Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Does it hurt?”

Yoongi can barely muster the strength to look up with his iciest - ha! - glare and fix it on Namjoon, who has the decency to at least look appropriately sheepish.

“Oh, I don’t know, Namjoon. What do you think?”

Namjoon doesn’t reply, but it’s clear he’s grimacing behind his ski mask. Yoongi lets himself fall on his back from where he’d been sitting up, feeling the cold seep through his jacket as he hits the snow with an unceremonious thump. It takes him exactly three seconds to regret it, his padded coat doing nothing to protect him from the biting temperature. When he tries pulling himself back up, he’s reminded why exactly he couldn’t walk away from all of this by a sharp pain in his right ankle, and a dull ache literally everywhere else.

Namjoon, though, is still hovering above him. Yoongi’s only choice is to push through the awkwardness he feels at accepting his help, grip the gloved hand outstretched in his direction, and let Namjoon pull him up.

He does so with a surprising show of strength (not that surprising, maybe, Yoongi thinks, remembering how much bigger Namjoon has gotten after going to the gym for a while) but as the world tilts forward, for just a moment, Yoongi fully expects Namjoon to stumble back with his weight and bring them both crashing down. He’s surprised when it doesn’t happen, and the only thing he ends up hitting is a very firm chest and a jacket that’s way thinner than his own.

“Okay, hyung,” Namjoon begins, letting go of his hand to hold him up with his arms around Yoongi’s torso, his voice soothing in that way it gets when he’s about to tell Yoongi something he knows Yoongi doesn’t want to hear - like this lyric here might need some work or I broke the coffee table or I think I lost my glasses. “If you lean on me, we can try walking all the way down, and then we can go back to our cabin and rest?”

“All the way down?"

Yoongi does not like how much of his tone is tinged with a note of despair. Namjoon notices, clearly, because he can feel thumbs rubbing at his sides where Namjoon’s hands are wrapped around him, holding him steady. The gesture makes Yoongi’s stomach tie up in knots, and he tries not to stiffen, in case Namjoon notices.

“We’re - basically already there, see? We’re at the bottom of the slope. We just need to get to where the chairlift begins, and then we can ask the staff if they can get us a ride back to the cabins and we’ll get your ankle checked out.”

One of his hands unwraps itself from where it was resting around Yoongi’s waist and gestures at the little wooden cabin near the pick up point for the chairlift, where a staff member is already poking their head out and waving in their direction. It could be a hundred meters away, or a thousand - at this point, Yoongi doesn’t trust himself to be the best judge of distance. They’d been reassured the snow was at its best for skiing when they’d gone up (something about powder Yoongi had accidentally tuned out as he checked the straps on his boots) but right now, it mostly feels like an endless plane of white that’s currently swallowing them from the knee down.

It wasn’t an awful fall, to be honest - he’d managed to land mostly on his side as the instructor had told them they might need to do, and his skis had detached themselves from his boots all on their own. He’d just twisted his ankle weird, and there’s definitely going to be bruises all over him tomorrow, and now with the adrenaline and everything his knees are feeling a little wobbly.

“I’m going to let you stand on your own for a second, alright? I’ll pick up your skis and my snowboard and then we can go.” Namjoon’s tone is reassuring, but Yoongi still has to bite back a slightly embarrassing don’t when he feels him take a step back, the warmth of his arms disappearing from his sides. Namjoon doesn’t go far - there’s a pile of equipment beside them Yoongi recognizes as Namjoon’s snowboard, and Yoongi’s skis, and before Yoongi has time to wonder when Namjoon collected it all he’s somehow wrangled it all under one of his arms so he can link the other with Yoongi’s.

“Ready to go?“

No, Yoongi thinks. He’s knee deep in snow and holding himself upright by sheer force of will, and his ankle hurts, and they’re going to have to walk until they reach the staff cabin, and he’s cold. He nods anyway, because Namjoon had been looking forward to snowboarding and now he’s here, helping Yoongi out, doing his best to be upbeat and encouraging. Yoongi’s not about to make this more complicated than it needs to be.

He’s able to brace himself for the inevitable pain before Namjoon, still holding on to him, steps forward in what Yoongi can best describe as a crab-walk. His diagonal shuffle is awkward to watch, but carves an easier path for Yoongi to follow, Namjoon shoveling snow to the sides with his boots. Yoongi knows without looking that Namjoon’s face is doing the furrowed-brow thing it does whenever he’s focusing really hard on something, because he cares so much and he wants everything to work out.

It’s a lot to process. If Yoongi thinks about it too much, he’s going to want to lie down and never get back up. He shakes his head, lowers his eyes to check where he’s going, his arm still looped around Namjoon’s, and pushes his right foot forward. The dull ache in his ankle turns immediately into a sharp pain: less than he’d expected, but pain nonetheless. He drags himself forward, slowly, with Namjoon at the front still trying to shovel a path for both of them. When their linked arms fall apart, bound to happen given their awkward waddle, Namjoon turns back to grab onto Yoongi’s hand. Only two layers of gloves separate their skin. Yoongi wants to scream.

“Everything okay?” Namjoon asks, a mere twenty wobbly steps later. Yoongi has no time to reply. The staff member that had poked her head out from the ski lift cabin earlier is rushing over to meet them, hopping through the snow like some kind of magical being that doesn’t answer to the laws of gravity. She manages to cover the remaining distance in an amount of time so short it’s kind of embarrassing for Yoongi by comparison - but she’s bringing over a cellphone and a first aid kit, so Yoongi tries to bite back the very silly resentment at her agility bubbling up in his throat.

“Sir! I saw you fall! Are you good to go again? Or would you like to stop for the day?”

Yoongi straightens up, hissing when he leans backward a little too much and almost loses balance. His grip on Namjoon’s hand tightens. He thinks his face might be sufficient as a reply, but he still makes an effort to clear his throat before answering.

“Yeah, yes - I don’t think I’ve broken anything, but I’m not gonna get up there again.” His teeth are just a little clenched, and she nods in understanding. “Is there a way we could get a lift back to our cabins? I drove us up here, but I don’t think it would be safe for me to try to drive back.”

She doesn’t glance at Namjoon, or ask why he couldn’t drive both of them back, but honestly - Yoongi doesn’t want to add a car accident in the snow to the list of things that are going wrong today. She does, however, unlock her phone, and begins typing with her touchscreen gloves.

“Of course, sir. We have a few cars available to drive people back and forth from the slopes to the resort! If you have your cabin key with you, I’ll let the driver know where they’re supposed to drop you off - and you can come back to get your car from the parking lot anytime.”

He hopes the relieved sigh he lets out at the words isn’t too noticeable. Namjoon must pick up on it anyway, though, because the next thing he feels is a gentle pat on his back. 

The next few minutes go by slower than he’d like them to, but the whole thing altogether is over much quicker than he thought it would be. The staff member, Jaeyi (Namjoon asks her name after the fifth step) helps him walk the rest of the way together with Namjoon, and when he finally sits down inside the staff cabin and takes off his boot his ankle doesn’t feel as bad as it did at the beginning. It doesn’t look bruised, yet, but she still makes him try to point his foot forward and to the side. He hisses through the pain while Namjoon jogs all the way to the car and back, to get their bags and keys and cell phones, and put their rented skis and snowboard back in the trunk. After a few minutes of torture Jaeyi lets him put the boot back and helps him strap it back without tightening it too much, all while Namjoon hovers around them both, asking her questions about ice and elevation and would he need splints, or something. Yoongi decides they’re going a bit too far.

“I’m not gonna need splints,” he grumbles, and Namjoon crosses his arms and mumbles back something like you don’t know that. Jaeyi visibly tries not to laugh, and she hands him the first aid kit while they’re on their (very slow) way out, once she gets notified that one of the cars has just arrived.

“It doesn’t look too bad right now. It might start hurting more later, but there are a bunch of instant ice packs in here. Ice it for twenty minutes every two to three hours for the rest of the day, and if you’re feeling brave you can try to bandage it up to help keep the swelling down,” she tells him, tapping the first aid kit bag with her index finger, smiling reassuringly. “We have a doctor available in the main building of the resort, the one where you got your keys to your cabin, so if you feel like it might be worth checking out, just call and they’ll see you as soon as possible.”

Yoongi nods, wobbling towards the exit on his own for a second before Namjoon rushes to his side, his arm immediately wrapping back around Yoongi’s waist. Yoongi tries telling himself he doesn’t feel immediately just the slightest bit better at the contact, and fails.

“I hope we’ll see you back on the slopes soon!” Jaeyi calls out, waving at them as they walk out, and Yoongi and Namjoon call out a chorus of thank you and goodbye right back.

“You’re never getting back on that slope, are you,” Namjoon asks, once they’re safe in the backseat of the car and taking off all their head gear, their driver too busy talking with another resort staff member on the phone to pay them any mind besides a quick hello as he turns on the engine and begins the drive back. Yoongi rests his helmet on his knees, and lowers his neck warmer from where it’s been pushed up under his nose with a groan.

“Definitely not. I almost died,” he replies, tone purposefully dramatic, even as he has to push through a layer of awkwardness to get it out. He watches as Namjoon takes off his ski mask with a snort, his sweaty hair fluffing up in a bleached blond cloud on his head. Yoongi gets front row seats to the moment where he tries to ruffle his hair into a semblance of decency and realizes it’s a lost cause, and tries to resist the urge to lean over and run his fingers through Namjoon’s hair himself.

“Ah, yes, of course. An ankle sprain, the most fatal of injuries - has taken down the bravest of warriors, our Tiger of Daegu,” Namjoon shoots back, pitching his voice to make himself sound like a movie announcer, and Yoongi can’t hold back a snort of his own. It’s been a while since he’d last heard Namjoon’s teasing, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make him feel on steadier footing. His ankle is still throbbing, courtesy of the walk to the car, but it’s a little better than it was when he’d first tried to get up, right after his fall.

“Shut up, I’m gonna have bruises all over tomorrow. This tiger isn’t made for cold weather,“ Yoongi replies, trying to keep the relief at the familiarity of banter with Namjoon out of his voice, and Namjoon pokes him in the side, a teasing grin on his face made all the more devastating by the way his hair keeps falling in front of his eyes. Yoongi’s heart skips a beat.

“More of a housecat, then,” Namjoon says, and the way he sounds just the slightest bit hesitant to tease him is like ice in Yoongi’s veins. He doesn’t shy away, though, even when Yoongi punches his shoulder - gently, because he can’t lean over too much without jostling his ankle. Namjoon does at least laugh in response, though, and Yoongi should think he looks kind of silly, what with his cheeks all bunched up because of how hard he’s smiling and his hair all over the place - instead, he only feels stupidly endeared. He’d missed him.

Behind Namjoon, the road stretches on, stark white, but before they know it the main building of the resort appears into view, and the driver is leaning back just a little to ask for their cabin number.

“Thirteen, thank you,” Namjoon replies, fiddling with the key, and soon enough the driver is pulling the car into one of the smaller roads that lead off to the rows of cabins surrounded by the forest, green trees and sloped roofs gently dusted with snow.

The view through the window is almost magical enough to make Yoongi forget they can’t stay in the car forever. Almost. As soon as the car stops, he instinctively reaches for the car handle, and is rewarded by the dull ache of his ankle when he pulls his knee up to step outside the car.

“Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, but there’s nothing he can do except attempt to lift his leg a bit more gently. He barely registers Namjoon thanking the driver and getting out of the car himself. Namjoon appears in front of him barely a moment later, swinging open the car door with maybe a little too much force, their bags under one arm, already reaching out to Yoongi without waiting for him to ask.

Yoongi goes willingly and thankfully, his arm under Namjoon’s a little more familiar after their first trek through the snow, and they call out their thank yous and goodbyes to the driver just before he drives off. In front of them, there are exactly five steps separating them from the small cobblestone sidewalk and the front door of their cabin. Yoongi sighs.

“How do you wanna do this?” Namjoon asks, gently bumping his elbow against Yoongi’s side.

“Preferably without falling over and braining myself on a step.”

When they’d first gotten to the resort, two days before, Yoongi had run his gloved hands over the handrail of the stairway, brushing off the snow to admire the lines of the dark wood. He’d pointed them out to Namjoon, too, trying his very best to at least make small talk, and Namjoon had agreed they were gorgeous, and they’d explored the rest of the cabin together, calling out their opinions on the interior design from one room to another. They’d gone down the steps together on their way out with hardly a thought, like they often do when they leave their apartment to get to their studios at the recording label they work for early in the morning.

Right now, the steps look a lot less fascinating and a lot more like his own personal enemy - at least for the next ten minutes.

“How about this,” Namjoon begins, after a few moments staring at the cabin in front of them. “I go in, drop the bags and open the door, and then come back to help you up the steps?”

“What, no offer to carry your hyung up?”

Maybe if he stalls enough they won’t have to go up the steps. Maybe they’ll find them both there next winter, frozen like the world’s biggest and silliest garden gnomes. (Maybe if he keeps teasing Namjoon, and bickering with him, they’ll go back to some semblance of normalcy without having to face the elephant in the room.)

“You said you wanted to get in without falling,” Namjoon laughs, and Yoongi snorts.

“Jungkookie would have at least tried to carry me up. You’re a coward, Namjoon-ah. What’s all that time spent in the gym for, uh? If you can’t even lift me?”

“Oh, I could lift you,” Namjoon replies, his voice light and breezy. A little too light and breezy, maybe, like he wants to say something else - but the mental image Yoongi’s brain conjures up immediately makes him regret ever mentioning the possibility. “But the steps are slippery, and you never know, and we don’t need two injured people. Next time?”

He turns towards Yoongi as he says it, smiling from ear to ear.

“Well, hopefully I’m not going to sprain my ankle ever again,” Yoongi manages to reply. If his voice gets a little bit caught in his throat, he’s blaming the wind.

For his own sanity, he pretends not to hear Namjoon mumble something along the lines of I could carry you anyway. He looks back towards the door once again, leaning a little more of his weight on Namjoon’s arm, and steps forward, dragging his injured ankle behind.

“Let’s go up together right now. It’s cold,” Yoongi says. Namjoon shifts the bags a little closer under his free arm, and links the other with Yoongi just the slightest bit tighter. They shuffle closer to the stairs like that, their boots leaving soft, wet imprints in the fresh snow.

“First step,” Namjoon says, once they’re right in front of it, and Yoongi resists the urge to make a teasing comment back at the obvious statement. He can feel Namjoon’s hand slip under his elbow, ready to help him, and steels himself for the incoming pain as he raises his good foot and leans his weight on the other, breathing hard through his nose.

As soon as his left boot touches the wood of the steps, Namjoon lifts him up, helping him along. The spike of pain that goes through his ankle at having all of his weight on it makes him swallow a groan, but he doesn’t let himself stop for fear of losing momentum entirely - he hisses through his teeth, but goes up the next four steps, one after the other, Namjoon’s arm steady around his own.

Slowly, but surely, the stairway ends. The cabin door in front of them might as well be the gates of heaven. (It is possible that Yoongi might also be a little dramatic. But the prospect of being warm and out of his ski boots and inside and also preferably lying down in the near future is enough to make him let out a sigh of relief that is entirely too big for the situation at hand.)

Namjoon unlocks the door easily enough, still letting Yoongi lean on him as they both shuffle in, and Yoongi can feel his cheeks heat up immediately at the shift in temperature between the biting cold outside and the warmth of the cabin.

“Good call on leaving the heating on low before we left,” he sighs again, and Namjoon huffs out something resembling a laugh. The cabin is small enough (one open space, with a couch in front of a tv and a kitchen, and two single rooms) that Yoongi only needs to make two more steps to the left before he can throw himself backwards on the couch, his shoulders hitting the pillow. He muffles a groan as he extends his foot in front of him. The ski boots are helping a little with keeping his ankle stabilized, but they’re going to have to come off at some point. He’d love to get rid of them, but he’s not looking forward to the pain. Behind the couch, Namjoon is taking off his snow jacket and the rest of his gear that he hadn’t already while in the car, and soon enough he’s standing near the rack at the entrance in a much too tight thermal shirt and baggy ski pants.

“Everything okay?”

Taking his eyes off of the way the shirt clings to Namjoon’s chest and arms is - difficult. Yoongi lets his gaze drop, immediately pretending to be busy unbuckling his ski boots.

“Yeah, I just - we need to call the others to tell them we've left. And I need to get changed,” Yoongi replies, a second too late, feeling like he’s putting words together wrong. As soon as he tries to get up, though, using the couch as leverage to push himself up on his one good foot, Namjoon reappears at his side, his arm once again around Yoongi.

“I can call Seokjin-hyung later. Let me help,” he says, and Yoongi - he’s had a long day. A long week, actually. In another universe, he might have refused, and Namjoon might have thrown a teasing comment his way, and completely ignored his refusal and helped him anyway. As it is, he goes willingly, and if Namjoon thinks anything of it, he doesn’t say, humming in approval when Yoongi leans on him. Their trek to the room Yoongi had claimed as his when they’d first arrived is easy enough, and nothing compared to digging their way through the snow, or the stairway outside. As soon as Yoongi reaches his bed he sits down again, and Namjoon’s arm leaves his side. He’d say he only misses the warmth, but the heating has done its job, and he’s actually overheating a bit in his snow jacket.

What he really misses is the weight of Namjoon next to him, and his arm wrapped around him. There’s nothing he can do about that now, though, and he still needs to take his skiing gear off. He unzips his snow jacket first, and shrugs it off easily enough, leaving him in a second zip-up thermal jacket. He sheds that too, the room way too warm at this point, and soon enough he’s only wearing a twin of Namjoon’s own thermal long-sleeved shirt. When he leans down to unbuckle the boot on his good leg, he can see Namjoon’s socked feet disappear and then reappear again out of the corner of his eye, and the rustle of clothes that tell him Namjoon’s probably bundled everything up and left it on the nearest available surface. Sure enough, when Yoongi straightens his back he finds Namjoon next to his bed once again, and their two jackets resting, surprisingly well-folded, on the small desk in one corner of the room.

Behind Namjoon, the window shows a perfect view of the forest. Yoongi barely registers the few flakes of snow that are fluttering about behind the glass. He leans back down instead, and pulls at his boot. With his toes free he starts to wiggle them, hoping it will help his blood flow to get back to working order. His feet are cold, but he has the feeling he might not be able to do the same with his other foot.

Sure enough, as soon as he tries pulling the already unbuckled boot off, there’s a spike of pain in his ankle. His whole body feels like it’s decided it’s done cooperating for the day, and it doesn’t help that he tries lifting his leg to do it, and ends up almost knocking his knees together. He hisses out a sharp shit, feeling his teeth clench.

“Is the pain getting worse?”

Namjoon sounds worried enough there’s no way Yoongi is going to look up at his face. It might be doing something he isn’t ready to handle right now, like have a downward curve to his mouth, or his eyebrows might be furrowed in the way that spells out I want to help so badly but I can’t figure out how.

“Not really,” he replies, because he needs to say something. “I just - need to take this off,” he keeps going, pushing down at his boot with both hands, as slow as possible until his ankle slips free with another sharp spike of pain. “See, there.”

It’s only once he’s staring at the two boots, gingerly lowering his injured ankle back on the ground, that he realizes he’s going to have to get up if he wants to take his ski pants off, too. The thought is enough to make him sigh again, and he only gets as far as slowly getting up and placing his hands on his hips before Namjoon makes a questioning noise.

“Do you want me to bring you the first aid kit the staff gave us? It should have numbing cream, I think.” His hand hovers around Yoongi’s elbow, but never close enough to touch.

“I wanna get rid of these,” Yoongi says, and shoves his ski pants down his hips without much ceremony. He’s wearing a pair of thermal leggings underneath, but Namjoon’s breath hitches anyway, and Yoongi chooses to ignore it. He stares right ahead at the open door of the bedroom, instead, and gets as far as getting his pants down at his knees before he inevitably has to hop on one foot to take them off all the way. His only choice after that is to let himself fall back down on the bed, feeling Namjoon’s eyes on his through the whole ordeal, and this time, he frees his injured leg first.

“Wait, let me just -” Namjoon interrupts him. He crouches down at Yoongi’s feet, and for a moment, all Yoongi can see is his ruffled head of bleached blond hair. Namjoon makes quick work of pulling the pant leg down - too quick, maybe, like he doesn’t want his touch to linger. As soon as Yoongi’s foot is free, he folds the ski pants with quick motions, and gets up to throw them on the same pile with his ski jacket, and Yoongi goes back to living in a world where Namjoon doesn’t have his hands on him while he kneels between his legs.

He can always blame the flush on his cheeks on the temperature shift. The floor under his feet is warm, but he’s still uncomfortably damp with a mix of sweat from the exercise and having fallen face-first in the snow. He tries getting up again, ready to tell Namjoon it’s okay, I can take care of the rest, but he quickly realizes he very much cannot.

Taking off his baggy ski pants had been doable, even if slightly uncomfortable with how he had to get up and sit down again - but the skin-tight thermal leggings he had to maneuver himself into, jumping up and down a bit to slide them high enough over his hips. Maneuvering himself out of them with only one good leg available might prove to be even more uncomfortable.

Carefully, Yoongi considers his options.

Namjoon is still hovering around, standing in the middle of the room. The neatly-folded pile of Yoongi’s snow clothes will need to be hung up to dry off, at some point, but there’s definitely a more pressing issue at hand. He can either try to take the leggings off on his own, and struggle embarrassingly through the whole ordeal, probably hurting himself more in the process, or - he could ask Namjoon. The universe must be having a laugh at his expense, because he already knows Namjoon (sweet, likes-being-helpful Namjoon) is never going to refuse a genuine request.

As soon as Yoongi’s hands move to his waist again, right at the elastic band of the leggings, Namjoon turns his back to him. Yoongi’s hands still as he watches Namjoon take determined steps towards the wardrobe, opening it and finding Yoongi’s open suitcase inside at the bottom.

“You still never bother unpacking, do you,” Namjoon teases, but there’s definitely an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there when he was calling Yoongi a housecat in the car, just barely half an hour ago. “Are these sweatpants okay?”

He holds them up for Yoongi to see without turning around. They’re his softest pair, worn down by years of use, but still warm. Yoongi nods, and then realizes Namjoon can’t see him, and he’s still standing with his thumbs under the elastic band at his waist, and his ankle is starting to throb with pain again, even if most of his weight is shifted onto his other foot.

“Can you help me take these off, please?”

The words slip out, softening with each one that comes out of Yoongi’s mouth. The final please is almost mumbled, but it’s clear Namjoon has heard him perfectly, just from the way his grip on the sweats tightens as he puts his arm back down.

“Sure,” Namjoon replies, only a beat too late. Yoongi only knows the exact moment he turns around because he pays attention to the movement at the corner of his eye. He keeps his eyes squarely on the open door, though, and the wooden frame around it, and if he stares any harder he’s going to memorize every vein in the wood and probably remember the swirls and lines for the rest of his natural life.

Namjoon steps closer just as Yoongi shuffles his leggings down enough they roll to just below his hipbones. He still doesn’t look at him as he reaches out with one hand, meeting Namjoon’s chest, first, and then his arm, and going “Sorry, sorry, let me just-”

Namjoon does not reply, but he does wrap his hand around Yoongi’s wrist, then pulls Yoongi’s arm up until Yoongi can grasp his shoulder as he balances on his good foot and tries to shove his leggings down one-handed. Namjoon feels warm and solid under his palm, and he hopes his grip isn’t too tight. The elastic fabric bunches up under his hand, and soon enough his legs are bare down to his knees, a little bruised and pink all over from the cold.

He doesn’t risk glancing over to see if Namjoon is looking, fighting against the way his stomach clenches. Instead, he lets go of his grip on him, sitting back down on the bed with a slight bounce of the mattress once Yoongi drops all his weight on it, and Namjoon immediately crouches down at his feet again.

It had been devastating enough earlier, when Yoongi’s legs were still leggings-clad, and he wasn’t sitting in a too-tight shirt and his boxers waiting for Namjoon to help him undress the rest of the way. Right now, it feels like some kind of cosmic punishment. Namjoon’s hands fly to grip the fabric Yoongi has just let go of, and he seems to be trying not to touch bare skin until he clearly realizes that he needs to if he really wants to help. His fingers wrap around Yoongi’s knee, helping him lift it up, eyes fixed somewhere in the vicinity of Yoongi’s socked feet, and never straying above the line of his knees.

“Raise your knee a little,” Namjoon tells Yoongi, his voice low. He tugs at the leggings when Yoongi obeys, pulling his good leg free. “I was thinking,” he begins, and Yoongi knows perfectly well that he’s just bringing up something else for the sake of not talking about the position they’re in. “I’m going to take a shower. If you want to have one too, we could use the tub? You can sit down on the edge, so you don’t have to spend the whole time standing up.”

“We?”

The word comes out of Yoongi’s mouth entirely too strangled to pass it off as the teasing question he’d wanted it to be. Namjoon’s hands, gripping the cuff of Yoongi’s sock and about to pull it off for him despite it being on his good leg, and Yoongi being probably capable of doing it himself, come to an abrupt stop.

“You could use the tub,” Namjoon repeats, correcting himself, and his hands complete the motion. He balls up Yoongi’s sock and leaves it on the floor, then moves to free Yoongi’s injured leg from the leggings. “I just - if you need any help, you can ask me.”

Yoongi’s heartbeat stutters in his chest. The tension in the room feels almost suffocating. He tries digging through his brain for a joke, or a teasing remark, anything that can get them back to their usual, easy back and forth. He finds nothing.

The thing is - it’s been a strange week. He’s pretty sure it looked normal enough from the outside, but it’s also been a long while since the last time he and Namjoon ended up in a conversational dance where neither of them wanted to take the lead. The last time it had happened, it was about something so silly he barely remembers it - probably their music, most likely related to the settling-in pains after becoming roommates, even as they were already a few years into their friendship. A small part of Yoongi’s brain that sounds suspiciously like Kim Seokjin wonders if he should try and conspire to have them locked in a room somewhere, again.

That had been years ago, though. Right now, they’re both adults, who should be able to talk about things without outside intervention. Adults who should be able to talk about adult things - like what comes next after you kiss your best friend.

In front of him, Namjoon lifts his injured leg, one hand wrapped around his calf, golden tan against Yoongi’s pale skin, and gently tugs at the fabric until all of it is bunched up around Yoongi’s ankle. Only once all of it is down he tries slipping the hem of the leggings past Yoongi’s heel, and the only reason why Yoongi doesn’t groan is because he’d expected the pain. At least it helps him not think about the weird stand-off they’re in.

It’s not like either of them had planned it. One week ago, as Jimin’s birthday party was winding down and most of the guests were leaving the apartment, Yoongi had found himself leaning back on Jimin’s couch, an almost-dozing off Namjoon lying next to him, his long legs spread out in front of him. In front of the TV, uncaring of the people yelling out their goodbyes as they stepped out of the door, Jimin and Taehyung were slow dancing to music that wasn’t there.

“Wow, I feel very single,” Namjoon had muttered, eyes still half-closed, but fixed on the scene in front of them. Yoongi had been in that pleasant state between buzzed and happily drunk, where everything is soft and fuzzy around the edges, and Namjoon’s deadpan tone had sounded like the funniest thing in the world.

“They’re not even dating,” he’d replied, and Namjoon - also clearly tipsy, with his cheeks flushed because of the alcohol and his slicked back hairstyle falling apart and into his face - had only snorted in return.

“Does it matter? Look at them,” Namjoon had added, and they’d both stared as Taehyung pulled Jimin into the kitchen by their joined hands, leaving Namjoon and Yoongi alone in the small living room. “Can’t help but feel single when you see all that.”

Yoongi had sat up a bit too quickly, his vision swimming a little at the sudden movement, his pleasantly buzzed brain unable to figure out why the words coming out of Namjoon’s mouth were leaving a bad taste in the back of his throat. Namjoon had sat up as well almost by reflex, mirroring Yoongi as they both settled sitting forward, elbows on their knees, staring at the black screen of the TV free of Jimin and Taehyung’s presence.

“I can’t even remember the last time I made out with someone,” Namjoon had mumbled, because clearly he'd been in a complaining mood. Yoongi had painfully realized that he did remember, because he’d pointed out the guy to Namjoon himself. Someone who had been making eyes at him from across the bar the last time they’d gone out to a club all together, and that Namjoon had kissed on the dancefloor before calling it a night and going back home in a taxi - sans the guy, but with Yoongi sitting beside him. He remembered watching them under the strobe lights, and being tempted to down the expensive whiskey he’d ordered all in one go, just to feel a different kind of burn.

“I’m serious, like - I haven’t kissed anyone in ages. I’ve been in a drought, or whatever,” Namjoon had continued, and his voice had sounded the way it did when his brain-to-mouth filter was malfunctioning completely, and suddenly there had been nothing in the world more important for Yoongi than to get him to stop talking. One week later, he’s still willing to chalk up what he did to a moment of brief, yet severe alcohol-fueled insanity.

He’d turned towards Namjoon, wrapped one hand around his neck, and pulled until he could press his lips to Namjoon’s face, surging up to aim for his cheek and landing on the slightly stubbly skin right above his jawline, a little too close to the corner of his mouth.

“There. Now you’ve gotten a kiss, and you can stop complaining.”

His voice hadn’t shaken, he thinks. His grip on Namjoon’s neck was sure to have been bruising, though, because he’s pretty sure he’d felt it when Namjoon swallowed, eyes wide, looking at Yoongi like he’d poured his beer down the front of his shirt.

The alarm bells in Yoongi’s brain had been trying their hardest to make themselves heard over the blood rushing through his ears. It had been hard, though, hearing anything that wasn’t Namjoon’s sharp intake of breath as they both sat there in the low light of the living room, faces still too close, and the clear buzz of electricity when Namjoon’s eyes had met his.

Just a moment later, Namjoon had leaned in to kiss him, and Yoongi had closed his eyes, and kissed him back.

The hazy memory of Namjoon’s lips against his haunted him all week. Even now, while Namjoon is busy pulling his ankle through the fabric of the leggings, pulling slowly until his leg is finally free, he can’t help but remember how soft they were against his mouth. How Namjoon’s hand had cupped his jaw, gently, like he’s been touching him all afternoon - like he was afraid of doing it wrong.

It hadn’t got past the gentle press of their lips together, Namjoon's hand on his face, his own palm wrapped around Namjoon's neck, feeling the way his heart rate jumped. Barely a few moments later there was a loud thump in the hallway. They’d sprung apart quick enough to witness Jungkook carrying Hoseok on his back, socked feet hitting the floor, Hoseok urging him to go faster, Jungkook-ah, I bet we can slide the whole way down the hallway. Somewhere behind them, Seokjin had been cheering them on. Soon enough they’d all tumbled into the living room, and Yoongi had been roped into choosing a bottle of wine to open by Jimin, and that had been it.

He’d only looked back at Namjoon once, as he was being pulled up and away from the couch, Jimin’s hand wrapped around his - and he’d found Namjoon already looking back, meeting his eyes while their friends’ gentle chaos surrounded them. For the first time in a very long time, his expression had been something Yoongi couldn’t read.

Namjoon’s expression is just as inscrutable now, as he slowly lowers Yoongi’s foot to the ground, taking off his sock at the same time. Yoongi grits his teeth at the pain, but Namjoon doesn’t look up. His gaze rises up to meet Yoongi’s eyes only when both of Yoongi’s feet are on the floor, and he pushes himself up on his knees, but he doesn’t step away. Instead, he reaches a hand out, just like he’d done on the slope.

“Come on, hyung,” he says, voice low and warm, and Yoongi needs to stop thinking about what the things Namjoon says would sound like right up against his skin. “Unless you want me to shower first?”

“I might take a while, you know, with the ankle and everything,” Yoongi replies, but he still reaches out to take Namjoon’s hand in his. Without the gloves in the way, Namjoon’s palm is as warm as it had felt around his waist, under his arm, on the bare skin of his legs. “Maybe you should go first?”

Namjoon seems to think about it for a moment, eyebrows furrowed, but he still slowly pulls Yoongi up to his feet, helping him keep his balance.

“I can wait,” he answers. “I think I’m gonna call Seokjin-hyung and see where they’re at. They must be getting back from the slopes - it’s been snowing for a while now.”

When they’d walked in, Yoongi had been in too much pain and discomfort to notice the first flutter of snowflakes. When he glances at the window now, upright once again and close enough to Namjoon’s body heat he almost doesn’t mind only being in his shirt and underwear, he realizes that the snowfall outside has been steadily increasing - fast enough the single snowflakes are almost impossible to distinguish, coming down together in a flurry.

“Grab me the sweatpants and a hoodie?” Yoongi asks, pushing back against the little voice in the back of his head telling him he’s taking advantage of Namjoon. He offered, he tells himself, and they’ve been best friends for years, and one week ago doing all this would have been barely more than an afterthought. There’s another, louder voice that tells him that it’s kind of his fault if they’re in this kind of limbo anyway. I kissed him first, and I’m the oldest, and I should have been the one to bring it up. And yet he didn’t.

Namjoon is unaware of his inner turmoil as he helps him step into the bathroom, and gives him a hand to climb into the tub, Yoongi’s knees wobbling for a second until he can sit down on the edge of it.

“I’ll bring you your clothes, just - give me a second,” Namjoon tells him, and Yoongi tentatively tries rotating his ankle just the slightest bit. He immediately realizes it’s a bad idea when even the smallest movement shoots pain up his leg. It hadn’t felt like this when he’d first tried getting up in the snow, but maybe that had been the adrenaline that by now has long worn off. He can see the skin around the bone start to bruise, and it’s definitely starting to swell up. He’s going to have to ice it as soon as he gets out of the bathroom.

Namjoon takes a little longer to come back than expected, but he does so with a pile of clothes that he leaves on the counter next to the sink, close enough for Yoongi to grab without getting out of the tub. The next thing he hands him is one of the resort’s fluffy cream white towels, letting Yoongi decide where he wants to put it - and then he seems to realize there’s nothing else to do, his hands fluttering back to his sides as he bounces on the ball of his feet.

“Thank you,” Yoongi tells him, because Namjoon deserves to hear it, and because Yoongi needs somewhere to put all the fondness he’s feeling right now. He can feel himself smiling as he looks up at Namjoon. He doesn’t try to hide it. “Thanks, Namjoon-ah. I can handle it from here, go call hyung.”

Namjoon’s smile back to him is small, but his dimple still peeks out, and his eyes are bright.

“Alright. I’ll leave the door open, okay? Shout if you need anything,” Namjoon replies, walking out. He pulls the door almost shut behind him, just a small sliver to make sure sound would actually carry out, and then there’s nothing left for Yoongi to do than actually shower.

Shuffling out of his boxers without getting up is a little difficult, but he manages, gripping the edge of the tub until he can take them off one leg at a time, balling them up and throwing them out of the tub. Asking Namjoon to help with that, too, would have been - just a little too much. The thermal shirt is easier. When he turns on the water, right under the sound of it rushing out of the showerhead, he can still hear Namjoon’s voice coming in from the kitchen.

He doesn’t wash his hair - he didn’t sweat that much, and it might take too long. Instead, he tries to wash himself as fast as possible, wincing every time moving around involves moving his ankle, too. The body wash provided by the resort smells nice, though, and the fluffy towel he wraps himself in as best as he can once he’s done is even nicer. He sits there for a bit, waiting until he feels only faintly damp. If he could get up properly and dry himself off it would be better, but the current circumstances don’t allow it. His ankle does need icing, though, and so he leans over to grab the pile of clothes from the counter with a sigh.

There’s a pair of boxers right on top he carefully considers, and then discards. It’s going to be difficult enough putting on the sweatpants Namjoon had pulled from his suitcase, but they’re also thick enough it’s not going to be a problem. He drops the towel somewhere behind him, raising one leg and then the other so he’s still sitting on the edge of the tub, but with his legs facing out now, and pulls the sweatpants up his legs much in the same way he’d taken his underwear off. The whole ordeal is definitely easier the second time round. When he reaches for the rest of the clothes, he finds one of his long-sleeved shirts, and smiles. He’s glad Namjoon remembered his penchant for layers, especially considering he can’t wear his thermal leggings again.

It’s only when he pulls his head through the neck hole of the shirt, smoothing it down his front, that his eyes finally drop to the last piece of clothing Namjoon has left out for him. His hands freeze. It’s a hoodie, the soft grey fabric washed out by time and use, and it looks familiar enough to Yoongi that it could be one of his own.

It’s not, though. It’s not his. It does explain why Namjoon had taken so long to come back, though. He’d been digging through his own clothes just to bring Yoongi his favorite hoodie.

There’s a strangled noise trapped in Yoongi’s throat. If he lets it out, there’s a strong chance it might be loud enough Namjoon would come running and find Yoongi sitting there, still as a statue, hugging Namjoon's hoodie close to his chest.

Shit, he really needs to get a grip.

He puts the hoodie on, exhaling slowly. It smells clean, like the fabric softener they both use, but also so much like Namjoon that it feels like he’s being wrapped up in a hug, and Yoongi lets out another long sigh. If it were any other day, he’d go and stand close to Namjoon long enough for him to wrap his arm around Yoongi’s shoulders, like he does every time Yoongi steps into his orbit. More often than not, Yoongi is tempted to crowd closer, fit himself in the space between Namjoon’s arm and his side - and then he doesn’t. The small contact is usually enough. 

Not today, though. And not after the weird week they’ve had, spent trying not to avoid each other on purpose and accidentally end up distancing themselves from each other a little too much. After eleven years, he knows what Namjoon looks like when he’s trying to act normal as not raise suspicions and also not discourage any kind of attempt at Talking About Things - except Yoongi couldn’t find the words to talk about what happened, and clearly Namjoon couldn’t either, and they’d said yes to rooming together in the same cabin on this trip months ago. They couldn’t just suddenly tell their friends actually - we’ve been okay living together for years, but we have an issue with rooming together on this trip specifically, hope you understand.

He’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop all week - either for Namjoon to pull him aside and tell him something incredibly earnest, like hyung, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, or for any of their friends to come up to him and tell him I saw you two kissing, what happened?

The latter feels unbearable. He doesn’t want to have to explain this to anyone. It’s hard enough figuring out how they’re going to talk about this between the two of them (and they’ll have to, at some point, he knows they will). The former, though... he thinks hearing Namjoon say something like I shouldn’t have kissed you like that would hurt him more than he could ever be ready for.

He can hear Namjoon’s voice trail in through the open door, and faintly, a tinny speakerphone voice he imagines must belong to Seokjin. He kicks away at this rumpled up shirt and underwear still on the bathroom floor, cringing a little at not being able to pick them up, but he can at least push them into a corner of the room. He folds up the towel, though, and lays it over the edge of the tub before taking a deep breath and getting up.

The warm water must have done wonders for his aching muscles, because limping all the way out of the bathroom and into the hallway that leads into the living room feels a lot easier, even as he tries not to lean his weight on his injured leg too much. While the pain isn’t worsening, at least, the sooner he ices it, the better.

Once he gets into the living room, he’s surprised to find Namjoon at the stove in the small kitchenette, carefully tipping a pot of boiling water into a strainer in the sink beside him. Steam rises from the metal, and he slowly picks up the strainer and pours the strained spaghetti into a sizzling pan, stirring it with a pair of chopsticks. Yoongi suddenly recognizes the smell in the air - garlic and olive oil.

Even if Yoongi had never met Namjoon before, it would be easy to see that he’s not really used to cooking. He’s overly careful, fiddling with the knobs on the stove and lowering the flame like he’s not really sure what he’s doing, his furrowed eyebrows making it clear how hard he’s concentrating. From Namjoon’s phone on the counter, he can hear Seokjin’s voice come in - very tinny, like he’s miles and miles away, despite Yoongi knowing perfectly well the cabin where he’s staying with Hoseok is barely a five minute walk from theirs.

“Is Yoongi still in the shower?”

Namjoon mumbles out something clearly meant to be a yes, but he’s too busy stirring the pasta to really make himself heard. There’s two bowls already out on the counter, too, and the television in front of the couch is on a channel with no signal. It casts a gentle, blue glow on the coffee table, and the couch pillow on it, and the first aid kit they’d gotten propped up against it next to Yoongi’s phone.

“Hyung! Everything okay?”

When he turns back around to look at Namjoon again, he finds him with the pan in his hand, his back to the stove, about to pour the spaghetti into the two bowls he’d already set out. His eyes on Yoongi are as warm as a hot shower.

“Is Yoongi there? Have you told him yet? Yoongi-chi, funny story-”

“Hyung, you’ve been on speakerphone all this time, when exactly do you think I could have told him?” Namjoon replies, and then he's glancing away to roll a big lump of spaghetti between his chopsticks, pouring it into the nearest bowl. “Hyung,” he starts, looking up directly at Yoongi once he’s done. “Go sit down on the couch? I’ll bring these over.”

When Yoongi stares again at the couch setup and then back at him, Namjoon’s gaze drops back to where he’s filling up the second bowl, sheepish.

“I read you should keep your ankle elevated once you’re icing it,” he says, because of course he’s researched this in the fifteen minutes it took for Yoongi to shower. Yoongi nods, and the cabin is small enough he only needs to take a few wobbly steps forward until he can sit on the couch, turning just slightly so he can keep looking at Namjoon.

“So what’s the funny story?” Yoongi asks, because Seokjin seems to have gotten distracted, his voice coming in muffled as he yells something at someone Yoongi guesses might be Jungkook. “What happened?”

“Take a look outside,” Namjoon answers, nodding towards the window. “Apparently the slopes are closed because of a surprise snowstorm, and the resort staff is recommending everyone to stay inside for the night until it blows over.”

“Good thing we got groceries separately,” Yoongi replies, voice weak to his own ears as he glances at the window of the cabin. He can’t help but be mesmerized by the flurry of snow. The sky seems to have darkened to a dull grey in the fifteen minutes or so it took him to shower, but the snowflakes are bright white and illuminated by the lampposts in front of every cabin.

“Yeah, that was a good idea. We all went back together to the biggest cabin, but I don’t think we can get to yours without being buried under all the snow.”

Yoongi nods, before remembering Seokjin can’t see him.

“It’s okay, just - stay there, we’ll be fine--”

“We could totally walk there. It’s what, five minutes-”

Jungkook’s voice comes in as tinny as Seokjin’s, but much more enthusiastic. Yoongi snorts, grabbing his knee hard enough he can pull his whole leg up and rest it on the pillow Namjoon has set out on the coffee table.

“We are not walking anywhere with the apocalypse out there. Sorry, Yoongi-yah. It’s surprising enough there’s enough phone signal. I think even if we did try and come to visit there’d be no way we could get back, and you only have two beds.”

“Are you saying no to a cuddle pile, hyung? I’m disappointed,” Yoongi yells out, reaching forward to grab the first aid kit before settling down a little lower on the couch cushions. He takes out one of the instant ice packs, smacking it decisively against his hand to activate it, and gently rests it against his ankle.

“He’s literally in a cuddle pile right now,” Jimin’s voice replies from the phone, louder now, as if the phone is getting closer to where Yoongi is sitting. He glances behind him to see Namjoon walking over, the phone in one hand, gripping it between two fingers while the rest of his hand is busy holding one of the bowls. The other one cradled closer to his chest, always so careful with things he might break.

“Resistance is futile,” Hoseok continues, before getting interrupted by Jimin’s happy screech. “Hoseok-hyung has no idea where that reference is even from-”

When Namjoon hands him the bowl of pasta, he does it with a smile, clear and bright on his face at their friends’ antics. The phone ends up on the couch between them as he settles down next to Yoongi, their friends’ voices climbing up on top of each other in a cacophony of yelling and laughter impossible to understand.

“They’re so loud,” Namjoon laughs, as if the two of them don’t join the shenanigans more often than not. “Hyung, are you still there?”

The yelling quiets down after a decisive shush from Seokjin, even if there’s definitely still some giggling and stage-whispering in the background. Taehyung’s baritone, that couldn’t be subtle even if he tried, is clearly teasing Jungkook about something Yoongi can’t quite make out.

“Yeah, yeah. We still need to get started on dinner, and after that I’m heading off to sleep. I can’t believe you two would leave me alone with the chaos here. Enjoy the peace and quiet, you jerks.”

“I’ll take chaos over a sprained ankle,” Yoongi laughs, before taking a bite of his pasta. It’s the right amount of garlic-y and spicy, only lacking maybe the slightest pinch of salt - but apart from that, it’s great, and warm, and comforting after a long day. He only realizes Namjoon is watching him with bated breath once he turns around and sees him staring, and he gives him a thumbs up before he swallows.

“S’good, Namjoon-ah,” he manages to say just a moment later, feeling the red pepper burning the corner of his lips, and Namjoon’s smile brightens up his whole face.

“Oh, does your ankle still hurt? Are you icing it? You should ask Namjoonie to kiss it better, Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin says in a teasing tone, and someone next to him makes a loud, smooching sound next to the receiver. Yoongi is still staring at Namjoon’s dimples, and that means he’s sitting front row to watch when they disappear in a flash as Namjoon’s smile drops.

“I’m icing it right now. I might try to bandage it up later, but it doesn’t look too bad, hyung, don’t worry.” Yoongi’s acutely aware of how robotic he sounds - how hard he’s trying to keep emotion out of his voice. Watching Namjoon’s smile drop further until it’s barely a curve at the corner of his mouth is too much to bear, so he goes back to staring at his bowl of pasta, twisting a bit of spaghetti up into a neat little roll before shoving it into his mouth.

“That’s good to hear. We’ll try calling you later, alright? We still have dinner to figure out,” Seokjin replies. If he notices the swift change in mood (and Yoongi is willing to bet his uninjured leg that he does) he makes no comment on it. “Let’s hope the signal keeps working. Bye, you two.”

Both Yoongi and Namjoon, mouths full echo something that between the two of them can pass as a goodbye, and there’s a chorus of bye hyungs and let us know how you’re feeling and Namjoon-hyung really cooked dinner, wow in response before the call ends. Yoongi takes another bite of pasta, and for once, sits in a tense silence with Namjoon, instead of their usual peaceful calm.

“Thank you for dinner, Namjoon-ah," he begins, because it seems like he can't thank him enough. "Are you going to shower later?” Yoongi asks, then, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He wishes he could go back in time thirty minutes, and pinch himself for even thinking about wanting to get stuck somewhere with Namjoon again - the snowstorm granted his wish, like a silly romance drama subplot. Namjoon audibly swallows.

“Yeah, when we’re done eating. When did you start icing it?”

Oh, so Yoongi’s not the only one feeling awkward. Good to know. He can see Namjoon shift at the corner of his eye until he’s sitting on the couch cross-legged, still in his thermal shirt, wearing a pair of sweatpants just like Yoongi that he must have put on while Yoongi showered. He’s shoveling spaghetti into his mouth like it’s either his first meal in a while, or his very last.

“Five minutes ago at most - I think,” Yoongi replies, wondering if Namjoon’s genuinely that hungry or if he’s just dying to escape the heavy atmosphere as badly as Yoongi is. If he could, he thinks, glaring at his swollen ankle, he would.

“I read you’re only supposed to ice it for twenty minutes at a time, and only for a few hours in total,” Namjoon tells him through another mouthful of pasta. “Do you want to bandage it up once you take the ice pack off?”

“Should we?” Yoongi asks, because he can already tell jostling the ankle too much is going to make it hurt even more. He can see, right beneath the white and blue plastic of the ice pack, a dark bruise spreading on his skin - he’s not really looking forward to having to move it again too soon. He can feel Namjoon’s eyes on it, too - right on the spot where his pant leg is pulled up to reveal his ankle and bare foot.

“It might help.” Namjoon shrugs, and unfolds his entirely too long legs just enough so he can pull himself up from the couch. His bowl is empty, but the tension in the air has too tight a grip on Yoongi's stomach for him to be able to follow suit and finish his meal. “I’ll go shower, and then we’ll see if you feel up to it.”

The we, somehow, makes Yoongi feel worse - but it’s reassuring, at the same time. Namjoon is here with him. After the week they’ve had, every conversation stilted by an undercurrent of is this the moment where we have to talk about it, it’s nice to hear something as simple as we’ll handle this together.

“Alright,” Yoongi breathes out, looking up at him, finding Namjoon twisting his phone between his fingers. “There should be hot water left.”

Namjoon nods back at him, and he walks over to drop his bowl in the sink. He plugs the sink up next, and fills it up with warm water, and Yoongi has seen this exact scene hundreds of times - thousands, maybe, considering how long they’ve lived together. Yoongi cooks, most of the time. Namjoon does the dishes, most of the time. It’s stupid, how he wishes he could stand there next to Namjoon, tidy up the kitchen, clean up right alongside him like they usually do - but he can’t, for many reasons. His sprained ankle is only one of them.

God, he’s mad at himself. Namjoon might have kissed him - but he kissed Namjoon first, and now they’re in this standstill together, and trying to tip them both over and into something else might only make things worse. His own lack of courage is the most frustrating thing about it all. He cranes his neck to stare at Namjoon’s shoulders, and the way the warm light in the kitchen shines on the nape of Namjoon’s neck. He doesn’t want to think about how he knows there’s a mole there, right over his spine. 

“Namjoon-ah,” he says, suddenly, and the sound of his voice is almost surprising to his own ears. Namjoon doesn’t jump, exactly, but he does put the box of pasta in one of the cupboards a lot less delicately than he’d clearly meant to.

“Yeah? Do you need something?”

Namjoon turns around, ready to help. There is no answer to that question rattling around Yoongi’s brain that does not include him in any way, shape, or form. He wonders where all that bravery from a week ago has gone - right now, there’s a small come here and kiss me right on the tip of his tongue, sweet and a little sour like sugar-covered candy. He swallows it down, and the sugar scratches the back of his throat.

“Just - a glass of water, please?”

He watches the line of Namjoon’s back as he turns around towards the kitchenette, pulling out one of the water bottles they’d gotten to fill up a glass with quick movements.

“There you go, hyung.”

Their fingers brush when Namjoon hands him the glass, stepping up once again towards the couch.

“Thank you,” Yoongi says. Namjoon nods and turns on his heels before Yoongi can get a chance to read his expression, heading for the hallway. He resists the urge to call Namjoon’s name again. He doesn’t know what he would say. He leans over to the coffee table to grab his phone, instead, trying to keep himself busy, setting the bowl and glass of water down after barely a few sips. He sets a fifteen minutes timer to remember to take the ice pack off, and then he starts scrolling aimlessly down his notifications. There’s a few messages, a few push notifications from news sites, and a bunch of pictures in the group chat with the rest of them that are slow to come in - the signal is a lot weaker now that the snowstorm outside seems to have strengthened.

The flurry of snowflakes has gained speed, slowly accumulating on the windowsill and the road and the forest outside the cabin. There’s little for him to do except watch as the little white dots dance behind the glass, shifting around to find a more comfortable position on the couch. He can hear the sound of running water coming in from the bathroom, and he firmly stops any stray thoughts of Namjoon in the shower in their tracks. He doesn’t need to add to his own misery.

When he looks back at his phone, the pictures have finally loaded. There’s a selfie of their friends, the five of them all pushed together to fit into the frame, bright smiles and finger hearts in the forefront, and right underneath a text from Taehyung that says feel better, hyung!

He smiles, scrolling down. The rest of the photos are a small collection of shots of Seokjin’s back while he cooks, with Jungkook occasionally hanging off of his shoulders like a tattooed koala, and Hoseok mid-laugh as he’s filming the scene with his phone out. There’s another selfie, this time just Taehyung and Jimin, the dinner table behind them, and something squeezes around Yoongi’s heart a little too tight. If it weren’t for his ankle, and the snowstorm, and a series of events none of them could have predicted, he and Namjoon could have both been there with them - he could have watched Namjoon as he laughed along with the rest of their friends, instead of wondering whether the elastic band of tension between them is about to snap.

“Oh, did Seokjin-hyung send pictures? He said he’d send them later in the group chat.”

Yoongi doesn’t jump, exactly, too aware of his injured ankle, but he tightens his grip on his phone enough he’s almost scared the screen might crack. Namjoon is leaning behind the couch a little to Yoongi’s left, elbows digging in the couch headrest, and- he’s not wearing a shirt. When Yoongi risks a glance to the side, he can see Namjoon’s hoodie in his hands, where it’s doing a poor job of covering the miles of bare skin on show.

“Yeah, there you go,” he says, voice just a little strangled, and slowly releases the death grip on his cellphone to bring it up and over near Namjoon’s face. Namjoon must have taken off his contact lenses in the shower, because he squints and gets closer to the screen, scrunching up his nose. Yoongi carefully keeps his gaze on Namjoon’s face, even as his stomach jumps at the crinkles around his eyes when he smiles at the pictures. It’s better than ending up staring at anything below the neck.

“They seem to be having fun,” Namjoon comments, the fondness clear in his tone, bringing the phone even closer to his face as he scrolls. His fingers brush against Yoongi's, and his arms are very much on display - there’s a delighted smile on his face, too, and Yoongi slides lower down the couch pillows. He hopes his face isn’t red. Some things are just too much to bear.

Namjoon pulls away, just a little, and Yoongi lowers his phone back in his lap. When he looks up again, Namjoon is still leaning on the couch, shoulders hunched just a little as he looks down at Yoongi, and the smile on his face is still there. When Yoongi meets his eyes, it doesn’t disappear, just shifts a little, and Yoongi... He doesn’t want to find out what that means. 

He does, however, end up staring down at Namjoon’s chest when he goes from leaning on his elbows to his hands - the movement pushes his whole torso forward, and the lines of muscle are clean and defined under the lights of the cabin. There’s still a sheen over his skin from the shower, because of course Namjoon didn’t dry himself properly after walking out. It looks like he forgot he isn’t wearing a shirt altogether, from the way he’s just leaning with his hand over the hoodie he’d obviously meant to wear.

To be fair, it’s not like this is a rare sight in their apartment. Namjoon steps out of the bathroom without a shirt often, and sleeps shirtless in the summer, and Yoongi should be used to it right now. Turns out exposure therapy only works so much, especially when the subject in question keeps somehow bulking up, going to the gym and putting on muscle like he’s getting paid for it.

“Aren’t you cold?” Yoongi asks, his voice a little too weak even to his own ears. Right now, this is more of a matter of self preservation. At the words, Namjoon’s eyebrows shoot up, like he’d genuinely forgotten he was missing half his clothes. “You’re going to catch a cold, Namjoon-ah.”

Namjoon snorts, but he does pull the hoodie up and over his head before stepping toward the couch. He fishes in his pocket until he finds his phone, which he throws on the cushion next to Yoongi, and then- pivots on his heels, going back toward the hall.

Yoongi cranes his neck around to see him duck into his room and reemerge, just a moment later, with the same thick, fluffy hotel blanket that’s on each of their beds bundled up in his arms. He steps closer without any other explanation, nearly hitting his leg on the corner of the couch as he tries to navigate the room without being able to see the floor, then holds out the blanket towards Yoongi, as Yoongi stares at the small smile on his face.

“I thought I’d grab this just in case-”

The timer on Yoongi’s phone decides that right now is the best time to interrupt, and they both startle at the sharp ringing sound. Namjoon’s head turns towards the noise, and Yoongi is left staring up at his profile and trying to fill in the blanks - just in case I got cold? Just in case you got cold? Just in case we got cold and wanted to share?

“I have to take the ice pack off,” he says, instead, because that way lies madness. Namjoon turns back to face him, nodding, and before Yoongi can lean forward he’s reaching out to take the ice pack off and placing it on the coffee table himself, the bundled blanket still spilling out of his arm.

“Thank you,” he tells him, and Namjoon nods, almost absentmindedly, his gaze fixed on the first aid kit open on the table. There’s a few other instant ice packs inside it, along with disinfectant and gauzes, scissors and tweezers and bandaids and a lot of stuff they definitely won’t need. Yoongi makes a mental note to remember to bring it back to the resort center when they leave. Namjoon’s eyes, though, are staring at a smaller box that he picks up after a second of hesitation. It’s only when it’s in Namjoon’s hands that Yoongi realizes what it is - a roll of pale beige compression tape.

As soon as it’s in his hands, Namjoon sits back on the couch once again, the blanket now bundled up in his lap. He taps one fingernail on the paper box, staring at it, and Yoongi busies himself with turning off the alarm on his phone. He doesn’t set another.

“Do you want to try bandaging it?”

Namjoon turns towards him one moment later, holding out the box, and Yoongi reaches for it after a beat. Their fingers don’t brush, but once the box is in Yoongi’s hand, Namjoon takes the blanket off of his lap, folding it and throwing it on top of the back of the couch.

“I don’t think I can by myself,” Yoongi answers, and- it’s true. Stretching out and bending his leg hurts, too, but he guesses that’s mostly the muscle protesting after a day of exercise and a bad fall. Reaching down to bandage up his ankle and doing a decent job of it feels highly improbable. “I can just keep icing it, though. It doesn’t look like it’s swelling up that much.”

As soon as he says it, he knows he’s slightly underestimating things. The dark bruise around his ankle bone looks like it’s spreading, and there’s swelling around it that isn’t looking great even after icing it like the staff member had recommended.

Namjoon makes a noise that definitely sounds like a disagreement. He leans forward, gently rolling up Yoongi’s pant leg to show some more skin, and his fingers brush against the bruise. Yoongi keeps perfectly still, his foot still resting above the pillow, and stares at Namjoon’s profile, illuminated by the glow of the still-on TV.

“Let me help?”

The words are so low Yoongi almost doesn’t catch them, too busy staring at how the light paints Namjoon’s features in soft shades of blue. He does hear them, though, and his body moves before his mind can decide, opening the box in his hands to pull out the plastic-wrapped roll of bandage and holding it out for Namjoon without a word.

Namjoon doesn’t take it. Instead, he leans once again against the couch, digging through the cushions for his phone he’d thrown over before. He unlocks it with one hand, nods, and only then reaches for the box of compression tape. Yoongi catches a glimpse of a diagram on the screen of his phone - something with arrows and the drawing of an injured leg.

“Wait, let me move closer,” Namjoon mumbles, and scoots over right next to him. He takes the roll out of the plastic packaging, putting it in the small space between them, along with his still unlocked phone, and then he reaches out to Yoongi’s leg, still resting on its pillow.

The first, delicate touch of Namjoon’s fingers to Yoongi’s ankle burns much more than it soothes. Yoongi’s breath hitches in his throat as Namjoon ever so gently lifts his leg, grabbing underneath the knee until he can rest Yoongi’s calf over his thigh. He shifts just enough to have room to work, carefully glancing over at the open Naver page that shows the search results on how to bandage a sprained ankle.

“Let me know if it hurts, hyung,” Namjoon whispers, and unrolls a good portion of the bandage. The next thing Yoongi feels is the pads of Namjoon’s fingers pressed against the arch of his foot, keeping it steady as he loops the bandage right over the bridge. His hands are warm, and Yoongi doesn’t know where to look. He doesn’t want to choose between the furrow in Namjoon’s brow, the way his jaw sets when he’s focusing, or the visual proof that his hands are on Yoongi’s bare skin, delicate and light as if Yoongi were made of glass.

It’s almost unbearable, how gentle Namjoon is being, how soft his hands are against his skin. There’s a steady thrum of pain in his ankle at being moved, but he’d been expecting that. He hadn't expected this kind of contact after a week of talking-but-not-really-talking to each other. Something small and ugly in a corner of his mind wonders if this is just Namjoon feeling guilty over kissing him in the heat of the moment, and trying to atone for it in some way after they both refused to talk about it. He knows it’s not, though. Namjoon would have tried to help him either way. If he does regret kissing him - and the thought aches much more than anything physical - it has nothing to do with the way his hands are wrapping the bandage around Yoongi’s ankle, now, looping it between his foot and leg in a figure eight twice.

“Is this too tight?” Namjoon asks, holding the bandage close, about to make another loop. His other hand is still holding Yoongi’s foot steady, and Yoongi- hates this. He hates how Namjoon sounds almost cautious, how their every interaction ever since that night has been tinged with shades of hesitancy that haven’t been there for years. The only glimpse of their normal selves had come back while they were driving back to the cabin - Namjoon had teased him, like he usually does, and Yoongi had replied in kind, and he’d missed it with a fierceness he should have expected. Frustration bubbles low in his stomach, and if he could, he would groan.

“No, it’s perfect,” he replies, instead, because Namjoon is waiting for a response, trying not to let the restless energy coiled in his cheest bleed through his voice. Namjoon nods at Yoongi’s answer, and loops the bandage around his foot once again, before rolling it higher around Yoongi’s leg one more time. He sticks on the two small clips in the package right after, securing it in place, and leans back, eyebrows raised, looking between the results of his work and the tutorial open on his screen.

“It should be okay, hyung?” he says, framing it like a question. Yoongi had missed this, too, all the dips and highs of Namjoon’s voice, the way it seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest and rumbles low like a thunderstorm. “You’ll have to take it off again before bed, according to this,” he continues, nodding over at his phone, “But you’re all set, for now.”

One of his hands is still holding up Yoongi’s foot. The other is resting over his leg, where his sweatpants have ridden up, right above where the bandage begins, absentmindedly rubbing a thumb over bare skin. Yoongi tries not to shiver, or twitch, or move in any way, the feeling of Namjoon’s fingers wrapped around his leg too much and not enough at the same time.

“Aren’t-” Yoongi begins, feeling like he might vibrate out of his skin. The last time he felt like this, he’d been drunk at a party. He remembers what happened next all too well. “Aren’t you going to kiss it better?”

He waits for the question to fall flat, for the teasing quip to get the wrong kind of response. He waits for Namjoon to take Yoongi’s leg off of where it’s still resting on his thigh and place it back on the pillow, or maybe try and tease him back, even though he knows the sentence has come out sounding everything but a joke.

Namjoon does nothing of the sort. His gaze flies up to meet Yoongi’s, his jaw jutting forward for a moment, and his fingers grip Yoongi’s leg just the slightest bit tighter as his eyes roam across Yoongi’s face. If he’s looking for something, Yoongi has no idea what - but the wind outside keeps whistling, and the faint buzz of the appliances around them is the only other noise he can hear above the way his heartbeat has settled in his ears.

Namjoon’s hand slides up from his leg to his knee, grabbing underneath it to raise it until Yoongi’s leg follows, settling his ankle where his leg was right on top of Namjoon’s thigh. He takes one last look at Yoongi, and then - leans down, impossibly slow, until his lips touch the point where Yoongi’s leg meets his foot, right above the tape.

Yoongi’s stomach drops somewhere far below the ground. He can barely feel the pressure of Namjoon’s lips over the bandage, but it doesn’t matter. It feels like there’s a flush travelling through him like an avalanche, going backwards from his ankle up to his brain, pushing him into motion. When he leans forward, right as Namjoon raises his head again, and ends up jostling his ankle, the pain doesn’t even register.

“I just- if I move my foot-” Yoongi starts, voice thick with frustration, and Namjoon’s hands fly up to keep his leg still, almost on instinct. “Come here, please,” he asks, and he can’t help but hold a hand out. He doesn’t know what his face is doing. He hopes it’s a good companion to Namjoon’s own expression, somewhere between hopeful and terrified.

Namjoon doesn’t reply. He does, however, gently lower Yoongi’s ankle to the floor, so it’s not in the way, and leans close enough to touch. The tips of Yoongi’s fingers shake when he cups Namjoon’s jaw.

This time around, he doesn’t have to pull him closer. Namjoon falls into him like a tree branch weighed down by snow, bending until their foreheads almost touch, with only a breath of space between them. Leaning forward to kiss him is the easiest thing Yoongi has ever done.

He doesn’t know which one of them makes a wounded sound when their lips touch, but it doesn’t matter. The press of Namjoon’s mouth over his starts as gentle as the hands on his skin, clinging to his waist, now, wrapping around his sides, and Yoongi can’t do anything but cradle Namjoon’s face between his palms and kiss him harder. There’s a kind of softness to it that comes with teeth - with Namjoon’s hands clenching and unclenching around the fabric of his hoodie that Yoongi is wearing, like he’s doesn’t know where to touch, or like he’s afraid of doing too much, too soon.

Yoongi is too lost to notice. All he’s aware of is reduced to Namjoon’s lips against his, the way they open when he presses forward, pulling and pushing until Yoongi’s arms are wrapped behind Namjoon’s neck, bringing him as close as he can. The kiss is nothing like their first, tentative and tipsy and a little off-balance. Namjoon kisses him like he might not get another chance to do it, pressing closer when Yoongi softly bites his bottom lip, opening his mouth when Yoongi swipes his tongue over it to soothe the sting.

There’s nothing to interrupt them now, except the need for oxygen. When they pull away, they only get as far as touching foreheads again. Yoongi only realizes that he’d closed his eyes once he blinks them open, Namjoon’s face so close it’s out of focus, cradled between his hands.

Namjoon’s eyelids are still shut, and Yoongi can feel it when he draws in a shaky breath. His heart is a hummingbird vibrating in his chest, and he wants nothing except to lean in. He’d asked for Namjoon to come closer and Namjoon had come willingly, and he can’t help but think it means something. It has to mean something. His thumbs rub at Namjoon’s cheeks almost on instinct, and Namjoon’s breath stutters on the exhale.

“Namjoon-ah,” Yoongi whispers, and then doesn’t know how to keep going. Everything he wants to say is buried too deep in his chest to dig out quickly, but he breathes in, and tries to start- and then Namjoon pulls away. Not too much, but just enough Yoongi can see his face more clearly. His eyes are still closed, but there’s a furrow to his brow, and a downward curve to his lips, and suddenly there’s a shiver crawling down Yoongi’s spine.

“Hyung,” Namjoon begins, and his voice is hoarse. “Is- Is this going to end up like last time? Because I think I want to know first, if it’s going to end up like last time-” His breath hitches again. “I wanna know, that’s all. So I don’t- so I don’t hope.”

Namjoon’s hands clench tight where they’re still wrapped around Yoongi’s waist, and Yoongi’s heart breaks and mends itself together again in the space of a breath.

“Last time was pretty shit, wasn’t it.” Yoongi can feel the way Namjoon’s jaw jumps under his hands when he clenches his teeth. “Not- not the kissing. The kissing was really good,” he says, because Namjoon deserves to know. “But after, that was-”

“Yeah,” Namjoon breathes out. His eyes are open, now, and he said he didn’t want to hope. Yoongi looks at the curve of his eyelashes, the way Namjoon’s gaze keeps flying between Yoongi’s eyes and mouth, and he’s never been this happy to see him fail. “Yeah, hyung, I’m-”

“I’m glad we’re alone this time around,” Yoongi continues quickly, because Namjoon looks like he’s about to apologize. If Yoongi knows anything about him, this will only delay whatever it is he’s got to say, but it’s been a week of not-really-talking, and there’s something Yoongi really wants to tell him. “But I should have just kept kissing you last time.”

Namjoon’s eyes go very wide, and very round, and watching a smile paint itself on his face feels like something blooming in Yoongi’s hands.

“You can keep kissing me now,” Namjoon whispers back, something happy and maybe a little smug building up in his voice. Yoongi can’t help but smile back, in the silly way he knows shows all his gums.

“Not yet,” he replies, and pulls Namjoon closer, until their foreheads are touching again. “I just- I need to say this first, Joon-ah. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it the next day. We could have-” been kissing like this a week ago, he doesn’t say. “We could have solved this faster.”

“Are you sure? Because this seems pretty par for the course with us, hyung,” Namjoon replies, and the relief Yoongi feels at the teasing lilt in his tone would be ridiculous if it weren’t threatening to bowl him over. Us is a nice word, he decides. “I’m sorry, too. For not talking to you about it, either,” Namjoon continues, and his hold around Yoongi’s waist is steady, now, his hands warm on Yoongi’s back, travelling along his spine. “And for kissing you without asking.”

“I was offering,” Yoongi interrupts him, just the slightest bit breathless, and lets go of Namjoon’s face to wrap his arms around his neck and pull him into a hug. As soon as he’d pressed his lips against Namjoon’s skin, he couldn’t find it in himself to move away. He’d wanted to be kissed.

“I thought you were just trying to comfort me while I was whining, that I’d- read it wrong,” Namjoon replies, stumbling over the words, but clutching Yoongi tighter. “And that’s why you didn’t say anything the next day, and I thought I made you uncomfortable-”

“I thought you just did it in the heat of the moment and couldn’t find the right words to tell me,” Yoongi mumbles into the fabric of Namjoon’s hoodie, and lets the words hang in the air for a bit before continuing. “So - clearly we both fucked up, here.”

He can feel the laugh Namjoon lets out as it shakes both of them, pressed together the way they are, and he turns to curl a little more into Namjoon’s embrace, raising one leg up to- ow.

“Fuck,” he hisses, the spike of pain as he tries to move his leg shooting up his spine. He’d forgotten about his ankle. Namjoon pulls away, too, which only adds to the discomfort, and Yoongi tries not to groan as he lever himself back up on the couch pillows.

“You alright?” Namjoon asks. His hands hover around Yoongi’s knee as he leans back, trying to assess the damage.

“Yes, I just- wanted to pull my legs up on the couch,” Yoongi replies, and exhales through gritted teeth when he manages to settle back into a position where nothing hurts. It feels a little weird, sitting straight like this. Usually, he pulls both of his legs underneath him, leaning against the armrest, enduring all of Namjoon’s long-standing jokes about cats sleeping on couches - and if he does fall asleep curled up like that, there’s usually a blanket draped over him by the time he wakes up. He always remembers to return the favour whenever he finds Namjoon napping with his mouth open, face smushed into a couch pillow.

When he looks back up at the man in question, there’s a look on his face Yoongi might be starting to recognize, warmth filling his chest like tea in a cup. It’s immediately ruined by the way Namjoon’s smile turns into a teasing grin, his hands going back to Yoongi’s waist like they belong there. 

“You really are a housecat, uh,” Namjoon tells him, a giggle trapped in his throat, and happily endures it when Yoongi leans forward to pinch his stomach. “Meow.”

“Oh my god,” Yoongi replies, and pinches him again, and tries to hide how much he wants to laugh. From the way Namjoon cackles, his head thrown back, he’s decisively failed - but it’s okay. Once he’s done, Namjoon leans into him again, careful, always careful not to jostle his leg in any way, and Yoongi wants to kiss him.

The fact that he can is the best feeling of all - going from wanting to having. Before he can press forward, though, Namjoon paws blindly beside him at the blanket thrown over the couch. Once he has it in hand he sits up straight to drape it around both of their shoulders, a smile still on his face.

“There,”  he says, settling in as close to Yoongi as his leg will allow. “You’re barefoot, your hands are like ice cubes,” he teases him, and - Yoongi has never claimed to be a mature person. He sticks his hands around Namjoon’s bare neck immediately, slipping them under his hoodie collar to press against his clavicles, and Namjoon’s delighted shriek of laughter ends up muffled between their mouths. 

The press of Namjoon’s lips against his for the third time is almost familiar, now. He can’t wait until he knows the shape of his cupid’s bow better than anything else. Namjoon sighs when they pull away again to catch their breath, a little flushed from laughing, lips pink from kissing, and there’s so many other things Yoongi wants to tell him. The first one that comes to mind first can wait, though, just a little. He’s in no rush.

The tip of Namjoon’s nose gently bumps against his when Yoongi kisses him again. The move is so very him, clumsy and endearing, it’s Yoongi’s turn to laugh against his mouth, and be kissed through it as Namjoon pulls him closer. Yoongi’s heart booms loud in his chest like he’s still on the slopes, in the moment right after the fall, when the adrenaline rush drowned the pain and everything else out - or right before that, in the split second after his ski caught the ridge on the run, when it had felt so close to flying. Outside, the wind has slowed enough that there’s nothing keeping the snow from settling into planes of white heavier than before, and the evening in front of them stretches wide, and open, and full of possibilities.

“Hyung, let me-” Namjoon starts, one hand reaching forward to wrap around his thigh. He slowly hoists both of Yoongi’s legs into his lap, mindful of his ankle, and curls the blanket tighter around them.

“Come closer,” he asks, and Yoongi does.