Chapter Text
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
🌌
Yoongi isn’t sure what exactly he was thinking when he let the tousle-haired guy in the ridiculously long brown coat drag him by the hand through the busy streets of Seoul, but as he wheezes and tries to keep up, he thinks, Well, at least this is more interesting than what I’m usually doing after work on a Tuesday in September.
He tries not to think about the fact that just moments ago something he’s pretty sure was an alien had just exploded into goo in front of him, because if he really gets going with that thought, he’ll just devolve into an existential crisis, and now is really not the time for that. What happened after that is a little bit easier for him to process—when the tousle-haired guy in the ridiculously long brown coat had swashbuckled onto the scene brandishing some kind of…fancy telescopic laser pen, Yoongi thinks? At any rate, he had flicked his wrist up to check the readings on the side of the doohickey, nodded in a satisfied, resigned sort of way, and then turned towards Yoongi and said, “Hey, you’ve got some goo on your face.”
Yoongi reached up to touch his cheek and—yep, there it was. Alien goo. On his face. On his very human skin. The man must have noticed his horror, because he was suddenly rushing forward and brandishing the doohickey at Yoongi’s face, and he was too worried about the alien goo to worry about being incinerated by lasers, or whatever. The guy checked the readings again and smiled.
“Not to worry, this is just your standard alien goo—not toxic to humans, just kind of gross.” The man was slightly taller than him, and he looked down cheerfully at Yoongi as he swiped a thumb over his cheek, gathering up the goo. Yoongi’s mouth dropped open, and he quickly shut it.
“Oh!” said the man suddenly. “I haven’t introduced myself.” He held out his hand—the one that didn’t have alien goo on it—and shook Yoongi’s with a firm grip.
“Hello.” He had looked directly into Yoongi’s eyes and given him a rakish, rectangular smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. Yoongi had felt like a specimen under a slightly wacky microscope. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Philosophy or medicine?” Yoongi had responded after a moment, still a little dazed from the guy’s manic energy.
He had just laughed. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that. You’ll see, if you come with me.” The man—the Doctor—winked and then quickly glanced up at the sky, seeming to assess something. A moment later, he tugged on Yoongi’s hand, which Yoongi had forgotten he was still holding. He didn’t have time to be startled though, because the Doctor had just said, “Questions later. Now—we run.”
So now, Yoongi is running, tethered to this theoretical Doctor by the hand. He had wiped the alien goo off on his coat, muttering about it needing a wash anyways, and now they're darting around people on the streets of Hongdae who are either screaming in terror or just staring at the sky in shock. The sky, in which hangs a massive structure that can only be an alien spaceship.
The Doctor stops short, and Yoongi only just avoids crashing right into his back. He turns around to face Yoongi, placing his hands on his shoulders.
“Okay,” he says, and Yoongi can almost see the way the gears turn in his head, a million microexpressions passing over his face in a moment before seeming to make a decision. “Okay,” he repeats. “We need my ship.”
Yoongi blinks, despite having had the existence of alien spaceships confirmed just moments ago. “Your what?”
The Doctor smiles, delighted. “Just you wait–hey, what’s your name?”
“I–” Yoongi swallows. “Yoongi. I’m Min Yoongi.”
“Yoongi.” The Doctor nods. “Excellent. You’re going to love this.”
He reaches for Yoongi’s hand again and they’re off once more, this time running down an alleyway and toward some dumpsters, where the Doctor immediately starts grabbing trash and flinging it over his shoulder. Yoongi only barely jumps out of the way of bits of cardboard and paper, which turn out to be covering something that looks like a blue phone booth.
The Doctor yanks open the door of the phone booth and is about to go inside when he realizes that Yoongi isn’t following him.
“Come on!” he says, gesturing for Yoongi to step forward.
Yoongi hesitates. The phone booth thing doesn’t seem like it would have that much space inside, and he’s only just met this guy. “You…want me to go in there? With you?”
The Doctor grins. “Trust me,” he says, and disappears inside, leaving Yoongi standing there.
It shouldn’t make any sense, but the way he says it–Yoongi does, somehow, trust him. So he follows the Doctor inside, and when he does, he can’t quite believe his eyes.
“It’s–it’s–”
“Yes, yes, bigger on the inside, I know,” says the Doctor, who is perched at a console in the center of the room, typing furiously on what looks like an antique typewriter hooked up to a computer monitor. Long tangles of wires spill out of each device, hanging down over their sides.
“I was going to say ‘hideously decorated,’ but sure,” grumbles Yoongi, who had definitely been about to say “bigger on the inside.”
The Doctor stops typing and turns around, hand pressed to his chest. “You come into my home and immediately insult my decor?” he gasps.
Yoongi’s cheeks color. “Sorry. You’re right. It's just….unique, I guess.”
Unique is an understatement. The inside of the blue phone booth-like thing is not only much, much bigger than it appeared from the outside, it’s also–well, there’s a lot going on.
The whole place is bathed in an amber glow, coming from recessed lights in the walls and ceiling, as well as from the top of a circular console in the middle of the room. The walls seem to be made of some kind of metal, bronze, or maybe gold–Yoongi isn’t sure, but it gleams in the warm light. Dotted across the entire expanse of the walls are what Yoongi can only describe as portholes, but they don’t seem to be windows, just–inexplicable round embellishments. There is a raised dais in the center of the room, flanked with an elaborate golden railing, with a console in the middle. It seems to be made of a similar material as the walls, and in addition to the typewriter-computer hybrid, there are several other monitor screens and keyboards and knobs and buttons embedded into it. There are also various oddities poking out from the surface–everything from a lever with a rubber duck at the end, random glass corkscrew-like attachments with an unidentifiable liquid running through them, and abstract stainless steel sculptures. At the very top of the console stands a tiny statuette of what looks like a human torso with a shark’s jaw in place of a head, holding a tiny trumpet.
Yoongi glances over at the Doctor, who is looking very proud of his–whatever this place is. He turns back to the console and notices a curved chair at one end; he squints at it, and, yup, it’s shaped like a kneeling person, complete with the silhouette of a very perky butt.
“Nice, uh, chair,” Yoongi says, pressing his lips together.
“You like it?” The Doctor brightens even more than he thought possible. “I thought it might be too much, but it’s actually really ergonomic, and–”
“Hang on,” Yoongi interrupts, his brain catching up with him. “You said ‘my ship,’ before. This doesn’t look like any ship I’ve ever seen before, space or otherwise, but does this mean…does this mean you're an alien, too?”
The Doctor turns, then shrugs with a sheepish grin on his face. It makes him look like an overgrown puppy, and it’s almost annoyingly cute.
“Guilty,” the Doctor says, shrugging. “We don't have a lot of time, so here’s the rundown: I'm a Time Lord–”
“Time?!”
“Yes, yes, we'll get to that–I’m a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey and this is my ship, the TARDIS–Time and Relative Dimension in Space, if you're wondering–she takes some time to warm up but you’ll get along swimmingly, I’m sure–”
“She?!”
“Yes, she’s sentient, blah blah blah–anyways, we look mostly like humans except we have two hearts and when we die we just regenerate into another body! This is my tenth face, actually. Do you like it?”
Yoongi’s head spins as he tries to process this deluge of information. “It’s–it’s very nice,” he stammers out.
The Doctor preens. “Thank you,” he says with a little bow. “Anyways, you’re taking this quite well. A lot of people pass out, you know.”
“A lot of–do you bring strangers into your spaceship often?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The Doctor waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“That’s not what I–anyways.” Yoongi clears his throat, willing the flush in his cheeks to calm down. “What's going on here?” he says, gesturing around at the inside of the ship–well, the TARDIS, he supposes.
“This is how I travel,” the Doctor says. “Just input time and place here, pull some of these levers here–it’s less programming and more telling her where we want to go, and she does the rest.” He pats the console proudly. “So, yeah, it’s time to go.”
“Where…where are we going?”
“Well,” the Doctor says, shrugging off his long coat, revealing a pinstripe suit underneath in an entirely different shade of brown and a paisley tie in yet another shade of brown. Why is this guy so into brown? Yoongi wonders, while at the same time also wondering why this is the burning question his brain has latched onto instead of, you know, How is this phone booth an alien spaceship? or Why is there a massive fucking UFO in the sky right now?
The Doctor starts to type rapidly at the keyboards while turning various knobs. “We’re not doing time right now, and we’re not going very far, either. I think getting us onto that big ship will do the trick.” He places his hand on the rubber duck lever. “Ready?”
Why the hell not, Yoongi thinks. What does he really have to lose, anyways? “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”
The Doctor grins again, the corners of his mouth squaring off. “Well, off we go, then!” he shouts, rubber duck squeaking as he pulls the lever down. The TARDIS jolts with a groaning, wheezing sound, and that’s the moment when everything catches up with Yoongi.
The last thing he sees before he loses consciousness is the absurdly handsome face of the Doctor, head cocked in concern as Yoongi slumps to the floor.
🌌
The first thing he sees when he comes to, naturally, is also the absurdly handsome face of the Doctor, looming over him with a simultaneously perturbed and curious expression.
“Ugh,” Yoongi mumbles, pushing himself up into a sitting position. The Doctor is crouching next to him, and he shuffles back a bit to give Yoongi space. A lock of his dark hair has fallen handsomely across his forehead.
“What happened?” Yoongi asks, groaning.
“You passed out,” the Doctor says. “Don’t worry–like I said, you’re not the only one who’s passed out in here. And you fell at a pretty good angle, so no lasting harm done! Anyways, here.” He thrusts an object toward him, which turns out to be–
“A banana?” Yoongi asks, staring at it.
The Doctor presses the proffered banana into Yoongi’s hand. “Eat it. You’ll feel better. Excellent source of potassium, if I do say so myself.”
“Huh,” Yoongi says. “Can’t argue with you there.”
As Yoongi peels the banana, he takes stock of his body–he has a headache, and his butt is a little sore from where he hit the ground, but his other extremities don’t seem to hurt too much. He still feels a little disoriented, but mostly, he feels okay.
Then he remembers the goddamn UFO in the sky.
“Uh. Doctor,” Yoongi says around a bite of banana, shakily trying to get to his feet.
The Doctor immediately grabs his arm to help him. “Yes?”
“Isn’t this–wasn’t the situation kind of urgent?”
“Oh!” The Doctor looks sheepish. “Of course, of course. But while you were out I, ah, did a little trip about 20 minutes into the past. And moved us into a storage closet.”
“The alien ship has storage closets?”
“This is an alien ship, and we have storage closets!” The Doctor says, indignant. “Do you think we’re uncivilized or something?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Yoongi mutters. “I’m new to this, okay?”
The Doctor softens. “I know.” He clears his throat. “Anyways, I try not to do that too often because every instance of time travel can affect the overall timeline–other than fixed points, of course, but we’ll get there–but I just thought you could use a few extra minutes to recover.”
“Well…thank you,” Yoongi says, still somewhat dazed.
“Anyways!” The Doctor holds his hand out for Yoongi’s banana peel, then strides over to the TARDIS’s console and presses a button. A glowing yellow tube rises from the console, into which he disposes the banana peel. As the tube recedes back into the console, the Doctor pulls his telescopic-laser-pen-thing out of his coat pocket and gives it a shake, causing a small panel to swing out and reveal a small screen.
“What is that thing?” Yoongi blurts out. “The laser pen thing, I mean.” He can only process an explanation for one cylindrical glowing thing at a time.
“Oh, this?” The Doctor holds it up, still frowning at the little screen. “Sonic screwdriver. Useful little guy. Please don’t ask me how it works because I have no idea.” His expression clears, apparently satisfied at what he’s seen. “We should have a visitor soon. Three, two, one–”
At that moment, they hear a knock on the door. A pleased, somewhat surprised smile spreads over the Doctor’s face.
“Wow, I didn’t expect that to actually work,” he says, striding purposefully over to the door and swinging it open. Yoongi leans forward, trying to peek around the Doctor to see who’s on the other side.
Yoongi blinks, closes his eyes, shakes his head, then opens them again. Yup. The Doctor is talking to a giant crab.
Well, some kind of mostly-crab part-humanoid being. They have the body of a human, but a hard, iridescent blue shell on their back; they also have eye-stalks protruding from where their eyes would normally be. Each slender, blue arm ends in a claw, the left one significantly larger than the right. They’re dressed in shimmering swaths of gauzy, blue-green fabric the same shade as their long hair.
(If he didn’t suspect that this being was partially responsible for terrorizing his city, Yoongi would actually think they were kind of hot. He doesn’t let that thought linger.)
“Lapillus!” The Doctor exclaims. “It’s been too long. How are the kids?”
The crab-alien–Lapillus–places their hands on their hips. Their eye-stalks swivel toward the Doctor, giving him a definitive look.
“Now, don’t be like that, Lapillus,” the Doctor chides. He turns to Yoongi. “This is Lapillus. They’re one of the Karkinos, the species responsible for this ship.” He turns back to Lapillus. “Lapillus might be…a little ticked off at me.”
Yoongi raises his eyebrows. “And that’s because…?”
The Doctor looks sheepish. “Well. The last time I saw them, I had to leave a bit unexpectedly. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Which, I understand! That was rude! But, come on, Lapillus, isn’t this a bit much?”
Lapillus blushes, their cheeks turning a darker shade of blue than the rest of them. They open their mouth, a musical language that Yoongi can’t understand spilling out from their silver lips.
“Yes, yes, Lapillus, I know, but did you really have to send your guard dogs to get my attention?”
Lapillus responds, looking sheepish. The Doctor listens, nodding along, until suddenly he gasps, face going pale.
“What?” Yoongi hisses. “What is it?”
“Are you–are you quite sure?” The Doctor seems to be pleading with Lapillus, who shrugs apologetically. The Doctor sighs, then turns to Yoongi.
“It seems…I deeply offended them.” He sighs. “Unfortunately, in their culture, this kind of offense is punishable by death.”
“It’s punishable by whatnow?” Yoongi stares at him in disbelief. “You definitely didn’t say ‘punishable by death,’ did you? Punishable by dress, maybe? Not really a punishment if you ask me, but I guess in some societies–”
“No, no,” the Doctor says, pinching his brow. “I definitely said death.”
“Okay.” Yoongi’s head spins. “So. What does that…mean, exactly?”
“Well, the guard dogs they sent down–okay, they weren’t really dogs, but you know what I mean–were meant to either take me out or get me up here. Unfortunately, they came with collateral damage to innocent people.” The Doctor shoots Lapillus a look, then heaves another heavy sigh. “But it turns out that getting me up here was actually their preferred outcome, because apparently they respect me enough to want to give me the proper ceremonial execution.”
“The proper ceremonial–” Yoongi cuts himself off, trying to clear his head. “Okay. They really want to execute you because you didn't say goodbye?”
The Doctor nods, a what-can-you-do expression on his face. Yoongi cannot believe this is happening. He was having a perfectly normal day and now he’s about to witness a ceremonial alien execution. This is fine. “Okay so, what can I do? How can we get you out of this?”
The Doctor looks at him thoughtfully. “Huh. I don’t usually get people asking what they can do,” he murmurs. “Usually they’re asking me what I can do.”
“I mean, that too.” Yoongi blushes. “I didn’t know aliens existed until this afternoon. But I want to help. You don’t deserve to be–y’know.” He mimes a throat-slash gesture.
The Doctor smiles at him, although his eyes look troubled. “Okay, here’s what we’ll–”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, though–his eyes flutter shut and he collapses to the ground. Behind him, Yoongi can see Lapillus holding a syringe, which he tosses aside before scooping up the Doctor and throwing him over his shoulder, giving Yoongi what he thinks might be an apologetic look, and marching away.
Yoongi stands there for a minute, stupefied, before his brain catches up with him and he breaks into a jog to follow Lapillus down the spaceship’s corridor.
“Hey!” he shouts. Lapillus ignores him, the Doctor’s limp torso thumping against his shell. Yoongi speeds up, starting to feel a stitch in his side. He pauses, catching his breath, before taking off after him again. “Hey, you!” he yells again, before the stitch in his side causes him to double over, hands on his knees. He hasn't exerted himself this much in ages.
“Crab-guy! Lapillus! I know you can hear me!”
This time, Lapillus does stop, slowly turning to look at Yoongi. The Doctor stirs a bit, groaning groggily, still slumped over Lapillus’s shoulder.
“Come on, Lapillus,” Yoongi says, going for a casual-yet-authoritative tone. “Let’s be reasonable here.”
“Reasonable?” Lapillus says in heavily-accented Korean, raising a silvery eyebrow. “It would have been reasonable for him to follow our customs properly, especially for someone as knowledgeable as the Doctor.”
“Is it really that big of a faux pas?” Yoongi says. “You know the guy. I haven’t known him very long, but it seems like he’s got a lot going on, a lot to keep track of. I’m sure he didn’t intend to offend you.”
“Intent, no,” Lapillus responds. “Impact, yes. We have our customs. They must be followed, or we’ll lose the order we've fought so hard to preserve. You don’t know our history, human boy.”
“I may not know your history,” Yoongi says, “but, either way, I know I’m not cool with the death penalty. There has to be another way.”
“Perhaps for you,” Lapillus says. “But not for us. This is how it must be.” He turns and starts to walk down the corridor again.
Yoongi follows close behind, casting around for anything that could buy him time. “Are you going to at least let me say goodbye?”
“Of course,” Lapillus says, turning to look at Yoongi, expression pinched. “We wouldn’t be that cruel.”
Not that cruel, but still executioners, Yoongi thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, he nods his head in thanks. “I’m just gonna keep following you, okay?”
Lapillus turns away from him, but he doesn’t say no, and so Yoongi follows. The corridor goes on and on, and Yoongi doggedly keeps up with Lapillus’s brisk pace. The Doctor still makes the occasional sound but doesn’t seem fully conscious yet. He isn’t quite sure why he feels so compelled to help the Doctor–he met this guy less than an hour ago and now he’s on an alien spaceship trying to stop him from being executed, a mission he isn’t sure he can actually complete. Not to mention the fact that he doesn’t even know how he’s going to get himself out of this entire situation. But as bizarre as this afternoon has been, and as anxious as Yoongi is, he can’t help but feel more alive than he’s felt in a long time.
He remembers the look on the Doctor’s face when he saw Yoongi take in the TARDIS for the first time, the look on his face when Yoongi asked how he could help. He can’t really explain it other than a gut instinct, but he has a strong feeling that the Doctor is, well, good.
And Yoongi’s gut has never really been wrong, so he keeps following Lapillus as they wind their way deeper into the ship.
🌌
Yoongi isn’t sure what he expected the final destination to be. He thinks that maybe he had been subconsciously expecting some kind of gladiator situation, with a screaming mob of bloodthirsty spectators. What he definitely didn’t expect was to be led into a quiet room that looks like an undersea cave, down to the stalactites and stalagmites on the floor and ceiling, soft blue light undulating throughout the room, and various chairs that look like they are made out of a coral-like material.
Lapillus deposits the Doctor into one of the chairs, which seems to wake him a bit more.
“You couldn’t put me somewhere more comfortable, Lapillus?” he mumbles, wincing, before he sees Yoongi and brightens considerably. “Ah, Yoongi! You’re still here!”
Yoongi, to his surprise–and subsequent annoyance–feels his cheeks heat. “I mean,” he mumbles, “I wasn’t going to just leave you.”
Lapillus interrupts with more of their musical language, and the Doctor sighs. “All right, all right, let’s get the trial over with.”
“Wait a second,” Yoongi says, as four new Karkinos, with the same features as Lapillus but different colors, enter the room. “Trial? So…he hasn’t been convicted yet?”
Lapillus speaks again, this time switching back to Korean. “Why wouldn’t we have due process, human boy?”
“I mean, you sounded pretty certain of his guilt back there,” Yoongi says, imbuing his words with as much of the righteous indignance of his youth as he can. “Who would blame me for thinking there wouldn’t be a trial? But since we’re here–can I make a proposition?”
Lapillus, looking extremely annoyed, opens his mouth to respond; but before he can get any words out, another Karkinos chimes in.
“This human is a bold one,” they say, crossing their arms over their chest. This Karkinos’s skin, shell, and hair are splashed with pink and orange. “I’m amused. Let’s see what he has to say.”
“Well,” Yoongi says, thinking frantically. He has no idea how they’re going to successfully get out of this, but at least he has to try. “What do your laws say about, uh, apologizing?”
“Apologizing?” Lapillus says, raising his eyebrows.
“I did apologize!” The Doctor says miserably from his chair. “It’s not like I didn’t feel bad!”
“Doctor…” Yoongi throws the Karkinos a look that he hopes conveys something like, This guy, am I right? “Are you sure? Did you ever actually say you were sorry?”
The Doctor thinks for a moment, and a look of horror dawns on his face. “You know, it’s possible that I may…not have done that.”
“You see?” Yoongi turns back to the Karkovians. “What do you say you give him a chance to apologize and make amends, and we avoid this whole nasty execution business, huh?”
The Karkinos all look at one another, musical language chiming, before the orangey-pink one speaks to Yoongi again.
“This is the first time we’ve heard of this concept–‘apologizing,’ as you say.” They look at Yoongi thoughtfully. “Could you perhaps explain it to us?”
Yoongi raises his eyebrows, surprised. “I–well, I can’t say I’ve had to do this before, but I’ll try.”
The Doctor jumps in. “It’s when–”
“Not you,” the orangey-pink Karkinos snaps, then gestures to Yoongi. “This one.”
The Doctor pouts, and Yoongi shoots him a look. “I was just trying to help,” the Doctor says, and Yoongi can’t help but be endeared. He clears his throat, then turns back to the Karkinos.
“As I was saying,” he says. “An apology is when…you realize that you’ve hurt someone. When you can see how what you did was wrong, and you want the other person to know. It…well, it can be hard, sometimes, to let go of your pride and admit that you messed up. But that’s what makes the apology mean something. That you’re willing to knock yourself down a peg for the benefit of someone else.”
Yoongi takes a breath, then continues. “Whether the other person decides to accept your apology, to offer you that forgiveness, is really up to them,” he says. “But for the most part, if someone can find it in themselves to make a genuine apology, they’re willing to make amends, and the other person can see that. Can feel that. And you don’t always have to forget, but…you can forgive.”
He looks each Karkinos in the eye with a confidence that he doesn’t fully feel, but Yoongi has gotten good at faking it until it’s real.
“I haven’t known him that long, but he tried to save me before he even knew my name,” Yoongi adds. “So I have a feeling that if he apologizes, and you can find it in your heart to forgive him, he’ll make it worth your while. I think…I think he’s someone you might want to have on your side.”
The Karkinos stare at him, their stoic faces not giving anything away. Yoongi glances away, and his eyes land on the Doctor, who is giving him the sort of look that makes him feel like he’s being studied under a microscope. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but he quickly looks away, feeling self-conscious.
“Uh, anyways…that’s about it,” Yoongi says. “So, uh. Yeah. What do you think?”
The Karkinos converse in their musical language once more, but it’s not a long conversation. Lapillus turns back to Yoongi.
“We accept this proposal,” he says, then turns to the Doctor. “Let’s see this ‘apology,’ and then we can talk about making amends, as this one”–he gestures to Yoongi–“says.”
Yoongi lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and the Doctor looks equally relieved. Yoongi watches a smile spread back across his face, like it had never even left, and he finds he’s endlessly curious to learn what this guy is all about.
Too bad they’ll probably part ways after this. He seems busy, and Yoongi–well, Yoongi has a life to live. (Such as it is, anyways.)
After the apology, after the long negotiation of amends–a concept the Karkinos seem to enjoy very much–they’re led back to the TARDIS through the winding corridors of the ship. They step inside, and as the Doctor bustles around the console, muttering about firing up the engines, Yoongi thinks that maybe in another life, there could be something here for him.
Too bad the real world always comes calling.
🌌
After the Doctor has finished puttering around the console, his hand hovers over the lever, and he hesitates, looking over at Yoongi, who is leaning against the railing.
“Listen,” he says, more serious than Yoongi has seen him thus far. “It’s honestly kind of unusual that I travel alone. In the past, I’ve had quite a few companions on the journey. They come and go, but some stay for a while. It’s always been up to them, there’s no catch. And I was wondering if…if maybe you’d want to stay.”
Yoongi stares at him in shock, wondering if this guy can read minds, or something.
“You’d be free to leave whenever you like, of course,” the Doctor adds hurriedly. “It’s entirely voluntary, entirely up to you. You could even go back home for a bit in between trips! It’s just…I don’t do so well, on my own. It’s always nice to have someone to share these adventures with. I can’t promise it’ll always be safe–well, you probably know that by now.” He laughs. “But I can promise you it won’t be boring.”
Yoongi thinks of his office job. He thinks of the files on his computer at home, the music equipment he rarely gets to use because he’s always so tired when he comes home from work, and the obligatory after-work drinks. He thinks about whole new worlds, time stretching before and beyond him, more time than he's ever had in his life. He thinks of the Doctor's easy grin, the eagerness with which he invited him along having known him for less than a day.
He thinks about how maybe everything changes once you’ve saved someone’s life.
In the end, it’s an easy decision.
The Doctor’s face lights up like a sky full of stars.
🌌
Yoongi watches as the Doctor finally flips the lever, then sits down in his weird ass-chair, placing his hands behind his head and kicking his feet up onto the console. He closes his eyes and smiles as the TARDIS whirrs and thrums as they make their way to–well, wherever they’re going next.
Yoongi’s not really sure where they're going, or what they’re doing; but strangely, traveling with the Doctor is the only thing that feels right in his life right now. The Doctor opens one eye and looks over his shoulder at Yoongi, still leaning against the railing, then presses another button. A hatch opens at the base of the console and another smaller, spindlier chair mechanically folds out.
“This one isn’t as decorative as mine, but hopefully you won’t mind.” He pats the seat of the chair, beckoning him over, and like he’s done since the moment they met, Yoongi follows.
Yoongi just has a feeling that with the Doctor, the real world can wait.