Drabbles

In the net, the thief is still fighting—screaming and thrashing, abusing Namjoon's name. Namjoon would shout back, but he can't right now. He hobbles to a stop under the net swinging in the tree and bends over, hands on his knees, to pant. His chest is locked in a painful vice. He wants to sit, swaying on his jellied legs, but this thief has been giving him a ferocious runaround for three days and in front of such power, even trapped helplessly, it would be unwise to kneel.

"You have to let me go!" The thief sounds almost panicked. He's so frantic he's making the trees ooze red and black sap in sympathetic magic. "I'm not going to hurt anyone, I promise, I just need it—"

Namjoon shakes his head and finally pulls in enough breath to speak. "I don't know what you think is going to happen, but you can't. The crystal in that weapon…" His throat closes not with the run but with emotion. "If you fire it once, at anyone, the whole city will be a crater."

"I'm not going to fire it," the thief says. Namjoon isn't interested—he's sure everyone thinks that when they get a bow, and look at the war-torn world they live in, magic like lava bleeding up from the very earth. The only person who can be allowed near that weapon is Namjoon himself. He's going to destroy it, and hope one act of good can counter some tiny part of the evil he's wrought.

How he's going to get into the fortress to do that, he isn't sure. If only he were strong like this thief.

While he figures it out, though, the least he can do is protect the crystal from afar.

"I don't want to fire it," the thief says again, mulish. He has squirmed around in the net to get himself mostly seated, fists tight in the ropes. His body is as powerful as Namjoon has seen these past few days, but his face is younger than Namjoon guessed, prettily made. "I need it to trade. They have my hyung in the prison at the Keep."

Namjoon doesn't care, he can't—everyone has a story—but the thief continues, "Taehyungie-hyung has a weak heart. He won't make it in prison."

Namjoon stands. He had a letter from his mother last week, saying little Kim Taehyung from down the street, a grown man now but still that sweet thing inside, got arrested for giving food to rebels. The Keep.

Maybe it's just a name. But maybe… maybe this is something like destiny.

"How were you going to get into the fortress?" Namjoon asks.

The thief shrugs, which is total madness. "There's no wall I can't climb."

Well, Namjoon would believe it. But… "What about the spiked gears?" He asks. "The codes?"

The thief sets his jaw. "I'll figure it out."

Namjoon calculates his odds, trying to read the thief's pleading eyes. "My name is Kim Namjoon," he finally says. 

The thief starts thrashing again. It cuts Namjoon's heart, how his name became this thing. The architect, the mastermind behind the fortress and the Keep and—well, and a dozen other places he'd never have built if he'd known what they were going to be used for, if he'd looked up from the puzzles that so fascinated him long enough to see what the world was becoming.

"Listen," Namjoon says. "I can get you in."

That stops the thief cold.

"We'll trade, like you said," Namjoon says. "I'll help you get into the Keep and get your hyung, and then you help me get into the fortress and destroy the bow."

The thief glares. "And then?"

Namjoon shakes his head. Maybe they part ways in silence. Maybe they keep working together and save the world. He's never met anyone who could run and climb like this man.

"All right," the thief says. 

Namjoon lets him carefully down, a complicated rigging camouflaged by the tree that lowers the net with a smooth mechanical whir. He sees the thief's fascination, but Namjoon is no longer impressed by his own invisible, inescapable clockwork.

It takes all the trust in Namjoon's heart to open the net. The thief could run and Namjoon would never catch him again. He could probably kill Namjoon first with his bare hands.

He only stands, straightens his clothes, and meets Namjoon's gaze with a bright and impossible smile. "I'm Jungkook," he says.

Namjoon nods and puts out his hand to shake. Jungkook jumps forward instead, pulling him into a hug. "Thank you."

Namjoon is sure he does not deserve thanks yet. This is the most anyone has touched him in… he can't calculate it. "Let's go get your friend," he says.

Dry, soft lips touch Namjoon's cheek, and he closes his eyes against the green and gold light—call it hope—that starts spilling between the trees.