Chapter Text
Cold cement against bare skin. A rapidly beating heart trapped inside a ribcage. A cloth wrapped tightly against struggling, twitching eyelids. Ragged breathing, excessive shuffling, something square and solid clenched firmly between his teeth.
These are the sensations that hit Nam-gyu all at the exact same time, unforgiving in their relentlessness. There’s no gradual awakening, no slow rise to consciousness. It all slams into him in one swift, hefty blow, an action that leaves Nam-gyu spluttering and coughing in a hasty, panicked attempt to dispel the foreign object from his mouth.
His hands are tied, as are his feet, and he’s only wearing a thin pair of boxers — he recognizes these facts quickly, and it only serves to heighten his panic. He feels the item, whatever it is, slip out of his mouth and clatter against the ground, and he heaves a breath as if it’s the last one he’ll ever take. As far as he’s aware, it very well could be.
The sound that leaves his mouth is a sickening mixture of pitiful fear and blatant confusion, a guttural, almost animalistic noise. It hardly sounds like it comes from himself at all, but he feels the way his throat constricts against the vowels, so he can’t blame the desperate, pleading noise on anyone else; an annoyance in itself.
A grunt, followed by the sound of something dragging against hardened ground. Nam-gyu stops all movement and holds his breath. He’s not alone.
“Nam-su?”
The familiarity of the voice is enough to slow the drastic racing of Nam-gyu’s thoughts, albeit only slightly. He thinks back to the games, to the results of the vote, to the numb disappointment that encased him.
“Thanos?” Nam-gyu parrots, blinking rapidly against a blackened blindfold. “Is that—? Fuck, I can’t see—“
Nam-gyu jolts against his confines, a jarring, twitchy motion that he feels he has no real control over. Distantly, he hears the sounds of cars, of crickets chirping, of a faraway voice going on and on about God being the one true savior.
His bindings seem to tighten, though he knows he must be imagining it.
“Thanos?” He tries again feebly. If that fucker left him for dead, he swears he’ll track him down and kill him, freebie drugs be damned. He shudders violently — there’s no wind blowing, but the coldness still manages to be stifling.
“Hold on,” Thanos murmurs from a place Nam-gyu can’t quite pinpoint. “I gotta…gotta get this shit off of me…”
Ah, so he’s been binded up too. That’s good, Nam-gyu thinks idly. Puts them on equal footing. Though, Thanos certainly seems to be making a hell of a lot more progress than he is.
Nam-gyu jolts again, his body wracked with another harsh shiver as he licks absently at spit coated lips. “There was…fuck, there was something in my mouth—“
“Credit card,” Thanos grunts.
…Oh.
Nam-gyu resists the urge to tell him to hurry up. The cold is unrelenting, the type that makes him want to crawl out of his own skin. The lack of clothes certainly doesn’t help with that, and while Nam-gyu can still hear the way Thanos shuffles around, there’s a primal fear within him that he’ll be left behind, tied up and defenseless.
“Thanos—“
“I know, man. Hold on.”
Nam-gyu bites his tongue. He has a feeling that rushing him will only make matters worse, so instead he stays quiet, listening attentively to the way Thanos curses under his breath, clearly struggling with something.
Seconds turn into minutes, and by the time hands begin to grasp at the cloth covering his eyes, he jumps so intensely at the touch that it causes swiftly moving fingers to withdraw instinctively.
“Fuck, man, chill out. It’s me.”
Nam-gyu doesn’t offer any sort of explanation, because he has no need to. Anyone would be jumpy in his situation. He repeats this fact in his brain like a mantra as Thanos begins to tug persistently at his blindfold again, quick and efficient.
Nam-gyu blinks upwards blearily as the cloth falls to the ground, waiting impatiently for the blurriness in his sight to ebb away. The sky above him is dark and dotted with stars. The moon is full. It’d be beautiful, under different circumstances.
It’d be beautiful, if Nam-gyu had any care for it.
“Hello? Earth to Nam-su?”
A hand waves in front of his face, and Nam-gyu turns his head slightly to see Thanos staring down at him expectantly. Thanos, who unlike him, wears a brightly colored t-shirt and loose pair of sweatpants.
Well, that’s just not fair. Why’d Thanos get clothes, but Nam-gyu didn’t? Seems like blatant favoritism.
“You’re still pretty out of it, aren’t you?” Thanos mumbles, though it seems to be more to himself than to Nam-gyu. His eyes flicker across his body, oddly attentive. “Huh…didn’t know you had so many tats.”
Nam-gyu stares up at him in a way that he can only hope conveys his steadily rising annoyance as his body quivers with another bout of shuddering. He’d tell him to quit ogling and start untying him if he wasn’t so inwardly nervous of abandonment.
His expression must get some semblance of his thoughts across, because after a few rapid blinks and a barely susceptible scowl, Thanos clears his throat and hastily steps behind him, loosening the ties around his wrists.
“Repent,” a faraway voice shouts, “repent, and be saved!”
“Can’t believe the first thing I’m hearing after all of that is some religious bullshit,” Nam-gyu complains, his words slurring. His brain feels fuzzy — what is it Thanos had said to him? That he still seems out of it? …Yeah, that sounds about right. He wonders what sort of drugs they pumped him with to knock him out for what seems to be a pretty prolonged amount of time. He wishes they would have given him more. Enough to make his brain feel disconnected from his body for just a bit longer. Hell, even enough to kill him.
Thanos makes a soft noise that Nam-gyu registers as a form of agreement, though he can’t tell for sure, nor does he particularly care. Once his wrists are untied, he presses his hands against the ground and heaves himself into a sitting position, tiny pieces of gravel digging into the meat of his palms.
“This fucking sucks,” Nam-gyu gripes hoarsely. His bones ache, and his head is enveloped with a dull, thumping pain. “Who the hell do those mask-wearing freaks think they are, shoving a card into my mouth like that?”
Thanos stares wordlessly as Nam-gyu leans forward, clumsily tugging at the restraints tied around his ankles. He makes a solid effort, but his fingers keep fumbling, and the fact that Thanos is watching him so intently, as still as a statue, is sort of freaking him out. Nam-gyu’s spent enough time with him in the past few days (Has it been days? Hours? Weeks? Nam-gyu has no idea — all sense of time has left him) to be well aware of the fact that Thanos is a man who’s always loud and always moving, constantly fidgeting with something, or tugging at another. Fingers constricting against something, fiddling with rings, tugging absentmindedly at shirtsleeves.
Right now, he sits crouched beside him, perfectly still. It’s freaking Nam-gyu out more than he’d like to admit.
It takes about fifteen seconds of silent, wordless struggling, until Thanos finally sighs in exasperation and swats Nam-gyu’s hands away, taking it upon himself to undo the binding. Thanos’ fingers are warm against the cold, clammy skin of Nam-gyu’s ankles, and it bothers him how much the skin-on-skin contact serves as a form of comfort.
“Only the lord can save you now,” the faraway voice shouts, followed by a burst of mocking laughter. Nam-gyu wishes someone would tell him to either shut up or pick up a hobby. A hobby that isn’t shouting religious slogans at people in the dead of night, that is.
No higher being is coming to save anyone. Especially not Nam-gyu. Not after everything he’s done.
“Hey,” Nam-gyu says suddenly, right as the last piece of binding falls limply to the ground. He points at a lump of clothing that’s strewn beside him, prodding at it as if it’ll jump out and attack him if he’s not too careful. “What—?”
“Oh, right,” Thanos grabs the items brazenly, no semblance of concern. “Clothes.”
“Clothes?” Nam-gyu repeats.
“They threw clothes out with us.” Thanos gestures at his own brightly colored shirt and loosely fitted pants, before tossing the bundle of clothes into Nam-gyu’s arms. “These were on the ground next to me.”
A black t-shirt and sweatpants…he’ll take what he can get. It’s better than being half nude in front of Thanos, bare and trembling. Pathetic.
“Thanks for untying me, dude,” Nam-gyu breathes out as he tugs the shirt over his head, wincing at the overpowering smell of laundry detergent. He’s not usually one to offer thanks, but he should at least attempt to keep up appearances, for this last little stretch of time they have together. Besides, he really would be screwed if it weren’t for Thanos’ help.
“No problem,” Thanos murmurs. There’s an odd cadence to his voice that makes him sound unlike himself. “It’d be pretty fucked up if I just left you here.”
Nam-gyu nods in wholehearted agreement. He makes quick work of sliding his pants on, attempting to pay no attention to how closely Thanos watches the fabric cover his skin, and then grabs the golden, shiny credit card that lays beside him, slicked with spit. Gross.
Nam-gyu slides the card in his pocket and hauls himself to his feet, dusting himself off as Thanos stands up beside him. As Nam-gyu allows himself to take in his surroundings, he breathes a sigh of relief — at the very least, he’s been dropped off in his neighborhood.
“Do you know where we are?” Thanos asks, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
“Yeah, I live nearby. There’s an apartment complex a few blocks down, just over there.” Nam-gyu gestures vaguely down a nearby street, watching the way Thanos’ eyebrows furrow in confusion. “…Do you not live near here?”
“Nah, man. No clue where here even is. Not like I have anywhere to go, anyways.”
“You’re homeless?” Nam-gyu gawks, unable to withhold the shock from his voice. His expression must appear a tad too mocking, if the way Thanos’ shoulders tense is anything to go by.
“I’m not out on the fucking streets and sleeping in alleyways, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Thanos scowls. “I have connections, you know. People to stay with. I’m not some sort of—“
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Nam-gyu holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Forget I said anything.”
Silence settles between like a thick, suffocating blanket. They glance around awkwardly, unaware of what to do or say, unable to wrap their heads around how to conduct themselves, being thrown out into normalcy after witnessing such horrors.
“Do you want to crash at my place?”
The words tumble out of Nam-gyu’s mouth before he can critically think about the extent of what he’s offering, but unfortunately for him, it’s not the sort of offer he can take back after the fact without seeming like a complete asshole. Which, normally, he has no issue with. But, Thanos doesn’t fit into the average box that Nam-gyu shoves most people he encounters in, and there’s nothing normal about anything they’ve gone through together in the past few days.
Besides…he sort of owes Thanos a few favors, after the amount of free drugs he’s gotten off of him.
“...It’s super close by. I just figured I’d offer,” Nam-gyu mumbles after another awkward lapse of silence. Thanos continues to mess with the hem of his shirt, avoiding eye contact as he does so. He’s acting so incredibly out of character that Nam-gyu has to inwardly squash the desire to grab him by the shoulders and jostle him, demanding that he act like he normally does.
Where Nam-gyu expects a swift denial and halfhearted excuse, he’s met with a questioning tilt of the head. “You’re sure?”
No, Nam-gyu most certainly is not sure. If his apartment is as he left it (which, he surely hopes it is), then it’s an absolute wreck, a hodgepodge of forgotten, expired foods and stacks of bills he’s been avoiding paying. Now isn't the time for him to be inviting people over. Especially not Thanos, the most spontaneous man Nam-gyu’s ever spent time with. Thanos, who’s acting unlike his usual self. Thanos, who doesn't even seem to have drugs on him at all anymore – what a let down.
He should say no. He really, really should.
“Yeah,” he says instead. One night won't kill him, right? “It’s not a big deal.”
Except, it sort of is a big deal, because Thanos seems like the sort of person to rifle around without permission, and the last thing Nam-gyu needs right now is to worry about whether or not he has any compromising items lying around. He tries to recall the state of his apartment in detail, but his brain still seems to be moving at a slower pace than usual, and he has difficulty remembering things in their entirety. He just keeps circling back to the games, the adrenaline, the guns, the blood, the screams.
It’s hard to imagine what sort of person he was before all of this. He’s still himself, of course, but something feels different. He has the same body with the same brain, the same heart, the same nerves nestled within his flesh. Nothing has changed. But at the same time, something has. He knows something is different, he’s just not sure what.
He’s also not sure if he necessarily cares. Nam-gyu has bigger things to worry about. More concrete, realistic, sensible things. Like whether or not he still has a job after his abrupt absence, or if anyone besides his piece of shit boss even took notice of his disappearance to begin with.
…Not tonight, though. Tonight, he just wants to sleep in his own bed, in his own shitty apartment, without giving into feelings of hopelessness or anger. He’s had enough of that in the past few hours alone to last an entire lifetime.
“Well, since you offered…” Thanos shrugs. “Lead the way, boy. I expect a five star breakfast in the morning.”
Nam-gyu laughs wryly, though he can’t actually tell if Thanos is joking or not. He pivots slowly, trudging one foot in front of another like it’s a monumental effort. Thanos follows behind him, and Nam-gyu takes solace in the fact that he’s the one leading the way for once. He’s the one in the lead, instead of trailing behind like a dog.
He’s in charge. That’s how it should be.
The distant religious ramblings fade with each heavy step, eventually trickling into nothingness, but unease stays settled in the pit of Nam-gyu’s stomach like a rock. His legs feel like jelly, and while the moonlight lit streets are free of passersby, they aren't free of fluttering insects and scuttering rodents. Nothing excessive – still, it’s enough to remind Nam-gyu of how poor the upkeep of this neighborhood is. Even when stuck in the games, he didn't necessarily miss any aspect of his daily life; the only thing he missed was not having to fear for his life every second of every minute. It was exhausting. The drugs gave him a good rush, though. In a sick, twisted sort of way, it’d actually felt sort of nice at times. A break in routine. Something different, something new. If he blocks out the bloody, gorey aspects of it all, he can almost look back on it fondly.
…No, that’s not right. It’s the pills that he feels fondness for. It’s the pills that gave him such a thrill. That’s all.
Thanos is unusually quiet. Trees stretch above them overhead, curving around houses, upwards and inwards, a carefully molded cage.
“Did they take the rest of them?” Nam-gyu asks eventually, when the silence becomes so stifling he fears he may choke if he doesn't break it. “The pills?”
“Yeah.”
Thanos’ voice is quiet. Hardened. There’s an edge to it, a sense of despondency. The games may be over, but he’s got no pills, and not nearly as much money as he wanted. Certainly not enough to pay off his staggering amount of debt. Understanding dawns on Nam-gyu in a slow, lapping wave.
It’s strange, though. Nam-gyu figured that Thanos would be the type to react with anger instead of anguish.
He shrugs it off – in the end, it has nothing to do with him. By tomorrow, Thanos will be out of his apartment and off doing…whatever it is he does in his free time. Freestyle rapping at women in an attempt to make them swoon, probably. Nam-gyu wouldn't be all that surprised if after tonight, they never see each other again at all.
Which, admittedly, is a bittersweet thought. Whatever sense of partnership that’s unfolded between them has flowered due to shared circumstances and a life or death situation. They clung to each other because they both needed to cling to something in order to live. They needed a sense of trust, no matter how flimsy and falsified it happened to be.
But now it’s all over, and there’s no more constant looming fear of death. They’ve returned to the numb monotony of daily life, and hastily formed partnerships aren't a necessity.
“This is it?” Thanos asks incredulously, once the building comes into view. “Damn, Nam-su. It looks like something out of a horror flick.”
Nam-gyu scowls – he may not hold any affection or sentimentality for the dilapidated building, and feels no need to defend it, but surely it doesn't look that bad. It’s run-down, covered in wild shrubbery, and there’s cracks that trail along the outer walls, but it's not horror-esque. It’s just old. Really, really old.
“Aren't you homeless?” Nam-gyu wants to bite back, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut. There’s no point in stirring a pot without reason.
“It’s not that bad,” Nam-gyu settles on instead, “if you ignore my shitty neighbors.”
“Classic horror movie trope,” Thanos muses.
Nam-gyu shivers – ugh, poor timing. The heightened laugh it earns him in response makes Nam-gyu glower. “It’s cold. I’m not scared of my own apartment complex, dude. I live here.”
Thanos follows behind him closely as he walks up the stairs, wooden stairs creaking beneath their bare feet. “Squeaky stairs. Horror trope number two.”
“Thanos, come on.”
“And it’s nighttime.” Thanos holds up three fingers and wags them in Nam-gyu’s face; a very distracting endeavor, considering he’s in the middle of climbing a staircase. Nam-gyu swears if he slipped and fell because of this shit, he’d sue. “That’s mark three!”
“Maybe I should pull out a comically large knife and start chasing you around,” Nam-gyu drawls, swatting Thanos’ hand out of his face as they reach the top of the stairs. “It’d fit the theme you’re going for, wouldn't it?”
“Like you could catch me,” Thanos says smugly, and Nam-gyu can’t help but be amused by how seriously he seems to be considering the make believe situation. “I’m so fast that you couldn't even begin to–”
As they pass by one of the neighboring apartments, its front door rattles with a harsh, sudden impact, followed by an obnoxious amount of barking. The sudden bang makes Thanos not only jump, but also yelp, and Nam-gyu has to forcibly bite down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing directly in his face.
“Their dog does that every time someone passes by. It’s annoying as hell,” Nam-gyu explains calmly. He’s never been a huge fan of animals, but he specifically dislikes dogs — especially large, loud ones that piss and slobber everywhere. His neighbor's dog just so happens to fit the description perfectly.
“If an axe murderer kills me in my sleep tonight, I’m haunting your ass,” Thanos grumbles, frowning at Nam-gyu as if he’s the one at fault for the sudden noise. “This place is fucking freaky.”
Nam-gyu knows that the complex is far from welcoming, but he’s seen much worse. He’s spent countless nights milling around in dirty alleyways and prowling around abandoned, trashed areas waiting for dealers; in comparison, this is a cakewalk.
The neighbor to his left has a dog that’s too loud, and Nam-gyu has an inkling that the neighbor to his right plans actual fucking orgys just because she gets off on the sound complaints it earns her. He can’t stand the people that surround him, but it’s doable. It’s manageable. It’s…well, it’s not like he has any other choice in the matter. This is all he can manage to afford.
“There’s no axe murderers,” Nam-gyu insists. Thanos looks entirely unconvinced.
Once they reach the door to his apartment, Nam-gyu grabs the spare key shoved haphazardly under his doormat, pushing it into the keyhole and twisting it open with a prolonged yawn — the mere thought of his bed has managed to increase his exhaustion tenfold. Nam-gyu wipes tiredly at his eyes as he stumbles his way inside the darkness of his apartment, blindly feeling his hand along the wall until he feels the familiar touch of the lightswitch.
The lighting is dim, serving as a mocking reminder of how much Nam-gyu needs to change the bulbs. His living room is just as messy as he figured it’d be; a variety of half-read books strewn on a small, rickety table, unopened mail forgotten on the couch, a waste basket filled with orange peels, barren pill bottles, and crushed cans of soda. Nam-gyu cringes as his foot clumsily collides with an empty beer bottle that lies dormant in the entryway, and he glances back at Thanos with a sense of sheepishness.
He expects some sort of mocking remark, a joke about his disorganized state of living, but Thanos seems entirely unbothered. The rapper glances around with subdued curiosity, but it’s only when he lets out a long, prolonged yawn that Nam-gyu realizes he’s likely just as tired as he is.
“You can have the couch,” Nam-gyu offers lamely.
“No bed?” Thanos frowns.
“Well…I’ll be in the bed, so no.”
Thanos looks at him for a long, drawn out moment, like he’s studying a bug under a cup. Nam-gyu shuffles his feet awkwardly – if Thanos is expecting him to offer up his bed (which, knowing his entitled ass, he probably is), he’s setting himself for disappointment. It’s a shock that Nam-gyu invited him over in the first place, and it’s not like they can share. The bed is incredibly small, and he doubts that Thanos wants to spend the entire night squished up beside him.
When Thanos realizes that Nam-gyu has no intention of budging on the matter, he sighs in exaggerated disappointment and makes his way over to the couch. He sure is picky for a guy that apparently has to resort to couch surfing each night. Nam-gyu watches in bafflement as Thanos picks up the small pile of old mail off of the cushions and tosses it haphazardly on the table, crisp envelopes thudding against leather-bound books.
“Make yourself at home,” Nam-gyu mutters, though the slightly aggrieved comment comes out so quietly that he doubts Thanos hears it at all.
Without further discussion, Thanos lets himself flop onto the couch, stretching out idly. “G’night,” he mumbles softly, before promptly curling into a ball and closing his eyes.
…Alright. That’s that, then.
Nam-gyu stands in slight stupefaction for a moment before snapping back to attention. It’s a pleasant surprise that Thanos is so sleepy, all things considered. Now Nam-gyu doesn't have to worry about him nosing around.
Not that he has anything to hide. Not necessarily.
Nam-gyu makes his way to his room in slow, languid steps. Set’s his newly acquired credit card on his bedside table, eases his aching body into cold, soft bed sheets. The dog next door has lapsed into silence now, which Nam-gyu is eternally grateful for, and there’s no egregious thumping or clanging to distract him tonight. Nights are rarely quiet for him, but tonight, it’s as if something has fallen over the complex, muffling its usual loudness.
Just for tonight, Nam-gyu is offered a brief moment of quietude.