4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

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THEY FORM A temporary truce. It's one that's fraught with frayed tempers and mutual distrust. Where he'd previously shared a comfortable, albeit quiet, solidarity with Jungkook, he keeps his eyes open around Yoongi. This man is as brittle, uneasy and displaced as he is, and he suspects that their armistice will last only as long as their common purpose does:

They're waiting for her to return.

Taehyung is convinced that she will. He's seen the house—it's well lived in and there's a trace of roses in the air, a scent that he's long come to associate with her. Yoongi had insisted on waiting as well, for as long as Taehyung would anyway—so that on the off-chance that she did return, the latter wouldn't get the upper-hand.

Taehyung had rolled his eyes at that, leaving the other man alone. But he'd kept a watchful eye and slept with his gun under his pillow.

Three days into their wait, he finds Yoongi examining his watch. He'd removed it earlier to clean out his mess kit, and he slows in his tracks when he sees the man flipping the watch in his hands.

"That belongs to me," he says quietly.

"Like hell it does." Yoongi snorts, never looking up. "I gave it to her as a gift when we parted ways."

"There are plenty of similar watches around. What makes you so sure?"

"Because I put a tracker in it, and the tracker led me here."

There's a pause. And, as he registers Yoongi's words, the expression on his face grows irate. "You put a tracker on her?" he hisses. He lunges to grab the watch, but Yoongi springs back, holding it out of reach. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"It was for her own safety! I needed to know that she wasn't anywhere near the war-zones. And, when this fucking apocalypse hit, I knew exactly where she was!"

"You mean you knew exactly where I was!" he snarls. "You don't put a tracker on anyone without telling them, you paranoid asshole! If you, for even a second, loved her as much as I do, then you would've trusted her enough to let her do or go whatever she wanted! Instead, you put a fucking tracker on the Cypher, and you—"

"What's a Cypher?"

His flurry of thoughts come to a halt. "What?"

Yoongi narrows his eyes at him. "You said that I put a tracker on the Cypher," he repeats, and holds up the watch. "Were you talking about this?"

"I–I don't—"

He blinks. Where the hell had that come from? he wonders, suddenly alarmed by his earlier slew of words. In fact, where had all of that come from?

He shakes his head, slowly settling down on his chair. "I'm not sure..."

Yoongi hisses out an exasperated breath and chucks the watch at him. He catches it on reflex and looks down at it.

"And there I was thinking you couldn't get any fucking weirder," Yoongi mutters, and stomps off.

Taehyung turns the watch in his hand, studying the pristine surface. Sapphire crystal, something in the back of his mind tells him. The third hardest material—ergo, not many things can destroy it. He blinks again—where had that bit of knowledge come from?—and holds it up to his ear.

There's the quiet tick, tick, tick of the second hand. He closes his eyes and counts: One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. This is slow and steady as time should be. But every time he jumps from one place to another, time flies.

Tickticktick.

Sapphire crystal. The third hardest material—ergo, not many things can destroy it. But what can? Diamond. Moissanite. Impacts. Collisions. Time. Of course—time. Nothing can ever outlast it. But what if it shatters through time?

Well, then, a thought surfaces from the back of his mind, I'll just have to try and see, won't I?

He turns still, struck by the familiarity of his words. He's said this before. It's an echo of a memory that he can no longer fully remember. In his mind's eye, he sees the watch in his hands. He sees the watch in his hands, the light from the ceiling overhead refracting off the glass. He sees the watch in his hands, his knuckles unblemished and fingernails unstained.

That was then.

He lets out a slow breath and turns the watch over in his hands. He sees the watch in his hands, the light from the ceiling flickering and faltering. He sees the watch in his hands, his knuckles bruised and fingernails caked with grit and dried blood from all the fighting he's been through.

This is now.

Well, then, that damned thought surfaces in his mind once again, I'll just have to try and see, won't I?

But there's no reason to ask that—he already knows the answer.

Because now, at this very moment, he's time-travelling.