You regretted this.
"Tae," you warned, trepidation flitting through you as Taehyung scampered around your living room like an overexcited squirrel, "Kim Taehyung, it took me AGES to arrange everything nicely!"
When you'd wordlessly given Taehyung permission to entertain you how he saw fit this evening, you weren't sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't said demigod defiling your living room. Namely, he was shoving everything in sight into the back corner with the TV, probably to leave a wide expanse in the center of the room free for use.
"I'll put everything back," Taehyung chirped, barely out of breath even though he'd single-handedly shoved the entirety of your living room backward, "but now, we are going to do something fun."
The unadulterated skepticism on your face was enough to make Taehyung burst into laughter.
"You really think the worst of me," he mused, mischief lighting up his face.
"Oh, definitely," you drawled back, a smile tugging at your lips as you indulged in his banter, "what have you done to prove otherwise?"
"I've done plenty," he protested. You nearly laughed at the puppy-like, imploring look on his face.
He did have a point, though. From making you laugh to protecting you from harpies from comforting you just an hour ago, Taehyung had proven he wasn't all you'd initially thought he was. He was childish and flirty, sure, but you thought you could see the glimmer of a kind heart here and there, if you looked close enough.
You twisted your lips to the side and pretended to think. Taehyung huffed, and you finally relented.
"Alright, alright," you sighed, "I trust you, Tae, against my better judgement. How do you want to spend one of our last days together?"
If Taehyung's face fell as your last few words, you could barely tell before he turned around, busying himself in his task and then turning back.
When you caught his eye again, the demigod's eyes twinkled with a sort of excitement you hadn't really seen before as he easily shoved your coffee table to the side, lean muscles rippling. If you were Aurem, you'd be drooling. Thank goodness you had a bit more self-respect.
(You were desperately trying to keep yourself together at the moment but no one needed to know that.)
Taehyung spread his arms wide in the middle of your now-empty living room, like he was about to entertain a spectacle. He shook his head like a wet puppy, trying to get his fluffy hair out of his eyes. He bowed at you theatrically and with a wink, making you bite your cheek to remind yourself not to blush.
"Now, sweetheart," he smiled, "monsters are about. Why don't I show you what a son of the god of war can really do?"
Taehyung yanked the chain off his neck in one smooth motion, and his beautiful kopis materialized smoothly into his hands, the light of your flat gleaming off the razor edge of his blade. He rolled the hilt over his knuckles like he'd been playing with knives since the beginning of time (he likely had been, actually) before locking eyes with you, a red-gold glint flickering in his usually-warm brown irises.
"Come here," Taehyung said, and you couldn't help but notice the rougher, more commanding edge to his already-deep voice that made you involuntarily move forward to obey. You didn't know why the look of Taehyung with his sword made you instinctively nervous, but it was something you couldn't control. Something old and primal.
Something... godly.
"Tae," you hummed a tad nervously as you approached him, "you'd better not behead me with that thing, yeah?"
The demigod glanced at you, and for a moment, the imperceptible change in Taehyung's face fell and he looked like your puppy-like, sweet boy again when his lips pulled into that box-shaped smile. "You'd best be careful you do not behead yourself, pretty one!" he laughed, "Come here, let me teach you how to use it."
You blinked.
Taehyung registered the shock in your face with a tilt of his head and a lopsided grin. "Yes, my father may throw me back into the accursed thing if he finds out I had a child of Athena, of all the goddesses, handling it, but that is a risk I am willing to—"
"You... you're teaching me how to... use your sword?" you murmured, a single stride from Taehyung now.
You weren't sure why this was so earth-shattering to you. Perhaps it was the notion Taehyung didn't like anyone even near his precious blade. Perhaps it was that you were under the impression that Taehyung, the competitive little bloodbrain he was, wanted to keep his one secretive upper hand just that: a secret. Perhaps it was... well, you weren't sure.
Perhaps it was that if Taehyung wanted to do this, he cared whether you lived or died, curse or no curse.
The demigod before you tilted his head, looking almost bashful at your surprise. "Well," he huffed, looking away as a dust of red freckled his golden cheeks, "you should know how to protect yourself, no? You can use the sword just as I can by pulling that chain, and if you're ever in a place where I'm not around..."
You couldn't help a smile at Taehyung's rambling. You weren't sure how to feel about it, but the warmth in your chest was a pleasant glow of surprise and appreciative admiration when you looked up at the son of Ares.
There were a million things he could've been doing, but this felt like everything was coming full circle.
"Yeah," you relented, "you're right, Tae. I guess... I've taught you a lot, so you've gotta pay me back somehow, right?"
And you'd be lying if you said the sight of Taehyung's sword didn't make you shiver a bit. Something deep inside you was pulled to it, something in you thought it was absolutely beautiful, something inside you wanted to slash it.
Taehyung's dark eyes bored into you as you stood before him, his glittering blade between you. He flicked his wrist and suddenly it was upright, the razor edge before your face.
"Take my hand," his lips curved up. "You've shown me your world. Here is mine."
—
Oh god, Kim Taehyung was hot.
You had no idea why you found this side of the demigod so difficult to keep a clear mind around, but good heavens he was driving you mad.
Taehyung usually was a playful soul, always jumping around like an overexcited puppy and overflowing with curiosity and cheerfulness. Yes, flirty and dark sometimes, but you couldn't remember a time where he'd been serious for more than 10 minutes.
This Taehyung was commanding. This Taehyung was confident and capable. This Taehyung had purposeful, stern hands on you as he instructed you on proper form, posture, swing, defense. This Taehyung's golden neck and ruby hair glistened with sweat as he modeled intricate swipes and blocks, moving so fast and elegantly with his sword he may as well have been dancing.
Ah, your mind was wandering.
You'd never seen Taehyung with such a heated, intense, yet overjoyed look in his eye as he did with a sword in his hand. You were drenched with sweat by the end of the hour, but you would have forced yourself to move until you passed out if you could just see that fiery glee in Taehyung's eyes a little longer. His confidence poured off him like thick, sweet honey.
He'd begun gentle. "Careful, careful, don't hurt yourself," he'd murmured, settling into a comfortable position behind you as he'd your arms holding his precious blade for the first time, "keep your hands steady."
You couldn't lie, his quiet voice had soothed you out of your nervousness at holding a literal sword in your fingers. The hilt was warm and wide, the leather worn and supple from supposed ages of use. Though it was meant for Taehyung's much-larger hand, it felt more or less comfortable in your grip.
"I, um," you huffed, shifting your weight as Taehyung braced your muscles and shifted your hands so you held his sword a certain way, "I really think I may chop a finger off right now and that makes me slightly nervous, to say the truth."
Taehyung's laugh curled like honey into your ear, thick and sweet. "Don't be," he murmured, off-puttingly gentle, "I'm here. You will do great."
The words warmed you as you felt your muscles feeling the first twinges of ache from carrying the sword up for longer than a minute. Ugh, this wasn't going to be fun.
Gentle Taehyung hadn't lasted very long, to say the least.
"Pull your elbows up," Taehyung commanded now, an hour in, as he circled you, scrutinizing as you carried out a barrage of volleys and twists with the blade. "Faster, Y/N, your enemy won't wait. Good."
"I—" you panted between ghost parries, "I think you're enjoying this far too much."
A ghost of a grin flickered across a Taehyung's face. "I'm enjoying this because you are a natural. It's Athena's blood: you're picking this up too quickly and elegantly for a mortal."
You were too breathless to deny it as Taehyung sharply rapped your shoulder in response to a lightly lazy arc you pulled with the kopis and you redoubled your efforts. His touch was like electricity, like sparks skating against your skin (you were going to need to address this "curse dissolving" phenomenon later). However, something did feel different inside you the longer you handled the blade in your hands. It was too heavy for you to handle wholly comfortably, but every minute that passed, it somehow got easier. You'd never done this before, but even you had to say the instinctive way your feet moved in response to Taehyung's instruction wasn't normal.
The way you were beginning to enjoy this wasn't normal either.
Taehyung caught a glimpse of the shadow of a smile ghost your lips and caught on. "Gods forbid, pretty one, are you having fun?"
You stuck your tongue out at him as you wound a final slash at your imaginary enemy's throat and promptly dropped the tip of the kopis into the ground, arms sore. "Shut up."
"There is no shame in it," Taehyung shrugged, a strange light in his eye as he observed you looking down at his sword in acceptance, grudging admiration, "Athena is the goddess of warfare, is she not? It is only natural you'd have at least a few of her qualities. She is formidable."
You pursed your lips together. You'd never really thought much about your godly heritage, how the literal goddess Athena was a part of your family. It felt absurd imaging you'd have inherited things from a deity as old as recorded history.
Was all of who you were because of her? Every quality you took pride in, every activity you enjoyed, all present because of the luck of the draw, an accident at birth?
Taehyung interrupted your thoughts by clearing his throat. "I'd prefer you not drag the sword on the ground, my love," he grimaced, noting how you'd let it scrape the floor without care in your exhaustion. You rolled your eyes and held it out to him.
"It's yours, keep the cursed thing," you groaned, "my arms will be dead for a week."
"Oh, stop complaining. If you're forcing me to wear clothes all the gods-damned time, I can at least coerce you into this. Besides, it was fun!"
Despite your eyeroll at the vendetta against wearing clothes the demigod insisted on perpetuating, Taehyung's earnest expression made your lips twitch up a bit.
Yeah. It kinda was.
Taehyung's arms were crossed over his chest as he watched your chest heave, watched the beads of sweat trickle down your temple. You shuffled to the kitchen to grab water and catch a much-needed few calming breaths while the demigod shook his head.
"Weak!" he taunted, "A true warrior never rests!"
"That is a toxic mindset and I will not be adopting it at this time, please try again later."
Taehyung stuck his tongue out at you.
You shook your head with a chuckle. Taehyung hummed and sauntered over to the kitchen, flicking a stray strand of hair behind your ear.
"You know," he murmured, eyes filling with that red-gold heat again, the sparks in them swimming and dancing hypnotically near the pupil, almost drawing you in while at the same time filling you with an innate sense of trepidation, "You are not half bad. I imagine you would give even Namjoon a difficult time. I... want to spar with you."
You'd kind of been expecting him to say something a tad bit more... flirty, given the heated look on his face, so you arched an eyebrow while taking another sip of your water. "Does the thought of that turn you on? You get excited by the thought of sparring?"
Taehyung looked at you with a cross expression as his ears burned an embarrassed red: one of the first times you've seen him shy about anything. His mouth filled with denial, but you felt you knew Taehyung long enough now when a pause means he's thinking of a lie. You guffawed, bending over the counter as an unladylike wheeze escaped your lungs.
"Of course," you chortled, "of course the bloodbrain gets aroused by the thought of a sword at his throat."
"You would never even get close," Taehyung huffed, leaping over your counter as usual and swiftly turning the sword back into a chain around his neck.
"Hmm," you followed him, not willing to let up with your goading, "what do you wanna bet?"
Taehyung looked over his shoulder with an incredulous expression as if to say "seriously? Challenging a son of the war god?"
"My love, be aware of what you are insinuating," Taehyung warned, but regardless, it seemed the demigod was going to entertain you from the smirk on his face. You were excited to see where this was going to go. A thrill, a warmth hissed in the pit of your stomach.
The snide voice in your head snorted. Athena's blood.
You pretended to think at Taehyung's statement, his intense stare sending warmth up your back. "I'm aware, bloodbrain."
(Well, you thought you were, since you grew up with Namjoon as a younger brother and you were always trying to enact revenge on him for breaking your precious stationary)
Taehyung gave you no warning but a heated glitter in his eye before he lunged.
You shrieked in surprise and scrambled away, dancing out of his reach in desperation, quicker than you would've thought likely from a person whose only exercise for the past few years were dance sessions with your best friends at home. Something instinctive told you to keep the hell out of Taehyung's reach as much as you could.
The demigod pivoted so quickly from his stagger you didn't have time to blink.
You should've been afraid, you supposed. This son of a war god was now out to get you, despite it being a game.
Eh. Fear was overrated. You didn't know what came over you at that moment, but the giddy, sky-high feeling in your head overflowed and you ducked away from Taehyung's swinging arm, slipped out of his reach before ducking back into range, and promptly leaping back out.
You barely processed it; your brain had shut down. There was pure lightning in your body now moving you, and Taehyung caught the look in your eye.
Oh, you knew he was feigning clumsiness. You could tell how he dragged out his swings and how his blows weren't anywhere near the lightning-fast you knew he could've been ricocheting at you. And yet you felt a delicious, fun heat swivel up your body as you laughed, pretending to fight with the boy in front of you whose every had crinkled into as childish, as giddy, a smile as you likely had on.
"This reminds me of all the threats I've given you these past few weeks," you laughed loudly, delightedly, as Taehyung once again let you wriggle out of his arms.
"You should be making good on them, then!" He retorted, eyes flashing the gold of an old dinar.
You paused. "That is the first time I've ever heard someone say that."
Taehyung chortled loudly, throwing his head back and pushing red hair out of his eyes. "As the son of the god of war," he chuckled, "I will always endorse violence, my darling. Even be it against me, yes, but be warning it usually does not end well for my opponents."
You rolled your eyes at this, at his confident drawl, but something within you pushed your mouth open.
"Even me?" you asked nonchalantly, "Would it end badly for me?"
Taehyung looked taken aback for a moment, which is why you didn't expect it when half a heartbeat later, his entire body weight had been thrown at you to tackle you to the floor.
Your shriek was so shrill the demigod winced. "Deafen me woman, why don't you?"
Despite being flat on the floor, you managed to snort.
You were in a position you'd been in before now: him on top of you, boxing you in, shirt hanging low enough on his collarbone to reveal the patterns of white scars that traced constellations across his golden skin. You looked up with eyes you predicted had gone as spark-like as the demigod's above you.
"Is this ending badly?" he rasped, a half-smirk on his face as you looked at him wide-eyed.
You could have been snarky. You could have bundled his words into a joke, as you always did. But your words died on your lips as if his eyes hypnotized you.
"No," you finally responded, "not at all."
Taehyung looked flabbergasted. He also looked like he was making a difficult decision in his head, which worried you, because you didn't trust the man to make a sane choice, so you didn't stop talking.
"I just wanted to say," you continued, "you've been so, I don't know, so kind to me after everything that's gone down, even if I can be a bitch sometimes. For listening to me when I needed someone to listen. And I guess this is a weird place to say it, with you on top of me and all after we just had a fight, but... I wanted to say thank you, Taehyung, for making my life better. For making me... happy."
Again, Taehyung's arm in the thin gray t-shirt he'd changed into felt like fire beneath your fingertips, made you feel like he was the sun and you needed to be pulled into it. Taehyung glanced at where your skin grazed his, biting the inside of his cheek as his eyes tracked yours.
It felt odd admitting to him he had truly done enough to make you trust him so much you felt comfortable apologizing for being so abrasive and rude, especially in the beginning. True, he'd been annoying, but you'd been flat out rude as a defense mechanism. His skin against yours felt like a forbidden fruit being eaten and a new pact being made.
I see you.
Taehyung paused for a moment to take in your vulnerability. You hadn't said much, but what was more important was that the demigod understood what you hadn't said.
He cupped your cheek and stepped closer, making your neck flush red and your heart flutter so fast you thought it may give up.
"Never mention it again," he said sternly, "you saved me from an eternal nightmare. You let me breathe fresh air. You've let me into your home, let me into your food and sustenance and reunited me with my brothers."
You were surprised at the emotion in Taehyung's eyes when he brought his face close to yours.
"This is the least I can do," he murmured, "make it so no one can hurt you again."
You were accepting of Taehyung's arms around you as you lay on the floor of your scattered flat, the carpet soft beneath your heads.
"Do you want to get up?" Taehyung asked after a moment. "I'm sure you're going to scold me for being as heavy as one of your metal chariots and pressing all the breath from your lungs."
This left you close to speechless.
"What, no trying to get into my pants?" you spluttered, flabbergasted, "When I'm completely at your mercy?"
Taehyung's eyes narrowed at your teasing. "Don't tempt me, pretty one. I'd just rather avoid another punch in the nose, if you recall last time."
You did recall. It amused you to no end. But now...
"I'm too tired to get up," you murmured nonchalantly, "can we just stay here?"
You curled onto your side and Taehyung automatically shifted so your back was facing him and draped an arm over you. If you had eyes in the back of your head, you'd have seen how his face lit up.
If you'd listened more carefully, you'd have heard him whisper three fateful words into your hair.
A/N:
The slow burn is slow burning hehe. As always, vote and comment if you enjoyed and feel free to ask any questions. Hope you guys like this chapter!
— Mare