Broken Glass - Taekook

69

Taehyung turns in my direction, and then he sways a little where he stands. I shift a little, trying to focus, and then the world goes blurry again for a moment, spins around me before stopping again. "Fuck," I whisper into the dirt, my arms tensing in an attempt to lift me from the ground. I feel someone grab me by the wrist and heft me to my feet. I stumble over them for a second, and then land squarely on the person who picked me up. He sighs, and places my hand on his opposite shoulder, so I'm leaning on him properly. 

"Has anyone got Tae-"
"Way ahead of you, Kook. I've got him," Namjoon's voice calls from somewhere, and I take a deep breath, trying to centre myself. "Just focus on yourself right now, you took a nasty hit there, and we don't totally know what that Knight did to you."

"Is everyone else-" 
"We're all okay," Hoseok's voice comes from right next to me, and it's only then that I realise he's the one supporting me. "Jimin's tired too, but Jin's got him. We're alright. We just need to move, as much as we can. Get some distance between us and what just happened. The more the better." 

I try to nod, but the movement sets the world spinning again, and a wave of nausea passes over me for a moment. Hoseok grunts, and then the two of us begin to slowly walk forward again. I'm still staring at the ground, which is damaged and all kinds of fucked up from whatever Jimin did to it, as well as the whole lightning situation. 

There's boulders and disturbed turf, there's a massive scorch mark in the centre of where the fight happened, and the tiniest outline of a rodent that must have lived in a burrow just underground. There are vines crossing over each other, holding the bodies of Karulian Knights down to the earth.

"Jimin, you're already tired-" 

In the corner of my vision, I can see Jimin's tiny hand reach out, and touch the ground. The boulders right themselves, rolling back into their original places. The grass seems to fold and reflatten, and new shoots begin to peek through where the scorch once was. Where the mark of the rodent now lies, Jimin's hand passes, and I hear him whisper a quiet blessing under his breath. 

Slowly, the vines begin to pull the bodies underground as the terrain begins to fix itself. Before long, there is no sign of our presence, and the vines disappear below the surface of the grass as well. The only thing tying us to this random space is our presence here. 

And so the seven of us begin to move once more, but it's slow-going. Something deep within feels like it's shifted, but I can't quite tell what it is. My mouth is dry, feels like it's been filled with some sort of velvety soft fabric, and I can feel my body shuddering with the effort to keep moving. My heartbeat is still quietly drumming in my head, somewhere between my ears, though it's slowed down a little since the fight. 

We don't travel far before nightfall, but in some ways that's to be expected. After the chaos of the fight, the tiredness that some of us are still battling, it's going to take a while for us to recover. Taehyung, Jimin and I are carefully helped down to a seated position, and then the others begin to set up our usual camp around us. Namjoon frees Aphelia from the small pouch she usually inhabits at his waist. Hoseok grabs the tents from everyone's packs and begins to pitch them up. Yoongi starts to assemble the shelter he made for travelling across grassland. Seokjin hands around a dry, cold meal of fruits, meats and bread. 

Our usual routine has a sense of life to it, a gentle conversation that's never too loud but still exists. But tonight, we're all silent, focused on eating and resting and keeping an eye out for anything that looks like it could be danger heading in our direction. After the fight, I think we all feel a little more exposed, and we're a little more aware of how close we came to disaster. 

We sleep early that night, before the sun has even fully set. In the tent I share with Taehyung, the thin animal hide that stretches over our heads is still glowing faintly with orange light, when my eyes close and I drift into dreams. I'm still aware of his presence for a little while after I fall asleep, the warmth of him right there next to me. These are small tents, after all, and there's not much space. We've had to learn how to sleep in close quarters.