Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Thanos screamed.

Namgyu didn’t flinch. The gun, instead of finding Thanos’s chest, dipped just an inch, and a second, deafening crack ripped through the air. Thanos’s scream ratcheted up, a raw, animal sound as he clutched his arm, a dark stain blooming instantly on his purple tracksuit. But Namgyu wasn’t looking at him. His head had already snapped around, the gun swinging in a blur.

MG Coin, still standing there, gun half-raised, eyes wide with shock at the shot to Thanos, barely had time to register the movement before the barrel was centered on his face.

CRACK .

The sound was different this time, wetter. MG Coin’s  head snapped back with impossible force, a sickening spray of red mist and bone fragments erupting from where his face had been a split second before. His body crumpled instantly, boneless, hitting the concrete with a heavy, lifeless thud. His gun clattered away, spinning across the floor.

Silence descended for a beat, broken only by Thanos’s ragged screams and the distant thud of MG Coin’s corpse settling. Every eye in the room was wide, fixed on the spot where MG Coin had stood, then snapping back to Namgyu, who stood perfectly still, the smoking gun now sweeping across the stunned faces of the crowd.

“None of you X fuckers move!” Namgyu snarled, his voice low and guttural, completely devoid of the shaky vulnerability from moments before. His eyes, wide and manic, darted from face to face. “We’re not going anywhere!”

Before anyone else could react, before the enforcers could adjust their aim or 001 could utter another word, Se-mi lunged.

She didn’t go for a weapon. She hit him low and hard, tackling him around the waist. The impact sent them both sprawling, the gun flying from Namgyu’s hand with a clatter across the concrete floor.

The crowd erupted. Shouts, screams, the clatter of dropped weapons as some players recoiled in horror, others raised their guns higher, uncertain who the threat was now. They landed in a heap, a tangle of limb. Namgyu grunted, twisted beneath her, trying to throw her off, his hands scrabbling for purchase on her tracksuit.

“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” he snarled, his voice still thick with the adrenaline of the kill.

Se-mi didn’t reply. Her focus was singular: incapacitate him. She drove her elbow down into his ribs, a cracking sound echoing in the sudden silence that had fallen over the room. Namgyu gasped, a pained choke, but he bucked harder, managing to roll them over.

Now he was on top, his weight pressing her into the cold floor. His hands went for her throat, fingers digging in, trying to cut off her air. Se-mi clawed at his face, her nails raking across his cheek, drawing blood. He roared in pain, momentarily loosening his grip.

She used the opening, twisting her head violently, biting down hard on his hand. Namgyu screamed and yanked his hand back, shaking it wildly. Se-mi scrambled sideways, putting a few feet between them, gasping for breath, her throat burning.

The room exploded.

Players scattered. Guns swung, barrels sweeping across the room as people tried to identify threats. Shouts and curses mingled with the clatter of boots on concrete and the sharp metallic ring of weapons being fumbled or dropped. Enforcers, previously static, barked orders, their own guns raising, unsure whether to target Namgyu, Se-mi, or the now-panicked crowd.

Amidst the pandemonium, a figure detached itself from the edge of the crowd.  “Stop!” 001’s voice, though not loud, carried a strange urgency that momentarily cut through the noise for those nearest him. He wasn’t looking at Namgyu or Se-mi. His gaze was fixed on the players whose guns were now swinging towards the screaming, wounded Thanos. “Don’t! Don’t finish him!”

“He deserves it!” another shouted, taking a step forward, their gun barrel dipping lower towards Thanos

001 shook his head frantically.  He edged further in, his eyes wide, pleading with the faces around him. “No, please! Don’t! It’s not… it’s not right!” He gestured vaguely towards Thanos, then back at the crowd, his hands trembling. “Let the game… let it end properly! Don’t do this!”

His words were swallowed by the renewed surge of noise as Namgyu, gasping for air, finally managed to shove Se-mi off him. He scrambled to his feet, eyes scanning wildly for the fallen gun. Se-mi, spitting blood, was right behind him, lunging again.

Players were now actively pushing and shoving, some trying to get a clear shot at Thanos, others trying to reach the discarded weapons, and a few, influenced by 001’s unexpected plea, hesitating, their guns wavering. The enforcers moved in, their commands unintelligible over the screams and shouts.

Thanos, still screaming, curled in on himself, his injured arm held tight against his chest, his body shaking. His good eye darted from face to face in the swirling mass of bodies, seeing only rage and the glint of metal.

Namgyu and Se-mi grappled on the floor. Namgyu’s hand closed around something metallic – the gun. Se-mi saw it, her eyes widening, and she threw herself at him, trying to wrench it away.

The crowd surged, a wave of bodies pressing in. Guns were raised higher, fingers tightening on triggers. 001 was still there,  his voice strained as he continued to beg, “Let him bleed out, do not touch him!”

But the sound of his voice was lost. He looked around, then ran. Not away, but towards Thanos.

Thanos instinctively scrambled to his feet, desperate for precious distance.. He stumbled back, clutching his arm, his good eye wide with terror. 001 reached him in a few frantic strides, not slowing, but slamming into Thanos’s side with unexpected force. It wasn’t a gentle push; it was a violent shove, sending Thanos sprawling back to the concrete floor, the impact jarring his injured arm and stealing his breath. 001 didn’t pause, didn’t offer a hand. He stood over Thanos for a split second, eyes wide and darting, jaw clenched so tight the muscles stood out.

There was a silent, seething aggression in his posturee.

His gaze swept across the room, locking onto the masked figures of the enforcers who were still trying to regain control, their weapons wavering between the brawling Namgyu and Se-mi, the scattering players, and the downed Thanos. For a fraction of a second, 001’s eyes met theirs across the room– a shared, silent understanding passing between them that cut through the noise.

Then, almost imperceptibly, 001 gave a curt nod.

The effect was instantaneous and brutal. The enforcers, their movements suddenly synchronized, snapped their rifles away from the wrestling pair and the wounded man on the floor. Their barrels swung in unison, not towards Thanos, but towards the mass of players who had been closing in on him.

A volley of gunshots ripped through the air.

Screams of pain and surprise erupted from the crowd as players staggered, clutched at limbs, and fell. The enforcers weren’t aiming to kill, not yet, but the shots were precise, targeting arms and legs, designed to incapacitate and disperse. The surge towards Thanos halted abruptly, replaced by a panicked scramble as players dove for cover.

Thanos, still sprawled on the floor, his scream dying in his throat, stared up at 001, who remained standing over him, chest heaving, watching the carnage unfold without a word. The air filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder – shouts, moans, and the continued struggle between Namgyu and Se-mi.

MG Coin’s lifeless eyes meet Thanos’s across the room.

Thanos should be dead.

He heard the bang before he felt the pain and he thought, That’s it. That’s the sound of the outro. Not the crescendo, not the climax, just that flat sound like someone slamming a door in a house you thought was empty.

Then. The warmth down his arm. Not his brain exploding against the wall. Not lights out. Not silence.

Just this. 

Searing, wet, hot. 

Metal and meat and marrow and why the hell didn’t Namgyu kill him?

Namgyu’s eyes said sorry . His hands said fuck you. His gun said I decide who exits. And MG Coin—MG Coin didn’t get a goodbye. Just red. Poured out like bad wine. Gurgling. That sound a body makes when it forgets how to hold in the soul.

Thnaos blinks and it’s still there. Still loud.  Everything's stained with the truth Namgyu couldn’t say out loud.  

He missed. 

No. 

He aimed wrong. 

No. 

He chose wrong.

He’s bleeding in two timelines. In one, he’s dead. In this one, he’s left. Namgyu left him breathing. Namgyu left MG Coin not.

He wants to scream. Instead, Thanos laughs.It bubbles in his throat, sticky with someone else’s blood. Might be MG’s. Might be his. Might be both. Who owns blood anymore?

MG Coin’s body is a question mark now.  

Bent, broken, and silent. Damned, dying and safe. Battered, bruised and bloody. And Namgyu. the one who was meant to end him, the one who looked Thanos in the eyes when he pulled the trigger.  

And Thanos can’t decide what hurts more. The bullet in his arm, or the mercy in Namgyu’s.

Thanos’s laugh died in his throat, replaced by a ragged gasp as the pain in his arm flared. He stared at MG Coin’s ruined face. The enforcers were still firing into the panicked crowd, a mix of screams and shouts filling the air. 001 stood over him, staring, watching, waiting .

But Thanos wasn’t looking at the enforcers, or the falling bodies, or even 001. His good eye was glued to Namgyu, twisting and fighting beneath Se-mi. He saw Se-mi’s face, twisted into something raw, feral, tears streaming down her pretty face, her hands scrabbling for the gun Namgyu had just dropped. He saw the desperation in Namgyu’s movements as he tried to keep her away from it.

Thanos started to push himself up, his injured arm screaming in protest. The concrete scraped against his cheek.  He didn’t make it far before 001 dropped to one knee beside him, trying to hold him down.

“Stop,” 001 hissed, voice low but urgent, his hands pressing hard on Thanos’s uninjured shoulder. “You’ll bleed out, idiot. Stay down.”

But Thanos’s breath came in ragged gasps, his eye wide, locked on the struggling pair across the room. Se-mi was on top now, her knee jammed into Namgyu’s chest, forcing the breath out of him as she clawed for the gun between them. Namgyu’s fingers were slick with blood—whose, it didn’t matter anymore—but still fighting, still trying to keep it from her. 

“No,” He shoved against 001’s weight. “She’s gonna kill him.”

001’s grip tightened. “Let her.”

Thanos looked at him, then back at the two, then to the chaos of gunshots, screams, and bodies huddled behind overturned bunks.  The pain in his arm was a dull sear beneath the agony of seeing Se-mi’s face contorted with killing intent. He knew that look. He’d worn it himself.

Then he surged forward.

001 tried to hold him back, muscles straining, but Thanos twisted with a sudden, brutal jerk of his good shoulder, breaking free. He stumbled forward, barely managing to stay upright, blood trailing from his arm in wet, uneven splatters.

Around him, the world was unraveling—players screaming, enforcers still firing warning shots, people dropping, groaning, crawling. Smoke and panic swirled in the stale air. But Thanos didn’t see any of it.

All he saw was her.

Se-mi had her hand on the gun now, her fingers curling around the grip. Namgyu’s body arched as he tried to knock it from her hand, his mouth open in a silent yell. She was screaming too—wordless, animal, the kind of scream that ripped from the heart and left nothing behind.

And Thanos ran.

His boots pounded the concrete. His lungs burned. His vision narrowed to a tunnel, the sound of his own blood roaring in his ears. He barreled through a trio of players trying to crawl away, shoving one aside with his shoulder. A gunshot cracked behind him, too close, but he didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. He had nothing left to flinch with.

“Se-mi!” he screamed, voice breaking.

Her head snapped up. Her grip tightened.

Namgyu was almost beneath her now, hand falling away, too slow, too late—

But then—

He crashed into her with the full weight of his body, shoulder first, knocking her clean off Namgyu. The gun skittered across the floor with a metallic clang, spinning into the darkness. Se-mi shrieked as she hit the ground hard, Thanos’s weight slamming into her like a meteor.

They rolled.

Fists flew. Nails scraped. Thanos tasted blood again—new blood, hers, his, didn’t matter. She kneed him in the ribs, and he gasped, but he didn’t let go. He pinned her arms, panting, face inches from hers.

She screamed in his face and bucked under him, but Thanos held on with everything left in him. Even as his arm throbbed and his muscles screamed and his vision swam he didn’t let go.

Behind them, Namgyu crawled toward the gun.

Behind them, the room burned with noise.

But in that moment—it was just the three of them. And Thanos, for once in his damned life, wasn’t running away.

He was running to.

Se-mi’s body trembled beneath him, she wisted, trying to bite his hand.  Thanos gritted his teeth, tightening his grip, his knuckles white. He could feel the frantic beat of her heart against his chest, the hot, ragged edge of her breath on his face. 

Then, her eyes, darting wildly, landed on something beyond him. Maybe it was Namgyu, still scrabbling for the gun. Maybe it was the crumpled, lifeless form of MG Coin, his ruined face staring up at the ceiling. Maybe it was the enforcers, their rifles spitting fire into the panicked crowd, bodies falling, screaming. 

Whatever it was, it hit her like a physical blow.

The fight drained out of her in an instant. Her body went slack beneath him. Her eyes widened, fixed on something only she could see, and the rage on her face dissolved, replaced by a look of utter, shattering disbelief.

Thanos, still braced for her next attack, felt the sudden stillness and hesitated, his grip loosening slightly.

Then, the sound started. It wasn’t a yell of pain or a snarl of defiance. It was a raw, piercing, animal sound that ripped from her throat.

Se-mi screamed. She screamed and screamed, a long wail that seemed to vibrate in the very air. Her body arched beneath him, not in resistance, but in a convulsion of anguish. 

Thanos stared down at her, frozen. Namgyu, his hand inches from the gun, stopped crawling, his head snapping up, his eyes wide and fixed on Se-mi.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the screaming broke.

It fractured into gasping sobs. Her body shook violently, tremors running through her. Tears streamed down her face, hot and fast, mingling with sweat and grime.

She started to cry.

She cried and cried, deep, wrenching sobs that shook her entire frame. Her hands, no longer fighting, came up to cover her face, muffling the sound slightly. She curled in on herself.

Thanos remained kneeling over her, his injured arm throbbing, his chest heaving. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just watched her.

“Why,” she gasped out. “Why do you have to– take everything?”

Thanos stared. His face, smeared with blood and ash, remained impassive.

“You killed them,” she whispered hoarsely “Everything, everyone–”

She choked, tears and snot smearing together across her lips. Her hands dropped from her face and reached up, fingers twitching like they were seeking something to hold onto, but found only the empty air between them.

“What did I ever do to you?” she hissed, her voice thick and trembling. “And you—you just squeezed and squeezed until you drained the breath from his lungs. Tore him apart like he was nothing . Like we’re all fucking nothing .”

Thanos didn’t blink.

Her words came faster now, hysterical, barely human.

“Why-– why?” Her voice rose to a shriek, ragged and raw. “Every corner I turned, there you were, lurking, waiting to pounce, to torment me, to remind me of what you did. Why? Why did you do it? What did we ever do to you? You want to win? Take it, take the fucking game! Take the money!

Her fists beat at his chest. Weakly. Over and over. “I hope it fucking kills you, motherfucker I hope it fucking breaks you just like you've broken me. I hope—”

Then—

Bang.

Se-mi’s head snapped sideways. Her eyes went glassy mid-sentence, mouth still open around a sob that never finished. A single red hole bloomed through her temple. The rest of her body didn’t even twitch.

Thanos flinched—but only slightly. His breath hitched in his throat as the weight of her went still beneath him.

Namgyu stood a few feet away. The gun still raised. His hand didn’t shake.For a second, no one moved. Even the gunfire seemed distant. Muffled. As if the whole room held its breath.

Thanos slowly turned his head.

Namgyu’s face was carved from stone. No fury, no triumph. Just something hollow, scraped clean.

“She was already dead,” he said, his voice barely audible over the noise. “Should’ve voted right.”

Thanos stared at him, blood trickling from his brow. He didn’t answer. Just lowered his eyes to Se-mi’s body, and let silence gather in the hollow where something should have been.

He heard Namgyu walk over, watched him lower down and rip the red X from her breast pocket. The sound of the fabric tearing was sickeningly loud. Namgyu didn’t look at Thanos. He just stood, the bloodied X clutched in his hand, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

Thanos stayed kneeling. His injured arm screamed, a constant, burning throb. He stared at the small, dark hole in her temple, at the way her eyes were fixed on nothing.

The red is too bright. It shouldn't be that bright. Not like paint. It's thicker. Spreading. Like ketchup on a cheap tablecloth, soaking in slow, wrong. And MG Coin  looks like a discarded coat. Just... lump. They were just yelling. Loud. About me. About how Namgyu was going to…

Crack.

Close. Too close. His ear is ringing, or maybe that's just the silence where their yelling used to be. Namgyu. He did that. He put the holes in them. Not Thanos.  Him .

Whizzzzzzz.

Another one. Zipping past like an angry insect. They're still shooting. At them ? At him ? Does it matter? It's just noise now. Background static to the real problem. The red. And Namgyu.

"Get down! Get out! Go home!" Someone is yelling. A hand grabs his arm. Pulling. Away from the red. Away from the lump. Away from Namgyu.

Home?

The word feels foreign. Like a language he used to speak but forgot. Home is where the mail comes. Where the tap drips. Where the walls are a colour he didn't choose. It's safe. Predictable. This isn't safe. This is loud and sharp and smells like burnt metal and something else, something coppery and sweet. This is chaos. This is wrong.

The hand is still pulling. "Come on! Now!"

Go home? And leave this? Leave the question hanging in the air, thick with gunpowder and blood? Leave Namgyu standing there, or kneeling, or whatever he's doing, after he just, after he just broke everything?

Thanos shakes the hand off. The yelling stops, replaced by the crack-whizz symphony. His own heart is a drum against his ribs.

“Get up.”

It was 001. His voice was devoid of the pleading tone from moments before. He didn’t wait for Thanos to respond, but yanked him up and away from Se-mi’s body with surprising strength. Thanos stumbled, his legs weak, his injured arm sending a fresh wave of agony through him.

“We’re not staying here,” 001 said, his eyes scanning the room, which was still chaos – players huddled behind cover, enforcers maintaining their firing positions, Namgyu standing frozen over Se-mi’s corpse.

“Namgyu–” Thanos started, but 001 cut him off.

“He made his choice. Now we make ours.” 001’s gaze settled on a fallen enforcer near the entrance, their rifle lying discarded beside them. “You want to stay here? You want that prize money?”

Thanos didn’t hear the words, but he nodded anyway.

“Then follow my lead.” He shoved Thanos towards the entrance, keeping a tight grip on his arm. As they moved, 001 scooped up the fallen enforcer’s rifle. It was heavier than it looked, cold and solid in his hands. He checked the magazine with a practiced flick.

“Here.” Without looking, 001 tossed a smaller handgun towards Thanos. It skittered across the concrete, coming to rest near his feet. “Can you use that?”

Thanos stared at the weapon, then back at 001. His mind was a jumble of Se-mi’s dead face, Namgyu’s hollow eyes, and the animal fear that was starting to claw its way back into his gut. He bent, wincing, and picked it up. It was a standard issue sidearm.

“Yeah,” he rasped, his voice rough. “I can use it.”

001 nodded, a grim set to his jaw. “Good. The enforcers are focused on the crowd. We hit them from the flank, create a diversion. Get to the exit.”

He didn’t wait for agreement. 001 moved with a sudden speed, darting behind a stack of crates near the entrance. Thanos followed, feet hitting concrete, or maybe not concrete, maybe just air. The sound not gunshots. More like wet pops. No, popcorn. Definitely popcorn popping behind him. Namgyu's still there. Standing. Over them. He has it. He has the cross.

Thanos’s cross. Not his his, but the one with the little hinge. The one that clicks open. The one with the tiny white circles inside. His life. In that little silver box. Tucked inside the cheap metal cross. Namgyu’s just standing there. Popcorn popping.

The handgun felt alien and heavy in his good hand. The enforcers hadn’t noticed them yet, their attention still fixed on the cowering players.

“Ready?” 001 whispered, peering around the edge of the crate, the rifle raised.

Namgyu didn't need it. He never needed it. He just did things. Like breathing. Or breaking bones. Or kissing.  Or making the red mess. Good mess. Necessary mess. They deserved it. Every single one. Like rotten fruit. You just clear it away. Namgyu clears it away.

But he has the box. Thanos’s box. His click. His quiet. The noise is too loud now. The popcorn. And the sirens starting to whine like hurt dogs. Or maybe laughing hyenas, can't tell. Everything's vibrating. The red is bleeding into each other. Red smears. Like someone finger-painted the floor.

Thanos took a shaky breath. He looked at the enforcers, , their rifles spitting fire. He looked back at Namgyu, still standing motionless over Se-mi. A cold, hard knot formed in his stomach.

“Ready,” he said, and raised the handgun.

Namgyu had looked satisfied. Or just empty. Hard to tell in the red light. Namgyu’s red light. He took his light. The little white circles. They don't ground you. That's not it. They just make the edges stop fraying. Keep the static from taking over. Without them, it's all static. And popcorn. And bleeding red lights.

Namgyu’s still there. He knows he is. Standing over the fruit. With Thanos’s box. His click. His quiet. Namgyu doesn't need quiet. He is the quiet after the storm. Thanos is just the storm before the storm. Or something.

Need it back. Need the click. The tiny white circle. To make the world stop spinning like a broken top. To make his hands feel like his. To make the popcorn sound like gunshots again. Just need the click. Need the quiet inside the noise. Need Namgyu.

No. Need the cross.

001 fired first. The rifle sounded, and an enforcer staggered back, clutching their arm. That was the signal. Thanos leaned out and fired, the handgun kicking in his grip. He aimed for the legs, the arms – anything to disrupt their line.

Loud. Sharp. Not popcorn. This was different. A tearing sound. And then another. And another. From everywhere. Not just 001. Others. Players. Shooting back. Finally.

His hand is shaking. The handgun feels wrong. Too small. Too light. Like a toy. But it’s spitting fire. Little flashes. Like angry camera bulbs. Pointing it at the masks. They’re falling. Or stumbling. Hard to tell. Everything’s a blur of motion and noise. The popcorn is back. Louder now. Mixed with the tearing. And the screams.

He has it. Namgyu. Standing there. Still. Over the fruit. With the box. Thanos’s box. His quiet. How can Namgyu just stand there? Doesn’t he hear the static? The world is vibrating apart. The walls are breathing. In and out. Or is that just his chest?

Shoot. Point and shoot. That’s what the hand is doing. Not Thanos. Someone else’s hand. Attached to his arm. Jerking with the recoil. The masks are getting closer. Or further away? They’re dropping. One. Two. Three? Can’t count. Too much noise. Too much red.

Another mask falls. Heavy. A thud that cuts through the noise for a second. How many left? Three? Two? His eyes are watering. From the smoke? Can’t see clearly. Just shapes. Moving. Falling.

“Move!” 001 is yelling. His face is tight. Focused. He’s not hearing the popcorn. He’s hearing gunshots. He’s seeing targets. Not bleeding light. Not breathing walls. Lucky him.

One left. Just one mask standing. Against the wall. Rifle still up. But wavering. Like he’s tired. Or confused. Like Thanos. Maybe he needs a tiny white circle too.

“Now!” 001 is pulling Thanos. Towards the exit. A dark rectangle in the bleeding wall. Away from the red. Away from the static. Away from Namgyu.

Can’t leave him. He has the box. The quiet. The click. He’s just standing there. Still. While the world tears itself apart around him. He doesn’t need it. He is the quiet.

And the players followed. A wave of bodies, no longer cowering, but surging forward. Towards the exit. Towards the last enforcer. Towards whatever was next. Thanos was swept up in it. His legs moved, carrying him forward, away from the red smears, away from Namgyu. The handgun was still in his hand, heavy and useless now.

The last enforcer didn’t fight. Didn’t run. Just stood there as the crowd washed over him. Then he was gone. Absorbed. Or maybe just knocked down. Didn’t matter. The path was clear.

The exit loomed. A dark rectangle in the wall. A mouth. Thanos stumbled through, pushed and pulled by the bodies around him. The air changed. Colder. Smelling of dust and something metallic. They were in a corridor. Long. Dimly lit. More concrete. More doors. But different. Bigger. This was the main building. They were inside.

The small crowd didn’t stop. They surged down the corridor, a single, unthinking organism. Storming it. Storming what ? Thanos didn’t know. Didn’t care. He was just moving. His arm a dead weight, his head buzzing with static.

He looked back for a second. The entrance they’d just come through was a gaping maw behind them. He thought he saw a shape standing there. Just inside the red light. Still. Watching. Namgyu? Or just a trick of the light? Didn’t matter. He was here now. In the noise. In the storm. And the storm was moving. Towards the next door.

The handgun felt like a stone. He wanted the click. He wanted the quiet. He wanted the red to stop bleeding. But there was only forward. And the noise. And the feeling that he wasn’t running to anything. Just running from the quiet. Running from the box. Running from Namgyu. Running from the red. Always running.

A wave of nausea washed over him, and he gagged.

Stare at the wall, the wall isn’t moving.

Another gag, the back of his throat making an unpleasant sound, and his stomach’s contents spilled onto the floor with a splat.

He moaned, the sound wet and miserable. His body shook with the aftershocks of the retching. He slumped against the cold concrete wall of the corridor, his injured arm screaming, his head swimming. The static was louder now, a high-pitched whine behind the receding sounds of the storm they had just fled. The red light pulsed behind his eyelids, staining everything.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, trying to find a still point in the spinning chaos. But there was no still point. Just the noise, the red, the ache in his arm, and the phantom weight of the handgun in his hand.

A shadow fell over him.

Thanos flinched, his eyes snapping open. He expected an enforcer, or maybe 001, impatient to keep moving.

It wasn’t.

Se-mi stood over him. She wasn’t a corpse anymore. She was solid, real, framed by the dim corridor light. She was carrying a rifle, one of the enforcers’ weapons, its dark metal gleaming faintly. She didn’t look angry, or sad, or even hollow. 

She didn’t say anything at first. She just looked down at Thanos, at the vomit splattered on the floor, at the blood dripping from his arm. Then, slowly, she knelt.

She didn’t offer a hand. She didn’t ask if Thanos was okay. She simply reached out and placed the rifle he was carrying into Thanos’s uninjured hand. It was heavier than the handgun, solid and familiar. Thanos’s fingers closed around the cold metal grip almost instinctively.

Se-mi’s eyes, dark and steady, met his.

“We’re going home,” Se-mi said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A simple, impossible statement.

Thanos stared for a moment, then he slowly shook his head, and said: “I don’t… want to go home.”

“You have to.”

“I don’t want to go home.” He slurred, staring at the floor, at the dark, glistening puddle of his own sickness. he word felt thin, papery, like something that could be torn apart with a single breath.

Se-mi knelt there, solid and still, the rifle resting easily in her hand. Her face was calm, unmarred by the violence that had just consumed her. Thanos didn’t look at her directly. He never did.

“Maybe not,” Se-mi said, her voice soft, almost conversational. Her gaze, Thanos felt rather than saw, shifted. Not to him, not to the vomit, but past him, down the corridor. “Maybe you want him.”

 Thanos flinched, a sharp intake of breath. His head snapped up, his good eye locking onto her face. The calm, unmarred face of the woman he had just seen shot through the temple. The woman whose body he had knelt over, watching the red spread.

“What?” he croaked, the word thick with disbelief and the taste of bile.

Se-mi’s expression didn’t change. She looked past him, down the corridor, her gaze distant. “Namgyu,” she repeated. “You want… whatever this is between you.”

Thanos stared at her, then back at the dark entrance they had come through. Namgyu. Standing over the bodies. Holding the cross. His cross. His quiet.

“No,” Thanos said, shaking his head again, more firmly this time. The static in his head seemed to intensify. “No. I don’t want… I want to win.”

Se-mi finally looked at him. “Win what, Thanos? The game? The money?”

“Yes,” he insisted, pushing himself further up the wall, ignoring the fresh wave of pain from his arm. “The prize. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m here.”

A faint smile touched Se-mi’s lips. “And you think you can win, staying here?”

“I have to,” Thanos said, clutching the rifle she had given him. It felt real. Solid. A tool for winning. “I’m not leaving. Not without the prize.”

Se-mi’s smile faded. Her voice dropped, losing its conversational tone, becoming sharp, edged with a terrible certainty. “Then you understand, don’t you?”

Thanos frowned, the static making it hard to focus. “Understand what?”

“If you stay,” Se-mi said, her gaze flicking back towards the entrance, towards the place where Namgyu still stood, “it’s either you or him.”

“What are you talking about?” 

She paused, letting the implication hang in the air.

Thanos stared at her.  The red light pulsed behind his eyes. The popcorn sound started again, faint at first, then louder. Namgyu. The cross. The quiet. The red.

“No,” he said, the word a choked gasp. “No, that’s not… that’s not how it works.”

Se-mi’s expression was sympathetic. “It is, Thanos. It always was. You just didn’t want to see it.” She gestured back towards the entrance with her head. “He’s not leaving. He has his reasons.” She sighed, eyeing her empty breast pocket where her patch once was. “That much is clear. And you have yours for staying.”

She stood up, the movement fluid and silent. The rifle in her hand seemed a natural extension of her arm.

“So,” she said, her voice returning to that soft, conversational tone, as if discussing the weather. “Do you want to go home, or do you want to stay?”

Thanos looked from the dark corridor leading away, to the dark entrance leading back. Home. Or Namgyu. Life. Or Death. 

He didn’t answer. He just knelt there, the rifle heavy in his hand.

“I mean, now that we’re out of the way,” Se-mi continued. “There’s nothing stopping you. No one left to test you. If you don’t bleed out, that is.” She eyed his arm.

Thanos followed her gaze to the dark, wet stain spreading on his sleeve. The throbbing was a dull, insistent drumbeat beneath the static. Bleed out. The words felt distant, like a medical term applied to someone else.

“He’s still there, Thanos. With your quiet.”

Thanos flinched again.  “He… he shot you,” he stammered, the words tumbling out, desperate to make sense of the impossible. “He shot MG Coin. He… he didn’t kill me.”

“He made his choices,” Se-mi said. “Just like you make yours. Just like everyone here makes theirs. And now there’s only one choice left that matters.”

She leaned closer. “Stay and face him. Or run. Go home. Forget this. Forget him.”

Forget him. Forget the hollow look in Namgyu’s eyes, the steady hand that had pulled the trigger, the way he stood over the bodies, holding the cross. Forget the moments of shared silence, the unexpected kindness, the brutal understanding. Forget the man who had left him alive when he should have died.

Thanos squeezed his eyes shut, the static screaming. The red light pulsed, brighter now, behind his eyelids. Home. A dripping tap. Walls he didn’t choose. Safety. Predictability. An end to the noise. An end to the red.

“I can’t,” he choked out, the words barely audible. “I can’t go home.”

Se-mi was silent for a moment. 

“Then you know what you have to do,” she said. “You stay. You fight. And you win. Or you die trying.”

She looked down at him, kneeling in his own sickness, clutching the rifle. There was no judgment in her eyes. “Good luck, Thanos.”

And then, she was gone.

Not faded. Not dissolved. Just gone. One moment she was there, solid and real, the next the space where she had been was empty.  Thanos stayed kneeling, staring at the empty space where Se-mi had been. He looked down at the rifle in his hand. It was real. The vomit on the floor was real. The throbbing in his arm was real. Namgyu was real. The cross was real. The choice was real.

Stay. Fight. Win. Or die.

He pushed himself up, using the wall for support. His legs trembled. His arm screamed. The static was still there, a high-pitched whine, but beneath it, a new sound was starting. A low hum. The sound of the building itself. Waiting.

He looked back down the corridor, towards the dark entrance. Towards the red light. Towards Namgyu.

All he knew was that he wasn’t running away anymore.

He was running to.

Towards the end.

Towards Namgyu.

Towards the quiet.

—------------------------------------

Namgyu wipes his face with the back of his other hand, smearing the blood that isn’t his. It’s hard to distinguish where the sweat ends and the blood begins. All of it feels the same. It always does. The adrenaline, the death, the emptiness. The kill. It doesn’t hit like it used to. The rush. The thrill. Gone. Just like the others. 

The third. The third one. It's like ticking a box now. Two bodies, strewn on the cold concrete floor, twisted in ways they shouldn’t have been. They're just two more forgotten faces in the wake of a life he can't seem to shake off. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. He’s not sure anymore. He stares at the gun, almost like he’s inspecting it. Funny. A weapon that was once so foreign to him, now it feels... comfortable. 

His hand shakes. Just a little. He doesn’t want to feel anything. Just tired. Too tired. His muscles are sore, his mind is clouded, his thoughts too fragmented to make sense of. But it’s the kind of tired that doesn’t go away, no matter how much you sleep. The kind that stays with you in your bones, in your marrow, in your blood. 

He lets the gun dangle loosely from his fingers. It doesn’t take long for his eyes to wander, to find the cross necklace hanging from his neck. He fingers it absently, his thumb brushing over the smooth metal. He doesn’t know why he’s wearing it still.

But it’s there. Always there. He takes a deep breath, leaning his back against the wall, eyes closing for a moment. It feels like he hasn’t slept in weeks. Maybe that’s why everything’s blurry. Or maybe it’s just the pills.

He pulls at the chain, and the cross swings gently. Pills that were supposed to be the lifeline, the control, the bridge back to sanity. He remembers the way Thanos’ eyes had burned with just before everything went wrong. The way his mind had splintered, slipping through his fingers again and again, despite every promise he’d made to hold on. 

The way he failed. 

His thumb drifts over the cross again. Just one more thing he needs to do. One more task, one more piece of this broken puzzle to finish. The pills will work. They’ll fix it.

He stares at the mess of MG Coin’s face, then his eyes flitted to Se-mi.

He faintly wondered why one went splat and the other went still. Wondered if his own head would go splat or still.

The idea dances in the back of his mind, teasing him for just a moment. His gaze drifted back to the gun in his hand. It felt heavy now, a dead weight. It was just a tool. A simple mechanism for making things stop. Making noise stop. Making pain stop. Making everything stop.

He raised the gun slowly, the movement unhurried, almost casual. The cold metal pressed against his temple, just above his ear. It felt strangely cool against his skin, a small point of stillness in the buzzing chaos of his head.

A door he hadn’t considered opening until now. A way out. A simple, elegant solution to a problem that felt impossibly complex. The thought settled, comfortable.

His finger rested lightly of the trigger.

The other players will finish him off later. That’s a certainty. No more fighting. Just a bang.

A simple click. A final punctuation mark on a sentence he hadn’t meant to write. The noise would stop. The red would stop bleeding. The static would cease its high-pitched whine. It was just easy. Easier than anything else he’d done in this place. Easier than breathing. Easier than living.

He wasn’t afraid. Not of the bang, not of the dark, not of whatever came after. There was a strange, serene clarity in the moment. He saw the faces of MG Coin and Se-mi, not with horror or guilt, but with a recognition. They were finished. He could be too.

His thumb brushed the cross at his neck again, the cool metal a familiar weight. The pills inside. Thanos’s pills. A lifeline. A way back.

But back to what?

More noise. More red. More failure. The gun felt lighter now, almost buoyant.

He closed his eyes, the image of the dark, quiet void already forming behind his eyelids. Just a breath. Just a gentle squeeze.

And then, something broke.

It wasn’t a thought, or a memory, or a sudden surge of fear. It was a physical rupture, deep in his chest, a tearing sensation that stole his breath. His hand, the one holding the gun, began to tremble violently, the cold metal rattling against his temple. His jaw clenched, a choked sound escaping his throat.

The serene calm shattered like glass.

A sob ripped through him, raw and agonizing, forcing his eyes open. Tears, hot and stinging, blurred his vision, streaming down his face, mixing with the sweat and blood already there. The gun clattered from his shaking hand, hitting the concrete with a dull clank.

He crumpled, sinking down the wall, pulling his knees to his chest. He buried his face in his hands, the sobs wracking his body, loud in the sudden silence around him.

He gasped for air, choking on his own saliva, drool dripping from his lips, flying with each sob wracking his body. Another choke, and a tremor wracking from his body. A gasp, he hugged himself, choked again.  The sobs tore through him, loud and ugly, a sound he hadn’t made in years. He was a child again, lost and terrified, the world too big. 

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying to block it out, but the sounds clawed their way in. The frantic shouts of the players, the rythm of the enforcers’ fire. They were still fighting. Still trying to get out.

Get out.

The words echoed in his head, cutting through the static and the sobs.

Get out.  

His eyes snapped open. Bodies. Guns. The exit.

His gaze landed on the gun he had dropped. It lay just a few feet away, a dark shape on the stained concrete. A tool. A way out.

With a ragged gasp, Namgyu pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. His legs trembled, but they held him. He stumbled forward, ignoring the throbbing in his arm, the ache in his chest.

He reached the gun, his hand closing around the cold, familiar grip. It felt different now. A key. A weapon. A lifeline.

He can leave.

The thought rings louder than the alarms blaring through the bloodstained corridors. Louder than the static in his ears, the kind that never really leaves—not since the first kill.

You can leave.

The exit door's open. For the first time since this hell began. All he has to do is walk through it.

But his feet. They don’t move.

He should be running. Scrambling. Shooting. But he’s rooted here like some pathetic statue to every sin he’s committed. All those faces. All those eyes.

He still remembers the first one. Min-s– He didn’t want to. He said it a thousand times: “ I had to. ” But the truth is, there was always a choice. And he chose Thanos. Chose blood over morality, moment after moment, until the mirror forgot how to reflect anything human.

And now he can leave. Alive. Scarred, hollow, but alive.

With nothing.

Not the money. Not the prize. Not the redemption he swore he’d carve out of this nightmare. Just absence. Like it never happened. Like the bodies they stepped over were just scenery. Noise.

What was it all for, then?

Namgyu’s fingers tightened around the gun.  His eyes flicked back to the exit. Freedom was there, just steps away, but it felt like a lie. A cruel trick dressed up as salvation. His chest heaved, the ache from his sobs still lingering, like a blade lodged between his ribs.

He could still hear the chaos in front of him. The shouts, the gunfire, the wet thud of bodies hitting the floor. The other players were clawing for their own survival, their own escape. They didn’t care about him, about the blood on his hands or the cross around his neck. They didn’t care about Thanos, or MG Coin, or Se-mi. They didn’t care about the pills rattling softly in their hidden compartment.

He took a step toward the door, then stopped. It wasn’t guilt, not exactly. Guilt required a sense of right and wrong, and those lines had blurred long ago. It was something else. A weight. A question.

What was it all for?

The thought looped in his mind like the static that never stopped humming.

He could leave. He could walk through that door, let the green light swallow him, and disappear into whatever waited outside. A world that didn’t know his name, didn’t know the things he’d done. A world that wouldn’t care. 

MG Coin’s face, unrecognizable now, a mess of red and ruin. Se-mi, still and silent, her eyes open but unseeing. He wondered again why one had shattered and the other hadn’t. Why some broke and others just stopped. He wondered if it even mattered.

The gun felt heavy again, but he didn’t raise it this time. Instead, he let it hang at his side, his arm limp. The exit was still there, but it didn’t pull him anymore. It wasn’t a way out—not really. It was just another door, leading to another kind of prison. 

He took another step, then another, but not toward the exit. His feet carried him past the bodies, past the blood pooling on the floor, toward the far wall where the shadows were thickest. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was cowardice, maybe it was just the need to move, to do something other than stand still and drown in his own head.

The cross swung against his chest as he walked, the pills inside rattling faintly. He sat, his hand closing around it again, his thumb tracing the familiar edges. Thanos’s lifeline. His lifeline. A lie he’d told himself to keep going, to justify the blood, the betrayal, the endless spiral of violence. He yanked the chain, hard, and it snapped, the cross falling into his palm. He stared at it, the metal warm from his skin, the weight of it so much heavier than it should have been.

He opened it, the tiny compartment springing free.

The cross glinted in the light, and the question rang again. What was it all for?

He stared at it.

Then his eyes widened ever so slightly.

Oh.

“Oh.”

So that’s why he kissed Thanos.

It had been a knee jerk reaction. An action of pure instinct, pure panic, an attempt to make Thanos understand . Not out of some grand gesture, not out of love or longing or any of the poetic nonsense people might pin on it later. Namgyu’s lips still burned with the memory of it, that desperate, clumsy press against Thanos’s mouth. Not a kiss born of romance or longing, but a scream in physical form.

Stay. Don’t break. Don’t leave me here alone with this.

He hadn’t meant to do it. Hadn’t even known he was going to until his hands were on Thanos’s face, pulling him close, trying to pour something—anything—into the void that had opened between them.

He let out a short, bitter laugh, the sound swallowed by the distant gunfire. Of course. Of course it took a slaughterhouse and a split-second betrayal of his own heart to figure it out. Typical. He’d always been slow on the uptake. Too busy surviving to notice he was drowning in something deeper than blood.

How inconvenient.

That the man who’d shot at him less than forty minutes ago, the man who’d treated him like a dog, was the one he’d been orbiting all along. Thanos, with his manic grin and his purple hair and his promises of a life bigger than the one they’d been handed. Thanos, who’d made Namgyu feel like he was part of something, even if that something was a runaway train careening toward a cliff. Namgyu chasing that feeling, that spark, like a moth to a flame, and now here he was—singed, scarred, and standing in a room full of corpses, realizing he’d mistaken a forest fire for a hearth.

The one he’d been clinging to like some lovesick fool. Namgyu’s laugh turned sharper, slicing through the haze in his head. Thanos . The name alone felt like a bad joke, one he’d been the punchline for far too long. He’d been ready to die for that bastard, to bleed for him, to kiss him in a panic like some melodramatic idiot chasing a schoolgirl crush. And for what? A guy who’d sooner put a bullet in him than say thanks?

Namgyu wiped his face again, the blood and sweat smearing into a gritty mess. His lips curled into a sneer. “Fuck this,” he muttered.

Home . Not some poetic bullshit about finding himself or redemption or whatever nonsense he’d been chasing. Just home. A shitty apartment, a lumpy mattress, maybe a beer in the fridge if he was lucky. A place where the static in his head might finally shut up. A place where he could forget the taste of Thanos’s name, the weight of a gun, the way blood looked when it wasn’t his.

He straightened, his legs steadier now, the ache in his chest dulling to a faint throb. The gun was still in his hand, but it wasn’t a lifeline anymore, it was insurance.

Namgyu took one last look at the bodies. MG Coin, Se-mi, Thanos—they could all stay here, rotting in this hellhole of their own making. He was going the fuck home .

He walked over to MG Coin’s body, tilted his head, then crouched. “Shouldn’t have scammed me, dickwad.”
Holding the gun steady, Namgyu straightened up. “Later, assholes,” he said under his breath.

He looked beyond the door, where the sounds of struggle were loudest. Players were still huddled behind bunks, others were pushing forward yellow staircases, through engaging the remaining enforcers. Thanos and 001 were somewhere in that mess.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the exit. And the only way to get to it was through the noise. Through the red. Through the fight.

He was getting out.

He was getting the fuck out of this hell hole.

Namgyu didn’t hesitate. He turned from the bodies, from the lingering scent of blood, and moved towards the sounds of the ongoing battle. The corridor opened into a vast, cavernous space, dimly lit and filled with the echoing of gunfire and shouting. And there it was.

The yellow staircases twisted up and down like a maze, spiralling and crisscrossing over each other like a tangled knot of ribbon candy. They were all scattered across the levels, using the railings and steps as cover, trading fire across the open air between the platforms, the air thick with the stench of death and the distant bark of orders mingled with screams.

Blood sprayed, catching Namgyu in the eye, and he froze. He eyed the dead body. Player 130.

The sting of blood in his eye blurred his vision for a moment. He swiped at it with his sleeve, the fabric already soaked and useless. Player 130’s body lay crumpled at his feet, a fresh hole in their chest, eyes wide and empty. Another face to forget. Another tick on a list he didn’t want to keep..

His legs took an involuntary step back to safety. 

Get out.

He took a deep breath, steeled himself, then scanned the spiraling yellow staircases. Players darted between cover, some screaming, some silent. Enforcers in pink tracksuits held the higher platforms, their rifles spitting fire. Bullets ricocheted off the railings, sparking and singing through the air. The exit was up there somewhere, past the maze, past the bodies piling up on the steps. Freedom. Home.

Namgyu’s legs trembled, but he forced them to move. He ducked low, keeping to the shadows of the lower platform, his back pressed against the cold metal of a staircase. He edged forward, his boots slipping slightly on the blood-slicked floor. A player—some kid, maybe 17, with a shaved head and a makeshift shank—sprinted past him, only to catch a bullet in the neck. The kid gargled, collapsing in a heap, the shank clattering away.

Namgyu didn’t look twice. His eyes locked on the nearest staircase, its steps leading up to a platform where two players were pinned down, firing wildly at an enforcer above.

He could do this. Slip through, stay low, let the others eat the bullets. He’d done it before. Survived by being invisible, by letting the louder, brasher idiots take the heat. But something in his chest twisted, a stubborn knot of hesitation. The static in his head hummed louder, drowning out the gunfire for a split second. Thanos was out there. Somewhere in this mess. Probably laughing, probably bleeding, probably not giving a shit about Namgyu or the kiss or any of it.

“Fuck him,” Namgyu muttered, his voice barely audible. He took a breath, swallowed dryly, and broke from cover, sprinting for the staircase. His boots pounded the metal steps, each one ringing out like a gunshot. He kept his head down, his gun raised, ready to fire at anything that moved too close. The platform was just ahead, the two players still alive, their backs to him as they traded shots with the enforcer.

He reached the platform, sliding behind a rusted railing for cover. The players didn’t notice him at first, too focused on the enforcer above. One of them, a woman with a buzzcut and a jagged scar across her cheek, was screaming curses between shots. The other, a wiry guy, was reloading, his hands shaking so badly he nearly dropped the magazine. Namgyu crouched low, his breath ragged, his eyes darting between them and the staircase leading up.

“Hey,” Namgyu hissed, just loud enough to get their attention. “You got a plan, or you just dying up here?”

The woman whipped around, her gun trained on him in an instant. Her eyes were wild, pupils blown wide with adrenaline. “Who the fuck are you?” she snapped, her voice hoarse.

“Someone who wants out,” Namgyu said, keeping his gun raised but not aimed at her. “Same as you, girl.”

The wiry guy glanced over, his face slick with sweat. “Then help us, man! We’re pinned down. Bastard’s got the high ground.”

Namgyu’s jaw tightened. Help them. Fight with them. The thought churned in his gut like bad liquor. But the exit was up there, and he wasn’t getting through alone—not with enforcers holding the platforms.

“What about the breach?” He asked, voice clipped.

The woman faltered for a moment. “The– what?”

“The breach,” Namgyu repeated slowly, miming with his hands, as if explaining something to a particularly dense child. “With the beach, or whatever. What about the breach?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, her gun still trained on Namgyu, but her grip loosened slightly, like she was trying to process his words through the haze of adrenaline and gunfire. “The breach?” she repeated, her voice sharp with suspicion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Namgyu’s lips twitched into a grimace, his patience fraying. He didn’t have time for this. The enforcer above was still firing, bullets pinging off the railing inches from their heads. “The tunnels,” he said, jerking his chin toward the far side of the cavernous room. “Heard some players talking earlier. Said there’s a weak spot in the structure. A way through. Out to a beach. Old guy said there’s a boat waiting.”

The wiry guy fumbled his magazine into place, his eyes darting between Namgyu and the woman. “You serious? A breach? Why didn’t you lead with that, asshole?”

“Because I don’t know if it’s real,” Namgyu snapped, his voice low and urgent. “Could be bullshit. Could be a trap. But it’s a shot, and I’m not dying on this staircase waiting for you two to figure out how to aim.”

The woman’s glare didn’t waver, but she lowered her gun a fraction, her jaw working like she was chewing on the idea. “If it’s a trap, you’re the one walking into it first,” she said. “We don’t know you.”

“Fine by me,” Namgyu shot back. “Long as you keep that trigger finger off me, we’re good.”

A burst of gunfire forced all three to duck lower. The enforcer above had shifted position, now leaning over the platform’s edge, his rifle sweeping for a clear shot. The wiry guy cursed under his breath, his hands shaking as he raised his gun. “We can’t stay here,” he muttered. “He’s gonna pick us off.”

“Fine,” Namgyu said, his voice clipped. “Cover me. I’m going up.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, like she was sizing him up, then nodded. “Don’t fuck us over.”

Namgyu didn’t bother responding. He waited for her to lay down a burst of fire, then bolted for the next staircase. The platform above was close now, the enforcer’s silhouette visible through the gaps in the railings. Namgyu raised his gun, ready to fire, when the woman and the wiry guy caught up, their footsteps heavy behind him.

“Move!” the woman shouted, shoving past him to take point. The wiry guy was right behind her, his gun trained on the enforcer’s position. Namgyu fell in step, his heart pounding, the static in his head buzzing like a swarm of wasps. Three against one. Better odds.

The enforcer popped out from cover, firing a burst that grazed the railing beside Namgyu’s head. He ducked, cursing, and returned fire, hissony, his shots inaccurate. The woman and the wiry guy were more precise, their bullets forcing the enforcer to duck back. Namgyu’s chest heaved, his muscles screaming, but the adrenaline was back, cutting through the fog in his mind.

“Push up!” the woman barked, already moving.  Namgyu followed, his body on autopilot, muscle memory taking over. The wiry guy was right beside him. They hit the platform together, the enforcer scrambling to reposition. Namgyu lined up a shot, his finger steady on the trigger—

And then the woman shoved him.

Hard.

Namgyu stumbled forward, his balance gone, his gun clattering from his hand as he fell into the open. The enforcer’s head snapped up, eyes locking onto him, rifle swinging in his direction. Bullets tore through the air, and Namgyu hit the platform face-first, pain exploding across his jaw. He scrambled for cover, his hands clawing at the metal, but there was none.

“Fuck!” he screamed, his voice raw, his heart slamming against his ribs. The woman and the wiry guy were already moving, using his fall as a distraction, firing at the enforcer from their new angle. 

The enforcer’s rifle clicked—empty. Namgyu didn’t think. He lunged for his gun, fingers closing around the grip, and fired. Once, twice, three times. The enforcer jerked, blood spraying, and collapsed, his body slumping over the railing.

Namgyu lay there, gasping, his chest heaving, the world a blur of yellow and red. The woman and the wiry guy were already moving up, not sparing him a glance. He pushed himself to his knees, his hands shaking, rage boiling in his gut.

He knows what Thanos would do. Follow them up, shoot them in the stomach. Let them bleed out slow.

Namgyu’s fingers tightened around the gun. For a fleeting second, he imagined raising it, aiming at the woman’s back, the wiry guy’s scrawny neck. Two quick shots. Let them bleed out slow, like Thanos would’ve done.

But he didn’t. His arm stayed heavy at his side, the gun a dead weight.  He forced himself to his feet, his legs wobbling like a newborn colt’s. The platform vibrated under him. The woman and the wiry guy were out of sight now, probably already on the next platform, fighting or dying or both. Didn’t matter. The exit was close—he could feel it, like a pull in his gut, stronger than the static, stronger than the ache in his bones. He just had to keep moving.

Namgyu ducked low and sprinted for the next staircase. Bullets whizzed past, one grazing his sleeve, tearing the fabric but missing his skin. He didn’t flinch. He’d been shot at too many times today to care. The staircase loomed ahead, its steps littered with bodies, players, enforcers, indistinguishable.  He vaulted over a corpse, not daring to look at the face, and kept climbing.

Shouts and screams mingled with the constant crackle of gunfire. Players were scrambling up and down the stairs, seeking cover, trying to find an angle. Enforcers were doing the same, their red uniforms stark against the yellow.

Namgyu reached a landing, ducking behind a thick metal support beam as a burst of automatic fire tore into the steps above him. He peered around the beam, looking for a clear path, looking for a familiar face.

Then he saw him.

Thanos across the chasm, further up the spiraling steps. Purple hair glinting under the harsh lights, gun raised, cutting down players. He wasn’t even looking at the enforcers—just the players, the ones scrambling for their lives, the ones who might’ve been allies moments ago. His grin was wide, like he was playing a game and winning.

He was on a platform on the opposite side of the structure, maybe thirty feet away. He had the enforcer's rifle, firing towards a group of masks on a higher level. He looked focused, entirely absorbed in the fight.

Namgyu felt something shift inside him. Not the static, not the red, but something else. A pull. A direction.

He had to cross an open section, a narrow walkway suspended between two staircases. He ran, exposed, the air around him alive with the sound of bullets. He fired his gun blindly towards the nearest enforcers, trying to draw their fire, trying to make it across.

He made it to the other side, scrambling up a short flight of stairs and dropping onto the platform near 001.

“001!” Namgyu yelled over the noise.

001 flinched, spinning around, the rifle snapping up. His eyes widened when he saw Namgyu.

“Namgyu?” he shouted back, lowering the rifle slightly. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Helping,” Namgyu said, dropping to a crouch beside him. He pointed his handgun towards the enforcers Gi-hun had been engaging. “Give me a target.”

001 stared at him for a second, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. Then, he nodded.

“Upper level, far side!” 001 yelled, raising his rifle again. “Three of them!”

Namgyu followed his gaze. Three black masks were visible above the railing on a platform high above them. He raised his gun, steadying his aim. 

He fired. The handgun kicked in his grip. Beside him, 001’s rifle cracked. Two shots, almost simultaneous.

One enforcer went down. Then another. The third ducked back behind cover.

“Good shot!” Gi-hun shouted, his head peaking out, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“You too, gramps,” Namgyu replied, reloading, then casually: “What happened to that breach?”

001 grip faltered on the gun, his head imperceptibly jerking to Namgyu. His finger twitched on the trigger, mouth mouth half forming a sentence, before a bullet whizzed past his ear, forcing him to duck back behind the railing. The moment broke, and 001’s focus snapped back to the fight, his jaw tight.

“Breach?” 001 said, his voice loud enough to carry over the din. He fired off another shot, the rifle’s recoil barely shifting his stance. “Oh, you mean that little rumor? Just a bedtime story, boy. Something to keep the rats scurrying.”

Namgyu’s jaw clenched, the static in his head spiking into a shrill whine. “Bullshit,” he spat, leaning closer, his voice dripping venom. “You were the one pushing that story, old man. Said there was a way out. A boat. Don’t play dumb with me now.”

001 didn’t even glance at him, his eyes locked on the upper platform where the last enforcer was still crouched. He squeezed off another shot, the crack of the rifle punctuating his words. “You’re too gullible, Namgyu. A breach? In this place?” He snorted, shaking his head. “They’d sooner let us all choke on our own blood than leave a crack in the walls.”

Namgyu’s lips curled into a sneer, his free hand balling into a fist. “Fuck you,” he said, his voice low. “You think I’m some idiot you can jerk around? I heard you, asshole. Just a few hours ago. Now you’re telling me it’s nothing? You’re full of shit.”

001 finally turned, just enough to meet Namgyu’s glare. “Careful,” he said, his tone almost gentle, like he was scolding a child. “You’re starting to sound paranoid. Keep that up, and you’ll be seeing ghosts next.” He jerked his chin toward the Thanos. “Just like your friend there.”

Namgyu followed his gaze, quiet for a moment, then he forced a laugh. “Oh, that’s rich. Focus ? You’re dodging, gramps. Slipping around the question like the slimy bastard you are.” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a mocking hiss. “What’s the matter? Did your little plan fall apart? Or are you just too chickenshit to admit you lied?”

001’s eyes narrowed, the gentle tone vanishing.. “Plan? You think I plan anything with the likes of you, Namgyu?” He spat the name like a curse. “You’re a stray dog, chasing whatever scent the wind carries. A whimpering pup who thinks barking loud makes him a wolf.” He leaned back slightly, “You’re not worth the effort of lying to. You just believe whatever makes you feel important.”

Namgyu’s breath caught, the words slicing deeper than any bullet. His grip on the gun tightened, knuckles whitening, but he didn’t respond. He wanted to swing, to smash 001’s smug face into the railing, but he held still, his eyes burning into the older man’s profile.

Before he could snap back, a voice cut through the din— urgent, familiar. “The breach is real!” Gi-hun shouted, his head popping up from behind a nearby person, his face streaked with sweat and blood. He was clutching a rifle, his hands steady despite the tremor in his voice. “It’s still an option, Namgyu! Down below, far wall, like the rumors said. A tunnel to the beach. Boat’s there, and if not, swim .”

001’s head whipped toward Gi-hun, his eyes narrowing. He leaned out, firing a quick burst at an enforcer above to keep them pinned, but his focus was on Gi-hun now. “You sure you want to go sending this child to his death?”

Gi-hun ignored him, his gaze locked on Namgyu. “Listen,” he said, his voice steady. “We’re not just running. We’re fighting our way up to the top—where the bastards running this show are hiding. We need proof, something to burn this whole operation down. But you—you don’t have to do that. Find the breach, Namgyu. Get out. Live .” 

Namgyu stared at Gi-hun, his chest heaving. Gi-hun’s eyes were fierce but kind, like he genuinely believed Namgyu could make it, like he wanted him to. It was a look Namgyu hadn’t seen in… he didn’t know how long. Not from Thanos, not from 001, not from anyone in this hellhole.

001 growled, his rifle still trained on the upper platform. “Don’t listen to him, kid,” he muttered. “There’s no proof, no big takedown. Just more blood.” He shot Gi-hun a glare. “Stop filling his head with nonsense and focus on not dying.”

Gi-hun didn’t flinch. “It’s not nonsense,” he shot back, his voice rising. “We’ve got a shot to end this, In-ho. You know it. But Namgyu doesn’t need to die for it.” He turned back to Namgyu. “Go. Lowest level, far wall, look for an organ room. Then a door. That’s your way out.”

Namgyu’s jaw clenched, his mind racing. The breach. The same one 001 had dodged talking about, the one Gi-hun was now laying bare. A tunnel, a beach, a boat. A chance. His eyes flicked to the far wall, the shadows where the grate might be, then back to Gi-hun. The man’s sincerity was almost painful.

“Namgyu,” 001 snapped. “You run off you’re dead. Stay with us, we’ve got a shot to fight through. Don’t throw it away on a pipe dream.”

 Namgyu’s eyes flicked between Gi-hun and 001. He glanced across the chasm at Thanos, still grinning, still mowing down players like they were nothing. The sight twisted something deep in Namgyu’s gut. Thanos wouldn’t hesitate. Thanos would’ve already put a bullet in both their backs and laughed about it.

“Namgyu!” Gi-hun’s voice snapped him back, urgent now. “You’re wasting time! Go, now !”

Namgyu met Gi-hun’s gaze, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. Then, with a final glance at 001, who didn’t even bother to look back, Namgyu turned and bolted.

He didn’t look back. He ran. Down the spiraling yellow staircase. He ignored the screams, the gunfire, the bodies sprawled on the steps. Gi-hun’s words echoed in his head: Lowest level, far wall, look for an organ room. Then a door. A chance. A real chance.

He cleared a landing, skidding slightly on something wet and sticky, and kept going. The air grew heavier, colder, as he descended. The sounds of the main battle faded slightly, replaced by the closer, sharper crackle of smaller skirmishes on the lower levels. He needed to get to the bottom, find that wall, find that door.

He rounded a corner, his gun held ready, scanning the platform ahead. Empty. Just a few scattered corpses, already starting to stiffen. He took a step onto the platform, his eyes sweeping the area, looking for the next set of stairs down, looking for the ‘far wall’.

And then he saw him.

Standing on a platform maybe twenty feet away, across a narrow gap, was Thanos. He was facing away from Namgyu, his purple hair a stark splash of colour in the dim light, his rifle raised, taking aim at something on a lower level. He looked utterly focused, utterly in his element.

Namgyu froze. The static in his head didn’t just hum; it screamed, a deafening roar that drowned out the world. 

As if sensing the shift in the air, Thanos lowered his rifle slightly and turned his head. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, locked onto Namgyu. A slow grin spread across his face. He didn’t look surprised, not really. Just pleased. 

Thanos raised his rifle, the barrel swinging smoothly to point directly at Namgyu’s chest. He was ready. Ready to gun him down, just like he’d been ready before.

Namgyu didn’t hesitate. He raised his rifle and fired.

Thanos flinched, the bullet hitting the metal railing beside him with a sharp ping . He didn’t go down. He just laughed, a harsh, barking sound, and squeezed his own trigger.

Bullets whizzed past Namgyu’s head, tearing into the metal support beam behind him. He ducked instinctively, scrambling back against the wall, returning fire.

“Namgyu, you little shit!” Thanos yelled, his voice carrying easily across the gap, laced with a twisted amusement. He fired again, forcing Namgyu to flatten himself against the cold metal. “Thought you were running home! Couldn’t resist saying goodbye?”

“Fuck you, Thanos!” Namgyu screamed back, popping out from cover to fire another shot. It went wide, embedding itself in the platform floor near Thanos’s feet.

Thanos laughed again, a genuine, joyful sound that made Namgyu’s skin crawl. “Oh, I bet you’d like to, wouldn’t you?” He took a step forward, exposing himself slightly, and fired a controlled burst. Bullets ripped through the air where Namgyu’s head had been moments before.

“Oh, come on, baby!” Thanos taunted, reloading his rifle with practiced ease. “Is that all you’ve got? After all that clinging ?”

“You shot me!”  Namgyu yelled, pushing himself up, ignoring the instinct to stay hidden. He stood exposed on the platform, his handgun shaking slightly, but his aim suddenly steady. “You fucking shot at me, again! You… You– You left me–”

“And you’re alive, aren’t you?” Thanos’s voice was light, almost cheerful, as if Namgyu’s survival was a minor inconvenience, a funny anecdote to tell later.

Namgyu stared at him. He laughed. It wasn’t bitter this time, or broken. It was a short, sharp bark, devoid of humour. “You think that makes it okay?” he choked out, the words catching in his throat. “You left me! You shot at me! You left me to die in a room full of dead people and you think because I’m still breathing it’s fine?!”

Thanos’s grin didn’t falter. He shrugged, a casual, dismissive gesture. “But you didn’t, did you? Always bouncing back, my little cockroach.” He raised his rifle again, sighting down the barrel. “Impressive, really. Thought you were softer than that.”

“I’m not soft!” Namgyu screamed, raising his handgun, his aim unwavering despite the tremor in his hands. “I’m just not– I’m not a fucking sociopath like you!” He fired.

The bullet slammed into the metal railing inches from Thanos’s head. Thanos flinched back, the grin tightening into a snarl. “Careful,” he hissed, and squeezed his own trigger.

Bullets ripped through the air, tearing into the metal beam Namgyu had just been hiding behind. He ducked back, pressing himself flat against the cold metal, the sound of the shots deafeningly loud in his ears. He could feel the vibrations of the impacts through the structure.

“You think this is a game?!” Namgyu yelled, his voice strained.

“Isn’t it?” Thanos shouted back. He fired another burst, forcing Namgyu to stay pinned. “You’re still here, aren’t you? Still playing. And after everything? You really thought I’d just… leave ? With you ?”

With you.

“You… you used me,” Namgyu choked out, the static in his head screaming. “All of it. The cross. You just… you just used it.”

“Don’t fucking start with me, bitch!” Thanos snapped, his voice gaining an edge of real anger. “Me, use you? Are you fucking dumb? You were the one always leeching, clinging, biting like a damn dog. You think I kept you around for your pretty face?” He paused, a beat of silence hanging between them, punctuated only by the distant sounds of the battle..“You were a tool. A very useful tool. And now… now you’re just kinda fucking annoying!”

He raised his rifle higher, sighting down the barrel again.

“Oh, you daddy fucker!” Namgyu snarled, darting behind cover again. His back was flat against the metal. “You– You’re such a– I could’ve killed you! I could’ve shot you in your ugly fuck–”

“Now I know you’re chatting shit, because this face? Nuh uh, not–”

“Don’t interrupt me!” Namgyu snapped, stepping out from cover without thinking, jabbing an accusing finger across the distance. “I could’ve shot you, get that? You owe me your life. You could be a fleshy heap on the floor right now, but instead MG Coin is dead. Why?” He threw his hands up. “Fuck knows! I don’t fucking kn– What’s a kiss in the grand scheme of things? We all have our base urges–”

“Oh, now you’re talking about base urges?” Thanos sneered, stepping forward slightly, his rifle still loosely held but no longer aimed. The grin was gone, replaced by a tight, furious expression. “You think that little peck means anything? I forgot about it until you brought it up! You think that makes us something ? After everything else? After you ran off like a scared little rabbit? After you left me to deal with that fat piece of shit? You think a kiss is the thing we need to dissect right now?”

“It was important to me!” Namgyu screamed back.  He didn’t care about cover anymore, didn’t care about the bullets still flying in the distance. All he saw was Thanos, all he heard was the man’s voice, tearing him apart piece by piece. “It meant something! Or I thought it did! And you just… you fucking ruined it, like you ruin everything!”

“Me? Ruin it?” Thanos laughed. He took another step forward, his rifle hanging loosely in his hand. “You’re the one who wanted out, baby! You’re the one who almost let Se-mi kill me. You’re the one who decided you were too good for this! Too good for me !”

Namgyu’s mouth opened and closed, his eye twitching. “I killed Se-mi…. For you . You tried to kill me and started babbling and shooting at people. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Die!” he screamed, and he threw his rifle.

It arced through the air, and landed with a dull thud on the platform near Thanos’s feet. Namgyu cackled, high pitched, then scooped the rifle up and balanced both in his hands. “Oh, would you look at that, Christmas came early!” He snickered, then stopped abruptly and snarled, eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m gonna eat your fucking ass.” He said menacingly, waving the rifle at Thanos as if to enunciate his point.

“Gay, gay and weird!” Thanos snapped, backing away slightly.  “What the hell is wrong with you? Eating my ass? Is that what you think about? Is that what that… that little peck on the lips meant to you? Some kind of… of invitation?” He gestured wildly with his free hand. “You’re disgusting, Namgyu! You’re obsessed!”

Namgyu cackled again. He hefted the rifle, feeling its weight. “Obsessed? Me? You’re the one who can’t handle a little affection! What, does it challenge your fragile masculinity? Does it make you question all those pretty little girls you parade around?” He leaned forward, lowering his voice to a stage whisper, dripping with mock concern. “Is Thanos a little bit… confused ?”

Thanos’s face twisted. “Shut the fuck up!” he roared, taking another step back, putting more distance between them. “Don’t you dare talk about that! You know nothing! You think you know me? You think you understand anything? Y-You don’t know what it’s like to be… to be like this!”

“Like what, Thanos?” Namgyu pressed, stepping forward, the rifle held loosely. “Like a monster? Like someone who shoots their friends? Like someone who runs through gunfire to save someone they supposedly hate, only to try and kill them again five minutes later?”

Thanos flinched at that. His eyes narrowed, the bluster faltering for a fraction of a second. “Don’t twist things, Namgyu,” he said, his voice lower now. “Se-mi was a problem. You were… in the way.”

“In the way?” Namgyu scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping him. “I was about to die, you idiot! And you ran through a hail of bullets for me! Why? Tell me why, Thanos! If I’m just a tool, just annoying, why didn’t you just let her finish it?”

Thanos hesitated, his gaze flicking away for a moment, towards the chaos of the lower levels. He seemed to be searching for an answer, or perhaps just a distraction. When his eyes met Namgyu’s again, the cruel mask was back in place, harder than before.

“Because,” Thanos said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, “I wanted to be the one to kill you.”

“Okay, I already used that excuse, bar-tard.” Namgyu said. “Try again.”

“Try again?” Thanos echoed, his voice flat. “Fine. How about this: I didn’t want anyone else to have the satisfaction.”

Namgyu stared at him, the rifle still balanced awkwardly in his hands. “Satisfaction?” he repeated. “You think any of this is about… about getting off on killing people?”

“Isn’t it?” Thanos countered, a ghost of his earlier grin returning, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You seemed to enjoy putting that scamming cunt down. And Se-mi? You looked positively gleeful.”

Namgyu flinched. The mention of Se-mi, especially, hit a nerve. “I didn’t enjoy it,” he said, his voice dropping “I did what I had to do. What was best for us."

“Had to?” Thanos scoffed. “Or wanted to? Don’t pretend you’re some innocent little lamb, Namgyu. You’ve got just as much blood on your hands as anyone here. Probably more, considering you offed your little girlfriend.”

“She wasn’t my girlfriend!” Namgyu roared, the volume snapping back up. “And I killed her because she was trying to kill you , you idiot! After you ran through a firing squad to get her off me! What the hell was I supposed to think? That you suddenly decided you liked me? That you weren’t going to try and kill me five minutes later?”

Thanos’s face tightened again. “I told you, she was a loose end! A problem!”

“A problem you created!” Namgyu shot back. “Dragging her into this, promising her things… just like you drag everyone in and promise them things! Like you promised me a way out! Like you promised me! Does that pretty little facade crumble if someone looks too closely?” He gestured wildly with the rifle in his hands. “Is that why you keep trying to kill me, Thanos? To bury the evidence?”

“I try to kill you because you’re a piece of shit!” Thanos shrieked back, his voice cracking. “Because you’re weak! Because you keep getting in the way! I’m not afraid of anything, especially not you . For once, I made a mistake, picking you, saving you, letting you slobber all over my coattails. And how am I repaid?” He gestured to his arm, stained dark red, now crusting. “In gunshot wounds.” He pointed to his ruined eye. “And ocular trauma!”

“You… you think… you think this is my fault?” Namgyu whispered, his voice dangerously low, the rifle forgotten in his hands. “You think I did this to you?”

Thanos scoffed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Who else, baby? You’re the common denominator in all my recent misfortunes.” He gestured again, emphasizing his injuries. “Look at me! This is because of y ou!”

Something inside Namgyu snapped. A wire frayed, a dam broke. He didn’t think. He didn’t plan. He just moved .

Namgyu dropped the rifle and launched himself across the narrow gap. It was a desperate, insane leap.Thanos’s eyes widened in surprise,  and Namgyu tackled him hard around the waist. They went down in a heap on the metal platform. The impact knocked the wind out of both of them.

They rolled, grappling fiercely. “Get the fuck off me!” Thanos snarled, trying to shove Namgyu away.

Namgyu clung on, burying his face in Thanos’s chest, not in affection, but in a desperate, violent grip. “No! Not this time! You’re not running this time!”

“Running? I wasn’t running!” Thanos twisted, trying to knee Namgyu. “You’re insane! You jumped across a twenty-foot gap!”

“Because you’re a dickhead!” Namgyu yelled back, his voice muffled against Thanos’s blood-soaked jacket. He managed to hook a leg around Thanos’s, trying to pin him. “You keep trying to kill me, keep pushing me away, because you can’t handle it! You can’t handle any of it!”

They wrestled, grunting and straining. Namgyu felt a sharp pain in his side as Thanos landed a clumsy elbow. He retaliated by biting down hard on Thanos’s shoulder.

Thanos yelped, a sound of pain and outrage. “You little shit! You bit me!” He bucked violently, trying to dislodge Namgyu.

“Yeah, I bit you!” Namgyu gasped, tightening his grip. “Just like you bit me! Just like you keep taking pieces of me and acting like it’s nothing!”

“Taking pieces?” Thanos scoffed, managing to roll them over so he was partially on top. He pinned Namgyu’s arms with his knees. His face, inches from Namgyu’s, was contorted with rage and something else Namgyu couldn’t quite decipher. “I’m taking pieces? You’re the one who won’t let go! You’re the one who keeps coming back! Why? Why do you keep coming back, Namgyu? After everything?”

“Because you won’t let me leave!” Namgyu screamed, struggling under him. “You pull me in, you push me away! You save me, you shoot me! You kiss me like you mean it, and then you act like I’m dirt on your shoe! What the hell do you want from me, Thanos?!”

Thanos flinched. “The kiss? You’re still hung up on that?”

“It meant something to me!” Namgyu yelled, tears of frustration stinging his eyes. “It meant… it meant maybe that we’re the fucking same, maybe there was something real there! Why did you save me from Se-mi? Why do you keep looking at me like that?!”

Thanos’s breath hitched. He stared down at Namgyu, his chest heaving. The raw emotion in Namgyu’s voice seemed to catch him off guard.

“I… I don’t know!” Thanos finally admitted, the words torn from him.  “Okay? I don’t know! Maybe… maybe I was curious! Maybe I was bored! Maybe… maybe I just don’t know. Why did you kiss me, then?”

His voice cracked a bit on that last bit, laced with genuine confusion. The anger was almost all gone, instead replaced with wide eyed confusion.

Namgyu blinked up at him, chest heaving, the fight draining out of him as quickly as it had surged. He was still pinned, his arms held by Thanos’s knees, his face inches from the other man’s. The blood on Thanos’s jacket was warm against his cheek. He swallowed hard, the sound loud in the sudden quiet between them.

“Why did I kiss you?” Namgyu repeated. He looked away, his gaze fixed somewhere over Thanos’s shoulder, at the grimy metal wall. His jaw worked, a muscle twitching near his temple. He felt a hot flush creep up his neck. This was stupid. This was so fucking stupid.

He shrugged, a jerky, awkward movement that didn’t accomplish much while pinned. “Uh, I dunno, man,” he mumbled, the words barely audible. He finally met Thanos’s eyes again, then immediately looked away, focusing intently on a loose thread on Thanos’s collar. “It was… weird. Everything was weird. You were… you were being a dick, but then you weren’t, and then you were again. And you looked… I dunno. You looked like you were gonna break, maybe? Like, under all the… the bullshit.”

He paused, searching for the right words, and failing spectacularly. He felt like he was trying to explain calculus to a brick wall. “And then MG Coin fucked up your face And I was just… there. And you were bleeding. And you looked… surprised, I guess? Like you didn’t expect it. And you hurt my feelings, and I panicked and– What the fuck was I thinking?” He let out a short, sharp breath through his nose, a sound of pure frustration, mostly with himself.

He shifted slightly, trying to ease the pressure on his arms, but Thanos didn’t move. Namgyu’s eyes darted back to Thanos’s face, then away again. He felt his face getting hotter. 

“It didn’t… it didn’t mean anything, really,” he added quickly, too quickly, his voice a little higher than usual. He picked at the loose thread on Thanos’s collar, his fingers fumbling slightly. “Like, not that . Just… a thing. A stupid thing. In a stupid place. With a stupid… situation.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at Thanos, couldn’t see what was in those wide, bloodshot eyes. He just felt the weight of him, the heat radiating off him, the faint metallic tang of blood in the air. It was too much. All of it.

He finally risked a glance up, his eyes flicking to Thanos’s mouth, then immediately snapping back to the thread. His heart was hammering against his ribs. He wanted to say something else, something to make it less… whatever this was. Less vulnerable. Less real.

“So yeah,” he finished lamely, clearing his throat. “Just… a moment, I guess. Don’t… don’t read into it or anything. It was just… dumb.” He gave another awkward shrug, his body still tense under Thanos’s weight. He waited, bracing himself for the inevitable sneer, the cruel joke, the dismissal. But it didn’t come. Just the sound of Thanos’s ragged breathing, and the distant echoes of the ongoing battle.

Thanos didn’t move. He just stared down at Namgyu, his eyes still wide, the confusion slowly giving way to something else – a flicker of understanding, perhaps, or maybe just a different kind of bewilderment. His chest still rose and fell rapidly. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t sneer. He just… looked.

Namgyu felt the heat in his face intensify. He kept his gaze fixed on the loose thread, willing the metal platform to swallow him whole. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. 

He swallowed again, the sound clicking in his throat. He wanted to squirm, to push Thanos off, to run, but he was pinned. And Thanos wasn’t moving.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Thanos lowered his head. His eyes didn’t leave Namgyu’s face, even as his own face drew closer. Namgyu’s breath hitched. He stopped picking at the thread, his fingers freezing. His eyes, against his will, flicked up to Thanos’s mouth.

Thanos’s lips were slightly parted, still stained with dried blood near the corner. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, his gaze dropping from Namgyu’s eyes to his mouth, then back up again, a quick, uncertain movement.

Then, he leaned the rest of the way down.

It wasn’t a kiss like in the movies. It wasn’t soft or searching or passionate. It was a clumsy, awkward press of lips against lips. Thanos’s head was at a slightly wrong angle, and Namgyu was still pinned, unable to adjust. Their noses bumped uncomfortably. Thanos’s lips were dry and still tasted faintly of metal and something else, something unpleasant. There was no movement, no deepening of the kiss. Just a stiff pressure.

Namgyu’s eyes were wide open, staring past Thanos’s ear at the grimy metal wall. He could feel Thanos’s breath on his face, warm and uneven. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, which were still trapped by Thanos’s knees. He held his breath, his body rigid.

It lasted only a second, maybe two. Then Thanos pulled back, a jerky, abrupt movement.

He didn’t look away immediately. His eyes, still wide and bloodshot, were fixed on Namgyu’s face, searching, perhaps, for a reaction, for an answer to a question he couldn’t articulate. His own expression was blank, unreadable, except for the lingering confusion around his eyes.

Namgyu just stared back, his mind a complete blank. His lips felt strange, numb and tingling at the same time. He wanted to wipe them, but he couldn’t move his hands.

Thanos blinked. Once. Twice. Then, with another abrupt movement, he pushed himself up and off Namgyu.

He scrambled back a step, putting distance between them. He didn’t look at Namgyu as he did it. His gaze was fixed somewhere over Namgyu’s head, his chest still heaving. He raised a hand, not quite to his mouth, but hovering near it, his fingers twitching. He looked like he’d just run a marathon and couldn’t remember why he’d started.

Namgyu lay there for a moment, gasping for air, the weight of Thanos gone but the imprint of it still heavy on his body. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, then sat up properly, his legs still tangled awkwardly. He didn’t look at Thanos either. He stared at the spot on the platform where Thanos had been pinning him, at the faint, dark stain spreading on the metal.

Thanos cleared his throat. He still wasn’t looking at Namgyu. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his rifle still lying forgotten on the platform where Namgyu had dropped it.

Namgyu finally risked a glance up. Thanos was staring intently at the wall opposite them, his jaw clenched tight. His hand was still hovering near his mouth. He looked utterly, completely lost.

Namgyu looked away again, his gaze falling on the rifle. He needed to move. He needed to get out of here. But his limbs felt heavy, unresponsive.

“Right,” Thanos said, his voice tight and strained, completely devoid of its usual swagger. He cleared his throat again. “Okay. So.” He trailed off, apparently unable to find the words. He shifted his weight again, looking increasingly uncomfortable.

Namgyu didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He just sat there, feeling the blood pound in his ears.

Thanos shifted again, his foot scraping slightly on the metal platform. He seemed to be vibrating with suppressed energy, like a tightly wound spring.

“Okay,” Thanos said again, louder this time, but still strained. He finally forced himself to look at Namgyu, his expression a mask of forced nonchalance that didn’t quite hide the unease in his eyes. He gestured vaguely with his hand, the one that had been near his mouth. “So. That happened.”

Namgyu just nodded, unable to form a coherent sentence.

“Right,” he said, his voice regaining a fraction of its usual volume, though it was still rough around the edges. He took a step towards the rifle. “Okay. So. The… the gun.”

He bent down stiffly and picked up the rifle. He held it for a moment, as if he’d forgotten what it was for. He didn’t look at Namgyu.

“Okay,” Thanos hefted the rifle, finally seeming to remember his purpose. He turned away from Namgyu, facing the direction he had been shooting before Namgyu jumped. “Right. Back to… this. Go find your breach, man.”

Namgyu watched him, the rifle a heavy, familiar shape in Thanos’s hands. He was trying to put the moment away, trying to shove it back into the box of things that didn’t matter, things that didn’t fit into the reality of the game. Back to the killing, back to the chaos. 

Something inside Namgyu snapped. He lunged forward, not thinking, just acting on instinct and pain.

He grabbed Thanos by the shoulder, spinning him around. Thanos stumbled, startled, the rifle dipping. Before Thanos could regain his balance, before he could even fully register what was happening,.Namgyu grabbed Thanos’s face, one hand fisting in the front of his blood-stained jacket, the other gripping his jaw, forcing his head still. He slammed his mouth against Thanos’s, a press that was all teeth.

He bit down, hard, tasting blood, forcing his tongue past Thanos’s clenched teeth.Thanos reacted instantly. A choked sound of protest ripped from his throat. His hands came up, dropping the rifle with a clatter, pushing against Namgyu’s chest, trying to shove him away. He twisted his head, trying to break the contact, his body rigid with shock and resistance.

Namgyu held on, relentless. He ignored the frantic pushing, the muffled sounds of struggle. He deepened the kiss, forcing the issue. He felt Thanos’s nails dig into his arms, felt the desperate strength in his attempts to break free.

“Get– off me!” Thanos choked out, the words mangled against Namgyu’s mouth. He bucked against Namgyu, but Namgyu hooked a leg around his, and brought them crashing to the floor.

Teeth clanged painfully, and Thanos let out a muffled sound of protest, trying to jerk his head back, but he only succeeded in slamming his head against the ground. Namgyu chased his mouth, and his hand reached out to grip Thanos’s arm, pinning him. Another jerk, another buck, and Namgyu’s fingernails found the bullet wound, and dug .

Thanos’s body went rigid beneath him. A strangled gasp tore from his throat, muffled by Namgyu’s mouth pressed violently against his. His hands, which had been pushing against Namgyu’s chest, clenched into fists, then clawed desperately at Namgyu’s arms. 

Namgyu ignored the frantic struggle, the muffled sounds of protest. He deepened the kiss, his free hand reaching up to grip his neck. He squeezed. Thanos’s legs thrashed, trying to dislodge Namgyu, but Namgyu’s hooked leg held firm, keeping them tangled on the cold metal platform.

Thanos’s nails raked down Namgyu’s arms, leaving burning trails. He twisted his head violently, trying to break the contact, but Namgyu’s hand on his jaw was holding him in place. The angle was awkward, painful, their noses pressing hard against each other, but Namgyu didn’t relent. He just held on, his own breath coming in ragged gasps through his nose, the sound loud in his ears.

He felt Thanos’s body tense, a sudden, sharp intake of breath, followed by a different kind of struggle – less frantic, more rigid, a desperate attempt to simply endure, to shut down the sensation. His hands stopped clawing and instead gripped Namgyu’s arms, not pushing away anymore, but holding on, tight enough to bruise.

Namgyu felt it, the tremor running through Thanos’s body. He felt the rigid tension, the forced stillness beneath him. And for a fraction of a second, the rage, the pain, the desperate need to hurt, faltered. He eased the pressure on Thanos’s jaw slightly, his lips still working against the other man’s, but the biting stopped. His nails remained dug into the wound, a constant, throbbing reminder.

Then, slowly, tentatively, Thanos’s grip on Namgyu’s arms shifted. His fingers uncurled slightly, the bruising pressure easing. His head tilted back fractionally, just enough to break the painful press of their noses.

Namgyu felt the shift. Felt Thanos’s lips slowly begin to move against his.

Namgyu pressed in, increasing the pressure, and Thanos made another sound, a low, choked noise that was almost a whimper. Namgyu drank the almost imperceptible noise in, and it travelled straight to his lower stomach. He groaned.

Thanos froze, that precious progress lost, and with a sudden, violent motion, he jerked up. Namgyu saw it coming, saw the flicker of panic in Thanos’s eyes before the movement, and allowed him to jerk up just for Namgyu to slam his head into the metal again. Namgyu could practically see the stars dancing before the man’s eyes, so he capitalised on the opportunity and caught his lips again.

This time, though,  Thanos didn’t buck immediately. The impact of his head hitting the metal had stunned him, leaving him momentarily slack beneath Namgyu. Namgyu pressed his mouth harder against Thanos’s, a desperate, punishing pressure. He felt the slight give of Thanos’s lips, the warmth of his breath, the faint, metallic tang of blood. He didn’t bite this time, but the force was still there, a demand more than a kiss.

His free hand, the one not fisted in Thanos’s jacket, moved from his neck to cup the side of Thanos’s face, his thumb brushing against the sharp line of his jaw. Thanos’s skin was warm, slick with sweat and something else Namgyu didn’t want to think about. He felt the tremor start in Thanos’s body again, a fine vibration that ran through him. Thanos’s hands, still gripping Namgyu’s arms, tightened, his knuckles pressing into the muscle. It wasn’t a push anymore, just a fierce, white-knuckled hold.

Namgyu’s own breath hitched, ragged in his throat. He could feel Thanos’s heart hammering against his chest, a frantic, uneven rhythm that mirrored his own. He tasted the blood more strongly now, a coppery flood on his tongue. It was sickening, exhilarating.

He felt Thanos’s lips part slightly under his, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement. Then, a soft, choked sound escaped Thanos, a low moan that was swallowed by their joined mouths. It was a sound of pain, yes, but also something else – surrender? Confusion? Namgyu didn’t know, but it sent a jolt through him, a hot wave that tightened his gut.

He deepened the kiss, tilting his head slightly, trying to find a better angle, trying to get closer, closer. Thanos’s body remained rigid, but the grip on Namgyu’s arms shifted again, the fingers flexing, then relaxing slightly. His head didn’t pull away. His lips, still parted, were still there.

Namgyu felt a tremor run through his own hands, the one fisted in the jacket, the one cupping Thanos’s face. He was shaking. His eyes were squeezed shut now, the chaos of the platform, the distant screams, the gunfire, all fading away. There was only the heat, the taste of blood, the frantic beat of two hearts, the ragged sound of their breathing, and the strange, terrible weight of Thanos beneath him.

He felt a tentative pressure against his own lips, a response, small and uncertain, but there. Thanos’s mouth moved against his, a clumsy, hesitant movement that sent a fresh wave of something undefinable through Namgyu. 

It lasted a few more seconds, a tangled mess of limbs, blood, and desperate, fumbling contact. Then, with a sudden, sharp gasp, Thanos went rigid again. His hands on Namgyu’s arms clenched, hard enough to make Namgyu wince. His head twisted violently, finally breaking the kiss.

Thanos shoved at Namgyu’s chest with a sudden burst of strength, scrambling back on his hands and knees, away from him. He was breathing in harsh, ragged gasps, his eyes wide and wild, staring at Namgyu as if he were a ghost. His hand flew to his mouth, wiping at it furiously, his fingers coming away smeared with blood.

Namgyu lay on the metal platform where Thanos had been, chest heaving, tasting blood and something else he couldn’t name. He pushed himself up slowly, his limbs heavy, his mind reeling. He looked at Thanos, hunched over, wiping his mouth, looking utterly repulsed and terrified.

The silence between them was deafening, broken only by their ragged breathing and the distant sounds of the battle. Thanos didn’t look at Namgyu directly. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor, his body coiled tight, ready to spring away.

Namgyu watched him, the raw, exposed fear on Thanos’s face a stark contrast to his usual swagger. It was a look Namgyu had never seen before. It twisted something inside him, something painful and sharp. Something deep and hot.

Thanos finally lowered his hand, his jaw clenched tight. He took a deep, shuddering breath. He forced himself to look at Namgyu, his eyes hard and cold, the mask slamming back into place with visible effort.

“Don’t,” Thanos said, his voice low and rough, stripped of all its usual mockery. “Don’t you ever fucking do that again.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He turned abruptly, snatched his rifle from the floor, and without a backward glance, he ran. Not towards the fighting, not towards Namgyu, but down the next set of stairs, disappearing into the shadows of the lower levels.

Namgyu stood alone on the platform, the silence rushing back in, thick and heavy. He listened to the sound of Thanos’s footsteps fading away, the clatter of his boots on the metal stairs.