4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

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UNLIKE THE OTHERS he'd met in his time-jumps, Hoseok seems the most unaffected by the Dark Ages.

Where Jungkook had been a resilient but weary soldier, and Yoongi a cold and half-crazed fighter, Hoseok acts as though everything is right with the world. He smiles freely, talks enthusiastically about his job, and laughs merrily while watching old television shows from a scratched but functional laptop. Once Taehyung has gotten over that crushing disappointment from having missed her again, he settles down into yet another strange camaraderie and, through Hoseok, learns a lot about the current climate.

"We're the ones who create the wards—my team and I," says Hoseok, over breakfast the third day. He's made himself comfortable in this house—her house, raiding the fridge for food at any time of the day and browsing through her bookshelves. Taehyung can't quite fight the sting of envy that yet another man seems far more acquainted with her than he'll ever be.

He stabs mindlessly at a chunk of scrambled eggs. "Even on this house?"

"What? Oh, not this." Hoseok shakes his head. "We make the ones for the government; for their safe-houses or headquarters across the globe. But when my team made a stopover in this town, I knew I had to check on her—see if she was still safe." he adds. "Turns out she is,. This house is the only safe place in this town, and it's because of her wards."

Taehyung blinks. "She made these wards? What makes you so sure?"

"It's derivative from our research. It has the same functions—warmth within, alarms for security breaches, soundproofing both in and out. But ours works like a minefield—if one of Gen F trespasses, it gets blown to bits. And ours lasts much longer, while hers breaks in the circuit to reset itself every five days. She probably doesn't have a lot of resources to work with here," Hoseok adds, with sympathy.

Taehyung glances around at the place he's come to call home. That she'd created this to keep him safe almost overwhelms him. Whether she'd done it for him or not—the latter of which seems more likely, this has been only haven during the Dark Ages.

I need to find you, he thinks, so I can thank you. So I can thank you, and talk to you, and maybe even love you.

Dragging in a deep breath, he reaches for his coffee mug. But a sudden strangled sound makes his head snap up, only to see Hoseok staring at his wrist. The watch around his wrist. For the first time, Hoseok's perennially sunny masks slips into a wide-eyed expression of disbelief and growing hysteria.

"She—she did it," Hoseok rasps at last. "She actually did it."

Taehyung watches warily as the man's hands begin to twitch. He has a faint suspicion of what Hoseok is referring to. Now that he knows, for certain, that he's a time-traveller, he feels a strange sort of responsibility. Regardless of what this mission is, everything he does at any point has a consequence. Saving Jungkook. Meeting Yoongi. And now, revealing the truth about time-travel to Hoseok?

What is the consequence of someone in the past knowing what will happen in the future?

"What're you talking about?" he asks, in the most neutral tone he can muster.

Ignoring his question, Hoseok bolts up and begins to pace rapidly, running distracted fingers through his hair and wringing his hands. He has all the nervous tics of someone on the verge of breaking down.

"We all knew! We all knew!" he says, the words tumbling so quickly that Taehyung has to strain his ears to catch them. "We told her—I told her—that it couldn't be done. Better scientists than her have tried and failed. Who was she to...but she wouldn't listen! She holed herself up and did nothing but research on general relativity and wormholes and quantum gravity. We all thought she'd lost her mind. When the government came and told us to develop the wards, she wouldn't leave with us, no matter how much I tried to convince her to. She said she was waiting for someone—"

Hoseok suddenly halts, mid-stride, twisting around to look at Taehyung. The expression on the man's face makes Taehyung falter. He'd been prepared to deny his time-travel experiences, but it's the frantic, mildly deranged, pleading in Hoseok's eyes that stops him.

"She was waiting for you!" Hoseok whispers. "She was waiting for you, wasn't she? Wasn't she? You know how to fix this, don't you? This—this apocalypse, this madness, this Dark Ages...you can get us all out of it, can't you?"

"I–I don't—"

"You have to!"

Hoseok's shout takes him aback, and a wary silence descends between them. Suddenly, as though all the fight's gone out of him, the man sags back down into his chair and hunches over his mug.

"You have to," Hoseok repeats, quieter this time. His shoulders are shaking—for a moment, Taehyung wonders if he's actually crying, but he doesn't dare to ask. "I am terrified, constantly. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I don't remember the last time I ever felt safe. I want this over so much that I will literally rip my soul apart if I could go back in time and kill the scientists who started it all. I'll do it—but I can't." He lets out a noise that sounds like a choked sob. "But you can. You'll fix this, won't you? Please fix this."

It's a monumental task that Hoseok asks of him, and Taehyung desperately wants to reject it. How can he fix anything—when he barely even knows what's going on? But he's sent back in time for a reason, that much he knows, and the future as he knows it is not one worth living. He'll be damned if he doesn't at least try to change the tides of the future through the past.

Slowly, he drags in a deep breath, well aware that his next words will put him on a new path. Forcing his hands steady, he nudges Hoseok's mug towards him and nods. "I will try."