Chapter Text
A Hellstrip is not meant to bloom. It's the narrow, trampled place between the road and whatever passes for shelter. Baked hard by the sun, poisoned by runoff and crushed under the careless boot of life.
The only flowers that grow there, are simply too stubborn not to.
“Stay still, you little shit.”
“Eat my ass, fuckface,” Jimin snaps, jerking his leg away when the cotton ball touches the ugly scab on his knee. “I told you it fucking stings.”
Seokjin lets out a long, aggravated groan and throws the alcohol-soaked cotton over his shoulder into a dented metal tray. It lands with a wet little smack and the man tosses both arms up in exasperation.
“You need to let me disinfect that nasty thing before it gets infected, you idiot.”
Jimin glares from where he’s perched on the edge of a narrow cot, one pant leg shoved up to his thigh.
“Maybe if you stopped scrubbing like you’re trying to sand my kneecap off, I’d be more cooperative.”
Seokjin glares at him.
Jimin glowers back.
Morning light leaks through the boarded slats of the window, striping across the floor, the rows of cots, the stacked crates of bandages, bottles and labelled supplies. Outside, the settlement is already awake.
Jimin has been in and out of this fucking place for the past week.
A week of being poked, prodded, told to sit still, told to drink water, told to stop pretending that getting the shit kicked out of him wasn’t more than “just a bruise”.
A week of Nurse Hanna looking at him with the kind of flat authority that turns grown adults into blubbering children. A week of Seokjin appearing at the worst possible moments with clean gauze, clever hands and a mouth full of shit.
Mostly, Jimin hates that the bastard has been right about everything so far.
“Stop being a baby and let me do my job,” Seokjin scolds him while reaching for the alcohol bottle and a fresh cotton ball.
“I’m not a baby.”
“You sure do whine like one.”
“You have shitty bedside manners.”
That earns him a snort of laughter. Seokjin steps back in before Jimin can scurry away.
“I don’t get paid to do this. Now hold still.”
Then the fresh cotton lands on the edge of the scab and Jimin hisses through his teeth, fingers clutching the mattress hard enough to for the cheap material to creak.
“There,” Seokjin smirks smugly. “You get to keep your leg for another day, all thanks to me.”
Jimin cuts him a filthy look.
It is—he thinks, not for the first time in the past four days—wildly unfair that the apocalypse left this man with a face like that and then put him in charge of injured people.
Back at the gate they got patted down, signed in, and before Jimin could decide whether he wanted to stand upright or collapse into the nearest bush, a tall man with broad shoulders, a clipboard, and a face offensively handsome enough to start a fight appeared out of nowhere as if summoned.
“Medical,” he’d announced, taking one look at Jimin’s busted appearance. “You’re with me.”
Jimin could barely blink before Jungkook decided to make it his business and stepped in front of him, body angled like a shield.
“The fuck he is.” Jungkook puffed out his chest, shoulders squared. It would’ve been almost charming if Jimin could feel something more beyond the ache in his bones and a bombastic headache.
“I’m coming too.”
The man—Seokjin, assistant nurse, judging by the shiny nametag pinned to the popped collar of his baby blue polo—barely spared him a bored glance.
“No, you’re not.”
“He can barely walk!”
“I’m very aware,” Seokjin had replied dryly, glancing over Jimin with a critical eye. “Judging by the blood.”
Jungkook’s jaw had gone tight. He didn’t look much better, to be honest—hair a mess, sticking up in random angles and weird cowlicks. Dark circles creeping under his tired eyes and that horrible tension still living in his shoulders from their earlier ordeal.
“You’ll just get in the way.” Seokjin added curtly when the younger didn’t look like he was going to back down. “Go rest up and make yourself useful.”
Jungkook had visibly bristled at that, not used to taking orders from complete strangers. His eyes kept darting to Jimin, the clipboard prick, back to Jimin again, like he was trying to decide whether this counted as danger and how he was meant to fight it.
He looked two steps away from doing something reckless, so Jimin had reached out and grabbed his wrist.
“Jungkook.”
Those big dark eyes had snapped straight to him.
“It’s fine,” Jimin had said, hoping to whatever the fuck that he didn’t sound as brittle as he felt. “I can handle myself.”
Jungkook opened his mouth to protest, but Jimin got there first.
“Go,” he pressed. “Before you fall over. You look like shit.”
That had earned him the faintest wounded exhale through Jungkook’s nose. Then, slowly, the fight had leaked out of his posture. He’d nodded once, lips pressed into a thin line.
“Come find me later,” he’d murmured quietly, only for Jimin to hear.
It was a weird sentence to hear, having spent a year sharing everything together. Neither of them ever needed to wonder where the other was, always within earshot or at least in the same building.
The very idea of not knowing where Jungkook will be made something sad twist in the pit of Jimin’s gut. But they both agreed to this, there was no space left to feel regret.
Jimin bobbed his head and with one last glance turned to limp after Seokjin.
“We need to make sure you’re not concussed or bleeding internally, and not about to collapse in my nice clean barn,” Seokjin rambled over one shoulder, oblivious to the odd tension in the air. “If you faint, vomit, or decide to die halfway there, at least give me a warning first.”
Jimin had to bite his tongue from saying something rude and kept moving.
Halfway there, though, he couldn’t help it and looked back.
Jungkook was still standing where he’d left him.
Stock still, their tattered pack at his feet. Round eyes fixed on Jimin with that same desperate expression, like the rest of the surroundings had blurred into useless background and only Jimin remained sharp. He hadn’t moved an inch, just watched until Jimin disappeared behind a row of barely assembled barns.
“Earth to bitchface.”
Fingers snap in front of Jimin’s nose.
He blinks and the barn rushes back into focus. Seokjin is staring him down with a raised eyebrow, clean gauze ready in one hand.
Jimin exhales and leans back on his palms.
Seokjin crouches again, this time with less attitude, and presses the gauze against the cleaned scrape, tapes the edges down with quick fingers and pats his knee once.
“All done,” he says. “You survived me yet again.”
“Barely.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jimin rolls his eyes and swings his leg down from the cot. His ribs still complain, but it’s gotten a little duller over the past few days.
“Try to not ignore every piece of medical advice you’ve been given,” Seokjin says, moving away from the cot.
Jimin stands carefully. “I’m going for a walk, not storming Normandy.”
“Something tells me there’s not much difference when it comes to you.”
Seokjin peels off his gloves and tosses them into a bucket. “Seriously, don’t overdo it. If you start feeling dizzy or sick, come back. Hanna says another day or two and you’ll be fit for light work.”
“Thrilling.”
“Isn’t it?”
Jimin makes a noncommittal noise and heads for the open side of the barn before Seokjin can invent more instructions to throw at him.
“Hey,” Seokjin calls after him.
Jimin glances back.
The other man is leaning one hip against a supply crate, arms loosely crossed, expression a little more pinched than usual.
“You should go find your guy,” he says. “He’s been looking for you.”
Something hot and mean twists low in Jimin’s chest.
He looks away first. “He’s not my guy.”
Seokjin’s eyebrows go up just slightly, not buying the lie.
“Sure,” he says. “But don’t ask me to tell him you’re asleep again. It’s getting a bit weird.”
Jimin flips him off over his shoulder and steps outside.
The sun feels different when you’re not running for your life.
That’s the first thing Jimin notices. Not the warmth itself, but the lack of panic underneath it. No sweat crawling cold down his spine because of the open space, no frantic need to run and hide. Just sunlight, bright and lazy.
It feels wrong.
Or maybe just unfamiliar enough that his body keeps waiting for danger.
Jimin ends up by the pond like he usually does these days. Mainly because he doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s told to rest, except remove himself from the general flow of people and hope no one notices.
So he sits on a patch of grass under a looming willow and rips blades from the ground one by one as he stares at the man-made pond in front of him. Each blade comes up with very little effort, roots and all, leaving small bald patches in the earth.
Across the water, two teenagers—a girl and a boy, apparently today’s assigned babysitters—are wrangling a noisy little cluster of children.
One kid is trying to test exactly how close he can get to the water without falling in. Another is sprinting in circles with both arms stretched out, making airplane noises. A slightly older girl with braids has commandeered a stick and is waving it around like a wand, narrating something about curses and dragons.
“Not near the water,” the taller teen scolds, catching the stick mid-swing. “Do you want to become food for the fish?”
“There’s no fish,” the girl argues at once, all pout.
“There could be,” the other teen says darkly. “We don’t know what’s in there.”
The children shriek with delight and immediately try to edge closer to the water.
Jimin keeps ripping grass.
Snap.
Snap.
Snap.
It’s been nearly a week since he last saw Jungkook.
He spent the first two days in medical mostly asleep and Jungkook hadn’t been allowed to wake him. Hanna’s rules about rest were law, and nobody—not even Jungkook with all his attitude and stubborn concern—seemed interested in challenging them.
So he had waited. Left. Came back, waited again. Left again.
And when Jimin was finally discharged and allowed to roam around—
Well.
The place is not what Jimin expected.
Actually, he isn’t sure if he expected anything coherent at all.
Maybe something grim and militarised. A desperate group of people barely hanging on, hard eyes and even harder rules. The same brittle, clenched kind of survival he and Jungkook had been chewing through for almost a year.
Instead, he stepped out of medical and felt like he’d wandered into some twisted version of a wellness retreat.
The settlement sits on what used to be private farmland—acres and acres of rolling green that once belonged to rich people with expansive plans and, presumably, more money than sense. Seokjin told him it had been meant for development eventually. Cornfields, cabins, some stupid upscale countryside nonsense for city people who liked pretending to rough it on weekends.
Then the world ended and the land got repurposed.
Now the whole area is fenced off and reinforced with what’s left of military and government help. Chain-link stretches far into the tree line, topped with razor wire and floodlights. Guard towers made from scavenged timber and metal stand at intervals along the perimeter, watching the edges where the forest presses too close.
Inside those fences, people have made something new.
Crude but sturdy buildings are going up in rows, tarps stretched taut where proper walls don’t exist yet with white numbers painted on the sides so no one gets lost. A communal eating area made of long plank tables balanced on cinder blocks, with a kitchen setup where meals happen at set times and everyone lines up with bowls and mismatched mugs.
People work and people live.
People smile, which still feels the strangest part.
Not all the time, though. Jimin sees the tiredness in returning scavengers, the bowed shoulders, the grief that slips loose whenever somebody’s loss gets mentioned a little too directly. This place isn’t magical, it hasn’t masked or stitched what happened.
But laughter rises in the air here sometimes, and every time it catches Jimin off guard like a slap.
After Seokjin and Hanna deemed him stable enough, he’d been assigned a space in one of the sleeping barns. It’s not much, just a narrow mattress and a thin blanket, the damp smell of straw underneath everything.
Jungkook isn’t in that barn.
Jimin lay there the first night staring up at the rafters and told himself it didn’t matter. They were in the same compound and they were safe. He could find him in the morning.
He didn’t.
He didn’t go looking the next day either. Or the day after that.
It isn’t like he doesn’t know where Jungkook is.
“He’s with Namjoon,” Seokjin had told him on day four while checking him over. “They’re building new cabins on the east side. You should go find him.”
It’s not like it was a secret. The settlement runs on rotas and lists and everybody knowing where everybody else is supposed to be. There are no mysteries here. No locked doors, no private little world of two.
And still, Jimin stubbornly avoids him.
Part of it is practical. He’s still sore and cranky, too tired to do more than hobble around a bit before finding a spot to rest. He keeps telling himself he’ll go once his head feels clearer and his body doesn’t feel like ripping apart from a stronger breeze.
Underneath that, though, lives the real problem.
He has this nagging, ugly feeling at the back of his mind that the year they spent together was temporary. A conditional bubble. Two people trapped by circumstance and the cruelty of being the only ones left.
Now the bubble has popped.
Jungkook has Namjoon again. He has other people too. A chance at a life that doesn’t revolve around one anxious person and a crumbling dorm, and the same handful of rooms they’d turned into the whole universe.
And Jimin—
Jimin has himself and his talent for making everything heavy.
Yesterday he caught a glimpse of Jungkook in the food barn before ducking away like a coward.
He’d only meant to grab water. Instead he ended up half-hidden behind a wooden support beam, watching Jungkook from a stupid distance like some kind of creep.
The younger was talking to a cluster of people, hands moving fast with excitement, face open in that bright easy way Jimin knows too well.
He looked like he already belonged there.
Jimin doesn’t where he belongs.
So he sits by the pond in the sun and rips out grass until his fingertips ache and stain green. Sares at the water until the glare makes his eyes sting and thinks about Jungkook’s face that night in the dorm—the way the word “love” had fallen from his mouth.
Did he dream that?
Was any of it real at all?
Jimin sighs and pulls his knees closer to his chest, ignoring the answering dull twang of pain. He leans his head back against the rough bark of the willow and wonders what kind of curse a person has to be under to stop himself from going straight to the most genuine man he’s ever met and saying I love you too, you idiot, for what it’s worth.
Should’ve stayed in that fucking dorm—
“You’re either deep in thought,” a smooth voice drawls from somewhere above him, “or you want to murder some children.”
Jimin blinks and tips his head back.
Horse Guy stares down.
He's draped over one of the thicker willow branches like he grew there, one arm hanging loose, dark hair falling into his eyes. Even upside down and backlit by sun, he somehow still manages to look annoyingly put-together despite the farm-boy getup.
“Neither.” Jimin huffs and pinches another blade of grass between his fingers. “They’re not my problem.”
A beat passes.
“Cold,” Taehyung decides.
Jimin risks another look up.
“What are you doing here?” Jimin asks.
Taehyung’s mouth twitches, one thick eyebrow quirking up. “What are you doing here?”
“Sitting.”
“Same.”
Across the pond, one of the babysitters yanks a child back from the water by the collar while the little menace cackles like a demon.
Jimin’s fingers go back to the grass.
Snap.
Taehyung watches the motion, then drifts his gaze back to Jimin’s face.
“You look less dead today.”
“Thanks,” Jimin deadpans. “I live to impress.”
That earns him a soft huff.
“Where’s the other guy?”
Jimin’s fingers still on the next blade.
“What other guy.”
He can feel the stare boring into the top of his head.
“The one you were glued to at the gate,” Taehyung says slowly. “Hard to miss. You two were basically one creature.”
Heat crawls up Jimin’s neck at once as he attacks the grass harder than necessary. Why does everyone keep mentioning Jungkook to him all the time?
“He’s around.”
“Mm,” Taehyung hums, clearly not buying it and, worse, letting him have the lie anyway.
Jimin doesn’t like being perceived like that, so he swerves before the car can crash.
“Shouldn’t you be out there doing farm things?”
Taehyung makes an offended sound and flicks a piece of bark at his head. It gets caught in the breeze and misses its target by a mile.
“I am doing farm things.”
“You’re literally in a tree.”
“It’s my break!” Taehyung whines, swinging one boot down, then the other, dangling them lazily.
“They’ve got me in the gardens. Not much to do there yet except pull weeds and turn soil so early in the season.”
“That sounds like hell,” Jimin mutters.
“Kind of,” Taehyung sighs. “But it’s... something to do.”
Something to do.
Jimin stares down at the grass in his hand and bends the blade until it splits under his thumbnail.
Yeah. He gets it.
“Me and the other guy…” he starts and cringes immediately. “Jungkook. We were the only ones left in our dorm by the end.”
Taehyung doesn’t interrupt, but shifts a little straighter to listen.
Jimin shrugs one shoulder.
“After a while, every day had a purpose,” Jimin continues. “It wasn’t much. Wake up, check the traps, count what food we had left, think about what was running low and what we could risk going without.” He looks out over the pond, at th sunlight skating across the surface. “There was always something. If I wasn’t doing that something, I was planning the next thing.”
The dorm still lives under his skin, probably will for the rest of his life. He can almost feel it if he thinks too hard—the damp chill of the stairwells, the creak of the roof door, the way he used to wake up with a start when an unfamiliar noise echoed up only for Jungkook to tug him back under the covers.
“It was…” He exhales through his nose. “Shit, obviously. But at least I knew what I was supposed to do. Here, every time I think of something, somebody else has already done it.”
Taehyung hums in understanding.
“ ‘Rest up, Jimin. We’ll find something for you when you don’t look like you left Fight Club’,” Jimin mocks, imitating Mr. Assistant Nurse. “Like that’s meant to feel normal.”
“How rude,” Taehyung says at once. “What are you meant to do after being in immediate danger for so long? Bird watch?”
A reluctant puff of laughter escapes Jimin before he can stop it.
The willow leaves rustle overhead. Across the pond, one of the kids rips down the field, the exasperated baby sitter barely keeping up with him.
“What about your family?” Taehyung asks quietly. “Anyone still alive?”
Jimin’s fingers stop moving in the grass.
He and Jungkook never talked much about that. Not in much detail anyway. The thought of what might’ve happened to the people they’d left on the other side of the country had always been too ugly and too painful to put into conversation. The second the electricity died for good and the internet went with it, that had been it. Everything went dark.
Sometimes Jimin still thinks about his mother. His father watching the news with that crease between his brows. His little brother complaining about something stupid and unimportant enough to be beautiful now. He has to stop himself there every time, because the next step after that is imagining blood, or teeth on flesh, and once he starts it’s hard to claw his way back.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly.
It feels pathetic, those three words. There’s no good way to say I lost them in theory before I ever knew whether I lost them in fact.
“I just…” His voice goes a little rough. He swallows. “I try not to think about it too much. I just hope they… found somewhere. Like this.”
Taehyung is silent for so long that Jimin glances up.
The other boy’s face has gone strange and distant, eyes fixed somewhere past the pond, past the fields, past the fence line like he’s looking at something only he can see.
“My mom died first,” he says after a while. “Got killed by the neighbour who’d already turned.”
Jimin’s breath catches.
Taehyung keeps staring ahead.
“She went over to check on him,” he says after a second, voice dry. “Thought he was hurt or needed help.” He huffs, not an ounce of humour to it. “Guess technically she was right.”
Jimin doesn’t know what to say to that. Sorry feels too small. Everything does.
Taehyung doesn’t seem to want comfort anyway. He just keeps staring off into the distance, legs swinging back and forth restlessly.
“My dad kind of…” He makes a vague motion with one hand. “Disappeared after that. Left one morning and never came back.” His mouth twists. “Couldn’t take it, I think. Or didn’t want to. Same difference.”
The breeze picks up a little, stirring the branches around them.
“So it was just me,” Taehyung sighs. “Me and the animals and a stupid amount of land I had no business being in charge of.”
He doesn’t want to, but Jimin can imagine it. Stuck all alone in a big farm with nothing but your own thoughts and no idea what’s happening out there. It would eat him alive.
“I turned keeping it all going into a mission,” Taehyung keeps going, looking down at his own hands now. “Mostly for my own sanity. If I was fixing shit or hauling feed, I didn’t have to sit there and think.” He snorts softly. “Problem was, I sucked at it.”
That drags Jimin out of the pit a little. Taehyung notices and gives him the faintest crooked smile.
“I always hated farm work,” he admits. “Still kind of do. My parents loved me too much to actually make me useful, so I grew up not doing much. Great in theory, but it really sucks in the apocalypse.”
Jimin huffs out a laugh.
Taehyung shrugs with a chuckle of his own. “My food was running out even before the well got poisoned. I knew I had to leave. I just…” He glances away. “Kept pretending I could squeeze another week out of it. Then another.”
Jimin nods slowly.
Yeah. That one he understands too.
It’s not always one big disaster that forces your hand. Sometimes it’s the slow, humiliating realization that what you’ve built won’t hold forever, no matter how carefully you patch the cracks.
You need to learn to give.
For a while, neither of them says anything.
The pond slaps softly at the bank. From time to time the sound of voices or hammering drifts over—it’s almost bizarre to hear normal day sounds after a story like that.
Then Taehyung lets out a breath and scrubs a hand over his face.
“Anyway,” he says, tone lightening by force, “sorry, you probably think I’m weird.”
Jimin snorts automatically. “No, I think you’re weird because you turned up with a sword.”
“It was a katana!” Taehyung corrects instantly, offended.
“Is there really a difference?” Jimin looks up at him.
Taehyung clutches at his chest. “You have no appreciation for craftsmanship.”
“Infected don’t care about craftsmanship.”
“They should!”
“That’s not how zombies work.”
Taehyung sighs in put-on disappointment. “I’m surrounded by people with no vision.”
Jimin rolls his eyes, but his mouth twitches up.
“There,” Taehyung points at his face, catching the movement. “That. You look less haunted when you do that.”
“You’re really pushing the ‘weird’ agenda.”
“At least I own it.”
Jimin plucks up another blade of grass and immediately doesn’t know what to do with it. He drops it instead.
Taehyung’s gaze follows the motion, then his expression shifts, something sly working its way in around the edges.
“You should come to the party tonight.”
Jimin blinks.
“The what?”
Taehyung gives him a confused look. “The party?”
Jimin stares. “There are parties here?”
That gets a real laugh out of Taehyung, warm and unguarded.
“Yeah, believe it or not, we’re not all sitting in circles crying into soup every night.” He waves a hand dismissively when Jimin keeps looking at him like he’s grown a second head.
“It’s a not-so-secret secret thing. Happens once a month or so. Mostly so us young’uns can blow off some steam and drink crappy moonshine.”
Jimin keeps staring.
Taehyung grins wider. “There’s even music.”
“A party,” Jimin repeats slowly. Just saying the word feels wrong.
“Crazy, I know.”
Jimin looks away, out over the pond.
A party? Here?
Inside the fences, inside all this mud and lumber, grief and half-built barns.
It sounds absurd enough to be fake, but then again so did children laughing by the water the first time he heard them. So did waking up somewhere and not immediately needing to think about how to keep yourself from dying before dark.
A party.
God. He misses that. The feeling of it.
Getting drunk with sweaty strangers and dancing like an idiot to bad music.
These days, with his ribs still tender, the best he could manage is probably swaying side to side like a sad little reed in the wind.
Still.
Doesn’t sound awful.
But—
If there’s a party, Jungkook will know about it.
If Jungkook knows about it, he’ll be there.
And if he’s there, he’s going to look at Jimin with those big awful eyes and ask the question Jimin has been dodging all week.
Why are you avoiding me?
What’s he meant to say to that?
Sorry, I’ve been hiding from you because I’m a self-sabotaging freak and the idea of you still wanting me now that the world isn’t forcing us into the same room makes me feel vaguely insane?
Not exactly a winning line.
Taehyung watches the whole thought process pass over his face.
“Ah, so that’s what this is about.”
Jimin narrows his eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Taehyung tilts his head and swings his legs. “He’ll be there, won’t he.”
Jimin says nothing, which is apparently answer enough.
Taehyung hums. “Okay.”
Jimin turns back to the pond, jaw tight. “Okay what.”
“Okay, so you’re not actually allergic to fun,” Taehyung ponders. “You’re just catastrophizing because your weird little situationship might be in the same place.”
Jimin’s head snaps back toward him. “It is not a situationship.”
Taehyung raises both eyebrows. “The guy you were fused to at the gate, who looked like he was about to start biting people for touching you... is not your situationship.”
“We’re not—” Jimin stops, because honestly, how the fuck is he meant to explain this to a near-total stranger?
Taehyung’s mouth twitches. “Right. Sure.”
Jimin scowls and hugs his knees tighter, ignoring the stiffness in his ribs.
“It’s not that simple,” he mutters.
“Most things aren’t.”
“You don’t get it.”
Taehyung snorts softly. “I don’t need to. I just have the great privilege of looking at your problem from the outside, which means I can tell you you’re being stupid.”
Jimin glares up at him.
Taehyung shrugs. “Affectionately.”
The bastard says it so mildly that Jimin can’t even summon a proper comeback.
He looks down at his hands instead. Dirt half-mooned under his nails, green stains from the grass. The skin over his palms healing with a shiny new layer. Everything about him feels halfway between old and new, like he’s being held in the middle and stretched thin.
“I don’t have a good explanation,” he mutters finally, quietly.
Taehyung doesn’t pounce on that, just waits patiently.
Jimin exhales through his nose. Why is he bothering with this conversation? He doesn’t owe this guy anything. But... it’s kind of nice to talk to someone other than himself or the subject of his inner conflicts.
“If he asks why I’ve been avoiding him, what am I supposed to say?”
Taehyung considers that with surprising seriousness.
“You could lie.”
Jimin gives him a flat look.
“Or you could tell the truth,” he adds.
“That’s worse.”
“Usually, yeah.”
A beat passes, then Taehyung swings his legs once and hops down from the branch, landing on the ground with surprising grace.
“Or,” he says, dusting off his overalls, “you could come to the party and let one thing happen at a time.”
Jimin frowns.
“Isn’t it good to be prepared?”
“Sure, if you love self-sabotage.”
Jimin opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Annoying. True, but god is this guy fucking annoying.
Taehyung flops down on the grass a few feet away from Jimin, too invested in this to let go.
Another breeze rushes through the field, rippling the grass and trees. It’s getting close to noon. The babysitters have already taken the kids back to the food barn, some of the other settlers are also walking towards it in groups or in pairs. Jimin doesn’t know how long it’ll take for him to get used to having three meals a day again.
A party.
Something about that concept makes him ache.
He misses dancing. Misses the freedom of music shaking his bones, how weightless he felt when he let his body overtake and just flow with the rhythm.
The last party he went to, the one back at the dorm, should’ve been different. It shouldn’t have ended there.
But everything was taken from him. His family, dancing, freedom, what he could’ve had with Jungkook if they hadn’t been forced together. Everything was ripped away.
Jimin hates thinking about it. Hates how he can’t let himself just be. Everyone has a sob story now, everyone has wounds and scars that will stay there until the very end.
So why is he so tightly wound that he can’t even enjoy what’s right there in the moment?
Taehyung must see the emotions crack across his face. He shuffles closer across the grass and carefully pats Jimin’s shoulder.
“Come on,” he mutters gently. “You probably need it.”
Jimin takes in a long, ragged breath and gives the man a sideways look.
Horse Guy might be right.
Jimin hates that sitting here has done nothing but make him spiral in tighter and tighter circles, until the inside of his own head feels like a trap.
“If I go,” he says slowly, “and it’s terrible, I’m so blaming you.”
Taehyung lights up. “That’s fine. I’m very blameable.”
“That’s not even a word.”
“Who are you? The grammar police?”
Jimin groans and pushes himself up from the grass with more effort than grace. Taehyung follows him up easily.
“So that a yes?”
“That’s a maybe.”
“That sounds a lot like a yes.”
Jimin brushes dead grass off the back of his jeans and glares weakly. “Don’t make me take it back.”
Taehyung mimes zipping his mouth shut, though the grin stays exactly where it is.
Then he offers Jimin a hand.
Jimin eyes it for a second, then takes it carefully.
“Tonight,” Taehyung grins harder, giving his hand a rough shake like he’s sealing a deal. “I swear I’ll make you have fun.”
Jimin grimaces and wipes his hand on his jeans, secretly enjoying the offended squawk he gets from the other.
This is probably the start of a bad idea.
♡
Later that evening, after the sky has gone from bruised pink to full, velvet dark, Jimin limps back to the willow and finds Taehyung already waiting.
The man is leaning against the trunk with his arms folded, one ankle crossed over the other.
Jimin stops dead and squints at him.
“That’s what you’re wearing?”
Taehyung glances down at himself. “What’s wrong with it?”
Jimin gestures vaguely at the overalls and the dirty boots.
“Do you own anything else?”
Taehyung gasps softly, scandalised. “People happen to love the farm boy getup.”
Jimin looks him over again. “Do you play the banjo by chance?”
“That’s rich coming from someone who looks like he got dressed in the dark out of spite.”
Jimin glances down at himself. He’s wearing clean clothes, at least. One of the donated settlement shirts Seokjin shoved at him on day two, sweats that don’t pull too badly at his bandaged torso and the hoodie he came in, thankfully washed.
He had looked at his reflection in a warped bit of mirror earlier and decided this was as close to presentable as he’ll get.
“It’s a party, not a runway.”
“Exactly,” Taehyung says, pushing off the tree. “That’s why I’m serving prairie chic.”
“More like milk-maid adjacent.” Jimin rolls his eyes.
Taehyung snorts and jerks his chin toward the eastern side of the settlement. “Come on then, I need at least one drink to deal with this abuse.”
Jimin falls into step beside him with a sigh.
The path narrows the further they go, the settlement thinning out into wider stretches of grass and shadow. There are fewer barns out here and more trees pressing up close to the fence line. The sounds change too. Voices carry differently at night—softer somehow, stretched thin over the dark.
Jimin sees the glow of a fire first. A warm pulse of orange and gold flickering against the tree trunks, smoke rising in a lazy ribbon into the starry sky.
His gut starts tingling at once.
Jungkook will be there.
Fuck.
He keeps going anyway, hands shoved in the pocket of his hoodie so Taehyung doesn’t see the sudden tension pull through them.
He’s not ready.
He’s absolutely ready.
He’s going to be sick.
Taehyung glances sideways and catches some of it anyway. “You look pale.”
"You're seeing shit.”
“Sure.”
Jimin doesn’t bother with an answer.
They step out into a clearing and the party opens around them.
It’s smaller than Jimin expected, maybe twenty, thirty people at most.
A rough ring of logs has been dragged around the crackling bonfire, the flames throwing a soft glow over everything. Some people are sitting, shoulders bumped together as they talk, while others stand in clusters, drink cups sloshing as they gesture.
There’s a battered little CD player perched on an overturned crate near the fire, its tinny speakers chugging out some pop hit from years ago. The sound warps every few seconds, one speaker louder than the other, but nobody seems bothered.
Jimin’s eyes automatically skim over the crowd.
Back.
And forth.
No black mop of hair bobbing to the tune, no round eyes catching his. No face he knows better than his own turning at the exact wrong moment and finding him standing there all stiff and wired.
No Jungkook.
But he does spot Namjoon.
One second he’s halfway across the clearing, head bent slightly in conversation, the next his whole face lights up and he’s making a beeline through the crowd with a grin.
“Jimin!”
Before Jimin can brace himself, Namjoon’s arms are already around him.
Jimin returns the hug with a little less conviction, patting him once between the shoulders while his eyes keep moving over the clearing on reflex.
Must’ve been obvious.
“Jungkook is on gate duty tonight,” Namjoon says as he pulls back, tone easy but his eyes stay on Jimin’s face a little too carefully. “Drew the short end of the stick.”
Jimin freezes.
It took him the whole fucking day to drag himself into this. Hours of circling the idea, trying not to think about it too hard. He was kind of ready to see Jungkook again. A little less ready to actually speak to him, but still. He got himself here, didn’t he?
And now—
Nothing.
No Jungkook and the weird rush of disappointment, cold and humiliating in how strong it is.
“Oh,” he mumbles.
Brilliant.
Namjoon’s mouth twitches. He definitely catches the disappointment. Doesn’t say anything, though.
Beside them, Taehyung has already been intercepted by two people and a bottle. He throws Jimin a desperate look over his shoulder before getting dragged away into a conversation.
Traitor.
“Here you go.” Namjoon says instead, shoving a paper packet into one of Jimin’s hands and a metal cup into the other. “Eat. Drink.”
Jimin thanks him awkwardly and opens the packet with his teeth. Hard to tell in the firelight what’s inside, kind of looks like chickpeas or some sort of bean. Salty, though. He pops one in his mouth and immediately brings the cup up to wash it down.
The liquid inside smells suspiciously like paint thinner and fermented apples as it approaches his mouth, but Namjoon is looking at him with an encouraging smile so he tips it back.
He takes one sip and nearly coughs a lung up.
“Oh what the hell?”
Namjoon laughs. “Good, right?”
“Fuck no, what the hell was that?”
“Beats me.” Namjoon shrugs. “One of Seokjin’s concoctions.”
“Is that even safe for human consumption?”
“No one’s died yet.” Namjoon says, patting him on the shoulder. His other hand comes up and forcibly turns him around to face the rest of the party. “Come on now, let’s get you socialized.”
Jimin glares into the cup like but let’s himself be steered into the crowd.
Namjoon drags him through the gathering, introducing him to people with ease.
Jimin tries to be present. He nods, says hi, lets people’s names and faces wash over him. Listens to people talk about their experiences and shares little bits of his own.
But underneath all of it is that weird, dissatisfied little buzz of disappointment. He hates it. Hates that he sat on this anticipation all day, only to be annoyed that Jungkook isn’t here after all.
Eventually, mercifully, Namjoon stops parading him around and drops onto one of the logs by the fire. Jimin sits beside him with a quiet exhale, clutching his cup of hob-goblin juice in both hands.
For a while, neither of them says anything.
The silence is nice. Comfortable.
The fire crackles and throws sparks. The CD player stumbles into another song, something older, and two people on the other side of the flames immediately start singing it badly. Taehyung is off to the left now, deep in conversation with a cluster of people and gesturing with his whole body.
Jimin takes another cautious sip of the moonshine and lets the burn settle low in his chest.
It’s nice.
“Jungkook hasn’t shut up about you.”
Okay.
It was nice.
Jimin physically cringes, shoulders pulling up to his ears. He’d almost been fooled by Namjoon’s restraint, lulled into a false sense of security by snacks and awful booze.
Apparently not.
“Really?” is all he can manage.
Namjoon keeps his eyes on the fire. “Have you been avoiding him?”
The blunt question makes Jimin’s fingers tighten around the cup.
There’s no point lying to a man who’s already watched his face give the whole game from the get go.
So he nods once and keeps his eyes glued to the fire
Namjoon sighs and leans back, stretching one arm along the log under them. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I thought so.”
The fire pops loudly, sending up a spray of sparks. Jimin stares into the flames until they blur around the edges.
“Jungkook’s the kind of person who doesn’t know how to let go once he’s got his mind on something.” Namjoon says after a while. His tone stays light, easy, but there’s no mistaking the point of the words. “But he won’t push if you don’t want him to. If you tell him to back off, he will.” He pauses just long enough for Jimin to feel the stare bore into the side of his face.
“But is that what you want?”
Jimin’s fingers twitch around the cup, mouth pressing together stubbornly.
“I don’t…” he starts slowly, looking for the right words. “I don’t know if I’m good enough.”
Namjoon doesn’t miss a beat.
“What makes someone good enough?”
Jimin frowns at the fire. “Everything?”
Namjoon snorts. “You need to be more specific than that.”
Jimin cuts him a weak glare.
Namjoon shrugs, unrepentant. “No, really. What makes someone good enough? Being useful? Pretty? Emotionally stable?” He lifts one brow. “If that last one’s the requirement, half the people here are screwed.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Gotta find humour in things or you’ll go insane.”
Jimin looks back at the fire.
The song changes again, a louder one this time, with a bass line the poor CD player can barely handle. A few people get up to dance.
“I make everything difficult,” Jimin mutters finally.
Namjoon hums. “That’s true.”
Jimin turns to stare at him.
Namjoon smiles into his cup. “What? I’m not going to lie just because you’re having a moment.”
“Unbelievable. I’m being harassed.”
“You walked right into that one.”
Jimin groans and tips the cup back for another swallow. The moonshine burns all the way down. Oddly enough, he doesn't mind it this time.
Namjoon lets the silence breathe for a second before nudging the conversation back on track.
“You make things difficult,” Namjoon repeats his words, still watching the flames. “Jungkook makes things bigger than they need to be. Taehyung is weird on purpose. I talk too much. Everyone here is carrying around some ridiculous flaw collection.” He shrugs one shoulder. “That’s just being a person.”
“Am I supposed to find that comforting?”
“It should be. The standard isn’t perfection, Jimin. It’s trying.”
Jimin looks him up and down, then back at the bonfire.
“Easy for you to say.”
Namjoon smiles a little. “No, actually. It’s not.” He rubs his thumb along the rim of his cup, eyes on the fire now too. “You know how many times I’ve had to make decisions here with no clue whether they were the right ones? Or whether I was even good enough to make them at all? If I waited until I felt qualified, this place would still be a fence and a prayer.”
The words aren’t grand, almost lazy in the way he says them. That’s probably why they hit too close to home.
“We don’t get to know if we’re enough beforehand,” Namjoon goes on. “That’s the ugly part. You only find out by failing many times before you get it right.”
Jimin shifts, cup warm between his palms.
“And if you can’t?”
Namjoon huffs a laugh. “Then congratulations, you’re just like everybody else who’s ever loved anything.”
Jimin doesn’t answer.
The thought sits between them, hot and uncomfortable.
One of the dancing girls nearly trips over a log and gets caught by three different people at once, laughing loudly as she tries to twirl away.
“I don’t want to ruin it,” Jimin says at last, so quietly he almost thinks the fire will eat the words before Namjoon hears them.
“Ruin what?”
Jimin’s throat works.
“Whatever we had,” he says, eyes fixed on the flames. “Back at the dorm, between us.” He taps his fingers against the cup restlessly.
“Maybe it only worked because it was just the two of us. Because there was nowhere else to look and no one else to want. No other life to have.” The words start coming easier once they’re loose, the ugly truth that he let rattle his mind for way too long. Fuck Seokjin and his moonshine.
“And now we’re here, and he has this place and you and other people and—” Jimin cuts himself off with a sharp exhale. “I don’t know. Maybe I was just convenient.”
Namjoon goes very still beside him.
Then he turns his head and looks at Jimin properly for the first time since the conversation started.
“That,” he says flatly, “is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.”
Jimin bristles at once. “Great. Thanks.”
“No, really.” Namjoon sits forward, elbows on his knees, cup hanging loose between his hands. “Do you know Jungkook at all?”
Jimin blinks. “What kind of question is that?”
“A serious one.”
Jimin stares at him, eyebrows climbing up slowly.
Namjoon’s mouth splits into a grin.
“Convenient? Really? That kid hates convenience. He’d rather climb through a broken window with no plan than use a door properly. If he wanted easy, he wouldn’t have made himself miserable over one person for an entire year.”
The embarrassment that floods Jimin is immediate and vicious.
“You make it sound like I’m some sort of plague.”
“No,” Namjoon laughs. “I’m trying to say that he loves you.”
Jimin’s face goes hot and there’s no way he can blame it on the fire.
“I’m scared that I’ll somehow break the trust that we built,” he admits.
Namjoon is quiet for a moment.
“You might,” he says simply.
Jimin looks at him sharply.
Namjoon shrugs one shoulder, no apology in his expression. “You might ruin it. He might ruin it. Life might ruin it. That’s always been true, zombie apocalypse or not.” He takes another drink and grimaces this time, finally finding the moonshine offensive. “But if you live your life on things that might happen, you're just surviving from one tragedy to the next one.”
Namjoon glances sideways at him, something gentler slipping into his face around the edges. “You don’t have to figure this out in one night,” he says. “Just...whatever you do, don’t make decisions for Jungkook. And don’t punish both of you because you’re used to the worst outcome.”
The bastard makes it sound so simple.
Maybe it is simple, in theory. Plenty of things are simple in theory. Like crossing a bridge, or getting attached. Like saying the truth before it curdles inside you.
Jimin stares at the fire, unblinking, until it stings his eyes.
“You really do like talking, huh.”
Namjoon laughs softly. “It’s one of my flaws.”
“One of many.”
“Exactly. See? You get it.”
That drags a small laugh out of Jimin. The tension in his shoulders loosens by a tiny fraction, just enough to loosen one of the many knots in his person.
Namjoon bumps his shoulder once, dimpled smile turning teasing. “For what it’s worth, Jungkook’s been miserable all week.”
Jimin groans and presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Please don’t tell me that.”
“But it’s true.”
“Please. I feel like a piece of shit.”
“It’s kind of romantic, if you ignore his face every time your name comes up.”
Jimin peeks at him through his fingers. “How bad is it?”
Namjoon considers. “Like a kicked puppy with those eyeballs of his.”
That image is so painfully, specifically Jungkook that Jimin has to laugh again, helpless this time.
“Man, I’m kinda good at this” Namjoon sighs, overly pleased. “Post-apocalyptic relationship advisor.”
“You’re just good at chatting shit.” Jimin snorts.
“And damn proud of it.”
They lapse back into silence after that, the good kind. Lighter.
There’s still the undercurrent of ‘wrong’ running along Jimin’s skin. The fire, the music, the safety, the fact that on the other side of the fence there are things with rotting teeth and empty eyes while inside people are laughing and drinking.
But for the first time since arriving, the strangeness doesn’t feel entirely hostile.
Just new.
Namjoon stretches his legs out toward the fire and glances over one last time. “You know,” he says, almost too casually, “the gate rotation changes at midnight.”
Jimin turns his head slowly.
The other raises both hands in surrender. “I’m just sharing information. Because I’m helpful.”
“Helpful isn’t a word I’d use.”
“Hey, you don’t look like you want to jump into the fire anymore. I’ll take that as a win.”
Jimin snorts into his cup and looks back at the flames before Namjoon can see too much on his face.
Midnight, huh.
Somewhere beyond the bonfire, beyond the dark line of trees and half-built barns, Jungkook is out there under the same sky.
The thought doesn’t scare him as much as it did before. That must count for something.
Namjoon lets the silence stretch for a beat longer, then pushes his palms against his knees and gets to his feet with a quiet grunt.
“Well,” he says, brushing the seat of his jeans off, “I should probably go back to mingling.” He cracks his neck from side to side and points at him. “Think about what I said.”
Jimin nods once, then bites his lip, hesitating.
“Wait.”
Namjoon in his tracks and glances back over his shoulder, eyebrows lifting.
Jimin gnaws on the inside of his lip. He almost drops it and says never mind, because what kind of stupid thing is this to admit out loud after all that?
“I just…” Jimin exhales. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Namjoon stares at him for a few long seconds, then his whole face softens in that deeply annoying, deeply kind way of his. He steps back in, reaches down, and ruffles Jimin’s hair affectionately.
Jimin bats weakly at his wrist. “Don’t.”
Namjoon laughs under his breath and lets his hand fall away.
“Nobody really knows anything,” he says. “We’re all just winging it and hoping for the best.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s the truth,” Namjoon says, and shrugs one shoulder. “Good luck with it.”
Then he’s gone, slipping easily back into the crowd, all broad shoulders and easy smiles and that weird gravitational pull he seems to have around groups of people.
Jimin watches him go, then looks down at the cup in his hands.
The moonshine stares back, pale and nasty in the dim glow.
With one quick glance to make sure nobody’s paying him any attention, he tips it out behind the log into grass. The liquid disappears dark into the dirt almost instantly. Then Jimin leans back on his palms and stares up at the night sky.
There are still a few hours left until midnight.
Enough time to think, which is maybe the worst possible thing.
Namjoon is most likely right. He needs to speak to Jungkook directly. He can’t keep doing this stupid dance of ducking around corners and pretending distance is the best solution. He has to give it a chance, even if it all crashes and burns and leaves him standing there like an idiot with his chest split open.
Do you even know Jungkook?
That question threw him harder than all the rest.
Jimin wants to think he does. Spending nearly a year practically glued to another person should open those doors, shouldn’t it? It should leave no room for mystery.
And yet.
When he really thinks about it—when he strips away all the routine, all the nearness, all the thousand practical details of surviving side by side—what does he actually know?
He knows Jungkook’s name. His age. Knows they’re from vaguely the same part of the country and that Jungkook picked their university because of the arts program. Knows his parents divorced when he was young, that he grew up mostly with his mom and an older brother. Knows he used to cycle through interests and hobbies like he was afraid of ever standing still too long. Knows he can sketch for hours if left alone with enough paper and a decent pen. Knows he snores when he sleeps on his back and laughs with his whole stupid body when something really gets him.
But those are surface things, aren’t they?
Things you find out before the first date. Things people put in those little opening paragraphs about themselves before they get to the good stuff.
Jimin always wanted to ask more. Especially on those long nights in the dorm, when the dark pressed too close and the building settled around them with old, haunted noises. There were moments he could’ve done it—could’ve rolled over under the blanket, watched the line of Jungkook’s nose in the dim light, and asked about the brother he barely mentioned. Asked if he missed his mother the way Jimin did or what kind of son he’d been before the world taught him to hold a machete steady.
He never did.
And Jungkook never really pried either.
He won’t push if you don’t want him to.
It makes more sense now than it did ten minutes ago.
“I’m such an idiot,” Jimin mutters to the sky.
The stars don’t argue.
He scrubs a hand over his face and lets his eyes fall shut.
Behind his eyelids, the dark is warm and pulsing red from the fire. The sounds of the party blur and shift around him—tinny music from the CD player, the low rise and fall of conversation, bursts of laughter that flare and die. The occasional crack from the bonfire as a log gives in on itself. Somewhere beyond that, crickets drag their tiny songs through the grass, the leaves whisper overhead.
It all lulls him. Just enough that his thoughts loosen their hold for a little while. Enough that his body starts to sink heavier against the log, his shoulders dropping inch by inch, his breathing going slower.
He’s close enough to drifting that the first bang barely registers.
His brow twitches.
Another bang. Sharper this time. The sound the odd one out from the rest.
Jimin’s eyes snap open.
Across the clearing, several people have gone still at once, heads turned to the direction of the noise. Multiple radios crackle to life with a burst of static so sudden and ugly it cuts right through the music. The song on the CD player keeps limping along for another second before somebody reaches out and kills it dead.
The whole clearing hushes.
Jimin is already on his feet when his eyes meet Namjoon’s over the fire.
The other man moves quickly, unclips the radio from his belt in one smooth motion and thumbs it on.
“Namjoon listening,” he says, voice deceptively level. “What’s going on?”
Jimin holds his breath.
The radio answers with a burst of shhhhh before a voice tears through.
“Joon! We’ve got a problem!”
A ripple of tension moves through the people around the bonfire.
Namjoon keeps holding Jimin’s gaze over the flames. He can almost feel the thought link between them—
“We spotted a group of raiders on the west side of the gate. It’s a big group. I think we might need back-up.”
Jimin goes cold first, then hot all at once. His pulse starts kicking so hard he can feel it in his mouth.
Around him, people are starting to move now—standing, looking at each other, asking questions over one another in clipped bursts. Somebody says, “How big?” Someone else is already reaching for the radio on their own belt. Across the clearing, Taehyung has gone very still and wide eyed, cup hanging loose in one hand.
The bonfire cracks loudly in the middle of it all, a stupid bright sound.
Namjoon’s face twists. A subtle, terrifying shift Jimin noticed at the gate the first night—the warmth gone, the soft edges sharpened down.
He clicks the button on the radio.
“On our way.”
At the exact same moment, Jimin twists and runs.
The log catches the back of his knee as he clears it, nearly throwing him off balance. The empty cup goes flying somewhere into the grass. Behind him, voices rise at once—someone calling his name, more radios crackling, the scrape of boots over dirt as a few others run with him—but all of it blurs under the roar of blood in his ears.
Jungkook.
♡
Jungkook sighs for what has to be the millionth time that evening and rocks his chair back onto its rear legs.
The old wood creaks under him in complaint.
“Dude, will you stop that?” Hoseok reaches over from the chair beside him and punches him lightly in the shoulder.
Jungkook grumbles and rubs at the sore spot, pointedly not looking at him.
It’s a quiet, boring night at the gate. The worst kind.
They already did the north perimeter once, checked the fence line twice. Nothing much out there besides some wild animals and the occasional straggler snagging itself on branches and stumbling through the brush like a drunk uncle at a wedding.
Not much of a challenge for Hoseok—one neat little thwip from the crossbow and it’s lights out forever.
Jungkook should be at the party right now, not sitting at the gate with his ass going numb and his thoughts running themselves ragged.
He’s not an idiot. He knew Jimin was avoiding him by day two—basically the second word got back that he’d been discharged from medical and was let loose in the settlement.
He’d come by the medical barn twice that morning, but Seokjin turned him away each time with a shitty excuse that Jimin needed rest or was asleep.
By the fourth or fifth time it happened, Jungkook got the message.
Jimin needed time. To get his head around this place and to adjust, probably. Jungkook gets that. He knows Jimin better than most people ever will, maybe better than Jimin realises. He knows that none of this is going to be easy on him.
The dorm had been small and ugly, but it had also been knowable. Just the two of them against the rest of it, while this place is massive and filled with strangers. Safer, somehow, which almost makes it worse.
So Jungkook didn’t push.
Didn’t go stomping into whatever sleeping barn Jimin got assigned to and demand a conversation like some sort of clingy psycho. Even though every single selfish nerve ending in his body had been screaming to do exactly that.
Instead, he concocted this whole fucking gloriously stupid plan. Even roped Namjoon into helping him, which should’ve been his first clue that fate was winding up to punch him in the face.
Jimin isn’t actually hard to understand once you know where the walls are and how to touch them without getting your fingers taken off.
He likes things to mean something. Likes weight and sentiment. A reason behind every decision. He acts like he hates fuss, but what he actually hates is emptiness—gestures without thought behind them, words with no backbone.
So Jungkook figured if he could get him to the monthly party—maybe it could be something. A cheap little knock-off version of the last party back at the dorm.
The one where Jungkook, humiliatingly drunk on contraband vodka and his own bad judgment, finally grew enough balls to go talk the gorgeous neighbour he liked to pretend he wasn’t secretly obsessing over.
The party that should’ve mattered more than it got to in the end.
Unfortunately, Jungkook is stuck here instead. With six other miserable fuckers while the party’s happening without him.
He tips the chair back and sighs. Again.
Hoseok’s boot comes out swift as a snake and kicks one of the back legs.
The chair jerks violently. Jungkook yelps and flails, windmilling just enough to save himself from falling on his ass.
The other guards chuckle at his expense.
“Jesus Christ,” Jungkook snaps, dragging the chair legs back down with a thud. “You trying to kill me?”
“If you die from being annoying, that’s on you,” Hoseok points at him, utterly unbothered. He’s got his crossbow laid across his lap and one ankle propped over his knee casually. “Sit like a normal person.”
Jungkook scowls out into the dark beyond the gate.
One of the other guards, Luke—or Lucas, or whatever the fuck his name is—leans back against a post with a smirk curling one side of his mouth. He’s one of those men who always looks vaguely damp and displeased, like he’s always offended by something. Jungkook’s never liked him.
“What’s got you so miserable, Jeon?” the man drawls. “Trouble with the missus?”
A couple of the others snicker.
Jungkook turns his head slowly and frowns at him.
“Mister, actually.”
The smile drops off Luke-or-whatever’s face in a second.
His brow furrows as he looks Jungkook up and down, expression going strange and mean all at once. The other guards hush a little, their eyes flicking between them with that ugly little spark people get when they smell a juicy argument.
Beside him, Hoseok mutters, “Oh, here we go,” under his breath and folds his arms.
Luke’s face twists into a sneer.
“Huh,” he says. “You a fag then?”
The whole gate area goes still.
Jungkook feels it all at once—that hot, immediate flare of anger and violence under his skin. He’s on his feet before he realises he’s stood, chair scraping harshly behind him.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Luke pushes up from his own chair too, puffing his chest and squaring his shoulders. He isn’t taller than Jungkook, but he’s broad shouldered and built kind of like a barrel. Thick neck and even thicker head.
“You heard me.”
Hoseok’s chair legs hit the ground with a bang as he stands too. “Alright boys, both of you need to calm down.”
Neither of them listens.
Luke takes a step forward, chin tipped in challenge. “Didn’t realise we were babysitting perverts now.”
Jungkook’s fist clenches so hard his knuckles creak.
Around them, the other guards do exactly fucking nothing.
A woman on the far side of the gate glances away like suddenly the treeline has become fascinating. Another man coughs into his hand and shifts his weight, carefully neutral.
Cowards.
Jungkook can feel Hoseok tense beside him, one arm half-raised in case he has to physically get between them.
“Luke,” Hoseok hisses under his breath. "Shut your fucking mouth.”
Luke doesn’t even look at him. His eyes stay on Jungkook.
“What, hit a nerve?”
Jungkook laughs once, but there’s nothing funny in it.
“No, man,” he says, stepping forward. “You’re just making it real hard not to knock your teeth in.”
That gets a reaction. Luke’s mouth peels back and he takes another step too, hands flexing at his sides.
“Try it, princess.”
Hoseok shoves a palm flat into Jungkook’s chest before he can launch himself. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Luke gives a short, mocking huff. “Yeah, listen to your boyfriend.”
Jungkook surges forward, but Hoseok is already braced for it, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket and hauling him short before he can do more than lurch like an idiot. The movement still sends a jolt of savage satisfaction through him when Luke flinches, rocking back on his heels.
“Oh, fuck off,” Hoseok snaps. “You wanna spend the rest of the night bleeding into the dirt because you can’t keep your mouth shut, that’s your issue. But not on my shift.”
Luke sneers, but the venom has burnt off a little. Maybe because Jungkook’s still straining against Hoseok’s grip, breathing hard enough to feel it burn in his ribs. Maybe because there’s no audience left in the mood for it, only a ring of embarrassed silence and a tension with nowhere to go.
“Guard duty with queers and crybabies, the world’s really gone to shit.” Luke mutters.
Jungkook stops fighting Hoseok just long enough to smile at him.
“Keep going,” he says softly. “Please keep going. Make it easier for me.”
That finally seems to get him thinking. Not in a moral sense—Jungkook doesn’t think the man has one—but in a practical one. Luke glances at the other guards and finds absolutely no support there beyond their shared spinelessness. He clicks his tongue, mutters something under his breath, and takes a deliberate step back toward his chair.
Hoseok lets out a huge, disgusted sigh.
“I’m surrounded by children,” he says to the air. “Love that for me.”
Jungkook tries to yank free anyway, still vibrating with the need to do damage.
Hoseok tightens his grip. “No.”
“He started it—”
“And you’re gonna finish it by getting hauled in front of Namjoon for breaking someone’s face at the fucking gate?” Hoseok hisses into his ear. “Use your brain, Jungkook. I know it’s decorative most days, but try.”
Jungkook bares his teeth.
Hoseok doesn’t even blink. “Fence walk. Now.”
Jungkook opens his mouth to argue, but shuts it just as fast.
Yeah.
Probably best if he gets moved before he actually does something.
“Fine,” he grits out instead.
Hoseok releases him one fistful at a time, like he’s handling a dangerous animal liable to bite. Which, fair enough.
“Good,” he says, loud enough for the rest of the gate crew to hear. “We’re doing another fence pass.”
No one argues.
Jungkook shoulders past him and snatches up his flashlight from the crate by the gate. As he goes by Luke, he manages to sneak in one sharp middle finger at waist height.
Luke swears at his back.
Small victories.
Hoseok catches up with him once they’re a few yards down the perimeter, far enough that the gate voices become distant.
For a while, they walk in silence.
The fence rattles faintly in the night breeze. Beyond it, the woods shift and whisper. Something groans every once in a while—a gurgled wet sound that gets cut off almost immediately by a soft thwip and the rustle of Hoseok lowering his crossbow again.
“Nice shot,” Jungkook mutters, still more than a little miffed.
“Always is.”
They keep walking.
Jungkook stalks ahead of Hoseok with the flashlight clenched in one hand and his jaw set tight.
The beam jerks over fence posts, flattened grass, the welded seam of the gate supports, then out toward the tree line again. Every shadow gets a once-over, every bush. Every stupid patch of darkness. It’s not even proper vigilance at this point, just something to do with all the heat still simmering in his chest.
Behind him, Hoseok lets out a long, theatrical groan.
“Will you stop flashing that thing at every leaf in a five-mile radius?” he complains. “You’re not hunting ghosts.”
Jungkook ignores him and sweeps the beam over another patch of brush.
Hoseok makes an aggravated sound in the back of his throat, then catches up enough to poke Jungkook between the shoulder blades with the end of his crossbow.
“For fuck’s sake, cut it out. Luke’s a stubborn bigot. You agonising over it isn’t gonna magically make him less of an asshole.” He sighs in frustration. “And he’s not the only one either.”
Jungkook finally turns his head enough to throw him a foul look.
“Yeah, well,” he mutters, swinging the flashlight back toward the woods, “I don’t know how I’m meant to live in a place with people like that.”
“What other choice is there?” Hoseok shrugs.
A rustle comes from the bushes to their left. Both men stop short. Hoseok’s crossbow lifts in one smooth, practiced motion, aimed at the dark. Jungkook’s flashlight beam cuts across the leaves just in time to catch a flash of russet fur and a pointed little face.
A fox freezes for one second in the light, then darts back into the undergrowth.
Hoseok lowers the crossbow with a snort.
“See? Not everything out here wants to ruin your night.”
Jungkook huffs through his nose and keeps walking.
It’s the worst part, really. That Hoseok’s right.
There isn’t much choice out there.
Beyond the fence, the world is all teeth, death and whatever’s left of people’s worst instincts. It’d be nice to think something as small as civilisation collapsing and the dead getting up to eat the living would finally make people let go of their stupid, rotten beliefs. But humanity, apparently, is nothing if not stubborn—always finding some new, inventive way to make things harder for themselves than necessary.
Jungkook sighs again.
Hoseok groans like he’s in physical pain and pokes him in the back with the crossbow a second time.
“Seriously, what’s got you so bothered tonight?”
Jungkook whips around and flashes the torch right into his face.
Hoseok swears and jerks his head back. “Jesus fuck—!”
Jungkook bites back and unapologetic smirk.
"This about your guy?” Hoseok presses, blinking spots out of his vision. “Jimin?”
Your guy. That has a nice ring.
Jungkook looks away.
“I was supposed to meet him at the party,” he admits after a beat. “But instead I’m here, getting hate-crimed on like I’m in school again.”
Hoseok hums thoughtfully but doesn't offer much else as they walk a little further in silence, boots crunching over the packed dirt.
It’s kind of boring out here when no one’s being an ass or trying to chew through the fence. Just trees and the occasional movement out in the dark that turns out to be an animal or the wind.
“So,” Hoseok speaks up suddenly. “What’s Jimin like?”
Jungkook stops dead and turns to stare at him.
Hoseok only gives him a cheerful smile and one raised eyebrow, crossbow hanging loose by its strap.
Jungkook squints at him, then starts walking again.
“He’s kind of…” He searches for the word, flashlight beam bobbing with his steps. “Bristly. Like a hedgehog.”
“A hedgehog?”
“Yeah.” Jungkook laughs under his breath. “Super reserved and a little emotionally stunted, but…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.
“But?” Hoseok prompts.
Jungkook exhales through his nose.
“He’s scared, I think.” The admission feels clumsy the second it’s out. “I don’t know if it’s me, or what’s happened, but—,” he frowns, trying to untangle the words into something that sounds less ridiculous than it feels. “But it’s like he’s scared of change and anything getting permanent at the same time.”
“Commitment?” Hoseok offers mildly.
“Maybe.” Jungkook grimaces. “I don’t know. That sounds way too clean for what it is.”
Hoseok swings the crossbow back and forth by the strap as they walk, nearly clipping his own thigh with it.
“Mm,” he hums. “Sounds like you met your match, though. You like a challenge.”
“Hey,” Jungkook whines instantly. “It’s not like that.”
Hoseok giggles and shoves him lightly with one shoulder.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He glances over, smile going a little sly. “Is he hot though?”
Well.
Jungkook blinks into the dark for a second like maybe the trees will answer for him.
Then he snorts.
“Obviously.”
Hoseok wolf-whistles at his back.
“No, listen.” Jungkook gestures with the flashlight and nearly blinds himself with the motion. “It’s not even in a normal way. It’s—” He breaks off with a frustrated laugh. “He’ll just be standing there, doing absolutely nothing, looking annoyed at a wall or whatever, and somehow that’s enough to make me feel tingly all over.”
Hoseok cackles.
“I’m serious!” Jungkook protests, grinning despite himself now. “It’s stupid. He’s just got this face and these eyes—,” he frowns out at the dark when his mind conjures up an image of Jimin.
To put it in simple vernacular—Jimin is gorgeous. Features both soft and sharp at the same time, perfect from every damn angle. But it’s not what he looks like that gets to Jungkook, it’s how he looks.
Jimin is the type to express emotions with his body instead of words. The few time he’s laughed, he’d double over, mouth splitting into a wide grin and eyes crinkling into crescents. When he’s angry, it’s all sharp lines and a tight jaw, the intensity almost simmering in every look and every biting word. And when he’s sad, he gets weirdly soft all over. A jut of a lower lip here, the narrowed eyes getting just a little rounder and glassy.
And when he looks at Jungkook—
“—it’s like he’s always half a second away from telling you to fuck off, but if you catch him at the right moment…” His voice trails.
Hoseok looks genuinely delighted. “Oh, you are gone.”
“Shut up.”
“And here I thought the end of the world might protect me from hearing men pine.”
Jungkook clicks his tongue and swings the flashlight lower, watching the beam bounce over the fence supports. “He’s just—” He tries again, quieter. “I never met anyone like him before.”
That knocks the air out of the conversation.
Jungkook sighs—again—and keeps walking, boots almost dragging across the grass.
Hoseok doesn’t tease him this time, just glances over with one of those knowing looks and follows.
Silence falls for a while.
Until a branch snaps somewhere beyond the fence.
It’s not loud. Barely more than a dry little crack swallowed by the dark. But Hoseok stops walking so abruptly Jungkook nearly trips over his own feet.
“What?” Jungkook whispers.
Hoseok frowns, head tilted slightly toward the woods. Then he lifts one hand sharply and presses a finger to his own lips.
Jungkook goes quiet at once.
The only thing cutting through the dark is Jungkook’s flashlight beam, shaking just a little where it hits brush and tree trunks.
“Turn it off.” Hoseok’s voice drops even lower.
Jungkook blinks. “Huh?”
“The flashlight.” Hoseok’s grip tightens around his crossbow. “Turn it off. Now.”
The harsh whisper jolts down Jungkook’s spine. He fumbles with the torch and clicks it off.
Darkness slams into place.
For a long beat, all Jungkook can hear is the default sounds of nature and their breathing. Hoseok catches his sleeve and drags him a few steps closer, keeping low as they move toward a large overgrown bush pressed up near the fence. The leaves scratch at Jungkook’s wrists and snag the hem of his jacket as they hunch behind it.
He peers through the branches, but it’s too fucking dark to see shit.
The woods beyond the fence are just layers of black on black, trunks and shadow and the faint suggestion of movement that could be wind or his own eyes trying too hard.
Another twig snaps.
Jungkook feels Hoseok tense beside him, hears his breath hitch for one quick second before evening out again.
“Infected?” he whispers, eyes darting uselessly through the dark.
Hoseok crouches and grabs a fistful of Jungkook’s jacket, hauling him down with him.
“They don’t move that slow,” he breathes back.
That does absolutely nothing good for Jungkook’s nerves.
They stay still and listen.
In front of them, the woods sit heavy and waiting. The kind of oppressive silence that helps your brain conjure up things that aren’t really there.
Maybe it really is just an animal.
But Hoseok doesn’t seem convinced. He hasn’t loosened his grip on Jungkook’s bicep, fingers still locked hard enough to hurt.
Another snap, louder. Then a rustle—something dragging across the grass.
Then, all at once, the thing slams against the fence with a wet gurgle and a snarl.
Jungkook nearly yells. The sound gets strangled in his throat when he slaps a hand over his own mouth just as Hoseok jerks back with his own gasp, hard enough to nearly take them both down into the dirt.
The thing on the other side of the fence thrashes and claws at the wire, all gasping breath and the horrible, sloppy scrape of dead hands against metal. Jungkook can’t see it properly, only a vague bucking shape in the dark, but he knows the sound by heart. The wet clack of teeth and the sticky little noises they make when their jaws work uselessly in search of flesh.
“It’s just a zom—”
Hoseok’s palm finds his face blindly and smacks over his mouth before he can finish.
“Shhh,” he hisses. “Wait.”
Jungkook rolls his eyes.
The body keeps thrashing against the fence for a few more awful seconds, snarling and scraping, throwing itself uselessly at the wire. Then—
Click.
Bang.
The gunshot tears through the night so loudly both men yelp in unison.
Jungkook’s heart plummets straight to his heels then back up into his throat.
The thing on the fence gives a horrible, strangled sound.
Then again—
Bang.
The body hits the ground with a meaty thump, half-prone against the base of the fence.
Jungkook barely has time to register what the fuck is happening before a voice rings out from the other side.
“We found it!”
What the fuck?
He goes to stand, instinct taking over his body, but Hoseok yanks him right back down.
Jungkook hits the ground on one knee and twists, trying to fight him off for a second, but Hoseok’s grip only tightens, nails biting into his arm through the jacket.
“Stay down,” Hoseok breathes, all traces of joking gone.
A flashlight beam sweeps over the fence from the other side. It skates over the sagging corpse of the infected person, catches on the metal links, then slides off again into the dark.
“You fucking idiot!” another furious voice cuts through. “You just fucking announced us to the whole place!”
Jungkook goes cold.
He knows that voice.
Why the fuck does he know that voice—
“Shut the fuck up,” someone else snarls back. “We found the stupid place, isn’t that what you wanted?”
Another flashlight beam passes over the fence from the other side. It skirts over the body, then drifts higher, over a familiar pair of scuffed boots, a hand holding a gun low at the thigh.
Then the man steps half into the beam and Jungkook’s stomach drops.
Patchy stubble, the hacked hair. The mean fucking face Jungkook would rather forget forever.
Bookshop.
The Knife guy.
Oh, fuck.
Hoseok shifts beside him, probably feeling Jungkook’s body go tense. His hand leaves Jungkook’s arm for just a second, enough to flatten hard against his shoulder blade instead—a warning. Stay still.
On the other side of the fence, the group moves closer.
There are at least five close enough for Jungkook to track by sound, maybe more hanging back. He hears leaves crunch as they walk past their bush, someone’s rough breathing too close to the fence.
“How the fuck did you even find this place?” another voice mutters. He sounds younger, nasally almost, and clearly nervous.
Knife snorts.
“Tracked one of their supply trucks as far as the road let us,” he says. “Then we got lucky.”
The beam swings slowly across the fence line again, up and down, and stops at the undergrowth pressed flat here and there by months of patrol traffic. Jungkook shrinks lower behind the bush on instinct, leaves scratching his cheek.
“Keep walking,” Knife mutters. “There’s gotta be another way in.”
A walkie-talkie crackles to life with a burst of static loud enough to make Hoseok twitch.
“Can you hear me?” A tinny voice echoes through the speaker. “You got eyes on anything?”
Knife yanks the radio up. “Yeah. Found the place.”
Static.
“Good. Main road cuts off near some forest. We’re driving down until it ends.”
Jungkook’s blood turns to ice.
Vehicle. How the fuck did they get a car?
“Do that,” Knife says. “We’re walking a fence line. Bound to hit something eventually.”
“Copy.”
The radio clicks dead.
No one speaks for a second after that.
The dead body at the base of the fence shifts slightly as one of the raiders nudges it with a boot.
Then the flashlight beams swing away from their patch of fence and start bobbing east through the trees.
Toward the gate.
Jungkook’s body wants to spring up and run after them, run ahead of them, do something, anything, but Hoseok’s hand digs back into his arm and keeps him pinned there.
So they stay put. Stock still.
The woods swallow the raiders slowly. First the voices fade, then the beams become little pale ghosts slipping between trunks, then even the footsteps soften into the background. It takes too long. Jungkook’s knees start aching in the crouch, hand cramping around the useless flashlight. Every muscle in his body feels like it’s straining toward motion while the rest of him stays trapped in place.
At one point he thinks they’re gone.
Then a branch cracks somewhere further off and Hoseok’s fingers tighten again, silently ordering him to keep his ass down.
Only when the last trace of movement disappears into the east side of the woods does Hoseok finally move.
He lets go of Jungkook so abruptly Jungkook nearly tips over.
The older man fumbles for the radio clipped to his belt, fingers clumsy with adrenaline.
“Hello?” he hisses, thumbing the device on. “Anyone hear me?”
Jungkook can’t see his face properly, not with all the dark and leaves around them, but he can hear the tremble in his voice.
The radio spits back a long burst of static.
“Shhhhhhh—Hobi?” someone answers at last. “Are you two okay? We heard gunshots.”
“Raiders,” Hoseok says immediately, already pushing to his feet. “There’s a group of them.”
Jungkook scrambles up after him, nearly tangling himself in the shrub. He clicks the flashlight back on and the beam lurches wildly across branches and the fence before he gets a handle on it.
Hoseok is already moving.
“There’s a vehicle heading for the gate,” he pants into the radio as he starts running. “Tell Namjoon and Yoongi.”
The voice on the other end crackles with static again. “Got it.”
Hoseok doesn’t wait for more and takes off in a sprint.
Jungkook runs after him.
The fence line blurs beside them in silver flashes and shadow. The flashlight jerks uselessly in his grip, bouncing over grass and the backs of Hoseok’s boots. His lungs start to burn almost immediately, but the adrenaline spiking through his body makes any thoughts melt away.
They found them. They somehow found the settlement and followed them back here. They have guns and there’s a lot of them. They—
Jimin.
The thought hits out of nowhere and nearly knocks him out of stride.
The party is south of the gate. Jimin should still be by the fire, should still be safe, should—
Jungkook runs faster.
♡
By the time Jungkook and Hoseok burst out of the tree line and back into the wash of the gate floodlights, the whole place has already come awake in the ugliest possible way.
It’s weird to think that just a few hours ago this place was nearly deserted. Just the lot of them lazily guarding the gate and waiting for the shift change, almost asleep in their seats. And now it looks like an ant hill.
The gate lights are on, bleaching the road beyond the gate into a flat, exposed strip of pale gravel. The bright light makes the woods look even blacker by comparison. Dangerous.
Hoseok doesn’t slow down. He tears straight into the cluster of guards closest to the inner barricade, crossbow still in one hand, radio in the other.
“West side,” he pants. “They were walking along the fence, and there’s a truck coming down the road—”
“We got the call,” one of the women barks back without looking at him, already checking the chamber on her rifle. “How many?”
“Fifteen, maybe twenty in total. Hard to tell in the dark.” Hoseok drags a breath into his lungs and looks around. “Where’s Joon?”
“On his way from the party.”
Jungkook has barely stopped moving when a hand shoves something hard against his chest. He startles and looks down.
A gun. Heavy and matte black. Clearly loaded.
Luke is standing there with the weapon practically forced into Jungkook’s hands.
“Take it.”
Jungkook blinks at him, then at the gun, then back at him.
“The fuck am I supposed to do with this?”
Luke’s face turns into a sneer. “You shoot people, idiot.”
“I’ve never held a gun in my life.”
The contempt on Luke’s drops for a second, twisting into confusion. Then disgust.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Uhhh—No?”
Luke swears under his breath, scrubs a hand over his mouth, then jerks the gun back out of Jungkook’s grip to point at the safety with one finger.
“This,” he says curtly, “flicks off. Don’t touch the trigger unless you plan on using it. Hold it tighter than that or it’ll kick you like a bitch and crack your wrist.” He glances at Jungkook’s face, then huffs. “Try not to shoot one of ours.”
The backhanded comment is right there, dangling like bait.
But Jungkook doesn’t bite.
There’s bigger things happening now than Luke being a piece of shit. Maybe because his heart is already trying to break through his ribs and he doesn’t have the energy for two battles in one night.
Or maybe because Hoseok is already standing guard only a few feet away, breathing down his neck.
Either way, Jungkook only takes the gun back and nods.
“Got it.”
Luke looks almost irritated that he didn’t get a rise out of him.
“Joon’s here!” Someone yells.
Jungkook looks up.
Two figures are running toward them from the eastern path, both lit in flashes as they cross from darkness to lamp light and back again. Namjoon is a stride ahead, wide-eyed and fast despite the way he’s panting, radio bouncing against his hip. Beside him, Jimin is running too, one hand pressing briefly to his side every few steps.
He should not be here.
He should not be here—he should be back by the fire or somewhere safe inside a building, nowhere near the gate, nowhere near men with guns and bad intentions. But Jungkook only gets to think that for a second because then Jimin sees him and his whole face changes.
Namjoon gets caught almost immediately by Hoseok and two of the guards talking at once, dragging him sideways into the centre of the chaos.
Jimin doesn’t slow.
He reaches Jungkook with enough force to nearly knock the gun right out of his hand and throws himself at him, arms wrapping around his neck in a harsh grip.
Everything happens so quickly, but to Jungkook it’s a whole week of aching compressing into one moment.
His arms wrap around the other automatically, and it’s like—
Relief. The comfort of coming home after a storm and finding the lights still on.
Jungkook lets himself and the panic melt a little.
Jimin is warm all over from the run—all sharp exhales, damp hair and shaking hands. He’s clutching at the back of Jungkook’s jacket like if he loosens his grip now, something terrible and final might happen in the space between them.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin pants into his chest. “I’m sorry, I’ve been so stupid, I’m—”
Jungkook’s free hand lands at the back of his head, fingers slipping into the damp downy hair at the base of his skull.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says softly. “You’re still hurt—Ouch!”
Jimin’s hand, without warning or mercy, finds his nipple through two layers of shirt and twists.
Jungkook jerks back just enough to stare down at him in horror. “What the fuck—”
“I,” Jimin hisses, tightening both arms around him again like he means to weld them together, “am not going anywhere.”
Something inside Jungkook—something that’s been strung up too tight for a weeks and months—snaps loose.
He laughs.
Bright and helpless, a little hysterical. Because Jimin is here, furious and scared, apologising with violence when there’s nothing to be sorry for. The gate could open into hell itself and Jungkook would happily walk right through, if it meant he got to keep his eyes on that face.
Jimin glares up at him, cheeks pink with exertion and embarrassment, lips pressed into an almost-pout.
God, he’s so beautiful.
Jungkook doesn’t even really decide, just bends at the waist and kisses him quickly, utterly wrong for the setting—like always.
Does he care? Fuck no.
He only means to steal the barest brush of mouth. Just a quick selfish moment for himself, for the seams to stop bursting. Just this can be enough.
Jimin seems to have other ideas.
His fingers fist into Jungkook’s hair and he kisses back harshly, even stands on his tippy-toes to follow his mouth when Jungkook tips back just the tiniest bit from the surprise assault on his mouth.
Jungkook manages to pull back first with a wet smack.
“Sorry,” he pants. “I—fucking hell— I needed that.”
Jimin looks equally frazzled, eyes wide and dark, fixed on Jungkook’s mouth for one fatal second too long before glancing up into his eyes.
Fuck everything to hell and back. Jungkook leans back in—
“At your posts!”
Namjoon’s voice rings through the moment like a strike of lightning, and everything rushes back in at once—the floodlights, the guns, the gate.
One day, they will finally have the right moment.
Jungkook’s head snaps toward the towers.
He spots Yoongi already in place above them in the nearest watchtower, crouched low behind the timber barrier with a sniper rifle braced against his shoulder. His profile is all angles in the hard white spill of the lights, the scar over his blind eye stark as a knife mark.
Jungkook grabs Jimin’s wrist with his empty hand.
“Come on.”
Jimin follows with a curt nod, breath still a little ragged, as Jungkook pulls him toward and up the tower ladder two steps at a time. Jungkook’s other hand stays firmly wrapped around the gun despite how wrong it feels.
Yoongi doesn’t look away from the scope when they clamber onto the platform.
“You two always this disgusting?” he asks dryly.
Jimin makes a faint choking that turns into a wince as he kneels on the wood, while Jungkook blatantly ignores the comment and drops down into a crouch beside the older man.
“What do you see?”
Yoongi adjusts the rifle with a hum.
“Not much yet. Fifteen, maybe twenty people total if the count from the road’s right.” His voice stays calm in a way Jungkook finds almost disturbing. “Not many proper weapons between them. But homemade shit’ll kill you just as dead.”
Jungkook peers over the edge of the tower.
Below them, beyond the metal bars of the gate, a loose half-circle of men and women stands just outside the wash of the floodlights.
They’ve stopped far enough back to avoid looking immediately threatening, but close enough that every sudden movement registers. Their faces come and go in the shifting overlap of shadow and white light. Some of them have rifles, a few handguns, a baseball bat, what looks like a crowbar, one machete catching a cold glint at a hip.
They’re talking among themselves, voices too low to hear from up here, but their bodies say enough. The gestures are sharp, irritated almost. Nobody looks unified.
Then the truck arrives.
It rumbles out of the dark like an old animal dragged from a swamp, front bumper dented to shit. It rolls to a stop a few yards behind the loose crowd and more figures jump out of the back, boots hitting the road in hard thumps.
Jungkook leans forward, eyes narrowing.
There.
Knife guy.
Pipe too, just behind him.
“That’s them,” he says under his breath.
Jimin turns his head sharply toward him.
“The people from the city,” Jungkook mutters, not taking his eyes off the road. “The ones from the bookshop.”
Jimin’s whole body goes rigid beside him, hand shooting out to grab his forearm.
Down below, one man steps out from the new arrivals and walks straight toward Knife.
He doesn’t look especially remarkable. Average height, average build. Weird tan trench coat flapping around his legs like he’s fucking John Constantine. But the way the others shift when he approaches tells Jungkook enough.
Leader.
He gets right up to Knife and, without a word to spare, punches him hard in the gut.
Knife folds instantly, stumbling with a shocked grunt.
Jungkook blinks.
Well.
That’s one way to lead.
He watches as the leader leans in and whispers something harsh in Knife’s ear, who manages to snarl something back, half-doubled over, and gets shoved once in the shoulder for his trouble. The whole exchange is too far to hear, but not hard to read.
“They’re arguing,” Yoongi whispers next to him.
“No shit,” Jimin mutters.
Yoongi’s mouth twitches. “I think they got the hint this isn’t some Sunday school.”
Jungkook glances around the gate.
The whole place is locked and loaded. Twenty or so guards posted at the inner barricades, guns and crossbows peeking through the metal sheets closest to the gate. He spots Hoseok and Luke in the tower next to theirs—both in the same position, eyes on the prize. Another two on the roof of the nearest utility shed.
More shadows move behind the main line, armed and waiting. It’s not a totally polished affair, most people don’t really know how to fight, let alone shoot a gun—but it’s a hell of a lot more than a bunch of desperate raiders probably expected.
On the tower opposite them, Namjoon climbs up into view.
He steps right to the front, one hand braced on the wooden rail, the other holding a megaphone someone must’ve dug out of storage. It makes him look absurdly official. The floodlights catch the side of his face, all stern lines and scary focus.
“Evening,” he calls down.
The road stills.
The leader looks up slowly.
“Evening,” he answers after a moment, voice carrying smoothly. “Nice place you’ve got.”
“You’re trespassing,” Namjoon answers evenly. “So let’s skip the small talk.”
A few of the raiders shift. One woman with stringy hair and a shotgun tucked under her arm looks sharply at the leader, clearly measuring his next move.
A crooked smirks spreads on his face.
“We’ve got people, you’ve got a place. Doesn’t seem too complicated.”
“No,” Namjoon says. “But you’re not coming in.”
The leader’s mouth tightens.
“You haven’t even heard what we’re asking.”
“Weird way to ask,” Namjoon says evenly. “Don’t you think?”
A faint ripple goes through the crowd, a wave of whispers rising. The leader just lifts his chin.
“Would you prefer I sent flowers first?”
“No,” Namjoon says. “I’d prefer you didn’t waltz over to our gate in the middle of the night and expect hospitality.”
The leader spreads his arms slightly, palms open. It would almost look harmless if there weren’t two rifles and a shotgun visible behind him.
“We’ve got hungry people,” he says. “Bad roads behind us and nowhere worth camping that won’t get us chewed up before sunrise. I’m trying to be reasonable here.”
Jungkook watches Namjoon’s face from across the gap between the towers. Not much changes in it. Just that slight narrowing around the eyes he gets when someone is trying to sell him something and he’s already decided he doesn’t like the price.
“Reasonable,” Namjoon repeats. “Interesting word choice.”
The leader exhales through his nose, some of the fake charm slipping.
“Fine. You want the ugly version?” He jerks a thumb towards the truck. “Winter gutted us. Half the buildings we try to hold turn into death traps the second one infected slips in through. We’ve got wounded people who haven’t had a full meal in days.”
Jimin shifts beside Jungkook, just enough that their shoulders brush.
Jungkook can’t tell how much of the story is true.
Probably some. Maybe all of it.
But that doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Hunger and cruelty aren’t mutually exclusive. They never have been.
Black and white—Yoongi’s words make a lot more sense now.
Namjoon doesn’t soften either, at least not visibly. But he keeps talking, which is more than Jungkook expected.
“How many wounded?”
The leader blinks, maybe not expecting that to be the first question. “Three bad enough to matter.”
“How many weapons?”
“Enough.”
Namjoon’s mouth twitches without any humour in it. “That wasn’t the question.”
The leader rolls one shoulder. “Not enough to take this place, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Well,” Namjoon says mildly, “that’s reassuring.”
One of the women near the truck mutters something under her breath and gets a sharp look from the man next to her. The leader ignores them.
“Listen—we’re not here to start a war.”
“You already fired at my perimeter.”
A beat.
The leader glances sideways, irritation flashing over his face. “That,” he grits through his teeth, “was not the plan.”
Jungkook glances at Knife. He is standing a little back now, one arm folded over his stomach and face carved into a foul sneer. Even from up here Jungkook can tell he’s listening but not taking anything, more the type to do something stupid and ask questions later.
Namjoon leans one forearm on the timber rail of the tower.
“You’re not here to cause trouble. Not here to ‘start a war’,” he quotes the air sarcastically with his free hand. “So what do you want then?”
The leader laughs softly. “You really gonna make me say it?”
“Yes.”
“I want in.”
“No.”
The answer comes so fast and flat a few of the raiders visibly stiffen.
The leader’s smile slips. “You don’t even know what I was going to offer.”
“You showed up after dark with armed people and a truck full of strangers,” Namjoon says. “What could you possibly offer that won’t have our throats slit in our sleep?”
A murmur ripples through the group again. This time more nervous than annoyed.
The leader drags a hand over his mouth.
“Then what are we doing here?”
“Talking,” Namjoon says. “Which is more than I was obliged to give you.”
The man huffs a humourless laugh. “You this self-righteous all the time, or is the megaphone bringing something out in you?”
Namjoon ignores the jab.
“You want food? Water? Basic medical?” he asks instead. “That’s a different conversation from opening the gate.”
Now that gets everyone’s attention.
The leader stills.
Below, two of the raiders exchange a glance. Someone near the truck mutters, “See?” only to get elbowed quietly by the person beside them.
“What are you offering?” the leader asks, suspicion lacing his voice.
“Whatever we can spare,” Namjoon answers easily. “In daylight. You come back unarmed and you stay outside the fence.”
The leader laughs once. “That’s not trust.”
“No,” Namjoon agrees. “It’s survival.”
The road goes quiet after that. Even the people who’ve been shifting and muttering seem to feel the shape of the conversation changing.
The leader takes a slow look around the gate, the towers, the lights, the rifles peeking between metal sheets and timber.
“You’d really turn away people who need help?”
Namjoon’s expression doesn’t move.
“Wouldn’t you?”
A woman near the front—dark hair tied up in a scarf, knife at her thigh—steps half a pace forward.
“What if we put down our weapons?” she asks. “What if we leave the guns on the road and back off?”
Namjoon’s eyes flick to her.
“Then maybe tomorrow’s conversation can be a little different.”
The leader turns his head sharply toward her, clearly annoyed she spoke at all. She doesn’t look sorry.
“What about shelter?” he asks, dragging the attention back to himself. “You got all this space and we’re meant to camp in the fucking dirt outside it?”
“Looks like it.”
“You serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
The leader scoffs, but the earlier swagger has finally died down under the crushing reality that they really have no leverage here.
Jungkook sees it in the way the back line of raiders goes a little still. In the way the older man with the neck bandage drops his eyes and one of the women near the truck shifts her grip on the tailgate hard enough her hands shake.
The leader looks back toward his people. They’re tired. Have been since way before they decided to take their chances here.
“What happens after tomorrow?” the leader asks eventually, turning back to Namjoon.
Namjoon rests both hands on the top rail, megaphone forgotten, and looks down at him.
“What happens,” he starts, “is you come when it’s light outside. You leave your weapons where we can see them and take what we decide we can spare. And if nobody does anything stupid long enough…” He pauses. “Maybe trust can become part of the conversation.”
That’s a lie.
Jungkook knows it immediately.
Namjoon is too good at sounding patient when what he really means is over my dead body. A leader like this guy—people like that—only solve things with violence.
They have no space inside the gate.
Still, the leader seems willing to take the fiction for now.
He turns back to his people and the argument starts up all over again, lower and uglier. One of the men nearest the truck shakes his head, another woman keeps glancing between the gate and the trees like she’s measuring how quickly she could disappear if this all goes bad. The scarf-haired woman says something sharp and clipped when someone else throws both hands up in disgust.
Jungkook feels some of the tension bleed out of him. Just a little.
Give it to Namjoon to talk a rabid dog into sitting pretty.
He glances at Jimin. He’s staring at the group with a judge-y look, almost unblinking. There’s a crease between his eyebrows and his lips are pressed into a thin line—clearly mistrustful of the whole back-and-forth.
Then Jungkook feels it—eyes on him.
He looks down.
Knife guy is staring straight up at their tower. At him.
Even from this distance, Jungkook sees the exact moment of recognition when their eyes meet across the distance. The way Knife’s face warps around a sneer, lip curling back, and his eyes flare with a personal kind of hatred.
He says something to the people near him.
Then louder.
He pushes past the leader a few steps, voice carrying up with fury.
“You!”
Jungkook’s spine locks.
Knife jerks one arm up.
Gun.
He’s got a gun raised straight toward the tower and he’s shouting again now, words spilling over each other as he waves the weapon around wildly. Sylvia’s name cuts clean through them—the only thing Jungkook registers clearly through the rising panic.
Everything slows.
Jungkook doesn’t realize he’s moved until he’s already throwing himself sideways into Jimin with all the force he’s got—just as shot cracks through the forest.
Pain detonates in his shoulder so violently it doesn’t even register as a sensation at first. Just impact—a blunt, impossible punch that flips through his whole body. Then the heat comes in screaming after it, white-hot and so all-consuming that it dots his vision black.
Jungkook hears himself make a sound as his whole body locks up and slumps forward against Jimin. The gun flies from his hand and clatters across the tower floorboards.
Jimin starts yelling—his arms come around him automatically, one of them pressing too hard against the wound—then pull back as if electrocuted when Jungkook shrieks. Yoongi swears to the side—a sharp curse ripped straight from the gut as he jerks the rifle up—
But Jimin is faster.
Or maybe just madder.
Jungkook only catches it in fragments through the shock: Jimin scrambling over him, hands shaking so badly they look unhinged from the rest of him. Yoongi lowering the rifle.
“Jimin—”
Jimin doesn’t hear anyone.
He grabs the fallen gun from the floor before Yoongi can get to it first. His whole body trembling as he wraps both hands around the weapon, breathing coming in quick little gasps that sound almost like sobs.
Shit, Jungkook thinks through the pain. Shit—did he leave the safety off—
Jimin doesn’t seem to slow—points it at Knife and pulls the trigger.
The recoil nearly knocks him off balance as the second shot of the night booms over the road.
Through the gaps in the barrier, Jungkook sees Knife jerk sideways as the bullet hits him low in the abdomen, hard enough to fold him in on himself. He drops with a scream and crashes to the gravel, clutching at his side while blood starts seeping dark and fast through the wound.
The whole raider line explodes into movement.
People rush toward him, a few guns snap up toward the towers as shouts from both sides are thrown around. One of the women in the back loses her footing trying to get clear of the line of fire.
Jungkook tries to push himself up.
Pain slams through his right arm, lightning-fast and vicious. He groans and slumps forward instead, collapsing against Jimin’s back, who’s s still crouched with the gun in his hands, staring down at what he’s done. He’s shaking so hard Jungkook can feel it through both their bodies.
“Jimin,” Jungkook gasps weakly, barely managing to tug on the cuff of his jeans.
The older man doesn’t answer. Probably can’t even hear him.
Below them, the leaders voice cuts through the chaos.
“Stop!”
One by one, the raiders fall into a hush. It doesn’t seem like they want to, but their world is built on a different set of rules—obedience keeps you alive.
The leader steps over to Knife, who’s now writhing on the ground and gurgling up mouthfuls of blood. Pipe is on one knee beside him, one hand pressed uselessly to the blood pumping through his fingers. He looks up when the leader approaches, says something too low to hear with a shake of his head.
The leader doesn’t spare him a glance.
He draws a handgun from the back of his waistband—longer barrel, a crude suppressor duct-taped around it.
Jimin makes the smallest, strangled noise in the back of his throat that Jungkook feels it more than he can hear it. The gun in his hands finally shakes loose, falling into a bush bellow the watchtower with a faint rustle. No one makes a movie to retrieve it.
“N-no,” Jungkook tries, but the word comes out shredded. He doesn’t even know why he says it. For Knife? For Jimin? For the fact that there’s already too much blood spilled in one night?
The leader points the weapon down at Knife’s face.
“We’re not sacrificing this opportunity for an idiot,” he says to the rest of his people.
Then he shoots him between the eyes.
Knife’s body goes still.
Jimin gasps in horror and lurches over the barrier.
Jungkook grunts gets his good arm around him by instinct alone, hand landing weakly across his stomach and fisting the fabric of his hoodie to keep him from leaning too far over the edge. Keep him attached to himself.
Below them, the raiders look split down the middle by it.
A few of them have gone visibly pale, one woman near the truck ducks down and starts retching. Another man looks furious enough for the rifle to shake in his hands.
A couple of the others don’t look shocked at all, which is probably the worst detail in the whole ugly scene.
The leader holsters the gun and looks back up at Namjoon’s tower.
“The deal stands.”
Silence.
Jungkook can’t see Namjoon’s face but the lack of an immediate answer tells that he’s thinking.
He pants against Jimin’s back and glances at Yoongi—the rifle is still up, no doubt pointed right at the leader, but the man is looking towards Namjoon, good eye unblinking as he waits for a signal.
“The deal stands.” Namjoon’s voice booms across the road.
No one immediately lowers a weapon. They hold there in that horrible balance for long seconds while the night seems to stop breathing.
Then the leader pinches the bridge of his nose and gestures sharply at the body.
“Get him.”
Two of the raiders move in at once, not looking at Knife’s face as they grab him under the arms and drag him toward the truck. His head lolls to the side, blood streaks behind his boots in a wet dark red smear across the gravel.
The others begin to fall back in small, jerky movements, still watching the towers, the gate and the weapons fixed on them from every angle.
No one says another word until the truck doors slam and the engine coughs to life.
Only when the taillights disappear does the gate-line erupt into movement.
Shouting, boots pounding. Someone below starts screaming for Hanna. Another voice calling for more lights on the west side. Radios all over the gate cracking to life again in overlapping bursts.
Yoongi drops his rifle and moves closer to Jungkook.
“Stay with me, kid.” His own hands shake a little as he fishes a bandana from the back of his pocket and starts wrapping it over the gushing wound in his shoulder.
Jungkook’s vision smears around the edges.
His shoulder feels hot and wrong, as if the pain belongs to someone standing a few feet outside his body. He looks down and sees blood darkening his sleeve and side, a few streaks escape and track down his hand.
Jimin turns at last.
His face is wrecked. Pale and open and wet with tears he probably hasn’t even noticed. There’s blood on one of his hands—Jungkook’s own.
“Jungkook.”
Just a whisper of his name.
And somehow that sounds worse than any scream.
Jungkook wants to say something reassuring. Wants to tell him it’s fine, he’s fine, don’t look like that, it’s just my shoulder.
“You got him,” he gasps out instead.
Jimin’s mouth trembles.
“You got shot.”
“Yeah,” Jungkook laughs faintly. “That too.”
It almost makes Jimin laugh too, but it bubbles up as another sob.
He grabs fistfuls of Jungkook’s jacket with both hands and pushes their foreheads together.
“Stay awake,” Jimin says, voice cracking on the words. “Don’t you dare—”
“Always so bossy,” Jungkook mumbles.
Jimin makes that strangled almost-laugh again.
Good. Jungkook loves that sound the best.
The tower platform sways.
No, not the platform.
He’s the one swaying.
The stars above the floodlights blur into pale streaks and the boards under his knees feel suddenly too far away. Voices rush at him from below and then smear back out again, like water over glass.
Jimin’s face stays the sharpest the longest.
Those beautiful eyes on him. That crease between his brows. The fact that there’s no reluctance left in him anymore, not even a little.
Jungkook could die happy. As long as it meant they could stay like this forever—wrapped around each other and sharing breath.
He feels his eyelids droop, the arm around Jimin slips down.
The darkness comes rolling in fast and thick, and the last thing he feels is Jimin’s hand on the side of his face as the world finally cuts out.
♡
The second Jungkook’s eyes slip shut, Jimin’s blood turns to ice.
“Jungkook?”
He grabs his face with both hands, thumbs clumsy against his cheeks.
The younger only hums, lashes fluttering once before his whole weight gives out and slumps fully into Jimin.
No.
No no no—
“Jungkook!” Jimin yells, fingers tangling into his hair as he shakes him hard enough for his jaw to swing slightly open. “Fucking—don’t do this, wake up! Wake up!”
Yoongi’s hand clamps around his wrist before he can do it again.
The older man clicks his tongue and pries Jimin’s grip loose with surprising ease. Jimin makes a broken, furious noise at the back of his throat and tries to wrench free, not wanting to let go of Jungkook for even a second, but Yoongi’s fingers are iron.
“Stop that,” he snaps crouching down and pressing two fingers to the side of Jungkook’s neck.
“He’s alive.”
Jimin’s eyes snap to him—Yoongi glances back, and snorts.
“He passed out from the shock,” he mutters, standing back up. “And blood loss, probably. Doesn’t mean he’s dead.”
Jimin can only keep staring, chest heaving. His brain takes the words in but for some reason doesn’t want to believe them.
Yoongi straightens and leans over the tower fence facing the settlement.
“Need some help up here!” he shouts down to the people below.
A few voices rise up, boots slap against the ground as people approach closer.
Jimin looks back down at Jungkook.
The younger’s head has rolled sideways against his shoulder, mouth slack. He looks wrong like this—still and pale, sleeve soaked with dark, sticky blood still crawling sluggishly down the line of his arm to dripping off his fingertips.
Jimin presses his hand over the wound without really thinking and Jungkook’s body jerks on a ragged inhale even through unconsciousness.
“Sorry,” Jimin whispers instantly, voice cracking. “Sorry, sorry—”
Boots thunder up the ladder.
Namjoon appears first, then two other guards right behind him. Another one climbs up last, breathing hard from the run, crossbow hanging crookedly off his by the strap.
They all crowd the platform at once, the old wood groaning under the added weight.
Namjoon takes in the scene in one sharp sweep—Jimin on his knees, Jungkook limp half across him.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
“Need to get him down,” Yoongi says.
Jimin’s arms tighten around Jungkook.
“No.”
Every head turns toward him.
Namjoon kneels in front of him immediately, one hand already reaching for Jungkook’s good shoulder.
“Jimin—”
“No.” Jimin’s voice comes out louder, the panic finally showing its ugly face. “Don’t pull at him, don’t just—he got shot, are you stupid?”
“Which is why we have to get him to Hanna now,” Namjoon says, maddeningly calm. “We can’t keep him up here.”
Jimin looks between all of them, blinking owlishly.
“He’ll fall.”
“He won’t,” Yoongi sighs next to Namjoon. “Not if you let go long enough for people with functional arms to take him.”
The guy with the crossbow crouches on Jungkook’s other side then, eyes softer than the rest. He puts a careful hand on Jimin’s shoulder and squeezes once.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “We’ve got him.”
Jimin hates how quickly the words make his eyes sting.
For one awful second he considers fighting them. Like, an actual fight. Making a complete scene if that’s what it takes to keep Jungkook where he can see him. But he looks down at the blood again, at how much of it there is, and something in him gives way with a miserable little twinge.
He loosens his hold by fractions.
Namjoon and the others move immediately like they were waiting for exactly that. One of the guards takes Jungkook under the knees, another under his back. Namjoon supports the injured arm as best he can, brow furrowed in concentration.
The second Jungkook’s weight leaves him, Jimin feels cold all over, but he stands up and follows on numb legs.
The ladder feels even steeper than before, the rungs slick under his shoes. Halfway down his foot slips and he nearly falls off, catching himself so violently his ribs scream. Someone below curses and reaches up, but he shakes them off and keeps moving because Jungkook is already being carried away and Jimin cannot, absolutely cannot, lose sight of him now.
The gate clearing is chaos at eye level. Too many people, too many voices grinding against one another. Jimin can’t really register anything or anyone around him, except for the tiny splats of blood trailing off of Jungkook’s arm as the group lowers him carefully to the ground.
And then Seokjin is jogging toward them, Hanna right beside him.
The older nurse doesn’t waste a second and drops to her knees in the dirt. She takes a pair of trauma shears from Seokjin without even looking and starts cutting. The fabric around the shoulder comes apart under the blades in quick, vicious little snips, exposing blood-slick skin and the torn red mess around the wound.
Jimin sucks in a breath. He really wants to look away. He’s never been good with blood and wounds, despite having lived in a world that consisted mostly of that for the past year. But he forces himself to stay still.
Hanna presses around the injury with expert fingers and even unconscious, Jungkook flinches weakly under her hands.
“Entry only,” she mutters.
Seokjin is already leaning down closer. “You sure?”
“Unless he’s hiding an exit in his back.”
Seokjin nods once and stands up straight again, scanning the guards around him.
“You, you, and you,” he says, pointing in quick succession. “Head, legs, mind the arm. Don’t jostle him.”
The chosen men move at once with a few tight nods.
Jimin tries to push through to Jungkook, but Namjoon’s hand catches his arm and holds fast.
“Stay back,” he says.
“Namjoon—”
“Let them work.”
“They are working, I just need—”
“Jimin.”
Something in Namjoon’s tone cuts through enough that Jimin stops fighting out of sheer embarrassment.
Hanna and Seokjin are already guiding the guards through lifting Jungkook again. One man braces under the knees, another at the shoulders, another hovering near the injured side under Hanna’s watchful eye. Jungkook’s head lolls once against the nearest chest and Jimin nearly surges forward again.
“Where are they taking him?” he demands, yanking against Namjoon’s grip. “Is he going to be okay?”
Seokjin snorts without even glancing back.
“Pipe down. We’re taking him to medical and we’re going to take the bullet out.”
Jimin’s mouth goes dry.
Seokjin glances over his shoulder then, already walking backward to keep pace with the group.
“He’ll be fine once he sleeps it off,” he says, in that easy, rude tone of his. “Try not to have a meltdown before breakfast.”
Jimin deflates a little. Namjoon must’ve felt him relax in his grip, because the second his grip loosens Jimin rips away and jogs after them anyway.
The route to the medical barn feels too long. The whole settlement is awake now, people spilling out into the lanes between buildings with lanterns and blankets around shoulders. Every face turns when the little procession passes. Every eye snags on the blood.
Jimin doesn’t give a fuck about any of them.
Only the shape of Jungkook’s limp body ahead of him. The sway of his hand with each hurried step. Hanna marching at his side with her stern expression and Seokjin pushing ahead to clear the way.
By the time they reach the medical barn, the world has narrowed down to that one doorway.
Hanna turns at the entrance and puts a firm hand flat against his chest before he can barrel in after them.
“No.”
Jimin blinks at her.
“I can help,” he says immediately, even though he knows that’s a load of bullshit.
“No, you can’t.”
“I can hold him down or—”
“You will get in the way.”
She’s right. Jimin bites the inside of his lip so hard he tastes blood.
Behind Hanna, Jungkook disappears deeper into the barn between the hanging tarps. Jimin can hear Seokjin already rattling off requests—boiling water, clean tray, gauze—while the guards lower Jungkook onto a cot.
Jimin’s fingers curl uselessly at his sides.
“You know the rules,” Hanna says calmly. “Same ones that applied to you.”
He does know them.
That doesn’t make them any easier to swallow.
He looks past her one more time, trying to catch any glimpse of Jungkook through the moving bodies and fluttering fabric. He can’t. The tarp-curtain has been drawn around the cot, blocking the view.
“When can I see him?” he asks, hating how miserable his voice sounds.
Hanna’s face defrosts a little, just around the edges of her eyes. She sighs.
“Come in the morning. I’ll let you stay as long as you don’t make a fuss.”
Jimin nods too fast.
“Now go get some rest, you look like shit.”
He almost laughs at that.
Rest. Right.
Still, he nods again because that’s the best he can give her.
Then he turns away and does not look back, because if he does, he knows he’ll cave. He’ll spin around and start begging or shouting, and none of that is going to help Jungkook in any reasonable way.
So he keeps walking.
♡
Later—after he’s scrubbed Jungkook’s blood off his skin until the backs of his hands stung and turned a blotchy red, and changed into clean clothes—Jimin lies on his mattress and stares up at the rafters.
He’s made himself a tiny little alcove back here in his assigned sleeping barn, behind a few large bales of straw and two stacked crates nobody seemed to miss. It isn’t much—just enough to block the line of sight from the main aisle if he curls in on himself the right way. Privacy by implication only.
It does absolutely nothing for sound as voices keep drifting in through the barn in restless waves.
Word must've spreadfast, because the second Jimin walked in earlier, all eyes turned to him.
Even now the whispers keep coming from the other side of the hay bales.
“He fucking shot the guy.”
“Shut the fuck up, he shot first.”
“What if he decides he wants to shoot one of us, then what?”
“He’s fucking mental—”
“He protected one of our own!”
“Well I’m not sleeping next to him, so—”
Jimin squeezes his eyes shut and rolls over to face the wall.
He killed a man today.
Maybe it wasn’t the killing shot that finally emptied the light out of his eyes. But if the guy in the trench coat hadn’t finished him off, Knife would have bled out right there on the gravel and got back up again with a hunger for human flesh.
Jimin lifts one hand into the weak spill of lantern light reaching his alcove.
There’s still some of Jungkook’s blood caught under his fingernails. In the dimness it looks almost black.
He lets out a shaky breath and curls his fingers back in.
He didn’t think at all—that’s the worst part. Or maybe the simplest.
He saw Jungkook take the hit meant for him.
Saw the jerk of his body, heard the sound he made, saw the gun still pointed up at them and whatever was inside Jimin just… went quiet.
Fuck morals, fuck thinking it through or letting someone else handle it, fuck the consequences.
Protect him.
Stop it.
Make it stop.
Even now, hours later, his brain keeps circling back around to the same point.
What if he hadn’t taken the shot?
Would Knife have fired again?
Would Yoongi have got him first?
Would Jungkook have slumped all the same, except colder? Quiet forever? With more blood than even Hanna’s hands could bully back inside him?
Jimin presses the heel of his palm hard against his mouth.
He doesn’t regret it.
That should probably horrify him more than it does.
The man had aimed at Jungkook and hurt him. And he was going to do it again. Jimin knows that the same way he knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Still.
He shot a person.
His whole life from a year ago feels absurdly far away tonight. Dance studios and warm-up stretches, stupid parties and microwaved food... assignment deadlines. All those little useless, beautiful details of being a person with a future.
He used to think violence was one clean thing, and fear another. And love—maybe something he’d get to experience when he’s much older and got his head out of his ass.
Turns out they all bleed together just fine.
He tosses onto his back again, fists stuffed under his chin.
The tiny square window high in the wall has gone from black to deep, inky blue. Morning must be getting close.
Is Jungkook awake?
If he wakes up in that barn, in a strange cot under those ugly white lamps and no familiar face in sight—would he panic? Would he flinch awake swinging? Would he go still and look around with that wide-eyed, frightened focus he gets when he doesn’t know where he is for the first two seconds after sleep?
He’s always been a little jumpy.
Jimin groans and kicks the blanket off himself hard enough that one corner catches on the straw bale beside him. Then he sits up, elbows on his knees, and drags both hands over his face.
This is pointless.
Lying here listening to strangers decide whether he’s unstable or heroic while Jungkook is lying somewhere with a fucking bullet-hole in his shoulder.
He has to do something.
Even if the something is just sitting outside the medical barn like an idiot until Hanna lets him.
♡
Jungkook counts the grooves in the ceiling.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
He loses count at thirteen because one of the knots in the wood looks vaguely like a screaming rabbit if he tilts his head the right way, and then he has to start all over again.
“One,” he mutters to himself. “Two, three, four—fuck.”
He presses his head deeper into the stack of pillows with a drawn-out groan.
How the hell did Jimin do this shit?
Just lie there in pain while people hovered around and poked you. It’s fucking psychological torture at this point.
Earlier, the second Hanna’s forceps had prodded at the wound, Jungkook had shot upright into consciousness and screamed his head off.
Everything after that had happened in flashes.
Hands on him—too fucking many of them. Men pushing his chest and legs down while he twisted and swore while trying to wrench himself free. The whole room hot and bright and swimming around the edges.
“Where’s Jimin?” was the first thing he managed to grit out, jaw so tight he thought he’d crack a tooth.
"Snap out of it, kid." One of the guards grunted while pushing his chest down.
Seokjin, who had somehow ended up draped over Jungkook’s lower half like an extremely irritated weighted blanket, had snorted loud enough to catch Jungkook's attention.
Christ, spare me from fucking yearners,” he’d said, rolling his eyes. “He’s fine. Stop thrashing before you make me throw myself off a building.”
“I need to—”
“You need to let Hanna take the bullet out,” Seokjin had cut in. “Then you can pine all you want.”
Jungkook had tried to tell him to go fuck himself, but Hanna chose that exact second to dig in deeper and all that came out of his mouth was a truly undignified bark of pain.
“I need you to hold as still as possible, Jungkook,” Hanna had muttered beside him, gloves red to the knuckles. “This will hurt.”
Jungkook, sweating through the mattress, had nodded like a complete idiot.
Okay, how bad could it really be?
He’d broken bones before, sprained shit fairly often too. Had a rusty nail lodge itself in his heel when he was eleven and spent the rest of the summer limping around while his mother called him careless and his brother laughed and called him a penguin.
Surely this couldn’t be worse than that?
Haha.
Wrong.
The first few minutes were bad, but manageable. He could tolerate the pressure, the probing, the hot grinding sensation of metal where no fucking metal should be. He lay there like a slab of meat and breathed through his teeth while the men at his sides kept him pinned and Hanna worked.
Then the forceps caught the bullet and Hanna started pulling.
That shit wasn’t pain. Pain was too simple a word. This was like somebody had reached into his shoulder with fired poker and started mixing his shoulder around. Like his whole right arm lit up with white fire and then shattered into sparks.
“Don’t move,” Hanna had said sharply as he arched up off the bed.
“‘m not fucking moving—”
“You and Jimin are equally awful patients,” Seokjin had remarked from somewhere around Jungkook’s knees.
Seriously, who the fuck is this guy?
Jungkook had been just about to say something truly nasty back when the forceps scraped against the torn edge of the wound and another streak of lava shot down his arm.
“Motherfucker!”
His legs flew up—Seokjin must’ve loosened his grip at exactly the wrong moment, because the next thing Jungkook heard was a high, outraged shriek that almost made the agony worth it.
“It’s out,” Hanna had sighed a second later, dropping the bloodied bullet into a metal basin with a crisp clink. “I need a drink.”
Jungkook’s last memory before blacking out again was Seokjin folded around himself at the end of the cot and cursing him, the settlement, and modern medicine in one breath.
The next time he woke, he was stitched, swaddled, and humiliated.
His shoulder was bandaged to hell and back, half his upper body wrapped up like he’d been mummified. His clothes were gone too, replaced by one of those grandma-pink medical gowns. He had a sinking suspicion his underwear was gone too.
He’d tried to sit up immediately.
“Stay the fuck down, ball-assaulter.”
Seokjin’s voice had come from somewhere to the left. Jungkook had blinked his way into the dim yellow glow of a bedside lantern and found the other man sitting in a chair at what was—very clearly—a carefully chosen, testicle-safe distance.
“I need to see Jimin,” Jungkook had said, already flinging the blanket off his legs.
Seokjin had clicked his tongue, stood up, and shoved the blanket right back over him, tucking the corners down aggressively.
“For the love of god, you are doped up to hell and back right now,” he’d muttered. “He’s allowed in here in the morning. Let him sleep before you two start crying and making out all over my clean sheets.”
“You’re being weird.”
“And yet I’m not the one who almost ended my family line.”
“That was an accident.”
“I hope your stitches pop.”
Jungkook had ignored that in favour of squinting around the room.
“What time is it?”
“Late enough that decent people are asleep.”
“Has anyone ever told you have really bad bedside manners?”
Seokjin had blinked at him, lips pursed in a tight line, then pointed at the bedside crate, where a little plastic cup with two handles and a flip-top lid sat beside the lantern.
Jungkook had stared at it.
Then at him.
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s water, are you blind?”
“It’s a baby sippy cup.”
“It has a lid and a straw,” Seokjin had said flatly. “You have one functioning arm and the grace of a drunk goat right now. Adapt.”
Jungkook had sighed and plopped his head back on the pillows.
“I hate you.”
Seokjin had only smirked and turned away, muttering to himself as he headed out between the hanging tarps.
So.
This is how Jungkook ends up here now.
Flat on his back, ass likely out, counting grooves in the ceiling and trying not to lose his mind because the painkillers clearly expired sometime before the apocalypse and sleep refuses to touch him.
He sighs and turns his head toward the window near the bed.
The sky outside has softened from black to deep inky blue. Not morning yet, but soon.
What time is it? Three? Four in the morning?
He wonders when Jimin will come.
Then immediately wonders if Jimin will come at all.
He should, right? Knowing Jimin, he’s probably somewhere pacing himself into an early grave.
But what if that funky brain of his got hold of the whole thing and twisted it into another one of those infamous spirals of his? What if he’s already decided that Jungkook getting shot is somehow his fault? What if he starts avoiding him all over again?
Jungkook could wait. He can be patient.
He just doesn’t want to.
Not after that bullshit week. Not after finally getting Jimin back into his arms and then having some nutjob shove a bullet in the middle of it.
A shadow moves across the window in the middle of his spiral.
Jungkook’s whole body tenses. He blinks and cranes his neck, wondering if he’s just seeing things.
Everyone left hours ago. He’s alone in the barn except for the occasional snore from behind some curtain and the soft creak of old wood.
So who the fuck is sneaking around outside his window?
Jungkook pushes himself up on one elbow, instantly regrets it when pain bites through his shoulder, and squints toward the glass.
The shadow skitters past again and stops just in front of the window.
Then there's a sound of muffled clatter and whispered cursing.
Seokjin must be very trusting or just doesn’t care to lock things, because the window squeaks—both panes swinging open left and right.
Jungkook holds his breath and stares.
A dark head appears in the gap.
Then an arm and a shoulder. One leg swings over the sill, barely reaching the floor.
Jungkook wonders if the drugs are kicking in, because right there, in front of his eyes, Jimin is stuck halfway through the window like a damn burglar.
His foot slips.
He lurches forward with a choked, outraged noise and catches himself on the sill before his already busted chin can have a taste of floorboard.
Jungkook slaps a hand over his mouth.
Jimin freezes and slowly, very slowly, turns his head toward the cot.
Their eyes meet.
Neither of them says anything for a beat.
Then Jungkook loses it properly.
“Oh my god,” he wheezes. Laughing hurts like a bitch but he can’t stop it now. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Jimin jumps on one foot while trying to unhook his jeans from the wooden frame.
“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks,” Jungkook says, still laughing, “like that one time you got stuck in the pharmacy window and nearly got your ass bitten.”
“Fucking hate that place,” Jimin mutters, hauling the rest of himself through.
He lands badly, stumbles, sucks in a sharp breath when his ribs complain, and then goes very still like maybe if he pretends hard enough the pain didn’t happen.
Jungkook’s amusement shrivels up and crumbles.
“Hey—”
“I’m fine.”
He isn’t.
Jimin can lie all he wants, but Jungkook knows his tells just by the sound of his voice—he’s clearly in pain and exhausted. His feet drag a little with every step and eyes have gone droopy. He’s also twitchy as hell, and a twitchy Jimin means he’s one minor inconvenience away from total collapse.
Without a word, Jimin steps up to the bedside crate and starts emptying his pockets.
Out comes a bruised apple, then a packet of dried beef. A cereal bar that’s probably expired. And a pack of sour gummy worms.
Jungkook gasps.
He snatches the gummy worms up with his good hand and tears the packet open with his teeth, nearly dumps them all over the blanket.
Jimin’s mouth twitches up ever so slightly.
Jungkook stuffs three into his mouth and moans around them. “Where the hell did you get these?”
Jimin shrugs and drags Seokjin’s abandoned chair closer, turns it around, and sits on it backwards like he needs the backrest there to hide behind.
“Kitchen storage.”
“You robbed the kitchen?”
“Technically, I didn’t—”
“That is so stealing.”
Jimin rolls his eyes and lifts one shoulder. “Then I stole some shit.”
Jungkook looks at his precious pile of food, then back at him.
“I love you.”
Jimin goes completely frigid, fingers freezing mid nervous tap.
It takes a few chews on the dried beef before Jungkook’s own words catch up to him.
Oh.
He said it again.
He thought that maybe they were past this stage of awkwardness, but apparently not. Jimin keeps his eyes on the wooden backrest of the chair and picks at a splinter with one thumbnail—doesn’t look at him even once.
For a long while, the only sound that comes from the room is Jungkook’s munching and Jimin’s pointed silence.
Eventually, Jungkook gets antsy. He wipes his fingers on the blanket and straightens up in the cot.
“So.”
Jimin’s shoulders climb half an inch.
“So,” he echoes.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“... Not in particular.”
“So you couldn’t wait until morning?”
Jungkook tries to come off as teasing, but he can’t stop his own hurt from flowing into the words. He’s only an idiot in love—can’t help his own doubts. There’s just too much wondering if Jimin was scared, if he couldn’t sleep either, if he came because he wanted to or because guilt dragged him here by the throat.
Jimin’s lips press into a tight line, shoulders hunching even higher. He glances up, just a quick flick of the eyes, then looks down again.
“I couldn’t, ” comes the tiny reply.
Jungkook closes his eyes for a second and wonders if there will ever be a moment when Park Jimin doesn’t act like sandpaper to all of his edges.
“Come here,” he says quietly.
Jimin blinks at him, then frowns.
“Come here.”
Jungkook pats the space next to his good arm.
Jimin swallows and gets up slowly, nearly tripping over himself in the process. He comes around the side of the bed, but only close enough to stand there looking cornered.
“Seriously?” Jungkook says quietly. “You literally climbed through a window, but this is where you get shy?”
Jimin gives him a wobbly scowl.
“’M not shy.”
“Then what.”
Jimin takes a deep, chesty breath and opens his mouth, but the words stay trapped.
Then his face cracks.
A small split right through the middle of him, like there’s been too much pressure behind his ribs for too long and it finally caved in.
“I’m sorry,” the words squeeze out.
Jungkook’s chest tightens so fast it almost hurts more than his arm.
“Why are you sorry?”
Jimin lets out one awful watery laugh. It’s not the kind of laugh that Jungkook ever wants to hear come from him.
“Pick something.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He drags a hand over his face, then through his hair, then presses his palm over his mouth like maybe he can shove the rest of the words back in. “For acting like a complete fucking idiot. For—”
He cuts off sharply.
Jungkook waits patiently while Jimin stares at the floorboards, looking for the right words.
“For thinking you’d forget about me after a while,” he says, so quietly Jungkook almost doesn’t catch it.
There is a beat of silence then Jungkook feels his own face twist.
“What the hell are you on about?”
Jimin squeezes his eyes shut. “Yeah, no, sounds bad when you say it back.”
“It sounds insane when I say it back.”
“I know.”
There’s no fight in it. Not even enough to be defensive. Just his own convoluted shame, open and miserable between them.
Before Jimin can shift back out of reach again, Jungkook catches his wrist.
“Come on,” he says, tugging a little.
Jimin looks down at where Jungkook’s hand is wrapped around him.
“Jungkook—”
“Stop being stubborn.”
Jungkook is ready to fight for this one. Just in case Jimin throws a fit, or do that thing where he blanks and mentally retreats into another fucking dimension. They both need this.
Instead Jimin sighs and carefully climbs into the cot—one knee on the mattress, then the other—trying so hard not to jar Jungkook’s shoulder that he ends up hovering more than settling.
It’s not enough, he needs him closer. Always closer.
Jungkook tugs him harder and Jimin makes a soft protesting sound, but gives. Ends up half over Jungkook’s good side, one arm braced beside his ribs, breath warm and uneven against Jungkook’s throat.
“There,” Jungkook murmurs, raking his hand up Jimin’s spine.
And that’s it.
That’s apparently the last thing holding the whole mess together, because Jimin starts to shake.
One broken sound tears out of his chest, then another that blends with a hiccup, and suddenly he’s clutching at Jungkook’s stupid pink gown with both hands and burying his face against his chest like he’s trying to claw his way in.
Jungkook slides his hand into his hair—that earns him a whine and another shaky sob that makes the cot squeak in protest.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin gasps again into the fabric. “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—”
“Jimin.”
“I’m fucking horrible.”
The words are muffled against Jungkook’s chest.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” Jimin sucks in a breath that catches halfway and makes him cough. “I am, I am, I keep—I keep doing this, I keep making everything worse and you—you—”
He can’t seem to finish a single sentence. He’s crying too hard for it. His fingers twist tighter in the gown, dragging the thin fabric with them.
Jungkook keeps one hand in his hair, thumb resting at the back of his neck and moving in slow circles where he can reach.
“Come on, you need to breathe.”
Jimin shakes his head violently against him like that’s a stupid request.
“I thought—” Another ragged inhale. “I thought if I stayed away from you for long enough, you’d stop looking for me.”
Jungkook goes very still.
Jimin laughs again, and it’s ugly as hell.
“There,” he chokes out. “There it is. That’s your answer. I thought if I just kept being weird and distant, eventually you’d—”
“Stop.”
“—come to your senses—”
“Jimin.”
“—and get your life back and not be stuck with me just because there was no one else in the dorm and no one else to—”
“Park Jimin.”
Jimin goes silent with a jerk, still crying, still breathing like every inhale hurts him.
Jungkook waits until he lifts his head.
It takes a second, but when he does, his face is a disaster. All soaked cheeks, clumped lashes and a trembling mouth. There’s a patchy flush across his nose and under his eyes Jungkook has never seen before.
It hurts to see him like this—so defeated and stripped bare.
Very carefully, Jungkook touches the bruise on Jimin’s chin with the backs of his fingers. Then the chewed up bottom lip. Then the damp skin under one eye.
“You really thought that we’d come here,” Jungkook murmurs gently, “and I’d just dump you to the side?”
Jimin grimaces and gives the tiniest nod.
Jungkook bites back a disbelieving laugh.
“That’s some crazy shit, you know that right?”
Jimin lets out a wounded noise.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Jimin’s eyes flash open at that, hurt and confused all at once.
Jungkook takes a deep breath—he’s not good at this, the talking part. He can show things with his hands and body, do then think. But words like to run away from him. How does he put an emotional package the size of the moon into words?
But he can try. That’s all he can really do in this life, isn’t it? Try and hope it works.
“I crossed that stupid bridge with you,” he says quietly. “I slept next to you for a year. I know what you sound like when you wake up from a nightmare and I know how you get when you’re hungry and how much worse you get when you’re scared and trying to hide it. I also know how much you care and worry about me, even if you don’t want me to know that. I know how you look at me.”
Jimin’s mouth trembles harder.
Jungkook slides his hand back into his hair, steady and warm against the nape of his neck.
“So explain to me,” he says, “why the fuck I would forget about you?”
Jimin blinks too fast, fresh tears spill over immediately.
“But there’s others—”
“And?”
Jimin just stares at him helplessly, like he genuinely doesn’t know how to answer.
Jungkook tugs gently on the strands of hair between his fingers.
“What if this”—Jungkook makes a small gesture between them with his fingers—“was the only thing that feels right to me? What if I wanted you in the dorm and here, and anywhere else too?”
Jimin gives a broken little laugh.
“That sounds very convenient for you.”
“It is convenient for me,” Jungkook snorts. “I’m fucking obsessed with you.”
That actually makes Jimin laugh. It’s still a little shaky and wet—but it’s brighter, less strained.
Good.
“You think I don’t know you’re difficult?” Jungook carries on.
Jimin glares weakly up at him with swollen eyes. “This feels like a mean time to say that.”
“But you are difficult,” Jungkook grins. For once he has an upper hand and he’s not giving it up. “You’re grumpy, you’re fucking stubborn, and you are genuinely one bad day away from strangling me half the time.”
Jimin swats at his chest, shoulders bunching to hide another laugh.
Jungkook tugs gently on his earlobe with his fingers.
“I’m not saying I want you despite all that,” he says. “I want you exactly the way you are.”
Jimin squeezes his eyes shut and leans his cheek against Jungkook’s chest.
“When you got shot,” he says, voice muffled. “You—” He swallows and shakes his head once. “You fell on me and there was blood everywhere and I thought—”
He can’t finish. His throat closes around it.
Jungkook doesn’t rush him, just keeps trailing aimlessly with his fingers until Jimin drags in a breath.
“I didn’t even think,” he whispers. “That’s the part that’s stuck in my head. I didn’t think at all. I just saw he still had the gun and I—I just knew I had to make it stop.”
His fingers tighten in the fabric of the gown.
“I shot him,” he says. “And I know he would’ve shot again, I know that—I know it—but I can’t stop hearing it and seeing it, and the worst part is that I’d do it again.” His face twists. “Something’s really fucking wrong with me.”
“No,” Jungkook says immediately.
“Yes,” he hisses angrily through the fresh tears. “Yes, there is. I should feel worse than I do. I should be horrified and all I can think is that he hurt you and I’m glad I got there first and that’s not—that’s not normal, Jungkook, that’s—”
“That’s love.”
Jimin stops dead.
Jungkook keeps looking at him, even when Jimin clearly wants to look away.
“When Sylvia had the gun on you,” he says quietly, “I knew exactly what I’d do if I got the chance. I didn’t think about morals or being a good person, I just knew that if I could get to her before she got to you, I would.”
Jimin’s lips part.
“So don’t sit there and tell me there’s something wrong with you,” Jungkook shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”
Jimin stares at him for a long second.
Then his face crumples again and he drops forward, laying himself over Jungkook’s chest with a heavy sob.
Jungkook has to brace hard against the flare of pain in his shoulder, but he doesn’t care. He holds on anyway, works his fingers into the tear-soaked hair at Jimin’s temple. Lets him get it all out.
They stay like that for a while, until Jimin’s sobs wear themselves down into shaky breaths. Jungkook doesn’t bother with words, just keeps touching whatever part he can reach with his hand. Just lets him be heavy.
Eventually, the cries settle down fully. Jimin sniffs a couple of times and scrubs at his face before peering up at Jungkook from underneath his lashes.
“You’re too good sometimes. It freaks me out.”
Jungkook snorts softly. “Baby, we just discussed murdering for each other. Let’s not get carried away with the praising.”
That finally dries the teary mood. Jimin laughs and rubs his damp face into his chest before sitting up on his knees.
“I’ll try to get my head out of my ass,” he mutters, fingers smoothing the wrinkled fabric.
Jungkook fake-gasps and clutches at his own chest.
“And deprive me of all this free drama? How dare you.”
“You are such an ass.”
“My ass is great and you know it.”
Jimin raises a sceptical brow, looks him up and down.
“Your ass is actually fully out in this thing.”
Jungkook glances down at himself and his tear-stained pink gown, then back at Jimin.
“You think I could get more candy if I sued Seokjin for sexual harassment?”
Jimin’s mouth twitches up.
There. That tiny unwilling softness Jungkook has been trying to drag out of him finally taking over all the insecurities.
He watches, heart full, as Jimin scrubs at his eyes and cheeks with his sleeves.
Then he’s running a hand through his messy hair and leaning over.
And kissing him.
Jungkook goes still
This is new.
Every kiss they’ve shared so far was driven by Jungkook and his own needs. Did Jimin respond? Kind of. But he never initiated. Always shy on the receiving end, always giving but not giving in.
This is Jimin choosing what he wants.
It’s a soft kiss, barely there. Jimin’s mouth warm and trembling where it presses to his.
Then Jungkook kisses back and melts the fear.
Jimin’s hand slides up into Jungkook’s hair, mouth parting on a shaky breath. The kiss deepens slowly, carefully, like they’re both trying to learn each other in a brand-new way.
It’s not perfect or neat—but that’s just how things are between them. Always a little off centre and back to front. But it’s something they’ve build together, and Jungkook would fight for it to hell and back.
Jimin is still sniffling a little when he licks and nips on his bottom lip, still breathing unevenly. Jungkook can taste salty tears and the sour sugar of the gummy worms he ate earlier. He definitely should not be finding that attractive right now, but he does. God, he does.
The cot creaks when Jimin shifts closer.
Jungkook’s groans and slides his good arm around the back of his neck, thumb tucked under his ear.
Jimin kisses like he’s still scared. Every pass of his mouth is a little desperate and a little careful, hungry and hesitant at once, and Jungkook feels the whole thing low in his stomach and hot in his chest.
Jimin tries to pull away—he chases him. Once, then again. And again. And again.
Each time Jimin makes the softest sounds against his mouth—a tiny squeak, a whimper, a small sigh. Jungkook thinks that he might actually cry from this later when nobody’s looking.
When they finally part it’s not because either of them wants to. It’s just that breathing is still a requirement and they’re both fucking exhausted.
They stay close anyway. Foreheads pressed together, mouths still brushing with every exhale.
Jungkook smiles against him, dazed.
“Well,” he murmurs.
Jimin’s lips twitch. “Don’t fucking start.”
“I was going to say that was kind of hot.”
Jimin snorts and drops his face against Jungkook’s neck, shoulders shaking.
“There,” Jungkook whispers into his hair. “That’s better.”
Jimin stays quiet for a while, warm breath puffing steadily against his neck that it makes Jungkook think he fell asleep.
Then, so softly Jungkook almost misses it—
“I love you too.”
Everything in Jungkook goes warm and loose.
He can only stare at the top of Jimin’s head dumbly, heart and mind so stupidly full that he almost blames the painkillers. But it’s all Jimin. Just him and those three little words flipping through his body.
“Yeah?” Jungkook whispers.
Jimin nods against his throat.
“Yeah.”
Jungkook kisses the top of his head, then the corner of his mouth. Trails his lips across a salty damp cheek and the bruise on his chin.
There’s nothing left to stop him anymore. He’s now allowed to be greedy and selfish, allowed to keep his hands and mouth on Jimin without the guilt eating him up.
This feeling between them feels knotted tight in his chest, pulled so taut that if either of them tugs now, it’ll only cinch in deeper. Jungkook knows it down to the bone. Knows it so completely it makes his eyes sting.
“I love you,” he breathes against the shell of Jimin’s ear, squeezing his eyes shut just before the first of his own tears threaten to spill. There’s no space left for any other words in his throat.
“I love you so much.”
♡
Jungkook lies flat in the grass with his good arm tucked behind his head, staring up at the fat clouds drift across the sky.
“Everyone’s lost their god damned mind,” he mutters.
“...”
“I’m serious! It’s been nearly four weeks.”
A dry breeze moves through the field, rippling the taller grass around his legs.
Jungkook squints at the sky and scowls harder.
“I got shot in the shoulder,” he goes on. “Not fucking decapitated. I’m alive aren’t I?”
“...”
The shoulder still hurts, but that’s not the point.
Well. It is the point. Part of it.
He’s healing well enough, all things given. But he knows the muscle around the wound is slightly fucked up now, burns like a bitch at night when he’s trying to sleep.
Still, he’s upright. He’s walking, eating his meals and asking for seconds, and he can carry shit with his good arm. He can do literally anything that isn’t apparently “too strenuous,” which, according to everyone in this fucking place, includes pretty much everything.
Namjoon has not given him a single real job since he got shot. Not one.
The first week had made sense. The second—maybe. Jungkook had been stitched up, doped up on painkillers and in no state to do much beyond limp between his cot in medical and wherever Jimin happened to be.
But now?
Now Namjoon keeps handing him bullshit with that stupid priest-like smile of his.
Yesterday it had been, keep an eye on the east path for a bit, which would almost sound respectable if the east path wasn’t just a flattened strip of dirt running between the sleeping barns and the pond.
The day before that, Namjoon had asked him to help Hoseok with the fence—which had turned out to mean standing there while the other attacked some loose links with a pair of pliers.
Before that there had been inventory. Then light sorting. Then the fantastic episode where he was learning basic first aid from Seokjin.
“I’m being babysat,” Jungkook mutters. “That’s what this is.”
“...”
“They act like if I bend over too fast, I’ll explode.”
He watches the clouds move in the sky—fluffy and uselessly pretty.
That’s part of the problem with this place, honestly.
It’s almost too peaceful with how safe it is. Kind of weirdly idyllic.
Jungkook should be grateful. He knows that.
Plenty of food and a safe place to sleep in. People on watch. A place where you can close your eyes for more than twenty minutes at a time without keeping a knife under your pillow.
And still, sometimes the settlement feels less like safety and more like being shoved into a pretty painted picture where someone’s always watching you.
He picks at a blade of grass by his hip.
And then there’s Jimin.
Jimin is the worst of the bunch.
For someone who was so clearly reluctant to be part of this community—Jimin didn'tcomplain even once. As soon as he had the go-ahead from Hanna, he was off doing shit without even questioning it.
And when Jimin wants to be, he can be excruciatingly patient. Especially when it comes to Jungkook, apparently.
He hovers and nit-picks—a lot. Even learned how to change Jungkook’s bandages from Seokjin. Always checks in on him and makes sure he’s feeling okay and eating his meals.
This morning he had come up behind him at breakfast, pressed a mug of coffee into his good hand, and told him to stay put before Jungkook had even opened his mouth.
Then he’d gone red at the ears and disappeared two seconds later like the whole thing had embarrassed him.
Jungkook bites the inside of his cheek.
“Actually,” he mutters, “that part’s not so bad.”
“...”
“No, it’s—” He exhales through his nose. “It’s cute. He’s just weird about it.”
A cloud thins at the edges overhead and disappears into the blue sky.
A few weeks ago, Jungkook would have killed for this kind of weird.
He’d spent that first stupid week after they got to the settlement feeling like he was inside-out without Jimin by his side.
Now Jimin is back.
More than back, really.
Jimin sneaks into the medical barn every night and sleeps curled against Jungkook’s good side. He brings him things without making a big deal out of it, kisses him in passing when no one is looking.
Or tries to.
That’s another problem.
Jungkook stares up at the sky for a long second, gnawing on his bottom lip.
That’s the actual problem.
Jimin is here. Jimin is his—in whatever messy, terrifying, still-new way they’ve managed to become each other’s. Looks at him sometimes with this soft, stunned sort of expression that makes Jungkook feel hot all over, right down to his bones.
And then somebody waltzes into their space.
Or a barn door slams, or Seokjin appears out of the shadows like the fucking demon that he is. Or one of the kids starts crying three feet away. Or there are eight other people breathing in the dark around them and the whole moment just has nowhere to go.
It leaves Jungkook wound up in a way he doesn’t know what to do with.
It would be easy if he was simply horny or whatever, but it’s so much worse.
Jimin is close enough to touch and Jungkook has nowhere private enough to lose his mind about it.
Maybe Namjoon has the right idea—he will explode like shaken can of soda. But for all the wrong reasons.
“I hate this,” he sighs.
“...”
Jungkook turns his head at last.
Millie stands beside him, warm brown flank shining in the sun, tearing mouthfuls of the tall grass from the ground languidly.
He looks her slowly up and down.
“Christ, I want a burger so bad.”
A scandalized noise comes from somewhere behind her, ruining the tranquil moment.
“Did you just seriously threaten to eat my horse?”
Jungkook startles so hard he nearly jolts up on the bad arm. Pain bites through his shoulder, sharp enough to make him hiss, and he clutches at the grass while Taehyung pops into view around Millie’s neck looking personally offended on her behalf.
“She’s my family!”
Millie keeps chewing.
A second later Hoseok sits up too from the grass behind him, hair mashed flat on one side and sticking up on the other.
“That’s seriously messed up, Jungkook.”
Jungkook stares at both of them. “Where the fuck did you two come from?”
“We got back from Taehyung’s farm not long ago, needed a nap,” Hoseok mumbles, rubbing one eye.
Taehyung gasps. “Excuse me? We were spending quality time!”
“With a horse?”
“With Millie,” Taehyung corrects.
“Who you just threatened to turn into lunch,” Hoseok points a finger at Jungkook.
“I said I wanted a burger!”
“Out of what meat?” Taehyung asks flatly.
Jungkook looks at Millie. Millie looks at nothing.
“I could never eat her,” he sighs, lying back down in the grass. “She’s a better listener than either of you.”
Hoseok snorts and crawls across the grass to lie down beside Jungkook. Taehyung flops down on the other side, still absently hanging onto a fistful of Millie’s mane as if she’s in danger of being poached at any moment.
For a while, the three of them lie there and stare at the sky while Millie grazes over their heads.
“So what are you actually sulking about?” Hoseok asks suddenly.
“I’m not sulking.”
Taehyung turns his head to stare at him. “You’re in a field talking to an animal.”
Jungkook doesn’t answer.
Hoseok watches him out of the corner of his eye. “Shoulder?”
“A bit.”
“Namjoon?”
“A lot.”
That gets a laugh out of both of them.
Jungkook scowls at the sky again. “I took a bullet the shoulder and now I’m being treated like I can’t wipe my own ass.”
“Oh, that’s so tragic for you. Being cared for and all,” Hoseok tuts.
“It is tragic.”
Taehyung rolls onto his side, propping his head up in one hand. “Is that all?”
Jungkook hesitates.
Because it isn’t, duh. And apparently both of them can smell weakness, because Hoseok’s grin sharpens immediately.
“Oh,” he whispers. "I'm getting dejavu.”
“There isn’t—”
“There absolutely is,” Taehyung cackles. “Your face got uglier.”
“What the fuck, man? My face isn’t ugly—”
“Trouble in paradise?” Hoseok interrupts in a sing-song voice.
Jungkook bites his lip.
“Well...”
They both go quiet, which is somehow worse than the teasing.
Jungkook scrubs a hand over his mouth.
How the fuck is he supposed to put this into words without sounding insane?
That he finally gets Jimin and somehow feels worse for it half the time? That he wakes up hard and furious at the walls, at the blankets and at the sound of other people? That sometimes Jimin’s hand brushes his waist in passing and Jungkook spends the next hour feeling like his skin is on backwards?
He stares at the clouds until his eyes sting.
“How do you put into words that you’re being cockblocked by communal living?”
There is a beat of total silence as Jungkook holds his breath.
Then Taehyung shoots upright so fast he nearly takes Millie’s head off with his shoulder.
“Oh my god.”
Hoseok makes a noise like he’s choking.
Jungkook closes his eyes. “Yep.”
Hoseok rolls onto his stomach, laughing straight into the grass. “No. No, absolutely not. That’s the problem?”
“One of many, yes,” Jungkook whines.
“It is very much the one you led with,” Taehyung says, looking both appalled and delighted.
Jungkook throws his forearm over his eyes. “We sleep in a barn, Taehyung.”
“What’s wrong with a barn?”
“There are like eight other people in there, stupid.”
Hoseok is fully gone now, shoulders shaking. “I’m so sorry. This is totally the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone.”
“You both suck ass.”
“You got shot!”
“And I think this is worse than being shot!”
Taehyung makes a high, strangled noise. “Wait. Wait, are you saying you two haven’t—”
Jungkook makes a face at the sky.
“Oh,” Hoseok wheezes, lifting his head just enough to look at him with tear-bright eyes. “You’re actually losing your mind.”
Jungkook lets out a long, miserable sigh.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “A little.”
Hoseok’s laughter dies off in little leftovers. He rolls onto one elbow and wipes the corners of his eyes before looking at Jungkook properly.
“You’re actually serious about this,” he says.
“I wish I wasn’t. ”
Taehyung drops back into the grass beside Millie and rips out a bundle of grass for her to much on. “Okay, wait. Is this actually just about sex?”
Jungkook rolls his eyes at the clouds.
“It’s not just that.”
That wipes the last of the grin off Hoseok’s face.
Jungkook scrubs a hand over his mouth. He really hates putting his thoughts into words. There’s too many of them.
“It’s not just that we can’t get five fucking minutes alone,” he mutters. “It’s that he’s finally there, and I still—I can’t—” He breaks off, jaw clenching. “Bad shit always happens before we get one normal second. Now every time I touch him there’s always somebody hovering around. It makes everything feel…” He exhales sharply. “Cheap.”
Taehyung’s expression softens.
Hoseok looks down at the grass between his fingers. “Ah,” he says quietly.
Jungkook laughs once, humourless. “Yeah. Ah.”
Because that’s the root problem, isn’t it?
Not just wanting Jimin just for himself. Not just wanting him so badly Jungkook feels mean with it some days, all raw nerves and his whole body tuned too tight.
It’s that he doesn’t want to steal little pieces of him between chores and other people’s footsteps. He doesn’t want their first real anything to happen because they got desperate enough to hide behind a barn and hope no one walks in. After all that fear and almost losing each other, the thought leaves a bad taste in Jungkook’s mouth.
He wants something that belongs only to them.
Which is stupid, probably. Not exactly realistic when they live in a settlement full of people who can hear you sneeze from three buildings over.
“I mean,” Hoseok says carefully after a moment, “there are places.”
Jungkook turns his head, eyebrows slowly climbing up into his hairline.
Taehyung lifts a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug.
“Not good places.”
“Not romantic places,” Hoseok corrects.
“But places,” Taehyung nods.
Jungkook narrows his eyes immediately. “Why do I hate this already?”
“Because you’re a drama queen,” Taehyung snorts. “And because deep down you know it’s the best you’re gonna get.”
Hoseok nods and starts ticking off fingers, swinging his legs back and forth.
“There’s the kitchen, but only at night. The loft over the tool shed. The storage barn, if nobody’s using it.”
Jungkook stares at him.
“The kitchen,” he repeats. “You serious?”
Hoseok winces a little. “Yeah.”
“That sounds bleak.”
“It is bleak,” Taehyung says. “But it has a door.”
“The loft has a door too,” Hoseok snaps his fingers at him. “And a lock.”
Taehyung looks like he’s thinking almost too hard before nodding.
“Bit dusty though.”
“And spiders,” Hoseok shudders hard enough for the grass around to shake with him.
Jungkook closes his eyes.
This is exactly what he means.
Kitchen. Storage barn. A loft over a tool shed.
All those stupid hot, aching thoughts he’s been trying not to drown in, all that wanting he’s been dragging around in his body for so long—and this is what it comes down to.
Dust and spiders.
Jungkook lets out a long groan and drags both hands over his face, then into the grass, and rips out two handfuls.
“This is fucking hopeless.”
“Pretty much,” Hoseok agrees cheerfully.
Taehyung cackles for a few seconds then goes suddenly quiet.
Jungkook looks sharply at him.
He knows that look.
It’s the same he gets himself when he’s about to come up with something brilliantly stupid.
Hoseok notices too and stops swinging his legs. “Oh no, here we go.”
Taehyung ignores him completely, eyes narrowing up at the sky.
“Well,” he says slowly, “there is the farm.”
Jungkook throws the fistfuls of grass at him. They land next to Millie who happily gobbles them up.
Hoseok blinks once. “Oh.”
Taehyung sits up straighter and crosses his legs, clearly warming to his own idea. “Not for, like, right now right now,” he says quickly, waving one hand. “I mean when we go back next.”
Jungkook stares at him. “What the hell are you talking about.”
“The trips out there,” Hoseok says, glancing between them. “We’ve been going back and forth every few days.”
“Every few days?” Jungkook shrieks, eyes gone wide. “Namjoon and Yoongi told me it’s only every fortnight, fucking assholes.”
“Sorry your parents won’t let you come out and play in the mud,” Taehyung grins and earns another fistful of grass that actually lands in his face this time.
Hoseok sits up finally, dusting himself off. “The farm’s too useful to leave sitting there unattended for too long. Tae’s fields are basically a goldmine if we can get them going properly.” He shrugs. “It works better than this place.”
“We’ve literally just finished reinforcing the fences to make sure none of those undead bastards get into the barns,” Taehyung adds, folding his arms proudly. “The chickens are fine, goats are still evil. Millie’s perfect, obviously.”
Millie flicks an ear, still chewing.
Jungkook narrows his eyes. “And?”
“And,” Taehyung mocks with a roll of his eyes, “it’s super private.”
There’s a beat, then Hoseok makes a strangled sound and points at him. “Oh, you’re disgusting.”
“You calling my farm gross?” Taehyung shoots back. “You said it yourself, there are places.”
“Your childhood farm shouldn’t be one of them,” Hoseok shakes his head. “That’s like, a totally different category of freaky.”
Taehyung scoffs. “It’s my farm. I can do as I please.”
“Whatever you say, Old MacDonald.”
Jungkook keeps looking between them like they’ve actually lost their minds, his own having gone a little blank.
“I’m just saying,” Taehyung presses on, completely ignoring his zoned-out expression. “If we’re going out there anyway, and if you and Jimin happen to come along at some point, and if there happens to be a whole actual house—”
Hoseok slaps a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ. He wants you to fuck in his bed.”
“Dude, don’t be so vulgar—"
Jungkook sits up too fast that he nearly spooks Millie.
“You are not pimping out your farmhouse to me,” he says flatly.
Taehyung gasps. “That is not what I’m trying to do here!”
“You sure about that?”
“I said there’s privacy,” he argues. “And doors—multiple doors, actually. Walls too. I understand that it’s may be a truly wild concept for your pea-sized brain, but—”
Hoseok interrupts him with laughter, shoulders shaking as he sprawls in the grass again. “This conversation is so cursed.”
Jungkook points at both of them. “You’re both insane.”
“Maybe,” Taehyung crosses his arms. “But I’m not wrong.”
That’s the annoying part.
He isn’t.
Jungkook hates that the idea managed to make more than one lap around his brain already.
He hates it so much he gets to his feet immediately, like standing up can physically shake the thought away.
It almost works.
Almost.
“Wait,” Hoseok tips his head back to look up at him. “You’re actually thinking about it?”
“I’m not—”
“Aw, look at him,” Taehyung coos, delighted. “His ears are red.”
“They are not—.”
“Very red,” Hoseok confirms.
Jungkook brushes grass off the back of his jeans with sharp, irritated swipes. “I hate both of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Hoseok laughs.
Taehyung grins up at him. “Next trip’s in a few days, probably. Depends what Namjoon wants done first.”
Jungkook freezes for half a second, then points at him again. “Not a word to Jimin.”
Both men start to cackle. Even Millie snorts.
Jungkook closes his eyes for one long second, then turns toward the food barn. He’s too hungry to deal with this anymore.
Behind him, Hoseok calls, “We’re just saying, think about it!”
“I’m not thinking about shit,” Jungkook snaps.
Taehyung cups his hands around his mouth. “Except Jimin, apparently!”
Jungkook throws his middle finger up over his shoulder without breaking stride.
That only makes the two hyenas behind him laugh harder.
♡
Jimin nearly trips over himself while trying to keep his eyes on the way his hand looks swaying back and forth in Jungkook’s bigger one.
It’s like they’re two little kids holding hands.
But Jimin likes it so much he has to keep looking away at the dirt path under their feet so he doesn’t do anything embarrassing with his face.
“—and I’m telling you, he’s gained some creepy mom powers,” Jungkook rants away. “Namjoon doesn’t even walk anymore, he just sprouts from the earth like a fucking tree. I was standing near the west fence earlier, minding my damn business, and suddenly he’s behind me going, ‘Jungkook, what the hell are you doing here?’”
Jimin hums. “Were you doing anything?”
“I was literally just standing there!”
“Like you can stand still for one second.”
Jungkook gasps in mock offence. “I get shot one time and suddenly everyone’s a critic.”
“Can you blame any of us though?”
“Not the point.” Jungkook huffs and swings their hands higher once. “The point is I feel like a hostage, and Namjoon always looks like he’s seconds away from asking if I packed a lunch and telling me to wear a scarf.”
“Momjoon,” Jimin snorts before he can stop himself.
Jungkook looks at him immediately, his pout turning into a grin.
They’ve been doing these walks for a few days now. Hanna had finally cleared Jungkook to move around more once the painkillers were out of his system and he was no longer in any immediate danger of ending up in a ditch.
So now they walk.
A slow loop after dinner, when the day’s work is done and the rest of the place is settling for the night. Past the sleeping barns, past the little vegetable plots, past the pond. Sometimes they both talk, sometimes Jungkook talks and Jimin hums in places that seem appropriate. Sometimes they don’t say anything at all and just move side by side under the thin wash of moonlight and lantern glow.
Jimin spent the whole day helping plant shit in the tiny garden area.
Actual shit, technically. Compost, or whatever, as though that made kneeling in dirt for six hours with his knees screaming and his lower back slowly turning into gravel any more dignified.
His shoulders really fucking ache from hauling buckets. His hands feel raw and the dirt under his nails seems like a permanent addition, no matter how hard he scrubbed.
Still, he wouldn’t miss this for the world.
They pass one of the outer lanterns, its flame flickering behind cloudy glass. A figure near the far fence lifts a hand in greeting and Jungkook lets go of Jimin just long enough to wave back.
“Evening,” he calls easily.
The person answers something Jimin doesn’t quite catch.
Then Jungkook’s hand finds his again without hesitation, fingers sliding back through his so naturally, it’s almost freaky.
Jimin peers up at the younger through his bangs.
Jungkook looks a lot better these days.
It still catches Jimin off guard sometimes—how hard they both had it before all of this. The regular meals and proper sleep have brought some life back into Jungkook’s face. His cheeks look a little fuller, no longer carved so sharply by hunger and too many nights spent half-awake. His eyes are brighter too, less dull around the edges, less shadowed by that constant animalistic vigilance.
Even when he’s irritated, even when he’s complaining about being treated like an elderly dog with a limp, there’s colour to him now.
Living in the settlement has done him good.
Jimin looks down at the path again and nods along while Jungkook starts ranting about another one of his “caretakers” pissing him off.
He’s been giving it his all too.
After everything—after the gate, after Jungkook’s blood on his hands, after that awful conversation with Namjoon by the bonfire where Jimin had felt like someone had peeled him open and pointed at the mess inside—he made a decision that if he can’t quite do this for himself, he’ll do it for Jungkook.
So he tries. Honestly, he does.
He wakes up, washes, then visits Jungkook. He eats whatever he’s given and trots off to whatever job he’s assigned to for the day. He even talks to people when they talk to him, or at least tries to give more than basic one-word answers, and smiles when it seems appropriate or necessary. Then he finishes his work and goes back to Jungkook.
His own fucked up version of nine to five.
The problem is that it all feels robotic to him.
Trying for the good of the many should come naturally, probably. It sounds like the sort of thing decent people do without needing to overthink it.
But Jimin doesn’t really have an opinion on whether it’s the right time to plant carrots and onions, or if they should send scouts out so soon after the settlement was found by a bunch of raiders. He listens and nods along with the majority. Just does his part and checks out.
It makes him feel like a little cog in a big machine, turning because someone else needs him to, going through the daily routine just so he can feel like a person again when he finally gets to see his person.
Man.
It’s kind of pathetic.
To think he ran their whole dorm setup like a tiny drill sergeant with Jungkook. He’d known exactly where everything went and how long it would last and what had to be done next.
Now he spends six hours attacking dirt with a shovel and waits for the part of the day where Jungkook’s hand closes around his.
Being in love really does make you dumb.
“—so I told him,” Jungkook says, “if I’m not allowed to carry shit, then I should at least be allowed to DJ on his radio show—fucker told me I lack ‘charisma’.”
Jimin blinks himself back into the present. “Fair point.”
Jungkook stops dead, mouth dropping open. “Wow.”
Jimin blinks up at him.
“Why are you so mean?” Jungkook asks, shaking their clamped hands.
“Jungkook, do you have any radio experience? Be serious.”
“You wound me.”
“You’re already wounded.”
“Exactly! I’m a vulnerable target, I need extra care.” Jungkook grins and wiggles his eyebrows.
Jimin’s mouth twitches.
Jungkook stares at him for a second with that wide grin, then his expression shifts, softening a little. He slows to a stop and tugs on their linked hands.
“You’re tired,” he says, quieter.
“Everyone’s tired.” Jimin shrugs.
Jungkook gives him a look.
Jimin looks away first because that’s easier. A habit, still—one he keeps trying to break.
“I’m fine,” he mumbles.
Jungkook doesn’t call him on it, just squeezes his hand once and starts walking again slowly.
They walk past the garden plots. In the dark, the neat rows stick out with little wooden markers and the faint shine of damp leaves from whatever had survived transplanting. Jimin can still feel the shovel handle in his palms and the repeated bite of metal into soil. Dig, lift, turn. Dig, lift, turn. A motion simple enough to keep him from thinking too hard until, of course, thinking too hard came crawling back in anyway.
Maybe this is how people keep their sanity.
Maybe this is what the rest of their lives looks like, if they’re lucky enough in the long run.
Dig. Lift. Turn.
The thought should comfort him. Well, it does—a little bit.
But it also pokes and nags at the hollow places of his mind.
Jungkook’s thumb brushes across his knuckles. Probably just an absentminded minded gesture, but it makes Jimin’s whole palm tingle anyway.
Before he can recover, Jungkook stops again.
“Ah, shit.”
He sticks his palm out in front of him and looks up.
Jimin stops too, frowning. Then he follows Jungkook’s gaze toward the sky.
A fat drop of water hits him directly in the eye.
He jerks back. “Fuck.”
Jungkook blinks as another drop splats against his cheek.
It takes only seconds for the sky to open fully.
Rain comes down all at once, sudden and heavy enough to turn the dusty path dark underneath their feet. Shrieking and laughter erupts from every direction, little moving dots of light in the distance as people start running for shelter.
Then thunder rolls overhead, deep enough to vibrate in Jimin’s chest.
“Come on,” he tugs Jungkook toward the main barns.
Jungkook doesn’t follow.
Jimin looks back at him through the sheet of rain already dripping into his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Jungkook’s mouth curves.
Even through his own bangs moulding with his face, Jimin can see the sly glint in his eyes.
“This way.”
“Jungkook.”
“This way,” Jungkook repeats, and tugs him off the path.
Jimin should refuse on principle. Jungkook is still healing and his shoulder is still bandaged up. He can already hear Seokjin chewing his ear off for being irresponsible.
Jimin goes with him anyway.
They run bent forward through the downpour, hands locked tight, boots slipping in sludge-y mud that hadn’t existed a minute ago. Jungkook keeps cackling and swiping the rain out of his face as they run, turns around every few steps to make sure Jimin is still there.
By the time Jungkook drags him to the storage shed near the side path, they are both drenched down to their underwear.
Jungkook yanks the door open with his good arm and shoves a protesting Jimin into the musty shed.
“This was your grand idea? A stinky shed?” Jimin grumbles while shoving wet hair out of his eyes. He waddles a few steps forward, arms outstretched in front of him—he can barely see shit, the dim light from outside not nearly enough for him to tell what the fuck he’s touching.
Jimin turns to give a piece of his mind to the genius behind him, but Jungkook is already there in his space, shaking his head from side to side.
More water sprays in his face.
Jimin recoils. “Oh my god, you’re a fucking animal.”
Jungkook grins and does it again, ignoring the protests, leans forward with a ridiculous whining sound and rubs his wet face against Jimin’s shoulder.
“Get off—Jungkook!” Jimin huffs trying his hardest not to laugh.
Jungkook only presses closer, damp cheek dragging against his collarbone, nose nudging under his jaw like some oversized mutt begging for attention.
“You’re so weird sometimes.”
Jungkook huffs a pathetic wine into his shirt and sniffs at his neck.
It is so stupid how he’s so committed to the bit that Jimin gives up and starts laughing.
Jungkook hears it and immediately gets worse with his nuzzling.
“Absolutely not,” Jimin says, laughing harder as he plants both hands against Jungkook’s chest and pushes. “Stop. Stop, you’re wet.”
“You’re wet too.”
“Because you dragged me here!”
“Shut up, you followed me!”
“I was kidnapped. You’re a dirty thief.”
“With one good arm? That’s embarrassing for you.”
Jimin laughs again and shoves him back properly this time.
Jungkook goes, but not far. He backs off with a grin and drops onto a crate near the entrance, soaked hair plastered to his forehead, shirt clinging in dark wet patches to his chest.
Jimin jabs a finger at him and the crate. “Stay.”
“Woof.” Jungkook barks, grin so wide it makes his eyes crinkle.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Jimin rolls his eyes and turns away before Jungkook can see too much of his face.
He leans against the ajar door, hip and shoulder pressed to the damp wood, and watches the rain pour.
It’s the first proper storm of the season.
It feels strange to watch people run toward shelter instead of away from danger, strange to hear laughter under the growl of thunder. Stranger yet, to stand somewhere dry and safe, and not have to think about whether all the noise will draw infected from three streets over.
Jimin rests his head against the doorframe and sighs.
Is this it, then?
This place.
These walls and these people.
Their final home.
What happens next? A few months from now, a year. Several years, if they’re lucky enough. Will the settlement expand? Will they build more barns to sleep in, more gardens, more walls? Will they dare rebuild some ghost of their old lives?
Will he and Jungkook last?
Jimin watches two figures sprint past the shed, laughing as rain splashes up around their ankles.
His mother always used to tell him that the greatest goal in life was to be happy. Simple as that.
Be happy, Jimin. Whatever you do, find the thing that makes you happy and hold on tight.
He thought he knew what that meant.
Dancing made him happy. The studio, the mirror, the almost involuntary movement of his body whenever he heard a good beat and the sweaty ache after a good session. A particular kind of exhaustion that left him tired enough to forget every single worry.
There isn’t much use for that now.
Now, the only thing that makes him happy is Jungkook.
What a terrifying thought.
Because what does Jungkook get out of him? Really? What can Jimin give him?
Can he even make Jungkook happy?
Maybe one day they’ll have their own place somewhere, nothing fancy. Maybe just a tiny two-by-four shack patched together from scrap wood, no bigger than their old room back at the dorm.
Maybe they’ll sleep on a ratty old mattress again, shoulder to shoulder, and talk about nothing important for hours until they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Maybe they’ll go on one of their suicidal runs again, when the itch to be stupid becomes too much.
Jimin was happy back there, in his own way.
He thinks Jungkook didn’t mind it much either, probably.
But there’s always another side of the coin.
What if something bad happens again?
What if the settlement gets attacked by infected, or raiders come back with more guns, and this time Namjoon can’t talk them down? What if someone inside decides they just simply don’t like how things are being run here, and the rot starts from the middle instead of outside the fence?
What if Jungkook gets hurt again and Jimin isn’t close enough?
What if Jungkook stops loving him?
Jimin closes his eyes.
He misses the days when he didn’t have so much room for what-ifs.
Now his brain has space to get creative, apparently.
Lucky him.
The permanent nerves under his skin start feeling wobbly and overstrung all at once. At the dorm, when he got like this, he could burn it out of himself. Fuck off to one of the room and do push-ups until his arms trembled, squats until his thighs burned. He’d even dance on the roof sometimes, when he knew Jungkook wouldn’t come looking.
Now he has to settle for attacking dirt with a shovel and hoping it does the trick.
An arm slides around his middle at the same time as warm breath brushes against his ear.
“Cold or just brooding?” Jungkook murmurs.
Jimin stiffens instinctively. It still happens sometimes—the old urge to lock.
Then Jungkook’s tattooed hand spreads gently over his stomach, warm even through the soaked shirt, and Jimin forces himself to loosen.
“Both, kinda,” he mumbles back.
Jungkook hums behind him and gently brushes his chin against his shoulder. “You went somewhere.”
“I’m right here.”
“Liar.”
Jimin looks out at the rain, keeps his mouth shut.
Jungkook’s thumb starts moving, slow over the wet fabric at Jimin’s waist. Not demanding. Barely anything, really. Just a soft stroke back and forth.
Jimin sighs through his nose and watches rain pour off the shed roof in silver ropes.
Jungkook’s other hand comes up carefully, fingers brushing damp hair away from the side of Jimin’s neck. His mouth follows, lips ghosting near the hinge of Jimin’s jaw.
“Come back to me,” Jungkook whispers.
Jimin’s throat tightens.
“I-I’m here.”
“Then be here.”
Jungkook turns him slowly then, giving him every chance to stop it—Jimin doesn’t. He lets himself be guided around until his back meets the shed wall beside the door. Jungkook steps in closer—close enough that Jimin can feel the heat coming off him.
Jimin’s eyes tip to the floor immediately, but Jungkook catches his chin before he can wall off any further—two fingers, gentle under the bone, tipping his face up.
“Hey.”
Jimin’s eyes flicker to his, then away.
Jungkook tilts his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Still doing that?”
“Doing what.”
“Acting like if you don’t look at me, I can’t see you losing your mind.”
Jimin swallows around the dryness in his throat.
“Maybe you can’t.”
“You know I can even with my eyes closed.”
Jungkook leans in.
Jimin takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, expecting a kiss.
Jungkook kisses his cheek instead.
Jimin blinks his eyes open.
Another kiss lands on the bridge of his nose, then the corner of his mouth, so light he can barely even feel it. Jungkook pauses there, close enough that every breath brushes warm against Jimin’s lips, but doesn’t close the distance. Keeps pressing kisses everywhere except where Jimin wants it the most.
Jimin waits, but his hands are getting twitchy.
Jungkook waits too, fucking asshole.
“You’re so fucking annoying,” Jimin whispers when another kiss lands on his left cheek.
“Yeah.”
“Jungkook.”
“Yeah?”
Jimin’s hands lift before he can overthink it, and hook around the back of Jungkook’s neck to tug him down.
The kiss finally finds its home.
Jungkook makes a low sound into his mouth and Jimin feels it everywhere. In his knees, the pit of his stomach, every sore nook and cranny of his tired body. Especially in the anxious, ugly corners of his brain that finally, finally go quiet under the press of Jungkook’s mouth.
Rain keeps on battering the roof, thunder rolls somewhere far off with a low rumble. The shed feels cramped and stuffy around them. But Jimin can’t give a fuck about any of that.
All he can do is cling to Jungkook.
The younger kisses him like he has all the time in the world and none of it at the same time—slow until Jimin stops tensing, then deeper when he lets out a tiny helpless noise and opens for him. His good hand slides up Jimin’s side, over wet cotton and the shivery place beneath his arm.
Jimin’s wants—needs—him closer, curls his fingers harder into the hair at the nape of Jungkook’s neck and tugs harshly—closer, closer, even though there is barely any room left between them.
Jungkook pulls back just enough to pant against his mouth, eyes half-lidded and dark.
“Can I?” he asks, fingers hooked under the hem of his own shirt.
Jimin nods before he remembers how words work.
It takes Jungkook a second to wrestle the wet fabric up one-handed without pulling wrong at his shoulder. Jimin steps in when it catches near the bandage, careful as he helps ease it over the healing scar and the tender skin around it. The shirt finally comes free with a wet pull and lands on the floor with an ugly slap.
Jimin wonders if maybe praying would help his knees from giving out just a little longer.
Jungkook looks beautiful.
All flushed cheeks and damp skin, almost glowingin the dull wash of light spilling through the open door. The still-healing mark peeks through the edges of the bandage—an ugly red that Jimin hates looking at it. Hates the way his stomach still drops at the sight of it, hates even more that he can’t stop staring.
Jungkook catches his hand and guides it to his chest.
“Don’t look like that,” he whispers.
Jimin’s palm settles shyly over warm skin, feeling the muscles tense as Jungkook’s breath catches on a sharp inhale when his fingers spread out.
“I want to feel you,” Jungkook breathes, mouth drifting close to Jimin’s ear. “Here with me.”
His hand slides under Jimin’s shirt, up his side, fingers warm and careful against bare skin.
Jimin bites his lip, brain turning into utter mush. He can only nod against Jungkook’s neck and take deep breaths.
Jungkook lets out a rough breath by his ear, almost a laugh. Then his mouth finds the lobe, the soft place beneath it, the line of his neck. He kisses down slowly, nose nudging once under the hinge of the jaw until Jimin tilts his head back, offering more.
Jimin tries to stay quiet. Tries to swallow down all the tiny, embarrassing sounds that keep trying to escape him. But one of the kisses turns into a playful nip and a small groan slips out before Jimin can bite it back.
Jungkook hears it, obviously.
His fingers pull Jimin’s wet shirt up to his midriff, and then he’s ducking down.
“Jungkook—oh.” The protest dies in Jimin’s throat with a full body jolt when he feels a kiss smack against his stomach.
The second follows lower, near his navel, warm and wet, ticklish enough that a horribly undignified giggle manages to break loose. Jungkook freezes for exactly one second before going for another kiss on the other side with a shit eating grin.
“No,” Jimin laughs and tries to squirm away, fingers tangling in Jungkook’s hair. “It tickles, stop—”
A hum vibrates against his skin.
“Mutt,” Jimin accuses weakly.
Jungkook peers up at him through his lashes, eyes way too round an innocent for the position, and drags his lip piercing across the heated skin of his stomach until it catches on the navel.
Jimin squeezes his eyes shut and gently tugs Jungkook up by the hair. The younger comes willingly and kisses him before Jimin can recover, licking into his mouth with such sudden heat that any witty remark he had turns into a surprised moan.
Jungkook swallows it. It being everything—Jimin’s breath, thoughts, every single sound gets gobbled up by his greedy mouth.
For a while there is the steady drum of the rain and the slick, needy slide of their mouths. Jimin tries to give back as good as gets, licks into Jungkook’s mouth and bites on his bottom lip. Runs his hands up his bare chest and arms, careful of the tender shoulder, but not so careful when he grazes a pert nipple—anything. Anything to make him feel even as remotely weak in the knees as Jimin is right now.
Then Jungkook pulls away. Not far—just enough to pant against his mouth, forehead almost touching Jimin’s.
They stare at each other.
Jimin knows that look in Jungkook’s eyes so well it’s almost scary.
He’s seen it before—in the dorm, when the air got too thick and neither of them knew what to do with their hands. At the gate when it was laced with fear. Back in the medical barn, softened by pain and love. But now it’s clearer. Glazed and wide-eyed, the almost boyish curiosity in him replaced by something hungry and wild.
In the dim light, all golden and damp from rain, Jungkook looks like a dream.
And after living through so many nightmares, Jimin is too weak to resist anymore.
He hooks a finger through the belt loop of Jungkook’s jeans and tugs him closer.
Jungkook comes in with a broken little breath, stomach to stomach, skin hot against Jimin’s damp shirt. Jimin lets his fingers travel up the line of Jungkook’s chest, over his sternum, feeling the muscles jump there, then higher to his throat, over the quiver of his Adam’s apple and tight jaw, finally reaching his mouth.
Jungkook closes his eyes when Jimin touches his reddened lips and kisses the pads of his fingers.
Jimin’s pulse kicks hard enough to feel in the back of his throat.
“So needy,” he whispers and presses his thumb harder against the bottom lip until it gives and parts to wrap around the digit.
Jungkook’s eyes crack open too, just a sliver of pure black slicing right into Jimin like heated metal, nothing boyish left in them besides raw hunger.
Heat goes through Jimin so fast it almost makes him dizzy.
Inside and outside.
Everywhere.
The rain, the shed, the whole stupid world narrows to the wet heat of Jungkook’s mouth, the rough catch of his breath against his fingers, the way his hand tightens under Jimin’s shirt like he’s trying to restrain himself.
So much so, that Jimin does not hear the giggling at first.
Does not register the footsteps splashing closer through the rain.
Does not understand anything is happening until Jungkook jerks away from him like he has been burned and takes all that heat with him.
Rain roars back into Jimin’s ears. The shed snaps into focus around him: the crates, the smell, Jungkook’s discarded shirt on the floor, Jungkook bare-chested and flushed and standing three feet away with his jaw clenched so hard it looks painful.
Jimin blinks and turns his head.
A couple their age stands frozen in the open doorway, both soaked and equally wide-eyed.
The woman’s hand flies to her mouth.
“Oh,” she says, then immediately starts giggling. “Sorry. Didn’t think this was occupied.”
Her partner looks at Jungkook’s bare chest, then Jimin’s half-untucked shirt, then very wisely looks at the floor.
“We’ll leave,” the woman blurts, already tugging him backwards by the sleeve.
The man lets himself be dragged out, but not before throwing a scandalized “lock the door next time!” over his shoulder.
Their footsteps splash away into the rain, laughter swallowed quickly by the storm.
For a second, neither Jimin nor Jungkook moves.
Then Jungkook turns away and grabs his shirt off the floor with a sharp, furious motion that makes him hiss when it pulls at his shoulder.
“Careful,” Jimin automatically reaches for him, but his hand pauses mid-air when Jungkook jerks back.
A useless apology sits on the tip of Jimin’s tongue—not even sure why he should be apologising in the first place—but it melts away when he sees the look on Jungkook’s face.
He looks furious.
Humiliated and furious. Brows drawn and lips pressed in a tight line as he glances away from Jimin’s worried eyes. His hand twists in the wet shirt like he might tear it in half.
“Jungkook—”
“Of course.”
Jimin swallows.
“Of course,” Jungkook snorts quietly. “Because why wouldn’t someone fucking walk in.”
Jimin steps closer and carefully touches his shoulder.
Jungkook shakes his head, not looking at him.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I know.” His voice snaps, then immediately frays. He drags his good hand over his face. “Sorry—fuck. I know, I’m not mad at you.”
Like that’s any better.
Jungkook tries to pull the shirt back on, gets it caught awkwardly near the bad shoulder, and makes another harsh sound through his teeth.
Jimin clicks his tongue and grabs the soggy hem from his hands. “Let me.”
For a second Jungkook looks like he might refuse just to have something to do with all the anger in his body.
Then his shoulders sag half an inch.
Jimin steps in and takes the shirt from him gently and eases it over Jungkook’s head, careful with the healing shoulder, careful with the place where the bullet had gone in and changed the shape of both their lives.
Jungkook lets him.
That almost hurts more.
Once the shirt is on, Jimin doesn’t step back. He keeps his hands resting lightly at Jungkook’s waist while the younger stares past him at the rain.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin blurts.
Jungkook’s eyes flick to him at once. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not saying it like that.”
“You are.”
“I’m saying I’m sorry because that really fucking sucked.”
Jungkook’s jaw works.
Outside, thunder rolls again. Farther now. The worst of the storm has moved over them, but the rain still pours hard enough to curtain the doorway.
Jimin rubs his thumb once over the fabric at Jungkook’s side.
“I can still kiss you,” he suggests and cringes at how lame it sounds even to his own ears.
Jungkook’s huffs a defeated laugh and runs a hand through his drying hair.
“That’s not enough.”
Jimin goes very still.
He can’t help but think back on how Jungkook has been acting these past few weeks. Jittery and jumpy, almost grouchy. He’s not happy to be benched because of his shoulder, obviously. But he doesn’t have anywhere to put that energy either. Not even onto Jimin. Especially when the walls have ears and there are eyes behind every corner.
Oh.
Jimin’s face suddenly feels hot.
“No,” he says quietly. “I know.”
Jungkook finally looks at him.
The anger is still there, a low ember in his eyes, but now Jimin can see the bruise beneath it. The other problem.
“This place is good for you,” Jimin says, voice low enough to almost disappear under the rain. “I know it is.”
Jungkook frowns.
“And I’m glad,” Jimin continues, even though his cheeks feel hot and his hands want to crawl off his body. “I’m glad you’re eating and sleeping, and I’m glad you have Namjoon to mom over you. I’m really glad.”
“Jimin—”
“But sometimes,” he shakes his head, fingers tightening in Jungkook’s shirt, “I hate that everyone gets pieces of you now.”
Jungkook stops breathing for a second.
Jimin looks down at his own hands because it’s easier than looking at the expression on Jungkook’s face.
“And I hate that every time I want something to be just ours, someone always—,” he bites his lip and shakes his head.
The rain fills the silence.
Then Jungkook’s hand covers his, warm and a little shaky.
“Yeah,” Jungkook mumbles, voice rough. “That.”
Jimin steps closer without another word and presses his forehead carefully to Jungkook’s chest, right over the hard, living thud of his heart.
Jungkook lets out a long sigh and nuzzles into his hair, arm coming up to wrap tightly around his waist and tug him closer so they’re chest to chest.
They stay quiet for a long time, swaying to side to side while the rain patters steadily outside.
“I miss the dorm sometimes,” Jungkook mumbles after a while, nosing against Jimin’s hair. “Am I insane?”
Jimin puffs a sad laugh against his chest and keeps his eyes shut.
“Then we’re both insane.”
♡
“Hold on to your seats, folks,” Namjoon calls from the front of the truck, loud enough to cut through the engine and the metal rattle of tools shifting under the tarp. “It’s ‘bout to get bumpy.”
Jimin barely has time to flatten one hand against the side before they veer off the broken road and onto an even bumpier dirt path.
The truck drops into a pothole with a violent jolt.
Taehyung makes a strangled little sound beside him, elbow flying out and narrowly missing the side of his head, and Jimin’s ass hits the bench hard enough to send a clean white bolt of pain up his spine.
“Fuck,” he spits, grabbing at the edge of the truck bed with one hand and rubbing his sore behind with the other. “Fuck this road.”
“It’s already fucked beyond repair,” Taehyung grunts, bracing one boot against a toolbox as the truck lurches again.
“My ass hurts.”
“Aren’t you always in some sort of pain?”
“’Course I am—especially when I talk to you.”
Taehyung gives him a delighted look and sticks his tongue out like a child.
Jimin means to insult him further, but the tarp at the side of the truck lifts in the wind, and his eyes catch something grey moving nearby.
It’s only a faint smear between the trees, a wrong shape cutting through the green, but then the truck growls hard over another dip and the shape turns, head snapping toward the noise with that awful puppet-string jerk. Another infected drags itself out from behind the hedgerow after it, then two more, rotten limbs jerking as they begin to stumble toward the moving truck.
They're not close enough to be a real threat but Jimin’s body doesn’t seem to care.
His fingers tighten against the truck bed as Hoseok lets out a sharp whoop from near the front and reaches for the crossbow wedged under the bench by his knees.
The rest of the group seems to shift too. The conversation dies down into a hushed murmur as everyone snaps to attention, hands reaching for weapons and eyes fixing onto the gaps between the tarp.
“Do you want to give it a go?”
The question cuts across Jimin’s attention so cleanly that his eyes swing around the truck for a second before he finds the source.
Yoongi is crouched near the rear opening of the tarp, rifle balanced across his knees.
Jungkook goes stiff next to him.
For the past few hours, between stretches of bad road and Namjoon’s occasional warnings from the front, Yoongi has been teaching him how to handle the weapon. Just basic things like how to hold the thing and how to check the chamber without putting his fingers where they shouldn’t be. Yoongi had to correct him three separate times with such flat disgust that Jungkook had actually started listening seriously.
Jimin can tell by the face. Jungkook’s mouth has settled into that focused line he gets when he’s angry about something not working for him from the get-go. His tongue stayed stubbornly pressed into the inside of his cheek, brows drawn, as he absorbed Yoongi’s corrections with only minimal bitching—which is as close to humility as Jungkook ever gets without a fever involved.
Now his eyes light up at the suggestion.
“Really? Me?”
Yoongi snorts. “No, I was asking the shovel behind you.”
Jungkook is already moving for the rifle with a grin. “Asshole.”
“Careful with the compliments. I’ll blush.”
Jimin eyes the rifle as Yoongi shifts closer to the tarp gap and motions Jungkook into place.
It’s an icky sight.
The last time a gun was involved, Jungkook ended up passed out and bleeding on him. Now he looks almost excited to handle the same thing that nearly tore them apart.
Jimin keeps his mouth tightly shut.
Taehyung shuffles closer until their knees knock, his shoulder pressing briefly into Jimin’s. “You okay?”
Jimin shrugs without looking away, eyes trained on the way Yoongi adjusts Jungkook’s elbow with two fingers and mutters something about not fighting the bite.
Taehyung follows Jimin’s gaze and sighs through his nose. “He needs to know how to defend himself out there.”
Jimin turns just enough to give him a dirty look. “You swing a fucking katana around.”
Taehyung lifts one hand in surrender, laughing under his breath. “Touché.”
Yoongi settles into reluctant teacher mode, though his hands are patient when he shows Jungkook where to brace, how to look down the sight, how to breathe before he pulls.
A few of the others start watching too—curious glances over shoulders and past tool bags as the infected drag closer behind them, drawn by the truck’s noise and too stupid to understand the difference between prey and bait.
“Don’t yank,” Yoongi sighs, folding his arms.
Jungkook squints through the gap. “I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“How the hell would you know?”
“I have experience with idiots.”
Jungkook’s jaw shifts. “You’re really committed to the asshole bit.”
“It’s a hobby.”
“Some of us teach with encouragement.” Hoseok calls cheerfully from the side, already kneeling with his crossbow angled toward the tarp opening.
Yoongi doesn’t spare him a glance. “Some of us miss.”
“I do not miss.”
“Then why are you talking?”
Hoseok makes an offended noise, but the corner of his mouth lifts as he turns back toward the infected.
Yoongi taps Jungkook’s wrist once. “Brown jacket, but don’t chase it. Let it come into the line.”
Jungkook swallows, focus narrowing so sharply Jimin almost feels the whole back of the truck bend around it.
The infected stumble in and out of view through the slit in the canvas, one with a jaw hanging loose, another dragging a foot so badly its ankle has turned almost sideways. Jungkook breathes in too high the first time, catches himself when Yoongi says his name, then settles lower into his body.
“Aaaand,” Yoongi drawls lazily, “pull.”
The shot cracks through the air.
Jimin jumps so hard his eyes squeeze shut.
When he opens his eyes, the infected in the brown jacket has stumbled sideways from the hit. Its shoulder hangs on by strands of muscle and sinew, arm swinging loose, but it keeps coming, jaw snapping uselessly.
Jungkook lowers the rifle a few inches. “I hit the shoulder.”
“At least you know your body parts.” Yoongi chuckles.
Jungkook twists to glare at him. “Are you always this helpful?”
Yoongi reaches behind his ear and untucks a cigarette. “Not too bad for a beginner. You didn’t piss yourself, I count that as a win.”
Jungkook’s face goes beautifully flat. “I’m going to throw you out.”
“Not with that aim.”
A clean thwip cuts through their bickering, and one of the infected drops hard into the dirt with a bolt buried through the skull. Hoseok lowers the crossbow just enough to glance back at them, eyebrows raised.
Yoongi cups a hand around his lighter. “Nobody likes a show-off.”
Hoseok grins at him, already reaching for another bolt. “You say that because you missed the head.”
“I didn’t shoot.”
“Exactly.”
Jungkook looks between them with open betrayal. “This was supposed to be my lesson.”
“And you learned something,” Yoongi glances at him, cigarette catching between his lips.
“What?”
“That shoulders are not heads.”
Taehyung leans in close to Jimin again, voice dropping under the rattle of the truck. “You’d think he’d be a little…” He tips his head from side to side with an exaggerated eye roll. “You know, traumatised by guns. Or something.”
Jimin nods robotically.
“Yeah,” he mutters back. “Or something.”
Jungkook glances over for a quick second, catching Jimin’s worried gaze. A small shadow passes behind his eyes as if he has remembered that Jimin is watching him hold the same kind of thing that nearly took him away.
Jimin doesn’t look away.
Then the truck bucks over another bump and the moment breaks when Taehyung swears next to him.
This whole thing had been Jungkook’s random idea in the first place.
Three days ago, over breakfast, while Jimin was trying to force down a bowl of cardboard-like porridge, Jungkook had dropped beside him on the bench and unceremoniously declared that he’ll be joining the next farm run.
Jimin had looked at him, spoon halfway to his mouth.
Jungkook looked back blankly while chewing his food.
His shoulder was more or less healed by then, or healed enough that Hanna and Seokjin no longer looked like they would tackle him at any given moment. He had started getting real jobs again, which improved his mood so dramatically that Jimin almost found it offensive.
He helped haul wood, sorted through scrap metal, carried light tools, and had spent two afternoons in the sun helping frame out one of the new sleeping barns, coming back sweaty, filthy, sunburnt across the nose and stupidly pleased with himself.
Still, the idea of leaving so soon made the horrid porridge in Jimin’s mouth taste even worse.
He had wanted to say no.
Actually, what he had wanted was to ask if Jungkook had lost his fucking mind. But even that couldn’t get past his throat.
Because, deep down, Jimin wanted to get out too.
Another few days of kneeling in damp soil while someone rambled to him about vegetables, and he was going to start ripping his own hair out by the roots just to have something different in his hands.
So when Jungkook found him later, away from Namjoon’s careful face and everyone else’s opinions, and asked if he’d come too, Jimin said yes without thinking it over.
If Jungkook was going beyond the fence, Jimin was going too. Period.
The rifle cracks again.
This time Jungkook’s shot catches one of the infected high in the neck, hard enough to snap its head sideways and knock its whole body off rhythm. It keeps moving anyway, gurgling around a mouthful of blackened blood, until Hoseok’s bolt takes out it through the eye and it drops flat on the track.
A couple of people clap.
Hoseok lowers the crossbow. “See?”
Yoongi exhales smoke through his nose. “I see you waited for him to slow it down for you.”
“I see you chatting shit.”
“I see you begging to walk the rest of the way.”
Jungkook shoves the rifle back toward Yoongi with a scowl. “You both ruined it.”
Yoongi takes it. “You missed the head. Again.”
“I hit the neck this time!”
“Did I say neck?”
Jungkook glares at him for another second, then crawls across the bed to Jimin. He drops down beside him, shifts once to get comfortable, then lowers his head straight into Jimin’s lap with a drawn-out sigh.
Jimin’s hand moves automatically, fingers sliding into Jungkook’s slightly sweaty hair to comb the damp strands back from his forehead. Jungkook’s eyes fall shut at once with a shamelessly content groan.
Across from them, the girl sitting on an overturned bucket watches with curious eyes.
Her gaze flicks to Jimin’s face, then Jungkook’s. Then to the hand in his hair.
She snorts, leans toward her friend, and whispers something behind her hand. Her friend looks over, takes in Jungkook sprawled across Jimin’s lap like an overgrown house cat, and starts giggling.
Jimin’s fingers freeze.
His feels his face heat instantly as he lowers his eyes to the floor. It’s ridiculous. He literally shot a man not that long ago. Two girls giggling should not have the power to make him feel fourteen and caught doing something obscene.
Jungkook whines and bumps his head up into Jimin’s hand, eyes still closed.
Jimin looks down at him with a sigh and pets his hair again.
The girls giggle harder.
Jimin pretends not to hear it.
They stay like that while the truck rattles on and the infected fall farther behind, their groans swallowed slowly by the rumble of the engine and occasional thwack of Hoseok’s bow. The dirt path narrows after a while, unkempt tree branches scraping over the tarp in long dry whispers. Jimin keeps one hand braced against the bench and the other in Jungkook’s hair, thumb brushing slow over his temple whenever the truck jerks hard enough to make him tense.
Eventually, they start to slow.
“Get ready. Stragglers at three o’clock.” Namjoon calls over his shoulder.
Jungkook snaps his eyes open and lifts his head from Jimin’s lap. Hoseok shifts towards the entrance with the crossbow already raised. Yoongi stubs his cigarette out against the rim of a tin and reaches for the rifle. Around them, the rest of the group moves with quick, practiced purpose.
The truck rolls through the last stretch of trees, and the farm gate comes into view.
It is smaller than Jimin expected.
Taehyung talks about the place like it’s a fucking kingdom, but the farm-gate looks like someone built a smaller version of the one back at the settlement—same scrap metal, same coils of barbed wire to keep any pests out. A faded strip of red cloth has been tied along the top rail, bright enough to catch attention through rain or dust.
Two infected bump against it from the outside, their fingers tangled in the wire as their jaws open and close at the sound of the truck. A third sways near the ditch to the right, turning slowly as they roll closer.
Hoseok fires first and the one by the ditch drops in a heap. Yoongi’s rifle cracks almost on top of it, sharper and louder, knocking one of the bodies at the gate out of sight. Another shot follows from somewhere behind Jimin, then Hoseok fires again, and the last infected folds against the fence before sliding down into the mud.
No one cheers this time. No one does much of anything except start moving.
The tailgate drops and they filter out. Tool bags get passed down along with coils of rope, then a crate of nails and two sacks of feed. Someone near the cab starts arguing with Namjoon about whether they should clear the ditch first or check the barn. Hoseok jumps down with the crossbow still in hand. Yoongi takes the rifle and vanishes toward the gate.
Taehyung jumps down and folds his arms, eyes fixed past the gate.
Jimin climbs down after Jungkook stiffly with a grunt, stomach unsettled by the stink of gun smoke and the dead things being dragged away from the entrance.
The farm isn’t the sprawling, romantic place his brain had conjured up from Taehyung’s stories.
It's tighter. More practical than pretty, tucked into itself behind patched fencing and a yard that’s been churned to dark mud from too many boots trampling around. The gate opens into a compact little centre rather than some wide, cinematic sweep of land—a two colour shed with a patched roof, a chicken coop, a barn that sags slightly on one side. Beyond the inner fence, the fields stretch out in uneven rows, some of them still wild with weeds, others tidied up by the farm-group’s efforts.
Jimin can see why they keep coming here, even with all his deeply limited affection for gardening.
It’s quaint but useful. The land already prepped to give back, unlike the manicured fields of the settlement.
And at the far side of the yard, half tucked beneath two old apple trees, sits Taehyung’s house.
Even that’s smaller than Jimin expected. Taehyung gives off more of a ranch vibe than rustic chic.
It’s a small, two-story colonial with weathered white paint and a bowed porch. Most of the windows have been boarded up from the inside, the bottom ones reinforced with metal grates just in case someone decided to snoop.
The only sign of real life are the cheerfully bright yellow curtains and a small potted tomato plant wilting by the door.
Jimin stares at the house, gut churning uncomfortably.
Knowing what happened here—Taehyung’s stories about how he and his family lived here happily not that long ago—it makes his heart squeeze.
Beside him, Jungkook’s knuckles brush his. Just a small gesture that makes Jimin look down for one second, then back up at the house.
Taehyung steps in next to him to stare at the porch, face unreadable.
“Well. She’s still standing.” He mutters after a while.
Hoseok, already beside him, bumps their shoulders together. “So are we.”
Taehyung's mouth twitches like he wants to make a joke out of it, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He just looks at the house a moment longer, throat working, then shakes himself like a wet dog.
“Barely,” he laughs, forcing a grin. “I, personally, am held together by horse hair at this point.”
“Explains the smell,” Jungkook mutters.
Taehyung turns on him with wide eyes. “Don’t insult me on my ancestral land.”
“You’re stinking the land up, I can’t help it.”
“Children,” Namjoon calls from near the front of the truck. “If we could not start the day by insulting our host, that would be great.”
Jungkook leans toward Jimin just enough to murmur, “He brought the clipboard.”
Jimin looks. Namjoon has, in fact, brought the clipboard.
Namjoon waits until most of the group has clustered close enough to hear him. His hair is a mess from the ride, held up by a pair of sunglasses as he squints around to make sure no one’s had the bright idea to wander off.
“Alright,” he says. “We’re splitting work for the day. We need the east field checked properly before anyone starts clearing. Hoseok, you’re with Yoongi on perimeter first, then I want you both moving along the outer fence line. Mark, you take the tools to the barn and start sorting what’s usable from what’s rusted through. Don’t throw anything out until someone else looks at it.”
Yoongi pats the side of the truck. “Someone else means me.”
Namjoon doesn’t look at him. “Maybe someone with more patience.”
“That rules out all of us,” Hoseok says.
A few people laugh under their breath. Jimin doesn’t, mostly because he is watching Jungkook out of the corner of his eye.
Jungkook has shifted them closer during Namjoon’s little speech. His hand snaking around Jimin’s waist with the same complete lack of hesitation it has on their walks, fingers settling on his hip, warm and broad through the fabric of his shirt. When Jimin glances up, Jungkook wiggles his eyebrows at him.
Jimin wrinkles his nose.
“Please don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“But I have needs—and you happen to be one of them.”
“I’m sure your needs can wait.”
Jungkook tugs him a fraction closer by the waist, still watching Namjon and pretending to be responsible. “Can they, though?”
Jimin feels heat creep up the back of his neck and hates himself for getting baited so easily.
Namjoon’s eyes lift from the clipboard and land directly on Jungkook’s hand at Jimin’s waist.
Then on Jungkook’s face.
Jungkook freezes when Namjoon’s eyebrows climb up into his hairline. Jimin closes his eyes for half a second.
“Jungkook, my man.” Namjoon sing-songs.
Jungkook’s hand slips very slowly away from Jimin’s waist. “Uh—yes?”
“You’re with the field group.”
His face drops. “What?”
“The rest of the east land needs measuring and clearing before we can decide what’s worth planting. You wanted real work, yes?”
“Sure?”
“Good. You got it.”
Jungkook looks like he might argue on principle, then remembers he has spent nearly a month complaining about being given fake jobs and has absolutely no moral ground left to stand on. His mouth opens anyway.
Namjoon points with the clipboard before he can start. “Nothing heavier than you can handle with one arm. If your shoulder pulls, you stop. If you pretend it doesn’t hurt, Yoongi has permission to make you stop.”
Yoongi lifts two fingers in a bored salute.
Namjoon’s gaze shifts to Jimin next. “Jimin, Taehyung, you’re with the animal group. Check the feed and water. Mark will be with you.”
Taehyung whoops so loudly one of the chickens shrieks from somewhere behind the barn.
“Yes,” he says, already grabbing Jimin by the sleeve. “My people await.”
Jimin tries to pull his arm back. “Your people?”
“The chickens. The goats. Millie’s emotional dependents.”
“You mean your emotional dependents.”
“I am included in the ecosystem.”
Jungkook makes a noise of immediate, wounded outrage. “Wait, why does he get Jimin?”
Taehyung lights up like someone has handed him a sacred weapon. “Because the animals love me.”
“The goats hate you, actually,” Hoseok points out while counting his bolts.
“The goats hate everyone. That’s how they show respect.”
Jungkook points at Namjoon. “I don’t like this.”
Namjoon ticks something off on the clipboard and puts the pen behind his ear. “I’m just delegating.”
“I can farm next to Jimin—,”
“You can farm in the field,” Namjoon cuts him off with a serene smile and turns to the others. “We meet back here for lunch unless something goes wrong.”
“And please,” he looks pointedly at Jungkook. “No funny business of any kind.”
Yoongi snorts behind the truck.
Jungkook’s ears go red so fast it would be funny if Jimin’s own face weren’t doing something equally humiliating.
“I hate this place,” Jungkook mutters.
Taehyung chooses that exact moment to yank Jimin away.
“Come on,” he says, delighted beyond reason. “Before he starts whining.”
Jimin stumbles after him, half dragged through the mud, shooting one last look over his shoulder.
Jungkook stands where they left him, scowling beside the truck with his hands on his hips, his hair blown across his forehead and frowning miserably. When he catches Jimin looking, the scowl flickers.
And softens.
Only for a second.
Jungkook cups one hand around his mouth. “I love you!”
Jimin stumbles on a step, heart hammering in his chest. He stares at Jungkook who waves back at him with a bright grin.
“I lo—,” he starts to yell back, but stops when he notices the multiple pairs of eyes on him.
“—love you too.” He mutters under his breath instead.
Taehyung huffs softly next to him, shaking his head.
“You’ll get there.”
♡
“Prepare yourself,” Taehyung declares while walking backwards. Too chipper for someone willingly approaching animal shit. “You’re about to meet the superior residents.”
“Compared to the people?”
“Obviously.”
Something bleats from inside the barn.
Jimin slows. “Was that one of your superior residents?”
“That was Mark.”
“You named a goat Mark?”
“No, Mark is a person. The goat is probably screaming at him.”
From inside the barn, a human voice yelps.
“Taehyung!”
“See?” Taehyung grins, delighted. “We have a whole-ass community going here.”
The barn is warmer than the yard and reeks of sour hay and damp animal. Dust hangs in soft little ghosts where light cuts through gaps in the boards. Looks like Mark has already started sorting through the tools, stacking them up in neat rows by the feed sacks near the entrance.
It’s a little rough. A patchwork of effort from multiple people who don’t really know what they’re doing, but the animals don’t seem to give a crap.
A gaggle of chickens start flapping around when Taehyung walks in. One goat sticks its head over the half-door of a stall and stares at Jimin with unsettling horizontal pupils. Another, smaller one, trots over curiously and immediately starts chewing on his sleeve.
Jimin looks down at it.
The goat keeps chewing.
“Is this normal?” he asks.
Taehyung turns head while trying to pet a chicken. “Oh, she likes you.”
“She’s eating me.”
“That’s how goats like things.”
Jimin gives the goat a careful pat between the horns. It pauses it’s chewing long enough to lean into his hand for more.
His fingers slow.
“Oh,” he blurts, a little stupidly.
Taehyung looks over and grins. “See?”
“Don’t look so smug.”
“Don’t get grumpy or she’ll head-butt you. Goats sense that shit.”
“Say that again and I’m leaving you with Mark.”
“Please don’t do that to me.” Mark whines from one of the stalls.
The work is simple, but hard. It’s a lot of walking back and forth, hauling buckets and feed, clearing damp bedding from one stall and laying down fresh straw in another.
Taehyung flits between tasks with ease, considering he claimed to suck at this kind of work. He talks the whole time, mostly to the animals, occasionally to Jimin and Mark, sometimes to everything at once with no clear distinction.
Jimin doesn’t mind it at all. It’s definitely easier than the garden back at the settlement.
The animals don’t expect much from him. They don’t ask how he’s settling in or whether he prefers morning work, or if he’s thought about joining a patrol rotation once he’s “more comfortable.”
They don’t look at him and see the guy who shot someone, or Jungkook’s shadow, or some kid from the city who can barely hammer in a nail. They want food, water, clean straw, and occasionally to headbutt Taehyung in the thigh hard enough to make him swear.
That makes sense to Jimin. It’s easy. He can respect that.
The three of them work like that until Jimin’s shirt sticks damply to his back and his hands stink of animal feed no matter how many times he wipes them on his jeans. Outside, hammers start up somewhere near the fence line, voices carrying across the yard in pieces.
Every now and then, Jimin catches sight of Jungkook through the open barn door.
A dark dot of his head moving in the field. The unmistakable Elmo laugh drifting in from time to time.
He looks busy.
More than that, he looks pleased.
Jimin hates how relieved that makes him.
By the time Namjoon calls for lunch, the sun has burned through the grey a little and the dampness of the farm has warmed up a little. People drift back in from different corners of the farm in loose clusters. Namjoon stands near the truck, clipboard back between his dirt-stained fingers.
“Break,” he calls. “Eat something. Drink water. We start again in thirty.”
“Forty,” Yoongi grunts, hopping onto the truck.
“Thirty-five,” Namjoon answers automatically.
Yoongi pauses to stare at him, eyebrow arching over the milky eye. “Thank you, oh my benevolent leader.”
Namjoon swats at his ass with the clipboard.
Jimin steps out of the barn with Taehyung and immediately spots Jungkook near the truck, covered in dirt up to his elbows.
There is mud on his forearms, a streak across one cheek, and grass stuck to the side of his shirt. His nose a little red from the sun and he is grinning at something Hoseok says while reaching for a tin bowl from one of the crates.
Jimin’s feet carry him over automatically, hands already reaching for his arm.
“Shoulder.”
Jungkook blinks. “Hello to you too.”
“Is it okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“Did it pull?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“I’m not,” he groans when Jimin narrows his eyes, then lifts his dirty hand like he’s swearing an oath. “Promise. I was careful.”
Jimin studies him for few moments longer, just to see if he dead-pan pressure can make him squirm. When Jungkook doesn’t seem to budge, he clicks his tongue and reaches up to wipe the dirt from his cheek with the edge of his sleeve.
“You look stupid.”
Jungkook smiles. “You look like you had fun yourself.”
Jimin lowers his hand. “How?”
“There’s hay in your hair.”
Jimin snorts and takes the bowls from his hands.
Lunch is heated tinned soup with chunks of something that might be potato if you don’t look at it too closely. There’s hard bread too, and dried apple slices that Taehyung claims came from his own fruit-cellar stash. Jimin takes his bowl and lets Jungkook nudge him toward the low stone wall near the side of the house, just far enough from the others that they can hear the chatter without having to join it.
For a while they just eat, shoulder to shoulder, knees bumping occasionally.
Jungkook nudges Jimin’s boot with his own after a while.
“So.”
Jimin glances at him. “So?”
Jungkook waves his spoon towards the yard. “What do you think?”
“Of the soup?”
“The farm.”
Jimin follows his gaze.
From their perch, he can see most of the place in one sweep—from the tilted roof of the barn, to the freshly dug up rows in the field. Beyond the fence, the land rolls out in uneven patches, not postcard pretty exactly, but the space is both open and hidden enough to not feel suffocating like the settlement does.
“It’s smaller than I thought,” he says, spooning more soup into his mouth.
Jungkook hums. “Yeah?”
“It’s a good thing.” Jimin lifts one shoulder. “Tae talks like he owns a kingdom.”
“He kind of does. He rules over goats.”
Jimin snorts into his bowl.
Jungkook smiles, pleased, then looks back at the house a little whistful. “Do you like it?”
Weird question.
Jimin takes another bite to buy time. The soup burns the tip of his tongue a little.
Jungkook bumps their knees together, but his eyes stay on him, waiting.
Jimin drops his spoon into the bowl
“I was born and raised in the city,” he says. “Anything this green will always be weird to me.”
“Good weird or bad weird?”
“Both.”
Jungkook nods again, his knee starts shaking against the stone.
Jimin scrapes his spoon along the bottom of the bowl just to have something to do with his hands.
Jungkook leans back on one hand and flicks the hair out of his face. “It’s kind of more—,”
“Relaxed,” Jimin finishes for him quietly.
Jungkook goes still beside him.
“Yeah.”
Jimin looks up, barely catching the breathless whisper.
Jungkook is watching the fields, face distant. But there’s a look in his eye. A look that Jimin is a little too familiar with.
“Uh oh.”
Jungkook blinks and looks at him. “What.”
“You got that look on your face.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“When’s that ever done me any good?”
“Wow. You really have zero faith in me, huh?”
Jimin hides his smile against the rim of his bowl.
Jungkook grins and reaches out to tuck a few loose strands of hair behind Jimin’s ear. “Could you see yourself coming back here?”
Jimin lowers the bowl.
“For farm runs?”
Jungkook shrugs with the wrong shoulder, then winces when Jimin’s eyes snap to him.
“I’m fine,” Jungkook says quickly. “And yeah. Uh—farm runs. Sure.”
Jimin watches him.
Jungkook suddenly becomes very interested in a loose thread on his jeans. “I mean—you looked less like you wanted to chew your own arm off today.”
“That’s because the goats are better company than people.”
“Fair.”
“And because nobody asked me about onions.”
“That’ll do it.”
Jimin looks toward the fields again. Wind moves through the rough grass beyond the fence, making it ripple in long uneven bands.
“I like it,” he says finally.
Jungkook’s face turns toward him again and laughs under his breath.
They finish lunch slowly after that, shoulders brushing now and then, saying nothing important. Jungkook steals one of Jimin’s dried apple slices and gets his knuckles slapped for it. Jimin pretends not to notice when Jungkook does it again.
Easy fun.
Jimin is almost afraid of how much he likes it.
Too soon, Namjoon claps his hands near the truck. “Alright. Back to it.”
A collective groan rises from everyone with a pulse.
“Fields first,” Namjoon adds. “Animal group, finish the stalls and check the south fence by the coop. Tool group, with me.”
Jungkook sighs like a martyr and pushes to his feet. Jimin stands too, brushing dust from his pants, already bracing for Taehyung to appear and abduct him again.
Before he can move, Jungkook catches his wrist and presses a kiss to his cheek, soft and warm and so horribly tender that Jimin’s entire brain blanks out for a second.
Then Jungkook pulls back with a smirk.
“See you later,” he whispers.
Jimin stares at him.
Jungkook’s mouth quirks, and then he’s already turning away, jogging carefully across the yard toward where Namjoon is gathering the field group.
“Joon!” he calls. “Got a second?”
Namjoon looks up from his clipboard with a frown.
Jimin stays where he is, one hand half-raised toward his cheek like an idiot.
The skin there feels hot.
He rubs at it, embarrassed and horribly, stupidly fond.
Taehyung appears at his side a heartbeat later to tug him back to the barn.
Jimin lets himself be pulled across the muddy yard.
He looks back once before the truck and Jungkook disappear out of view.
Just once.
♡
Jungkook lies back in the bed of the truck with one arm tucked behind his head, sweat cooling on his skin and making his shirt stick in a crusty line on his back as he stares up at the sky.
It’s gone all soft and pretty, pink and orange smeared thin behind the wispy clouds as the sun makes its slow descent into the horizon. The rest of the farm crew is slowly trickling back from different directions, dirty and sweaty, more than ready to leave the place for the night.
Jungkook should probably get up and help.
He doesn’t.
His shoulder hurts like a bitch.
Both of them do, actually, which is just embarrassing. No surprise there, though. He’s been benched for too long. One day in the dirt, one day hauling stuff and crouching in fields with Namjoon pretending not to watch every move he makes, and now he feels like he got into a fight with a bear.
What a joke.
He shifts a little, trying to find a place where his bad shoulder doesn’t complain.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath.
Something tugs at his boot.
Jungkook yelps and kicks out on instinct, sitting up so fast the world tilts around the edges.
Namjoon stands beside the truck, one eyebrow raised above the rim of his sunglasses, looking annoyingly unbothered by the fact that Jungkook nearly punted him in the mouth.
“You gonna kick my teeth in now, punk?”
Jungkook stares at him for half a second, heart still racing in his chest, then snorts and flips him off.
“Don’t sneak up on people.”
“I walked normally.”
“Tell that to the heart attack I nearly had.”
Namjoon huffs a laugh and leans against the side of the truck, arms crossing over his chest. His sunglasses are dusty, his sleeves rolled up, dirt smeared along one forearm.
Jungkook leans back on his elbows and does his best to hide the wince when his bad shoulder twinges. Judging by the way Namjoon’s eyes move down for half a second, he fails.
“You sure about this?” Namjoon asks.
Jungkook looks away, jaw tightening before he can stop it.
Here it comes.
“Isn’t it a bit early to—”
“I’m sure,” Jungkook cuts in.
Namjoon’s mouth presses into a line. He lifts the sunglasses onto his forehead. Without the dark lenses between them, Jungkook can clearly see the calculating look. Typical Namjoon, thinking of twelve other disastrous possibilities that may not even happen.
“What about Jimin?” he asks.
Jungkook glances toward the barns automatically.
In all honesty, he has no clue how Jimin will react.
He knows what he wants to believe. That Jimin will understand it, maybe not right away—maybe after yelling a little because Jimin processes things with anger first, then actually thinks about them. But eventually...
But knowing Jimin is not the same as predicting him.
“Jimin’s always been bad at making his mind up,” Jungkook mumbles.
Namjoon stares at him for a second, then barks a laugh and shakes his head. “He’s going to kill you, man.”
Jungkook grins despite himself and nudges Namjoon’s crossed arms with the toe of his boot.
“Nah,” he says, a little too proud to hide. “He loves me.”
“Love and hate are fairly similar.”
“Wow. No one has any trust in me here.”
“We all speak from experience.”
A few people start walking closer to the truck then and Namjoon pushes off the truck with a sigh.
“Well, it’s your funeral at the end of the day,” he sighs, putting his sunglasses back down. “Don’t come crying to me.”
He then pats Jungkook’s head and walks off toward the others.
Jungkook sticks his tongue out at his retreating back, then spots Jimin and Taehyung coming out from around the barn.
He squints.
Jimin is carrying something.
Jungkook hops down from the truck bed before he even thinks about his shoulder, lands badly enough that both knees and one hip complain, then starts jogging over anyway.
Jimin and Taehyung are bickering by the time he gets close, which is honestly the natural state of them being within ten feet of each other. Taehyung is waving his arms around while Jimin keeps his eyes forward, chin high in the air.
“You can’t name my fucking chicken that,” Taehyung whines.
“If the shoe fits,” Jimin shoots back.
Jungkook slows a few feet away.
Jimin has a hen tucked against his chest like a very disgruntled football.
She a big one too, with glossy black feathers that shine green around the edges when the light catches them, a reddish-brown throatnand a ridiculous little crown on her head. Her beady eyes flick from Taehyung to Jungkook with alarming judgment, one clawed foot flexing against Jimin’s forearm.
Jimin, for some insane reason, is stroking her back with two fingers.
“Her name is Seokjin,” Jimin says calmly, “and that’s final.”
Taehyung snorts and puts his hands on his hips. “Is Seokjin even a female name?”
“Who fucking cares. She acts like him.” Jimin turns sharply toward Jungkook. “Hey, back me up here.”
Jungkook blinks at him, then at the hen.
The hen blinks back slowly. Her head tilts from side to side, assessing him.
Jungkook steps a little closer, curious now, and reaches out one finger toward her head.
The hen fluffs up in Jimin’s arms and pecks him.
Jungkook yanks his hand back. “Ow, what the fuck.”
Jimin coo’s when the hen settles immediately, smug and motionless against his chest.
Jungkook stares at her, then at Jimin. “That’s a fucking Seokjin alright.”
Taehyung throws both arms up. “I’m surrounded by traitors.”
“You named a goat Mark.”
Taehyung raises a finger at him, then shakes his head with a sigh and storms off toward the truck.
Jungkook looks down at Jimin, the corner of his mouth lifting into a sly smile.
“Look at you, making friends.”
Jimin glares up at him and cuddles Seokjin closer to his chest.
“I’m very likeable.”
“Is that so?”
“Animals have good judgment.”
“That thing just attacked me.”
“Like I said—good judgment.”
Jungkook cackles when Jimin starts walking away from him. He jogs after him and slides his good arm around Jimin’s waist the second he catches up.
Jimin doesn’t even stiffen up.
“You smell like hay,” Jungkook murmurs, rubbing his nose against his temple.
“You smell like dirt and sweat.”
“You mean sexy.”
Jimin rolls his eyes and bumps his hip againsagainst Jungkook's.
By the time they reach the truck, everyone else has mostly gathered there. Namjoon is sitting on the bed now, clipboard between his spread legs, ticking things off with his pen while Yoongi leans against the side with the rifle resting beside him and another cigarette burning lazily between his lips. Taehyung and Hoseok are leaning against the side with their heads tipped back, both looking beat.
Namjoon waits until the last few people drift in, then taps the clipboard against his palm.
“Alright,” he says, raising his voice enough to quiet the yard. “Before we head back, quick rundown.”
A collective tired groan moves through the group.
Namjoon ignores it and carries on. “East field is partially measured. We’ve got enough cleared to plan rows next trip, but the lower corner’s too wet and needs drainage. Outer fence on the south side needs more reinforcement before we bring extra animals through. Coop is stable for now. The barn needs some serious revamp too.”
“House roof still looks like shit,” Yoongi adds.
Taehyung makes an offended noise into Hoseok’s shoulder.
Namjoon checks something off. “House needs work.”
Jungkook listens with one arm still loose around Jimin’s waist, though the chicken makes that arrangement less romantic than he would prefer. Seokjin occasionally shifts in Jimin’s arms and makes small, irritated noises like she too has opinions on the state of the land.
Namjoon pauses briefly, glancing around the tired faces.
“We also need to be honest about the fact that the farm is starting to demand more time than we can keep giving it in single-day trips. The season’s turning fast, and if we want those fields actually producing enough before autumn, it needs more consistent work. The animals need daily care too and driving back and forth every few days is burning more fuel than we can justify long-term.”
The murmurs start before he finishes.
Namjoon’s eyes lift and catch Jungkook’s across the crowd.
Jungkook nods once.
Namjoon holds his gaze for a long beat—long enough that Jungkook’s stomach starts to flip, then nods back.
Jimin, beside him, goes very still, fingers pausing on Seokjin’s tail.
Namjoon takes a breath. “I want to propose we leave a small team here for continuous farm maintenance.”
The murmurs break wider.
Taehyung’s head lifts sharply from where he’s been pretending not to sulk. Hoseok stops messing with his bolts. Yoongi does not move, but the cigarette pauses halfway to his mouth.
Jungkook glances at Jimin from the corner of his eye.
There’s a crease between his brows now, small but visible, and his fingers have gone tighter around the hen.
Jungkook bites the inside of his cheek.
He had thought this part would be a lot easier to stomach.
Clearly, it’s not. He feels like throwing up.
Namjoon stands in the truck bed, clipboard in one hand, sunset bleeding behind his shoulders.
“For now,” he says, voice steady over the restless noise, “I’m suggesting Jimin and Jungkook stay.”
The sudden silence of the yard prickles against his skin.
A few faces turn toward them at once, both curious and confused. Someone whispers his name. Someone else looks at Jimin, then at the hen still tucked against his chest.
Near the front of the truck, Taehyung and Hoseok look at each other and start cackling into their hands.
Assholes.
Jungkook doesn’t dare look at Jimin.
“S-sure,” he stammers, voice cracking. “Yeah. I’m totally down.”
Then, like an idiot, he turns his head.
Jimin’s face is a stone.
He just stares at Namjoon with a blank expression and stiff shoulders, fingers fixed around the chicken like he has forgotten he is holding a living thing.
Eventually, he nods once. Doesn’t say a word.
Jungkook’s stomach drops so fast he almost misses what else is being said.
Namjoon nods back at Jimin, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Jimin and Jungkook survived in the city by themselves for a year. They’re more than capable of working together to keep this place safe for a few days at a time. We’ll come back with more supplies and a spare truck to check on things. Having someone stationed here means fewer fuel runs, better animal care, and bigger work trips when we do come out.”
A few people nod along slowly.
Practical. That’s the magic word with Namjoon. Make it practical and people can swallow almost anything.
There are still whispers, though. Quick glances. Little sideways measurements of Jungkook’s shoulder, of Jimin’s blank face, of the space between them. Jungkook ignores them as best he can, but doubt starts seeping in after every look.
“Are you okay?” he leans down to whisper near Jimin’s ear, suddenly overwhelmed.
Jimin leans away a fraction and keeps his eyes fixed on the truck.
The lack of reaction squeezes something in Jungkook’s gut until it hurts.
They stand there stiffly while the rest of the farm crew starts gathering their things for the return trip.
Taehyung walks over with Namjoon a few minutes later, a backpack full of tins dragging one of his shoulders lower than the other. He shoves it into Jungkook’s arms with enough force to make him grunt.
“Supplies,” Taehyung grins.
Jungkook looks at the bag, then at him. “Did you pack bricks?”
“Beans and soup. For your fine dining needs.”
Then Taehyung’s grin softens a little. He reaches up and ruffles Jungkook’s hair before he can dodge the hand.
“Take care of my farm.”
Jungkook bats his hand away with a groan.
Taehyung turns to Jimin then, grin wobbling a little further. He reaches for his hair too, but Jimin gives him one flat look and Taehyung wisely changes course, patting Seokjin on the back instead.
“Take care of him too,” Taehyung tells the chicken.
Jimin says nothing.
Namjoon steps closer, voice low enough that it doesn’t carry to the others. “Yoongi’s leaving the rifle and one handgun in the locked crate by the side of the house. Ammunition is limited, so don’t waste it. Hoseok left some spare bolts and the smaller crossbow in the barn loft. There’s food for four days in that pack and some more in the kitchen. We’ll be back in two days with the spare truck, and a proper schedule.”
Jungkook nods and gulps down the dryness in his mouth. “Got it.”
Namjoon looks at Jimin. “Remember, you don’t have to solve everything straight away.”
Jimin glances away.
“Sure.”
Namjoon pauses, gaze moving between them. For one second Jungkook thinks he might take everything back. Say this was too soon and tell them to get in the truck.
He doesn’t.
Instead he squeezes Jimin’s shoulder once and steps away.
Eventually, everyone loads up.
Yoongi climbs in last, rifle no longer with him, and immediately plops down near the cab. Hoseok pokes his head out from under the tarp as the engine coughs to life, sees Jungkook and Jimin standing there like two rooted trees, and starts making exaggerated kissy faces at them.
Taehyung pops out next to him with a shit eating and blows two kisses with both hands.
Jungkook lifts one hand in a half-grin, mostly because doing anything else might make his insides show on his face.
The truck pulls away slowly, engine grumbling down the dirt path. Hoseok keeps waving until the tarp flap drops. Taehyung’s hand appears once more through the gap, fingers fluttering obnoxiously, then disappears too.
Jungkook watches until the truck turns past the hedges and vanishes down the road.
The farm falls into silence around them.
Then Jimin turns on his heel, Seokjin clucking in his arms as he speed-walks toward the main house.
Jungkook swears under his breath and hurries after him, backpack bouncing against his thigh. “Jimin.”
No answer. Jimin doesn’t turn around.
“Jimin! Baby, please—,”
Nothing.
By the time they reach the porch steps, Jimin has climbed two of them and Jungkook catches his elbow before he can disappear inside with the chicken and all his terrible thoughts.
Jimin turns so fast Jungkook lets go on instinct.
“Did you plan this?”
He doesn’t even yell. Which is worse.
Jungkook’s mouth opens. “I—”
“Don’t,” Jimin cuts in, eyes narrowing. “Don’t create excuses.”
Jungkook’s jaw tightens. “I talked to Namjoon.”
Jimin barks a sharp laugh. “Right.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Please enlighten me then.”
“It was—” Jungkook drags a hand through his hair, already frustrated with how badly this is going. “It made sense.”
“For who?”
“For both of us.”
Jimin’s eyes flash. “That’s convenient.”
“It is convenient,” Jungkook snaps, then immediately regrets the wording when Jimin’s face closes another inch. “No, fuck, I don’t mean—”
“You decided for me.”
“I didn’t decide for you.”
“You and Namjoon announced it in front of everyone.”
“I thought—”
“You thought what?” Jimin cuts in, stepping down one stair so they’re closer to eye level. Seokjin shifts in his arms, offended by the emotional temperature. “That if everyone was looking, I wouldn’t make a fucking scene?”
“No—Jimin, please—”
“Then what?”
Jungkook’s own anger flares with nowhere to go. He’s tired and sore, beyond terrified that he’s just ruined the one thing he was trying to give them.
“I thought you’d get it,” he mumbles.
Jimin goes still.
“That’s the problem,” he says quietly. “You thought.”
Jungkook looks at the ground, the guilt choking him up.
Jimin’s face has gone red from anger, eyes too bright in the falling light.
“I was trying,” he says, voice shaking. “At the settlement. I know I wasn’t fitting in right. I know I was bad at it. I hated it, okay? I hated the gardens, I hated the fucking meetings, I hated feeling like everyone knew what to do with themselves except me. But I was trying.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice cracks. God, Jungkook winces, what a horrible sound to hear. “I would’ve learned. For you, you asshole. I was going to learn how to be there because it was good for you, and then you just—” He shakes his head, swallowing hard. “You just go and decide I need to be taken somewhere quieter like some messed-up rescue dog.”
Jungkook stares at him.
“That’s not what this is.”
Jimin’s mouth twists. “No?”
“No.”
“I don’t need your fucking pity, Jungkook,” Jimin hisses, eyes glazing over with a layer of angry tears. “I don’t need your charity.”
Jungkook gapes at him.
Momentarily, he has nothing. Just the hot, stunned blank of hearing something so wrong it feels like being slapped.
Then he runs both hands through his through his hair, clutching at the roots, and laughs.
“It’s not fucking pity, Jimin.”
Jimin tightens his grip on Seokjin. “Then what—,”
“It’s me being selfish, okay?!” Jungkook snaps.
That shuts Jimin up.
Jungkook breathes hard through his nose.
“I thought the settlement was better for both of us,” he rambles, words coming fast now because if he slows down, he might lose his nerve and Jimin will fill the silence with something cruel about himself.
“I did. I thought we’d get there and you’d have people and I’d have people, and we’d stop living like two feral idiots in a box. I thought it was the smart thing—whatever the fuck that means now.”
Jimin opens his mouth, then closes it with a click.
“But I didn’t know I’d get there and realize that, huh, mom was right—I fucking do suck at sharing,” his voice is getting louder, echoing around the space.
“I didn’t know I’d spend all day doing normal, useful shit and still count the hours until I could get you alone for ten minutes. And I’m so—so—fucking selfish that those ten minutes will never be enough for me, Jimin.”
Jimin’s jaw works as he stares back, eyes darting around Jungkook’s face.
Jungkook steps closer, putting them almost nose to nose, only separated by the disgruntled hen.
“I know it was good for me. I know that. Food, sleep, jobs, Namjoon mothering me within an inch of my life. I know I needed it.” He chuckles, quieter and uglier. “But there’s fuck all left to do in this life, Jimin. All that future shit is gone. The things we were supposed to want, the careers, the apartments, all that normal stuff people used to torture themselves with—it’s gone. Dancing, university, whatever I thought I’d be one day. Gone.” He forces himself to stare Jimin right in the eye. “So yeah, maybe it’s pathetic, but the only time I’m happy is when I have you in my arms.”
Jimin stares at him, red-faced and angry and completely silent.
“And I can’t even have that,” Jungkook says finally, the words scraping out of him. “I can’t even want you without someone opening a fucking door or having an opinion about it.”
The porch creaks under Jimin’s boots.
For a long minute, neither of them speaks.
The light is going dim, the last smear of orange fading behind the barn roof. Jungkook doesn’t remember ever feeling this tired in his whole life.
Jimin looks away.
“You still should’ve asked me.”
Jungkook closes his eyes.
“I know.”
“No.” Jimin whispers softly. “You should’ve asked me before you decided I’d be happier here.”
“I didn’t decide—.”
“You knew I’d say yes.”
Jungkook flinches.
Because—yes. He did know that. Maybe with a few doubts sprinkled in, but he knew.
Jimin’s eyes are still wet, he blinks stubbornly, like even the tears are pissing him off. Then he steps forward suddenly and shoves Seokjin into Jungkook’s arms.
Jungkook catches her with a yelp and nearly falls backwards when she starts flapping her wings in his face.
“Leave me alone for a while,” Jimin mutters, already climbing up the porch steps.
Jungkook sputters and stumbles after him.
“What?”
“I said leave me alone.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
Jimin glances back over his shoulder. His lips are still pressed into a tight line, but the anger has faded a little.
“Figure it out.”
Then he turns and walks into the house, the old door creaking open and shutting behind him with a bang before Jungkook can find another stupid thing to say.
Jungkook stands on the porch with a furious chicken in his arms and a backpack of beans dragging one shoulder down, staring at the closed door.
Seokjin pecks at his sleeve.
“Fuck. Not you.”
She pecks him again.
“Okay, maybe you.”
He looks at the door one more time, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ache, then turns and stomps down the porch steps toward the barn with the hen tucked awkwardly against his chest.
“Fine,” he mumbles to himself. “Great. Perfect. I’ll go make friends with the goats. See if I care.”
Seokjin makes a low, judgemental ‘bawk’ and bumps her head against his left pec.
Jungkook looks down at her.
“Well said.”
♡
Jungkook makes it around the fence twice before he finally admits to himself that there’s fuck all left to do.
Except to sulk.
The sky has gone completely dark above the farm, a faint dewy mist rolling low enough to make the fields look like they’ve been swallowed whole beyond the weak beam of his flashlight.
The whole place smells of damp grass and fresh earth—that deep countryside smell Jungkook still hasn’t decided if he likes or if it just makes him feel too aware of how far they are from every piece of his old life.
Something shifts in the distance, probably just a critter rustling in the grass, and Jungkook swings the flashlight across the fence line like he hasn’t already checked the same crooked posts twice before.
Everything looks fine.
Which is probably why he feels like complete shit.
He’s checked on the coop, checked every single lock, checked the main gate, even crept around the outside of the house he is supposed to be sleeping in and checked the weapons crate Namjoon left in a bush under one of the apple trees.
Rifle. Handgun. Ammunition counted twice.
All there.
All useless against the horror of Jimin’s face and small voice on the porch.
You decided for me.
Jungkook kicks at a clump of dirt and watches it skitter into the grass.
“Another one for the books, Jeon,” he mutters to himself, flashlight beam wobbling over the fence. “Amazing. Really nailed that one.”
He had tried the barn after the fight, hoping that maybe his sore body and bruised heart will let him knock out for a few hours.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, Jungkook had walked inside, dropped face-first into a pile of straw, discovered it was actually more comfortable than expected, and then spent the next hour tossing around like an idiot while one of the goats kept trying to wedge its head under his armpit.
The goat had been warm.
The goat had also smelled like goat.
And no matter how soft the straw was, no matter that Jungkook eventually gave up and cuddled the goat, sleep did not come. Not even close.
So now he’s here, wandering the fence like an idiot, hoping if he walks long enough, he’ll either pass out from exhaustion or collapse face-first into the dirt and let the worms take him.
“Very healthy,” he says to the dark, swinging the flashlight over the same stretch of uneven grass again. “Definitely what normal people do after pissing off the love of their life.”
Love of his life.
He never thought he’d ever have those words cross his mind.
The flashlight flickers.
Jungkook smacks the side of it with his palm, and the beam steadies for maybe two seconds before dimming again.
“Piece of shit.”
By the time he reaches the main gate, his legs feel heavy and his face feels too tight from all the things he has been trying not to think. From there, he can see the house, hunched at the far side of the yard with its weathered white paint turned grey in the dark. Most of the boarded windows are black, but a faint glow leaks from the second floor through the narrow cracks between wood and glass.
Jimin’s room.
Their room, technically.
He should be in there right now. With him.
Jungkook scrubs a hand down his face, then immediately regrets it when he remembers he has touched fence posts, locks, dirt, and one emotionally needy goat in the last two hours.
“Fuck.”
He leans the back of his head against one of the gate posts. The cold wood bites against the shorter hair of his nape, and for a moment he just stands there, breathing through the ugly pressure in his chest while he stares at the thin glow upstairs.
He wonders if Jimin is awake.
Hopefully not. He was tired too. Everyone had been tired. The whole day had been long, muddy and loud—virtually perfect, in Jungkook’s book. But the he'd gone and struck a match with his big mouth and stupid ideas, and forced Namjoon to drop it into the middle of his life.
God.
He really fucked up.
He still hangs on to the idea that he was right. The settlement had been too much for the both of them in the end. This place was meant to help bridge the gap, sort of. But Jimin was right too, and maybe that’s the worst part, because Jungkook can’t even make himself cleanly right or cleanly wrong.
He should have asked first.
He should have given Jimin the choice.
Jungkook slides down the post until he is sitting in the damp grass, knees pulled up, flashlight resting beside his boot. The beam flickers weakly over the gate, the yellow cone shrinking at the edges.
He tips his head back.
The stars are clearer out here than they ever were in the city. He still finds it amazing how much sky had been there all along, hidden above streetlights and smog, completely indifferent to whether anyone survived long enough to look up at it properly.
He finds the Big Dipper first because that is the only one everybody knows. Then another shape he only half-remembers from being little, lying on a picnic mat somewhere with his mother’s cardigan folded under his head, while she pointed upward and explained things he’d pretended to understand because he liked the sound of her voice more than he liked the stars themselves.
Back then, the sky had just been a sky. A big, dark thing full of names adults knew.
His mother had known all sorts of pointless things like that. Constellations. Flower meanings. Which vegetables needed more water. How to make rice stretch for the three of them without making it obvious. How to look at Jungkook when he had done something stupid and make him confess with one raised eyebrow.
She would have hated this place at first, he thinks.
Too much mud, too many stinky animals. Too many drafts in the house. She would have clicked her tongue at the state of the porch, rolled up her sleeves, and started finding problems nobody asked her to solve.
Jungkook’s throat gets tight.
“Mom,” he whispers to the sky, breath clouding faintly in front of him.
The stars blink back, cold and useless.
Jungkook laughs once under his breath. “Do you think I did the right thing?”
Nothing answers.
The gate creaks softly behind him.
Jungkook drags his knees tighter to his chest and folds his arms over them, feeling twelve years old and ancient at the same time.
“You used to always say, ‘Jungkookie, trust your gut,’” he murmurs, pitching his voice higher in a truly terrible impression. “ ‘You have a good heart, Jungkookie. You’ll be fine.’ ”
He waits a second like the stars might object.
They don’t.
The first tear drops before he can do anything about it. Jungkook swipes at his face immediately, angry and embarrassed even though there is literally no one around to see him except the stars.
But once the first one gets out, the rest follow like they have been waiting behind his eyes, hot and humiliating, slipping down his cheeks no matter how hard he presses the heel of his palm against his eyes.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
It does not help.
His chest pulls tight enough to make it hard to breath.
“You would love him,” he hiccups.
The words hurt more once they’re out. He stares up at the sky until the stars blur, mouth trembling.
“He’s so pretty,” Jungkook whispers, and then laughs wetly again because that is such a stupid thing to say to his possibly-dead mother. “And he’s sweet. Even though he likes to act like he’s made of razors—he’s not. He’s so good to me, mom.”
Another tear slips down his jaw.
He lets it.
“Jungwoo would like him too, I think. ” Jungkook sniffs and presses his mouth against his sleeve for a second. “They’d probably gang up on me together.”
He can almost hear it.
His brother’s laugh. His mother’s voice from the kitchen telling them both to stop before someone breaks something. The tiny domestic chaos of a life that barely even feels like a memory anymore.
He looks back up, searching the stars like something might shift if he stares hard enough. Like one of them might blink differently to take pity on him.
Nothing.
The flashlight beside his foot flickers twice before dying completely.
Jungkook looks down at it through wet lashes.
“I wish you were here, Mom,” he whispers. “I miss you so much.”
This time, he doesn’t wipe the tears away.
He just sits there and lets them roll.
He sits like that for a long time. The only noise around him the sound of his own shallow breaths and the occasional rustle of grass in the slight breeze. The cold starts to creep through the back of his shirt where it touches the damp post and is fingers go numb at the tips from clutching at his knees for so long.
He thinks about getting up, but that means deciding what to do next. And he’s too wrung out to make another bad one.
Then the front door of the house bangs open.
Jungkook’s head snaps up.
A small beam of light jerks across the porch, then down the steps, swinging wildly over the yard.
Jimin.
“Shit.”
Jungkook scrambles to his feet too fast, nearly trips over the dead flashlight, and catches himself on the gate post with a curse. The light across the yard swings sharply in his direction.
“Jungkook!”
Jimin’s panicked voice echoes through the yard like thunder.
Jungkook waves like an idiot, then realizes he is standing in the fucking dark where Jimin can barely see him and immediately starts running toward the light instead.
“I’m here!” he yells back, voice rough from crying. “I’m here, I’m fine!”
Jimin runs at him anyway.
He’s wearing one of Taehyung’s too-big shirts and sweatpants rolled at the ankles, hair messy, flashlight clutched white-knuckled in one hand. He nearly slips in the mud halfway across the yard, catches himself, and keeps running.
By the time they meet near the middle, Jimin is panting.
“What the fuck,” he snaps, grabbing Jungkook by the front of his shirt and shaking him. “What the fuck, Jungkook.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m—"
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Then why was your light out?”
“The battery died.”
Jimin stares at him, nostrils flaring.
Jungkook scratches the back of his neck and tries for a sheepish smile, but it dies immediately under the look on Jimin’s face.
“I saw you walking around,” Jimin says, breath still uneven. “I saw the light by the fence, and then it went out, and you didn’t come back, and I thought—”
He cuts himself off.
Jungkook’s stomach drops.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
Jimin’s jaw works like he wants to bite through several different sentences and cannot pick one, then he lifts the flashlight and shines it directly in Jungkook’s face.
“Ow—Jesus—”
“Have you been crying?”
“Uh, no?”
“Jungkook.”
“I got dirt in my eye.”
“Both eyes at the same time?”
“You know how I get when there’s dirt involved.”
Jimin’s face goes flat.
Jungkook pushes at the flashlight beam with one hand. “Okay, maybe I was having a moment. Sue me.”
Jimin lowers it just enough for Jungkook to see the glare wobble a little, then, without another word, grabs him by the sleeve and starts dragging him toward the house.
Jungkook stumbles after him.
“Where are we going?”
“Inside.”
“Oh.”
“It’s too fucking cold out here. I’m not a monster.”
“I thought you were mad at me?”
“I am.”
“Oh okay. Cool.”
Jimin keeps walking, fingers fisted in Jungkook’s sleeve. Jungkook looks down at that grip, then at Jimin’s back, and despite everything smiles to himself like a complete idiot.
He lets himself be dragged across the muddy yard, past the porch, up the creaking steps.
Jimin stops before the door.
His shoulders lift with one slow breath, and Jungkook’s smile fades as the porch goes quiet around them, the night air pressing in from all sides and the faint upstairs glow leaking through the small window in the door.
The grip on his sleeve loosens and Jimin turns around with a serious expression.
Jungkook goes still.
“Promise me something—”
“Anything.”
Jimin raises an eyebrow in warning.
Jungkook swallows and nods.
Jimin looks at him, but the anger in his eyes has dulled into something more vulnerable and uncertain.
“Don’t ever make a decision that involves both of us without talking to me first,” he mumbles. “I want to be a part of everything.”
They stare at each other in the silence.
Jungkook opens his mouth, then closes it again. Jimin watches his face, unblinking, until the tips of his ears go dark.
Jungkook then reaches for both of his hands before he can find anything worth saying.
Jimin lets him take them, fingers loosening around the flashlight. Jungkook bends his head and presses his mouth to his knuckles, one hand and then the other.
“I swear,” he says, lips brushing over cold fingers. “Never again.”
Jimin watches him for a long moment, lips parted.
Then closes his eyes and sighs.
“Okay.”
Jungkook exhales against his hands, relief hitting so suddenly it almost makes him dizzy, but it barely has time to settle before Jimin opens his eyes again and gives him a slow once-over.
“Strip.”
Jungkook blinks.
“Huh?”
“Strip.”
“Wha—here?”
“No, in the town square.” Jimin points the flashlight at his chest. “You’re covered in dirt and hay.”
Jungkook stares at him, then down at himself, then back at Jimin.
“I thought we were having a moment.”
“We can have a moment without you looking like you rolled through a petting zoo.”
“But we’re on a farm! Everything’s got hay on it—,"
“Don’t care. Clothes off, Jungkook.”
“Jimin, c’mon.”
“I’m not letting you bring that shit into the bed.”
Jungkook’s pea-brain catches on the bed so hard that he nearly forgets how to use his hands.
Jimin seems to notice too, ears going faintly pink even as he tries to keep his cool.
“Don’t even go there—”
“Bed, huh?”
“I said the bed. Could be any bed in the damn house—”
“Oooh, choices.”
Jimin crosses his arms over his chest.
“Clothes off or it’s back to the goats for you, buddy.”
Jungkook whines and strips on the porch under the worst possible combination of emotional vulnerability, cold night air, and Jimin’s flashlight beam.
It is not his proudest moment.
His shirt comes off first, dragging a rain of hay bits with it. Jimin makes a disgusted noise and kicks the fabric farther from the doorway like it’s diseased. His boots follow, then socks and pants. Jungkook keeps glancing toward the yard as if a delegation of goats might emerge to witness his humiliation.
He’s shivering by the time he’s down to his underwear.
“Happy?” Jungkook grunts, folding his arms over his chest.
Jimin looks him up and down with a critical eye.
“No.”
“No?”
“Underwear too.”
Jungkook gapes, then his face splits into a grin.
“Heh, if you wanted me naked that bad you could’ve just said so.”
Jimin rolls his eyes and pokes his stomach with the hilt of the flashlight.
“Move it, Casanova.”
Still grinning, Jungkook hooks his thumbs into the waistband, keeps his eyes on Jimin with the motion. Jimin looks away immediately, but not before Jungkook catches the flush spreading down the side of his neck.
That almost makes the whole thing worth it.
Almost.
He shoves the underwear down and steps out of it, covering himself with both hands the second the cold air hits places that have no business being out in the setting.
“At least there’s no one out here to see my naked ass,” he mutters.
Jimin snorts and nods once, finally satisfied, then turns toward the door.
“Come on.”
Jungkook bends to grab his, then hesitates because he is naked and the logistics of carrying shit while covering himself suddenly seem impossible. Jimin looks back, probably to insult him for taking too long, but the words never make it out.
His eyes drop.
Not far.
Just enough.
Jungkook goes still.
The porch seems to lose air around them.
Jimin’s mouth parts a little, then closes hard like with a clack of teeth. He turns back toward the door too quickly, one hand already reaching for the handle.
Then he stops and leans his forehead against the frame.
“Fuck.”
The flashlight slips from his hands and clatters to the floor.
Jungkook’s pulse jumps.
Jimin turns around in a flash and, without warning, fists both of his hands into Jungkook’s hair and yanks him down.
That’s the first and last thing Jungkook’s poor mind registers before Jimin’s furious mouth is on his.
Jimin’s hands yank hard enough that Jungkook makes a rough, helpless sound into his mouth before his hands remember what they’re for and grab at Jimin’s waist.
He’s standing there, naked as the day he was born, freezing and somehow burning alive because Jimin presses into him like every bit of panic and fury from the last hour has found one exit and it happens to be Jungkook’s mouth.
Jungkook kisses back the best he can. There is no version of him that wouldn’t.
Jimin kicks the fallen flashlight with his foot, it skitters down the porch. Neither of them looks at it. Jungkook barely registers the cold air against his naked skin anymore, barely registers the old boards under his bare feet.
There is only Jimin’s mouth, Jimin’s fists in his hair, Jimin’s body pressed warm and furious against him.
Jimin pulls back only enough to breathe, plush lips wet and close enough for Jungkook to feel the harsh breaths against his own.
“You fucking scared me,” he whispers.
Jungkook bumps their foreheads together. “I know.”
“I’m still mad.”
“I know.”
Jimin’s grip tightens in his hair, just enough to hurt.
“Good.”
Then he kisses him again.
Jungkook forgets how to stand properly and backs Jimin into the doorframe with a soft thud, one col hand slipping under his too-big shirt to paw at the warm skin there.
Jimin sucks in a breath through his nose but doesn’t pull away. If anything, he gets worse. Meaner. His mouth slants harder over Jungkook’s, tongue licking in only to retreat before Jungkook can chase it properly, teeth catching his bottom lip in a quick nip that makes Jungkook’s cock twitch shamelessly against his stomach.
Jimin, of course, feels it.
His free hand drops between them for one vicious little second, fingers shamelessly brushing against the head before retreating.
“Fuck,” Jungkook gasps, hips bucking up on their own.
Jimin’s mouth curves against his. “Quiet. We’re still outside.”
Jungkook laughs and leans in for another peck. “You started it.”
“Couldn’t help it with you all naked and pathetic.”
“You literally told me to get naked.”
“And you listened.”
“I always listen to you.”
That does something to Jimin’s face. Something small and ugly-soft around the edges that makes Jungkook want to apologize again. Makes him want to drop to his knees right there and press his forehead to Jimin’s stomach until any hurt goes somewhere else, until Jimin believes him when he says he’ll do anything to make him happy again.
Instead, Jimin yanks him down by the hair again and bites the apology out of his mouth while his free hand fumbles the door open.
Then he’s being dragged inside.
They stumble in. Jungkook trips over his discarded pile of clothes while trying to kick the door shut with one bare foot. The door finally slams, loud enough to shake dust out of the frame.
Jimin doesn’t let go.
He shoves Jungkook back against the inside of the door and kisses him again, and it’s almost worse now that they’re not outside anymore. There is no cold air, no open dark, no people, no excuses. Jimin’s clothed thigh presses between Jungkook’s bare ones, soft fabric dragging against the underside of his cock until Jungkook’s whole body jerks.
“Jimin,” he breathes.
Jimin’s mouth leaves his just to catch at his jaw, then lower, under his ear. “What.”
Yeah. Jungkook has no idea.
His hands slip under Jimin’s shirt again, both of them, dragging up his sides, over his back, feeling him shiver as cold fingers turn warm against skin.
He wants the shirt gone. Wants all of him gone from every scrap of fabric. Wants to put his mouth everywhere at once. Wants to make up for every night he lay beside him and didn’t reach, every morning he woke up with Jimin tucked against him and had to stare at the ceiling until his body calmed down. Wants to peel every sound out of him until there’s nothing left between them.
He grabs the hem of the shirt.
Jimin lets him pull it up only halfway before catching his wrist.
“Not here.”
Jungkook’s eyes flick toward the stairs.
Jimin follows the look with a huff, then grabs Jungkook by the wrist and hauls him upward.
If the threshold was a chore, then the stairs are a disaster.
Apparently, being hard and naked makes Jungkook incapable of basic coordination, while Jimin is still fully dressed and muttering curses every time Jungkook’s foot slips or his shin knocks against a steep step.
Halfway up, Jungkook presses too close against his back to mouth at his neck. Simply because he can do that now and he’s too weak to restrain himself.
“Jungkook,” Jimin gasps, hand slipping on the rail.
“Sorry,” Jungkook mumbles against his skin.
“No, you’re not.”
“Not this time.”
Jimin turns his head just enough to glare over one shoulder. His cheeks are flushed, mouth swollen, hair falling in messy half-curls into his eyes. Jungkook stares up at him, desperate and breathing hard, cock brushing the back of his thigh through his sweatpants with every tiny sway of his body.
Jimin glances down.
Jungkook freezes when he sees his throat bob.
Then he turns around on the step and catches Jungkook’s chin a harsh grip. Kisses him so hard Jungkook has to grab the railing to keep from slipping.
It takes them forever to make it to the bedroom.
By the time they stumble through the doorway, Jungkook is almost shaking and can’t even blame the cold for it anymore.
Jimin finally lets go of his wrist and steps back. For one awful second, Jungkook thinks he is going to pull all that heat and tension back behind his teeth and make them do something stupid like talk about it.
Instead, Jimin reaches for the hem of his own shirt and drags it slowly over his head.
Jungkook goes completely still when the shirt falls somewhere near the door.
Jimin stands in front of him, bare from the waist up, sweatpants riding low on his hips, chest rising and falling in the dark gold light from the little oil lamp on the bedside table. His skin is flushed unevenly, pale in some places, dark pink in others, little marks from the day’s work along his forearms.
Jungkook’s mouth goes so dry he almost forgets he’s allowed to have all that.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Jimin says, cocking one hip to the side.
Jungkook swallows. “Like what?”
“Like you’re about to die.”
“You have no idea.”
Jimin’s eyes drop again, slower this time, down Jungkook’s chest, stomach—down to the open want between his legs.
There really is no hiding anything now. No fabric, no plausible deniability. Jungkook is hard enough to ache, the head flushed dark and wet, precome sliding down toward the shaft and catching in the dark hair at the base. Jimin watches it, and his own breath catches hard enough that Jungkook hears it.
He takes one wobbly step forward.
Jimin lifts a hand. “Wait.”
Jungkook stops immediately with a barely swallowed whine.
Jimin seems to enjoy this desperate version of him, because mouth pulls up into a sharp smirk and then he’s shoving his sweatpants down in one rough motion.
Jungkook has to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment and wonder which deity he should start thanking for allowing Park Jimin to go commando.
When he looks back up, he can’t help but feel like he’s back in university and one of their trips to the museum.
Fully naked, Jimin looks a lovingly sculpted statue. His cock is a little smaller but thicker than Jungkook’s, pretty and flushed pink at the tip, framed by a pair of strong thighs that make Jungkook’s teeth feel itchy in his mouth.
Jimin pushes his hair back and takes a step backwards. Then another. One more until he reaches the bedframe and sits down slowly—keeps his eyes on Jungkook the whole time.
Then he leans back on one hand and wraps the other around his cock.
Jungkook’s knees nearly give out.
He watches with wide eyes as Jimin strokes once, terribly slow, thumb dragging over the damp head before sliding back down, lashes fluttering despite the smirk he’s trying to hold onto. Then he spreads his legs wide, one foot planted on the floor, the other knee falling open on the mattress, displaying himself so blatantly that Jungkook’s mouth actually falls open.
“Do you want to fuck or not?” Jimin asks, peeking up at him through his lashes.
Jungkook crosses the room in two strides and nearly trips over the blanket trailing off the bed.
Jimin starts laughing, but it quickly dies in his throat when Jungkook drops to his knees between his legs.
Jungkook’s hands hover for half a second, useless from too much choice. Thighs. Hips. Cock. Stomach. The tight line of Jimin’s chest as he breathes too fast and tries to look like he isn’t waiting for Jungkook to touch him.
Jungkook looks up.
“Can I—”
“Jungkook.”
The warning in Jimin’s voice goes straight down his spine.
Jungkook shuts his mouth.
Jimin sighs like Jungkook is the most annoying thing alive, then lifts one foot and drags his toes over Jungkook’s bent knee. Slowly. Up his thigh. Jungkook’s breath catches before Jimin even reaches him, and when the ball of Jimin’s foot presses against his cock, Jungkook gasps so hard his hands clamp around Jimin’s calves.
Jimin’s foot keeps sliding up his stomach, over his sternum, then hooks loosely over his shoulder.
“This is one of those times I want you to stop thinking,” Jimin whispers.
Jungkook’s body goes hot in a way that feels less like arousal and more like something in him finally snapping clean down the middle. Like Jimin hooked two of his tiny fingers into the last bit of restraint Jungkook has left and pulled it straight out of his chest.
All he can do is stare.
Jimin spread out before him like a fucking feast, one hand wrapped lazily around his own cock like he has any right to look that composed while flushed all the way down his chest. His eyes stay on Jungkook, glinting daringly in the low light, like he knows Jungkook is one bad breath away from crawling out of his own skin.
Jungkook’s fingers tighten around the ankle.
Jimin’s eyebrow lifts.
That’s enough.
Jungkook turns his face and bites hard enough that Jimin jerks and sucks in a sharp breath. Jungkook kisses the bite once, then drags his mouth down Jimin’s calf with absolutely no grace left in him, teeth scraping skin before his tongue follows, chasing the little hitch in Jimin’s breathing like it’s something he can put in his mouth too.
He wants all of him—that’s the problem. Not just one part. Not just mouth, cock, chest, thighs, ass, sounds, face, hands—all of it. Everything he has been trying not to look at too long for months, every glimpse of Jimin changing shirts, every morning stretch, every careless bend of his waist, every irritated huff, every laugh, every tear. All that greed crashes into him at once—too much history and hunger spilling out into one half-lit room.
And Jungkook has no idea where to start.
So he starts everywhere.
His mouth moves from Jimin’s ankle to his knee, then higher, biting messily at the inside of his thigh until Jimin’s hand tightens in his own hair and his cock twitches visibly against his stomach. Jungkook sees the pretty pink head leak another bead of wetness and groans so hard it scrapes his throat raw. Jimin bites his bottom lip even though the expression stays a little shaky.
“You’re so embarrassing.”
“I haven’t even started.” Jungkook chuckles against his thigh.
He then puts both hands on his thighs and shoves them wider, earning himself a startled moan.
“Do that again,” he mutters, eyes glazing over from all the new skin on display.
Jimin’s glare could cut glass. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Jungkook looks up at him from between his legs. “Then stop making pretty sounds when I touch you.”
Jimin’s face goes hot, the flush crawling from his cheekbones down his throat. He tips his head back sideways to look away—indignant to the bone even with his cock leaking onto his fingers.
Jungkook loves him so much in that second it almost makes him angry.
He drops his mouth to the crease of his thigh and sucks hard enough to make Jimin swear and keen behind clenched teeth. The sound makes his own hips press forward, grinding once against the edge of the mattress.
Jungkook closes his eyes briefly.
Heaven.
He’s actually died and gone to heaven.
Mouth on Jimin and his own cock snugly rubbing against something.
He cants his hips forward again, doesn’t even bother to hide the shameless moan when he feels precum gather and slide down his thigh.
“Oh my god,” Jimin cranes his neck to get a better look. “You’re actually humping the bed.”
Jungkook looks up at him and does it again on purpose.
Jimin’s mouth falls open.
Jungkook doesn’t bother hiding his smirk.
“Maybe.”
“E-embarrassing.”
“You said that already.”
Jungkook licks a wet line higher, close enough that Jimin’s fingers tighten around his own cock and his hips lift a fraction before pride slams them back down.
“Say it while I’m making you come.”
Jimin’s eyes go wide for half a second, then dark.
Jungkook barely has time to enjoy it before Jimin’s foot slips from his shoulder and presses hard against his chest, shoving him back an inch.
“Someone’s getting a little cocky,” Jimin mutters.
“Nah,” Jungkook catches his ankle again and kisses the arch of his foot, eyes still on him. “I’m just really, really, desperate.”
That does the trick. Jimin falls back on his back and tosses an arm over his eyes.
Good.
Jungkook wants him to know and see every pathetic inch of it. Wants him to understand there is no cool or smooth version of Jungkook left right now.
Jimin’s throat moves.
“Jungkook.”
His name sounds different now. Less warning, more want spilling around it—and Jungkook lunges after it.
There’s no better word for it.
He gets his mouth on Jimin’s cock like waiting one more second would kill him—tongue sliding over the head first, just to get that first sharp hit salt and skin.
Jimin’s entire body arches up, hand flying from his own cock to Jungkook’s hair as the younger takes him down with a loud groan.
Jimin is hot in his mouth, hard and smooth, perfect in a way that makes Jungkook’s eyes nearly roll back. He lets the flushed head drag over his tongue, humming around the twitch when he hollows his cheeks to suck harder.
Some distant part of him still wants to impress. To pull some suave and romantic bullshit to really sweep Jimin’s mind clean off of this plane.
But Jungkook can’t help it.
He’s always been messy.
Spit starts gathering at the corners of his mouth, slicking Jimin’s cock down to the base where Jungkook’s fingers wrap around him and stroke whatever he can’t swallow.
Jimin makes a broken little noise.
Jungkook pulls back just enough to breathe, then dives down again because he needs it—needs the sound, needs the way Jimin’s thighs tense around his shoulders, needs the fingers in his hair trying to yank him off, like Jimin still thinks he can direct this into something less humiliating.
He can’t.
Jungkook will make it humiliating even if it kills him.
He sucks harder, and when Jimin’s hips jerk he lets him fuck up into his mouth—once, then again, sloppy and shallow—enough that Jimin freezes like he hadn’t meant to do it.
Jungkook pulls off with a wet pop, spit trailing from the tip to his mouth before it breaks and slides down his chin.
Jimin stares at him through his fingers. Jungkook licks his lips, then his chin because he can feel the mess there and wants Jimin to watch him clean it.
Jimin’s eyes go almost comically wide.
“Are you okay?”
Jungkook kisses the head of his cock and nods eagerly.
“Jesus.”
Jungkook snorts. “You’re literally about to sit on my face. Jesus won’t help you.”
Jimin’s fingers yank hard in his hair.
Sharp pain sparks over Jungkook’s scalp like lightning.
He moans.
Loud enough for the sound to bounce off the walls.
There is a second where both of them freeze around the sound, the old instinct of “make noise and die” kicking in mutually.
They stare at each other, eyes wide.
Then Jimin’s face twitches, a sly smirk dragging the corners of his mouth up.
“Oh?”
Jungkook’s stomach twists nervously. “I can explain—”
Jimin yanks his hair again—intentionally. Keeps his eyes on Jungkook’s face as he does it, eyes glazing over with glee as he watches Jungkook’s eyes go unfocused and mouth fall open around a choked-off moan.
“You like that?”
Jungkook breathes through his teeth. “You know I do.”
“Say it.”
Jungkook groans and drops his forehead against Jimin’s thigh for one second, then bites him there because if Jimin thinks he is going to win everything tonight without a fight, he has lost his damn mind.
Jimin hisses, and Jungkook kisses the mark immediately after because apparently even feral he is still pathetic.
“Yes,” he mumbles against Jimin’s skin. “I like it.”
Jimin’s fingers loosen in his hair, the grip turning into little pets.
Jungkook takes his chance and grabs his hips, drags him closer to the edge of the bed hard enough that Jimin yelps, both hands flying back to catch himself on the sheets.
“Jungkook—”
“No thinking,” Jungkook reminds him, and shoves his thighs wider.
Jimin’s mouth snaps shut.
He looks like he’s ready to start arguing. Of course he would. Arguing is one of the elements that make up Park Jimin. But then Jungkook gets his mouth back on him and the fight goes out of his face in one gorgeous, wrecked flash.
Jungkook sucks him down until his jaw aches, until spit starts slipping down his chin again and onto Jimin’s balls, and the thighs around his head start to tremble hard enough to shake his skull.
But even that isn’t enough. Nothing is enough.
His mouth keeps wanting somewhere else to go, some other new part of Jimin to take apart. So he pulls off with a breathless gasp and drags his tongue down the underside of Jimin’s cock—over the base, lower to mouth at his balls until Jimin’s hand twists sharply in his hair again.
“Fuck—Jungkook.”
Jungkook groans into him, spit-slick and half out of his mind, then grabs him under the thighs to lift him up.
Jimin stiffens for one tiny second when Jungkook spreads him with his thumbs, pride and embarrassment locking his body tight. But Jungkook doesn’t give him space to run from it—kisses the inside of his thigh, bites the soft flesh where it meets his ass, then presses his mouth to the puckered hole and licks.
Jimin’s thighs lock around his head in a vice grip, the hand in Jungkook’s hair lets go to slap over his own mouth to hide the helpless keen.
That sound alone could be enough for Jungkook to cum right there. If he didn’t have other priorities, that is.
It is dirty and intimate enough to make Jungkook feel drunk in less than five seconds.
Jimin tastes like sweat and the slick spit Jungkook leaves behind with each slow drag of his tongue. And Jungkook keeps mouthing at him like he has been starving for it—open-mouthed and messy, tongue pressing flat and then pointed, licking into him while his hands keep Jimin’s ass spread and his own cock drags uselessly against the mattress with every helpless roll of his hips.
Jimin keeps tensing with every move of Jungkook’s tongue, breath locked high in his chest, one hand clamped over his own mouth with only the harsh breaths and occasional whine escaping through his nose.
So Jungkook stops.
Jimin lifts himself onto his elbow to stare down at him. “Why did you—”
“Move your hand.”
Jungkook wipes his mouth with the back of his hand without looking away.
The hand moves higher to cover Jimin’s eyes. “Jungkook.”
“Wanna hear you.”
Jimin groans and pushes his sweaty hair away, pointedly looking somewhere over Jungkook’s shoulder with his brow furrowed.
It would be a cute sight if his cock wasn’t bobbing just below Jungkook’s chin.
Jungkook bites down a grin and tilts his head so he’s in his line of sight.
“What—you feeling shy now?”
“What the fuck—n-no?” Jimin stammers.
Jungkook bites his lip and tugs him a little further down the bed.
“Then what? Not enjoying yourself?”
Jimin yelps loudly when he’s suddenly lifted higher, both of his thighs over Jungkook’s shoulders, ass hovering in the air.
“I swear—”
“Gonna come?” Jungkook teases, bending a little to drag his lip piercing against the length of Jimin’s cok. Up and down.
Jimin mutters something under his breath and drops back down on the mattress.
“You’re an ass.”
“Heh,” Jungkook huffs, the puff of warm breath making Jimin twitch. “Guess I am what I eat.”
Then he lowers his mouth again and plunges his tongue in as deep as it’ll go until Jimin has no choice but to let the loud moan loose.
One of his arms comes up to clutch at the bedsheet next to his head, the other finds its way back into Jungkook’s hair.
“Fuck, Jim—” Jungkook cuts himself off with a groan, when the fingers twist in his hair and pull him in deeper.
Everything becomes a blur.
The room fills with Jungkook’s harsh panting and the broken little curses Jimin spits between breaths whenever Jungkook finds the right pressure .
Jungkook learns what Jimin likes quickly. Too quickly maybe, but fuck—who cares? It could’ve taken another month or year, and it would it would still feel right.
Despite a global tragedy or not, they would’ve made it to each other.
He learns how Jimin’s stomach clenches when he pushes his tongue deeper, how his cock twitches against his belly when Jungkook hums. How his voice goes all high and angry when he likes something a little too much.
Jungkook goes back and forth because he can’t help himself—spoilt for choice—mouth dragging from Jimin’s hole to his cock and back again, then dropping lower to lick him open until Jimin’s voice breaks around his name.
“J-Jungkook,” Jimin gasps.
Jungkook lifts his head just enough, breathing hard. “Mm?”
Jimin stares at him—and it might be Jungkook’s favourite sight ever. All that want he knew they shared for so long but didn’t allow—all of it looking back at him, out in the open in Jimin’s brown eyes.
Jungkook grins slowly.
Jimin snorts and yanks him up by the hair.
The kiss they crash into is disgusting in the best possible way. All tongue and taste, and Jimin moaning against his own flavour in Jungkook’s mouth. Jungkook’s cock slides against his thigh again, and Jimin quickly sneaks a hand around him, stroking up and down viciously fast.
“Fuck—don’t,” Jungkook chokes.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make me come yet.”
Jimin barks a laugh then brings both hands up to push at Jungkook’s chest until he gets the memo rolls onto his back sideways. He lands against the pillows with a graceless “oof” and blinks up at the ceiling blearily.
Jimin doesn’t give him a chance to adjust as he swings a leg over his hips and brackets his thighs.
If the undead don’t kill him, Jimin above him just might do the trick.
Jimin stares him down with those hypnotic eyes of his, holds Jungkook’s own wide gaze as he runs his hand across his damp hair, then lower—down his neck, chest, along the sharp v of his hips—until the touch lands on Jungkook’s tense thigh, then up—up, just a feather-light graze of fingers across the swollen tip of his cock and the smeared precum smeared all over his stomach.
Jungkook’s hands land on his thighs.
“Stay down,” Jimin says without looking at him.
Jungkook’s fingers dig in into the flesh briefly. He opens his mouth to argue but the words run dry when Jimin leans back and puts the fingers into his mouth.
Jungkook’s jaw drops open with a loud moan.
Jimin closes his eyes and hums around his own fingers, plush lips puffing out in an obscene pout as he slides them carefully around each digit as if he’s savouring the taste.
Demon.
Fucking demon, Jungkook thinks helplessly as he watches every movement like a hawk. And when Jimin opens his eyes and lets the fingers fall from his mouth with a wet pop to reach behind himself—Jungkook nearly sits up on instinct, only to be stopped a firm hand on hisnchest.
“I said stay.”
Jungkook drops back down with a whine.
Jimin moves his hand behind himself slowly, the flush on his cheeks so dark now that Jungkook wants to bite him.
The first finger slides in with a wet sound that makes both of them groan. The second takes longer. Jimin curses under his breath, shifts his hips, arches his back for a better angle, and Jungkook feels every second of it in his own cock—in the way his balls draw up tight from every high-pitched noise, in the way his hands keep flexing uselessly on Jimin’s thighs because he wants to be the one doing it but needs to stay good.
Then Jimin finds the right angle. His face twists, mouth falling open slack from pleasure.
Jungkook stops breathing.
Jimin does it again—on purpose, the fucking tease—head tipping back to expose the long line of his throat as he lets the moans fall free, one hand grabbing at Jungkook’s chest while the other moves between his own legs faster and faster.
Jungkook’s eyes feel like they’re going to roll back into his skull.
“Jimin—fuck—please.”
Jimin looks down at him through half-lidded eyes. “Still—ah, fuck—alive?”
“Barely.”
“Good.”
He pulls his fingers free and wraps them around Jungkook’s cock.
Jungkook goes completely still, hissing through his teeth.
Jimin strokes him once, spreading both of their spit over the head, down the shaft, thumb dragging over the vein underneath.
Jungkook stares, mesmerised and breathing hard.
Fuck.
What a sight.
Jimin’s dainty hand wrapped around him. Honey skin against the darker one of his cock.
He lets his head loll to the side and bucks his hips up to fuck up into the tight ring, restraint melting by the second.
Jimin gives him a sickeningly sweet smile.
“Having a good time, Jeon?”
Jungkook groans and tries for a glare. “You’re pure evil, you know that right?”
“I thought you loved me?”
“Yeah—shit,” Jungkook groans louder and humps up when the fingers squeeze tighter. “I do.”
The way the words leave him is almost too soft for the room.
Jimin’s face melts a little. The smirk sliding down into a small smile, the sharpness off his eyes rounding out.
Then he lifts himself up and over, and lines Jungkook up.
There is no room left for any words. The head of Jungkook’s cock presses against him, blunt and hot, and they both go completely silent.
Jimin lowers himself slowly, and Jungkook breaths slowly through the torture. Perfect, awful torture. The older man's body opens beautifully around him, slick and fluttering around the head of his cock, and Jungkook has to fist both hands in the sheets to keep from grabbing his hips and thrusting up like an animal.
Jimin keeps sinking, thighs quivering here and there with every inch, one hand braced on Jungkook’s chest while the other grips the base of his cock to guide him in.
His mouth falls open, but no sound comes out. Jungkook watches his face for any tiny change.
They didn’t really think this through. Well—Jungkook thought about it a little too much. But fuck, does lube even exist anymore?
He’d rather eat glass than ask Seokjin for some.
“Jimin,” he whispers, suddenly worried.
Jimin just glares at him and keeps going.
Lower.
Lower.
Until his ass meets Jungkook’s hips and Jungkook is buried fully inside him, so deep and tight that his brain feels like it might pop form the slightest move.
They stay frozen.
Jimin is sitting on him fully, body stretched around him, head tipped forward as he tries to breathe through it. Jungkook can feel every little clench, every tremor, every tiny adjustment. It's too much and exactly enough, and when Jimin moves first, barely, just a small roll of his hips, Jungkook makes a sound like a wounded animal.
Jimin laughs down at him, breathless. “Jungkookie.”
“Don’t,” Jungkook grits out.
“Don’t what?”
“Say my name like that unless you want me to lose it.”
Jimin rolls his hips again, deeper this time, and Jungkook’s fingers snap back to his thighs in a harsh grip.
“What if I do?” Jimin murmurs.
Message received. Loud and clear.
Jungkook surges up, one arm locking around Jimin’s waist, mouth crashing into his neck as Jimin starts riding him properly. The first few movements are messy and uneven—Jimin lifting too fast and sinking down too hard, both of them cursing when the angle slips. But then Jimin plants his knees wider, hands on Jungkook’s shoulders, and finds it.
“Oh—god.”
Jungkook’s eyes go black. “There?”
Jimin doesn’t answer, just keeps panting against his temple and circles his hips again.
Good enough confirmation for Jungkook.
He lets his hands move, slides them to his hips to pull him down every time he lifts, thrusting up just enough to meet him without taking the motion away.
The bed starts knocking against the wall from the rhythmic movement. Jimin’s thighs keep flexing around him, sweaty hands pawing at any available skin or body part like he doesn’t know where to grip to keep holding on.
“Look at you,” Jungkook whispers against his ear.
Jimin whines and buries his face into the crook of his neck. “Shut up.”
“You’re riding my cock and telling me to shut—”
Jungkook’s sentence breaks into a groan when Jimin clenches around him.
He can feel the smirk against his neck.
“You were saying?”
Jungkook’s eyes flash. “God you’re so—,” his arm tightens around Jimin’s waist to pull their chests flush. “So—fuck,”
Jimin loses the smile immediately.
Jungkook’s hips drive up as Jimin rocks down, both of them meeting in the middle with a wet, heavy slide that makes the old bed complain dangerously under them. Jimin collapses forward onto Jungkook’s chest, forehead near his shoulder, while Jungkook pants into his neck as he thrusts up with his mouth hanging open—licking and biting wherever he can reach because he still wants to taste him even now. His hand slides between them and wraps around Jimin’s cock, stroking him in time with each thrust, fist slick with precome and sweat.
Jimin tries to bat his hand away.
“Jungkook—”
“I know.”
“You don’t—”
“I fucking know.”
Jungkook’s fist moves faster. Jimin’s whole body goes tight around him, ass clenching around his cock so hard it makes his vision spark for a second. His own rhythm stutters for half a second before he forces it back into place.
He’s so so close.
Jimin’s close too. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
Jungkook can see that on his face, right between the furrowed brows and how he struggles to opens his eyes when each thrust hits that sweet spot. Can hear it in the way his voice breaks apart into high pitched whines and bitten off moans instead of forming words.
What a beautiful sight.
How can Jungkook carry on being normal after witnessing that?
He presses his mouth to Jimin’s neck, panting into the damp skin there as something desperate burns through him.
“Come on,” he begs, pride be damned. “Come on, Jimin. Please.”
Jimin makes a broken sound against his shoulder when Jungkook strokes him faster.
“Please,” Jungkook says again, hips snapping up, hand tight around him. “Say it. Fuck, please, say you love me.”
Jimin goes rigid above him.
Fuck—Jungkook momentarily thinks that he ruined it.
Then Jimin grabs his hair to yank his head back from his neck, and looks down at him with eyes blown wide and so full of want that Jungkook nearly comes right there.
“You needy fucking idiot,” Jimin gasps.
Jungkook gulps down the saliva gathered in his mouth.
“Please.”
Jimin’s lower lip trembles slightly before he bites it down. Then the hands in his hair slide lower until they’re holding Jungkook’s face on both sides.
“I love you,” Jimin whispers against his mouth. “I love you, fuck, Jungkook—”
That seems to be the last straw.
Jimin tips against him with a raw cry, orgasm tearing through him so violently that his whole body locks around Jungkook, vision gone somewhere far away. Jungkook keeps fucking him through it, keeps bucking his hips in desperate, uneven thrusts as he feels warm cum spill over his fist and stomach between them.
It only takes a few seconds for him to follow.
Jungkook’s hands slam down to Jimin’s ass with a gasp, holding him down as he thrusts up once, then again—and comes inside him with a dragged out “Jimin” against his throat.
They stay still and panting against each other until the sweat on their bodies starts to cool.
Eventually, Jimin collapses over him with a grunt, still full of him for a few dizzy seconds before Jungkook’s cock slips out with a soft, wet sound. Jungkook whines a little from the loss of that tight heat, making Jimin snort fondly against his chest and nuzzle into his throat like a sleepy cat.
Aftercare isn’t on Jungkook’s horizon just yet.
His hand slides down Jimin’s damp back, lower over his ass, fingers spreading him gently.
Jimin stiffens against him for all of five seconds, then huffs against his chest and shifts his hips back just enough.
Permission.
Jungkook nearly loses his mind all over again.
He reaches down with two fingers and presses them carefully into Jimin’s slick hole, where his own cum is already slipping out, hot and messy.
“Jesus,” Jungkook whispers feeling the heat, voice gone dry.
Jimin twitches a little and turns his face against Jungkook’s chest. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Jungkook laughs breathlessly, fingers still buried inside him, tender and possessive all at once.
“Feeling.”
“Feeling what?”
Jungkook presses in a little deeper, slow enough to make Jimin shudder against his chest.
“Can’t believe I did that in this life.”
Jimin goes very still.
Then his hand drags up across his chest and shoves his face to the side.
“You are so fucking weird.”
Jungkook giggles against the hand and bats it away after a quick kiss on the palm.
“Yeah,” he chuckles. “You sitting on most of my brain made it worse probably.”
Jimin lifts his head up to stare at him, brow furrowed in confusion.
Then, despite everything, his lips tremble at the corners and he starts laughing.
Jungkook grins back helplessly and presses their foreheads together.
♡
Jimin stumbles through the front door with one eye still half-shut and a yawn cracking his jaw wide enough to ache.
The old screen door complains behind him, hinges whining softly as it swings back into place. He doesn’t bother closing it properly. It’ll catch on the frame like it always does, then Jungkook will trip over it later and swear at it like the door personally had it out for him.
It’s finally getting warmer.
Finally.
The sharp chill of spring has started giving way to something warmer. Not quite summer yet but close enough that the mornings and evenings no longer feel so punishing.
A thin mist still sits low over the ground, tucked between the rows and under the fence line, blurring the bottom of the barn and the chicken coop into pale, ghostly shapes. Beyond the fields, the sun has barely cracked through the horizon, just a dull gold smear behind the trees, turning the world slowly from grey to green.
Jimin pads barefoot across the porch boards, wincing when one cool patch of damp wood kisses the arch of his foot, then leans his hip against the rail with a long, indulgent stretch.
He loves this part of the day.
Quietly, almost reluctantly, but he does.
The farm before it wakes properly is a strange, gentle thing. Shrouded in the thin morning mist and the soft song of insects hidden all over the long grass. Mornings here are like wading through honey—slow and comfortable, until the animals wake up hungry and they have to remember that the days work simply can’t wait.
A bird starts singing from one of the apple trees nearby.
Jimin rests his elbows on the rail and lets his head hang forward for a moment.
The truck should be here soon.
Probably.
Namjoon had said early, which could mean actual early or the Namjoon kind of early, which is almost in the same vein as wondering if unicorns are real.
Many things can be true at the same time when it comes to that man.
Jimin lifts his head and turns toward the open door.
“Jungkook!” he calls, voice still rough from sleep. “Get up!”
No answer.
Jimin waits for a while then narrows his eyes at the doorway.
“Jungkook!”
A few long seconds pass.
Then a loud, miserable groan echoes down from upstairs, followed almost immediately by a dull thud.
Jimin closes his eyes.
The thud is probably fine.
Most thuds are fine these days.
Still, he listens stiffly until he hears a muffled, “I’m alive,” from somewhere above him, then lets out the breath he hadn’t meant to hold.
“Debatable,” he mutters, rubbing the heel of his palm into one eye.
Time escapes him here in a way it never did anywhere else.
Back at the dorm, time had been measured in stretches until the next potential disaster. How many supplies they had left, how long before the next run, how many hours of daylight they could risk wasting, how many nights they could pretend the walls were thick enough to keep them safe. At the settlement, time had belonged to everyone else and the creed of routine. The symbiotic movement from one job to the next.
Here, time has gone strange and loose around the edges.
Early mornings bleed into long days of work, and long days of work turn into longer evenings where they eat whatever they manage to throw together in the kitchen, too tired to pretend it tastes good and too hungry to care when it doesn’t.
Sometimes Jimin falls asleep in the chair by the stove while Jungkook is still talking. Sometimes Jungkook passes out across the bed in his clothes, face-down and filthy, and Jimin has to bully him awake just enough to make him wash before he ruins the sheets.
They are still bad at half of it.
Maybe more than half.
After all, they’re just two city boys pretending to be farmers with little to no prior experience Patched together with random manuals and instructions, and whatever confidence Jungkook manages to summon before realizing he’s doing it wrong.
They’ve killed more plants than they planted, nearly flooded the kitchen trying to fix the plumbing after the settlement group got the new cistern going. Spent one entire afternoon chasing animals across the yard after they escaped through a section of fence Jungkook had very proudly described as “basically Fort Knox” less than twenty minutes earlier.
Jimin had laughed so hard he had to sit down in the dirt.
Then there are the good days.
The first time water ran clear through the kitchen tap after two hours of rusty coughing. Jungkook had looked so proud of himself that Jimin kissed him right there even after getting sprayed in the face five times with dirty water.
The first time a little sprout of green glinted through the dark earth in the vegetable rows, they both stood and stared, smiling like two proud parents.
The first egg Seokjin laid after they moved in was presented to Jimin in both of Jungkook’s hands like a sacred offering, while the chicken herself screamed and pecked at his ankles.
They still argue over every little thing.
Where shit goes and where it doesn’t. How much feed the goats need. Whether Jungkook is trusted on the roof without supervision. Whether Jimin is ever allowed near a stove again after the last burnt disaster they had to swallow down. Whether the scarecrow Jungkook made out of an old jacket and cracked motorcycle helmet is useful or deeply unsettling. Whether sleeping in on Sundays is still a thing or a waste of precious time.
It isn’t easy.
Jimin doesn’t think easy exists anymore, not really.
But there is a rhythm to it now. Wake up, feed the animals, feed themselves. Work until their hands ache and their shirts stick to their backs. Fix whatever they can fix. Sleep hard. Wake up and do it again.
And somewhere inside all that repetition, without him noticing the exact moment it happened, the farm stopped feeling like a place they were temporarily keeping alive and instead started feeling like something that was keeping them alive too.
Jimin runs his thumb over a splinter in the porch rail.
He still gets scared all the time.
When the wind sounds too much like footsteps in the grass. When Jungkook stays outside longer than he said he would. When the truck is late. When the sky goes quiet in that heavy, watchful way it sometimes does before a storm.
There are days when happiness feels like tempting fate, like if he looks at it too directly the world will remember to take it away.
But then Jungkook laughs while pressing a mug of awful coffee into his hand, or falls asleep with one hand tucked under Jimin’s shirt like he needs to feel him even in dreams—and Jimin wonders that maybe fear isn’t the opposite of happiness after all.
Maybe it’s just what grows around it.
The stairs creak inside the house.
There’s some shuffling, a disgruntled groan, and then Jungkook finally appears in the doorway looking like he has been raised from the dead against his will.
He's wrapped in their blanket like a toga, hair sticking up on one side and smashed flat at the back, one eye narrowed against the morning light. A strip of bare thigh peeks where the blanket hasn’t closed properly, and his left shoulder is exposed, the faded edges of his scar now a little round moon of white against the golden skin.
Jimin looks raises an eyebrow.
Jungkook points at him from inside the blanket. “I’m not taking comments at the moment.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was just admiring your fashion choices.”
Jungkook makes a wounded noise and shuffles across the porch until he is close enough to collapse against Jimin’s back. His arms wrap around his middle under the blanket, dragging the whole ridiculous thing around both of them while his face buries into the crook of Jimin’s neck with a dramatic sigh.
“It’s cold,” Jungkook whines, voice muffled against his skin.
Jimin huffs, but his hands come up automatically, one settling over Jungkook’s forearm where it crosses his stomach.
“You could’ve put some clothes on.”
Jungkook laughs softly, breath warm against his neck. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re going to flash Namjoon when the truck gets here.”
“Good. Establish dominance.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot.”
Jimin rolls his eyes, but it’s useless. Jungkook can probably sense the smile tugging at his mouth anyway.
For a while they just stand there, wrapped together in the old blanket, watching the mist shift over the yard. Jungkook’s chest is warm against Jimin’s back, heartbeat steady where it presses against his spine. His fingers trace sleepily against Jimin’s stomach, occasionally slipping under the shirt to feel the warm skin there.
“Truck today,” Jimin says after a while.
“Mm.”
“Namjoon said they’re bringing us a radio so we can stay in the loop.”
“And coffee?”
“Is that all you care about?”
Jungkook lifts his head slightly. “It’s in my top ten.”
“Oh, what’s number one then?”
“Wanna guess?”
Jimin snorts and averts his eyes. Even after everything, Jungkook still manages to catch him off-guard with his cheesy flirting.
Jungkook hums and brushes his mouth against his neck, not quite a kiss, but close enough to make Jimin shiver.
“Need to check the south fence before they get here.”
“You need pants first.”
“Can I just—”
“Not up for debate.”
“Ugh—fine. Fence, breakfast, pants.”
“Other way around.”
Jungkook snickers into his shoulders. “Breakfast, pants, fence?”
“Jungkook.”
“Fine, fine.” He tightens his arms around him, making absolutely no move to leave. “In a second.”
Jimin lets him have the second.
Then a few more.
The sun keeps rising slowly, burning faint gold through the mist. Jungkook’s breath slows against the side of Jimin’s neck, and for a strange, soft moment, the whole world feels no bigger than the porch rail, the blanket around them, and the yard waking by inches in front of their eyes.
Then the unmistakable cough of the truck reaches them from beyond the trees.
Both of their heads snap toward the gate.
The sound is still a ways, engine catching over the dips in the road, but close enough that Jimin can already imagine the inevitable chaos of people disturbing the peace.
“Shit,” he mutters, straightening up. “Go put clothes on.”
Jungkook doesn’t move an inch.
“Jungkook.”
Jungkook’s arms tighten around his torso instead, pulling Jimin back against him until they are pressed together from shoulder to hip. The blanket slips a little, but Jungkook doesn’t seem to care. His chin settles near Jimin’s temple, and when he speaks, his voice sounds vulnerable in a way it hasn’t for weeks.
“Are you happy here?”
Jimin’s hands freeze over a tattooed arm.
Only for a moment. Just long enough for the question to find that old, scabbed over corner of his mind.
Then he exhales and lets himself melt back against Jungkook’s chest.
The truck grumbles closer. The sun keeps rising. Jimin closes his eyes and listens: insects in the grass, animals waking, Jungkook’s steady heartbeat beneath his ear. The sounds of a broken world patched together by painstaking effort and desperate hope—still dangerous, still full of ways to disappear in the blink of an eye.
And still.
He opens his eyes and tips his head back to look up at Jungkook.
The younger is watching him with his whole face gone soft and hopeful—a look that Jimin has come to learn is reserved only for him in these careful moments. Like Jungkook already knows the answer, but needs to hear Jimin choose to say it out loud.
One of the rules of the apocalypse was not to catch feelings. No strings attached.
Fuck that.
“Yeah,” he whispers, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I really am.”