-nyeo appears right on cue, hands clasped together as a sinisterly gleeful grin graces her features.

“A lost soul has traveled to me and whispered in my ear the tribulations you face” must be code for “I happened to overhear your discussion”. …This lady is so fucking weird.

“Where’s your little cult followers?” Thanos drawls, glancing around in search of the woman's small group of devotees.

“I have called them off for the time being.” Seon-nyeo waves her hand dismissively. “Nevermind them. Your situation is a curious one, isn’t it? You’ve fought past many things to get here, wiping away layers of muck and grime to see the truth of yourself and the world that surrounds you.”

“Do you remember the loops?” Thanos asks, ignoring the fact that Min-su and Se-mi have broken off into a separate huddle, whispering about strangeness and hallucinatory drugs. Nam-gyu, on the other hand, clutches onto Thanos’ arm as he glares at Seon-nyeo with evident distrust. He resembles a dog gearing up to bite an approaching hand in the name of protecting another member of its pack.

“I remember nothing of my past selves. I only know that they exist. Reprises of my current self, non-important wisps in time, fragmented memories without a host to belong to.” Seon-nyeo begins to circle them, creeping around them like a predatory animal preparing to pounce. How someone so spindly and over-dramatic manages to move so menacingly never fails to leave him unnerved. “I can see a wish flourishing in the core of your heart. A wish for survival, despite previously wishing for death.”

“Hold up, lady. I thought all of that time loop shit was brought on because of my own mind. Because of all the guilt, or whatever.”

Seon-nyeo nods sagely. “Yes.”

“Then, how do you know anything? How do you even know about the time loop shit at all, if I’m not in one anymore?”

“I don’t have time to explain my prowess to you,” Seon-nyeo says, continuing her prowl. “Seek me after the game if you wish for more of my intellect, and I will take you under my wing as my chosen pupil.”

“What the fuck,” Nam-gyu cuts in bluntly, “is this bitch talking about?”

“Do not call me such a name, you heathen!” Seon-nyeo sneers, zoning her attention in on Nam-gyu. “...It is you who wishes to switch with me, if I heard correctly? Er– ahem, that’s what the lost soul whispered to me, I mean–”

“Oh my god, she’s a fucking nutcase,” Nam-gyu curls his lip into a snarl, an animal appearing to make itself appear bigger, more aggressive as a means of defense. His grip on Thanos’ arm tightens, fingers digging against the dark green cloth of his tracksuit. “Thanos, are you sure about–?”

“You speak of remembrance in shock and awe,” Seon-nyeo says, licking her lips, “when the man beside you shares the same memories as you. The only difference is that his are trapped in a vault, and yours float freely within your head.” Seon-nyeo begins to smooth the wrinkles of her bright blue vest, as if preening herself before handing it over is a form of good luck. “But, alas…no use in fretting over things before the game has either started or ended, yes?”

Thanos feels the start of a headache begin to creep upon him — seriously, this is way too much information for him to ingest at once…especially considering he doesn't understand half of it. “Wait–”

“Now, if I haven't made this clear yet, I will do you the honor of switching with me,” Seon-nyeo proclaims, smiling coyly at a progressively irritated Nam-gyu. “Out of the kindness of my ever-gracious heart. I’ve been listening to you go on about exit doors and keys, and if I wanted, I could very well gather my dedicated worshippers and find the exit door myself.”

A bolt of fear strikes Thanos at her words, sudden panic at the thought of Seon-nyeo throwing a wrench in his plan. But she continues on hastily, and her words hold no malice. “Then again, there’s no way of telling if I could find the door, now is there? I’m more suited for a knife…the Gods above will guide my hand, ensuring that the blood that is spilled is a worthy sacrifice.”

She clasps her hands together in sudden prayer, humming disjointedly. Nam-gyu glances over at him with a look of such complete and utter exasperation that Thanos nearly laughs.

“Are you sure about this?” Nam-gyu mumbles, eyes fluttering in discontent. “This chick is batshit insane.”

She most definitely, certainly is. But she also has a peculiar sense of omnipresence to her, and while Thanos knows that Seon-nyeo obviously isn't all-knowing, there’s something almost comforting about the uncanny, peculiar attitude she exudes. It’s like being alone on the side of a highway in the freezing cold and seeing a car approach; exhilaration at the thought of warmth, paired with nervousness at not being able to discern if the person inside the car holds good or bad intentions.

“I know what I’m doing,” Thanos murmurs, and for once, he actually does believe this to be true. “Trust me.”

“I do,” Nam-gyu says, his whispered voice lilted with such emotion that from an outsider's perspective, it could very likely sound like they just exchanged wedding vows.

“Ahem.” Seon-nyeo clears her throat, dangling her key in Nam-gyu’s face, snapping her fingers under his nose as if signalling to a dog. “Perhaps save the romanticism for a later time, yes?”

“Romanticism?” Nam-gyu splutters. “We aren’t…!”

Nam-gyu freezes mid-sentence, gears turning in his head. Then, abruptly, his face turns a startling shade of red. “Oh.”

“...‘Oh’?” Thanos repeats in confusion.

“Oh!” Seon-nyeo cackles. “A vaulted door has unlocked for you, I see! And so quickly, at that! It won’t be long until you remember everything, I assume. I’ve never seen a tether so strong before…”

“Wait, seriously?” Thanos admonishes, glancing at Nam-gyu curiously. Due to his sudden fluster, it’s not exactly difficult to guess which memory has resurfaced for him. “But, why–?”

“I said seek me out after the game, did I not?” Seon-nyeo says impatiently, jangling her key in front of Nam-gyu more persistently. “Do you accept my godly gift, you foolish mortal?”

“You’re a mortal too, you fucking freak,” Nam-gyu gripes, snatching the key in one swift swipe. There’s a moment of hesitation as Nam-gyu looks down at the knife in his hand, as if his body itself has turned against him, refusing to let go of the weapon. He screws his eyes shut, hand clenching around the handle of the dagger.

Seon-nyeo tuts, holding out an open palm. “Close your eyes and pray if you must, but in the end, the voice in your head will only ring in the tone of your own inner voice.”

“Shut up, you old hag,” Nam-gyu snaps. “I’m not praying. I’m thinking.”

Nam-gyu spares another quick glance towards Thanos, eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of embarrassment and remembrance, before flipping his knife and pressing the handle into Seon-nyeo’s open palm. They make quick work of swapping vests — their decision has been finalized.

Seon-nyeo examines her newly acquired weapon with a glittering, enraptured eye. “Good, good. …I can do this.”

“You actually switched?” Se-mi asks in surprise, tuning back into the conversation after her impromptu therapy session with Min-su on the sidelines. “...Wow. You’re really serious about this.”

Nam-gyu’s posture immediately transforms into something even more defensive than it was moments prior. He opens his mouth, the tip of an insult on his tongue, but falters as Seon-nyeo outright pushes her way past him, stepping toward Min-su with narrowed eyes and a pointed finger. “You.”

Min-su swallows nervously. “Me?”

“You are like a nervous little mouse, skittering around in fear of a cat!” Seon-nyeo scoffs, clicking her tongue in disappointment. “I’m expected to lead you to success, isn’t that right?”

Thanos nods. Nam-gyu rolls his eyes. Se-mi looks on in silent bafflement.

“Hmm…” Seon-nyeo grabs onto Min-su’s face, turning his head from side to side as she examines him. “I suppose you’ll work as a decent enough stand-in for a worshipper. Do as I say, and I will lead us to a quick and lethal success!”

“Um,” Min-su says, ever-so-eloquently. “...Okay.”

And with that, the final piece of Thanos’ plan is enacted.

– – –

There’s roughly five minutes until the game starts. Thanos doesn't think he’s ever felt so restless in his life.

Se-mi, Min-su, and Seon-nyeo fall into their own separate discussion a few feet away, with Se-mi adamantly instructing Min-su on how to properly hold a knife with a good, solid grip, and the shaman nodding along in agreement, chiming in every so often to say something about higher powers, Gods watching over him, and the odds being in his favor due to her blessings and heavenly insight. It’s kind of weird, seeing the three of them discuss things like an actual team.

Thanos and Nam-gyu sit off to the side, shoulders smushed and knees knocking together. They have plenty of space, but the closeness is deemed necessary by both of them.

“Are you gonna take one?” Nam-gyu asks, reaching over to tap his finger against Thanos’ cross. “You threw them down a sink last time, didn’t you?”

It’s odd, hearing Nam-gyu actually remember things. An actor acting perpetuately out of script. “…Yeah. How much else do you remember?”

“I remember…” Nam-gyu trails off, cheeks once again beginning to redden. “I remember what happened afterwards.”

“Yeah?” Thanos says, and when his voice cracks in an awfully embarrassing manner, his first thought is, ‘well, it’s not like he’ll remember it’.

Except…he will. This is all so strange. Being stuck in a loop for so long has caused him to feel unaccustomed to being grounded in the world itself.

Nam-gyu stifles a laugh, but the sound isn’t mocking. It’s soft, amused. “Yeah, man. That was…I mean, it really did happen, right? I’m not imagining it?”

“Definitely real.”

“Mm…” Nam-gyu hums idly, holding his fingers to his lips with an air of sentimentality. “I’ll be expecting a fully detailed explanation when this is all over, you know.”

“Of course,” Thanos says, slipping into momentary English. “And, I’ll be expecting you to tell me everything you remember.”

“There’s only a few blurry scenes I can fully remember…I can’t make sense of most of it.” Nam-gyu spares a glance at the timer ticking downwards. Yet again, their lack of time puts a damper on the situation.

“We can talk it over once we get out of this alive,” Thanos assures. “Then, we’ll have all the time in the world. Fucking finally.”

Neither of them mention the fact that the games could very well be continuing after this, despite the fact that the possibility looms prominently over them. Thanos is so damn exhausted he can barely stand to think about it.

“What will you do, when we get out?” Nam-gyu asks. “Besides your promises of paying me back and…what was it, you said? Something about rose petals and soft music?”

“Quit bringing that up!” Thanos shoves Nam-gyu playfully, delighting in the bout of snickers it brings forth. “So embarrassing, man…”

“You’re the one who said it!”

“Yeah, well…you deserve a better environment than a grimy bathroom, you know?” Thanos says, his voice falling into such a soft cadence that he has to clear his throat sharply afterwards, glancing around in fear of anyone overhearing him speak so gently. It’s uncharacteristic of him.

And yet, Nam-gyu looks at him so endearingly, even while examining Thanos’ stupidly immediate agitation of his own vulnerability. His heart swells so intensely he swears it might burst. It’ll take a while for Thanos to feel truly comfortable with himself, but he has a feeling that with Nam-gyu, it’ll at least be easier to try.

As time continues to run out, Thanos circles back to the question that he never answered.

“We should probably take one,” Thanos muses, grabbing his cross and clinking it open, counting the pills as he always does. “The withdrawals last time were a pain in the ass.”

Nam-gyu hums in agreement, leaning on his shoulder as his eyes flit over the remaining tablets. Thanos thinks back to Seon-nyeo’s words (something he’s been doing very often lately, he realizes, with a twinge of annoyance — damn, she’s actually pretty helpful, despite being so freakish…), “You are not a pill. You’re human. You’re a person.”

Thanos plucks one of the pills from the cross, examining it carefully. Now that he’s out of the loops, will it affect him more harshly?

His body has grown so dependent on the tiny tablets, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are undeniably separate. No matter how many times he swallows a pill down his throat, it will always be something foreign. Not a part of his body, not a part of himself. Something different, invasive.

He is not a pill, a tablet, a capsule, a line of coke on a table. He is not his drugs. He’s himself, he’s a person, and that’s all he’ll ever be.

The thought used to sicken him. Now, it offers him comfort.

“How about we split one?”

“Huh?” Nam-gyu frowns. “Why?”

“If we take none, the withdrawals will creep up on us pretty fast,” Thanos murmurs. “It’ll be annoying as hell to deal with. Taking half will be enough to fend off full withdrawals for a bit longer, without offering a full high. …Probably. Right?”

“Yeah, I assume so.” Nam-gyu shrugs. “But, man…are you sure? Are you trying to wean yourself off?

“I guess.” Thanos places the pill between his thumbs, breaking it in two. There’s no fleshy membrane or bloody pieces of his innards — just chalky, grainy substance. “For right now, at least.”

Nam-gyu takes one of the halves, squinting down at it. “Huh…you know, it’d be kinda funny if trippy time loop bullshit was the thing to cure our drug addiction.”

Thanos snorts ungracefully. Our, not his. It’s nice to have someone to rely on so steadily. Thanos isn’t used to it in the slightest.

He also knows, very well, that it’s nowhere near that easy. If they get out of this alive, and Thanos thinks it over and decides that—yes, actually, being a part of a time paradox has delivered me enough weird hallucinatory bullshit and out of body experiences to last me a lifetime. Yes, actually, I think I’d like to be myself now—it won’t be easy. It won’t be anywhere close to easy. It’ll be draining, difficult, and likely very, very painful, both emotionally and physically.

Thanos pops the pill in his mouth, cringing at the bitterness, a taste that he’s always found disgusting, yet desires so intensely. He watches as Nam-gyu follows suit, swallowing dutifully around a jagged tablet.

“You know,” Thanos says suddenly, turning his gaze down to the cross held within his palm. “I think…”

“Hm?” Nam-gyu hums. “What is it?”

“I think we’re so much more than this.”

Nam-gyu doesn’t say anything, but as the clock reaches zero, Thanos can tell by the vehement emotion in his eyes that he agrees.

— — —

When they emerge into the maze, the ceiling clad with stars, there’s no eyes that stare down at him in mockery and hate. Thanos would breathe a sigh of relief, if not for the agitation that swirls in his gut. He hates feeling so damn anxious, but it’s difficult not to, knowing the concrete finality of everything to come.

“I think I remember this,” Nam-gyu muses, staring up at the ceiling in awe. “Holy shit, I really have been here before…I stuck a knife clean through Myung-gi’s throat, and then…”

Nam-gyu trails off into quiet mumblings, seemingly beginning to remember things in more detail. Se-mi looks between them skeptically, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You guys are really serious about this time loop stuff…”

“No shit–” Nam-gyu starts, but Thanos cuts him off before he can get out whatever demeaning insult comes next. “You heard the shaman, didn't you? This shit is the real deal.”

Se-mi remains incredulous, but Thanos is simply thankful that she’s coming along with them to begin with. If she ran away from them, assuming they’ve gone insane and refusing to pair with them, the entire plan would crumble.

“Stay close,” Thanos instructs, taking hold of Nam-gyu’s hand. It feels silly taking things so seriously; in past games, Thanos had been so high he’d barely processed the danger at all. Now, the drugs in his system are at an all time low, a barely noticeable buzz. He’s on high alert, because no matter what, he absolutely cannot let Nam-gyu die.

“Are you two gonna hold hands the whole time?” Se-mi asks with a poorly contained smirk.

Nam-gyu wastes no time delivering a scathing remark, fingers tightening, nails digging slightly into the back of Thanos’ hand. “Shut the fuck up, bitch.”

“Relax,” Thanos cuts in, dragging them down a familiar, wide corridor. No mold, no breathing, no heartbeat. What a relief! “If we all end up dying because you two can’t quit arguing, I’ll haunt you forever in the afterlife. For real!”

The accusation is baseless, yet leaves them both silent all the same.

Time passes rapidly, somehow seeming to move down quicker than it ever has before. He knows it’s due to his nerves, but it doesn't change his unease. Each cracked open door and flash of red is cause for blinding panic. The sound of approaching footsteps is frightening enough to make Thanos feel legitimately sick. Each shaky, labored breath makes him feel more small and inadequate than the last.

Thanos is not a lucky man, as he’s stated many times prior. But when he finally comes face to face with the large, green door that he knows leads to the exit, he feels like the luckiest person alive, gore-filled time loops be damned.

“Fucking finally,” Thanos gripes, taking a step forward. Nam-gyu, whose sweaty hand is still clasped tightly within in his own, tightens and pulls backwards. It’s only when Thanos hears the pattering of approaching footsteps that he realizes why.

A knife is swung as a man barrels around a corner, sharpened metal arcing downwards directly in front of Thanos’ face. If it weren’t for Nam-gyu tugging him backwards, the dagger would’ve sliced directly into his skull, piercing through bone and brain tissue, slicing his flesh in two and likely, Thanos assumes, killing him instantly.

The man clad in red before them exudes unparalleled desperation, his wrinkled face clad with sweat, expression twisted into something non-human (or, perhaps too human). His actions are sloppy, and as the three of them scramble towards the large, green door, it’s clear the man doesn’t want to kill any of them.

It’s also clear, by the guttural noise of despair he makes as he swings his knife again, narrowly missing Se-mi as she ducks away from him, that he needs to kill in order to get out of this alive.

Miraculously, they manage to burst their way into the cloud painted room without sustaining any injury from the man. He swings his weapon around as if hardly knowing how to use it at all, which is as thrilling for them as it is detrimental for the seeker himself.

A very core, prominent issue remains — the door that they now all press against to keep closed doesn't have a lock. And the seeker, ever persistent, is thudding against it with the strength of a man who’s very, very afraid of dying.

The room is fairly small, and the exit door is right ahead of them, but they’ll need each key to open it up. If they all leave the door unattended and race for the exit, the seeker will burst in immediately. One of them is sure to have a knife buried within their backs in seconds; there’s no way for them to all unanimously stick their keys within the designated lock and get out in time.

(Thanos also notes, in this moment of heightened adrenaline and fear, that the exit door is no longer covered in the bright red handprints that marred it prior. Strange…though, not something he can really dwell on at the moment.)

The door bangs, a heavy weight slamming against it. In tandem, the three of them press back against it. The only thing separating them from death is one singular door. How long will it hold?

“Shit,” Se-mi curses, “the—the keys—!”

It takes Thanos a moment to register what Se-mi is attempting to get across. It’s only when she starts wrangling the key off from around her neck that he realizes what she’s insinuating.

They can’t all go unlock the door at once. But if one of them goes, and the other two bar the entry door, then maybe…

Another heavy slam pounds against the door. Thanos stumbles before pressing his shoulder back against the door, grabbing Se-mi’s key without delay.

He’s seen the door before. He knows what the locks look like. He even knows what order they're carefully aligned in. Thanos has, if he had to guess, precisely fifteen seconds before the door gives in entirely.

He lifts the third key from Nam-gyu’s neck in one swift movement. There’s the briefest exchange of glances, a flurry of curt, encouraging nods. Three people place unwavering trust in each other for a moment in time, even those who hold animosity for each other.

Nam-gyu and Se-mi press their weight against the door in tandem, keeping it as firmly closed as they can. Thanos, in turn, lurches forward toward the exit.

It’s a wonder he doesn’t keel over and vomit right then and there. As much as Thanos prides himself on his usual air of nonchalance and general superiority, this is admittedly a lot of fucking pressure. If he takes even a second too long turning a lock, or makes one singular misstep, it could all be over in seconds.

Thanos doesn’t want to die. The words thrum throughout his entire being, pulsating, real, and undeniably himself. “I want to live. I want Nam-gyu to live. I want Se-mi to live.”

Don’t fuck this up, he tells himself. Just this once, please do something right.

Triangle, circle, square. His hands, despite the sweat that clings to them, are shockingly steady. He turns one key, and then a second, and then a third. Click, click, click.

The door lurches open. Thanos hardly gets the chance to turn around and motion his teammates to hurry over before they propel themselves forward, lurching towards the open, waiting exit in unison.

The entry door, as expected, slams open instantly.

The seeker, it seems, wasn’t expecting such an abrupt entry. He stumbles, falling to the ground in surprise, and his error leaves them just enough time to barrel through the exit door, stepping through the doorway in unison, only for each of them to immediately twist around, a cluster of arms reaching, grasping, fumbling to slam the door back shut. Their hands overlap as they cling onto the door handle and pull backwards, slamming it shut and ensuring their safety as the man screams and weeps at his failure on the other side.

In the wake of escaping death so narrowly, silence befalls them. Thanos holds his breath and waits for the telltale fading of vision, for a loop to reset, to be taken back to the beginning, faced with neverending torture.

It never comes. This is it, complete finality. Thanos is alive, as is Nam-gyu, as is Se-mi, and time continues on, marching endlessly and without delay.

There’s comfort in momentary quietude. They cling to each other, shaky limbs reaching for something else alive to press against, bodies searching for another beating heart to feel, to understand, or feel connected to, if even for a fleeting moment. And if their eyes all happen to be glazed and watery and overtly, overwhelmingly emotional—well, that’s something they can all unanimously agree to keep amongst themselves.

For the first time in a long while, Thanos feels inexplicably grateful to be alive.

Notes:

In my mind seon-nyeo is a thangyu truther and enthusiast 🤷‍♂️

“the gods told me you guys are fucking like crazy 😹🫵” — seon-nyeo, probably

Chapter 12: the unknown together

Notes:

Last chapter! Bursts into tears and sobs and weeps and cries and

In all seriousness, I can’t believe it’s over already!! Time seriously flies…I poured sooooo many hours into this. And also drank sooo much coffee as I was writing. Way too much coffee. Outright concerning amounts of coffee, probably.

But I’ve enjoyed every second of it! Thank you all for your support <3

The safe room is garnished with a silk couch and plates of fresh fruits and pastries, but for a trio who so narrowly escaped death, left sweaty and trembling, hearts thumping wildly within their ribcages as they struggle to regulate their bodies and minds, none of them are in the right state to properly appreciate it.

They sit squished together on the couch under golden lighting, nibbling on pieces of sweet bread and plucking fresh berries from shiny plates. It makes him feel like an animal that just escaped capture from a beast, indulging itself in whatever nourishment it finds as it traverses an unknown forest, away from home, unable to find its way back.

Thanos waits for something to break. For the floor beneath his feet to collapse, the ceiling to come crashing down atop him, or his body to spontaneously combust into fragments unable to be pieced back together. But nothing occurs; at the moment, he’s as safe as he can be for a man caught up in a hellish kidnapping operation.

“I can’t believe you were right about this,” Se-mi breaks the silence from beside him, leaning tiredly against the armrest. Thanos resides in the middle of the couch, body slumping against cushions with his arm looped around Nam-gyu’s shoulders.

“About there actually being an exit door?” Nam-gyu rests his head on Thanos’ shoulder, eyelids drooping tiredly. “Of course he’s right. Dumbass.”

Se-mi scoffs in disbelief. “We save each other's lives and you’re still a jackass. Typical.”

Nam-gyu only sags further against Thanos’ side, grumbling incoherently in place of a decent response. He seems too tired to put forth any real effort into arguing.

The lights overhead shimmer in a plethora of golden hues, muffled celebratory music permeating the room. Every single aspect of the situation seems entirely surreal, from the supposedly welcoming environment, to Nam-gyu’s living, breathing body pressed beside him. Thanos watches, entranced, as Nam-gyu lifts his hand to wipe haphazardly at his dampened forehead, sticky with sweat and shivering from the aftershock of being so close to death.

Thanos much prefers to see Nam-gyu doused in sweat instead of blood.

“Player 044, pass.”

Even within the safety of the enclosed room, the announcements ring out loudly. Looks like Seon-nyeo has used her supposed ‘heavenly insight’ to plunge a knife through someone’s heart. Thanos breathes a sigh of relief — it’d be a pain in the ass if she died. He still has so many questions to ask her!

“Do you think Min-su will…?” Se-mi ventures softly, but shakes her head at her own words before allowing herself to continue. “Nevermind.”

Do you think he’ll live, is the question that goes unspoken. The morbid thought of attending Min-su’s funeral weasels its way into Thanos’ head; there’s really not much that he even knows about the guy. Will Min-su’s family attend? His friends? He seems like the type of person to have a few close knit friends instead of a lot of surface-level ones. As stupidly cheesy as it sounds, and as much as Thanos will likely never admit it out loud, he really would like to be considered a friend to Min-su. Cowering, scared, wide-eyed Min-su.

Thanos isn’t stupid; he knows that Min-su isn’t all that fond of him, especially after the stunt him and Nam-gyu pulled in the bathroom, cornering him in a stall and berating him until Myung-gi popped out of nowhere and told them to knock it off, likely imagining himself as some knight in shining armor. Idiot.

He’s spent a majority of his time in the games viewing Min-su as a pawn to manipulate, and back in the real world, he’s not the type of guy Thanos would normally want to be caught dead with. But, for whatever damn reason, getting stuck in a time loop has managed to make him come to terms with the fact that he really does hold appreciation for those he deems as teammates. Hell, at this point, that even counts towards Seon-nyeo and her dumbass, nonsensical remarks.

Thanos rests his cheek on the crown of Nam-gyu’s head, letting out a small hum of contentment. “He’ll be fine.”

“He’s like a useless little rabbit,” Nam-gyu snorts humorlessly. “But, I guess even rabbits can kill things if they get desperate enough.”

“…Is that supposed to be comforting?” Se-mi drawls. Nam-gyu doesn’t bother offering a response, tilting his head further into the crook of Thanos’ neck and letting his eyes flutter closed, his breathing beginning to slow.

…Nam-gyu’s falling asleep, curled up against Thanos’ side. As much as Thanos wants to talk to Nam-gyu about how much he remembers and discuss the oddity of how the exit door lacked the red handprints that covered it prior, he’s sure being thrown into such a confusing situation, randomly recalling memories from another timeline (alternate reality, separate pocket in time, whatever) and coming so close to dying in such a short amount of time must be jarring. Thanos feels like he’s awoken from death and returned back to the living, like he’s spent a certain period of time as a ghost. It’s just as exhausting as it is disorienting; does Nam-gyu feel similarly?

It’s nice to see him resting, after everything they’ve gone through. It’s long, long overdue.

On the other side of the couch, Se-mi sits with her hands clasped loosely in her lap, looking over them with muted curiosity. She rubs tiredly at her eyes, sniffling as she stares blandly at the food laid out on the table in front of them. A shame that the one time copious, substantial food is offered, is when none of them have much of an appetite.

“Player 125, pass.”

“Even a rabbit can kill,” Thanos repeats slowly, and the soft noise of relief from Se-mi is the last noise uttered between them in the golden-lit room, designed as a sanctuary, but still just as much of a cage as every other room in this building. A false illusion of safety.

They won’t be truly safe until they make it out of the games entirely, and this fact rests on his shoulders like a heavy weight.

– – –

Unsurprisingly, nobody else manages to reach the exit room.

When time runs out, the three of them are escorted by a pair of guards — they must be being taken back to the dormitories quicker than everyone else because of the amount of time it takes to wrangle everyone still stuck in the maze together.

Nam-gyu, bleary eyed from his abrupt nap, snags a small piece of bread before being led out of the room. He returns to his rightful place instantly, linking their arms together, pressed securely against his side as they walk, and Thanos holds him just as close in turn. They’ve both grown pathetically clingy — but then again, they’ve always been rather clingy. Always keeping their eyes on each other when taking pills, teetering into each other's personal space, wishing the pill was something different, more solid, tangible, heavy on their tongues. They’ve spent so much time pretending that they crawled onto each other's beds, leaning against each other, pawing at each other in acts of playful shoves after stupidly raunchy jokes for no reason at all, but the truth of the matter is it wasn't all for nothing. Nam-gyu’s presence is a rare form of comfort in a nightmarish situation, and Thanos wants nothing more than to hold onto things that are dear to him, terrified of the thought of letting it tumble from his hands and shatter, unfixable and permanently tarnished.

Nam-gyu keeps glancing at him as he nibbles on his piece of hastily grabbed bread, eyes darting across him in jittery, jolting movements. Thanos can tell without asking that more memories must’ve unraveled in his brain as he slept, a canvas unfurled to reveal a full picture.

Nam-gyu continues to look over at him as if wishing he could gather him into his palms and bury himself in the warmth of his body, seeking comfort in partnership, and Thanos is well aware of the feeling because he knows for a fact that he’s worn and showcased the very same expression, while thinking the very same thoughts.

When they reach the dormitory, the area is barren. For a brief moment, they have the space to themselves.

“Thank you,” Se-mi murmurs, much to Thanos’ surprise. “For getting us through the door.”

Before Thanos can muster a response, she continues on, eyes flickering towards Nam-gyu. “Looks like you two have a lot to talk about, right? I’ll leave you to it.”

She departs swiftly, waving goodbye with a curt nod as she makes her way to the separate side of the expansive room, the gentle thud of her footsteps fading away. Thanos turns to Nam-gyu, who stares at him worldlessly, and smiles.

If Thanos were to meet face to face with the version of himself from the first loop, the second, even the third, would he recognize himself at all? Would he understand himself, his emotions and feelings, or would the thing before him resemble him, but not really feel like him at all, instead serving as a thing torn away from his true self, molded into something that looks like him, but isn’t. A falsity, an illusion, a poorly acted out lie.

And what would the past him think of the present him? Absolute disgust, Thanos is sure. “How could you do this to us? How could you look at another with such care and concern, such blatant weakness?”

And what would the pills think? Not that they can — Thanos has already rationalized the fact that the pills are not sentient nor are they a part of himself, but if the tablets could think, would they hate him for choosing the warmth of another over the warmth of their components pulsing through his veins?

Thanos thinks that they would. He thinks that’s a good thing.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says, leading him gently towards the bed they usually meet at. “I remember it all.”

“All of it?” Thanos balks. “Are— are you sure? Every single one?”

“I think so. It all came together in my brain as I slept, like some sort of puzzle piecing itself together,” Nam-gyu muses, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. Thanos sits next to him, fidgeting with the rings on his fingers. “I remember that you made me stab you. I remember you killing Myung-gi, after the loop where he killed me. I remember telling you to kill me, and I remember you trying to do so.”

I remember, I remember, I remember. Thanos can’t believe it. He can’t even wrap his head around how Nam-gyu could possibly recall any of it at all.

…It would’ve been nice if the memory of Thanos attempting to kill Nam-gyu was conveniently left out, though. It’s pretty hard to come back from attempted murder.

Though, Nam-gyu doesn’t look all that upset. Instead, he looks at him with a sense of curiosity, eyes wide and unblinking. It sort of feels like he’s staring right into Thanos’ soul, drinking in every good and bad part of him all at once, savoring the taste as he does so.

“I shouldn't have tried to–”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Nam-gyu murmurs. “I didn't know it at the time, obviously, but looking back on it, I could tell you didn't want to kill me. You were just scared, and following my dumbass instructions. And…I didn’t want to kill you either.”

“Why not? Why didn't you kill me?”

“You…” Nam-gyu digs his teeth into his bottom lip as he mulls over the question. “I meant it when I said there’s no point in me living if you’re dead. Killing you would just be another way of killing myself.”

Thanos feels undeserving of such raw honesty. His heart rattles inside the fragile casing of his ribcage. “People come and go. You’d do just fine without me, man–”

“Cut that shit out,” Nam-gyu says suddenly, gaze hardening. “I’ve– we’ve both died and been pieced back together, over and over. When I slept, I saw all of it, like reliving a life, one thing after the other, again and again like watching scenes from a movie. And every time I died, or you died, it was fucking terrifying. I could feel my heart in my throat each time, my entire body seizing and trembling. I forgot it all, and then I remembered it all, and now I’m sitting here, and…Thanos, this is fucking insane. I don’t understand it at all.”

Nam-gyu’s eyelids flutter, his breath catching before he continues. “I wouldn't be fine without you. How can you even think that?” He falters, mouth closing and opening before continuing. “I don’t hate you. I hate my own head. I hate when you give attention to others, when you pretend not to care about things that you do. But, not you.”

The words fluster Thanos so greatly he almost wants to cover his ears. Nam-gyu’s words are fond enough to make his insides melt, and Thanos has never been good at articulating his feelings, ‘all of that mushy bullshit’, as he’s referred to it in the past. He can hardly even articulate his own shitty rap lyrics. How can he possibly formulate something as meaningful as this?

“I want…to be close to you,” Thanos chokes out, his words coming out clunky and awkward. “Like…emotionally. Well, also physically. Uh…y’know, a healthy balance of the two. Or, whatever.”

A brief lapse of silence, followed by a muffled snicker. Thanos buries his head in his hands with a groan. Damn, he’s really bad at this. He’s supposed to be suave and charming, not whatever the hell this is.

“Don’t laugh,” Thanos gripes, his complaint muffled by his own palms. “If I had more drugs in my system, I’d be flirting better for sure.”

“I like you the way you are,” Nam-gyu says easily.

“Oh, fuck off. Why are you the smooth-talking one?” Thanos jests, lifting his head with a snort as Nam-gyu breaks into a fit of muffled laughs.

While Thanos has managed to make himself feel like a massive bumbling loser, it’s nice to see Nam-gyu so amused. Thanos knows they aren't completely sober at the moment, but Nam-gyu’s laugh seems the most authentic it ever has, bubbling up and spilling from vocal cords in lilting bursts. It’s dizzyingly endearing.

“How’d you know this loop would stick, anyways?” Nam-gyu asks once he recovers from his laughter, glancing at him with a tilted head. “You were so sure of it. Why?”

Thanos tries to think up an explanation, but it’s already hard enough for him to wrap his head around inwardly, let alone out loud. Seon-nyeo’s words had triggered a resolute understanding within him, acceptance of the fact that the thing entrapping him was his own guilt and shame, alongside his lack of a will to live.

“Having you pin me up in the bathroom like that made me realize some things, I think,” Thanos says honestly. “All that time spent doing the same shit over and over, seeing you die, or having myself keel over…but in that shitty bathroom, you told me you hated me and then you kissed me. You were so fucking angry with me, but you still…”

“I still wanted you,” Nam-gyu finishes, face flushed. “And you wanted me, even after all the cruel things I said. …Right?”

Thanos fixes him with an incredulous stare. “Nam-gyu, I pressed you against a bathroom stall and fucked your thighs. I wouldn't do that with someone I didn't want.”

Nam-gyu’s flush deepens, biting down on his lip with a thrilled show of embarrassment, surely remembering the words he’d blabbered in a lust-addled haze. “I’ll be so good for you, hyung, I promise I’ll be good…”

Nam-gyu isn't the only one who lost his filter in the heat of the moment. Thanos had bared himself openly, revealing parts of himself he’d never dream of doing so prior. Allowing himself to be placed in the submissive role, if only for a brief moment, and admitting to past fantasies in a soft, pleading tone. Fantasies in which Nam-gyu takes the lead, takes good care of him, undresses him with lithe fingers, bends him over and works him over the edge with a steady hand and heated words. Fantasies he’s thought of far too many times to be written off as a one-off desire.

It was more than just sex. It was a surplus of overflowing feelings bursting forth all at once in one swift motion. In the face of an incomprehensibly horrific situation, they relied on their connection, and in the aftermath of heated aggression, they allowed themselves to fall into affectionate passion. They let themselves break, and in turn let themselves flourish in the wreckage.

“I’m not good with words,” Nam-gyu blurts suddenly. “But I—“

“You seem pretty good with words to me,” Thanos counters, watching as Nam-gyu fiddles with the sleeves of his tracksuit. “All that stuff you said after you killed Myung-gi…”

“I meant it,” Nam-gyu mumbles. “I killed him for you, just like you killed him for me. Oh, god…Thanos, when you killed him…”

“Fucking disgusting, wasn’t it? All the blood and guts everywhere?” Thanos winces.

Nam-gyu doesn’t look disgusted at all. Instead, he seems rather titillated. “Red suits you.”

“Hah…didn’t you say something like that back in the first loop?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Nam-gyu nods. “Yeah, yeah…and then you called me a whore.”

“…That doesn’t sound right.”

“You did,” Nam-gyu insists with a titter. “You said I took the pill like a whore.”

Thanos swipes a hand across his face with an exasperated laugh. “Damn, man. Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? Seems like that shit was forever ago.”

“A lifetime ago. It’s so weird…wait, wait, did you mean—“ Nam-gyu laughs suddenly, loud and sharp, “you think the loops stopped because we fucked in a bathroom?”

“Well, there’s more to it than that,” Thanos snorts. “It’s also the conversation I had with you after, and some of the shit that shaman freak told me.”

“What’d she say? I remember her saying some weird shit to me too, but I still don’t really understand much of it.”

“She said a lot of things,” Thanos sighs, “but from what I’ve gathered, all of this looping and resetting was because of…my own brain, I guess.”

Nam-gyu squints. “…I don’t get it.”

Thanos hardly gets himself, but he straightens his shoulders and tries to explain as best as he can. “Think of it like this…the brain itself is super powerful, right? Like, scientists are constantly spouting off about the intricacies of the human brain, or whatever. And we all just sort of nod along and move on with our lives because, like…it’s a brain. We all have one in our heads. Not like we’re special for having one.”

Nam-gyu squints harder. “…Uh-huh.”

“So, like…apparently, I had all this guilt and anger building up in me. Anger at the world, at myself, at everything. And all this shame, too. A bunch of real negative shit. …I’m not trying to throw myself a pity party here, but I’ve never really liked being alive. I just went along with it because…well, because this is it. This is literally all there is.”

Nam-gyu begins to nod with a bit of understanding now, slow and subdued. Thanos trudges on. “If I’m understanding what the shaman was getting at well enough, my guilt built up to such a high ass level that it sort of, like…materialized into a time paradox? Or something.“

“Or something,” Nam-gyu echoes in disbelief, his next words dripping in sarcasm. “Right, right…makes total sense.”

“Seon-nyeo keeps saying we’re tethered, so I guess that’s why you remember everything now…but, I don’t know why it took you so long. And, if it was all formulated by my own brain, my own emotions, how’d you even get so wrapped up in it all to begin with?”

“Must have to do with the tether.” Nam-gyu shrugs. “I can’t believe…”

“Can’t believe what?”

“Any of it. I…fuck, man, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I killed you.”

“I made you do it, my boy.”

“But I still—!” Nam-gyu inhales sharply. “Thanos, I stabbed you right in the heart. You guided me to stab you in the stomach, and then I—“

“You put me out of my misery,” Thanos reminds. “You did what I wanted you to do.”

“I killed you,” Nam-gyu reiterates firmly. “At least you had the gall to feel regret after attempting to kill me. You didn’t even follow through with it, but I…oh, god.” Nam-gyu presses the back of his hand to his mouth, shuddering in disgust. “The— the sound the knife made when it entered you—“ another sharp inhale, “it was awful. All fleshy and squelchy, and your eyes glazed over so fucking quickly. You looked like a mannequin. You didn’t even look like you.”

Nam-gyu digs the palms of his hands against his eyes, breathing raggedly, mumbling another halfhearted apology. Thanos has just barely managed to hold himself throughout all of this, and Nam-gyu’s been forced to have every memory shot into his brain in an absurdly short amount of time; it’s no wonder he seems so disheveled.

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos reaches forward, tugging Nam-gyu’s hands from his face, reaching forward to angle his head towards him, looking him directly in the eyes. “The loops ended because I decided I want to live. To really, truly live, not just go through the motions of it while waiting for it to end. I want to live because of you.”

“Me?” Nam-gyu repeats, the word cracking in his throat.

“Yeah, you,” Thanos leans forward, clunking their foreheads together. “Why not? Why’re you so surprised?”

“I haven’t exactly been a saint,” Nam-gyu confesses.

“And I have?” Thanos rolls his eyes. “Dude, come on. We’re both pretty fucked in the head.”

“I guess.” Nam-gyu shrugs, his face dusted a light shade of pink. “You know…back in the bathrooms, you said you could be better than the drugs. I told you to prove it, but I didn’t actually need proof. You’ve always been better than the drugs, even if there were times I didn’t want to admit it.”

Thanos chest seizes with affection. The cross around his neck and the pills that reside within it are a heavy weight, yet another form of metaphorical hands clinging to him in earnest, intent on dragging him down. In the face of Nam-gyu, red-faced and earnest, Thanos thinks the hands that grasp onto him are rendered unstable, easily shrugged off. A moment of sanctity, in the eyes of another.

Thanos doesn't want to live his life waiting impatiently for the credits to roll, ruminating over the fact that nobody will sit around to watch the wall of text scroll downwards, or to appreciate the somber melody it plays in its wake. He wants to live for himself, for Nam-gyu, for his mother, for the random strangers he passes on the street and never sees again, for the stray cat he examines walking along a fence. Thanos wants to live for the sake of living itself.

He never thought he’d be able to come to such a conclusion. But here, surrounded in a place of death, torment, and madness, he has.

Thanos reaches forward and presses his palm against Nam-gyu’s chest, splaying his fingers and feeling his heart thump against his skin. A repetitive, slightly fastened beat, paired with slow, steady intakes of breath, followed by a quiet exhale.

“Nam-gyu,” Thanos says. The way his name is spoken is a confession in itself — not that there’s any need for confessions. Not anymore. They are both well aware of the love that resides within them, and how easily it masquerades itself as hate. But a masquerade is not always a display of truth, and even if for a certain amount of time it is, the face behind the mask is always what matters most.

Self destruction is not a form of repentance. It’s not suffrage that will save him. What matters is the structure he builds with the jagged pieces left behind.

When a vulture eats a rotting corpse, there’s a beauty in the way life cycles through it. Vulture and meat, canvas and paint, fish and hook; it doesn't matter what they are or how they function. They’ve grown irrevocably devoted to each other, and with the thump of Nam-gyu’s heart underneath his fingertips, Thanos feels more alive than he has in years.

“I know,” Nam-gyu says in the wake of Thanos’ silent reflection. He knows the words that tumble in Thanos’ brain, because he remembers the way they’d been spoken aloud in a cramped bathroom stall, and in the star clad hallway of the maze last loop. Nam-gyu knows, and he’ll never forget it.

Thanos isn’t sure which one of them moves first, but when their lips connect, it feels surreal, as if they're the only two people in the world, for this brief moment in time. Just him and Nam-gyu, smushed together on a rickety bed in a cold, expansive room. There’s probably cameras trained on them, and the rest of the players could be arriving back at any moment, but right now, it doesn’t matter.

Right now, it’s just them.

Thanos has grown quickly accustomed to kissing Nam-gyu — it’s baffling to think back on all the times he thought about kissing him but never acted on it, somehow convinced that kissing a guy would make him gay, but receiving a handjob from one wouldn’t.

“What a fucking idiot!”, Thanos thinks. Then he realizes that he’s thinking about himself, and the thought becomes substantially less funny.

Well, whatever. Sure, it took him a while to accept what was staring him right in the face, but at least he got there eventually. And Nam-gyu’s warm lips pressing persistently against his own, his tongue working his way into his mouth with practiced ease as if they’ve done this a million times before (maybe they have, in separate timelines, tied by fate in every way imaginable), is the best reward Thanos could ever dream of asking for.

Thanos presses his hand further against Nam-gyu’s chest, further against his beating heart, pushing lightly until Nam-gyu’s back hits the mattress. Thanos wastes no time clambering on top of him, and the gasp of excitement it wrenches from Nam-gyu only propels him further.

Even the act of disconnecting for air seems like time spent apart for too long; they latch to each other, clinging incessantly, hands wandering shamelessly across each other as they take the short period of time offered to them.

As Nam-gyu holds firmly onto Thanos’ face, Thanos moves one of his hands to slide up Nam-gyu’s shirt and tracksuit, gliding against bare skin. While he could take the opportunity to once again press and tease Nam-gyu’s sensitive nubs, he instead lets his palm rest flat on bare skin, right where Nam-gyu’s heart resides. He takes comfort in the continuous beat of Nam-gyu’s heart, even more noticeable with Thanos’ hand resting against bare skin. Proof that he’s real, and of the life that thrums throughout him.

Nam-gyu shifts a hand downward, sliding up Thanos’ shirt to lay his palm flat on the rapper's stomach. It’s the exact place the knife had entered Thanos’ body when he led Nam-gyu’s hands to kill him, and by the way his fingers twitch against the area, shuddering and contracting, it’s clear that what he’s doing is similar to Thanos’ need to feel for a heartbeat. He’s making sure, as their mouths move in tandem, that Thanos is free from a knife wound, reassurance that he isn’t dying.

They’ve both grown rather paranoid; time loops tend to have that effect on people, Thanos assumes.

“When we get out of here, Su-bong,” Nam-gyu mumbles against his lips when they barely pull back to breathe. “I want…I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” He presses a brief, firm kiss to Thanos’ mouth before continuing. “I’ll fuck you better than anyone, I promise.”

The words are spoken in unshakable confidence, and the sudden intensity leaves Thanos reeling. He buries his face below Nam-gyu’s jaw, nuzzling aimlessly and shivering as fingers slide up the nape of his neck, settling in the roots of his hair.

“I know you will,” Thanos groans, licking idly at the spot where Nam-gyu’s ear and jaw connects, pressing kisses against bare flesh. “You’ll be perfect.”

Nam-gyu hums contentedly, rolling his hips upward. The movement makes Thanos poorly attempt to stifle a whine, his hand pressing harder against Nam-gyu’s chest, a part of him wishing to break through the barrier and cradle his heart fully. Not out of violence, but out of care.

“I want you,” Thanos blurts suddenly, lifting his head to drink in the sight of Nam-gyu splayed out beneath him, black hair fanned against the mattress, face red and chest heaving. “…really bad.”

Nam-gyu grins up at him, coy and teasing, somehow managing to appear unquestionably in charge despite being pinned below him. “I’ve wanted you since the moment you looked at me.”

Before any more words can be spoken, they jump at the sound of a door creaking open. They hold their breaths in tandem, only to be met with the familiar sounds of entering footsteps.

The arrival of other players signals the end of their indulgence. With a sigh, Thanos presses quick, hasty pecks across the expanse of Nam-gyu’s face, taking a moment to smother him a bit before they have to separate.

“Su-bong,” Nam-gyu snickers at the onslaught of affection, laughing lightly when Thanos inevitably pulls back, shuffling his way off of him.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Thanos mumbles as they stand to their feet, leaving ruffled bedsheets behind them.

“Me too,” Nam-gyu says, and Thanos can tell by the shimmer in his eyes that he means it.

— — —

“My little boy Min-su!” Thanos cheers over-dramatically once the younger man stumbles his way through the doors, motioning him over to where they stand, ignoring the huff of indignation that Nam-gyu makes in turn. “Dude, I seriously thought you were going to die. I had absolutely no faith in you at all.”

Nam-gyu muffles a laugh. Se-mi, who joined back up with them directly after players began arriving again, glares disapprovingly. But her anger disappears rapidly, replaced with relief at seeing Min-su alive and well.

…Maybe well is pushing it. His hands are bloody, his body shakes, and he looks downright miserable. But he’s alive, and when Se-mi reaches out to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder, his torment seems to ebb ever-so-slightly.

“I believe you’re forgetting to thank someone?”

The shrill voice of Seon-nyeo sounds behind Min-su, her head held high and her hands clasped together as she approaches.

“Oh.” Min-su blinks after a moment of awkward silence. “Um…thank you.”

“You’re very, very welcome.” Seon-nyeo nods approvingly, glancing around the group with a dramatic flair. “It’s due to my expertise that he was able to live, you know. He would’ve been absolutely destroyed without my assistance. Pitiful, really.”

Before Min-su can attempt to defend himself (though, Thanos doubts he planned on doing so), the room falls quiet at the sound of a screeching, whiny cry.

“Is that—“ Se-mi’s jaw drops, eyes seeking out the source of the sound. “Is that a baby?”

“Baby? No fucking way,” Nam-gyu admonishes. “The pregnant girl, did she actually…?”

“Give birth in the maze?” Seon-nyeo finishes the sentence off for him as they examine player 222 limp across the room, a baby held securely in her arms. A tall woman (the one Thanos had seen Myung-gi stab in the back in a prior loop), walks beside her attentively, as does the old woman and her son. “Yes, indeed, she did.”

Myung-gi himself, on the other hand, stays rooted in place across the room, making no effort to approach her or his child. Instead, he stares desolately, as if stopped by some unknown force.

…What a fucking dipshit! Thanos doesn’t know anything about player 222, but he sure as hell hopes she finds someone better than a crypto scamming dickhead to share her life with.

“Player 120…I really should thank her,” Min-su mumbles, sniffling as he watches her walk across the room with her group. When she catches his eye, she sends him a small wave, which Min-su returns with a shaky hand and bowing nod. “She helped me a lot.”

“Hyun-ju was her name, was it not?” Seon-nyeo muses, though she barely manages to get her words out before Nam-gyu interrupts. “She was a hider, wasn’t she? Why would she help you?”

“We stumbled across her, the old woman, and the mother of that baby when we were searching for someone for him to kill and offer to the Gods as sacrifice.” Seon-nyeo explains. “Of course, I had already succeeded with no issue at all, so there was no need for me to—“

“No issue?” Min-su frowns. “But, remember when you kept letting people run away on accident, and you started crying and sobbing and praying—?”

“Silence, fool!” Seon-nyeo seethes, face flushing in embarrassment. She makes a prolonged show of dusting off imagery dust particles from her tracksuit, mumbling insults about “foolish men” and “lying devils”.

“I can’t believe these two fucking idiots manged to get out of there alive,” Nam-gyu leans over to whisper in Thanos’ ear, cupping his hand like a high school bully making an event out of sharing a secret. Thanos makes a noise of amusement, leaning against Nam-gyu’s shoulder as he nods in agreement.

“As I was saying,” Seon-nyeo continues after talking herself down from her abrupt spike of irritation, motioning towards Min-su, “he could not bring himself to kill any of them…there was a tiny newborn child present, so I suppose I can’t blame him for his refusal. For a moment, I figured Hyun-ju would simply break the man like a twig. I nearly had to abandon the poor fool.”

Min-su sighs sadly. Seon-nyeo pays it no mind.

“However, thanks to me, I convinced her that if she found a hider for Min-su to kill, we would protect them from other seekers with our lives. A fair trade off, no?”

“And…she actually did? Seriously?” Se-mi gawks.

“She certainly wasn’t thrilled about it,” Seon-nyeo scoffs. “The poor girl felt so guilty about it, but in the same vein, she was insistent about protecting the other women she was with. It was a very touching sight, I must say.”

“I always knew that chick was cool.” Thanos nods approvingly. “When we get out of here and back into the real world, you all better give me a chunk of your cash prize as a thank you gift for coming up with such a masterful plan.”

“Hell no,” Se-mi deadpans.

“…Worth a shot.”

“Are you going to vote X this time?” Min-su asks timidly, picking at the blood under his fingernails. He looks anxiously at Nam-gyu the second the words leave his mouth, as if nervous the man is going to jump him and rip him to shreds. If Thanos had to guess, Min-su is probably fearing that Thanos and Nam-gyu have spent their time away conspiring against him, figuring out a way to mess with him more than they already have, or maybe plan out a way to put him in an early grave, either inside or out of the games.

With how persistently they’ve tormented him, Thanos can’t necessarily blame him for being so agitated.

Thanos spares a glance at Nam-gyu, who stares back at him with raised eyebrows. In one glance, two men look back on every outrageously horrifying experience they've gone through. Being killed, seeing each other die, being tapped between space and time. It’s very clear what their answers will be.

“You’re out of your fuckin’ mind if you think I’m going through any more games after all of that time warp bullshit,” Nam-gyu says, dragging a hand through his hair with a quick shake of his head. “No fucking way am I voting O again. I’m sick of this place.”

Thanos nods in rapt agreement, slinging his arm around Nam-gyu’s shoulders. “Same here, my boy.”

“Time warp…” Min-su trails off in awe, glancing at Se-mi, likely waiting for her to comment on their supposed time loop situation with the same level of baffled disbelief she has prior. Instead, she only shrugs, which only seems to bewilder Min-su further.

“I suppose I’ll vote X as well,” Seon-nyeo says as she examines her nails, despite the fact that nobody asked her to begin with. “There’s only so many spirits of the dead I can bear witness too before it weighs heavily on my body and mind.”

“...Right.” Thanos draws out the word, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Hey, lady. I need to ask you some more questions before time runs out again.”

“Ah, yes. About your journey into the depths of self discovery, I assume?”

Just as she had earlier, Se-mi begins to inch away from the interaction, this time dragging Min-su along with her. As they begin to scurry away, he hears Se-mi murmur, “If I have to hear any more shit about time loops, I think my brain will explode.” As Min-su stumbles along beside her, he nods in eager agreement.

“You.” Seon-nyeo points at Nam-gyu. “Dark haired one.”

“Nam-gyu.”

“Yes, yes.” She waves her hand dismissively. “You’ve spent time in spaces in-between just as he has, haven't you? And you remember what has transpired within his mind, within different pockets of time?”

Nam-gyu nods, albeit a bit slowly. “Did it happen in his mind, or a different timeline? It can’t be both.”

“Why not?” Seon-nyeo tilts her head, and the way she cranes her neck is so oddly owl-like and non-human that it makes Thanos shiver. “Only fools refuse to consider the possibility of two opposing ideas being able to intertwine into one concrete truth.”

Thanos feels Nam-gyu’s shoulders tense under his arm. Only a few sentences in, and he’s already irritated. “What does that even–?”

“The mind is a very powerful thing. This may be difficult for someone of your caliber to understand, but if you were both trapped in a time loop of the purple ones–”

“Thanos.”

“–creation, then it means his feelings were so unprocessed and extreme that it blossomed into something real. A separate space in time, real and yet not.”

“Something can’t be real and not real at the same time.” Thanos scowls.

“It depends on what your definition of real is,” Seon-nyeo explains. “You could assume, for example, that since you are both standing here alive and well within reality, that the times you spent in prior loops were in technicality ‘not real’, but instead a shared mesh of memories created someplace else. In that same vein, you could argue that the past loops were incredibly real, because you felt everything that occurred within them, you grew as people because of things you witnessed, and created something beautiful out of an entrapment that almost killed you. Understand?”

“...Not really,” Nam-gyu grumbles after a moment of reflection.

“What I don’t fully get,” Thanos cuts in, “is why Nam-gyu can suddenly remember it all at once when he spent so many loops not remembering. If it all happened because of my own brain, then…”

“You must’ve done something particularly intense and invigorating with each other to strengthen your tether the loop prior — I’ll let you both reflect on that in silence, because I truly do not need to know what occurs between you two in the privacy of your own bodies and minds.”

“Hey–!” Nam-gyu blusters.

“And, before you ask me some sort of utter nonsense along the lines “but, why are we tethered?”, please take a look at yourselves and self-reflect,” Seon-nyeo scoffs. “You are a pair. Two puzzle pieces that have grown to fit snugly within each other. You depend on each other, and the passion behind your feelings are equally amplified. A rarity in itself! Nam-gyu’s remembrance and shared time spent in listless nothingness is likely due to the fact that he shares a similar mindset to you, I would assume.”

“Similar mindset…” Thanos trails off, messing idly with the edge of Nam-gyu’s tracksuit.

“What is it that you assume broke you out of the loop?” Seon-nyeo asks.

“...I realized I wanted to live, and I understood that it was my own guilt that caused the loop to reset,” Thanos answers slowly. This is starting to feel like a pop quiz.

“Then, I assume your partner didn't have a very strong will to live to begin with either. Your strength of mind must have flourished together, a mutual growth.”

‘Your partner’…Thanos can get used to that. It makes his pulse quicken, much to his embarrassment. How strange, to think that the same man who had raised his knife, looking down at him with wide, enraged eyes after Thanos attempted to kill him, ready and waiting to strike, now stands nestled under his arm. To be forgiven after something so egregious…Thanos really can’t believe it.

“My partner,” Thanos repeats, looking over at Nam-gyu with a small smile. “Damn, we really are similar.”

“I still don’t really get it,” Nam-gyu says honestly, meeting Thanos’ gaze with poorly stifled confusion. “I mean, doesn't some of this seem sort of contradictory?”

“Not everything is meant to be understood. Some things simply exist as they are, unexplainable and yet undeniable in their existence. Humans are like moths to a flame, always trying to understand the intricacies of the world and hurting themselves in the process. Life and time are not things to be explained, but instead acknowledged and appreciated. No great revelation is awaiting you, because you’ve already come to understand what you need to.”

“Is this chick trying to be a poet, or some shit?” Nam-gyu mumbles.

The conversation is interrupted as the lights begin to dim, the piggy bank overhead lowering slightly, coating the room in a golden hue as more money is dumped into it. The music that plays is akin to something that would be heard on a gameshow, an overexaggerated trill of money overlapping and expanding onto each other. The last time he’d seen it, it’d filled him with morbid delight. Now, it makes him feel fairly nauseous. He can only hope his blatant unease isn't noticeable.

“Hyung,” Nam-gyu says, his voice quiet, pianissimo, barely heard over the racket of money falling into a piggy bank. “...I want to live because of you, too.”

If Seon-nyeo weren't still standing right next to them, Thanos would likely lean forward and kiss him. Instead, Thanos examines the way Nam-gyu’s features shine under golden lamplight, ethereal and gleaming. If Nam-gyu’s body is a temple, Thanos is intent on being its sole worshipper.

Their hands entwine in tandem as the last chunk of money thuds into the pile, palms free of blood pressing intently against each other, a small form of serenity in a place that holds no room for tranquility.

The voting starts rapidly. They aren't offered time to truly recoup, and the familiar drawl of a guard's voice ringing out, announcing the start of voting, is just as unsettling as it always is.

“Hey, lady,” Thanos murmurs as the voting begins, turning back towards Seon-nyeo. “I forgot to ask—the exit door was covered in a bunch of red handprints in all of the past loops, but it was blank in this one. What’s that about?”

“Oh, that’s right!” Nam-gyu nods. “I nearly forgot about that.”

“...How on earth would I know?” Seon-nyeo complains. “I don’t know everything.”

“How do you know anything?” Nam-gyu asks. “And, don’t say some bullshit about the Gods of heaven and earth.”

“Does it matter why I know what I know and don’t what I don’t?”

“Great,” Thanos grumbles, “here comes another riddle–”

“I am not a jester in a circus here to appease you. My intellect has formed due to years of practiced dedication. Believe me or not, it makes no difference to me.” Seon-nyeo upturns her nose. “But I can see your auras, and within them, I see your stories. Fragments of them, at least; pulsating echoes that cling to the edges of your soul, fermentation budding into new beginnings.”

Thanos could easily brush her words off as nonsense, childishly overexaggerated words meant to display false confidence. But, despite the fact that Seon-nyeo has been killed by both Nam-gyu’s and Thanos’ hands throughout the loops, falling prey to harsh movements and sharpened daggers, she’s ended up helping him out substantially in the end. He supposes he really ought to be grateful.

“Well…thanks, lady.”

“I am Seon-nyeo,” she corrects, “shaman of the sea, vessel of–”

“Right, right, Seon-nyeo. Welcome to the Thanos World!”

Beside him, Nam-gyu makes an amused noise of disbelief, while Seon-nyeo raises a curious eyebrow. “I have no need for companionship with those who are so vastly below me.”

(She says this, but her lips twitch upwards into a barely noticeable smile, eyes glittering with accomplishment. Everyone deserves a bit of appreciation sometimes…especially people who help others out of gory, life-altering time loops.)

When her number is called, Seon-nyeo strides forward with her head held high, hands clasped tightly in front of her. There’s a brief moment of hesitation once she reaches the buttons, her hand hovering uncertainly over the red X. She glances back towards the piggy bank overhead, struck with a sudden agony. “If I had just a bit more…”, she must be thinking, “one more game, and maybe…”

Then, for just a second, her eyes settle on Thanos and Nam-gyu. Two men who are likely viewed as nothing more than crazed drug addicts by a majority of the players. Two men who have accepted each other despite their flaws. Two men who have died countless times, again and again, and came out of it alive due to self acceptance and understanding, choosing to live for each other and themselves.

Her eyes narrow. She sighs, dragging a hand through her slicked back hair as she turns back towards the buttons. Her palm presses harshly against bright red, and another vote is added to the board as she trades her O patch for X.

As more players place their votes, the board overhead displays how rapidly the votes fluctuate between each other, neither option staying in the lead for long. Thanos keeps his hand firmly clamped in Nam-gyu’s. He thinks back to the exit door that had been free of blood red handprints, and then recalls the vision he’d had when stuck in transferral, imagery of hands clinging to him, whispering words of malice, holding him back, and reaching forward to imprint themselves along the door presented to him.

Those people—the ones he’s killed or betrayed, both in and out of loops—still reside within him, sour reminders of past mistakes. The guilt has not left him completely; such a thing is impossible. It’s only been replaced with something different. He wants to improve himself, and to stop waiting and wallowing in self pitying stagnancy. The ghosts of people that reside in the spaces in between, tucked into corners of his brain, will remain with him for eternity. Thanos hopes that, as time goes on, their fingers will loosen with some semblance of understanding. Instead of abandoning them or resenting them for their understandable hatred, he will carry them along with him. Maybe if he betters himself, he can offer them peace in their deaths. Maybe if he tries to live, they can live alongside him, their hands free of blood, their hearts lulled with a sense of acceptance, belonging. A sense of feeling at home.

Thanos does not expect forgiveness. He’s not even sure if he deserves it. But out of the hundreds of paths he could’ve chosen, he’s chosen to take hold of Nam-gyu and try for a better life, to fight for a better version of himself.

Hyun-ju stumbles to the podium quickly, and hits X without hesitation. One side of the room cheers, while the other sighs in defeat.

Is it possible that the door was barren from handprints because the hands that cling to him have retracted, no longer insisting on tolling a bell of doom for him? His shame is still present, but his want to live outweighs it. As shame melts away into shadows, the blood on the hands that hold him slink away with it, and as open palms press along a closed door, Thanos uses his guilt as a tool to press onward, instead of an excuse to wallow in defeat.

Their hands separate when Nam-gyu’s number is called. Thanos makes an X symbol with his fingers, and Nam-gyu follows suit with a smile. He can tell, beneath the surface, that Nam-gyu is nervous. He walks with his hands clenched shakily at his side, and rests his palm firmly against X, red illuminating his face, the color of blood, love, and a desire to go home. He switches his patches fluidly, and looks back at Thanos with a determined nod before taking his place with the rest of the X voters.

Min-su is up next, pressing X without delay. The man after him presses O, as does the woman after that. There’s a three point gap between the teams, with O in the lead. Dread forms in the pit of his stomach; if O wins again, it could easily shatter what he’s finally started building for himself.

The old woman presses X, as does the woman who gave birth within the maze, and when it’s Thanos’ turn to approach the podium, he doesn't make a grand show of skipping forward and kissing the button, or beaming with excitement at the possibility of continuing, arms held upward in the shape of an O. Instead, he walks forward with intent resolve, settling his hand against the bright red X, a final puzzle piece clicking into place.

He’s pretty sure he hears someone from the crowd audibly gasp in surprise. Given the fact that he’s gone from theatrically pressing O and threatening everyone who chooses otherwise to picking X himself, he can’t blame them for being so appalled.

The sound of velcro ripping from his tracksuit is euphoric, and he makes quick work of patting his X patch in its place. When he strides over to stand next to Nam-gyu, the man immediately loops their arms together, a fluid, natural action.

“You really do look good in red,” Nam-gyu murmurs, eyes flitting down to the patch on Thanos’ chest, tapping it lightly. “It suits you.”

Up ahead, an older man presses O, the noise of the button echoing throughout the room. Thanos tightens his hold on Nam-gyu. “It suits you too, my boy.”

It’s almost unbearable, how long of a process it is. That being said, the group is substantially smaller now, and while it feels like the voting process takes forever, Thanos knows it’s actually going rather quick, in comparison to past voting periods.

Se-mi chooses X, and Thanos gives her a thumbs up of approval as she joins the group. The last person to vote should be player 456, but he’s been chained up and rendered unable to choose (which Thanos thinks is egregiously unfair). In the end, when the vote is held in a tie, the vote to break it rests on the shoulders of a young woman. She skitters up to the platform nervously, looks around at the two separate groups of people that hold their breaths as they wait for her to break the tie.

Seon-nyeo clasps her hands together, murmuring prayers under her breath. The old woman clings to her son in fear. Hyun-ju angles her head away, unable to watch.

The girl moves her hand towards the O button, fingertips grazing against bright blue. Thanos can hear the sound of Nam-gyu swallowing thickly beside him, sees him place a hand to his head in dismay from the corner of his eyes. Thanos holds his breath, and braces for the devastating impact that is sure to befall him.

In the silent arena, the wail of a baby rings out, followed by the worried, fearful reassurings of a frazzled, injured mother. The girl pulls her hand back in surprise, whirling around to pinpoint the noise. Her eyes settle on the baby, crying and screaming, squirming incessantly. Her fingers twitch, as if controlled by a phantom string. The baby continues to weep, a cry of fear, a noise from a small, defenseless being, born in a place of torment and suffering.

The girl turns back towards the podium with a sniffle, and slams her hand against X.

The noise of the counter dinging upwards is unable to be heard over the cheers that ring out. The eruption of emotion is unparalleled to anything Thanos has ever seen — people fall to their knees and weep, jump up and down in merriment, screech with reinvigorated joy for life. The other side of the room is far less thrilled, heads hung low in disappointment, but in the face of such relief, the excitement outweighs the disappointment.

It seems almost unreal for Thanos to cheer in the face of being released from the games early, after how he’s behaved in prior games. And yet, he does. He yelps and hollers, gathering Nam-gyu into a squeezing, crushing hug, which is returned to him with vigor.

“I love you,” Nam-gyu mumbles into his ear, barely audible over the celebratory applause.

Thanos pulls back to press a kiss to Nam-gyu’s lips, uncaring as to whether or not anyone takes notice of it in the flurry of excitement. “I love you too,” he mumbles against warm, smiling lips, grateful for the fact that Nam-gyu is alive, whole, and sagging against him in relief.

“When we get out of here,” Nam-gyu says excitedly, “let’s go get super fancy food! Like, the stupidly overpriced shit that those pompous fuckers at the club always brag about!”

“When we get out of here, my boy,” Thanos gathers Nam-gyu’s face in his palms, rubs his thumbs across cheekbones, and looks him straight in the eyes. “Let’s live.”

Notes:

Yk if you think abt it they basically fucked their way out of a time loop. damn,.....

I’ll try not to get too sentimental here (haha get it because. Because the title is. Don’t get sentimental 😹😹😹😹 ahahaha! Ahem. Taps mic. Is this thing on) but you all are so dear to me and I appreciate your support so so much. Writing gives me something to look forward to, and your kind comments give me purpose. ^_^ I love hearing peoples thoughts on my writing, and am super thankful for every comment and kudo I receive >_o

Also, I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves! You all matter so much, and your existence is such a beautiful thing. No matter what negativity or cruelty is thrown your way, nothing will ever negate the meaningfulness of your existence within the world <3

Best wishes to you all, and thank you for reading!

Notes:

Timeloops my beloved