Walk with me?
8. Seeing is believing (sorry, my eyes were closed)
cowboy! Jimin x reader
series masterlist I word count: approx 8k
Summary: Your brother has always been flighty. The type of person who would pick up your call from the depths of a cave in Kentucky on a random Tuesday, only to be halfway across the country by Wednesday on the lookout for the next big Bigfoot sighting. So no one really bat an eye when he disappeared into the woods of New Mexico with a flashlight and a dream of hunting down the ‘Deadwood Wardens’, yet another mythological legend you didn’t believe in that he felt was his 'destiny' to prove. But then he stopped calling. And it turns out the woods were a lot scarier in person than in the photos. With the help of a local who knows the woods like the back of his hand, you should be out of here with your stupid brother in no time! Not that you were worried or anything — after all, it wasn’t like those campfire stories of men in wide-brimmed hats coming to steal the souls of unsuspecting trespassers were true. It was only a coincidence that Jimin, your friendly woodsman, wore a hat just like the ones taped on your brother's wall....right?
Genre: 18+ Folk horror, paranormal themes, mystery/thriller, romance, slow burn, eventual smut (? we will see where the wind takes me)
Chapter Warnings: Language. discussions of death. Paranormal themes.
Taglist open! : @ae12moonss @lovehobicheol @next-bex-bet @jiminspersonalmaid @elmarimochi9513 @darksolace18@cripilingdepression-blog @polnaraffsrack @garnetroze
A/n: getting some biblically accurate lore finally. Sorry for being MIA; just vibing through life and dealing with some flares. For those that missed it, I made a post here about creating a Discord server for us to hang out and yap. You don't just have to talk about BTS, there's plenty of other things we can chitty chat about in there. Games, art, fics, life etc. Anyways, Let's get it~
“Am I going to die?” Your question sounded small. Small enough to make Jimin look at you with a pity that made your stomach drop. A double hit considering the onslaught of snickers erupting from the kitchen behind him.
“We all die. Does it really matter when? Thought you were ready to burn it all down...” Hoseok barked out a cold laugh from the other room, silencing any further questions from you. That humored him even more. “Now look who’s finally learned to be quiet. Guess it was all just talk, huh?”
Humiliation twisted a hot fist in your gut, bile rising in the back of your throat. You felt exposed in the cramped quarters of the bathroom, the walls doing little to hide the tremor in your voice from the circling hyenas in the kitchen.
With one quick glance at your expression, Jimin’s hardened, looking at Hoseok with blatant scorn. “That’ll do. She’s been through enough tonight.”
Hoseok’s laughter fizzled out, his pride grazed by Jimin’s dissent.
“Protective already?” He mused, stepping up to his side while fixing his belt, making sure his holsters were proudly on display. “This ain’t gonna be a problem for us, is it?”
Jimin blocked him from the bathroom entrance, shielding your moment of vulnerability from his view. “No. I just remember how it felt to look in that mirror. Telling me you don’t?”
“Been a long time for me.” Hoseok bit back, bitterness coating every syllable.
Jimin didn’t back down from the obvious show of power. “You don’t remember how it was when you first found out?”
“Couldn’t even if I tried.”
They stared at one another for an unbearably long time. Long enough for the air to shift like the first intermingling dance of hot winds meeting a cold front, and it was only a matter of seconds until one of them cracked the other’s teeth or bolted.
You decided to ease the tension, schooling yourself to look as neutral as possible. “I need to go to the bathroom, i-if you wouldn’t mind.” There was no reason to wait for a response; your hands were already pressing the door closed and pinching the lock. A moment of privacy was all you needed to pull yourself together.
Waiting a couple of seconds, you held your breath and listened for any sign of struggle. The other room was completely silent; even when you pressed your ear to the wood, there wasn’t even a scuff of boot on tile or a murmured curse. A sigh of relief trickled out when you heard the porch creak, figuring Jimin had convinced the others to leave.
Something in your chest fluttered. Or choked. Or maybe you were having a heart attack...who knows.
Jimin’s good looks and charming nature had to be influencing you. Maybe his hair held secret magic that bewitched everyone who looked at it, or his eyes infiltrated the mind and softened its defenses...because you were actually starting to trust him.
Be it from his insistence to keep Hoseok at arm's length from you, or the unpleasant attitude from all the other cowboys you had gotten to familiarize yourself with so far, he looked like a saint right now.
Was this trauma bonding? Stockholm syndrome planting seeds in your head? No, it was too early for all that. His character must actually be decent enough to skim through your radar this long.
“Okay…” You heaved a shaky sigh, planting both hands on the sink and staring yourself down in the mirror. The collar of your shirt was still stretched out from your prodding, leaving a snippet of the scar to stare back at you. You shivered.
“Look. We are in deep shit. Shapeshifters, ghosts, and unexplained marks — maybe something worth hearing out.” Mindlessly, your fingertips pushed back under the fabric to press down on it, hissing a bit when you found it tender. “There’s gotta be a reason behind all of it, and that guy out there has it. We can’t give him too hard of a time if we want answers.” A short pause, and a point at yourself in the mirror. “Control yourself. Seriously. If we...die...then we can go out guns blazing.”
Splashing your face with cold water a few times, you dried yourself off with another deep breath, wrenching open the door to an empty kitchen. The only sign that the cowboys had even been there was your backpack still splattered on the kitchen floor, and the front door that had been left open just enough for a warm breeze to creep through. Jimin was nowhere to be found.
“...Hello?” You poked your head into the living room, finding Gooey’s friendly face gazing up at you from his cozy spot on the recliner. Now he was certainly a man you could trust. There wasn’t a mean thought behind those eyes.
You crouched in front of him, holding his heavy head in your hands with noses nearly pressed together. “What do you say about an alliance, you and me?”
It was stupid really, but it made you feel better to imagine that he could understand you. It might even be suicidal to expect a dog to betray their owner after only ten minutes of nonstop ear scratches. But a quick flip of the tip of his tongue over your nose and the beat of his tail on the arm of the chair fed into your delusions.
“Good. Very good.”
Lingering with your fingers threaded through his fur for a little while longer, you found your nervous system settling enough to regain some confidence, the uncertain shiver in your voice gone by the time the front door swung open again.
Jimin kicked off a pair of untied boots with a grunt, the crease between his brow showing his obvious displeasure. “He shouldn’t be bothering us for the rest of the night.”
Your hand came to a slow stop on Gooey’s head. At first your instinct was to nod, but something he said had you tripped up. Shouldn’t be bothering us for the rest of the night.
Heat billowed up into your cheeks and made you feel a bit woozy. You knew he meant it casually. There wasn’t an ounce of hidden intent behind those words. But coming from his mouth, it had you momentarily forgetting that you were strangers, or that you were ready to strangle him not more than a few hours prior. They reminded you just how pretty his golden eyes were, and how good he had looked in leather.
Then you found yourself stuttering for a different reason, your logical brain catching up with the dazed hopeless romantic. “The rest of the night? Am I not allowed back to my brother’s cabin?”
“Not tonight.” Jimin moved to the couch, slumping down on the cushions with a weary sigh. Gooey immediately betrayed you, using his 120lb body to shove you out of the way for a chance to snuggle up to his dad’s side. “Not until we know it’s safe.”
“You all really like telling me what to do,” You scrunched your nose, lifting yourself up to sit where the dog had just been. You couldn’t really let yourself relax into the plush seat knowing you were still filthy. Sure you could have an attitude, but you weren’t a barbarian — messy outdoor clothes on fabric furniture was a big no-no.
Although so was wearing mud and clay-caked shoes on carpet, and you had been doing that since you got there. Taking them off felt too casual. Not sure what survival mechanism told you that keeping your shoes on in a stranger's home meant you felt safer, but wherever it came from, it made you hold onto them just a little while longer. You’d take them off when you knew for sure there was no need to run.
Jimin shrugged, patting the wide rib cage of the dog on his lap. “You can leave town if you’d like.” He cast a hesitant look to your shoulder. “Not sure how much good it will do you, but you can try.”
Instinctively, your hand shot up to cover the mark through the fabric, bringing back a wave of questions. “Is this...a mark of the warden or whatever?”
He sucked in a breath, as though preparing himself to brave through the conversation ahead. “I’m gonna answer your question, and I want you to at least try and humor it for me. Or at least keep your thoughts to yourself ‘til I’m finished.”
“Don’t think I have any other choice but to humor it….” You trailed off bitterly. “So, Warden mark. Certain death. Explain to me like I’m five who did this and who is out to kill me.”
“Well that that there is the issue. We don’t know who does it, just that they do.” Jimin explained slowly. “Our understanding is that it’s from Deadwood herself, that she chooses who stays.”
“Deadwood...the town?”
Jimin recalibrated for as moment, wracking his brain for just the right thing to say. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and inched closer to the edge of the couch to close some of the distance. “So you know how them legends talk about portals, and liminal spaces, right?”
“Right.”
“Well they aren’t wrong perse, just misguided. Those places where the green meets the sand, we call that the Cracks. That’s where the other things come from.
You nodded, albeit a bit skeptically. Sure you saw the ground open up and spit out a coyote-shaped loogie, but there could still be other explanations for that. You humored it further, for evidence purposes only of course. “Like those coyotes?”
“Scalers. We call them Scalers. Those ain’t normal coyotes.”
“That much I could tell.” Refraining from rolling your eyes, you urged him to continue with a wave of your hand. “You’re saying they come from the ground?”
“Saw it for yourself, didn’t you?” He raised a brow at your disbelief.
“Mmm. Maybe. I also could’ve hit my head on my little joy ride down the hillside.”
Unimpressed, he moved past your stubbornness. “Anyways. They crawl out, we kill them. That’s our job as Wardens, to protect this place from things like them.”
“So you’re addmitting you’re a Warden — just like that? After all that in the kitchen?”
“We usually aren’t allowed to tell people. Even if we want to, she won’t let us unless the...other person knows it first.”
“Deadwood...the town...won’t let you?” The look on your face must have been enough to describe your thoughts.
“Look,” He shuffled closer, voice dropping low. “I know it sounds nuts, but it’s the truth. We get chosen for whatever fuckin’ reason, and we play the part. It’s either that, or more people die.”
The gravity in his tone halted your knee-jerk response to tease him.
More people.
Puzzle pieces began to slot together behind your eyes. The Scalers. The missing people. Animal attacks. Your brother.
“Let’s say what your saying is true,” You started, naturally imitating his low volume. “What does this all have to do with me or my brother?”
Jimin ran his tongue over his teeth. “At first I thought your brother had just seen somethin’ he shouldn’t have, or fallen victim to some spirits that crawled from the Cracks. Some of them aren’t as easy to spot in a crowd as the Scalers — makes it easy to get in your head and fuck with you. Make you do things you wouldn’t normally do. But then we found his stuff and...”
That plucked an uncomfortable chord in your gut. Thinking of how genuinely worried Jimin had been for your brother back at the rental cabin made sense with his story. If he — they — were in charge of catching things or wrangling them back into place, that probably meant they protected this place in other ways too.
“You don’t just catch the things, do you?”
He frowned. “I wasn’t lying when I’d said I’ve seen it all. Part of protecting Deadwood means keeping suspicion low. Don’t want more investigators crawling around than we already have, puttin’ themselves in harms way for a damn video. Someone has to scare them out of town or clean up the bodies.”
Things started to feel too real. Too...unsettling. “So what do you think happened to my brother if it wasn’t spirits?”
Ugh. Saying that physically hurt.
“Not spirits, a spirit.” Jimin corrected. “Tracked your brother’s scent down south towards our neighboring town. There’s a...‘guy’ there that you don’t want to mess with, and he has a habit of pushing our buttons. Bastard is lucky he’s out of bounds, otherwise Hoseok would’ve done away with him ages ago. What we think happened is your brother got too smart. Dug too deep. Got tangled up with some entities he shouldn’t have while trying to find us. Someone must have done a good job teaching him how to sleuth if he was able to figure as much as his research showed.”
He offered a small smile, one that had your heart squeezing for more reason than one. Then as though realizing he had done something he shouldn’t have, he shook the smile from his face while averting his gaze, continuing where he left off. “Hoseok has his own spin on it — always does — but we can’t be too sure about anything yet.”
Clearing your throat of the weird lingering tension, you asked, “Well, what does Hot-shot think it is?”
“Thinks he was chosen. Like you.” He nodded to your shoulder. “Usually there’s decades between each new recruit, but lately that gap's been gettin’ smaller. When things act up past what the Wardens can handle, Deadwood picks a new recruit to help even it out. The more things crawl out, the more Wardens it takes to push ‘em back in. And at the rate its been going? It was only a matter of time before someone else got marked.”
Your brain short circuited. “Waitwaitwait, back up — decades?”
He grew solemn, scratching at the back of his neck to hide his discomfort. “Like those people say about the black holes and all that — this place is cursed. It’s nothing but a stretch of highway between whatever hell hole is below us and the rest of the world. It’s the definition of liminal in every way possible. And in order to be in the middle of it all, you have to be in the middle.”
A blank look came over your features. “I’m not following.”
He shook his head to himself, muttering curses beneath his breath before meeting your gaze. “The Wardens are considered urban legends or ghost stories, because that’s what we are. Ghosts. Cryptids. Trapped souls. Whatever floats your boat.”
Oh. If these legends were as old as your minimal research said they were, that meant that some of them had to be OLD. Decades wouldn't even be able to cover it.
“So when they say, ‘certain death’….” You processed your thoughts aloud.
“They aren’t far off. It's certain death for life as you know it.” Jimin finished for you. “The demons, the spirits, the Scalers — that mark there makes you smell like a four-course meal to ‘em. Meaning if you’re in Deadwood, they’ll find you. From the second that mark burns into your skin, it’s a race for your soul. If we get to it first, you live on here with us. Forever. If they get to it first...well...it’s like if a prison guard gets locked in cell block riot. Gets real ugly real fast.”
Thoughts whirled through your head at miles per minute, your common sense wanting to laugh in his face, but the other part of you that couldn’t shake the strange feeling in your gut was starting to believe him. Starting to being the most important part there.
“You’re telling me you’re a ghost?” You scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest in a last ditch effort to hold your integrity in tact. “That’s impossible. You...You eat food. Drink coffee. Breathe.”
“In a way, yes.” Jimin chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I’m in the middle. Half dead, half living. I’m a Warden now, not a human living by human standards.”
Scanning him from head to toe you replied, “Look pretty human to me.”
“That’s because I was a human.” He laughed under his breath. “We all were.”
“But what — you died?” You didn’t mean for the question to sound so blunt and judgmental, but you supposed there was no way to ask something like that without it sounding harsh. After days of showing almost no hesitation or fear on this wild journey of a week, he suddenly looked taken aback. Closed off for a new reason entirely, this one softer and pinched at the edges of his frown with something raw.
His gaze flickered to the photo on the side table behind you, the one of the old woman and the child, then down to the floor. “You can say that.”
Guilt wormed through you, eating holes into your resistance. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“S’fine,” Jimin rubbed his hands on his knees as he came to a stand, moving over to the basement door and holding it open. “You’re probably tired. I’ll show you where you can clean up and grab some shut-eye. We'll talk more tomorrow."
For better or for worse, there weren’t cages and chains in his basement (you swear you weren’t disappointed). Just a room with a concrete floor and paneled walls, with a roughly sectioned-off bathroom that had to be a recent addition, judging by the shiny new faucet and squeaky clean counters.
Down here was much cooler than upstairs, and something about it just felt...comforting. Be it the solid wood and concrete walls that blocked all external sounds, or the mismatched layer of plush rugs that sprawled over the space and cushioned each step. It was like a personal sensory deprivation room wrapped in warm woods and the lingering smell of campfire smoke.
The only downside was that there weren’t really any doors, just a modesty panel on the way into the bathroom alcove, a storage closet, and the slat stairs to hide the bed.
Thoughts of having to share the singular mattress were squashed the moment they dared pipe up, as Jimin didn’t linger long after giving you a quick tour, climbing back up the steps as soon as he could to keep the distance between you two comfortable.
Jimin was sweet if a bit rugged around the edges, showing you how to lock the basement door after he left if it made you feel better, assuring you he’d be camping out on the couch until further notice. Even going as far as to offer to sleep in the barn if you were really that weird about being in the same building.
“Don’t worry about anything coming to get you tonight. This place is pretty locked down, and I’d hear anything before it’d get close enough.”
God, if it wasn’t for the weird cryptid-ghost-thing he had going on, you’d be throwing that door open and fluttering your lashes at him to come keep you company. The bar may be in hell, but hey — that’s what made it hot.
Maybe you could learn to believe in the afterlife if it meant he’d be hanging around on the other side of it.
You nosed around a bit more once you were alone, poking about the solid-wood wardrobes and storage closets before finally hopping in the shower. All you found was a punctured dart board, a mini fridge with a half case of beer tucked inside, and a horrendously large CD collection that hadn’t been updated since the late 90’s.
The last you saw of Jimin was him unloading your suitcase near the bottom of the stairs, his eyes almost swollen shut with sleep. It appeared that Jungkook hadn’t just stopped by to twirl on your nerves with studded boots, but to drop off your bags from the cabin, packed and barely zipped closed.
Nothing was folded though, that much you knew. The man had just thrown everything in there in a way that would form the most wrinkles as possible, just to really irk you. He was going to be a piece of work it seemed.
While scrubbing at the thick layer of grime caked into under your fingernails with one of the frayed washcloths stored near metal shower, you thought of his stupid boyish face, and the cocky grins of his companions.
If what Jimin said was really true, then those men would be the spiritual equivalent of your coworkers. Forever.
Ew! Just trying out the thought of being a gun slinging ghost made you gag, but being stuck with men? Talking to ghost hunters? In this heat? Forever?
That might actually make you throw up. All your worst fears rolled into one unappetizing sandwich and served up with a punch to your skeptic pride.
You thought for sure if ghosts and cryptids were real that they’d be cooler than some sleazy loser and a tattooed twenty-something-year-old. Maybe there was a good reason you hadn’t wanted to believe — the ghosts weren’t all that more interesting than the people walking down the street tossing cigarette butts on the corner.
Shutting the valve off for the shower off, you let the water drip into the drain for a few moments, relishing in the rush of cool basement air against cold water on your skin. Your fingers had a mind of their own, coasting over the raised flesh on your back in a trance.
...What if you let yourself pretend every part of it was true. Just for a minute.
That means that after you inevitably die after your long life elsewhere, you’ll be transported back to Deadwood to live a second life here as a Warden, wearing extravagant headgear and hunting creatures from hell.
If you even make it out of here alive to live out the rest of your life in the first place, that is.
What with all the creatures Jimin warned you about and the fresh target painted on your back. You had a feeling that he was purposefully leaving stuff out about whomever the “guy” a town over was, and knowing him and his elusive ways, there were probably more details about this whole Warden thing he kept to himself.
Whether it be not to overwhelm you or to keep things under wraps since you were still a “living” risk, either way you were kind of grateful for it. On one hand, it kept you up late, tracing shapes in the wood grain of the steps his bed was tucked beneath, trying to fill in gaps you didn’t quite understand. On the other hand, it meant you didn’t have any details to obsess over.
But did that stop you from overthinking everything?
Of course not.
There were just too many gaps for your anxiety to play with. How does one become a Warden exactly? Is it just when they die that their soul returns? What really happens if the other Wardens’ don’t find you? And what other kinds of creatures even creep out of the Cracks?
You thought about all the people you’d run into in passing and a chill ran down your spine. Any one of them could have been something else entirely, just waiting to pounce on you.
If you’re brother was really marked and hauled off to that mysterious “guy”, does that mean that they didn’t get to him in time? Or does that mean he hasn’t died yet, since they hadn’t felt the need to find him before you came along?
If he wasn’t dead, then you sure fucking hoped he wasn’t playing the role of trapped prison guard right now.
You groaned, shoving Jimin’s pillow over your face in hopes you could smother yourself enough to stop thinking. Not to die or anything — god no — you weren’t ready for the huge responsibility of picking out a cowboy hat you’d have to wear for eternity. Fashion choices were already hard enough as it was to make on any given day, the last thing you needed was knowing you’d have to wear whatever you picked out forever.
Forever was a stupid word anyway.
Still, images of your brother getting tortured by demons with stereotypical horns and cartoonish sharp teeth pervaded the backs of your eyelids. You couldn’t escape them even after you drifted, your heart racing at the smallest sounds and your eyes popping open every ten minutes just to be sure no one was there waiting in the dark.
You probably only got an hour of sleep total, all of it interrupted by nightmares of your brother’s demise or slimy Scalers biting your face off in a forest that never ended.
Jimin knocked on the door above mere minutes after blue early morning light began to invade the small window near the ceiling, calling down to you through the door to see if you were awake and offering breakfast with a gruff voice.
There was no reason to roll around his comforter wishing for a sleep that wouldn’t come, so you were up, running a toothbrush over your teeth and throwing on the last set of clean clothes you had in your bag that wouldn’t make you die of heat stroke. Looks like another trip to town would be in order, at least for another t-shirt and pair of shorts you could toss in Jimin’s washer.
He met you at the door, squeezing past you with a curt nod and something akin to a greeting to freshen up in his room, leaving you upstairs to calm down a newly excited Gooey. That dog acted like you hadn’t just seen him hours prior, yipping and wagging its tail fast enough to leave bruises.
Besides the rumpled couch cushions and Gooey’s animated greeting, there wasn’t much waiting for you on the main floor. Nothing that screamed ‘hot delicious breakfast’, anyway.
All of it whispered ‘leave me alone!’, the kitchen still slumbering away with a constant mechanical hum of the fridge and an occasional cough of the sink pipes. The stove was cold to the touch and collecting more dust upon its already thick layer. Who knows the last time one of those burners had been used as something other than extra counter space?
Grumbling to yourself, you shook off any loose tufts of dog hair from between your fingers and cautiously inched closer to the kitchen, still distrustful of the place. As cautious as you were, your stomach was growling and you’d kill for a cup of something caffeinated, meaning Jimin had approximately five minutes before you would be rummaging his cabinets like you owned them.
Now you finally understood why hikers ate so much — one afternoon in the mountains and you felt like you could eat a buffet clean and lick the empty trays.
Looks like he could sense your ravenous nature (that or luck was on your side) because he came up not too long after, fully dressed and trudging towards the door to lace up his boots.
“So. Breakfast.” You all but demanded, your voice scratchy from sleep (or lack thereof). Another silent rumble from your stomach had you biting your tongue from spitting out ransom demands, and you weren’t sure how he heard it, but he did — eyes darting towards your middle and back to his laces with a grunt.
“Down the road.”
His tone was short and rough, barely softened by his usual politeness. Huh. Looks like you both were hangry.
“I don’t have my wallet,” you responded, wrangling the mud-caked boots back on your feet. The whole ordeal enough to piss you off already — now you were hungry, out of breath, and starting to sweat.
Jimin stood with a stretch, snagging his hat from the wall and twisting open the door. “Don’t need it.”
Then he was gone, leaving the door open for the blur of Gooey to follow after him.
“Okay then...” you muttered to yourself, coming to stand on his porch to watch him veer off across the dirt path to the barn doors. The structure looked less intimidating in the daylight, painted the color of a robin's egg and clearly meticulously managed (almost obsessively if the lack of splattered dirt was anything to go by). If Jimin made any money, you could certainly tell where his priorities lay. Those insulated windows practically screamed dollar signs.
Did cryptids have the capacity to make money? Getting a bank account would probably be ten times harder if you had to constantly explain why you never aged or your eyes glowed sometimes…
“You coming?” Jimin’s voice broke you out of your thoughts, hands on his hips while he looked expectantly to where you stood.
With a sigh, you trekked across the dirt roads, wincing when your calves started to burn from the minimal exertion it took to skip down the stairs. Your body was not built for long hikes and mountain runs. You could only it expect to find more aches and pains as the day went on, if not from walking, from eating shit down the mountain side.
Coming to a stop beside him, you raised a brow. “What, are you finally going to take me to the barn and rip my throat out?”
“No, I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He shouldered open the heavy wood with a vaguely hidden roll of his eyes.
“Wha-”
A throaty chuff cut you off, the space immediately filled by another larger dog who definitely had angry looking eyes set on you.
“This,” Jimin bent down to hook a leash around the heavy studded collar of the dog that looked like a spitting image of Gooey. “Is Dolly. Gooey’s more competent sister.” His tone grew stern, snapping his fingers towards your shoes. “Dolly, new friend. Sniff.”
Her black nose suctioned to the edge of your shoes, drinking in any smells you had to offer while eyeing you warily from below. Dolly growled to herself when she caught a whiff of something on the leather, to which Jimin reacted instantly, winding the leash tighter in his fist with a harsh “Be nice.”
Then her nose moved up to your shins, dainty twitches of air that tickled, stopping just at where your hand rested near your hip. Dolly nudged it gently, not for a pet, but for better access to your palm, finishing her interrogation with a huff and a disinterested side-eye.
She looked bored now that she had been acquainted with you, angling her body to return to her post in the barn. Not too social or clingy. She had a job to do after all.
You respected that.
“Now you’re free to walk around the property without…” The edge of his mouth quirked up. “Getting your throat ripped out.”
With that, he started a relaxed pace down the dirt path, headed the opposite way you had entered the previous night, down where it snaked through more pasture and thin trees.
“She mean?” You asked, hands shoved in your pockets and a skip in your step to catch up to his lead. From behind you could hear Gooey’s heavy pants and clobbering paws sticking to you like a shadow.
“When she needs to be.”
You pursed your lips with a subconscious glance over your shoulder. “What about when she doesn’t need to be?”
He returned your question with a shrug. “Only if you piss her off.”
“Comforting…”
Another shrug. “Just don’t piss ‘er off and she won’t have an attitude.”
“Yeah? And how do I do that?” You challenged with a scoff.
Jimin hummed, slipping his thumbs into his back pockets. “I think you’ll get the hang of it. You two have a lot in common.”
A sputter of offense choked from your mouth. “Are you saying I can be mean and have an attitude?”
The rising sun seemed to be waking him up with each stretching inch of light, his tired and tough exterior melting bit by bit. Because this man smiled. Not like on of the half ones or the polite ones he’d hide with a shake of his head or a well-placed chuckle. A real one — pretty, bright, and stretching up towards his eyes with a dangerous glint.
“Never said it was a bad thing.” His head tipping back towards the shrinking barn said one thing, but his eyes lingering too long on your face said another. “I like her that way.”
Ow. Fuck, now your chest hurt. Were you breathing? You exhaled sharply through your nose just to be sure. Okay, yeah, you could breathe. Barely. Pushing out a cough to hide the clear organ system malfunction, you averted your eyes to gaze out over the long grasses and rocky sand.
You could’ve sworn you heard him laugh under his breath, even going as far as to bite at his lower lip to keep it quiet. Not that you were watching! No, god no. He was an enemy of the state — your state to be precise.
...but was he an enemy anymore? Or was he now just a future coworker? Did the great and mysterious Deadwood have rules about dating coworkers?
You pursed your lips and stole one more glance at his profile, his face still haunted with a ghost of a smug expression. Technically, you weren’t coworkers yet, so rules don’t apply. You were a free woman as far as you were concerned.
Dirt crunched below your feet, spitting up clouds of dust that clung to the fresh layer of sweat forming on your skin, both from the gradual increase in temperature and the buzzing heat that pooled in your muscles from Jimin’s hovering proximity. You told yourself you were only sneaking glances for research purposes. Especially when he used his tongue to poke at the corner of his mouth to soothe the dry skin. Especially then.
Safety research, you repeated to yourself, wiping the fresh sheen of sweat from your hands on your shorts.
It was still hot, but it wasn’t nearly as stifling as I would be once the sun fully rose. Yet somehow you were still dabbing at a thin sheen of salt forming on your cheeks, like the air here had it sights set on sucking all the moisture from your body like a water-hungry mosquito. At this rate, you’d be a shriveled-up raisin by noon, begging passersby for just one sip of cool water. Like that one SpongeBob episode your brother used to quote all the time that you never remembered the plot of.
You weren’t sure where you were going, but you supposed it wouldn’t be much longer if Jimin had forgoed his horse or handy truck.
Luck was on your side, for your intuition was correct. From out of the thinning line of trees emerged another farmhouse, proud and worn from storms passed, with a foundation older than some of the trees drooping along the edge of the property. You were definitely in the south; that was for sure. The gun rack on the wall near the door said that more than any drawn-out county line could.
Where on earth was he taking you? It didn’t look like a restaurant. Not even a themed bed and breakfast could put the charm back into this farmhouse.
Then your stomach sank.
Jungkook’s mop of dark hair poked through the front door, already beaming. “Jimin and the Newbie are here!”
“Newbie?” Your lip curled in disgust at the nickname.
“Right of passage,” Jungkook laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He reached out and thumped Jimin on the shoulder. “Looks like you finally passed on the title.”
Jimin shifted uncomfortably under his touch, maneuvering past him into the open storm door. “Yeah, yeah. Out of the way, kid.”
“Kid?!” Jungkook parroted, unintentionally stepping in your way to follow after him. The door was inches from shutting in your face before he snagged it with his long fingers, cheeks pink. “S-sorry.” He dropped it the second you were in; his attitude picked up where it left off as he led the way to the kitchen.
“Don’t let him spin any tales,” Jungkook spoke animatedly with his hands, wagging a finger towards Jimin’s back. “I’m older than most of these guys.”
“By year maybe,” Yoongi sounded off from his seat at the diningroom table. “By age, then everyone’s got you beat kid.”
You paused in the doorway to take in the scene, leaving Jungkook to try and land a smack on the back of Yoongi’s head to no avail by himself.
This place was rustic to its core, all old rich woods and iron appliances. You were surprised there was a light bulb at all in this place, because even that looked too modern for the space. It smelt like bacon and cedar wood and smoke, all due to the sizzling cast iron placed atop the wood burning stove that Jimin had taken up checking.
Your eyes caught Yoongi messing with the dial of a vintage radio, twisting it until it landed on something of his liking — warbly guitar and high hats, with enough swirling tambourine to make you dizzy. But you couldn’t tell if that was due to the psychedelic rock or the blinding patterns on his clothes.
This was not the emo cowboy you remembered. This looked like if an alternative vampire from the 80’s had a one-night stand with a casino pimp, all deep burgundy’s and velvet and thin cheetah print, finished off with one too many sparkling rings and gaudy necklaces. And now that you mentioned it...was his hair...longer? That shouldn’t be possible. You could’ve sworn he had it cropped just yesterday, yet now it just landed at the apple of his cheeks and stretched into thick side burns.
While you were too busy trying to do the math on just how many inches an hour it would’ve had to grow to get that long overnight, Yoongi’s dark eyes flitted up to meet yours, a cocky grin splitting wider than the navel-deep cut of his shirt. “Like what you see, sweets?”
Jungkook answered for you with a loud bark of laughter. “Yeah right — she’s probably just hypnotized by that hideous scrap of fabric you call a shirt.”
Yoongi narrowed his eyes at Jungkook’s collar. “Says the one wearing knit in 90 degree temperatures.”
“It gets the job done up in the mountain. It’s breathable.”
“Didn’t have a pulse last I checked.”
Jungkook rolled his eyes so far back they could’ve rolled out his mouth. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?”
“Very,” Yoongi hummed, lifting up a chipped mug of coffee to his lips.
The radio dial on the table snapped left, diminishing the volume to a near murmur without so much as a finger touching it, and the single light bulb flickered overhead. Goosebumps tracked over the skin of your legs and arms, a thin cloud of chill traveling through the room and dissipating in the rays of morning sun.
Yoongi lowered his drink with a nervous clear of his throat, his gaze tracking down towards the newspaper spread out in front of him with rapt interest.
From an arch near the stove emerged Hoseok, rubbing at his temples with two fingers, while his other hands still blindly did the buttons of his blue cotton shirt, a pair of suspenders hanging limp at his hips.
Jungkook too seemed to not find much to say at his entrance either, hands drumming a fast rhythm on the table top (much to Yoongi’s annoyance).
Hoseok wordlessly stepped around Jimin to stir a pot simmering behind the sputtering pan, wiping off splats of hot grease from his forearm, the sting not eliciting so much as a flinch. “Beans are almost done.”
Jungkook made a face down at the table, lips curled in disgust.
“Watch that attitude. Either eat it or go make yourself somethin’ else. This ain’t your mom’s house.” Hoseok scolded him without looking away from the stove, and Jungkook’s spine straightened in his seat with his scowl wiped clean.
Your eyes darted from Hoseok’s back to the radio, then Yoongi’s hands that were still crinkling the back of the newspaper he hid behind. Yoongi met your dubious glare over the edge with a raise of his brow. Following your quick glance to the machine, a small smirk grew on his lips.
Extending his index finger out like a wand, he wound it in slow circles, never once breaking eye contact with you. The yellow dial inched to life, shuddering to the right and increasing the volume in time with his tauntingly slow whirls.
You squinted. That could be explained by a secret remote or magician’s string. Nothing to be so cocky about. It wasn’t even that impressive or anything.
A grunt sounded out from the kitchen, and with one swift glance at the table from over his shoulder, Hoseok spoke out. “Make me turn that shit down again and you’ll be eating leather with no teeth.”
With one blink the dial snapped all the way to the left, silencing it completely.
The light in Yoongi’s eyes deflated, and he settled into pouting at his own reflection in his mug. Jungkook latched onto him immediately, grin finding its way back on his face.
“He just wanted something he could show off. You know, since his little fashion reveal didn’t do it for her.”
Yoongi defended himself with a slightly puffed chest. “Says who? She’s swooning in there, I know it.”
“Holding in vomit, actually,” You butt in, scanning the gaudy outfit once more with a scowl. “I’ve seen better on mannequins in a dumpster after a frat house Halloween party.”
Yoongi playfully moaned. “You know I love when you talk to me like that.”
“Pathetic,” Jungkook spat with a disbelieving shake of his head, leaning forward to flick the bare skin of Yoongi’s chest. “Maybe you should focus on learning how to do up your own button’s before you say anything else.”
Jimin snorted from the stove, shoveling a pile of greased meat onto a plate of paper towels. “Or how to tie up his own horse.”
“While you’re at it, work on your aim so your bullshit stops leaking on my turf.” Hoseok took a sip of his mug with a pointed look at Yoongi.
The man in question held his hands up in surrender, struggling to keep up and looking genuinely offended. “Alright — you can step off my neck now.”
“I don’t think we’ve stepped on it enough.” Jungkook sneered. “You’re still talkin’.”
The squabble ended with the thunderous plop of cast-iron pots on the center table, Hoseok and Jimin dropping off a heaping plate of scrambled eggs, warmed tortillas, bacon, beans, and fresh diced tomatoes. “Stuff it.”
They didn’t need to be told twice, already making a dent in the mountain of food like a pair of moles set loose on a dirt mountain, shoveling as much as they could into each bite. You assumed since Hoseok wasn’t breathing down your neck from the head of the table that you were included in the command, and helped yourself to whatever was in reach.
Even if he was snarling at you, you wouldn’t have cared. You had never felt hunger like this before. This felt like you had spent three days straight swimming in the hot sun and had just returned home for lunch, stomach angry and aching. Attributing it to just the hike didn’t feel entirely accurate.
Maybe you should’ve felt ashamed to be plowing your way through someone else’s food in their own home, but you were far too busy building the perfect breakfast concoction on the fluffiest tortilla you’d ever eaten in your life, carefully balancing your toppings like it was a modern art piece. After you wolfed down your third, you found yourself staring forlornly at the dwindling piles, wondering if it would be rude to have two more.
Jungkook noticed your dilemma, slapping a new tortilla on your plate with a wink. “You’ll get used to the hunger. Eat what you want before it’s gone.”
“Or get it somewhere else. ’Cause I’m not making you shits anythin’ else.” Hoseok grumbled into his next bite.
Fiddling with the edge of your plate, you cast a cursory glance to Jimin. Was being hungry a part of the weird ass lore?
“Did you think about your look?” Jungkook innocently asked, using the last bite of his makeshift breakfast taco to sop up the residual herby tomato juices and bacon grease on his plate.
You paused with a bite halfway to your mouth. “My ‘look’?”
Jimin coughed into his fist, averting his eyes down to his glass of water. “Haven’t gotten there yet.”
“What did you get to?” Yoongi accused lightly, one brow twitching up. “Nothing fun without me I hope.”
“Taking things slow,” Jimin answered carefully. “No need to rush.”
It was Jungkook’s turn to cast a hesitant glance towards Hoseok. “Right…”
“What do you mean by ‘my look’?” You steered the conversation back in the direction you cared about before Yoongi could make another innuendo.
“It’s your signature style babe,” Yoongi drawled, leaning back into his chair with a satisfied sigh. “Gotta pick what you look like to the normies. Has to be different than your usual, that way no one suspects anything, you dig? I have a few ideas for you if you can’t think of any...”
“Yeah, like how I helped Yoongi pick his.” Jungkook’s full cheeks didn’t stop the impish twist his face had taken.
Yoongi’s expression instantly soured. “'Helped' is a funny way to say 'sabotaged'.”
“So the emo persona is...a cover-up?” Your eyes flitted between the two of them. “Why?”
The ‘youngest’ (a fact still up for debate apparently) jumped to his feet and darted around the corner for the coat rack, returning with a piece of paper in his fist. He slid it next to your plate with a snicker.
“See for yourself, Sherlock ~”
Before you was that yellowing missing poster that had gone on quite the journey from being taped to the wall of your brother’s room, to being waved around a BBQ joint. The man’s face was vaguely recognizable from when you'd last looked at it. An ink splotch where the printer fucked up the edge of the picture. A red sheen over dark eyes and a drunken smile from a bright camera flash. One lone groomsman with his arm thrown over an out-of-frame friend, grainy and desaturated enough to make it a bit hard to see the details of his face. You could make out a rounded nose, thick dark side burns, and a crown of black hair that coasted the collar of an obscene purple velvet jacket — wait a minute.
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
There was no way.
“Is this you?!” You gaped up to Yoongi.
He didn’t even need to respond. You could see it clear as day in front of you now that he wasn’t hiding behind a spiky, cropped haircut and band tees that never seemed to sit right on his shoulders.
Yoongi nodded to the picture, smug. “Quite the looker too, huh?” He then rubbed his hands together like a conniving fly. “So what’s the group consensus for the lady? We thinkin’ goth vampire mistress? Clown school dropout? Gorgeous contractor from overseas set on fixin’ up the town and the lowly shopkeeper?”
“Thinkin’ she can stay as she is.” Hoseok cut his dreams short, running his tongue over his cheek as he threw a calculated look over your features. “A few small changes should do the trick.”
There was a moment of silence for the soul that escaped from Yoongi’s body at that very moment. “You mean the trucker and the newbie get to wear whatever they want, but I gotta parade around like the missing member of Rites of Spring or Daughtry for another five years?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have had such a recognizable signature style then.” Jungkook pinched one of Yoongi’s necklaces and clanged it about. Their conversation dragged on but you weren’t listening to their heated debate.
Suddenly the ache in your stomach switched from a grumbling hunger to a churning unease, the bite you were working in your mouth tasting rotten. Maybe it was the ink from the missing photo bleeding into the skin of your fingertips and poisoning each mouthful. Because each time you ran your finger over the blurred edges of trees and the bright red description along the bottom, your nausea increased.
Forever suddenly didn’t feel like such a dumb foreign concept anymore. Not when a man who should be well over seventy sat in front of you, having not aged a day in fifty years. And you knew this wasn’t fake — there had been a minimal police report tucked behind his picture in your brother’s collection with its own shiny (and very real) department seal on it.
This was a real man. A real, missing man. A dead man.
A ghost.
Is that what you were about to be?
You squeezed your eyes shut, and nudged the paper out of your line of sight. If you didn’t look at it you could pretend you hadn’t seen it. Pretend that your entire world view was crumbling beneath your feet at an alarming rate.
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