Chapter Text
✟
Namgyu’s head fucking hurts . It hurts so bad, he can barely stand to crack his eyes open. When he does, he’s met with piercing, blinding light.
“Fuck,” he moans, rubbing a hand over his face.
It’s then that he realizes it’s not just his head that hurts. It’s kind of everything. His back, his feet, his neck, his shoulders. There’s a stabbing pain running up his right leg, from his ankle to the hollow of his knee. It almost feels like his leg is broken. When he goes to stretch it, though, it moves just fine.
That’s what gets him to finally open his eyes all the way. If his leg is broken, he shouldn’t be able to move it so freely. He stares down at his feet, blinking rapidly as his eyes adjust to the bright light, and rotates his ankle. It’s moving just fine.
It’s covered in thick, sticky blood, but it’s moving just fine.
Weird. Namgyu glances over himself, patting at the blood-stained sleeves of his tracksuit. Pain under the skin, but no visible injuries anywhere. Not even a bruise. Really fucking weird.
He runs a shaky hair through his hair. It’s wet and tangled, and when he draws his hand back to look at his palm, he’s met with a smear of blood.
Fuck, he feels way too shitty to handle this right now. He must’ve taken too much before his shift at the club. It wouldn’t be the first time he went a little too hard with the pills or a needle and came to in a freaky situation. Wouldn’t be the first time that freaky situation involved blood. Namgyu sighs and wipes his palms clean on his track pants.
Strange that he’s wearing such a dorky green tracksuit. He wouldn’t be caught dead in something so lame. It’s a good thing no one’s around to see him like this.
Why is he alone? So many of his benders end up with him in someone else’s bed, or a grimy motel room, or the backseat of a stranger’s car, or in the backroom of Club Pentagon, or sprawled out on a park bench. Rarely does he know where the fuck he is or what happened, but it’s even more rare for him to wake up totally alone like this.
Totally alone and on a train. Namgyu grimaces when he feels his seat rumble from the tracks underfoot.
Jesus fucking Christ. He’s on a train. When he turns his head to the side and looks out the window, he sees trees and rice fields passing him by. He’s alone and on a train and in the middle of fucking nowhere. What the hell did he do last night?
He stands up on shaky legs—unbroken, thank fuck—and pads his way down the center aisle. There are rows of empty seats on both sides. Fancy ones. Even fancier than first class on KTX, judging from the plush red leather and ample leg space. When Namgyu opens the door to the next car over, he’s met with a bar, glass shelves lined with expensive liquor bottles.
This is definitely not KTX. The best he’s seen on those trains are vending machines. How Namgyu’s junkie ass managed to get primo tickets to what must be the world’s fanciest train, he isn’t sure. He’s also not sure what destination his junkie ass had in mind when he somehow booked a ticket last night. He can’t see Seoul at all when he looks out the window—just fields and trees and mountains in the distance.
Namgyu squints, seeing rocks lining the mountaintop. God, is that fucking Geumjeongsan? He’s a long way from Seoul, it seems. Fucking perfect. Fuck his life.
Well, he’s here now, and there’s no bartender, so Namgyu shuffles behind the counter and pulls a bottle of Yamazaki off the shelf. He forgoes a glass, uncapping the bottle and taking a long pull. He grimaces as the whiskey burns its way down his throat. Shit. Even his throat hurts, kind of like he’s been screaming.
He probably was screaming. He has no clue what kind of bullshit he got into last night. Obviously something wild enough that he ended up covered in blood and on a train to Busan, still covered in said blood.
Kinda funny, in a way. Maybe there are zombies aboard this train. That would just be fucking perfect, too. Namgyu’s head hurts so much, he kind of wouldn’t mind getting taken out by a zombie right now. Being brainless sounds pretty damn ideal when his head is throbbing this intensely.
Jesus, what the fuck did he take last night? He feels like total shit.
He sits down on a barstool and nurses the bottle as he tries to tug memories from his pain-addled brain.
There’s something there. It just doesn’t make sense. Jump rope, knives, a cross necklace. Little fragments of memories, not clear enough to put together a distinct picture. What the fuck was he doing playing jump rope like some kind of middle school girl?
A girl. Semi. Whoever she is, the sudden thought of her name makes Namgyu’s chest burn with anger.
“Fucking bitch,” he murmurs to himself. He’s not sure why. But the urge to say it is there, and it’s not like there’s anyone here to listen to him and question it anyway. This fancy train is completely empty for some reason.
A boy pops into Namgyu’s head, just a little clearer than the girl. This time, he sees a face alongside the name Minsu.
“Fucking loser,” he murmurs. This time, he knows why. Somehow, some way, Minsu killed him.
Wait, shit, he’s clearly still tweaking. He stutters out a laugh. Whoever this Minsu loser is, he obviously didn’t kill Namgyu. He’s still alive—he’s got no clue where the fuck he is, but wherever he is, he’s alive.
Namgyu takes another long pull from the bottle. It burns a little less this time, now that he’s getting used to it. He’s not dead. He’d know it if he was dead, obviously. And he wouldn’t be in pain. Dead people don’t feel pain.
The pain is starting to fade with each sip from the whiskey bottle, though. It’s a massive relief, because that shit was really starting to suck. The headache is dull now. His leg just feels sore rather than broken. He’s still covered in blood, but he’s not actively bleeding.
It’s a huge relief. Namgyu’s starting to feel a lot more clear-headed, now that he isn’t in so much pain.
He should probably try to figure out where this train is going. Hopefully he’s not actually going to Busan. Getting back to Seoul would be a major pain in the ass, and when he goes to pat at his pockets, he doesn’t feel his phone or wallet.
Fuck. Of course he lost his phone. He’s such a dumbass. Maybe he left it on one of the other cars.
He stands up, taking the whiskey bottle with him, and makes his way to the next car over. It’s just as empty as the last two cars, but unlike those ones, it’s lined with wooden sliding doors instead of seats. When Namgyu goes to open one of the doors, he’s met with a small bed and a dresser tucked up against the window.
So this is a sleeper car. One with full bedrooms instead of just sleeping pods. Namgyu’s dumb high ass must have dropped some major bucks to get on this train. He definitely doesn’t have the money for this bullshit.
He heaves out a sigh. Too late for a refund, he supposes. He’s already here. He might as well take advantage of the amenities. When he opens up another door inside of the small room, he sees a cramped shower.
God, a shower. He feels like he hasn’t showered in a week. Maybe he hasn’t. His hair feels really fucking greasy.
He places the Yamazaki on the edge of the sink and peels out of his bloody tracksuit. He tosses it onto the ground, grimaces as he tugs off his sweat-soaked boxers, and steps into the tub.
Warm water eases the residual pain. His head doesn’t hurt at all anymore. His leg feels totally fine.
He’s getting his memories back, and with them comes the full-blown panic.
Ddakji. Red light, green light. Six-legged pentathlon. Mingle. Hide and seek. Jump rope. Kids’ games, tinged with blood and death. His own death.
Fuck. He remembers everything . His body shakes as memories come flooding in, vivid and visceral and leaving his heart pounding painfully in his chest. He distinctly remembers bending down to get a pill from Thanos’s necklace, only to find it empty. He remembers the hard metal of the jump rope hitting his ankle, cracking the bone. He remembers falling off the edge of the train tracks to the hard, floral ground hundreds of meters below. He remembers dying.
Holy fucking shit, he’s dead . He’s fucking dead.
“Fuck,” Namgyu moans, grasping onto the wall with shaking fingers. The water makes it slippery. He can’t get purchase on the tile. He slips, falling into the basin of the tub with a thump .
The new pain barely registers. He fucking died , and now he’s—where? Purgatory? Hell? Definitely not heaven. He killed too many people for heaven.
He killed so many people. He’s not even sure how many. A dozen, maybe. Only one that he could actually name. He was smiling while he did it. He’s definitely in hell.
So it’s not just his own blood that he’s washing off his body. It’s Semi’s, and Player 331’s and Player 185’s. 235 and 411 and who fucking knows who else. Namgyu was high out of his mind as he killed them all. Singing and laughing and acting as if it were all a game.
A fucking kids’ game. Jesus Christ.
He can still see it—the way their eyes slowly dulled, turning into the lifeless, glassy eyes of dolls.
Thanos had that same look in his eyes when he died. Dull and dead. Like a doll. Namgyu’s eyes must have looked the same in those final moments. Not that there was anyone to see it. He died completely alone, everyone else still up on the platform.
Namgyu curls into himself on the floor of the tub, his tears mixing with the blood-tinted water. He heaves out wracking, painful sobs. He’s not even sure why at this point. He’s already dead. There’s nothing left to cry about.
Besides, he’s got no right to cry. He’s got no one to blame but himself. He might as well just accept his fate—he’s in hell now. At least hell has warm showers and expensive whiskey.
Hell is also really, really fucking lonely. Namgyu hates being alone. It makes sense that his own personal hell would be an empty train. He died on a train track. He died alone.
Fuck.
He died completely and utterly alone. Even Minsu turned on him in the end. Dorky, shy Minsu, who could never hurt a fly. Minsu killed him.
No, he killed himself. He’s the one who stopped jumping. He has no one to blame but himself.
Fuck.
Namgyu pulls himself out of the shower, shutting the water off and heaving his body back into the bedroom. When he checks the dresser drawers, he finds a green tracksuit labelled ‘124.’ Of fucking course hell is going to keep him in that ugly ass tracksuit. The thought of putting on the same clothes he died in sends a shiver down Namgyu’s spine.
He’s got no reason to get dressed, though. He’s completely alone. He pushes the tracksuit to the side and digs around until he finds a pair of boxers. They’re identical to the ones he was wearing during the games, but at least they’re actually his own. At least they’re free of blood stains. He pulls them on and grabs the bottle of Yamazaki out of the bathroom before he makes his way back out to the main part of the car.
He opens the doors of the other rooms. All empty. There are six bedrooms in this car—with each door he opens, he feels an increased sense of dread. He’s completely alone here.
This is hell, and hell for him is loneliness. He fucking hates being alone.
He misses Thanos. He hates that it’s true, but he really, really fucking does.
He was an asshole. A self-absorbed, arrogant, drug addicted, patronizing prick who only saw Namgyu as a lackey and a mouth for him to warm his cock in, but still. Namgyu misses him. He still feels that deep ache in his chest from the moment he saw Thanos’s life slip from his eyes—in a brief moment of sobriety, it dawned on him that he was utterly alone. Without Thanos, he had no one.
“Fuck,” Namgyu warbles out as he brings the bottle back to his lips. He’s so fucking pathetic, missing a conceited piece of shit who never even bothered to learn his name.
Namgyu hates how much he misses him. It’s a real, palpable ache in his chest. Like his heart is breaking. Fresh tears stream from his eyes. Fuck.
Even in death, he can’t get away from thoughts of Thanos. This really is hell. Hell is loneliness, and hell is missing Thanos.
At least hell has whiskey. Namgyu slumps down on a bed and leans against the window, staring out at the rice fields zooming by and taking long, burning pulls from his bottle and he tries to force his tears to stop.
Maybe there’s some heroin or ecstasy onboard somewhere. Namgyu’s brain is starting to feel foggy, so clearly he’s still capable of being drunk in the afterlife. If he can be high too, that would be fucking perfect.
The thought has him smiling again through the tears. He would love to be high right now, and if the drug supply on this train is anything like the liquor supply, he’ll have enough to last him through eternity. Maybe this isn’t hell. Maybe it’s heaven. An eternity of whiskey and pills sounds pretty fucking ideal, now that he’s thinking about it. He’ll probably get used to being alone. Besides, he hardly ever feels lonely when his brain is slow and hazy from a high.
“Soon or late, maybe,” Namgyu hums under his breath as he stands up and makes his way through the aisle to the next car. “If you wait, maybe, some kind of fate, maybe, will help you discover where to find your lover.”
He’s not sure why that particular song is stuck in his head right now. Another love song, he supposes. He’s had quite a few stuck in his head for the past few days. This is an old one, though. Hardly the kind of love song Thanos would be familiar with. Not that Thanos would ever sing him a love song.
The closest he ever got to that was humming the lyrics to “Seven” by Jungkook when they were grinding at the club. He put way more emphasis on singing “Night after night, I’ll be fucking you right” than “You wrap around me and you give me life.”
Namgyu really hates that he misses those nights at the club with Thanos. They clearly didn’t mean as much to him as they meant to Namgyu. He tried to act like it never even happened when they met up in the games.
Namgyu hates that it just makes him feel lonely and miserable rather than pissed. He really misses Thanos, despite what a massive piece of shit he was.
He wonders, briefly, what Thanos’s version of hell must look like. Probably not all that different from his own. Thanos hated being alone just as much as Namgyu does.
Well, serves him right, if he’s suffering alone on his own personal hell train. Namgyu hopes Thanos’s train doesn’t have quality booze and warm showers. He deserves to suffer. He was a massive piece of shit.
“Paradise will open its gate,” Namgyu sings as he peeks into the rooms of the next car. Another sleeper. The rooms look nearly identical to the other ones, but when Namgyu opens the dressers, he doesn’t see tracksuits. Instead, he sees pairs of grey wool pants, pale yellow shirts, and green durumagis.
Strange. It’s the kind of shit a grandpa would wear. Of course hell wouldn’t actually have cool clothes. Namgyu may just be resigned to wearing his underwear for the rest of eternity. Hopefully hell doesn’t get chilly at night.
Namgyu starts the song over as he continues peeking through the rooms. All empty, all identical to the ones that came before, all filled with the same dorky grandpa clothes. Not a pill bottle or syringe in sight.
He starts the song over for a third time, singing a little louder in an effort to keep himself from freaking out too much. It’s too quiet when he isn’t singing. The relief he felt before was short-lived. He’s starting to feel sick from the constant movement of the train. The whiskey isn’t doing anything to help with that. He’s still crying.
He lays down on one of the beds and wipes his eyes, finishing out the song before tugging his lip between his teeth. The silence is deafening. All he can hear is the mechanical sound of the train zipping along the track, his own breathing, the sound of the door opening—
“It’s you.”
Namgyu bolts up. Holy fuck.
“Holy fuck,” he says. “It’s you .”
Is it? Namgyu’s not entirely certain as his eyes scan over the man standing in the doorway. His hair is black instead of purple. He doesn’t have tattoos. He’s not wearing blue contact lenses. His fingernails aren’t coated in polish. He’s wearing the same dorky clothes Namgyu saw in the dressers.
It kind of makes sense that Thanos’s version of hell would take away his dyed hair and tattoos and force him into grandpa clothes. He was obsessed with those dumbass tattoos and his ridiculous baggy clothes. He was obsessed with looking cool. Of course hell for him is looking dorky. He’s such a piece of shit.
Thanos steps into the room. There’s a smile on his face as he sits down on the bed and reaches a hand out to touch Namgyu’s face.
“I can’t believe it,” he says with a laugh. “It really is you. I knew we’d find each other.”
Namgyu feels the anger seeping out of him. Thanos has the same laugh he’s always had, bright and loud and goofy. So sexy, Namgyu kind of feels like his heart is going to stop.
“Why are you crying?” Thanos asks, wiping a thumb under Namgyu’s wet eyes.
There’s no point in lying. They’re both dead. Namgyu smiles and says, “Because I missed you.”
The grin Thanos offers him is so beautiful, Namgyu’s sure his heart has actually stopped. It skips a beat, at least. Super cheesy, but holy fuck . He’s seeing Thanos again. This really might be heaven.
“I missed you too,” Thanos says, pulling Namgyu in for an embrace.
Namgyu probably shouldn’t lean into the touch. Thanos is an asshole. He pretended not to know Namgyu for days. He always treated Namgyu like shit. But he can’t help it, he wraps his arms around Thanos’s back, letting out a content sigh. The hands on his own back are so familiar, rough and calloused and strong. Warm and soothing. Namgyu fucking missed being touched like this. It’s so much more gentle than the last time Thanos had his arms around him. That night, he wasn’t gently cupping Namgyu’s cheeks before pulling him in for a hug. He was pinching his cheeks, urging his jaw open before pushing his head down.
The thought gives him some pause. Why is Thanos acting so sweet right now? He’s hardly a sweet guy.
“What happened to your hair?” Thanos asks, eyes wide as he twirls a piece between his fingers.
Weird. Maybe it’s just because it was so dirty the last time they saw each other, though. Namgyu narrows his eyes at him. “I just washed it.”
Thanos scrunches his nose in confusion. Namgyu’s really fucking confused himself when Thanos says, “It’s so long.”
Uh, yeah? No shit? Did Thanos really forget what Namgyu’s hair looks like? The anger is starting to come back. “Yeah, of course it’s long. Did one day in hell really make you forget what I look like?”
The look of confusion on Thano's face deepens. His cheeks flush pink. “Hell? Father Kim, what are you talking about?”
Namgyu lets out a laugh. Fuck, hell is a cruel place. He hates that even in death, Thanos isn’t getting his name right.
“Father?” Namgyu echoes through his laughs. “I thought you were the one who liked being called daddy.”
Thanos’s mouth drops open. He pulls his hands away from Namgyu’s back. Namgyu hates how much he misses the contact. “What?”
God, what the fuck is Thanos’s problem? Surely he’s not still pretending they never had a sexual relationship. He can’t seriously still be this ashamed. “Don’t pretend you never liked it, you prick.”
Thanos has the nerve to look taken aback. He’s such an arrogant, selfish piece of shit. “Father Kim? What’s going on?”
“Stop fucking calling me that,” Namgyu snaps, pushing Thanos hard on his shoulder. Thanos stumbles back on his elbows, mouth falling open as his eyes widen with shock. It’s fucking aggravating . “You still won’t bother to learn my name? Huh?”
Namgyu pushes him down against the bed, palm pressed flat to his chest as he looms over him. He narrows his eyes as he gets in his face, anger starting to make his hands tremble. He goes to pull his sleeves down, only to remember he’s still in his boxers. Fuck. He hates that Thanos is seeing him like this. He hates that the proximity, that they’re laying on a bed in a position not dissimilar from ones they’ve been in in the past, is turning him on. He hates how obvious it’ll be if he ends up getting hard.
“I don’t understand,” Thanos says, voice pinched and frantic. “You’re not…who are you?”
“Seriously? You massive piece of shit, I’m Kim fucking Namgyu,” Namgyu says. “Nam gyu . Gyu . Not fucking Namsu, not fucking Father whatever the fuck.” He sighs, running his shaking hands through his hair as he leans back on his knees. “Jesus fucking Christ, man.”
Thanos shakes his head, frenzied and jerky. He looks terrified. It’s reminding Namgyu a lot of the look on his face when Myunggi plunged a fork into his throat. Wide-eyed. Scared. At least his eyes aren’t glassy and dull this time around. There’s life in them.
Or at least whatever passes for ‘life’ when you’re already dead. It’s dawning on Namgyu that they’re about to spend an eternity in hell together.
He hates that the thought is making him excited.
“You can’t be,” Thanos says, pawing at the sheets beneath him as if seeking escape. He looks really scared. It’s throwing Namgyu off. “You can’t…you’re not- What is this? What’s happening?”
“Thanos?” Namgyu asks.
Thanos’s eyes widen. “What?”
Shit. Something really fucked up must be happening. “You’re Thanos,” Namgyu says, not feeling all that sure of himself.
Thanos shakes his head. The hands still pawing at the sheets are trembling. “What are you talking about? No I’m not.”
Something really fucked up must be happening. “Then who are you?”
“Choi Subong.”
Fuck. Something super fucking fucked up is happening.