Archive of Our Own ^beta

Soonyoung stood in silence mouth falling wide open, his eyes automatically tracing the vibrant red string hanging off of his pinky as it trailed its way towards the fuming bespectacled man standing a few centimeters taller than him.

“What don’t you understand about, this is dangerous, Lancelot. And you can get hurt, Lancelot?” Jeon Wonwoo groans, “Solo A class missions are solo and A class for a reason, Lancelot.”

He tunes him out in favor of staring at his pinky where Soonyoung’s red string ended. Soonyoung had stubbornly followed Wonwoo, codename: Merlin, insisting that he would need some back up but he didn’t say that it was because something was incessantly bugging him to do it. Like he couldn’t be away from his partner for longer than one week.

“Merlin, what did you say you were up against on this mission again?” Soonyoung says distractedly, ignoring Wonwoo’s nagging. He was staring at his palm now, watching the red string on his pinky pulse brightly along with his heartbeat... their heartbeat?

“You weren’t listening to anything I just said, were you?”

“No. Not really.”

“That’s what I thought.” Wonwoo sighs, closing his eyes for a second before opening them again, frowning at Soonyoung’s unfocused gaze, “They were a mage. Percival and Lamorak have already apprehended them before I was sent to investigate what they were actually capable of. It was A class due to the strong residue of magical powers still lingering in the area.”

“And you’ve found out what they’re capable of already?” Soonyoung asks, still not looking at Wonwoo.

“I was on the process of figuring that out already when you barged in.”

Soonyoung tries tugging on the string and it pulses at the attention. He’s heard of mages who were capable of creating illusions based on people’s weaknesses. Was this a hallucination? Was the mage on to him? But Soonyoung and Wonwoo were partners. They’d always worked together, mostly with him on the field and Wonwoo speaking to him through his earpiece. He couldn’t not come with. And there had been something that was pulling him towards Wonwoo’s location. Something he couldn’t quite ignore.

“Lancelot.” Wonwoo voice seemed distant to his ears, “Lancelot, what’s wrong?” The red string was suddenly pulsing much faster, Soonyoung realizes its his heart beating a hundred miles per second. He vaguely recognizes that he was having a panic attack before he passes out.

He thinks he hears Wonwoo shout his name but that might just be another one of the mage’s tricks.

—

When Soonyoung blinks awake, they’re back in HQ, at the clinic, to be more precise and he can’t move his left hand.

He blearily looks over and sees Wonwoo fast asleep on the chair beside his bed with curtains drawn close and clutching on his left hand tightly.

Oh. That’s why.

“Merlin.” Soonyoung says voice a little raspy, he clears his throat and tries again, tugging on his partner’s hand, “Wonwoo, wake up.”

Wonwoo shoots awake and the already tight grip on Soonyoung’s hand tightens a tad bit more before it relaxes.

“Soonyoung. Fuck.” Dropping his codename altogether, Wonwoo curses, eyes wide and searching, “You fainted out of nowhere. That’s the first time it happened on the field and you haven’t even done anything strenuous yet. What happened back there wasn’t normal, Soonyoung. It’s why Galahad exempted you from this mission.”

Soonyoung watches all the emotions cross Wonwoo face, worry, anger, concern, all of the above. The last one would have Soonyoung’s knees lose their strength had he been standing up: fear.

“I can’t lose you, Soonyoung.” Wonwoo whispers taking his left hand between his two palms and leaning his head on their clasped hands.

Soonyoung spots the red string, still connecting them together and pulsing a beautiful red. Their heartbeats were in sync again.

“Wonwoo,” He says, “The mage...I think I know what they can do.”

“I’ve been researching on that for the past week, Soonyoung, and haven’t found a clue. How can you say-”

“Because it looks like I can see something that you can’t.”

Wonwoo looks up at him in surprise and Soonyoung sighs, no better time like the present. He squares his shoulders, “I think they’re a string mage.”

He tells Wonwoo that he can suddenly see people’s Red Strings of Fate and that he may have triggered the mage to target him because he had disrupted something the moment he burst into the field.

“You mean...?” Wonwoo trails off, staring at Soonyoung’s pinky, the string pulses beautifully in Soonyoung’s eyes but it’s the soft tug on his heart that makes him smile.

“Yeah.”

“Can you see...” Wonwoo hesitates.

“Yours? Yes I can.”

“No, I- my question was if you can see where yours connected to... or who it connected with but you don’t have to answer that.” Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrowed, “That would have been a rude invasion of privacy.”

Soonyoung shakes his head with a small laugh, “The fact that I can suddenly determine soulmates is more invasive, don’t you think?” He watches Wonwoo’s frown slip away slowly into a smile and then he feels his heartbeat quicken again, “But to answer your question... I do. I can see where my red string ends.” He says shyly, Wonwoo was intelligent, he was going to put two and two together. It wasn’t like Soonyoung had seen anybody else since he received this weird power.

Was he a string-mage now? Or was this just temporary? Was this even real?

He gets pulled back quite literally into reality by the burst of warmth exploding in his chest at Wonwoo’s soft gasp of realization.

“Fuck.” Wonwoo is repeatedly cursing with flowery words at him, looking at their hands.

Soonyoung sees the string pulse quickly but he realizes that that was Wonwoo’s heart doing the rabbit beating and not his own, “You know you don’t have to worry about it, right? We can always just remain as platonic soulmates.” He says and tries not to flinch at the small pinching sensation around his pinky at the obvious lie.

“Bullshit.” Wonwoo says with shake of his head and then Soonyoung feels the back of his head being cradled gently by a warm palm and all of a sudden a thousand butterflies are threatening to explode out of his stomach because Wonwoo was kissing him and Soonyoung couldn’t help but sigh into it.

Wonwoo keeps their forehead together even as they part, “I wouldn’t choose anyone else besides you, you know that.”

“I don’t want you to think that this is only possible because of a stupid red string.”

Wonwoo kisses him again, lips warm against his, “I’d still choose you, had my string been connected elsewhere.”

“Me too.”

“We’re just two of the lucky ones, probably.”

Soonyoung smiles and gazes into Wonwoo’s eyes, there’d always been a special sparkle in them, “Yeah. Definitely lucked out with this one.”

—

“Even if you kill me, you know my powers will still remain, don’t you? It’ll find someone else.” The mage smiles, prepared for death as Percival’s rifle touches the center of her forehead.

Lamorak shrugs, “Your powers, whatever it is, was supposed to be harmless. But you, madame, you’re the problem. So very evil. If it does transfer over to someone else who decides to use it for bad things like you, we’ll just have to do the same to them.”

“Thank you for your service.” Percival says with finality before pulling on the trigger.

It’s unclear in the fog but there’s someone inside. It’s familiar as if they feel me but it’s different.