Wooyoung had slept for a week after his trip to Rome. Yongguk had instructed him to demand all the time he needed to replenish his energies and Wooyoung had taken him up on that. For a blissful week, he altered between ordering food, watching his show, and taking naps all day. His bruises healed much faster in their usual surroundings and, after a week of bliss, he could proudly say that he got bored and wanted to go back to work.

The first thing he did after his long holiday was calling Seungyoun so they could gossip about his trip together. When Wooyoung mentioned getting railed in the garden of a Roman villa, Seungyoun had yelled at him through his choked up laughter. Wooyoung had giggled and played with the plushie in his hands. It was a little rabbit with floppy ears he had ever since he was a child.

"Young man! Was syphilis a thing back then?! I swear to God; if you brought syphilis back-"

Wooyoung had interrupted his indignant friend with a chuckle.

"I already took a test, no worries. I'm clean as I can be. Syphilis wasn't a thing yet, either."

Seungyoun had grumbled something about the lack of safety two thousand years ago under his breath. Then, he had dropped the mom show to ask Wooyoung about his experience. Looking back, the memory - a much as it melted Wooyoung's insides - sounded like a fairytale to tell.

"I had a bad time after I got attacked for speaking to the wrong woman and the lord I visited was disheartened by the idea I might leave Rome with a grudge. As if. But he took me to the party of his hot neighbour; his name was Sandalius. And we drank Cretic Wine and things just dwindled, and then- Oh, fuck." Wooyoung interrupted his speech to look down on himself with a frown. Via his phone, Seungyoun squeaked at the sudden break right at the juicy bits.

"What?"

Wooyoung masked his facepalm by running a hand through his hair. And he had speculated why he had been unusually fatigued. Sandalius had literally said the wine would 'help him sleep.'

"I have opium in my blood. Damn it." Wooyoung wasn't one to abuse drugs, on the job or not. He wasn't surprised that in his drunken state, he had forgotten that the Romans spiked their Cretic Wine with it.

Seungyoun's noise was understanding. Opium was so spread out in history all over the world that it came to no shock that they got in contact with it occasionally.

"It should have disappeared already by now. Spicy, though. Tell Yongguk in case some officials drop by to run a blood test on you," Seungyoun said. His words soothed Wooyoung's distress, and he picked up his story again. He left out the explicit details even when Seungyoun whined at him since they were a private secret between Sandalius and Wooyoung. The joy he shared with the god of a man was one Seungyoun couldn't easily reimagine.

They ended their call without an update. Yongguk was still working on the new case and while he had found a trail again, he had yet to locate its source. Until he didn't give the command, Wooyoung had absolutely nothing to do. He could only lounge around and relish in the memories of Babylon, Rome and the two attractive men he had met there that were so similar and yet so different.

But this time, the wait until he could leave again stretched unexpectedly long. Wooyoung visited Yongguk in the institute once to find him half-starved, fatigued even through the masses of caffeine in his blood, and with his hands buried in his greasy hair. He had vented to Wooyoung about his struggle to find anything, about how the trails he discovered lost themselves into nowhere and were thinner than hair. Wooyoung had helped him during the afternoon as they sorted out already recorded tales to pick out new and interesting factors. They were beyond the year 500 AD with their chronological search now and Yongguk feared they wouldn't find anything after such a big time frame.

Wooyoung had soothed him, had reminded him that with the rise of Christianity, most stories focused on the bible that didn't promise immortality. Once the sun had set, he had bullied Yongguk into going home for once to sleep and take a shower. Albeit begrudgingly, the man had ultimately complied after Wooyoung had shoved him out of the building by standing behind him until the man withdrew like a bewildered cat.

The air smelled of winter when he got home that night. The foggy nights were chilly enough that Wooyoung pulled his thick blanket from the closet by now and huddled to sleep under the stream of cold air from the open window. Maybe next time he went to travel, he would land at a matching time of the year. After so much warm wind on his exposed legs, Wooyoung would love some cosy journey now that pants became a thing.

His bruises healed without an issue. Blue and purple faded into green and into yellow until Wooyoung couldn't tell anymore where the wound had once been.

A month passed before his phone rang and he had a breathless Yongguk on the line.

"I found it!" The man cried with joy. Papers rustled behind him and a soft thud of what Wooyoung believed to be his knee to his table got played off with a grunt. Delighted, Wooyoung sat up where he had lounged on his couch and played on his phone. Despite all the time he had the past few weeks, he still hadn't made the effort to get to know anyone he could share it with. His dreams were still vivid with two men long dead.

"Good job! Where, when, who?!"

"I can't get a hold of the who, but I believe it's a woman. 838 AD in the south of Norway."

Wooyoung's mind reeled like an empty film for a moment before his history knowledge caught up with him. Simultaneously, fear and euphoria burst in his stomach.

"Vikings?!" He yapped into his phone. Yongguk made a noise back, just as mixed as Wooyoung's. For a moment, he left Wooyoung to his shock before his voice dropped to its regular intense drawl.

"Yes, Vikings. Wooyoung, this is probably the most dangerous trip we've sent you on, so I want you to think this over. Your safety is more important than this research."

Wooyoung's head buzzed with the new information and the sudden switch from casual strolls through ancient towns to walking among plundering and threatening warriors. Vikings were naturally more suspicious of strangers, so he could easily become shark food if he didn't pay attention.

He assured himself he would be fine. Vikings had doors, and he had his remote. In an emergency, he would break off the mission. But he wouldn't pass up on trying. Wooyoung sought adventure and answers in his studies and both just got served to him on a silver platter.

After a moment of contemplating, Wooyoung directed his attention to his phone again. Through the speakers, he picked up on Yongguk's soft breathing.

"I will go. And take utmost care of my safety."

Yongguk hummed. He didn't meddle with Wooyoung's decision.

"Seungyoun is currently flirting with one of the wives of Alexander the Great, so you will have to wait a few days until he is back. Try to figure out what to do with your hair. I will plan out the healthiest route possible for you."

"Thank you, Yongguk," Wooyoung grinned as he already sprinted into his room to change. He slipped into his favourite warm jacket.

"Don't thank me for sending you into danger."

"I wouldn't feel safer if anyone else did. Remember to eat."

Yongguk grumbled something under his breath before he told Wooyoung to take care once more. They ended their call and Wooyoung sprung into his clothes with a mix of emotions clawing at his stomach. He would need to buy some hair colour so he wouldn't stand out more than necessary among the Danes.

With newfound glee, he jumped into his makeover time.

-

"Vikings?!"

Seungyoun was just as shocked with the newest development as Wooyoung had been. Wooyoung had giggled about it, seated on the ground of Seungyoun's living room with the man's cat in his lap.

"Yep. Easy play times are over, now I infiltrate the true terrors of our history."

The Vikings specifically were known among the time-travelling historians for their ruthless paranoia. They picked out the people not belonging to them within seconds and these incidents always ended in panicked departures. The lack of information on the Vikings was exclusively because of that. The historians knew a lot from their authentic archaeological findings, but the on-hand experience was scarce.

Vikings didn't like strangers.

"I would have told Bang to find me something new if it had been me. How will you blend in? Their society was so tightly woven, they won't accept you as a traveller." Seungyoun stood at his books to study the garments he had to assemble for Wooyoung. His hands gesticulated like those of a magician about to summon a storm. Entranced, his cat stared at them flying around while Wooyoung petted her head.

"I hope for your perfect skills in making me look like one of them. Yongguk is still working on the story, but I could pretend that I come from a lonely farm far in the woods. And it burnt down, which is why I would seek refuge among others of my kin."

"This is madness," Seungyoun muttered under his breath. Before Wooyoung could react with a movie reference, Seungyoun held up his finger to shush him. Both of them had been to Sparta before and nothing was more cringe than such a line after experiencing it live.

Giggling, Wooyoung shut up to coo to the cat. Her ginger fur matched Seungyoun's hair and the in-between stage to being blond that Wooyoung had right now.

"I need to get you some good extensions. A wig might fall off once they ask you to sword battle. And you bet they will if you just march in."

Wooyoung winced. Swords weren't his forte, even if he had taken a fighting class for such reasons. He could fence alright, but his slender body refused weighty axes and broad-swords.

"Maybe if I tell them I have some disease, they will leave me alone."

"If you tell them you have a disease, they will make you fish food because you have zero worth to them by then," Seungyoun said with a straight face. While Wooyoung pouted into the fur of his cat, the man flicked hectically through his books.

"Either way. I will make you an outfit for those chilly temperatures up there, so go during winter this time. You may worm your way out of farming and fighting when it's cold already. Maybe I should make you a woman? They might be more receiving of you then." Seungyoun whipped around to stare down at Wooyoung in wonder. His hand stroked his non-existent beard.

Oh, the Vikings would hate a stranger with no beard growth among them even more.

"I'm too tall for a woman back then. And you know how they were. They want it, they take it. I would get discovered all too soon."

Concern marred Seungyoun's features. Being a man didn't exclude Wooyoung from that trouble, and he was far from the domineering role that the Vikings needed to uphold to avoid social stigma coming from homosexuality.

"Woo..."

"I will play the part, don't worry. Depending on where I land, I might find people who don't follow the instantaneous need to grade a newcomer judging by that. Villages in which all people were married already are my safest bet."

"All your bets concerning them aren't very safe."

Wooyoung smiled to himself. He knew how tough his stay there could get. How he might fail to gather the information he needed. But he wanted to try, at least. His stubborn mind didn't want to skip out on something Yongguk had searched for so long. If he sensed trouble, he would flee. Nobody could pursue him.

"That's why they are called bets," Wooyoung grinned at Seungyoun. "How about we make me look like a younger boy? I might get away with pretending to be not quite an adult yet."

With a sigh, Seungyoun rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he leaned back over his documents.

"A kid, sure. Let's call it our safest bet."

Wooyoung went to help him wherever he could. Within a week, he would breach the most dangerous territory he had ever visited. And while terrified of what might happen to him there, the adrenaline spurring him on only made Wooyoung want to succeed even more.