─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

SEASON 3 EPISODE 16

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Location:

System: Volii

Faction: Freestar Collective

Planet: Volii Alpha

Place: Neon

A/N: Shorter chapter, but trust me, it's for good reason.

☆☆☆

Jimin

Aurora.

Another day, another high. Each one was worse than the last, with the one he was on in that moment being the least effective. Time didn't slow. The music played at a rapid pace, not a slow, reversed one. No distortion tickled the voices of the Astral Lounge patrons. The purple lights of the club didn't feel like they were entering Jimin's body and touching what was left of his chained soul. No; instead, he felt... normal. Like he had taken a shot of a drink with 0.1% ABV.

"You okay?" Isabelle asked, taking a shot that almost certainly had more than 0.1% ABV. She coughed and wiped her lips. Over time, she too needed more shots to feel so much as tipsy. That was her sixth shot. How she hadn't gotten alcohol poisoning was beyond him. "You seem out of it. More than normal."

"Thinking."

"Of her?"

"When do I ever not?"

Jimin beckoned the bartender over. His name was Chuck, and he had spiky hair. Weird combo, but Jimin was far from in any position to judge. Especially when Chuck never charged him and gave him extra Aurora. That led to Jimin pulling the metal tin forward and staring at the purple powder.

He remembered all the years he had wiped it off his Ma's lips. All the years she had trashed their crate, screamed at him to stop being useless, and left him with more bruises than he had left on himself. But, he preferred that to what had come later. In his late teens and twenties. There were no tantrums, no screams, no slaps—just a blank stare and an occasional mumble. Each mumble would be some distorted form of the word Aurora.

"Can I ask you something?" she said, and he nodded. "It's probably not a fun question."

Jimin peered at the Aurora. "Ask."

She didn't answer for a moment. That allowed the EDM music to slip between their words. Or, the words yet to be spoken. But when they were, he realized why Isabelle had warned him, and he wished he had listened.

"Have you ever considered giving up on her?"

He could hear it in her voice—she wasn't asking for her own benefit. Isabelle, to her credit, wasn't that dumb. She knew she had no real chance with him, and part of him thought she knew he only fucked her because he imagined her as Y/n.

"Not for a second."

Isabelle sighed. "She's probably dead, Jimin. You know that, right?"

Terrormorphs. A den full of them, and a lone wolf stranded around them. Jimin could imagine her screams, her cries, her begs for Jimin to save her while he waited on the surface, thinking she'd return. She hadn't. And Isabelle was right; Y/n was gone. No one could survive that, but, at the same time, Jimin didn't say I know. Instead, tears—for the first time in ages—clogged his vision. The music faded away, same with the cheering alcoholics and laughing dancers. All he could do was stare at the Aurora and rub his gloved thumb over the metal.

"But I love her," he whispered, his voice breaking as he said it. A tear passed.

What a weak, pathetic man.

Jimin sucked in a breath through his snotty nostrils and decided to replace the mucus with powder by dipping his face in the drug. If Isabelle responded, he didn't hear it. The drug hit him harder, but not hard enough. The music continued playing. The voices sounded the same. No distortion, no garbles, no nothing. So, he once again called for the bartender, who had another tin for him within a second.

"Can I ask you something?" he said, and Isabelle didn't show any signs of disagreeing. Instead, she played with her braid. "You know I don't love you." That wasn't the question; anyone with a brain knew that. "The only person I'll ever love is Y/n. You know you have no chance with me."

She didn't hesitate, and her voice didn't sound cracked or broken like his. "I know."

"Then why? Why do you let me fuck you? Kiss you? Hold you?"

Isabelle hopped off the stool and placed her hand on his shoulder. And then, she kissed his cheek. It was slow. Prolonged. Yet, it didn't feel romantic. Like a confession of feelings or something of the sort—no, if anything, it felt like the opposite. Acceptance.

"Because I thought it'd make you happy," she whispered, her voice on the verge of getting drowned out by the club.

"I can't tell if it does or doesn't. I hate it, but it..." Jimin ran a hand through his hair. "But it helps. At least, I want it to."

I want to try until it does. It has to at some point, right? It'll help. It will help.

"So..." Jimin trailed off and opened the next tin of Aurora. It was more than he had ever done before. "I think we should get high and have sex. What do you think?"

"Will it make you happy?"

"Not sure," Jimin said in a drawl. He wondered if he sounded like Jin. "But who fucking cares?"

"I do. I'll help you if that's what you want, but only if you want it."

"And why's that, huh? Why do you care if I want it or not?"

Isabelle frowned. "Because you saved countless lives by taking down the fleet, Jimin. You're a hero to so many. Maybe even a hero to me."

Hero. Such a flimsy word. As flimsy as the word belief. Jimin believed Y/n was alive. Or, at least, he wanted to, yet he knew the odds. And, in that moment, that was when it hit.

Y/n was dead.

Jimin staggered back and almost fell off the stool, heaving and placing his hand over his chest. It wasn't Y/n's hand. It wasn't Y/n guiding his head to her chest to feel her heartbeat, to feel each steady thump thump. There were no whispers that he was okay, or whispers about him being perfect, no matter how much of a lie that was. It was a sweet lie Y/n had told him to keep him going, and he had destroyed that. He had destroyed her.

Seven months—maybe eight; Jimin had lost count a while ago—had passed since Y/n's disappearance. No, her death. Yet, in all that time, Jimin hadn't ever felt like she was dead. It hadn't hit him that he would never wake up to her again. He would never kiss her again. He would never hear her sweet voice again, ranting about her stupid Vanguard duties and how she couldn't remember the last time she had prayed. No more alpaca pajamas. No more avoiding showers so he could smell like strawberry a little longer. No more secret touches while the crew wasn't looking. No more Jungkook rolling his eyes over Jimin and Y/n being together.

No more love.

"Please," Jimin mumbled, but it was more like a beg. A whimper. A whine. And, beyond that, he had no idea what he was begging for. "Fuck me. Please, if you care about me at all, fuck me. God, please."

"Jimin..."

"Do it, Y/n!" he shouted, and Isabelle flinched at that. She didn't budge. "Fuck!"

Jimin kicked the side of the bar, grabbed the Aurora, and decided it was the only thing that could take away his anxiety. Isabelle tried to stop him, but he lit up with a solar flare and blasted it by her head, melting the side of her hair and causing her to jump back. He used her distraction to snort the Aurora, and his plan worked. The anxiety fizzled away.

What occurred was an actual high. The first real one he had in a while, likely amplified by his emotions. The voices calling him a weak man disappeared like the music. All he wanted in that moment was to have sex, though his mind and stomach bubbled with disdain at the very thought. But he had to. He hated it, but he had to. He had to. He deserved it.

"Please." Jimin grabbed both of Isabelle's hands and got on his knees, not caring how pathetic he looked. He already was, so it wasn't like he was making it any worse. "Please, I'll do anything."

"No. It was a mistake to ever let it happen in the first place. I'm done, Jimin. I'm sorry, but you need help." She knelt with him, placing both her hands on his shoulders. "Let me get you help, okay? I'll take you back to your ship and-"

Jimin shoved her back and stood, tightening his scarf and wishing he had gum to chew. He paced on the glowing purple floors of the Astral Lounge. He couldn't tell if that was natural or the effects of the Aurora, but as the drug chewed more and more into his veins, he gasped and began seeing the time slow around him.

People swayed in slow motion, the music flowed backwards, the bass vibrated the building in short bursts, and the lights morphed between all the cool colors before settling on purple. Like Aurora.

Jimin laughed and thanked the God he didn't believe in before prancing around the dance floor and cheering. No one cared, not that they were moving fast enough to stop him anyway. He twirled and twirled as if it was his strip dance again, attempting to redo the moves he had so carefully created to trap Isabelle. It looked like some things never changed.

Seconds slipped by. Minutes. Maybe hours. By the time he finished his elaborate routine, his legs ached, and he grumbled a few curses while leaving the crowd. A man a hair taller than Jimin bumped into him, and Jimin thought of a solar flare to try and scorch the stranger when his face got revealed. Bouncy curls. A scarf identical to Jimin's. A heart-shaped smile.

Jung Hoseok.

"My, my, Parkie," Hoseok said, chuckling and grabbing Jimin's wrist. "Watch where you're fucking going."

"No... I... Hobi..." Jimin coughed and did his best to squirm away. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry? Sorry for what?"

Jimin didn't know how to reply, so Hoseok blew a raspberry and brushed it off, releasing Jimin's arm to instead grab him by the waist and shove him closer. Jimin ended up pressed against Hoseok's chest.

"Yeah, I figured," Hoseok muttered, glaring while digging his hand into Jimin's hip. "So shut up and keep dancing. I didn't tell you to stop, did I?"

Jimin couldn't speak, so he obeyed instead, not knowing what else to do. He swayed again with Hoseok, their chests remaining together as Jimin tried to look for an out. A way to escape the nightmare before him, though the pirate showed no signs of backing down.

"Do you regret it?" Hoseok asked, dancing to the EDM music playing in reverse.

"Every damn day."

Hoseok snorted and brushed a lock of Jimin's long, messy hair back so he could see better, and Jimin wanted nothing more than to vomit and scream, but he was frozen. Why was he frozen? He had superpowers; he had killed Hobi before. Why couldn't he move?

"Do you still call me your best friend?"

Jimin's eyes stung, and he trembled in Hoseok's tight grasp, shuddering and whimpering. A solar flare came to mind, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. Or maybe everything did, but he couldn't see it. Either one were equally likely by that point.

"Aye, aye, leave the rook alone," Delgado—appearing from behind Hoseok—said. "He didn't mean to. Right, rook?"

"I..." Jimin saw little Jimin in the back of his mind, and that had him pushing Hoseok back and lighting up with a real solar flare that time, pointing it at the ghosts before him. "Enough of this. Leave me the fuck alone."

"Fair enough, fair enough," Hoseok said, waving his hands back and forth. "Glad to see you still got that backbone, Parkie."

But that didn't help. If anything, that made it worse.

Hoseok and Delgado's faces melted, their skin oozing from their bones and becoming a blend of purple and crimson. The same crimson of Jimin's eyes and hand.

Jimin yelped and bumped into more in the crowd while trying to escape, though when he looked, he saw everyone was Hoseok and Delgado. All of them melted and laughed. Their laughs joined the boom boom of the EDM's bass, and Jimin's vision began filling with block splotches. He did the last thing he could think of: he ran.

Jimin sprinted and sprinted and sprinted. The Astral Lounge long evaded him, but the memories didn't. Giant hands the size of a Terrormorph chased after him; scarred hands detached from their bodies. Some cut off by the wrist, others by the elbow, and some up to the shoulder like Jungkook. All of them reached out to pull Jimin back, but Jimin kept running, throwing anyone in his way to the ground and not caring if that landed him a bounty for assault.

An alleyway waited for him in Ebbside, and he took it, slipping due to the rain and falling face-first onto the pavement. A tooth fell out, but he couldn't tell if that was real or a hallucination. His nose burned, and he knew he had broken it. He rubbed his head and tried to make a noise, but it became a tiny whimper. Like the sound little Jimin used to make.

Jimin crawled behind one of the skinny metal pipes and held onto it to ground himself and peek out. The hands stampeded by the alleyway without looking inside. Jimin was safe. They were gone. With the alleyway void of people, that left Jimin alone, and alone meant he couldn't hurt anyone, and no one could hurt him.

Until...

"Jimin," Isabelle said as she rounded the corner, panting. She wiped sweat off her head, though it could have been rain, too. "Jeez, you're fast."

Isabelle came over and sat next to him on the other side of the small pipe, and Jimin whined and scooted away, unable to form coherent sentences. His body ached, his nose thumped with heat, and his mouth went numb. Thoughts of Hoseok, Delgado, and the hands all of the lives he had harmed overstimulated him more than Neon's flashing lights ever could.

"Hey, it's okay, it's all gonna be okay." Isabelle didn't touch him, but she did come closer and shush him. "Let's get you back to your ship, alright? Can I help you up? Do you need to lean on me?"

"No... no..." Jimin clamped both his hands on the sides of his head and pulled on his hair. He swore he tore locks out, but he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. The ground whooshed in and out of existence, wobbling like he did whenever he tried to walk. Everything looked like zig-zag lines and glitches.

"Let's get you some water. That'll help you sober up faster." Isabelle placed her finger, and only her finger, on his chin to coax his head back. His mouth opened to let in the rain, though it felt like it drowned him instead. "See? There you go. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to touch you, I just..."

Jimin moved away and tucked his knees against his chest, rocking back and forth, still unable to reply. His eyes felt like they couldn't focus on anything other than the pavement beneath him.

"Please get up, Jimin. I know you need time for yourself, but I can't leave you out here. It's Neon. What if someone sees you all high like this and robs you? Or hurts you? Or even kills you? You can have all the alone time in the world, but it has to be back on your ship. Please help me help you."

It was funny. Isabelle knew him better than most. She could tell he needed time to think and process everything, unlike half of his crew. Or most of them, for that matter. He hadn't realized how much he had shared with her about himself, but it wasn't with his voice. All she needed was one look in his eyes, and she could tell. That was what he assumed, anyway. It was almost comforting knowing someone could still understand him, even if that person was linked to thing he hated most.

"Fine, stay here. Do you have a comm or anything so I can call your ship and get someone to stay with you? That Jungkook guy you talk about, maybe?"

Fuck no. Jungkook was the last person Jimin wanted to see. Either way, the answer was no. Jimin never brought communication devices with him when he went to get high. Just in case he did something stupid and tried to talk to Jungkook.

Jimin groaned and couldn't feel his head. Isabelle said more, but he couldn't hear a single word. Rain clogged his eyes and ears, but he managed to peek back up after a moment. He wished he hadn't.

Isabelle, once again, morphed into Y/n.

"No. Please, no, not now," Jimin managed to say in a choke, crawling back and kicking his feet. Every kick occurred due to him slipping on the moist pavement, but he somehow struggled to his feet and pressed his back against the alley wall.

Y/n laughed and came closer, tracing her finger down his neck and stopping at the scarf. She untied it, letting it fall to the ground, and next came the top of his jacket.

"No..." Jimin squeezed his eyes shut to try and take himself to a better place. A realm where he didn't exist. It was then that he realized all the other universes were better than his. All because he died in those. Y/n would be alive if Jimin had died. Hobi would be. Delgado would be. Everyone would be happier, and all it took was Jimin dying.

"What? You don't want me?" Y/n asked in a chuckle, tilting his chin up with a smirk. "Is that why you killed me?"

"No, I didn't. I would never-"

"Cut the bullshit." She slapped him, and he whimpered and almost fell if it weren't for Y/n's strong hand grabbing his wrist to keep him upright. "You killed all of us."

Her voice became an amalgamation of the voices of the past. Every person who had ever been hurt by Jimin joined her in reprimanding him. Jungkook, Hoseok, Taehyung, Ma, Y/n, and the list went on and on. They combined and shouted at him, and Jimin's hand flashed between blue, green, and red, lighting up with all the powers he had obtained thus far.

"Murderer!" Y/n yelled, and Jimin flinched and felt like his mind collapsed in on itself. Pressure caged his skull, tying his memories together and forcing him to see each and every one.

"Stop. Please, stop," Jimin tried to say, but Y/n kept shouting over him. Her pretty eyes no longer held love, and Jimin wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He was frozen.

Pathetic.

"Jimin?" Isabelle's voice asked, but it echoed in his brain, Jimin himself unable to locate where it was coming from. All he saw was Y/n, and several bodies popped out of her side, her flesh tearing apart as new humans stepped out of her—Hoseok, Delgado, Larry, Austin, Taehyung, and Jungkook. They surrounded him, deformed and speaking nonsense. Their faces were half-melted, Jungkook's arm gone with blood seeping out of the wound.

"Stop. Stop." Jimin used all his energy to focus on a single symbol—solar flare. It took a few tries, but the blurriness faded away, and he got the clear symbol to show. It lit up his palm, and he wanted to touch his neck to snap himself out of it, but once again, he was frozen.

"Why did you kill us?" Y/n said in a cry.

"Why do you hate me?" Jungkook yelled.

The voices meshed together until they left Jimin's body mangled, and he felt like a lump of cells trying to make sense of his own figure. He tried again and again to break free, but each voice pounded on him more and more.

"Shut up." Jimin pushed off the wall and watched his red hand shake. "Shut. Up."

"You killed us!"

"You're a monster!"

"You don't deserve to live!"

"I said shut up!" Jimin screamed, and one by one, he fired his solar flare, destroying Delgado, and then Hoseok, Larry, Austin, Jungkook, Taehyung, and, finally, he lunged at Y/n and dealt the blow personally, pressing his hand on her chest and firing without hesitation. And, after, he burned his neck, and that had the effects of the Aurora wavering. The hallucinations stopped, and he ran his tongue over his teeth to find they were intact, but his two front ones had chips and dents.

But that didn't matter. When his eyes refocused, he realized his solar flare was still active, and he shut his fist, eyes wide, as he stared at the woman in his grasp. The woman gagging. The woman with blood pouring out of her open mouth.

Jimin had shot Isabelle.

"I... No, no." Jimin slumped to the ground with the dying Isabelle, who had a solar flare that pierced through her chest. It had melted through her clothes, and he could see her ribs had burst. He could see her beating heart, too, the blood squirting out and hitting Jimin's jacket and scarf. "No, please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Tears shot out of him, and he rocked her back and forth, listening to her final breaths. She went limp in his arms, but the blood didn't stop. It soaked the alleyway and mixed with the puddles. Rain continued to cover them. Thunder continued to strike.

No words came from him. Not even more soft promises that he was sorry. It wasn't a lie, yet saying it felt like it was. So Jimin kept his mouth shut, cradling the corpse and not bothering to sob. Tears slithered down, but that was the most of it. All he could do was stare and stare, listening to the distant advertisements of Neon Core. No one was around to witness the brutal scene, yet that didn't change how it had happened. How he had done it.

Jimin had killed Isabelle.

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A/n: Oopsie daisies