Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s so many doors… feel sick.

Jungkook tries to pay attention to the route he’s being lead down, but he lost his directional mantra three hallways ago and the pattern of the carpet under his sneakers has shifted twice as many times. The decorative furniture is unremarkable in memory, though he’s willing to bet a few end tables are worth more than his life.

Well. Maybe not anymore. Now that he is suddenly brought back home and acknowledged into existence.

Something tight struggles behind his sternum, unsettling. A feeling- perhaps an emotion. Hard to tell. Could just be his heart overworked with too much energy and not enough sleep. The way his pulse shudders more than pumps.

He continues following the small group of men who’d escorted him here, his fist curling tighter around the canvas strap of his bag. He fixes his eyes forward, alert if not a bit too wide if he’s honest. He notices his other hand pulling at his bottom lip and drops it immediately, instead pressing it behind his teeth.

Several pairs of footsteps continue to fall quietly on the floor ahead of him. No one pauses. No one glances. Surefooted and directionally sound, men in various suits of higher caliber than the last usher Jungkook towards what will be his room.

He wishes someone would speak. Not to him, specifically, but his thoughts are so disjointed. Not enough words to lay out the pictures in any semblance of order. Colors have been muted. Cold neutrals with edges of azur uncertainty.

But he’s always excelled at listening and any conversation would give his mind something to pick apart. Crumbs to piece together alongside the images of the last 24 hours that still seem unreal. Newscasts with his name. Angry protests. Talks of assassination. And the clip that kept him startling out of daydreams until the early morning hours; that beautiful visage of a person fading away to just a shimmer of an impression. Now enslaved to the snarling, exiled man from the shaky video.

Min Yoongi. Jungkook’s closest blood relative. He hadn’t watched much more of the news after that. Too busy packing a bag, knowing a car would be coming for him. Too busy trying not to think about their similarities.

Two SUV’s and a jet later, he’s a drop in the pond in an Estate bearing his name with no memories that he belonged to it.

The atmosphere is a silent sort of busy. Bodies walking by on official business; hard eyes that never meet. Jaws tense more often than not, the only sure sign Jungkook sees that he’s been noticed. Around the next corner reveals a long corridor, and the expanse of windows blindsides him. He almost falters, struck by how vulnerable he must be with the ground opening up two stories below them while they hurry into the next wing.

Hoping his footsteps didn’t stutter, that he hasn’t revealed the unsteady way he’s forcing limbs to move in some pantomime of normalcy, Jungkook focuses on the end of the windows at the next turn.

He takes the corner and stops short, nearly walking into the back of another man. They had apparently reached their destination.

Jungkook forces his breath to exit slowly and feels almost dizzy with the effort. His eyes flit around his entourage before falling back to the floor, wondering if he’s managing to keep the strain from his face. He concentrates, tries to feel what his face is doing but it’s all numb to him. Blinking seems unnatural. Unnecessary.

Keys are being shoved and twisted into a door and then he’s being ushered inside, made to walk close to the suited bodies. Still, nobody looks at him.

Someone does a sweep through the room, a small man with a tight ponytail and sharp angled eyes, glancing behind pulled curtains before nodding to another man. They move back out into the hallway, leaving Jungkook standing in the center of the room with his canvas bag and directionless gaze.

“Your Vera will be here soon.” Says ponytail, igniting a new ember in Jungkook’s mind. Again, forced to breath. Forced to blink. Nods sharply, and turns his face away.

The door is pulled mostly shut, the last man backing out, “Sir..”

With a start, Jungkook realizes the man is addressing him. He turns only slightly towards the door; stops shy of meeting the man’s eyes.

The man’s throat clears, “Sorry, Sir… About your father.” and the door clicks shut.

Jungkook lets out another measured breath, feeling the weight of it in the air. He can feel the ache in his diaphragm, cramping from trying to suppress his lungs slow and steady for too long. His pulse throbs along his neck, into his temples with the thrum of a headache, but his limbs just feel numb with the need for oxygen. Just sick with everything.

He turns, scanning the room from the center.

Alone. He feels his shoulders slump a fraction, finally gives in and breathes out. Empties himself. It’s heavy, larger than him, full of too many moments and not enough answers. He allows his eyes to slide shut for a moment. Three breaths. Wants to make it a fourth but his nerves bring him back to his surroundings. Back into the light.

Unfamiliar in a home he was born into. And only brought back after his father is gone from it.
He realizes he should feel something other than raw nerves and trepidation. Something more than the sick heat in his stomach. Sadness? Mourning? But it isn’t there.

He didn’t know him. Not really. Children are the culmination of their parents and the efforts taken to raise them, and perhaps he has a bit of his parents in his blood, but he has no way of knowing. And he’s not the type to dwell on things he can’t know, will never know, and can’t control.

What he knows and what he can control are his actions. And right now, with an illness sinking so low in his gut he looks towards the adjacent bathroom, he has to prepare to meet his Vera.

Of anything he’d missed from what his childhood could have been, having his Vera assigned to him was the biggest curiosity. Of course he’d wondered, daydreamed about having his own semi-immortal guardian and advisor. What child wouldn’t? A being so close to the gods that their word is literal physical law; whose word you could trust with your life, with your entire existence?

But his brother had been the one brought into the business. His brother who looked so much like their father and could speak so well. Min Yoongi, heir to their estate, had been assigned his Vera, Jimin, before he could properly sign his name. The earlier the partnership is established, the more in tune the Vera is to their charge. The better they can serve them.

A lot of good it did that pair.

His features hardening, Jungkook takes three long strides and drops his bag on a bed with too many pillows. He pulls himself out of his black jacket, taking in the room. A grandfather clock shows it’s approaching evening and he notes the fading light around the pulled curtains.

It makes him feel late. Hurried. Bullying him into rushed movements when there is no immediate deadline for any task his heavy mind can think of. Because it’s all a farce. There’s nothing he can do in this room that makes a bit of difference and that realization is enough to leave him truly frowning.

Zipper straining, he opens his bag and paws through the contents. A black hoodie is pulled over his head, and then his bucket hat and face mask. It’s not much, but it’s what he knows. It’s him, and it’s fractionally barricading against the impending event of meeting someone just short of a deity.

Trying to ignore the nausea born of so many things, Jungkook gravitates towards the window and peers through the slip of drapery, catching slivers of gravel driveways below, green lawn and the sandy brick of the estate’s exterior. Jungkook attempts to memorize the lay of the land and puzzle out which direction he’s facing in relation to the garage, his head tilting with the concentration it takes.

He’d caught sight of one of the Vera in that building, just as he’d stumbled out of the vehicle that had shuttled him from the tarmac. He had been the first of the race Jungkook had seen in person, and even at a distance he’d been unable to shake the sense of power emanating from the white clad figure. Recalling the moment, Jungkook can’t describe what he’d felt. Not awe, but a definite lack of understanding. How a physical being could thrum across your skin from hundreds of yards away, shine light into the corners of your mind and make you feel bare.

It had only been a glimpse, but Jungkook understood what people were afraid of. And he couldn’t decide if he was lucky or unfortunate to have been without his assigned Vera all his life, unlike his brother, who’d had his since childhood.

Some current of energy slides up Jungkook’s body, into his mind, and he abruptly turns towards the door. A heavy silence gets louder until a quiet knuckled rapping lands against the deep mahogany door. He can’t answer. His voice seemingly left thousands of moments away, but he sees the doorknob turning.

Jungkook lifts his chin and turns towards the door, making an effort to at least look prepared to face his next superior since leaving the small world where he’d been raised.

The door opens silently on well oiled hinges and Jungkook can’t keep his eyes from going a bit wider under the brim of his hat. He’s fairly certain he hasn’t breathed in minutes and his chest aches. No other way to describe it, an energy simply pours into the room and squeezes tight against him. The man in the doorway feels like everything he’s been warned against.

And it seems almost cruel that the accompanying visual is just so, so much.

“Jeon Jungkook.” the man’s voice addresses in a way befitting the quiet room, long arm pushing the door closed behind him. “I’m Kim Namjoon.”

Not the Vera from the garage, this man is taller. Leaner, but sturdier in a way that the white fabric of his draping uniform hangs heavy instead of floating around as the other Vera’s had. Jungkook’s chest rises as he breathes in, thinking it’s overkill that they’d put a being of pure light in white clothing.

His face is nothing short of beautiful, every curve and plane and line carved into something that shouldn’t exist in what Jungkook can only label as perfection, set into an unfathomable expression of knowledge. Of knowing too much but with the underlying curiosity of peeling back your mind for more. A humbleness that you could admit anything and he’d proclaim to have known nothing until you spoke.

There is a stillness to him. An agelessness that stops the world turning and demands focus. And his half-lidded gaze falls heavily on Jungkook, passing into him like sunlight through his eyelids. Warm hued and penetrating.

“...My Vera.” Jungkook’s voice stutters from behind his mask, tongue tightening immediately around the words and a rising fear spilling over him. An almost terror that he’d spoken aloud to someone who’s voice could collapse worlds and speak existence into nothing.

“Your Vera.” Kim Namjoon looks at Jungkook for a moment, and then nods, white hair parted and falling into hard eyes that angle so softly at the corners. “My creator’s eyes are open; by the will of my dragon god, my voice is at your service.” Like his voice, his expression is resolute.

Jungkook feels an unease travel through him just under the skin. That’s it. The words have been spoken by Vera and cannot be refuted. He’s here and he’s run out of actions. Out of options. Out of an ounce of understanding of what he’s meant to do with his life.

Jungkook looks away, a part of his mind wondering if it’s rude but unable to stop. He’s nodding, feeling his arms cross in front of his stomach. Questions are surfacing faster than his mind can sort them, so he remains silent. The effort of being present in this moment is getting too large.

He’s still slowly nodding. Wondering how he’s supposed to manage utilizing his Vera if he can’t figure out how to form a safe question. If any question is safe when the answer comes from this Kim Namjoon.

“Have you met one of us before?” Namjoon asks, sounding like he knows the answer and he probably does.

Jungkook shakes his head once, black eyes meeting Namjoon’s for a moment before shifting to the side again. Concentrating on the question, Jungkook searches his memories and falters for a moment when he realizes he may have met Vera when he was a child. He looks back up to Namjoon, hating himself because he knows he’s never been able to school his emotions from his face.

Namjoon simply looks back at him, patient. “You can answer me out loud, if you want.” he says as if that makes it more possible. “You won’t harm anything.. Probably.”

“P..probably?” Jungkook repeats, his voice soft and muffled behind his mask. It’s enough to evoke a glimmer of frustration in his gaze.

Namjoon’s shoulders lift minutely, his large hands going out to either side before folding in front of him again, in the barest of shrugs. The motion says I said what I said. And Jungkook exhales, wondering if he understands the exchange. That he, himself, can say whatever he damn well pleases. He’s not the one speaking for the gods and holding millions of lives on his tongue.

“If you ask something potentially damaging, I can choose not to answer.” Namjoon explains, his voice strikingly steady and Jungkook thinks what a pity it should be so restricted.

“I.. may have met one of you..” Jungkook begins, his fingers hooking into his own belt loops and holding fast, “When I was young. But I don’t.. think so.”

Namjoon nods, accepting that easily enough. “Can I?..” he asks, motioning forward and Jungkook nearly trips stepping back, a mixture of bowing politely and murmuring his small ‘of course.’

He watches Namjoon move into the room and then past him, his white hanbok moving silently around his long legs. All the while motioning Jungkook to join him at the pair of armchairs near the window.

They sit across from one another, Jungkook on the edge of his seat and hands under his thighs. Leg bouncing. Namjoon sits back and folds his hands in his lap, his neck long and eyes half open. He seems too untouchable to be tired, leading Jungkook to believe he’s just got one of those expressions that exudes a calm mind. Easy to look at. He stares down at one of those more-expensive-than-my-life tables between them.

“It’s a possibility you’ve met Jimin.” Namjoon muses, chin pointed out as he thinks, “..maybe.”

Jimin.. Yoongi’s Vera. Before he was exiled and the poor thing dragged along with him. The image of Jimin’s body fading surfaces again and Jungkook blinks it away.

“I thought..” Jungkook starts, cocking his head once when he fails to get the question out in one go, “You can talk about ‘maybe’s and ‘probably’s?” he adds, feeling utterly small and insignificant.

Namjoon nods, “Sure. Possibilities are shifting and fluid. Until I say otherwise.”

“...Right. Your creator’s eyes are open.” he repeats the statement from earlier, recalling stories of the gods and their levels of activity through their Vera. Open eyes equals on duty, so to speak. Only the Vera know if these dragon gods truly exist, and whether they actually sleep or simply strip their Vera of their powers from time to time.

Namjoon nods again. “Most everything is fluid for someone like you.” He explains, “While I…” he pauses, causing Jungkook to glance. Namjoon’s expression slips, eyes roaming over Jungkook’s shoulders and back to his exposed eyes, “..most Vera find the world very non-fluid while in service.”

Jungkook hums, nodding once. Wonders what it’s like to have all the answers instead of nothing but questions. A heavy sense of envy colors his thoughts, fed by the confident presence beside him.

Dogs bark outside, somewhere far away, and Jungkook stares at the drapes, gaze unfocused and mind engaged as if piecing together a picture he can’t see.

“Jungkook,” Namjoon’s voice gently interrupts after a while, “You don’t have a lot of time to adjust before you’re going to be called into service.” he says, something other than finality softening his message so it’s a little easier for Jungkook to look him in the eye.

Namjoon leans forward, resting his hands on the table now, forearms half exposed from white sleeves that catch the light in their sporadic metallic threads. “You might find it more comfortable to meet those expectations with me by your side.”

The familiar weight of a decision finally closes Jungkook’s mouth to a hard line and he sits back, staring at Namjoon across the table. He has to capitalize on his position, he knows this. No way to do it than to do it. “Do you.. Will you know what I’ll do before I do it?”

“Sometimes.”

“..because of shifting possibilities.” He states, eyebrows pulled together.

“And other factors, yes.”

“Do you know what I’m feeling when I feel it?”

Namjoon’s temple tenses, his short slash of eyebrow piquing and he purses his mouth as he considers the question. He meets Jungkook’s eyes and doesn’t answer.

“R-right.” Jungkook sighs, head lowered. Potentially dangerous, he’d said.

Chapter Text

Sitting across from Kim Namjoon, the night drags deeper and Jungkook muddles through thoughts kept to himself. He has no way of knowing if having meetings after the rest of the world calls it a day is typical of this place or not. Perhaps it’s just the nature of the messy political business he’s been pulled into. Or perhaps it’s something to do with the race of Vera, themselves. But it doesn’t feel strange.

It feels like it should feel strange..

I hate politics. I hate this.

Jungkook has slightly relaxed back into his armchair, if not from comfort than sheer exhaustion. Silence fell between them when his last question went unanswered, and Namjoon felt perfectly at ease to sit in the thick of it. For a moment Jungkook thought maybe he should actively dismiss him, but that seemed harsh and unnecessary. He’s the one that doesn’t know what the hell is going on or what he’s supposed to be doing. He should be taking his cues from Namjoon, and Namjoon is currently doing nothing.

More than anything, Namjoon’s steady eyes are watching him and.. Waiting. Looking for something. Maybe even a bit puzzled, but Jungkook can’t help with that.

Dropping his head back against the chair, Jungkook sighs loudly and feels it vibrate in his stretched throat as the air in his mask warms uncomfortably. Hands on his head, his hat slides over his eyes until his face is completely covered and he can’t see even the recessed lights in the ceiling. Dramatic, perhaps. But today has been never ending.

“Namjoon-ssi…” he asks finally, “About you.. About Vera..” his voice softer and gentler after heaving that whole body groan with his whole chest. “Can you tell me?”

“Not really.”

Jungkook clicks his tongue, raising his arms higher to cross over the top of his head before jolting forward over his thighs. He finally lifts his head to look at Namjoon again, wondering if the nervous twinges he feels will subside over time. He just got here, but he already misses his nan. And his small bed. And his cat.

He looks up at Namjoon and sees all of that reflected back in his gaze, realizing he must seem so small to someone so important. And he’s not sure how to fix it. But the more he searches for an answer, the softer it seems Namjoon’s eyes become.

“Even if my creator’s eyes were closed,” Namjoon begins slowly, pulling Jungkook’s attention. He runs long fingertips along the edge of his white sleeves, wraps them around his slim wrist, “in regards to me.. couldn’t I only tell you about my own version of myself? Is that really me? Same for us. Vera.”

“Oh..” Jungkook replies, sounding like it was an obvious conclusion, but disappointed anyway.

“Somebody else, perhaps..” Namjoon starts, and he’s looking towards the window in thought, doesn’t catch the way Jungkook’s attention perks and his feet shift below the table. “Someone not bound..”

“Yes-” Jungkook breaths, releasing his grip on the armrest and sitting back, “sorry! I just..” he rushes, holding the brim of his hat tight on either side of his head, “That was rude. I’m sure you’re.. I just.. “

Namjoon holds up a hand, stopping Jungkook’s stuttering, a soft breath let out almost like a laugh though that seems too light for the situation. He leans to the side to reach in the folds of his clothes, removing a cellphone, and Jungkook doesn't know why he’s so surprised but he is. He watches intently as Namjoon swipes out a message and then sits the phone on the tabletop.

“Another Vera resides here, at the moment.” Namjoon explains, motioning to his phone. “He might be able to help both of us.”

“.. both?” Jungkook asks, curiosity loosening his tongue. Besides, the longer he sits across from Namjoon’s quiet company, the less likely he believes he’ll be smitten into a pile of ash for talking out of turn.

Only Namjoon does that small shrug again, telling him nothing, and Jungkook at least finds relief knowing he can glean a comfortable amount from cryptic responses. He’s got his decent share of intuition, and lesser magic abilities if you believe the lineage of his family, even if he’s not sure how to use it. He’s smart. Time is short. He can figure this out. Even if he can’t read Namjoon as clearly as regular people.

“Something is off..” He begins thinking out loud, eyes large with concentration and staring to the side as he tries to piece together their interactions so far. “You were expecting something to have happened by now.” he continues to surmise, looking at the clock and then to Namjoon. “Something with me I haven’t done? Haven’t said?” he guesses, not really expecting an answer.

After a lengthy pause, Namjoon tilts his head to the side once, neither affirmation or denial. “This has not been a typical first meeting.”

Namjoon’s cell phone blinks and he swipes out a quick response. The corner of his mouth pulls taught as he taps send. And for the first time this evening he appears uneasy. “I’m not sure how to advise you.”

“Can I help? Is it different in a bad way?” Jungkook tries, watching Namjoon closely and trying not to read a new text upside down that’s full of colorful emojis. Most of them look angry.

“Taehyung says he’ll be here in a few minutes.” Answers Namjoon, and he sits back looking a bit more angular. Shifts into stillness but continues to leave his casual gaze on Jungkook.

Jungkook’s leg starts jumping again, his forearms jostling with the movement as they wait. He’d never been good about gauging time going by, but it seems even more impossible in the presence of his Vera. All he knows is the light outside is completely gone and has been for some time now. Namjoon’s warning of time being short replays in his mind and he lets out a quick huff of a breath, trying to force tension out of his chest.

His dark brown eyes jump up when Namjoon stands, watching as a hand almost brushes his shoulder when he walks by. Halfway to the door there is a knock, and Namjoon swings it open.

“Here.” a low, smooth voice says, and Jungkook turns to see the Vera from earlier, Taehyung, dumping 4 bottles of iced tea into Namjoon’s arms. He’s also wearing white, but now Jungkook notes the differences. Taehyung’s hanbok is made from lighter material, making it prone to float around him and exaggerate his movements even after he stills. A sea of motion to Namjoon’s steady presence.

“..I meant hot tea.” Namjoon’s voice murmurs, and Jungkook’s eyebrow raises at the hint of whine in it.

“I know.”

There’s a pause and Namjoon simply looks at Taehyung, standing with arms full of bottled iced tea. Which is apparently enough to set off the other.

“What, exactly, were you expecting?” Taehyung replies, voice dripping with feigned amusement, “Hyung, I wasn’t gonna wheel a cart of hot tea and crumpets in here like your damn maid.”

Namjoon sighs heavily and closes the door, entering with his guest. “Kim Taehyung.” He interupts what was probably the beginning of an interesting argument, “This is Jeon Jungkook.” he motions, leading the way back to the table.

They murmur their hellos as Taehyung takes up residence leaning against the windowsill, watching as Namjoon bends to dump the plastic bottles of tea on the low table.

Taehyung reaches for one and does some extravagant motion to remove the cap, taking a sip as his eyes land on Jungkook. Harder than his voice hinted. Brows in a perpetual arch of assessment. He lowers the bottle from his lips and motions it towards Jungkook, turning to speak to Namjoon with a drawled pout. “He’s going to be fine, what are you worried about?”

Namjoon pauses midway to settling back into his chair, his expression hard, glancing between the two men in front of him before lowering himself the rest of the way into the seat. He doesn’t say anything at first, simply staring at Taehyung who answers back with his own incredulous stare, eyes widening in protest like a challenging child to Namjoon’s blank look he’s giving him.

Jungkook looks like Jungkook. Utterly blank-faced at what’s happening and what he should be doing. His eyes the only visible feature of his face, but expressive enough to convey his unease.

“You can See him? Just like that?” Namjoon finally asks, eyes still moving between them.

“Yeeah?” Taehyung answers defensively, like he’s affronted Namjoon didn’t think he’d be able to.

“See me?” Jungkook repeats quietly, like he’s not sure if he should be interrupting.

“See. Not see. Capital S.” Taehyung explains offhand, turning back to Namjoon. “Wait, you’re not getting this?” he questions, motioning to all of Jungkook. “He’s practically screaming his impending success, hyung...”

Namjoon has shifted slowly from staring to pensive. Maybe a touch hinting more at confused, if an all-knowing being could be confused. He goes to open his mouth, looks even more hesitant, and snaps it shut again.

Jungkook thinks he feels how Namjoon looks. Anything but screaming about his ‘impending success’.

“Hm.” Taehyung hums, taking another sip of his tea and looking between them. “You really aren’t able, at the moment, to See his resolve capabilities?”

Namjoon shakes his head, keeping his eyes locked on Jungkook who’s shoulders have rounded under the scrutiny.

“Interesting.” Taehyung muses, and sounds like he means it. “Something is far too fluid, here..” His lips play around the edge of his tea bottle as he thinks, then he pauses. His dark eyes move a sultry gaze over to Namjoon and he smirks. “Jungkook-” he starts, grin spreading, “Would you remove all that?” he motions at him.

Jungkook sits up, eyes bright, wondering if Taehyung could mean anything else or what it could matter before conceding. “Oh.. Yeah. Sure.” He mummers, dragging his hand across his head to pull off the black bucket hat. He ruffles his hair out of habit before tilting his head and removing the face mask as well. He holds them in his lap, feeling utterly exposed as the cool air reaches his face. Wonders if he’s flushed from the stress and attention. He hazards a glance at the other two knowing his eyes are too large.

Taehyung is grinning rather proudly, but he’s looking at Namjoon. And Namjoon.. Looks struck.

Embarrassingly, Jungkook can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. His ears are absolutely on fire and he knows he’s getting red. He can feel it tracing down his neck and chest until he has to look down and away, his lips pursing in agitation. He’s used to being looked at like something different. Too young. Too inexperienced. Too ignorant of the abilities in his possession. Too much likeness to his mother, not enough to his father.

“How’s the sailing, there, buddy?” Taehyung grins with his voice thick and teasing, clapping a hand down on Namjoon’s shoulder a few times. Namjoon jostles under the barrage, but keeps his blank stare stuck on Jungkook’s face.

Jungkook sits frowning, agitation hardening a dimple next to his mouth. He’s never sure which reason it is that has people staring at him like this. Like Namjoon.

But Taehyung doesn’t seem bothered by whatever it is, actually laughing a high note and shaking Namjoon’s shoulder until he’s slapped away. Maybe it’s because he and Taehyung share the same darker skin, unlike Yoongi who has the typical porcelain complexion of higher lineage. Jungkook doubts that is the case, but he can’t shake the feeling he’s being Seen, as they called it, and coming up short.

When you’ve been told all your life that you possess intuitive lesser magic, feelings like these are hard to ignore. And he wishes, now more than any other time, that he’d been shown how to tap into it properly. Wonders if, with proper training, he’d be able to feel anything from these two.

“This is serious.” Namjoon says, hard faced now at Taehyung, and Jungkook flinches.

“Don’t tell me. I’m standing on solid ground here. Black and white. Steady as a rock.” He gestures to Jungkook, “Seems dry as the Mohave, to me. YOU, on the other hand..” and he waits. Jungkook watches and Taehyung shimmies a little and makes a small flourishing arm movement as if he’s revealing some grand prize at whatever Namjoon’s response is supposed to be.

“...fluid as.” Namjoon finally answers, eyes falling into his own lap before he catches himself and forces the eye contact to persist with his young charge, brows raised. But it’s different, now. The searching is gone and in its place is something far more yielding.

“Fluid as fuck.” Taehyung beams. He claps his hands loudly and rubs them together, “Well! This just got fun. Excitiiing!” He all but sings, “It’s gonna be great!”

Namjoon sighs and closes his eyes, covering his face with one hand, “Tae…” it’s nearly pleading.

“Is Jin hyung here yet? Oh, and Hobi hyung!” Tae asks, fingers squishing at his bottom lip like he’ll find the answer himself that way.

“TAE.” Namjoon repeats, dropping his hand and looking with some real agitation up at his fellow Vera. His jaw is set hard and his chin raised higher.

Taehyung’s face falls slightly, the excitement losing a touch of shine in his eyes as he looks between Jungkook and Namjoon. He heaves his own sigh and rolls his eyes, “Fiine,” he complains like he’s been told to behave, and maybe he had, Jungkook realizes as he watches the hardness permeate Namjoon’s posture. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“He has questions.” Namjoon responds, his voice tired but quiet again.

Jungkook feels Taehyung’s discerning gaze again, looking up to meet a face shifting into a picture at odds with the playful teasing from moments earlier. Maybe it’s the nature of Vera to embody sculptures of masters long dead, but suddenly all his angles are harder, sharper, his attention more penetrating, and Jungkook realizes Taehyung doesn’t think much of him.

“Doesn’t mean I want to tell him about it. About anything.” Taehyung responds a bit petulantly, and if that doesn’t solidify Jungkook’s assessment of their blooming relationship, the disgusted noise that follows does.

“Why can’t you answer his questions?”

Namjoon fixes his hard stare on Taehyung and doesn’t respond.

“Please,” Jungkook speaks up, “Taehyung-ssi, he’s tried. I’ve tried.” His hat is twisted in his hands, “I don’t know enough to understand.. The way he answers.. I..” he’s nervously glancing at Namjoon, not wanting to diminish his efforts or insult his gift of time he’s spent with Jungkook already. He sighs in frustration, rubbing his other hand over his tired eyes, digging the heel of his palm into one socket and winces until the pain brings a few ounces of wakefulness to his mind. He drops his hand again and slumps, “I don’t understand him.”

Taehyung runs a hand through his white hair and lifts his chin, looking down at them both. Another smaller roll of his eyes and it seems he’ll cooperate. “Yahhh…” he mutters, taking an arm and wiping the tea bottles from the tabletop into Namjoon’s surprised arms. He hitches a leg onto the small table and Jungkook watches with confusion as he climbs up, situating himself sitting cross-legged in front of them both.

Taehyung rests his chin in one hand and looks down at Jungkook. “What do you want to know.”

Jungkook gnaws his lower lip for a moment, deciding where to begin. It’s hard to know what to ask when you don’t know the extent of your ignorance, and that matter of point he is finding extremely frustrating.

Taehyung seems to pick up on it and makes a face, quirking his mouth wide before he begins, “How about we start with your stupid brother.”

“Half brother..” Jungkook mutters, figuring that’s as good a place as any.

“Well I don’t know anything about that.”

“Then why did you bring him up?”

Namjoon sighs loudly.

Taehyung shrugs, finally leaning back to rest his palms on the table behind him. “I dunno.. He stole away my best friend.”

“This may be crossing over into counterproductive.” Namjoon tries, crossing his arms over his chest and Jungkook frowns, wondering why Namjoon is acting like it wasn’t his idea to bring this other Vera here.

Taehyung looks like he wants to argue, but how could he. Not with Namjoon. He sulks a moment, then nods. “We have time. You’ll be fine.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow and Namjoon tilts his head.

Taehyung looks at Namjoon, “Tomorrow he’s gotta sit in with the Others, right? But they won’t ask anything of him. They’re just going to talk about him like he’s another document.”

“Others, who?” Jungkook asks.

“Y’know, the one’s calling the shots.” Taehyung answers, sobering further, “The one’s who stepped in after your father.”

Namjoon nods, his hand finding its way to rest against his lips as he thinks. Taehyung’s input is slowly setting parameters around his words, “They’ll likely spend the majority of the day arguing and agreeing with each other about how much Jungkook can’t do.”

“Exactly.” Taehyung points at Namjoon, then turns to Jungkook. “You just gotta sit there and look pretty. Play dumb.” he grins, then, looking him over. “Done and done.”

Jungkook frowns deeper.

“He can manage that..” Namjoon mutters offhand, still deep in thought and the other two look at him. “Mm. Most likely, yes, tomorrow shouldn’t be too hard for us, at least. It will take a few more days for everyone to arrive.”

“Am I safe? I mean, for now?” Jungkook asks, looking between the two of them though he’s not sure who he hopes answers.

Taehyung shrugs, “No.” and Namjoon shoots him a look. “What? He’s not.. But, uh, you could be?” he adds, looking to Namjoon for approval but getting none.

Now Jungkook rolls his eyes, his nerves getting frayed with every minute he’s not crawling into bed for some much needed sleep. “And what is THAT supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Taehyung hedges, tilting his head and looking upwards as he chooses his words, mouth falling open, “that in the next few days you could be safer than you are now. Or not.”

“Great. Thanks.” Jungkook mumbles and Namjoon’s face twitches with what is almost a dimple.

Chapter Text

“You do realize you called him pretty.”

Namjoon checks the waistband of his pants once more as they walk, fingers idly adjusting his fabric belt a fraction higher, then back again. “I don’t think I did, no.”

Taehyung grins beside him, sipping from his bottled tea. “Please, I’d love to hear this.”

A heavy, heavy sigh. “Hear what?”

They’ve barely made it to the end of the hall. Taehyung taps the plastic against his bottom teeth, side eyeing Namjoon. “C’mon.. Your flimsy rebuttal. I wanna know how much nonsense you had to tell yourself to say that outloud.”

“Likely none, considering.”

Taehyung actually snorts. “I can bullshit, but I’m starting to think your mental gymnastics are legend. Hyung! You li-ter-ah-lly just agreed with me and said he could look pretty.”

Namjoon stops walking, hands on hips and tips his head back. Eyes closed. His jaw is doing some hard angle back and forth. Taehyung watches and his face scrunches up in a silent smile for half a second before dropping so as not to be caught laughing at his friend.

When they land on him, Namjoon’s eyes have gone clear, clinical. “Jungkook is considered attractive by what would be the majority of most populations. It wasn’t a stretch. Now please…”

Two large hands raise in appeasement, one holding the nearly empty bottle with two fingers, “Fine.. fine.”

They walk in silence for a few hallways more, making their way to their wing. Namjoon cautions a glance beside him and sees Taehyung has sobered, signaling the end of any further teasing.

“You’ve been out of the field a long time, Tae.. you understand how serious this is, don’t you?”

Taehyung frowns deeper, nodding.

“Sorry.” Namjoon says then, resting a hand on Taehyung’s shoulder and squeezing a bit. “Thank you for coming when I called. I… suspect I’m going to be doing that more, now that I… that he.. hm.”

Taehyung looks up then, watching his hyung frown through his thoughts. Namjoon’s hand still holds his shoulder and Taehyung gives it a small pat before taking it in his own and holding it between them as they walk towards their neighboring rooms.

Namjoon seems surprised when he goes for his door and is held back, looking down at their interlaced hands as if just noticing. He tracks his eyes up to Taehyung, questioning.

“Hyung,” he ventures quietly, his grin as soft as his hold around Namjoon’s hand, “Do you understand how serious this is?”

Namjoon exhales and Taehyung watches his frown turn to a full fledged pout. Through mimicry or simply his intense level of empathy, Taehyung’s mouth does the same but there is a humor in it exaggerating the expression. He reaches for Namjoon’s other hand and stands toe to toe.

“This is a big deal. This, what’s happening to you.. The notoriously unaffected Kim Namjoon at a loss for words... “ Taehyung exhales a humorless sigh, “Everything else is just.. Plbb.” he explains eloquently with a tiny raspberry trill of his tongue.

Namjoon bites the inside of his cheek, eyebrows drawn tight but the rest of his bashful self speaking volumes when he can’t. “It’s not plbb.” he mutters. “The state of this family’s empire and the implications of their involvement with the upcom-” Taehyung’s fingers mash against Namjoon’s mouth, smooshing his lips up and around his small teeth. “..is more important than plbb.” Namjoon finishes, his tongue touching Taehyung’s fingers at the last.

They both chuckle.

Hands drop away and they stand together, feeling the evening tip into the gray area of early morning hours.

“Are you going to continue giving him a hard time?” Namjoon asks, with only a slight chiding edge.

“Nah.. ‘s not his fault.” Taehyung assures, stepping back towards his room. “He didn’t look so good, hm? Jungkook, when we were leaving.” he muses, glancing up at Namjoon who shakes his head once. “Probably just needs to sleep..” he adds, turning away with a small wave. “Goodnight, hyung.”

“Goodnight.” Namjoon answers, not able to miss the way Taehyung sneaks a glance towards Jimin’s empty room before entering his own.

-----

Jungkook doesn’t sleep.

He’d murmured his goodnight’s and closed the door behind Namjoon and Taehyung and then.. Nothing. No weight behind his eyes. No pull of yawns or ache of body fatigue. He sits in the seat by the window and time passes.

He could hum a tune to the chime of the clock with each passing hour, but even his throat seems a distant thing. Left home with his own room and familiar comforts. All distant.

He unpacks. Showers. Dresses down for bed but stands around the coffee table in the dark. His lips are pulled raw by restless fingers until he sighs at the copper tang on his tongue and forces them to his sides.

Back in the chair by the window, the artificial lights illuminating the grounds slip in through the curtains but hold him in the shadows. They don’t shift as the moonlight would; don’t capture Jungkook’s attention in a timelapse that would gradually stir him to remain in the dark.

----

It’s half past six when a knock comes, followed by Ponytail entering the room. Jungkook’s dark eyes meet him and focus.

“Sir, you’re up..” he hesitates only briefly before crossing to the closet and disappearing. Jungkook sits with his hands interlaced across his stomach and waits for him to reappear.

Hangers are heard sliding along rails and then the man is setting out clothes on the bed, black eyes catching the undisturbed covers. “Your attendance is requested,” he explains, brushing smooth a white dress shirt, “For today’s deliberations among the councilmembers.”

He straightens, turning to face Jungkook with his angled eyes drawn hard and Jungkook wonders if his hair is really pulled that tight or his eyes just that sharp. He’s small, probably only to Jungkook’s shoulder, but carries himself like someone well trained in their body.

Jungkook realizes quite gradually that he can read this man. Since being picked up, the people surrounding him had been such a mass of mixed blood, races and abilities that he’d all but turned off this part of himself. Sometime during the night it had recovered on its own.

It’s nothing extraordinary on the surface, a shimmer of wavering something around the perimeter of the man’s body. But as Jungkook looks longer, as his eyes adjust and his senses reach a bit further, he feels it. A warm pulsing sense that feels like.. Like..

His head tilts to the side. ...Pride. Honor. Justice… anger.

Typical of men found in his profession.

“I’ll be back in an hour to escort you.”

Jungkook nods, wondering what the man’s name is. Wonders where his Vera is and wonders if they’ll speak before business is underway.

Wonders what the day holds and how he’ll manage and if he’ll make a mistake and if his father’s killer is satisfied. And wonders when wondering turned to worrying. When worrying turned to this god awful knot twisting deep in his body until it’s hard to breath and hard to stand straight.

----

A short amount of time in this place can hold substantially more than Jungkook’s mind can process. His morning is spent skipping moments like a warped record sliced deep with a needle leading him from one scene to the next, crowded deep with older men in suits and women framing the outskirts of their groups.

He can feel when attention shifts to him, during introductions, explanations, with slight bows offered at each, willingly or not. It’s almost as if the faces closest to him suddenly warm with color while scrutinizing him, and cool back to gray once bored. Though a residual hum of curiosity clings to his back and fingercreeps up his spine.

Ponytail leads him through corridor after corridor towards a larger meeting room where the country’s politicians rub elbows and dissect one another.

Jungkook follows direction. Speaks when spoken to which is seldom, sits where he is told. Melts back into nonexistence just as Taehyung had predicted. He’s the youngest in attendance by far, but his black suit and careful expression lend him obscurity. Allow him to piece his defenses back into place and catch moments of interest among all the bustling activity.

At one point the noise level of the room collectively drops. Not a hush, but a generalized quieting, unintentional. Jungkook blinks to attention and watches as a shift takes place in the crowd. Bodies move to either side and then Jungkook sees the passage has been made for Namjoon.

He’s heads taller than these bowed men, brighter in the white of his traditional draping uniform than the marble of the walls and surrounded with that presence that had hit Jungkook so hard the night before. And, gods help him, amplified. As if putting Namjoon in this larger arena with powerful company had turned him into something else that keeps this press of bodies circling skittishly around him. Broadcasts the proximity of a Vera holding the power of gods within him, to use at his discretion.

Slow walk, slow glance, everything slow. Namjoon makes his way through the room and, inevitably, towards Jungkook who’s throat is finally present if only by the way it’s choking him. Namjoon comes to stand beside him, turns to face the room and simply waits. Hard angles. Hard eyes. Hard to stand.

A general announcement is made for the ensemble to convene in the councilroom and the world starts carening as it’s thrown into motion once again. A hand at the small of Jungkook’s back ushers him; Ponytail beside him.

Hours suddenly drop behind Jungkook and it’s nearing evening, leaving him blank-faced but blinking. The only guard he has left which isn’t a guard at all. Just a lack of expression; lack of life and comprehending. He rubs his chest, wondering how long it’ll take to decompress his mind and begin to live again.

Namjoon had stayed by his side, but said nothing. He’d been addressed several times regarding the state of neighboring estates, but declined response. No one seemed surprised.

Jungkook had tried to focus himself, to pay attention, to follow the circling discussions rebounding around him from group to group with him in the center of it all- inconsequential as a seasonal centerpiece. Look pretty. Play dumb.

His wide eyes take it all in. A protein bar is pressed into his hand and he nods at Ponytail. Leans slightly closer, voice low, “What’s your name?”

“Chang.”

Jungkook nods again, sits back. Tries to read the room at large and feels ill. He tries to shut them out, but suddenly finds he can’t. A nauseating anxiety prickling against his skin from all sides- except where Namjoon sits silently beside him. Perhaps Jungkook shifts towards him. Minutely. Or maybe he imagined the slightest breeze of relief across his arm.

----

With Vera Kim Namjoon leading the exodus from their meeting, no one pays any attention to Jungkook trailing in his wake or his small attendant beside him. If that’s what Chang is.

Regardless, he escorts Jungkook with minimal fanfare, keeping several paces behind Namjoon. Interactions spread like oil slicks outward around them, but never directly hit aside from respectful bows as Namjoon passes. The gestures do not extend to the other two.
It stings like targeted avoidance bordering on resentment, but it’s what they’d been planning on. Taehyung and Namjoon. And Jungkook. To be ignored or disregarded until they’ve had a moment to prepare Jungkook for.. What, he’s still not sure.

The extra persons titer off the farther they walk, heading deeper into their wing until there is just the soft rustle of the three of them moving together. Jungkook watches Namjoon’s shoulders. His legs. The gradual slope of his neck. All losing their rigid hold on his bones until the extra light Jungkook had felt earlier at his arrival flickers away.

A warm sensation pulses alive behind him in the same moment, and Jungkook looks over his shoulder. Chang raises a brow but says nothing, moving to stand guard to the side of Jungkook’s door.

Changing of the guard.

Inside the room they take their positions, sitting opposite one another in the padded armchairs by the window. The small table between them is bare.

Jungkook vaguely wonders at the time, but doesn’t bother checking. He’s too busy feeling his own air enter his lungs. His own pulse and warmth creep back into his limbs. Not dozens of pressing bodies recycling air and shoving their presence in every direction.

When he’s got enough of himself wrapped around his mind he sits back and lets out a quiet sigh. Runs both hands back through his hair and notices Namjoon watching him.

“You’re different today.” Jungkook ventures in his soft voice, pulling one knee up to his chest and resting his face against it. Frowns slightly at his assessment, “Earlier.. Earlier you were. Different.”

Namjoon purses his lips against his long fingers like he’s considering, eyebrows raised as they tend to when he’s weighing his words. “Today was a different sort of day.”

Maybe not to the same severity, but Jungkook is familiar with deliberating over what’s said. Words have always scared him, to a certain extent. The finality of them. And not just from people like Namjoon, but regular folks as well. Words are powerful. And no matter what anyone says, they can’t be taken back.

He’s wanted to ask so many questions. But not having them answered is answer enough, sometimes, and even that is hard to handle. Unspoken words just as meaningful. So he thinks long before asking Namjoon if his life is hard.

“I bet it’s difficult.” he hears himself saying, instead. His fingers pluck at a crease in his pants and he sets his eyes on Namjoon, face still pressed against the inside of his knee. “I’d find it difficult. To do what you’re doing.”

Silence settles in between them, but Jungkook can feel more than see the softening edges around Namjoon’s expression. Eyes that don’t look like they want to argue.

The deep corner of Jungkook’s mouth pulls slightly, a hint of the small sense of satisfaction before he drops his gaze to his hands still worrying the fabric between his fingers. “I bet questions are exhausting.” He finishes, and this time Namjoon allows himself the luxury of breaking his composure, softening still, exhaling long and hard with the appearance of one deep dimple that leaves Jungkook reeling.

Chapter Text

“You should sleep.” 

Jungkook looks up from the floor to Namjoon looking at his phone screen. He’s set aside his outer layers but the white of his blouse still looks far too awake against the warm skin of his wrists. Too radiant for the late hour. Jungkook considers him for several long moments, wondering if he was talking to him or someone on the other side of his screen, but then Namjoon meets his gaze. 

It's a different kind of weight that hits Jungkook each time they face one another. Hits differently depending on the time of day. The people present. And now, Jungkook is realizing, the tone of Namjoon’s presence, itself. There is no shimmery outline or seeping feel to him that Jungkook can read, but a sense that trickles over his mind, like an afterthought, indicating just how tuned in the other is to his obligations. Duty plays a leading role in this household, it would seem, and more often than not Namjoon exists as his.

But sometimes there is something else coloring the seeping traces of Namjoon that Jungkook touches on. Like a motion in the periphery of his vision that he can’t perceive directly, but feel out with a quiet mind. 

Namjoon’s heavy-lidded gaze settles on him and, tonight, Jungkook has more trouble than usual holding it. He looks away first, feeling the tick in his jaw as it locks. He should be tired. He should sleep. He should grow a pair and ask Namjoon directly what he should be doing here. But for some reason the only thoughts that form completely are belated observations about the color of Namjoon’s eyes and if they’d always been that dark. 

“I will.” Jungkook finally utters, rubbing at his face for a moment. His skin feels dry. His eyes moreso, so he stops. He should sleep, he thinks sardonically. His Vera said so. He needs to. He didn’t last night and he didn’t very well the night before that. Jungkook tries to end that tangent before it gets much father; before he remembers his own bed and comforting voices in the next room, the warmth of familiar fur pressed against his belly and his fingers idly combing through it. 

He tilts his face upward and stares at the lights above, letting out a breath. An identical sigh follows his a beat later and he frowns. 

“Jungkook.” Namjoon tries again, and there is a rising pressure against Jungkook’s thoughts that edges his frown into a scowl. The silence stretches and the tone of it feels juggled. Tossed side to side like the rocking of a small vessel before Namjoon finishes, “...you did very well today.” 

Jungkook closes his eyes and wonders what Namjoon had been going to say before his recalculating silence. “I didn’t do anything.” Jungkook answers, rolling his neck to look at Namjoon sitting across from him, leaning forward on his thighs with his phone dangling between his hands. “All I had to do was play dumb, right?” 

Namjoon lowers his head a touch, a grin spreading gently as the second part of that running theme sits heavy between them, left unsaid but clearly remembered on both sides and Jungkook can’t help but feel a meaningless trace of pleasure when Namjoon cocks his head like just the first half of a disbelieving shake. 

It’s unrealistic, but it still feels teasing, and it’s infuriating that it has Jungkook smiling back down at the floor. 

He really does need sleep. But the day’s events and the new living space all but ensures the improbability that he will get any. His stomach is queasy with it, a culmination of too much adrenaline and not enough motion to burn through the residual chemicals. And he knows his mind isn’t up to speed, adding another layer to the anxiety of presenting himself well from one moment to the next. His ability to focus is all but shot, and he consciously slides back into frowning to guide his wandering, immature thoughts back to reality, feeling more than a little disappointed in himself. 

He wonders briefly if he has some messed up form of Stockholm Syndrome, but that’s unfair. Sleep deprivation is the worst disease to mental filters, and even aware of this, Jungkook struggles to wrestle his thoughts back to usefulness.  

Several questions present themselves as viable options to steer their conversation into something productive, but Jungkook had already promised to spare Namjoon any questions tonight, and he’d meant it. He may not be able to read Namjoon the way he can others, but he knew when he’d read that earlier interaction correctly. He’d felt it in the small surge of accomplishment and fulfillment that bubbled low in his chest when he’d seen the way Namjoon had responded. Grateful. 

Jungkook isn’t sure the exact nature of Namjoon’s race and what it means for him as a living, feeling being but he’s sure the man is still human enough to be tired of the bullshit that the day had been. The relief that had spread across his softened features made Jungkook never want to ask anything of him again. And he once again finds himself wondering what right he has to this man’s time. 

“You should rest, too.” Jungkook counters, rising to his feet in one fluid movement that belies his weariness. He grabs two water bottles off his nightstand and returns, handing one to Namjoon. 

“Maybe.” he answers, taking the water with a nod and downing half of it in one go, making a face when he’s done like it was something much stronger than water. He reclines and watches Jungkook remain standing, peeling the label off his bottle. “I didn’t do much today. Borrowed a lot.” 

Jungkook knows he’ll have to come up to speed with this whole ethereal demigod speak sooner rather than later, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to hear Namjoon say these things like they’re supposed to make sense to him. 

Namjoon must catch the downward pull of his brows because he lets out an amused noise that attracts Jungkook’s attention. “Sorry, I meant from the other side..” he embellishes and immediately it’s apparent that he realizes he’s going to have to backtrack if he’s going to explain anything. His long hands wave aimlessly as he searches for his words and where to start while Jungkook simply lowers his water bottle to his side and watches. 

“While I’m working, I guess you could call it,” Namjoon starts, looking more at the ceiling than anything, “We.. if I had to put it into words..”

He’s so obviously struggling with explaining this, but Jungkook can’t bring himself to stop him. The curiosity has him keeping silent, but also the animated way Namjoon is behaving. Like he enjoys this particular puzzle. And Jungkook logs that away for later. 

Namjoon snaps his fingers and points at nothing, “It’s probably explained best like energy borrowing?” he hedges, then nods when the words must seem to feel right. “When we are called to duty to the extent of something like today, it’s not enough for a full immersion, but we can pull energy from our gods. Which means we use less of our own.” 

Jungkook remembers how he’d felt a larger presence when Namjoon had entered the conference earlier that day and listens with interest. It must be written on his face because Namjoon smiles deep enough for both dimples to bracket his mouth for a brief moment before he pulls it back, “I’m actually feeling pretty charged, like, physically.” he adds, catching one fist lightly into his other open palm. 

“Hyung, do you want to go for a run?” Jungkook hears rush out of his mouth, and then feels his entire blood supply surge into his head. 

Namjoon freezes, does that half a head tilt thing again and then the lightest, carefree trill of a laugh bubbles up and out of him before he swallows it back and covers his grin with a hand, “You’re eyes got so wide..” he says unnecessarily and Jungkook’s not sure where this night has gone. 

And not that he’d thought he’d hear a Vera laugh in his lifetime, but he certainly didn’t think it would sound like that. 

“Nevermind, I don’t know why..” Jungkook runs a hand through his hair and tries to laugh away his embarrassment, “that’s just usually what I do when I feel that way.” 

Namjoon nods, making a valiant attempt to wipe the grin from his face and almost succeeding. “I’m not much of a runner.” he admits, “but Hoseok is.”

Taehyung had mentioned him, Jungkook remembers. But only as a passing name and Jungkook has no idea what to make of Namjoon bringing him up. 

“I think he’d jump at the chance for a running partner..” Namjoon muses quietly, in that tone that seems more for himself than anyone listening, like he’s trying the words out in his own ears before committing. Jungkook wonders if its an old habit, considering. 

“No, it’s fine, I don’t need anybody to.” Jungkook quickly refuses the suggestion, the idea of meeting anyone else in the next century churning his stomach all over again. 

Namjoon lifts his chin at this, regarding Jungkook for a moment before simply nodding. 

“Things unfolding as they are, you’ll meet him tomorrow.” 

A knock at the door startles Jungkook and he feels his heart stutter a few times, no time to process news of meeting another acquaintance of Namjoon’s because he’s mentally threatening whoever would disturb someone this late at night. 

“It’s Taehyung.” Namjoon says, rising and heading for the door. 

Jungkook watches from where he stands as Namjoon opens the door and Taehyung peers inside. He looks different from how Jungkook remembers, but that could just be the sleep robes tied haphazardly around his waist. The way he’s biting his thumbnail, his face soft with worry that blurs his every sharp angle. 

Namjoon pulls him quickly inside and shuts the door, dipping his head low to ask something Jungkook can’t quite make out, and an unease trickles over his thoughts. 

Jungkook paces around the seating area, pulling at the label of his water bottle, trying to give them privacy in his own bedroom because they are keeping their voices low, but it’s impossible not to overhear. 

“..I felt him, hyung.” and his voice drops even lower until he barely lets out the name,  “Jimin.. Like he was nearby..” Taehyung is saying, eyes pleading and words falling like a guarded secret. “I felt him..” he stresses again, his fingers curling around a handful of the fabric over his shirt. 

“Okay, alright..” Namjoon is gently assuring, his large hands running up and down Taehyung’s upper arms when his eyes are also a little wide, “Was he okay? Are you?”

Taehyung hugs an arm around himself and bites his other thumbnail again, brows drawn down harsh over his shining eyes, “..I don’t know.” he finally answer and it sounds guilt-laden, breaking on the last word and Namjoon pulls him into a hug. A shuddering breath shakes itself free and his voice is almost lost in the folds of Namjoon’s arms, “..was too small.”

“Did you let anyone else know?”

Taehyung shakes his head, pulling back a bit though Namjoon keeps his hands on his shoulders, “..went to your room and then came here.”

Namjoon looks to Jungkook over his shoulder and exhales. “We’ll go back to my room.” he says, looking back to Taehyung and Jungkook feels a pang of something even though he knows he shouldn’t. He’s not anybody to this, to them. And his appointed Vera knows what’s best for them all. 

Nothing is wrong with him. He doesn’t need anyone here. Taehyung clearly does. Jungkook can shower and rest and finally catch some sleep and very well mind his own business. 

Taehyung nods once and keeps his arms folded around himself, though he seems a bit less unraveled with the promise of Namjoon coming to help with whatever is going on. 

Namjoon approaches Jungkook as he runs a hand through his own white hair, exhaling again, “I’m going to go look into some things,” he says, looking down at Jungkook’s carefully blank expression. 

“Alright.” he answers easily with a small nod, feeling hard eyes on him from the door. 

“You really should sleep.” Namjoon says again and this time Jungkook can feel that Namjoon knows he won’t. 

“I know.”

Another moment of silence and then Namjoon turns away, “Chang is outside, tell him if you need anything.”

Jungkook just nods again, even though the door is closing and he’s alone. 

-------------------

Jungkook didn’t really think Namjoon would return, but as the clock chimes 5am into his existence, he’s still a touch disappointed that he hadn’t. 

It had been another few hours of pacing his room and trying to find the weight of sleep behind his eyes that never came. At one point he found himself lying on his bed with his eyes forced shut, and he cannot recall falling asleep but when he allowed himself to look at the clock 45 minutes had passed like a blink so perhaps he had dozed off. 

His anxiety has mostly kept his hunger at bay, but a couple times throughout the night Jungkook plays with the idea of venturing out of his room to find the kitchen. He never makes a move past glancing at the door. Leaving his room feels like too much. A level of exposure when he wants to pass unnoticed for as long as possible. 

So another evening passes without rest.

Mostly he sat in his chair and scrolled through his phone, deleting unused apps and browsing his contact list. He opened the last message he’d sent to his nan on the way here and noted it still wasn’t read. Face pressed hard into his palm from his sedentary slouch, he had added a message reminding her to keep her phone charged and then locked the screen. 

The sun begins to make an appearance and Jungkook’s stomach lets out a long, drawn out growl. Idly he recalls the last thing he ate was a protein bar given to him by the man standing outside his door, and he shakes himself back into the world of the living instead of the mental shroud that had filled his evening. 

He should shower. He should eat. He should have slept. 

Jungkook ventures into his closet and pulls open one of the drawers beneath his hanging shirts, retrieving out a pair of joggers and a folded white tshirt. Nothing is going to settle his nerves or his stomach until he gets the itch out of his limbs and the fog from his mind. 

Exiting his room, he pauses only for a moment to tie the strings of his pants tighter. Watching his fingers loop the cords he forces himself to speak, “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, but do you need to know where I’m going?”

Chang stands to the side of the door right where Namjoon and Jungkook had left him last night, though he’s now leaning his shoulder blades against the wall with his hands in his pants pockets. “Once you leave this room I have no further obligations.” he answers, taking in Jungkook’s attire. “I’m here for peace of mind.”

To ward against being assassinated in your sleep , Jungkook thinks to himself. Fair. 

“You probably want to go rest.” he says, feeling guilty because he hasn’t even been sleeping. Though he supposes he could be killed while awake just as quickly. 

Chang makes a face like he could never sleep again for the rest of his life if he so chose, and life would just accept his decision. Take it or leave it. “I don’t want anything, sir.”

It’s slightly eerie how much truth rings in that statement, but Jungkook decides not to look too hard. The protective impulses waving off of the guard are spiking irregularly. 

“Wanna go for a run?” Jungkook tosses out there, and feels the dusky energy around Chang simmer lower. “You can show me where.”

Chang beckons as he turns, leading Jungkook down the hall, “The west grounds are good enough for that.” he explains, opening the glass storm door that gives access to a wrought iron spiral staircase circling down to ground level. Jungkook hadn’t even noticed this exit at the end of his hall. 

They circle down, their sneakers quick and volleying succinct metal sounds while they descend. White gravel crunches beneath them and Chang is already trotting away, his body moving like machinery. Not a trace of gradual acceleration, no lean into the direction, just suddenly several paces away and Jungkook takes a few lopsided strides to step in behind him. He supposes they’re heading west. 

“You’re free to run wherever,” Chang add conversationally as they round a wall of Hiroki Spruce and their gravel pathway weaves through varying mazes of manicured evergreens. “But if you’re looking to expend energy and clear your mind, I suggest this..” he finishes, rounding another bend and they trot into a wide expanse of green lawn stretching out several acres ahead. 

There is a mirror-clear pool of water in the center, spotted with water lilies and framed with short cattails. Several gnarled willows break up the clean lines, softening the edges. A narrow ring of white marble stones encircles the pool like pavement, with a patio supporting a stone-pillared gazebo that juts out over the water on one end. 

Jungkook stands for a moment beside Chang, hands on hips and gauging the distance. More than a few laps might get monotonous, but that is exactly what he’s looking for. “Yeah.. it's great.” he concedes, quiet with a small grin. 

Chang nods once beside him and starts walking towards the left bank of the pool, gestures Jungkook the other way. “Go on. I’ll be around.”

So they set off in there respective directions. Jungkook starts a bit sluggishly, his legs feeling awkward and heavy, his breath uneasy. But the path is smooth and calm, the scene welcoming and before long he settles into a comfortable pace, feeling his lungs open and stretch with a measured cadence that calms his heartbeat into something reassuring. 

His second time taking the bend opposite the gazebo Jungkook’s attention turns to Chang’s small figure moving in some martial dance at the far end. He doesn’t recognize the style at this distance, but as he runs closer he appreciates the discipline of it. But he forces his attention to the ground in front of him before long, somehow feeling the other man wouldn’t consider this a spectator sport. And by the time Jungkook makes four more laps around the pool, Chang has finished as well.

“Is that it?” Chang asks from his seat on the topmost step, back against a white banister. 

“Yeah.” Jungkook nods, taking a step up on the opposite side and sliding into place to mirror Chang. “For now. Thanks.”

Chang nods but doesn’t say anything. The morning is beginning to warm, the sun climbing and cutting through the residual mists of the early hours and it feels nice. Still new enough in its ascension that the gazebo’s interior is basking in the orange glow of it. Jungkook breathes out heavily and lays his back flat out behind him, crossing his forearms over his eyes to shade from the light. 

It feels nice. His chest isn’t as tight, his breath coming a bit easier. The nausea has mostly subsided and his legs have lost the jittery energy that had him feeling so tightly wound. He can feel the sunlight gathering like a weight over his body and it just feels familiar in a way he hasn’t felt since home. 

A stinging sensation creeps along the outer rim of his lashes and he takes a deep breath, lets it out. He’s really quite tired. 

Before he’s even registered he’s dozing off, a hand pats his shoulder and Jungkook slaps it away, sitting up abruptly to find Chang already backing away. 

“Sorry.. Hoseok’s on his way over..” he says, motioning to the far side of the pool. 

Jungkook gets to his feet, blinking away the fog from his impromptu nap and sees him, a man in red jogging towards them. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, Namjoon had said their meeting today would be likely. But Jungkook’s stomach still knots tightly. 

Chang moves beside Jungkook as the man approaches, bending at the waist in greeting which Jungkook is quick to copy. 

A light laughter trills over to them as Hoseok comes to a stop in front of them and Jungkook straightens when Chang does, glancing between the two of them. Chang gives him a formal greeting of good morning, but Hoseok waves him off with a blinding smile, his attention firmly on Jungkook. 

“Jungkookie...” he says brazenly, hands on slight hips and grin looking mischievously pleased. “You don’t know it yet, but we’re best friends now. C’mon, lets get breakfast..” he says, beckoning quickly. 

“I don’t-” Jungkook stutters, but stops when Chang puts a hand on his wrist for his attention, shakes his head once when he gets it. 

“It’s best just to accept it.” the smaller man says with something like resentment. 

“Yup!” Hoseok agrees, popping the ‘p’ at the end as he grabs the sleeve on Jungkook’s shirt and tugs him down the steps. “See ya, Chang.” he adds, linking his arm through a wide-eyed Jungkook’s. “For drinks. Tonight.”

Hoseok leads them back towards the estate, a muttering of a different language carrying on behind them. Jungkook glances over his shoulder but Chang is already headed in the opposite direction. 

“He’s fine, don’t worry,” Hoseok says, smiling at Jungkook and he swears the sunlight just got brighter. “You hungry? We should hit the kitchen before business..”

“Business?” Jungkook questions, trying to gingerly assess the waves of almost sparkling heat prickling his skin and teasing at his mind to open to it. He's not brave enough. 

“A bit, yeah.” Hoseok nods, “we got a lot to go over before you're officially seated tomorrow.”

“What.. What now?” Jungkook stops, turning fully to face Hoseok, but the other just pulls him along. 

“Food first, c’mon..” he gently persuades, “And we’ll talk about this thing happening between you and Joonie-hyung.”

Suddenly Jungkook’s throat is sewn shut but he tries to swallow anyway and that was a mistake. He chokes quietly and Hoseok laughs, leading him towards the entrance for kitchen staff. 

“Taehyung was right..” Hoseok grins at him, “this could be fun. Namjoon just doesn’t think so because he’s a dense woodblock.”

Chapter Text

Being pulled by the sleeve, Jungkook blinks several times as his eyes adjust to the light of the staff kitchen. It’s still early, the morning sun causing the windows to glow. Illuminating stainless steel carts and large industrial equipment including a mixer that looks as though a team of bodies would be needed to move it. He’s sure he’d fit inside.

Jungkook notes it all with a mulled sense of interest, letting his senses drive his sleep deprived thoughts, almost able to hear the distant drone of dozens of bodies prepping meals. He can feel in this quiet time the residual buzz and clamour that must fill this open space when it’s used. It has not a warmth but a pulse of a place used often in a home. Utilitarian and familiar if not full of memories or emotions. 

He continues to be led deeper into the kitchen by Hoseok and realizes he’s yet to enter a space that held that particular charm of homestead awareness. That deep smoldering orange ember of warmth that heats the inside of your ribs like his Nan’s hearth. 

But this kitchen feels comfortable even with all it’s stainless steel and sharp edges. 

His room here had felt less inviting. 

The kitchen bends to an L shape and as they round the corner leaving behind the mixers and ovens and stovetops they’re met with a wall of pantry doors and several refrigerators. 

Hoseok heads for the first fridge and starts loading the crook of his arm with items. Jungkook looks curiously over his shoulder and follows behind, watching as the armload is dumped across a wooden table with wide aged boards. 

Hoseok works diligently, Jungkook watching him move through the kitchen like he owns it in his designer red track suit. 

Jungkook hadn’t noticed since being awoken from an accidental nap and blinded by the morning sun, but Hoseok is dressed more like him than anyone else he’s run across. Street clothes and sneakers, sun-kissed skin and natural sun-blessed highlights in the hair spilling over a plain headband. 

It’s an odd comfort. For once he doesn’t feel under-dressed. 

Jungkook had wondered if he’d have an appetite having slept so little yet again, but eyeing the food he feels a familiar pang in his stomach and is momentarily grateful he’ll be spared the exhaustion induced nausea today. 

Swinging his leg over the bench, Jungkook settles in across from Hoseok and eyes the assortment, watching as Hoseok places items in front of each of them. Typical fanfair. Small snack cheeses, some fruit, cut vegetables and a tub of what appears to be some sort of fermented cabbage dip. And, as Hoseak pulls a basket from the table closer to them, a mix of oven baked breads and crackers. 

Long fingers pull apart a roll and Hoseok pinches a bite into his mouth. “Help yourself. There’s more in the fridge.” he says casually, watching Jungkook look over the assortment before grinning, “That one has meat.” his hand gestures to another fridge and Jungkook’s already looking at it before pulling himself back and reaching for the grapes. 

“No, this is fine, thank you.” 

But Hoseok is already walking over to the fridge, his roll left wobbling on the tabletop. 

Jungkook glances his way, embarrassed that he was so transparent, and bows his head in gratitude when Hoseok slides a plate of sliced and rolled cured meats in front of him. 

They lean in to their makeshift breakfast, both seemingly content to have an easy meal. There's that warmth pulsing against Jungkook’s thoughts again, as his mind awakens to its usual worries, but it’s dull and unobtrusive, like it’s source can’t help but sooth agitation as Jungkook had felt at their first introduction. 

Looking at the source across from him, a man he’s just met of unknown talents and even lesser known motives, Jungkook decides he’ll trust his instincts. Like a bubbling fountain or a votive candle or wind chimes, through no interference of his own Jung Hoseok just has calming effects on the atmosphere around him. 

Jungkook can let it smooth the surface of his thoughts without opening to it completely. 

“So what’s it like being back home?” Hoseok asks, then pouts his lips with a shrug of one shoulder, “well, back here, anyway..”

Jungkook puts down the half bitten slice of meat and looks around the kitchen as he chews, “I barely remember it… not sure how it feels.” and he’s really not. 

Sorting through his emotions the last few days has been futile and feels like a luxury he won’t afford any time soon. There’s too much to catch up on. No room for processing. 

“You were very young.” Hoseok concedes, seemingly not interested in actually consuming the bread he’s pulling apart. “Five? Six?”

“Six.”

Hoseok makes a deep noise of confirmation and Jungkook feels it again, only deeper. That efervescent warmth sparking along his thoughts. Hoseok’s energy feels like sun rays needling through an icy chill. Pin-pricked and sharp followed by an enveloping, growing warmth that seeps deeper through layers upon layers of aching permafrost. 

Jungkook looks him in the eyes and wonders how his own energy feels. Wonders if it's hesitant and blurry and tepid, mirroring his doubts.

When he realizes how strange it is to meet this stranger’s gaze so easily, Jungkook drops his eyes immediately. Intentional or not, there is a level of persuasion coming from this new acquaintance and Jungkook finds himself in an odd limbo of trusting it’s intent but wondering just how much he’s being affected. 

Magic and lesser magic. They are fluid interchangeable mingling fickle things that color one’s personality. Jungkook assesses the offer of smalltalk and tries to remember how to communicate earnestly. It feels like that’s what Hoseok is trying to give him. 

“I remember hyung.” Jungkook settles on and Hoseok doesn’t respond for a long while. Jungkook saw the slight nod of his head, though, and takes a moment to appreciate the space being given to find words again. Connect them to his thoughts. Decide what to share and what to keep behind his sternum. 

He’s so out of practice, talking. To people. 

“Or maybe I don’t.. But I feel like I do. Like we were here. Together.” 

As he says it, he feels it become true. Knowing he and his half brother had been here together is the only piece of familiarity he’s felt since arriving, even if it was more than a lifetime ago. But thinking about himself is exhausting and tedious and confusing. “How long have you been here?”

Hoseok leans back, his hands gripping the edge of the bench as he thinks back, “Mmm.. Three? Four years. Your father summoned Jin-hyung and me when his wife, Yoongi-hyung’s mother, was on her way out.”

Dying. 

“You’re healers?” 

“Jin-hyung is.” Hoseok grins fondly, passing a jar of jam when Jungkook reaches for a roll. 

Jungkook glances up at Hoseok twice while he prepares his bread, waiting for him to elaborate as to what he is if not a healer, but Hoseok doesn’t. “You’re not Vera.”

“No.”

Jungkook waits again, nibbling the roll, but Hoseok is absently dissecting his own with no obvious intention of offering further information. 

“..Hoseok-ssi..” Jungkook starts, wondering how rude it would be to ask. Tired of knowing nothing. Wondering if the frustration colored his tone like it's coloring his thoughts and finding it hard not to gape like a fish trying to find words. 

“Yes?” Hoseok answers, and his eyes are wrinkling at the edges, his smile genuine when Jungkook clams up and seems to think better of speaking further, “No! No.. keep going, I’m trying to see something..”

“What? Trying to see what?” Jungkook asks now, visibly confused and on the verge of feeling like a social experiment. If only he could just.. 

“Ah- there it is.”

Jungkook takes a breath and puts down his food, wipes his hands on a napkin and holds it in his lap. Maybe if he just waits and sits silently. It’s his motif, now, isn’t it? Play dumb.. He’s good at listening. Maybe things will start to make sense. 

“You just wondered if you should ask Joonie-hyung about me.”

“I.. “ 

“Jungkook-ah. He’s your Vera.”

“Yeah.”

“Why aren’t you using him?”

Jungkook’s brows angle sharply, his lips pulling to a stern pout, startling both at his reaction and the comment that spurred it. 

“Mn. I’ve misspoken.”

“Maybe you have.” Jungkook bites out, but feels immediately remorseful. “S-sorry, I don’t know why I…. I don’t know you, I shouldn’t have..” 

His words have turned murky, quiet, unassuming like he suspects his aura is, as if by quieting his message he can quiet the unusual lash of hostility that just flared within him a  moment ago. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, you should.” Hoseok answers back easily with raised brows and a shrug. He delicately picks a grape from the cluster on the table and begins peeling the skin back with his teeth. Nibling carefully and seemingly unbothered by Jungkook’s unusual remark. “You don’t ask many questions for someone in your position. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do.”

Jungkook fights back the agitated noise building inside him, chews his bottom lip instead. 

“I can hear it.” Hoseok answers after a moment, popping the naked grape pulp into his mouth. “There’s a lot.. okay, more than a lot of reasons bustling around up there,” he says, pointing a slender finger to Jungkook’s head, “But you know why.” 

Jungkook’s eyes go wide and he freezes. He knows of skills that exist in the higher circles of Vera, but he hadn’t considered someone on this closer side of human would be a candidate. Framing his thoughts carefully, Jungkook sets his large eyes on Hoseok and thinks to himself ‘ you can read minds? ’

Hoseok laughs. 

“Can you?” 

Hoseok sobers across from him, then “Can I what?”

“What?”

Voices are heard a distance away outside, coming closer. Kitchen staff and attendants getting ready to start their day’s work. Jungkook looks in the direction of the door, even though he can’t see it around the bend of the room. 

Someone sighs deeply. 

“Namjoon-hyung is very good at his job, Jungkook-ah.” Hoseok is saying, standing as he gathers the remaining food, “He refuses to admit it exists but he’s got a brilliant mind outside his obligations to his role and you’d be wise to get to know that side, too.” he returns the uneaten food to the fridge, “That side would love your questions.”

Jungkook looks at him with nothing but doubt across his features and Hoseok looks ready to show mercy, but the door to the kitchen creeks open and voices carry as the staff presumedly hang their belongings and tie themselves into aprons. 

Their tones are unmistakably gossip-laden and suddenly Jungkook feels the prickling sensation of chill across his arms again. Within seconds comes the first utterance of ‘Master Min’s dark magic’, and Hoseok purposefully rounds the corner. 

Jungkook watches as Hoseok stares down a crew he can’t see, hears their soft little breathes and apologies. One of them is stammering something about the news and Hoseok’s brow flexes once and they quiet. 

“The only news I wanna hear is when Parliament,” he spits it out like a curse, “expunges Master Jeon’s record and allows him to come home.”

A murmured chorus of ‘yes, sir’ and ‘of course, sir’ quietly follow and Jungkook stands, ready to leave the uncomfortable atmosphere. He quickly follows Hoseok out the side door they’d used to enter, bowing his head without looking towards the workers. 

Jungkook has kept his television off in his room. Nothing the news showed would do him any good. The day he’d accompanied Namjoon he’d learned more about what news anchors had gotten wrong than he’d been shown what they’d gotten right. 

“I won’t say your brother is innocent in all this,” Hoseok says as they step back out into the sunlight, “But he sure as hell isn’t guilty of what he’s been accused of. They’re just too.. “ he says, waving lazily back towards the kitchen behind them. He doesn’t bother to finish his thought. He lifts his face and shakes his hair back from his eyes with a huff before setting off. 

They walk a few more steps in silence, Jungkook watching the tense set of Hoseok’s shoulders in front of him. 

The sunlight doesn’t permeate the cloth of Jungkook’s shirt the way it had earlier. 

“Did you talk to him before he left?” Jungkook can’t help but ask, following behind Hoseok and looking around, trying to decipher where they are headed once he realizes it’s not back towards his room. 

“No. Yoongi-hyung and I weren’t very close.” Hoseok says easily, like it’s common knowledge without pretense or baggage. State of fact. 

“Who was?”

“Jimin.” Another fact. 

They’re headed over white gravel pathways leading towards the East Garden pool Jungkook fell asleep beside earlier and when it comes back into view, Chang is there again with one addition. 

“Jin-hyung!” Hoseok calls out and two heads snap in their direction as he waves. Jungkook notes Chang take a step back. 

“What.” Jin asks when they’re close enough, but Hoseok doesn’t seem to notice the edge of his tone the way Jungkook had. Or doesn’t care, Jungkook realizes, as Hoseok purposefully jaunts up to his hyung. 

Jin doesn’t look like the other healers Jungkook has met. Young, for one. Decades younger than anyone who’d ever looked after Jungkook. And he’s objectionally perfect. Lovely full features, tall, composed and a voice that wraps around words like a melody. Full of jest yet demanding gravitas in the same breath as he laments being interrupted. 

“Oh, are we interrupting something?” Hoseok teases, wide-eyed and gesturing to Jungkook and himself. 

“No, you weren’t.” Chang deadpans, black eyes as sharp as ever and unamused. 

“Yah, you wound me, ‘Wei..”

Chang jabs his fist into Jin’s side and Hoseok snickers. 

“You.. wound.. Me…” Jin gasps out, crumpled in half and holding his side. 

“Chang’s an honest man, Jin-hyung, you literally asked for that wound.” Hoseok supplies and Jin winces through a slight nod, slowly straightening up. 

“What do you want?” Jin whines and Jungkook has to reevaluate his initial impression. If anything, Chang is the picture of perfection standing next to Jin, hair tightly pulled back and gold-trimmed black fabric immaculately draped from his small, solid frame. 

Jungkook stands off to the side and watches, nods at an unrumpled Chang and waits while Jin and Hoseok gripe about the loud-mouthed kitchen staff. Jin promises to begrate them appropriately and, satisfied, Hoseok seems to finally let the tension go. 

“Fine, go back to your failed flirtation attempts.” he dismisses and Jin sputters. Chang’s mouth twitches into a semblance of a smirk, which seems to amuse Hoseok to no end. 

Hoseok claps Jungkook on the shoulder and leads him away, finally heading back towards the main house. Their feet crunch gravel that is too expensive to kick up dust and Jungkook thinks maybe that’s the most ridiculous show of money he’s seen so far. 

“I can’t really read minds.” Hoseok admits after a few minutes, “Not really.”

“But you have some magic skills.” Jungkook leaves out the ‘lesser’ that’s always attached to his own abilities, fairly certain Hoseok is in another league. He can feel it. 

“Yeah. Quite a few. A lot of them overlap, bolster each other.. Makes it easy to make very accurate deductions.”

“How accurate?”

“Accurate enough that people think I read minds.” he smiles and Jungkook does too, just smaller. Lesser. 

They reach the winding outer staircase of Jungkook’s wing but don’t ascend. Hoseok steps off to the side and lowers himself against the beige brick of the house, settling on dark grass. 

“I meant it when I said we had business to discuss.” He says with a bit of apology in his voice, patting the grass beside him until Jungkook drops down as well. 

“What do I need to do?”

“Nothing you don’t want to.”

Jungkook lets out a quick breath that would be a snort if he put anything behind it. 

“I’m serious. But you need to know more before you can decide what you want. And I think you’ll want what your brother wanted.”

“And what’s that?”

“Justice. Equality.” Hoseok offers, looking out over the grounds, and Jungkook admits those don’t sound bad. “And maybe a touch of Karma.”

That sounds like more than he’s responsible for. 

“What’s happening tomorrow?”

Hoseok grins and knocks his knee against Jungkook’s. “We’ve known each other less than an hour and you’ve already asked me more than you’ve even thought about asking your Vera.”

Jungkook pouts again, pulling up a few strands of grass and rolling them between his fingers. “He’s dealing with.. so much.”

“Mm.” Hoseok agrees, straightening his legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “Tomorrow you’ll both go to the citadel. You’ll be officially sworn-in to your Seat under the Jeon Group. And Namjoon-hyung will be recorded as your Vera.”

“That doesn’t sound … isn’t that already the case? I mean, to both?”

“No, not officially. Namjoon-hyung was always meant to be your Vera, but you were sent away before anything official was done about it. There’s also the matter of registering you as a royal magic user.”

It seems superfluous. Making a big deal out of labeling his lesser magic he doesn’t use. A royal name he doesn’t use. Jungkook has never felt any strength or purpose behind the name or the little tremors of ‘magic’ he’s told he possesses. It’s just an extension of his thoughts. A feeling that colors his impressions of the world around him. 

Still. Royal families have done terrible things with magic in the past. He understands the safeguards for what they are. But understanding doesn’t lift the feeling of restriction. 

“So what business do we have to discuss?”

“The business of you understanding what this means for Joonie-hyung.”

Jungkook looks up at that, to Hoseok, and bites his lip at the hard cold front that blows over his mind. It takes an effort not to rub at the imagined chill over his arms, even knowing the sensation is strictly instinctual. 

It doesn’t last. Like a gust from the north, the chill subsides and Hoseok blinks at him. 

“...Damn, you’re good..”

“I.. didn’t ..” 

“Do anything?” Hoseok laughs darkly. “Oh yes, you did. But not on purpose.” he adds with a raised hand when Jungkook looks ready to apologize. 

“I don’t know what’s happening.” Jungkook states, his face pleading Hoseok to understand the all-encompassing breadth of that statement. 

Maybe he does. Maybe he gets it. Because Hoseok sighs and pats Jungkook on the thigh again. “It’ll get easier. You should spend more time with Taehyungie. He could help you the most, I think.. But later.” Hoseok instructs, expertly focussing back to the matter at hand. 

“You’re going to need to focus now more than ever. For you and for Joon-hyung. You do have magic abilities, Jungkookie, you do.. You need to respect that. You need to be responsible.”

Jungkook’s always been good at listening. He hears it all. The kind advice and the warning. The protective earnestness of optimism..

“You.. think I could harm Namjoon-ssi.” 

It’s ludicrous. Namjoon is powerful. More powerful than anything Jungkook’s ever heard of and certainly more than he’s witnessed first hand. He felt it in his bones, the levity of Namjoon’s presence when he’d channeled his god. He could have leveled their entire civilization had he just said the words. 

Hoseok sighs again. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes. 

It’s actually a beautiful day. The warmest days behind them, teasing winds of fall slithering through the tips of manicured evergreens. Jungkook wonders how long until they’ll get snow. 

“I think..” Hoseok starts, opening his eyes to the space above them, his eyes moving like he can see the currents of air, “I think you rely on your magic more than you know. You’ve had to. But I want you to rely on your Vera, instead. At least for now.”

Jungkook listens. He really does. 

“I’ll try.”

“Good boy.” 

Somehow that doesn’t sound condescending, coming from Hoseok, and Jungkook smiles softly. “Where is he?”

“Joonie-hyung?”

“Mm.” a deeper smile. 

“Working, I’m sure. Probably the State Room Library. He likes taking calls surrounded by books. Did you know he can read a book by touching it? Like not even because he’s Vera.. he could do that before.”

Jungkook sits taller at that, “You knew him before?”

“Well, he told me he could do that since he was a child..”

“Huh.” Jungkook feels a strange tug in his chest, seesawing uneasily, an envious pride. “That’s .. really amazing.”

“Mm. That he is.” Hoseok chuckles lightly, small dimples pricking into his cheeks, “Still reads them like a normal person, though, because he’s a romantic idiot who believes-” he holds up a hand like he’s showing an invisible banner in front of them, ‘they deserve more’.” 

When Jungkook comes out from behind the palms of hands several minutes later Hoseok looks a bit less smug and Jungkook can almost pretend he didn’t let out a pathetic endeared noise right in front of him. Outloud. Full stop. 

Jin is walking across the lawn towards them. He’s in his formal hanbok, he’s alone and he doesn’t look happy. 

“Answer your phone, you harpy..” 

Hoseok gets to his feet and pulls his phone from his pocket, scrolling for several strokes before he frowns, “If I didn’t answer the first time why…”

“Because you didn’t answer the next 15, either!” Jin calls out, his voice high and startling Jungkook to his feet, as well. 

“Jungkookie and I were having a meeting.”

“A picnic.”

“Do you see any food?”

“Obviously, you ate it.”

“Jin-hyung. What do you want?” Hoseok complains, still scrolling his phone. “These messages make zero sense.”

“They make perfect sense, you’re needed in the Councilroom now , appreciate my genius already.” He’s grabbing hold of Hoseok’s sleeve and tugging him towards the front of the building. 

“You..” Hoseok looks over his messages again with a more discerning eye, then “Aish! We said no puns in emergencies!”

“I have no idea what’s going on.” Jungkook laments out loud, though no one hears. 

“C’mon,” Jin is actually whining, “Chang told me to go ‘be useful’, do you believe?  So here I am- we don’t have enough time to prep Jungkook before he goes to plead before parliament.”

“Wait, what?” Jungkook’s eyes go wide and he finds his voice a bit more, “What did he say?” He looks between them both, panicked and gripping the edge of his shirt. 

“Jungkook-ah..” Hoseok is looking back over his shoulder now, being led away, “Go find Taehyung, okay?”

“Um, okay..” He wants to ask where. He wants to ask why. But they’re gone and Jungkook is left swinging in the new autumn breeze. 

-----

“We can wait.. It doesn’t have to be now.” Yoongi feels the words fall from his mouth, imagines them settling into the small trench he’s etched into the dirt with a stick. The seat of his pants has seeped the cold of the ground into his bones and he shivers once, willing himself warmer. 

When he can put it off no longer, he lets his eyes look up and meet Jimin’s disapproving face. 

His Vera is lightly settled across from him, mirroring his recline against yet another damp treetrunk. 

“Joon-ah is there.. And all the others. We can try tomorrow after we’ve rested.”

The pale glow around Jimin’s translucent shoulders lifts in a silent sigh, his voice lost to another realm entirely, but the earnest fondness in his eyes translates enough. 

Yoongi goes back to stabbing the dirt and pouts harder. 

He’s bathed in a growing illumination, feeling his nerves come alive as Jimin edges closer and tucks closely beside him, almost touching hands to shoulders in a side hug, but never close enough. 

A tight grip wrenches through Yoongi’s chest and he sighs audibly, knowing its a mistake when he looks towards that face tipped against his shoulder. It’s an illusion, a farce, but even Jimin’s lips slide in a wayward pout as if smooshed up against Yoongi’s arm. 

‘ I’m fine .’ those lips mouth silently. 

“I’m not.”

A gentle smile. Yoongi’s eyes catch on the charming crook of Jimin’s front teeth. ‘ You’ll be fine .’

Jimin goes to move closer, a habit, to press those lips to Yoongi’s cheek but he leans away, “Don’t.”

Another silent sigh, and Yoongi sees Jimin’s breath exhale like a frost, but he obeys and slides away again. 

“A few more hours. We’ll try then.” Yoongi tosses the stick over his shoulder and hunkers down onto his side, sliding his palms between his thighs while Jimin rolls his eyes to the canopy above. 

Chapter Text

Sometime between running his fingernail along the iron railing of the exterior stairs and his hesitant knock on an unfamiliar door, Jungkook recovered the errant thought that he needed a shower. 

The thought had been there when his brain kicked back on after being left standing on the grass. A slight shift of air reminded him of the sweat that had dried after his run, even while the sun rose and rewarmed his skin. 

But with the stress felt in Jin’s request still permeating his own anxious heart, Jungkook had suddenly thought of his Vera Namjoon, wondering if he was in the library as Hoseok had suggested or if he’d also been called to some emergency. Something, Jungkook is sure, he cannot help with in the slightest. 

‘Find Taehyung.’ Hoseok had said. 

Right. Shower, change, find Taehyung.. 

Jungkook spirals up the external stairs and makes it inside, down the thick carpeted hall and his thoughts turn to his Vera again, brows pulled down tight and worrisome. There’s an unrelenting urge to seek him out, nestled deep behind his thoughts as both a driving value to base his actions around and an end goal. To enter any room Namjoon is in and present himself in some useful way. 

But then Jungkook is pulled from his thoughts and blinking up owlishly at Taehyung, knuckles still raised at the door he’d apparently knocked on. 

Sleep-ruffled and groggy, Taehyung bores his half-lidded eyes into Jungkook and manages to scramble Jungkook’s thoughts farther. 

Somewhere deep and dark and quiet, Jungkook internally begrudges Taehyung the sleep he must have been having. That he’s now interrupted. 

“Do you need something?” Taehyung asks after a moment, softly so as not to crack his voice as he leans heavily against his doorframe. 

Jungkook searches his mind for anything useful but the unease of having woken a new acquaintance. One, which he remembers in this moment doesn’t care for him at all, renders Jungkook’s thoughts useless with embarrassment and a touch of shame. 

He can’t even recall knowing where Taehyung’s room was, let alone walking here, just blips of hallways and turns clouded like someone else’s memories and never his own. 

“..Jungkook-ah..?”

“..A shower.”

Taehyung is stone silent and motionless aside from one dark brow slowly piquing in a rather discerning manner.

“No, I mean yes, I do, but that’s not.. Hoseok-ssi sent me. Here. To you.” Jungkook’s jaw won’t move properly and he feels like his words are rolling around before slipping through his mouth, stubbornly sulking through it all. 

“You were with Hobi-hyung?” Taehyung perks up minutely. He even opens the door a bit further in his interest and Jungkook’s eyes fall down his oversized sleep gown pooling around his bare feet. 

“Yeah-” he answers, jerking his eyes down the unfamiliar hall instead, “..we were together, but Seokjin-ssi came and they had to go and..” Jungkook continues glancing around as he explains, feeling more unhinged the longer he speaks, standing out here in the hallway like some creeping person. 

Jungkook takes a steadying breath and forcefully puts words together, “There is some sort of… emergency? But I don’t know what it is, I mean why would I, I don’t need to, but um..”  Jungkook’s hand runs roughly back through his hair and he lets out two strangled breaths of a giggle, “I mean, Chang would be here if it were bad, right?”

It sounds more like a rhetorical question, Jungkook’s attention shifting away from Taehyung for several beats while he thinks, his expression frozen in a semblance of jest towards his own remark. 

“Oh, no doubt. He’d be glued to your side.” Taehyung gently confirms. 

When he looks back up at Taehyung, the curve of Jungkook’s forced grin slips at the kindness he sees there. And that, more than anything, hits Jungkook in the gut with enough effervescent force to make his eyes well up. 

As quickly, the kindness in those warm brown eyes shifts to deliberating and Taehyung sighs, stepping into some slides before swinging his door wide. He steps out into the hall with Jungkook, shouldering him aside as he pushes long arms through a billowing robe. “C’mon, back to your room.”

Jungkook catches up a couple steps later, side-eyeing Taehyung as he strides through the halls in his flowing robes. He notes the handful of turns they make, attempting to commit them to memory and increasingly uneasy regarding his lapse in memory. He finally recognizes his own hall and feels a touch more coherent. Present in his own bones. 

Taehyung lets himself into Jungkook’s room and unceremoniously dumps himself onto the floral upholstered loveseat in the center of the room. Jungkook takes the matching armchair a moment later. 

“What were you and Hobi-hyung doing this early?” Taehyung asks through a yawn, and afterward he’s wearing that face again. The one that says he won’t like the answer regardless of what it is. 

“Having breakfast. He met me with Chang and-”

“Chang? What were you doing with him?”

“Running? Well, I was running, he was doing.. Something else, I’m not sure, martial arts of some kind but-”

“Taolu.”

“What?”

“Taolu. He does exercises every morning called Taolu.” Taehyung mentions, his hand motioning off to the side and catching Jungkook’s eye, “I don’t know, something about martial forms without exposing martial moves? I wasn’t listening. Anyway, continue.”

Jungkook nods, remembering the fluid moves Chang had worked through beside the water. He makes a mental list to ask Chang about it later, if he gets the chance. 

“Right, well, he was doing that and I ran a bit.. Y’know, to get rid of some energy, I guess.”

“Mm. Can’t sleep?”

Jungkook pauses at that, looking at Taehyung who explains, “You look like literal shit.”

Jungkook groans, leaning his head back against the chair. “It’s been... days.”

“Why don’t you ask Joonie-hyung?”

Big doe eyes blink again. 

“Y’know, to put you to sleep. Not like an animal but y’know,” Taehyung does some mystical looking wiggle of his fingers, “Poof, you’re asleep.”

“....huh.” Jungkook stares off into space, having honestly not thought of that as an option, but he rejects it just as quickly, “Isn’t that like.. An abuse of power? He’s too busy, this isn't a big deal, I just have to get it out of my system.”

Taehyung hums an acknowledgement but he doesn’t look convinced, pulling his legs up underneath of him and tucking the fabric of his sleep robe underneath. “Get what out of your system? Life?”

He grins at Jungkook’s sullen pout. “Fine, don’t sleep. I don’t care.” Taehyung adds, long fingers running along the seams of the couch cushion. “Wanna play a game?”

“Sure.” Jungkook answers immediately, his face still tilted in confusion at the turn of topic. Taehyung’s frequent redirects seem to be a common occurrence and Jungkook hopes he’ll get used to them soon. Possibly after he’s had a good rest. 

Taehyung pulls his phone from a deep pocket, “What’s your Camp ID?”

They exchange game codes, Jungkook having to reinstall and login for the first time in nearly six months. His notifications are overflowing but at the top is a new teammate request and he accepts ‘WinterBear’. 

It’s oddly calming. Familiar tones chime from his app and his fingers know the controls blindly. He glances across the coffee table at his guest and the room warms a couple degrees, both in temperature and hue. 

He is grateful for both. It’s a few degrees closer to normal, farther from alien and unrecognizable. Another pulse added to the atmosphere of the space, and a strong one at that. Taehyung feels alive and present. Not as commanding as Namjoon sitting across from him, but the same charged life ebbs around him. 

A game request pings and Jungkook accepts automatically, smiling at the strawberry farming mini-game Taehyung has selected for them. 

They take a few turns each, settling farther into their seats as gamers do. Jungkook’s bottom lip finds itself pulled behind his teeth just before he speaks, “Thank you.”

“Mmm.” 

A few more turns. Taehyung wins and Jungkook hits him back with a co-op zombie first shooter. Taehyung makes a face but accepts. The sounds of chainsaws and machine guns start immediately, punctured with the swoosh of swinging machetes. 

“You’re pretty good for a game you don’t like.” Jungkook smiles, eyes on his screen. 

Zombies continue to fall around them. Jungkook takes point mowing them down with Taehyung’s avatar following behind as they sweep the first level. 

“Jimin liked this one.”

Jungkook is back to biting his lip, remembering a different Taehyung in his room late last night, seeking out Namjoon. 

Zombies continue to moan and die. Blood splatters gratuitously and Taehyung takes second place. Jungkook wastes no time pinging over another Strawberry Farms request. 

“I’d.. I’d like to hear about him?” Jungkook tries, glancing quickly at Taehyung’s somber expression fixed firmly on the screen inches from his nose. 

“Like what?” he sounds defensive already, poorly disguising it as boredom. 

Jungkook lays a row of seeds and begins fertilizing. “I d’know, it sounds like you were very close, I just thought.. I’d like to hear about the Vera my brother is with.”

Taehyung frowns, “He’s my soulmate.”

He says it with such conviction and finality that Jungkook lowers his phone and gives Taehyung his full attention, “I didn’t realize those were real, I mean.. I thought.. Hoseok-ssi gave me the impression he and my brother were-”

“They are. That’s different. Jimin is my soulmate , though. Doesn’t matter who we love.”

“Oh.” Jungkook manages, slowly picking his phone back up and thinking maybe he gets it. 

He really doesn’t want to overstep right now, but he cannot help the impulse to ask what’s weighing so heavily on his mind right now, “So what they say about him being… that my brother used dark magic to.. “

Taehyung huffs indignantly, finally glaring at Jungkook for a moment before looking back to his phone. “I don’t know what happened. But no, Yoongi-hyung wouldn’t have enslaved him. He wouldn’t have had to. Jimin would have done anything for him. And I think that’s what happened.”

“Okay.” Jungkook responds quietly, nodding a bit for good measure. He can understand a bit more now, feels the turmoil churning in Taeuhyung’s mire of thoughts. 

They start a new game, this one a pet-walking simulation and Jungkook is startled at the small army of Pomeranians Taehyung’s avatar manages to parade around town. His own pets jumble in piles around his own avatar, scuffling and tying themselves up. 

“Hobi-hyung says it’s selfish of me, but I don’t care.. They should have been able to come home now. Not you.” 

Jungkook grimaces, trying not to take that to heart as he virtually breaks up his Avatar’s 3rd dog fight and sets him to attend a 5 minute training seminar. He tosses his phone aside, instead grabbing two room temperature water bottles and offering Taehyung one before taking his seat back. “I don’t know exactly what happened. I tried to watch the news from home, but it’s.. You never know what to listen to or believe, you know?”

Taehyung sets his own phone aside as well, leveling Jungkook with his eyes while he sips his water. “So Hobi-hyung wants me to tell you, is that why he told you to come get me?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, chuckling darkly. “Damn harpy..”

“Is he really?”

“Really what?”

“A harpy.. Seokjin-ssi called him that, too..”

Taehyung actually laughs at this, his white teeth framed wide and Jungkook is surprised how much younger he looks like this. “Not really, no.. there’s no such thing as harpies in this world, I don’t think? He’s just… a meddlesome know-it-all. Swooping in and cawing a lot, causing havoc, y’know?”

“I guess.” Jungkook agrees with a small grin. Hoseok had been nothing but kind but he’d only met him this morning. 

“I don’t know if it helps, but I’ll tell you what I know.” Taehyung offers, watching Jungkook nod his head so he sits his water bottle aside. 

“You know about Yoongi-hyung’s mother, right? Min Euna? About how she made a scene with the head of the Bak Group?”

“Bak Jaehwa.”

“Mm. They’d been arguing over the same issues for years. You know? It’s still a volatile time for the Groups until it’s decided. Parliament is having a hell of a time keeping everyone from killing each other.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow, remembering articles, headlines, the chatter around him at the summit he attended with Namjoon and Chang. “Over the royal hierarchies and marriage laws.” Jungkook’s expression falls a few degrees, remembering, “Yoongi-hyung’s mother was completely against the marriage of same sex partners. And different races.”

“Among other things, but yeah, those are the big two. Jeon Group stands to gain a lot from remaining solitary in their holdings, and the Bak Group have been pushing hard for a merger ever since Jimin was elected hyung’s Vera.”

“I don’t understand..” Jungkook finally cuts in, sitting forward in his seat. For a few years he’d tried to follow the political stories coming from the Jeon Group, but he honestly felt so detached from the world that it had hardly seemed his business. “What does Jimin-ssi have to do with the Bak Group?”

Taehyung looks momentarily baffled by Jungkook’s confusion but recovers quickly, in an attempt to save him from feeling inadequate about not knowing. “Well, because of lineage.” 

Jungkook frowns, stops himself from nodding as an automated reaction when he really doesn’t understand. 

Because,” Taehyung continues, Once upon a time ‘Park Jimin’ was ‘Bak Chimin’.” His voice leads carefully, brows raising and Jungkook’s eyes go wide when he gets it. 

“So the Bak Group thinks with Jimin-ssi tied to Yoongi-hyung they have a right to merge holdings with the Jeon Group?”

“Not just that.” Taehyung says, but he’s nodding at Jungkook’s grasp of the issue. “Unlike you who was always a Jeon since your mother wasn’t royalty, Yoongi-hyung wasn’t a Jeon until your father died and made it the higher ranking of his names. But being Vera trumps any royal bloodline. Were they to officially join in marriage, Jimin would be the benefactor of all future dealings. He’d have essentially replaced your father, had he lived.” 

Jungkook shakes his head twice, trying to physically encourage all the pieces to fall into place, but he doesn’t have them all. “But then why..”

“Why did the Bak’s presumably arrange for the assasination of your father?”

Jungkook frowns deeply, “They could have let things play out. I mean from what you said it sounds like Jimin and Yoongi-hyung would have ended up together, regardless.. And then the Northern Kim Group massacre.. everyone think Yoongi-hyung’s responsible. Why?” 

Taehyung nods, “You’ve been absent through a lot. The NKG massacre was the tipping point and the reason they left. We don’t know why Jimin couldn’t help expunge him, but the fact is Yoongi-hyung swore to kill the entire Northern Kim family in front of high ranking Group officials.. You could argue that he didn’t mean it literally, but then they all were killed.”

Jungkook takes a breath and sits back, letting it all sink in. “Why was he so upset? On TV, he was always so put together.. Everyone always said so. He was raised to represent his family well. Why did he say that?” 

Taehung shrugs and picks his phone back up, “Because contrary to what he’d like everyone to believe, he’s human.”

Jungkook’s phone chimes a moment later and he sees his dog-walking avatar is done his training seminar. He idly starts another ten minute session and leaves it on the couch cushion beside him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Taehyung talks haltingly, calmly, while he tilts his phone this way and that, apparently riding some carnival train, “It means.. That if you attempt to force someone.. Into a marriage they don’t want.. Even the most boring man on earth.. can snap.”

“Doen’t want? Who?..” Jungkook starts, this information completely new to him. The tabloids hadn’t even hinted at it. Jimin had always been the one photographed with him. 

“Kim Soo-Min. Premiere ranked daughter of the head NKG family.”

A flare of anger surges up around Jungkook’s worried eyes, “So everyone just assumes he went ballistic and what, started throwing dark magic around? Killing people?”

“Massacring, yes.” Taehyung says matter-of-factly. “As you said yourself, he was very out-of-character when he mouthed off the way he did.. “ Taehyung chuckles for a moment, “Though I sort of get why.. The girl had been awful to Jimin that day..  I’d actually never heard Hyung raise his voice before, but I’m surprised he didn't say more than he did.”

“Awful to him, how?” Jungkook asks. 

Taehyung makes a distasteful face, “The only way those political asshats can be, underhanded and backhanded and.. Just many-handedness. It’s annoying.” he laments, seems to take a breath and continues with a wave of his long hand. 

“Anyway.. Jimin was called to the citadel the day before the massacre happened. Some special request from the Min Group to verify a small claim. The next day when Yoongi-hyung was accused of the night’s crime Jimin was called to vouch for him but when asked, couldn’t say he didn’t do it. Even with his mantle.”

“You mean like when Namjoon-hyung channels his god..”

“Yeah.” Taehyung agrees with another light shrug. “Jimin was fully in his duties and couldn’t speak the words. He couldn’t say Yoongi-hyung was innocent. I was there, the room went to chaos. Even Yoongi-hyung looked surprised.” 

“Why couldn’t he say it? You don’t think he did it, right? Where was Namjoon-hyung?” Jungkook can hear his voice getting an edge to it and sips at his water to calm down. He hadn’t expected things to be this.. He hadn’t expected this. 

“I don’t know what happened to Jimin.. Maybe it was poor timing? Maybe his mantle was lost when his god closed their eyes in that moment? I’m not sure. Mine faded over several days in stages.”

Jungkook senses the shift in Taehyung’s energy then, when it gently sways from protective to defensive, a note of longing and something missed blurring the line between them. 

“Namjoon-hyung showed up and told them to ask Jimin again, in his presence. I couldn’t hear everything but they all started arguing.. Only this time Jimin and Yoongi-hyung started shouting at each other and finally Jimin was asked again by the council member. And something happened that felt.. It felt dark.”

“Dark? Like.. dark magic, dark?” 

“Maybe. I’ve never witnessed it. And I haven’t had my mantle to ask. It was definitely a form of persuasive magic. Just.. impure? It didn’t feel like the Jeon Groups typical flair.” 

“Okay, so maybe some dark magic was done.. What happened?”

Taehyung leans back and searches the ceiling, “Jimin.. He had this look on his face. I swear, he was glowing already, he said ‘Jeon Yoongi is innocent’, and then Jimin ..” Taehyung frowns, stubbornly setting his chin. 

“He faded.” Jungkook finishes. He can piece together most of what happened after that. Yoongi had been escorted home and put under watch while authorities readied a holding facility to await trial. 

And then footage had been released of Jungkook’s half-brother fleeing over several days, a forlorn specter of a Vera ghosting behind him. He’d never seen it confirmed, but Jungkook suspected several men lost their lives in the pursuit. The helicopter footage of some of the pursuit altercations had been more than explicit. 

Taehyung nods and picks up his phone once again, turning the volume off before resuming his game. The cheery dings and chimes had no place in this room at the moment, and Jungkook sets his own to sleep. The silence stretches for several moments, Jungkook acknowledging that their conversation had run its course down that particular path. 

Throwing both his legs over the armrest, Jungkook sets his head against the other and folds his arms over his chest, eyes on the paneled ceiling. His entire body feels numb and now his mind, as well. 

The late morning sun is starting to rise towards noon and all Jungkook can feel is a dreadful pull to sleep just outside his reach. 

Perhaps this information overload will be enough to shut his brain off completely. 

With some annoyance and a bit more desperation, Jungkook realizes there’s still holes in the telling. Still pieces hovering out in the ether waiting to be dropped on his head. 

“Why do you blame me for them not coming home?” he asks aloud. Waits a moment before blinking over towards Taehyung who’s meeting him with a practiced blank expression. 

“Do you know why you were sent away?” Taehyung counters, raising a brow. And the contention is back. The tone deep in Taehyung’s words feels accusatory. “I mean really know why?”

It causes Jungkook pause and he looks back to the ceiling, considering. Did he really know? Or had he always made assumptions and skirted around the somber advice given by his Nan to ‘forget that pompous fairy world’.

“No.” he admits in a breath, surprised at the weight of shame that presses down on his throat. Like he’d turned his back on his family by never asking. Like a coward. Like a child not wanting to know exactly why they didn’t measure up. 

“It’s because your father tried to learn from his mistakes and make better decisions.” Taehyung says somberly, sitting forward with earnest conviction, “Jungkook-ah, it’s because your father saw his first son struggle early in this life, and worried what it would do for his second. The gentler of the two.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.” Jungkook scoffs quietly. Sullen. 

“Mm. Maybe not to you.” Taehyung retorts, sitting back again and crossing a leg over the other, an arm along the back of the couch. Somehow looking regal and commanding in his gown and robes, the wide bow of his lip pursed slightly in assessment. “But your grandmother understood, didn’t she?”

“She has nothing to do with this.” Jungkook argues, voice light with confusion, “She’s been away from all this for ages..”

Taehyung smiles, but there is little humor in it. “She has everything to do with this. She’s the one who asked to take you away, pleaded to take you away. She saw Hyung being manipulated since he was a child and told her son to relinquish you to a better life.”

The soft sound of fabric swishes gently as Taehyung stands, huffing out an agitated breath. “Because the moment Jimin hinted the truth of ending up as Hyung’s future husband, calls started pouring in about little royal girls with big families wanting to meet little Jeon Jungkook.” 

Of course Jungkook knew nothing of this. He was six years old. Nobody would explain that the adults were outraged men of different races would be joining in marriage that would seemingly oust all other royal families from top holding positions. It just wasn’t done. 

Royal families were planned and royal children raised around marriages between the Hierarchical Groups and this marriage was never in anyone’s plan. 

In history there must be a first time for everything, and young Vera Park Jimin had been the messenger of evolution. It had set forth a series of years filled with countless squabbles between the large families and even more underhanded political tactics to force hands where they were deemed ‘appropriate’ under the guise of separating power for equality. 

Had he stayed, Jungkook would have been raised as heir to the Jeon Group under the assumption of taking a bride and continuing as a cog of the Royal hierarchical system. And Yoongi would have been denounced his royal title, the marriage between mortals and the race of Vera forbidden. 

The notion stirs Jungkook’s stomach and he lets out a long breath, sitting on the edge of his seat and dropping his head down into his hands, fingers raking through his hair a few times before just holding tight. 

“That’s messed up.” he murmurs to the carpet down between his feet. 

“Yeah.” 

Jungkook hears Taehyung slowly pace around the couch and finally raises his head, seeing the Vera casually assessing the walls and decor of the room. “I don’t blame you for anything.” he offers after a few more steps and Jungkook sits up, feeling exhausted with the day already. 

“Why not? It sounds like a lot could have been prevented had I stayed..  and done just what was expected of me. Maybe they couldn’t have been married, but they would have been together. I could have married.” 

“You could have.” Taehyung hums, stepping up to a painting and leaning in close to read the artist’s signature. “But seeing you over the last day, I dunno, I suspect we’d have run into the same problem as Hyung down the road, don’t you?”

Jungkook takes a moment to process the insinuation and feels his face warm, accompanied by a memory of a kind smile with dimples gently emerging behind his thoughts. 

“M.. Maybe.” 

Taehyung huffs a little laugh. “Don’t take what I say so literally, Jungkook-ah. I’m not in service. And I miss my friend. I don’t mind that you’re here when he isn’t.”

Jungkook nods, not trusting his voice at the moment and attempts to will his heart calmer. He idly taps at his phone and rakes through his hair again, attempting to catalog this interaction. Were they successful? Did this count as resolution? 

He’s reminded once again of the differences between people and that, as a functioning adult, he should be able to get along with all sorts. Remember that even Vera can say things they later try to take back. 

Words are so powerful. 

“You really do look like shit, are you sure you don’t want me to call Namjoon hyung?”

Jungkook laughs once, “No, no, leave him alone.”

Taehyung shrugs and ties his robe, pocketing his phone, “You said you needed a shower, you could always relieve some stress in there.. Usually works for me.” 

Jungkook’s eyes go a little wider and Taehyung laughs again, walking by and ruffling Jungkook’s mess of hair, “Just remember, Namjoon-hyung will probably know if you think about him so try to keep it anonymous, hm?”

“Oh my god, get out !” Jungkook squawks standing and pushing Taehyung with both hands towards the door. 

“That was friendly advice, Jungkook-ah, we’re friends now, alright?” He’s laughing still, stepping out into the hall with a final shove. 

Jungkook sighs and tries to stop smiling, “Sure. Yeah, we are.” he manages, and breaks into a smile again when he sees Taehyung’s turn brighter. 

---------------

Jungkook takes Taehyung’s advice with a grain of salt. 

Finally ducking under the warm spray of the shower, he splays his palms on the warming tile in front of him and allows himself a moment to relax. Closes his eyes, breathes and does a mental exercise cataloging his physical body under the water encasing him. 

It’s something he’s done as far back as he can recall, having read about the benefits of self awareness and grounding your thoughts. 

Slowly, starting from the soles of his feet he consciously takes note of the water against him, pearling against his ankles and running rivulets down his calves. Wider tracks cascading over thighs and clear sheets of it enveloping his back, encasing his stomach and rushing over his chest. 

The mist of it against his shoulders fogging against his neck and weighing through his hair. He reaches and turns the water hotter, feeling it seep down to his scalp, rim his dark lashes and drop from his parted lips. 

Minutes pass and he stands in the deluge, imagining his weary thoughts following the path of water down his skin, pooling from his pores and being washed away. 

It helps. Minutely, like a gradual evaporation his mind clears and it’s easier to breath. He can almost see the cerulean pulse of his thoughts getting calmer, lighter but weighing his limbs with the built up weariness of his world. 

A sauna surrounding him closer, he lifts his face from the spray and sucks in the slightly cooler air above, feeling his lungs expand. His hands smooth back his hair and he sighs deeply, blinking open his eyes and circling his hands over wet skin. 

Jungkook’s flushed red from the heat and still he cranks it hotter, feeling his body react with a shuddering surge melting him from inside his chest straight down to his groin and he breathes out, blinking his eyes back to reality.

He quickly reaches and fumbles the knobs back to a normal tepid temperature, a slight chill running up his spine from the drastic change after such a gradual buildup. 

No, Sir, not today. 

Jungkook frowns and purposefully reaches for the closest bottle, dutifully washing his hair and rinsing in record time. 

By the time he’s dried too harshly with a towel and pulled himself into another set of joggers and wide t-shirt, he’s sure he’s negated all the good that mental exercise did him. He stalks idly around his room, frowning as he rubs a towel over his hair before settling it around his neck. 

His hands hold either end, pulling down across his shoulders while he lets out an annoyed groan, his eyes tipping over to the blip of a blue light from his phone. 

He frowns harder, stepping heavily over and swiping the new notification. 

From Taehyung-ssi: How was your shower ;)))))

Jungkook lets out a quiet little growl, but cuts it short before looking wide-eyed towards his door. 

The gentle knock comes a moment later and Jungkook’s heart pulses a few extra times as it eases open and Namjoon steps carefully inside. He’s in his softer form today, unremarkable white clothing of unremarkable distinction looking absolutely remarkable. 

Jungkook swallows, trying to decide if he’s going to evaporate from his nerves going electric or simply give in to the relief he feels flood through him. 

“Everything alright?” Namjoon says, closing the door behind him and raising a brow in genuine concern. “Tae said you might need me..”

Jungkook takes in a deep breath and holds it, still holding the towel around his neck and not sure how he’s going to answer until he’s pushing the words out, “Yeah, I might..”

Words are so powerful. 

Chapter Text

“Do you feel the same as before?” Taehyung asks, voice low and heavy with the drowsiness of an afternoon nap. Lying on his back, his ember eyes squint at the clear sky, his body nestled gently in the thick carpet of lawn. Closing his eyes again he lets his head fall to one side, feeling the strength of the sun beating upon him through the autumn air while half his face cools against the green. 

“Before when?” Comes the even deeper reply. Hoseok lies the mirror image above Taehyung, their hair melding together with only several blades of grass between them. His arms are splayed in an impressive wingspan to either side, palms up and seemingly absorbing every ray cast upon them, faint freckles delicately appearing across the bridge of his nose as if powered by his solar absorption. 

Taehyung peers at several blades of grass, going near cross-eyed as he settles on a tiny insect clinging to the shade of the underside of one. “Since that day with Jimin. I haven’t felt the same.”

Hoseok breathes deeply, gently humming his contemplation low in his chest. “Nothing is right with this.” he says, trusting Taehyung understands he’s referring to the state of the world as well as their friend’s circumstance. “But that’s not what you mean.”

Taehyung’s forehead furrows at his own lack of words, feeling a familiar weight immobilizing his tongue. But it has nothing to do with his past service to the gods and everything to do with his own vulnerabilities. Hoseok understands. 

“I don’t have a soulmate.” Hoseok reminds him, his eyes still closed and arms spread wide. 

“I know.” Taehyung answers, then props up on one elbow, looking down on his friend’s inverted face. “But do you feel the same? Here.” he emphasizes, patting his hand and settling it on Hoseok’s sun-warmed chest. 

Hoseok does open his eyes then, the deep dark brown of them reflecting the sunlight like whips of flames and he frowns. “No.”

Taehyung’s expression falls deeper and he shifts, rolling over Hoseok’s arm to lay parallel to it and resting his head back over Hoseok’s ribs. His bare feet, shoes kicked off ages ago, slide along the cool grass and he sighs. 

“Hobi-hyung.”

“Mm.”

“I miss Jimin.”

Hoseok’s arm finally lifts, hinging back at the elbow to land his long fingers in Taehyung’s wavy hair. 

He leans into the touch, letting his eyes slip shut again as Hoseok strokes his hair. They bathe in the sun for moments more, feeling the shift of seasons cooling their backs and warming their faces. 

It’s a comfortable juxtaposition. A familiar melding of things, mirrored in their surroundings as well as their friendships. The Jeon Group elevated their ancestral hanok homes with marble and beige bricks in an evolutionary move to preserve the family’s heritage while embracing the longevity and opulence of the present. 

Perhaps peculiar upon first impressions. Hoseok remembers the exact moment he came around the last bend and saw the grounds for the first time. Beautiful traditional roofs held up with curved wooden rafters and towering impossibly over the carefully selected evergreens having matured to their stunted heights below the surrounding treelines. 

Looking through the trees he saw the lower levels, seemingly mismatched and current but equally impressive. It was only entering the homestead that he understood the delicate hand it had taken to weave the two together. Traditional fabrics and textiles adorning beautiful works of masonry in ways that welcomed innovation while respecting their history. 

Hoseok liked to think of the others and himself in this same light. Cut from different fabrics but carefully pieced together to work as a whole. Jin and Chang and Namjoon and Taehyung. They’d all come here as guests, but now belonged among the stone pillars and wooden rafters. 

It’s not something he’s seen anywhere else, and it’s one of the strongest reasons Hoseok’s found to stay. 

He breathes deep, relishes the warmth of rays on his cheeks and twirls a wave of Taehyung’s hair into a curl, grinning when he hears the content noise that follows. 

“Jungkook likes Namjoon, I think.” Taehyung murmurs after a while, not like a blurted idea but something he’d been thinking about it for some time, “Do you think it’s okay? For Joonie-hyung.”

“Yes.” Hoseok answers immediately, his voice still low but steadfast and sure. “Joon needs some time, but it will be good for him. You know how he gets about his role. And right now he’s just worried he’s screwing up.”

“About Jungkook?” Taehyung asks, face contorting and mouth mucking the words in his confusion and he grunts. “I don’t understand how he can’t See him.”

Hoseok smiles, tugging Taehyung’s hair once before smoothing it through again. “He’s not worried about that so much as… well, he thinks Jungkook is afraid of him, for one.”

Taehyung grins, perhaps a bit smug, “Isn’t he, though? Boy never met one of us before and he’s like a deer in headlights everytime Joon-hyung steps foot near him.”

“Exactly.” Hoseok admonishes, “Joon’s not immune to it, y’know? Feeling held apart from everyone. I think he was looking forward to having his Charge and now..” he takes a deep breath, feeling Taehyung’s head lift against his side and he holds him closer on the exhale before resuming the pull of his fingers through his hair. “He’ll be fine, just like I said.. He needs time to realize what it is that’s holding them back.”

“Ninety five percent of it is Jungkook’s big stupid gushy heart-eyes, I guarantee it.”

Hoseok giggles lightly, “Tae-yah, being jealous isn’t cute. Namjoon will still be your friend. He’s not going to stop because of this.”

“Fine.” he concedes after a moment of sulking. 

“Tae-yah.” Hoseok calls, a smile in his voice. 

Taehyung turns on his side, crossing his arms and rolling his head heavily down from Hoseok’s ribs to his softer stomach. “What.”

“Thank you for helping Jungkook today.” 

Hoseok hears a deep sigh and smiles wider, closing his eyes once again and inviting the rays to warm his freckled skin. His slender fingers weave deep into Taehyung’s hair and remain there, enveloped in their soft waves. 

“You’re welcome.”

-----------------

Having Namjoon enter his room at noon feels completely different than it has the last few evenings they’d spent time together. After hearing the soft concern in Namjoon’s voice as he’d asked if everything was alright, Jungkook watches Namjoon take several steps towards him and is hit with a new wave of nervousness he hadn’t felt at their first encounter.

And not because of anything Taehyung had teased him about. 

This is a real anxiety, a visceral pit in his stomach born from knowing they are destined to be close. Realizing there is no worldly explanation for the way he’s drawn to him but accepting the inevitability that they are joined by some higher power. And there is nothing he can do about it but wonder how much of it is real. How much is him. 

Namjoon, his Vera, stands before him and Jungkook wonders how long he has before he loses himself to the role he’s to play. It’s frightening, but somehow different because thinking back on his first time entering this room, remembering the cold grip that had held his breath captive for hours, Jungkook thinks perhaps he is experiencing the full force of Namjoon’s presence without the blanketed fear that had smothered everything his first two days. 

At the time, his mind had been attempting to compartmentalize the threats. Leaving home. Surrounded by strangers. Losing his brother again. His father. The possibility he may be the next victim of assassination. 

But meeting a Vera for the first time, his Vera had been the most terrifying moment and Jungkook’s still not sure he understands the full breadth of their partnership. He’s not afraid of Namjoon anymore, not really. But he feels rooted in place, all the same. 

Hesitantly, Jungkook searches for the tone of Namjoon’s energy and remembers how delicate a trace it is, how it has to be approached from the side and never directly confronted. He thinks maybe he feels it, just on the outskirts of his thoughts when he looks past the perfect planes of Namjoon’s face and sees him in this moment. 

It’s faint, and Jungkook remembers thinking Namjoon never sleeps, but he can see the need for it lightly pulling around his keen eyes. Wonders how late he’s been working to keep this homestead ahead of the worst storms and feels a fresh remorse for having indirectly pulled him from his obligations. 

“What can I do?” Namjoon asks, coming to stand close before him and does a small duck of his head where he tries to get on Jungkook’s level but realizes he’s not that   much taller and aborts the motion. Stands tall again.

It’s endearing. 

Jungkook hears himself let out an amused noise, but it's wavering. His lips tense in a grin he doesn’t feel. “Nothing.. I feel better now.” he manages, even lifts a shoulder in a small shrug though he stuttered. There’s that trepidation again, that feeling he’d had the moment his door opened, torn between running from this and clinging to the notion of someone caring. 

He clears his throat once and looks away before trying again, “I told Taehyung-ssi not to call you, I’m sorry. It wasn’t something to bother you with.”

Namjoon doesn't look convinced, actually frowning and his arms seem to hang heavier at his sides, long hands nearly lost in the sleeves of his white tunic. A day ago Jungkook would have called it assessing. Cold. But that was before he could faintly feel the warmth behind his Vera’s sharp eyes. 

“You don’t bother me.”

Jungkook looks back at him, feeling more assuaged by that then he thought he would. His smile is a small thing he tries to downplay as he goes back to rubbing the towel over his hair, “Thanks, I’d like to keep it that way.” 

“But I’m supposed to help you.” Namjoon adds, and Jungkook lingers on his expression, wondering just how deeply this obligation runs. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean you couldn’t,” he says, setting the towel on the coffee table and runs his hand through his hair instead, an idle gesture when it falls back into his eyes, “Just meant it’s not a big deal, y’know?”

Something that he said has Namjoon’s mouth pulling tight, a different type of dimple pricking next to his lips and his demeanor hardens. 

Again, Jungkook’s sure he would have read it differently a day ago but he feels the twinge of hesitation as Namjoon watches him, starting twice before speaking again “You just said ‘it’s not a big deal’, not ‘wasn’t’.. A big deal.”

Jungkook drops into the armchair and flops back, shaking his head once with a sardonic twist of his lips. He shouldn’t be surprised. He isn’t. Just feeling foolish he hadn’t been more careful with his words in the presence of his Vera. Silly mistake. A tired mistake. 

“ It’s not a big deal!” he laughs, rolling his eyes at the gravity of this discussion, “I just can’t sleep, alright?” he admits, watching Namjoon frown again, “See? No big deal. I’m sorry Taehyung called.”

“You still haven’t?” Namjoon asks, brows pulled together, “I can help.” 

Namjoon takes two long steps forward, his legs in acres of white linen, before sitting on the edge of the loveseat facing Jungkook, only blanching slightly at the way Jungkook startled at his approach, “I can. I helped Tae last night.”

“Namjoon-ssi..” 

“‘Hyung’, please.”

“Namjoon-hyung,” Jungkook tries. He feels like he’s breathing too shallow. Like if he doesn’t his breath will reach Namjoon and expose his nervousness at their proximity and the way he doesn’t want to admit this. “I don’t think I want to be.. Put to sleep.” 

It sounds ridiculous, said out loud. And Jungkook’s not sure if it’s because it sounds too close to being euthanized or being put to bed like an infant. The notion is embarrassing enough in the dark of evening, let alone being tucked in under the broad light of day. 

But there’s also the logistics of it. How does it work. What happens to his mind. Jungkook worries his bottom lip as he wonders, picturing himself unable to wake and forgotten about in this inconsequential room of many. 

His heart picks up a beat and he acknowledges he does, in fact, still have a fear regarding Namjoon as his Vera. 

“Please don’t, Namjoon-hyung.. Not unless I ask you to, okay?”

“Of course not.” he answers, sitting back and looking a bit less sure of himself, like Jungkook’s request had taken the wind from his sails on his mission to be of assistance. Namjoon is distraught with the implication and looks like he wants to say more. Looks like he can’t. 

With a heavy exhalation, Jungkook attempts to regain some semblance of control over this interaction, but it’s difficult with the way he keeps noticing how Namjoon’s pout correlates to a small movement along his hands. Just a small adjustment of long fingers curling slightly before easing back. 

“I’m sorry Tae didn’t listen to you..” Namjoon tries after another silent moment, “But maybe I can help you. Not like I helped him, I mean. Just me.”

Jungkook hears Hoseok in his mind, then, recalling his advice from earlier this morning, nods, “Okay,” and tries not to regret it immediately as Namjoon’s worry fades by degrees until his smile widens enough to dip his pair of dimples deeply into both cheeks. 

Namjoon stands and retrieves Jungkook’s towel, presumably returning it to the rail in the bathroom before he’s stepping towards the door and beckoning Jungkook along. “My vote is we walk.”

“Where?” Jungkook asks, already lacing his shoes, “Or do you mean ‘take a walk’?” He considers the slower pace and opts to drape a light jacket over himself, something easy to carry if the sun is too present. 

“Somewhere organic, and the latter.” Namjoon replies, standing against the door to prop it open as they leave, seemingly pleased when Jungkook makes a face at but does not mention his vague response. 

They head down the hallway, away from the exit Chang had used. Namjoon leads them down the main stairs to the corridor below and then back towards the rear of the building, the rooms looking more and more utilitarian the deeper they go. Everything appears lighter. Thinner. Fewer deep earthen colors in intricate patterns, more neutral washes over smooth surfaces. 

“I heard you met Hoseok.” Namjoon says a bit over his shoulder, the large hallways not quite wide enough for them to walk two abreast with anyone headed the opposite direction. 

“He found me earlier. I already took a run this morning.” Jungkook says, and he doesn’t mean to sound apprehensive about Namjoon’s idea, but he’s not sure what walking will do that running hadn’t. 

“Mm.” is all Namjoon responds, nodding to a resident staff who stands off to the side and bows at their passing. Jungkook watches behind him for a moment, seeing the woman give them a second glance before turning back the way she’d been headed. 

It stings just a bit, the way Jungkook second-guesses those second glances. 

He feels it, then. A faint ebb of Namjoon’s presence washes back over him and glides farther along the floor, away from them, trailing like a vigil as they pass through the house. It feels steady. 

It feels protective. 

They pass more house staff. None of them look back. 

Jungkook is still aware of the distance being put between him and those residing beside them in this aristocratic world. 

Hanbok or linens, Namjoon is held in the same regard. 

Suit or sweats, Jungkook is ignored mostly the same. He’s not ventured out on his own, yet, to know if it’s by association or if he really is that invisible. 

They pass through another smaller kitchen, exiting through an opaque sliding door that opens to a stone patio. Jungkook peers around as he shuts the door behind him, noting the fire pit and other cooking paraphernalia being left behind as he trots to catch up to Namjoon’s long strides. 

Though nearly as wide as the front lawn, the area feels more enclosed from the fence of Spruce spiraling two stories high to either side of them, tapering down to a vine-woven gate funneled at the rear of the enclosure. 

It’s here Namjoon makes a beeline, opening the gate for Jungkook and latching it back without having to look. The path all but disappears here, dwindling from the white stones of the estate to scattered rocks pressing dirt into a narrow footpath edged with grasses paler and harsher than regular maintenance allows. 

The footpath runs along a wide space fenced off from view from the main grounds and full of commercial vehicles. Nondescript delivery trucks and refrigerated trailers, vans with fresh floral displays on their doors and small cars with lights on their roofs. Its all decidedly not organic, as Jungkook watches the small puffs of dust kicked up at their feet, and he wonders why they’d come this way instead of visiting one of the many gardens he hadn’t seen yet. 

When they reach the edge of the fenced lot Namjoon keeps going, heading for the treeline via another small footpath that’s little more than trampled long grass. Jungkook trails behind, unconsciously mirroring Namjoon's hand that floats out and touches the tips of the waving grass gone to seed. 

The sleeves of Namjoon’s tunic hang low and Jungkook realizes in the sunlight it’s not as basic as he’d thought. Notes the white-on-white pattern woven along the edge of each sleeve and framing the swoop of the neckline across broad shoulders. White against the dark wheat of the nape of his neck, before revisiting the pale light of his silver hair. 

It’s pretty. 

“We’re still on Jeon property.” Namjoon explains as they reach the edge of the grass and carefully step down an embankment to a softer expanse of spongy brush and leaves still damp from falling into the shade of the trees ahead. “It’s a bit dull this time of year, but I think it’s nice.”

“It is.” Jungkook agrees easily, looking around them in the mottled sunlight from half-naked trees and following through a winding path between gnarled bark and arching twists of leafless vines. They encroach overhead like a canopy in some areas, creating the framework for nearly tunneled stretches of the path. 

Drab, but certainly organic. 

The area to the right opens up for two steps and Namjoon ducks through a break in the foliage, entering a clearing half bathed in sunlight from a downed tree lying across the ground. Jungkook feels a pang of homesickness at the sight, an image of his Nan’s cottage through the trees coming to mind. 

“The path continues on around the Southeast corner, but I usually stop here.” Namjoon says, stepping around and over some reaching branches of the fallen tree. He turns and crosses his arms over a limb about chest height and waits, watching Jungkook slowly edge around the enclosure. 

There are half a dozen stumps and leaning trees scattering the area in various stages of aging, some falling to decay and some hardening and as Jungkook steps around them he notices the worn ground, packed from repeated footfalls. 

“You’re a pacer.” Jungkook says, brushing off a barkless wide branch before hiking a leg up to take half a seat against it. It’s all very familiar. Almost too familiar. 

“Sometimes.” Namjoon admits, and begins pacing around the outskirts of sunlight beaming through the trees. Jungkook’s lip curls for half a moment, unsure whether Namjoon realizes he’s proving his point, pretty sure it’s simply a habit coming through. 

“Did you have someplace like this?” Namjoon asks. 

“Don’t you know?” Jungkook asks back, rubbing a fingertip over the smoothed surface of the hardening wood below him. 

When Namjoon doesn’t answer Jungkook senses a soft jab that feels close to remorse hit deep in his gut. It feels mostly his, but he’s not sure why until Namjoon speaks.  

“I thought having you tell me would be more.. Polite.”

“Right, yeah, of course,” Jungkook stutters, abandoning his thoughts of home and dragging himself back to the present. Of course knowing more than you’ve been told could be a sensitive issue. Jungkook can only imagine the things Namjoon is privy to that he’d never asked to know. And how that must make others feel about being around him. 

Fuck. 

“Maybe you’re right, though..” Jungkook frowns, attempting to think five steps ahead of the trajectory of this conversation. Namjoon is waiting for him, patiently. 

“I don’t want you to think… I’m not sure what I want you to think but I know I want to do this right.” he says, motioning between the two of them vaguely, but it’s enough. Namjoon drops his head but Jungkook can see the curve of his mouth. 

“Just gimme a minute..” Jungkook murmurs, still sorting through his thoughts. He finally sets his jaw like he’s made at least one correct decision and waits until Namjoon looks his way again. 

“I know I’m supposed to.. To use you, but I don’t like that. I don’t like it and I don’t want to.” he admits, watching the way Namjoon’s features smooth into something calm and unreadable. He feels a gentle touch of energy lapping along the shoreline of his own periphery but tries to ignore the questing sense of it. 

“I don’t want to ask anything of you, Hyung, and I don’t want you to do anything for me.” He pauses, Namjoon waits for him. “But I can’t go on assuming what you can and can’t do and what I’m supposed to do about it so.. So.. Can this work if I just.. Treat you like a person?“

Namjoon finally stirs, but it’s to drop his face again and run a hand through his silver hair, a quiet noise of amusement let out, “Jungkook, I am a person.” 

“No! Yeah, I know.. Argh! This is what I mean!” he says, standing up and gesturing again between them. “I can’t keep saying these asinine things, offending you an’, an’, and disappointing you.. god,” he calms, quiets, turning away from Namjoon and setting his hands on his head. 

Breathing is good. Thinking before you speak is good. 

“Jungkook.” 

“I’m not done thinking.” he mutters and Namjoon chuckles behind him. 

“Jungkook-ah.” he tries again, a bit more mirth in the name. “Can I show you a little bit of what you’re dealing with? Will that help?”

Jungkook turns and looks through the crook of his arm at Namjoon, his hands still threaded atop his head. His bottom lip slips forward, doubtful, “Depends, like what?”

“One of the gray areas?” Namjoon offers, beckoning Jungkook to step back over to him, and when he slowly obeys Namjoon looks a bit more at ease. “Remember when we talked about possibilities? Shifting results? Probabilities?”

“Yes.”

“Can we focus on those? I think you’re concentrating on the black and white of what Vera are for. What we can do. It’s not all we do. Does that make sense?” 

Jungkook frowns again, “Yeah.. mostly. I thought for a while that you’d just not answer, but that’s when the results are ‘potentially damaging’?”

Namjoon hums an agreement, though he looks a bit pained. “And I'll take some responsibility for your hesitation. I wasn’t especially verbose that first night. I should have explained better. I apologize.” 

Jungkook looks quizzically up at him. He wants to ask, but doesn’t. 

Namjoon answers him anyway, “Partially because I was nervous.”

And Jungkook chokes on air, eyes wide while he tries to school his face back to normal again. “There was no possible reason for you to..” Jungkook complains, then realizes his comment, though not a question, is asking Namjoon to explain himself and that’s not what he intended. “No, y’know what,” he interrupts himself and makes an ‘x’ with his forearms, “Doesn’t matter.” 

Taking a steadying breath, Jungkook visibly refocuses and sets Namjoon with his most serious expression. “So, gray areas.” his eyes pop wider and he lifts a hand in pause, “Hypothetically! Walk me through a gray area. Please.”

His serious face would be easier to maintain if Namjoon would stop looking so fond. As it is, Jungkook accepts his subordinate position in this exchange and tries not to appear as sullen as he feels standing before a demigod like a grade schooler awaiting a lesson. 

Namjoon nods earnestly at the request, “Theoretically..” he stresses and Jungkook nods back, “I can tell you a lot of things I think.”

He says it so simply, Jungkook is waiting for more but then realizes that was the main point and he balks when Namjoon doesn’t explain further. “That’s it? You can tell me a lot?”

Namjoon breathes out through his nose and thinks a moment longer, “theoretically, I .. okay, so it’s different if I tell you ‘I think my eyes are brown’ than if I say ‘my eyes are…’” he frames his hands out to fill in the blank. 

But Jungkook is suddenly fixated on his face. On the pale luminance of Namjoon’s skin in the shaded underbrush. A dewy glow across his cheekbones and the arched line of his lip. 

Without realizing, Jungkook is leaning closer because he honestly can’t tell if he imagined it or if there was a change in the energy inside Namjoon that was visible the moment he began speaking words of finality.  

Those brown eyes dart back and forth between Jungkook’s eyes and then at the diminishing space between them, “Jung..kook?”

The name startles him back and Jungkook blinks twice more, the wonder still on his face, “You could have just changed your eyes..” he states the obvious. And he’s not sure why he’s impressed by this but he can’t help his reaction. 

Namjoon seems less enthralled and just stares a bit quizzically, still leaning back away from him and his forehead lines prominent. He holds his hands out again in a gesture of near taunting that Jungkook reads all too well. 

“Yeah, duh, right?” Jungkook laughs then, lighter and more genuine than before as he rakes through his hair again, his teeth finally out in full and eyes crinkling at the corners. 

Namjoon crosses his arms to wrap around himself but lifts a hand to cover his grin, holding quiet behind it as he watches Jungkook simmer down. Those large doe eyes are still looking at him with expectant wonder and he rolls his own eyes, “Jeon Jungkook. I think you want to see it.” he accuses and lets out his own high laugh when Jungkook’s cheeks dust softly pink. 

“I’d… I’d like to temporarily suspend my request for a theoretical explanation. And move to practical application. Yes.” he admits, his ears much darker than his cheeks. “Please.”

Namjoon nods, but still waits. “Are you sure?” and he’s pleased when Jungkook seems to give it some serious thought before responding. 

“It’s not gonna be considered like an abuse of power? It won’t harm anything? No butterfly effect? ‘Cause if so I don’t need to, you k’know what, never mind, no, it’s fine, forget it..” he goes on seemingly unable to stop until Namjoon calls his name again. 

“Jungkook-ah.”

“..Yeah.” he sighs out, looking down at their feet.

“I can show you if you want.”

“Oh.. okay.”

And he wasn’t going to look as it happened, but there’s that illuminating glow again. There’s no source to it, the space around them just seems alive with it and Jungkook looks up when the energy shifts. When Namjoon prepares to speak. 

His skin is so flawless, “For the duration of this conversation, then,” he starts, the energy thrumming higher and Jungkook’s hairs raise on his arms as he looks up into Namjoon’s face, “My eyes are blue.”

Again, said so easily but the effect of it has Jungkook’s mind struck in wonderment. He was staring straight into the deep brown of his irises and suddenly they weren’t. It wasn’t a shift or a fade, it was as if he blinked even though he hadn’t and his eyes were the shade of the sky leaking through the trees overhead. Pure and flecked with paler lights within, rimmed darker around the edges. 

“Beautiful.” Jungkook hears himself breath out but he can’t move. He quite simply hadn’t been prepared for the drastic change it would make, paired with Namjoon’s warm skin and bright hair. 

Namjoon blinks twice and clears his throat, “Was that okay?” he asks, leaning back again until Jungkook realizes he should stop encroaching in his space. 

The hesitant tone shakes Jungkook from his second daze and he once again finds himself feeling remorseful. “Yeah, hyung, it was okay.” 

He has so many questions. Is it as if he was born this way now? If he were to call and ask someone, would they say Namjoon had blue eyes and also why the hell are you asking? If he were to ask Namjoon to say he’d never gotten that haircut his Nan made him get before coming here, would his barber miss the money? Would his Nan suddenly feel disappointed he’d not listened to her? 

Does Namjoon know the spiral he’s just gone down.. 

Jungkook tries to smile for him, and is surprised he feels it. His worries aren’t that imposing that it’s hard. “I’m sorry I was .. “ 

Scared. 

Namjoon shrugs, “I think I understand, though. You didn’t really offend me.” 

“Still.” Jungkook frowns, thinking back over their conversation. “This place.. It’s familiar but not exact. I bet it’s like how I feel you guys sometimes. Perceptions but hardly detailed? Feelings.. I’m not sure, it’s hard to explain.” 

Namjoon is looking around them, as well. “Sometimes I’m not sure what I know is what I know.” he admits, which would sound like a riddle from anyone else. 

Jungkook seeks out the touch of his energy, then, the deep pull of it inviting so he goes. Stands next to Namjoon and props an elbow on the limb beside them. “I do have a place like this, back home.”

Jungkook’s chest blooms with warmth and he mirrors Namjoon’s gentle smile. “It’s a little softer.. More brush stuff. These, like, flowering bushes that have greenish white flowers even in winter, I don’t know what they are.” he adds. “And Rebecca.” he greens cheekily at Namjoon’s inquisitive look, “My cat.”

“Sounds nice.” 

“Yeah.” He agrees, unabashedly now staring up into the blue of Namjoon’s eyes. 

He straightens suddenly, wondering if he’d said something wrong because “Oh, they’re brown again..”

Namjoon is already reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out his phone as it chirps. Jungkook makes a little ‘ah’ face and steps away, slowly meandering across the clearing to another stump he kicks at with his toe before turning and taking a seat upon it. He drags his heel through the dirt and waits while Namjoon takes the call, saying very little. 

The area feels new again, and Jungkook realizes how much he had warmed to it in the short time they’d been here. 

He stands when Namjoon approaches, telling him what he already knew. That they have to return to the manor. But Jungkook stops him midstep in the bright wash of sunlight they’d stepped into, a hand to Namjoon’s chest and casually angles him a few degrees to the side. 

“What..”

“Look that way, Hyung..” Jungkook says, peering at his face. And when Namjoon eventually obeys Jungkook catches the sun lighting the amber flecks in his brown eyes. 

Beautiful . 

“Nothing, thought there was a bug.” he laughs, pulling his hand back to his own chest, rubbing at his sternum and trying to ignore the way his stomach lurches. To forget how solid Namjoon had felt under his hand. And pretend his heated energy wasn’t clinging to his fingertips like a lifeline. 

Chapter Text

The walk back to the manor goes quickly, Namjoon filling Jungkook in on the brief call he’d taken from Chang. There’s going to be a video conference in several minutes and Namjoon’s attendance has been requested. 

Jungkook follows silently behind, once again entranced by the shift he can watch slowly seep into his Vera’s bearing. The way Namjoon seems to expand, solid as ever but his spirit becoming effervescent, filling all the space around them with the thrumming presence of his god coming to the surface. It reaches farther than Jungkook can sense out here in the open air. 

Almost becoming a dreamscape, the scenery passes them by while Jungkook floats behind Namjoon in his building wake of energy. It’s easy to pace his footsteps to fall directly inside Namjoon’s stamped into the ground. 

Without needing an explanation, Jungkook knows he’s under some allusion. Can feel the life of it lulling his senses in safety rather than the inanimate drag of exhaustion. He can nearly feel the pull of sleep, after so long, and follows blindly in search of a rest that feels more inviting with every step. 

Passively, he recognizes what’s happening to him is unintentional. The magic he feels is simply existing around him, sourced from his Vera but not directed. It simply is. A soothing balm made to heal any uneasiness, and it feels like sleepwalking. 

Watching Namjoon’s back shift under his tunic, Jungkook wonders if this is how some creatures feel. The ones who can glide on ocean currents while they sleep, never truly shutting off. The turbulence around them always shifting; some basal part of them needing to be aware of the changes, the challenges and the looming threats in a vast world. 

The trees and tall grasses fall behind, the estate fills in around them and once inside, so do the hustling bodies. Jungkook ignores the majority of them, paying little mind to the handful that approach with tablets and scurry off once Namjoon gives them a curt nod.

Someone calls out a minute count as they suddenly jog past and Jungkook jumps back to attention, frowning at the way he’d been startled. 

“Are they always this last minute?”

Namjoon falters a step, moving to the side of the hallway a bit so as not to disturb anyone who’d been walking behind him, but it’s only Jungkook. “Not usually, no.” he answers, slowing his pace. It feels as though he’d done it for Jungkook’s sake. As if he’d not noticed how long his stride had become. 

Jungkook watches the shifting mood across his Vera’s face, recognizing the moment Namjoon decides he can say no more by the slightly deeper tilt of his mouth. “I get it.” Jungkook assures him, motioning them to continue. 

Namjoon looks ready to say something else, but ends up censoring that as well, turning away so as not to direct his scowl at Jungkook. They continue on, the otherworldly energy pulsing from Namjoon spiking higher and higher with every step and Jungkook wades back into it. Invisible but all-enveloping. 

He’s vaguely aware of entering a large office; almost a library. Someone is at his side, but he doesn’t pay them any mind, following Namjoon farther over the ornate carpet before someone touches his arm and gently leads him to the side. 

He’d rather remain close to his Vera. The room is filling and filling with unfamiliar bodies and sour energies and Jungkook finds himself looking away, opening his peripheral senses to get some hint of Namjoon through the turmoil. The delicate process is nearly impossible here. 

He sits when prompted, only then looking up and seeing Chang’s face. Blank and careful. Chang’s dutiful aura prickles at his awareness and Jungkook blinks a few times, feeling a quick tap of concern from the Chinese man just before it dives below acres of obligation. 

And then Jungkook feels himself suddenly under a precision microscope of Chang’s razor sharp intellect he can see at work. Intricate vines of probing energy dancing and feigning around him, masterfully veiled and nearly undetectable. It took a fraction of a moment but Jungkook felt Chang nearly tumble the locks of his defenses like a cheat code. 

A fraction of a moment. But Jungkook feels his own energy intact. He doesn’t react to the intrusion and manages to mask his reaction. His mind had reflexively cloaked him from the probing attempt and had the process taken any longer he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep the result off his face. 

He finds himself wishing he could slink back into the walls and be forgotten. Left alone. Made invisible to all but one. 

Instead he feels the murky veil of his energy weave denser around him as Chang’s inquiring aura seeps away, empty handed. 

Time is so fickle, here. A fraction of a moment. And Chang steps away again, foiled to believe he’d gathered a precise reading on the state of Jungkook’s being. The smaller man retreats without looking back.

Fickle again, this place’s sense of time. 

That when he looks away from Chang a moment later, Jungkook is frozen in place because through the frenzy of the countdown, Namjoon is stopped mid-motion and staring at him. The only two unmoving in a dizzying kaleidoscope of people. 

From across the room Jungkook can just make out the soft illumination under Namjoon’s skin and he feels his throat work, truly laid bare under those heavy eyes. 

His last known thought resurfaces and Jungkook balks, feeling embarrassed nearly to the point of shame realizing Namjoon may have felt him wanting his sole attention. The glass shatters around the moment and they both look away. 

Taking a deep breath, Jungkook lets it out slowly and forces himself to focus, concentrates on visualizing himself invisible to all, even if it’s just the wishful thinking of a shy boy. He slowly feels the flush fading from his face as he watches dozens of bodies coming and going as the time ticks down. 

Chang has taken his place to the right of the head seat and seems to be assessing each individual as they enter. The room is buzzing with tense agitation and when he chances a glance, Jungkook sees the tight set of Namjoon’s jaw as he takes a seat at the head of the heavy conference desk.  

Perhaps Jngkook should have gone to his room. It doesn’t look like they’d expected him to attend, having been ushered aside and once again forgotten. But he’d ended up here and the need to be included in this in any capacity is somehow overshadowing any impulse he has to skulk away. 

‘This is my business’, his thoughts remind him, he’s a Jeon. He should be here. 

The words echo without substance, quieter than his pulse. But his gaze falls on his Vera and he sits straighter. Like Namjoon. Listens harder. Like Namjoon. 

Monitors are pulled up and cameras angled. People take Their Places around Namjoon’s table, each with their own monitor and camera. A small mic clipped to their collars or lapels. 

Jungkook watches silently, scentless and completely empty in his shroud of obscurity and suddenly feels the room open between Namjoon and himself, pushing so much space between them he wonders if he’d imagined their earlier connection deep in the shade of the grove. The gap is too wide. Full of people and stuff and unruly air currents. 

It doesn’t feel good. 

Monitors come to life, a droning voice begins proceedings from somewhere behind the screen and Jungkook gets to his feet without thought. 

He sees Chang looking in his direction briefly but when he makes no move to correct him, no sign of reproach on his face, Jungkook edges the room. 

It’s an unconscious thing the way he paints each of the persons seated around Namjoon in grays and browns and murky blues. Their energy doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t matter, as he takes small steps around the perimeter. 

Business has begun. Fewer niceties being exchanged but he assumes the lack of rivalring groups on call allows for more straightforward proceedings. Time is fickle again, leap-frogging through droning words and Jungkook feels heavy on his feet, as if he’s been standing too long. He moves slowly, just to keep the air around him from becoming stagnant. 

But then a voice halts his steps, turning his attention to the screen closest to him, showing a greying man with grey eyes, “The Jeon Group Heir won’t be needed for next week’s proceedings. We needn’t waste time and resources getting him there.” 

“His interim representative hasn’t been approved.” A woman counters abruptly. 

“A formality.” Grey Eyes waves off, “Pending successful completion of his merit investigation, Kiyun will be ready to take the seat. We could expedite this process~” he stresses, leaning in a bit. A hand comes on screen and sets warningly on his arm, but he waves it away, “If the honorable Vera of Jeon Group would vouch for his character.” 

“That’s the reason you’ve insisted upon his attendance?” challenges the woman, and a few heads in the room glance at Namjoon. 

He sits observing. Impassive. Silent. 

The tension rises and Jungkook can feel it in his throat. It’s bitter and dry, causing his eyes to narrow and fingers flex into his palms. He begins moving again, slowly circling behind the next chair. The monitor showing Grey Eyes is seeping an ugly puce hue and Jungook’s eyes narrow at its appearance sopping messily through the calm of his own colors. 

Unbidden, the blue saturation around Namjoon intensifies and Jungkook feels himself revel in the satisfaction, like adding extra degrees of protection against the contamination of color manifesting around the man questioning his Vera. 

Something shifts. It’s faint, but Jungkook can feel Chang’s eyes on him now, following him, but he doesn’t look. Too caught up wrapping himself around the ebbing irritation in the room. 

“Honorable Vera?” The man calls out, not sounding the least bit honored to be addressing the speaker of their gods. When he doesn’t answer, Grey Eyes lets his fist drop to the table on his side of the monitor, “What is the point of him accepting our invitation if he says nothing!”

The challenge is ripe with energy, eliciting small intakes of breath in the room. Another pleading touch from the faceless hand seated next to the man and Jungkook’s insides roil. He takes all his grays and browns and murky blues and smothers the entirety of them with it, pushing it even to the crevices of the cameras and monitors, letting it seep into every pixel of existence included in this act of disrespect. 

“Jungkook-ssi..” Chang whispers, and it takes a full few seconds but he finally gains Jungkook’s attention. The Chinese man’s sharp eyes are as wide as he’s seen them and he’s slowly, slowly shaking his head at Jungkook. 

Equally concerning, he’s not where Jungkook had seen him last. Removed from view of any cameras, Chang stands across the room with a palm pressed into two knuckles, his iridescent chameleon vines of energy snaked around the room and circling Jungkook. 

What had felt like satisfaction turns to insecurity under Chang’s intense scrutiny and Jungkook exhales, releasing his stranglehold from the colored drapes of his mind until he sees the faintest hint of warmth reenter the shadows of the attendees.

The air becomes thinner, allowing lesser energies to exist of their own accord once again. And Jungkook realizes only now the way Namjoon’s delicate mind is touching both him and Chang, though he remains fixed to his monitor before him, the camera recording his every shift and expression. 

Under the feather touch of it, Jungkook feels the request from Namjoon. 

Let go. 

Jungkook reels slightly, like a wave of vision more than his physical body and the vertigo has him discreetly catching himself half a step before he steadies his palm along the wall. He takes two more breaths and feels smaller now under Chang’s intense observation. 

Time; that fickle bitch. Moments, only. 

“Perhaps,” Grey Eyes begins again, substantially more formal than before, “Perhaps time is not so short. We will await Kiyun’s results and reconvene. All in favor?”

The resounding agreements sound and the room slowly comes back into focus. Weighed with lead in his bones and bound by circling bonds not his own, Jungkook makes his way to stand behind Namjoon’s seat, placing a hand on the high back, watching as cameras and equipment are boxed up and carted off again. 

No one pays him any mind. 

He rests his eyes, exhausted, until he hears his name again. 

Startling his eyes awake he sees the room now completely emptied but for Chang at his side and Namjoon seated in front of him. He’s turned in his seat, however, and is peering up at him, waiting. 

“Jungkook?” Namjoon says again. 

“S-sorry, did you say something?” Jungkook stutters, shaking the fog from his head and wondering if he’d actually fallen asleep on his feet. 

“This can’t go on.” Chang says from beside them, frowning. 

He’s not sure what to say to that, wide-eyed and unsteady. But Namjoon is nodding so at least he must have some idea of what Chang is saying. 

“Call Taehyung.” Namjoon adds, finally standing and Jungkook looks up. His attention on Namjoon’s expression and searching for a glimpse of something he’d like to become familiar. 

“Namjoon-ssi, you should know,” Chang says, glancing up from his phone as he brings up his contacts, shooting a dark glance at Jungkook, “He veiled me, too.”

Namjoon breathes out quickly but says nothing, simply nodding again. 

“Taehyung, meet us at Jungkook’s. Now.” 

The three of them exit, two flanking Jungkook. Chang holds his elbow as he’s prone to do. Jungkook doesn’t mind it. Namjoon doesn’t touch him. 

“I didn’t like that one guy.” Jungkook mutters. 

“Yeah, we know.” Chang bites back. 

Chapter Text

“What’s wrong with him?” Taehyung’s voice comes from nowhere, distorted and echoing. Yet the distinct sound of the bedroom door clicking shut is crystal clear. Jungkook huffs out a breath and feels himself falling, slowly blinking back into a clearer reality. 

His bed is under him, feeling as foreign as space itself. He idly worries he’s still in his sneakers. Still in the clothes he ran in earlier. 

Wait. No, he’d showered. Hadn’t he?

Nothing feels right. 

“He expended his full Persuasion.” Chang grumbles from across the room, “In the middle of an Official Consultation, no less.”

“Yikes.”

“Taehyung.” 

“Sorry, Joonie-hyung.” 

Jungkook feels himself reaching back for leverage with slapping palms, getting himself into a sitting position though he doesn’t feel in command of his movements. He manages to edge himself up against large pillows and feels a warble of vertigo when he turns his head and tries to address the others. 

“What I do?” he asks, frowning at the way his mouth struggles to feel right fitting around the words. 

“You done hecked-up, my friend.” Taehyung informs, leaning in and grabbing Jungkook by the face in one hand, turning him one way and then the other. “What did the others say?”

“Nothing. No one noticed.” Chang supplies, standing behind Taehyung and setting his sharp eyes down on Jungkook. “Neither did I, at first.” His face sours. 

Taehyung drops Jungkook and turns to Chang, his expression questioning. 

Jungkook watches them from the bed, nauseating waves of their energy drowning his thoughts from one second to the next until he’s breathing a little deeper, raising a hand against his head. 

“Chang, Tae- step back a minute.” Namjoon instructs from behind them. They comply, and Jungkook immediately feels better able to breathe. 

Namjoon takes their place, stepping into the space they forfeited. He sits on the edge of the bed and seems to be working through something, watching Jungkook balk at his proximity before the Jeon heir folds in on himself. 

“Did I get you in trouble?”

“No.” 

Jugkook frowns, curling his legs crossed and hunkering over his lap, rubbing at the back of his head for a moment before his arm is too heavy. “But I messed up.”

“Yes.” Namjoon nods and thinks for a moment more before holding back from the way he was about to touch Jungkook’s shoulder. “It’s against the law to use persuasive magic the way you just did.” 

“I didn’t realize-”

“I know.”

Taehyung looks between them, “Is he aware he’s doing that?”

“Doing what?” Jungkook snaps up, looking around them like some evidence of his misdeeds would present themselves but he just sees Namjoon shaking his head. 

Taehyung sighs and it sounds tired, “Jungkook-ah, you keep spacing out for like.. Minutes at a time.”

That’s hard to hear. Jungkook knows he’s not always the most present of individuals. He’s prone to daydreams or just getting swept away in his thoughts, but he’s always been aware of his wandering mind after the fact. 

“It was the same, earlier.” Chang adds, arms crossed. 

“I thought he just needed sleep, but this..” Taehyung adds, rubbing at the side of his face. 

“It’s the unrest in the estate.” Chang says, drawing the attention of the other three, their inquisitive silence requesting him to explain. “I had my suspicions after my first night watching over him. The grounds have been flooded with excess energy and his own is fixated on it. It won’t rest.”

“You reported nothing hostile..” Namjoon reminds and Chang nods. 

“Yes. And I’ve yet to sense anything unfriendly, but the fact remains there are more things present here than have been in decades. Reawakening, returning.. I can’t be sure.” He looks back to Jungkook and shrugs, “Earlier today I managed to isolate him from it for a while, just to test my theory. He managed to doze off for a bit. I couldn’t hold it for long. Maybe an hour. And even then his energy was spiking in every direction.”

“You spelled me?” Jungkook asks, more surprised than anything.

“A bit.” Chang says, unbothered. 

“And now,” Taehyung continues, “He’s spelling roomfuls of delegates. Hyung, you have to make him sleep, this is dangerous. He can’t control it. And clearly , its powerful stuff.” he adds, motioning to a still frowning Chang. 

Namjoon lets out a slow breath and Jungkook wishes he’d stop staring at him so intently when he can’t tell what he’s thinking. Can’t concentrate enough to pull the pieces of the room’s atmosphere apart and assign each to their origin. The only bit he can confidently claim as his own is the sharp stab of fear he feels in his gut at Taehyung’s words. 

“I agree.” Chang adds, crossing his arms again. “Put him to sleep.”

Jungkook looks at each of them, cornered. 

“He doesn’t want me to.” Namjoon says, his gaze finally dropping to his own hand on the bedspread.  

Taehyung scoffs as he turns his back to them for just a step before returning, “So? He needs to sleep, Hyung, before he does any-”

“I promised him.” Namjoon adds. 

Chang turns his back this time, hands uncrossing and placed in pockets as he steps away. “I’ll be outside.”

Taehyung watches him go, scowling. When he turns back he’s visibly battling who to address first. “Jungkook-ah.”

Wide eyes respond, though he doesn’t lift his face. 

“It’s okay to be nervous but you need to be reasonable, too.”

“I am.” Jungkook mutters, matching Taehyung’s frown for a moment before glancing at Namjoon. “He did promise, but I mean.. That was..”

Taehyung heaves a great sigh and clambers up onto the bed opposing Jungkook, sitting back on his heels. “Would you talk plainly? You’re not Vera.” he gripes with an exaggerated sulking drawl, “For once I’d like to just talk to somebody. Please .”

Jungkook does half an eyeroll of exasperation and sighs, pushing his hair out of his eyes, “That was before he showed me.. Stuff. Not stuff, like...  I’m not nervous.” he finishes challengingly. 

“Anymore.” he adds, glancing at Namjoon who, gods help him, is grinning. At the ground. Which is somehow worse than directly at him.  

Taehyung rolls his own eyes so hard he flops back onto the bed, lying next to Jungkook. “Hyung! Will you help him, now?”

“Well.. Yes. If he wants me to. That was the agreement from the start.”

“Jungkook-ah.” Taehyung drones, holding a hand up for continuation. 

“If it’s what hyung wa-”

“No! No,” Taehung props up on one elbow. “He’ll never agree to that, Jungkookie. Tell him you want it.”

Jungkook’s blank stare lasts a few seconds too long but he realizes it this time when Taehyung sets a worried look to Namjoon, “Did we lose him again?”

“N-n-no no, no.. I’m here, I’m here..” he hurries, causing his stutter to compound, “I get it, okay..” he turns to Namjoon who looks suddenly surprised at Jungkook’s deep breath before he speaks. “Namjoon-hyung, if you think it’s best, then I trust you to help me sleep. Then I want it. Okay?” 

He waits for Namjoons curt nod after a few blinks, then turns to Taehyung who smiles at him with his own nod, “Good boy, Jungkookie, perfect.. Okay. Let’s get ready for bed!”

Jungkook groans again and drops his face into his hands. “Not. Helping.”

“Tae- why don’t you go back to your room, hm? Thanks for coming.” he hears Namjoon say, but Jungkook knows he hears a smile in the soft voice and it’s just not fair that Jungkook can’t control his own heart or where his blood goes or how much his skin reveals of the way it’s rushing around pinkened areas. 

And it’s not just the embarrassment he’d worried about earlier. It’s not that he’s being treated like the kid being up past his bedtime. Or that he’s being forced to nap in broad daylight. It’s the rush of endorphins he acknowledged knowing Namjoon approved of his decision. 

“Jungkook-ah, you good?” Taehyung asks, crawling backwards off the bed. 

Jungkook nods, dropping his hands and giving him a small two-finger salute. “Can we talk about what happened earlier? Later, I mean.”

“Oh, you better believe.” Taehyung snorts, “You’re not going to hear the end of it.”

“That bad, huh?” Jungkook mutters. 

“Well, no, almost more like.. that good?”

When Jungkook looks unsure and surprised at both Taehyung and then Namjoon, the latter sighs. 

“Perhaps a bit of both.” his Vera suggests. 

“Mm. Both. Yeah.” Taehyung agrees, rubbing at his face again the way he does when he’s considering his words and sorting his rabitting thoughts. “You really shouldn’t have been able to do what you did, earlier.. Without anyone noticing? That’s no small task, Jungkook-ah.. And that Chang didn’t notice? You get that that’s basically his job, right?”

Jungkook doesn’t look the least bit set at ease by the offhand compliment, “No.”

Taehyung moves towards the exit. “We’ll it is. You’ve probably wounded his pride irreperably. I don’t know if you’ve notices,” Taehyung says sarcastically, “But the man takes his job very seriously.” 

Jungkook can only nod again, feeling grossly reprimanded even if delivered in this light manner Taehyung sandwiches between heavy accusational glances. Maybe with time Jungkook will get used to it. Maybe with time Taehyung will like him. 

“It’s fine,” Taehyung adds, stepping away, “We’ll talk later. Joonie-hyung, see to it that he actually sleeps .” 

Namjoon hums an acknowledgement but his eyes are on Jungkook when the door closes. It’s quiet enough Jungkook can hear the retreating footsteps down the hall. A faint breeze of calming energy washes over him. 

Perhaps it was there all along. Namjoon gets under his skin in the most subtle of ways. When they’re alone in his room he’s quiet and unassuming and gentle. Hard to notice under the barrage of stronger personalities that had been accosting Jungkook’s senses. But now.. 

“Are you ready?”

“What? No!” Jungkook blurts out, calm feeling gone. He lurches to the opposite side of the bed and gets to his feet, turning to look at Namjoon. 

Jungkook’s stomach somersaults at the worried set of Namjoon’s features, feeling guilt building at having put it there but it hadn’t been intentional; he’d moved away without thought. There was no helping the impulse to avoid the impending matter, even if he’d promised he wanted it mere minutes ago. 

Once again silent moments pass between them. 

“It doesn’t have to be instantaneous, you know.” Namjoon eventually offers. He’s not looking at Jungkook anymore, but still seated on the edge of his bed. “If that’s too sudden. It doesn’t have to be. It can be gradual. Like actually falling asleep.” 

Jungkook considers his words, finding himself feeling a bit relieved when he hadn’t even known that was something that had been bothering him. But Namjoon knew. 

Of course he did. 

“Oh.” he adds, idly twisting the hem of his tshirt in either hand. “Yeah. That sounds. Better.”

Namjoon nods and then gives him a small smile. “Okay.” His head motions to the bathroom, “Why don’t you go get set? Whatever you’d normally do.” he stands and leans over to fix the bedspread where he’d wrinkled it, wiping it smooth. 

With a nod, Jungkook pops into his closet to grab a handful of clothes and then retreats to the bathroom, locking himself inside. He works quickly, worried about what Taehyung had said. That he’s spacing out and losing minutes of time. He doesn’t want to keep Namjoon waiting, already admitting he still feels a bit bothered for using up his time and possibly wasting his skills on something so mundane as sleep. 

But that’s not right. This is important. Jungkook strips down and sprays himself off, rinsing away the clammy tack of sweat from his earlier run. Then remembers again he’d already showered, and quite recently. Everything feels like it was ages ago. 

Ages ago he didn’t have to worry about people waiting for him. People vastly more important than him. 

He quickly washes his hair and shakes it out, scrubs his face with a washcloth and exhales. Tries to tell himself he matters when every fiber of his being wants to tell Namjoon not to worry about him and to go about his very important business.

He’d normally linger in the shower a bit longer, but he can’t bring himself to do it now. Even under his Vera’s instructions to do ‘everything you’d normally do’. With a locked door between them he still feels a lack of privacy, knowing Namjoon is in the next room. Actively avoids remembering his near-mistake from the earlier shower.

He glances at the crack under the door and decidedly does not try to see if he can feel Namjoon’s energy from here. 

The shower knobs squeak in his hand as he shuts the water off and towels dry, stepping in front of the vanity with a mirror that hasn’t fogged up at all. Shower too quick. Mirror too expensive. Magic. Whichever the case. 

Jungkook makes quick work applying his products and tries, again, not to think about anything. Not to spend a single thought on the color of all his skin in this light, deeper and richer against the white towel around his waist than any royal Jeon he’d ever seen. Warm like his mother. 

After dressing in his shorts and black tshirt he stands at the door, staring at the lock. Then the doorknob in his hand. 

Gradual. Like falling asleep. 

As he steps out he’s surprised to see Namjoon sitting up against the headboard, socked feet crossed at the ankle. His tunic is draped across the back of his chair by the window, leaving him in his linen slacks and his own plain white tshirt. 

It’s so normal it’s surprising. 

He’s holding something and he grins at Jungkook bashfully as he turns it in his hands. “I thought we’d try something.” 

Jungkook’s nerves take a backseat to his curiosity and he moves quickly, approaching the opposite side of the bed and crawling up to see the small mirror Namjoon holds. Jungkook settles alongside him, “Like what?”

Namjoon seems pleased at this, though he still seems to hesitate. “Ever wondered what you’d look like with, y’know..” he waves a hand in a half circle as he thinks. 

“Oh. Oh! Okay..” Jungkook catches on with his own small smile, his nose scrunching a tiny bit with an equally tiny giggle that surfaces with his outright delight of this idea. He settles himself on his side, stretched out but propped up on elbow and pillows, fingers interlacing and feeling his words about to tumble out of him. 

“Good idea, Hyung. That’s really smart.” 

Namjoon laughs quietly, shaking his head a little at the praise. Looking embarrassed. “Should I do me first?”

“Hmm..” Jungkook deliberates, raking his eyes over Namjoon’s face, over his hair, settling in his brown eyes. “Natural Hair.”

Namjoon snorts, his upper body swaying with it and Jungkook straightens in anticipation when he sees the faint illumination under Namjoon’s skin, “Alright, I have natural hair.” he says and.. 

And nothing. Jungkook waits an extra second without breathing and then frowns, confusion angling his brows as his body sinks a jerked bit with disappointment. 

Namjoon’s dimples crease into his smile, “Not what you were expecting?”

“No, I thought.. Your hair is actually that color?” he asks, incredulous. 

Namjoon just shrugs, “Yeah, when I’m in service.” 

“What?” Jungkook drawls in exaggerated disgust, “Booo.. you’re telling me your god changed your haircolor, what, when you clocked in?”

“Apparently.” He shrugs again, lighthearted. 

“I thought you all just, y’know, agreed to fit The Aesthetic.” 

“The Aesthetic.” Namjoon deadpans. 

“Yeah. The whole glowy, white-robed, silver-haired, beautiful beings.”

Namjoon’s grin deepens but so does his complexion. He shakes his head again and Jungkook realizes he really can’t handle the most casual compliments, “Sorry to disappoint.” His Vera attempts to change the subject, “To make it up to you.. I have black hair.”

Jungkook swallows back a laugh and nearly chokes on it, staring at a dark haired Namjoon sitting in a tshirt on his bed. “Hyung, you look so normal .” 

It’s drastic in that it doesn’t just normalize Namjoon. The room itself has been warming by small increments since he’d stepped out of the bathroom. Jungkook feels a bit more present, more himself. His room is getting more familiar and it’s a relief, honestly. A respite as best as he can expect in a place so new to him. 

Namjoon sighs and drops his head back a bit on the padded headboard, staring at the ceiling as Jungkook grins at him. “Better?”

Namjoon hears Jungkook let out a small amused breath, out of the corner of his eye sees him shake his head. His mood? Yes. But that’s not what Namjoon had meant. 

“Better? ...No. Just different.” 

Jungkook leans his jaw into the triangle of his arm and feels himself smiling against it. Not a trace of his earlier anxiety present and he doesn’t care that he’s staring. Namjoon really is amazingly brilliant. 

“Do me, now.” he says, eyebrows high and mouth stuck on the last syllable as he watches for Namjoon’s response. 

His Vera seems to illuminate even more, though he’s not saying anything. He holds out the small hand mirror until Jungkook takes it. “What do you want to see?”

Jungkook takes the mirror from Namjoon’s light grasp, settles onto his back, holding the mirror above himself and looking discerningly over his features. His eyebrows move independently as he turns his face side to side and purses his mouth in contemplation before shrugging. “What do you think, Hyung?”

Namjoon doesn’t answer at first. Jungkook waits, watching himself in the mirror and then he feels the faintest ghost of energy along his side. That ethereal glow of Namjoon’s essence that shirks just out of sight. Shimmering energy that feels alive with question as well as purpose.. And a lot of hesitation. 

Then Namjoon suddenly moves and Jungkook watches the reflection of  his own eyes widen. His Vera settles down beside him, his face suddenly in the mirror as well and Namjoon’s newly dark hair nestles against Jungkook’s, still glossy and damp from showering. 

Jungkook watches Namjoon look him over in the mirror, an odd feeling starting at his throat and washing over him. He almost falls into the trap of direct eye contact but Namjoon begins speaking and he’s fixed on the other’s mouth, instead. The way the corners dip almost as deep as his dimples. 

“I think you should try whatever you want.” he answers, jostling Jungkook a bit as he gets comfortable, thinking better of it three times before moving to rest his hand behind his head. 

Once still, he waits patiently, seemingly at ease now that he’s found a comfortable position. He waits and looks eager, ready to comply with whatever Jungkook requests. 

“What, can’t decide?” Namjoon smiles and Jungkook realizes he’d been staring again.

He jokes through his lopsided smile, mouth crooked and teasing and hoping Namjoon isn’t looking right through him. “You look like a floating head.”

Namjoon stops to see himself for a moment, his white shirt melding into their backdrop of white pillows and turned-down sheets. He rolls his eyes again, something Jungkook realizes is a Namjoon thing. 

Jungkook’s chest compresses in on itself with a new influx of thoughts. Flashes of small details that surface when the man next to him is not being Vera Kim Namjoon. 

It blossoms into something deeper, a truth taking root, and Jungkook tucks away the bit of pride he feels in having come one step closer to a real connection. 

“I think you’re just deflecting,” Namjoon says, and Jungkook once again gets waylaid watching that mouth form each word, “but fine, I have a black shirt on. Happy?”

Jungkook ignores this next flush of warmth and just nods, giving Namjoon the point. He had seen straight through him and back again, fair and square. 

He watches them in the raised mirror and drops the angle a touch to rest his arm, using the other to stifle a yawn. When his eyes fully open Namjoon is turning his face away from him and back into the mirror. 

“Go on, pick a color.” he says. 

“Purple.”

“Hm. Alright.” Namjoon considers, all the while his face appearing more and more.. Something. This close Jungkook can’t say that it’s the illumination he’d seen in the grove or even earlier in the meeting. There is a light to it, though, but like a candle warmth. Jungkook feels it warm against his skin before he thinks he sees it in his periphery. Beautiful and captivating like flames.  

His Vera gears up to speak the words, “Jungkook… you ready?”

Jungkook shoves at his shoulder with another grin, “Just do it~” and Namjoon complies with his own. 

“Your eyes are purple.”

Jungkook gapes at the mirror and blinks a few times, watching his dark lashes frame the new color. Vibrant and unnatural. 

Nothing in the room looks different. He doesn’t feel any different; hadn’t felt it happen. And he realizes it’s silly but for some reason he’d thought everything would have a purple haze to it even though he knows that’s not how eyes work. 

Then he realizes. “Could you see the color I meant?”

“Yes.”

“It’s exactly.. Just what I pictured. You saw it?”

Namjoon nods again, this time looking a bit more reserved. “Is that okay? Is it.. Is it too invasive?”

Jungkook takes a minute to look at himself, his irises reflecting the exact shade of lilac he’d had in mind even though he’d told Namjoon ‘purple’. It brings him back to his home with wild flowering bushes and wisteria and soft petals along pathways. 

“No, it’s .. it’s pretty great, actually.”

He hears Namjoon let out a breath like he’s trying to do it quietly. Like he doesn't want him to know he’d been holding it inside him too long. 

The roots reach deeper into Jungkook’s chest, branch out and tangle and entwine. They seep sunlight straight into his veins until he wants to turn his face to the rays for more warmth. 

He feels himself sinking heavily into the bedding and stifles another yawn against the inside of his wrist and catches Namjoon watching him again, only this time he doesn’t turn back to the mirror. He asks him directly. “What else?”

“Mmm..” Jungkook deliberates, dropping the mirror for now since neither of them are looking at it. “I didn’t want to cut my hair before I came. My Nan made me.” he admits, encroaching drowsiness and sulking allowing the slightest lisp to soften his words. 

“Ha ha!” Namjoon lets out a strange high laugh before trying to stifle himself, embarassed again it would seem. “I’m sorry.. You want me to remove your last haircut?” he asks, eyebrows raised and forehead lined several times. 

“Yes, please.” Jungkook answers sweetly, cheekily, giving him a half-assed steeple of begging hands with the mirror clasped between them. 

“Alright, you never got that last haircut before you came here.”

Just like that Jungkook is blinking his bangs out of his eyes and shimmies his head a touch to get them to move, the ends of his hair still dripping near the tip of his nose, tickling. He laughs high-pitched and rhythmically at the unruliness of it, his shoulders shaking while he’s reaching up and fluffing the waves of hair spreading over his pillows. 

“Maybe Nan was right.” he laughs, bunny teeth peeking out as he pulls strands down his face and presses them to his pursed lips. He holds the mirror up again and breaks out into new laughter. “What do you think?” He asks dramatically, letting the hair fall in his eyes again. But when he peers through it, Namjoon doesn’t seem to be in on the joke. 

He looks over Jungkook’s new visage and smiles fondly, raising a hand without thought before jerking it back before it reaches the unruly hair. “Well.. I like it.” he states.

“Oh.” Jungkook bites his lip and releases his hair, feeling it spring back. “Should I.. should I keep it this way?”

“It, ah…” Namjoon clears his throat, one of his long fingers tapping the blanket beneath them, “It could be.. Distracting. For Business.” he finishes, and Jungkook has to wire his jaw shut to keep from asking how. To who. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” he says instead. 

Namjoon watches for a moment longer and then apparently loses the internal battle because his hand reappears, long fingers idly parting Jungkook’s hair in varying intervals, seemingly discerning how much of his arched eyebrows to unveil. 

Distracting. 

His hand halts suddenly and Namjoon takes it back, turning and then rolling to his feet. Jungkook half sits up, feeling his face flame at the thought of Namjoon regretting any of this, but then his Vera is folding back the blanket he’d been sitting on. 

“Roll over here.” he instructs, with another clearing of his throat while rearranging the pillows. He beckons Jungkook onto the sheets he’s just uncovered. 

Jungkook is frozen for just a breath more before he listens, taking Namjoon’s side of the bed and being saved the expenditure of getting up, himself. Namjoon even reaches over him, one hand steadied on the mattress beside Jungkook’s waist as he grabs the blanket he’d tossed aside and pulls it back over Jungkook. 

Foregoing a walk around the large bed, Namjoon ignores Jungkook’s garbled noise as he clambers over him, taking the opposite side again. He settles back in their original array, having switched sides and for lack of a better term, tucked Jungkook in. 

 Jungkook would sacrifice a moment to feel some way about that if he wasn’t so entirely, enthrallingly comforted by the quality of the bedding as well as, to some small percent he can admit to, the act of Namjoon shifting over him, the weight of him settling the mattress deeply on either side of him before it was gone. 

Jungkook buries the memory deep below the surface and yawns for a third time and this time his arms remain under the weight of the blanket and he merely turns his head into the pillow until it passes. When he looks again, lips smacking, Namjoon is smiling down at him. 

“I think you’re ready.” 

He doesn’t answer at first, instead focusing on the black stitching of Namjoon’s shirt. “When will I wake up?”

Namjoon shrugs, “It’s not definite. It’s much like regular sleep, aside from how you get there. You can wake when disturbed. Or I can wake you if you prefer to only sleep for so long.. But.”

Jungkook looks to him then, moving his head slightly against his pillow to itch his nose where his hair is teasing. “But.. You think I should sleep for a while.” he answers, still refusing to ask questions requiring his Vera’s obligation be invoked. 

Namjoon only smiles at him, softly. And this time he only hesitates twice before consciously tucking Jungkook’s hair back away from his face. 

“I trust you.” Jungkook says then, lowering his eyes again but not closing them. “You can let me sleep so I won’t mess up again..  How’s that?” he asks rhetorically, the last rounded as he tries to squash another yawn. 

“I think that’s a good idea.” Namjoon agrees quietly, settling down farther himself. 

“Ok. I’m ready.”

Namjoon nods and shifts a bit, looking to get comfortable himself. 

“Are you going to sleep, too?” Jungkook asks. 

“No.”

“Do you sleep?”

“Yes.” he adds, grinning again. “But not now.” 

Jungkook wants to ask if it's his fault, but that would be counterproductive. He wonders if he really should sleep right now and feels the prickling edge of fear trying to awaken but he smothers it down with a deep breath. Trusting he’s safe, in good hands and that simple nervous energy is the culprit they’re trying to overcome together. 

“Okay.” he agrees again, finally letting his eyes close. He feels like he couldn’t open them again if he tried, now that the weight of them has been dropped. 

“Good boy.” Namjoon murmurs and Jungkook frowns out of reflex, though he’s not actually off-put by the praise. He hears Namjoon quietly laugh again, feels his hands through his hair once more. 

The motion feels more steady, as if it’s easier if he’s not watching. 

“Jungkook, you can sleep now.”

Not instantaneous, but damn near. He had thought he’d been comfortable, but the moment Namjoon had spoken, the warmth that had engulfed Jungkook was almost euphoric, the quiet that followed deafening like a shrill note he’d learned to ignore had suddenly been silenced. His nerves suddenly still as mirrored water.

Jungkook’s next breath feels like floating and falling, grounded in the safety of a warm hand across his brow. 

Chapter Text

The wilderness has never bothered Jimin. 

As a boy he’d spent countless afternoons running through the woods and along creekbeds, turning over stones and bringing home various small creatures he’d meet along the way. His small feet never tread on ferns and he used his favorite trees as landmarks in his travels over the small mountains surrounding his home. 

The wilderness suited him just fine. Even stained from green algae and mud up to his pudgy calves he’d run happily for sometimes days, returning to the notched and stacked logs of his house just to bring his mother whatever treasures he’d found for her. 

He’d construct protective shelters around cocoons and dig trenches to irrigate new insect tunnels. He collected wiry vines and small sticks, offering them in a neat pile around areas showing signs of new nests. And he always pressed his tiny palms together and said a prayer to their god when the first snowfall came, asking shelter for his friends. 

He loved the smell of the soil, wet bark, young leaves. The moisture in the air making his lungs feel as alive as the new shoots and fiddleheads springing from the dark earth and he never felt lonely. For the first few years of his life, he was at home, alone in the forest. 

Jimin isn’t so small anymore. His calves have turned to iron and he had to learn how to tread as lightly, but after all this life has tried to throw at him, he’s still more concerned with watering the new growth he finds around him. 

Yoongi doesn’t look at home out here in the forest. 

Crouched and miserable, the exiled Jeon sits unblinking in the rain under the densest canopy they could find but it’s not much of a deterrent. His cloak is soaked through and his hair flat against his forehead. 

Jimin stands several paces away, untouched by the rain. The mud. The cold, mostly, but for the chilling mist he feels as raindrops fall through his body. And he hates it. 

He takes to doing the only thing he can in these times; nothing. His arms wrapped around his midsection, he silently paces around the trees, weaving an unintelligible pattern between them. He leaves no footprints in this form, the only trace of his passing left as a swirling trail of glowing motes like fireflies in summer shade. 

Several drops of water trinkle to his left and catch his ear, then his eye as he traces up to their origin. A grey and white mountain lark skips along a branch, just outside its nest and shaking its feathers out from head to tail. 

Jimin looks up to the sky and traces the clouds, ‘Yoongi..’ he says out of habit, but the silence reminds him. Always reminds him. 

Pushing out a breath he doesn’t feel, Jimin walks over to Yoongi and crouches in front of him until the other’s sharp eyes meet his own. They drop to his lips as he speaks. 

‘The storm is lifting.’

Yoongi watches the silent mouth and nods, using one hand to wipe the rain from his face. He holds his arms out and shivers, grimacing at the cold fabric clinging to his limbs. Rocking his head from side to side, his neck cracks and he takes his time peering up  through the canopy above, trying to see what Jimin sees. 

Jimin sets his hand above Yoongi’s knee, where it rests but neither can feel more than a fleeting warmth like the tension before a static shock. Yoongi frowns at the transparent hand but looks to Jimin after. 

‘We should make a move.’

“To where.” Yoongi grumbles, moving his knee out from under the hand and slowly stretching his leg out, wincing at the cold bite of cloth moving over him. 

Jimin frowns, watching him. ‘Anywhere. Better shelter for us.’

“For me, you mean.”

‘Fine. For you.’

Yoongi scowls a bit darker, groaning quietly as he gets to his feet. Jimin stands as well, taking a step back to give Yoongi space to move. “Any sign of them?” he asks and Jimin shakes his head. 

‘Not since this mornng’s run-in.’

“They’re finding us faster.” he answers, watching the rainfall lessen with each passing minute. He removes his cloak and begins wringing it meticulously in his hands, the fabric shedding water with each twist. When he’s done it’s nearly dry, the material made for this type of recovery though it sacrifices water resistance for breathability. 

Yoongi sets the hood over his head and scrubs at his hair, kneading the water into the cloak and then expelling that with another firm wring, as well. 

‘I need to reach your brother.’ Jimin insists, not giving Yoongi the chance to distract their conversation. 

“You will. It’s just gonna take time.” 

‘Yoongi.’

“What, Jimin. What?” Yoongi bites back, balling the cloak in one hand. “We’re out here, just like you wanted. This is your show. So don’t ‘Yoongi’ me like I haven’t been going along with it.”

‘You haven’t!’ Jimin silently yells back, his fists balled up beside him. 

“We’re not going there.” Yoongi emphasizes slowly, leaning forward in his anger as he enunciates each word. 

Jimin throws his hands up and spins away from him, his shoulders heaving as though taking a deep breath and then Yoongi sees his jaw working around a slew of words he can’t hear, thrown up into the branches above. 

When he seemingly reaches the end of his breath, Jimin deflates. His small hands on his small waist. He counts to three a few times before he slowly turns back around. 

And winces at the furious expression on Yoongi’s face. He’s nearly shaking with anger, but his lip presses firmly into the other and his eyes sheen. 

‘Oh, honey..’ Jimin sighs, rushing two steps forward and setting his hands on Yoongi’s shoulders but he nudges away from his touch. He ducks a bit to try to get in Yoongi’s stubbornly averted gaze. ‘Yoongi... Yoon, please..’

Yoongi works his tongue inside his cheek, harsh brows pulled tight and glares at Jimin for a split second only before speaking, “Even your fat lips I can’t see from the back.”

Jimin gently smiles, stepping aside to force himself in Yoongi’s sight, ‘I’m sorry.’

Yoongi tsks his teeth and looks the other way and Jimin sidesteps there, as well, still ducking his head and gingerly guiding Yoongi to look at him, ‘I’ll curse you to your face next time, I promise.. Will that make you feel better?’

Yoongi’s head drops until his hair shields his face and Jimin waits. He lands his hands back on Yoongi’s shoulders and they slowly relax under him before Yoongi gives one abrupt nod of his head. 

Jimin steps into Yoongi’s terribly slouched posture and lifts his arms around him, careful not to press too close. Careful to keep the tension intact like feathers resting on the surface of still water. He allows his fingers to spread through Yoongi’s hair, though, able to just barely disturb the damp ends at the nape of his neck. 

“I’m meaner than you.” Yoongi mutters. “Don’t make me fill in the blanks.”

Jimin wishes Yoongi could hear the apologies he says even now, wishes he could feel the way he wants to hold him tighter the way he knows the other is yearning for. But he leans back instead, brushing a kiss over Yoongi’s cheek that he, again, shies away from. 

Yoongi feels mean doing that, too. 

‘The only one you’re unkind to is yourself.’ Jimin tells him, leaning back in and planting a firmer kiss to Yoongi’s face, his hands moving to ‘hold’ him in place. Yoongi lets him, and finally looks him straight in the eye. ‘I called you an insufferable fucking stubborn rock of a man who won’t listen to fucking reason in the middle of the fucking forest.’

Yoongi holds his own for a moment, but then he’s cracking. One corner of his mouth dips into the beginnings of a grin and he nods defeat, “Fine. Fair enough. And,” his brows raise conversationally, “Nicer than what I’d imagined.”

Jimin giggles behind one hand and makes a show of shoving at Yoongi’s shoulder with the other. 

“But your plan isn’t reasonable.” 

‘Yoongiiiii~’ Jimin’s mouth falls open and he drops his shoulders, lifts his chin and sulks. 

“It’s not.” Yoongi shrugs, watching his boyfriend let out what is assuredly a long-drawn whine. 

‘It is!’

“We haven’t been able to rest more than a few hours since we left, there’s no way leading these people..” Yoongi shakes his head, motioning the air around them, “Not to mention whatever is after you , these things .. to an old woman’s home is reasonable. You can do it. You can reach him. We don’t need to go there.”

Jimin heaves another sigh and straightens. ‘I love that you have that much faith in me. I do. But Yoongi, I’ve tried-”

“We’ll try again.” 

‘Listen! Yoongi-’ Jimin reaches again and waits for Yoongi to accept the way he folds the apparition of his hand around his. ‘I’ve gotten close, yeah. But the tie you have with him isn’t enough. It isn’t.’ he stresses when Yoongi looks ready to argue. ‘I can’t use your half-blood connection. It doesn’t work. You don’t know him.’

Yoongi swipes his thumb along Jimin’s hand once before pulling away and pacing his thoughts out. Jimin waits. And sees the moment Yoongi figures his angle. 

He spins back to face Jimin, frowning again at Jimin’s guilty countenance. 

“No.”

‘You don’t have to go, you-’

“You can’t.”

‘Said it yourself, we’d lead our pursuers straight to her..’

Yoongi makes a pained noise and cuts it off, both his hands in his hair and gripping it tight in frustration before dropping again. He wants to argue. 

‘I can go now. I could be back within the hour if I’m successful.’ 

“You don’t know that.” Yoongi complains, throwing an arm out. “What am I supposed to do, just sit here and hope you come back? You don’t know if her connection will work, either. That it’s any better than mine.”

‘He’s lived with her nearly all his life, Yoongi, you really think it won’t work? And she can help us.’

“You’re just assuming Hoseok’s blessing is still intact.”

‘It’s a good assumption.’ Jimin shrugs. ‘Even without it, I should be able to reach Jungkook and deliver our message. And then we can really hunker down somewhere safe until we figure this out!’ 

They stand for moments longer in their silence, and Jimin knows Yoongi’s made up his mind. He just can’t bring himself to say it. Then again they’ve never had to use all their words. Not them. 

Jimin lets out another silent sigh and approaches Yoongi, corralling him back to the nook of a tree he’d hunkered in earlier. The rain has stopped, sporadic drops falling from the leaves above. 

Yoongi doesn’t fight it. He looks miserable, but he crouches down again and settles in, wrapping his nearly dry cloak back around himself, Jimin’s hands mirroring the motions. 

His beautiful ghost of a partner kneels in front of him, his soft lips sad, ‘I love you.’

Yoongi can't hear the voice he misses most, but he feels the message overlay in his heart. He memorizes the face in front of him and nods, “I love you.”

‘I’ll hurry back. Promise.’ and he leans in, pressing a warm presence to Yoongi’s forehead before standing tall. He takes one last look at Yoongi before vanishing, nothing but a falling trail of shining white embers in his wake. 

Yoongi buries his head into his knees, arms holding the cloak tight around himself and begins counting down his sentence. 

Chapter Text

It’s difficult for Yoongi to separate the present circumstance from memories and not feel the encroachment of anxiety. Jimin has gone from his side for the first time in what seems like ages and Yoongi tries. He does. But the last time his Vera had been pulled away from him had ended with Yoongi being framed for mass murder.

Weeks have passed, only, but it feels like a lifetime since then and Yoongi hates the way his insides itch with the isolation. Like he’s missing a layer of his dermis or cut off from his nerve endings, left to sense the irritation but not its source.

The invisible hairs on his arms cringe under the fabric of his long sleeves, charged with an imagined static and Yoongi frowns where he sits, rubbing his arms where they wrap around his knees. 

He hadn’t always had such a physical reaction to a separation from his Vera. 

On at least one occasion growing up in the Jeon Estate, Yoongi oopenly confided that he ‘became whole’ the day Jimin had officially been assigned to him. Back when Namjoon had come to him in the quiet hours and asked what it felt like to be paired with one of them. 

‘Completion’ was the only way Yoongi knew how to describe it. Ever since, the times he is apart from Jimin have been physically, mentally, and spiritually uncomfortable. Increasingly so, these last few years. 

No more than a count of 90 seconds have passed since the last of Jimin’s light faded from view, and Yoongi has spiraled deep enough for his life to flash before his eyes. 

Great. This’ll be fine. Easy. 

Yoongi sits up from where he’d huddled over his knees and keeps going, falling back into the smooth skin of the tree supporting him. His gaze travels upwards with the motion and he catalogs the coverage of the mottled canopy above, letting out a long, slow breath. 

The trees around here are drab. Not much to look at. 

Less to feel. 

The woods are young and inexperienced, harboring none of the energy of older forests. No character to nestle yourself into and admire or keep you company. Without soul, making the territory easy to canvas. 

Yoongi opens his mind and allows his senses to fall out of him, to spread out along the ground and reach in every direction like a fountain spring. 

He keeps his consciousness tethered to the outskirts of his spell as it stretches farther and farther from him, conserving his magic by using a rotating pinwheeel of spokes feeding the outer circle instead of blanketing the ground at large. 

Within minutes the warding spell covers acres in every direction and he barely has to pay it any mind, keeping it steadily in place as he wills it to endure for the duration of Jimin’s absence. 

Protected from being caught off guard by anyone’s approach, Yoongi settles in and wonders if he should try to nap, but knows he’d never manage. Not with Jimin gone. 

The moment his mind calls him pathetic, Yoongi dives into it, facing it head on and refusing to let that notion take root. He’s his own person. He’s allowed to feel uneasy without his partner beside him and it doesn’t make him dependent. 

It’s the unknown that makes the difference and Yoongi wonders how nice it would feel to feel nothing if one of them were to simply go out for errands. Or work. Or even a holiday. To be apart from one another without consequences threatening their lives. Their existence. 

Yoongi shuffles his arms more comfortably over himself and shifts minutely, feeling mollified. It’s a strange balance, ensuring he feels valid in his panic that simmers just under the surface. The push and pull of being okay with not being okay after being left behind. 

A younger him would have stubbornly refused to admit the vulnerability, buried deep under a self-made barrier of apathy.  

Of course he’d wanted to go. Apart from staying with Jimin for the journey, Jungkook’s grandmother was a renowned spellcaster among the Jeon’s. The Matriarche who had assured their seat among the elite Groups in Parliament and she’d accomplished it through cunning, guts and no short amount of ability. 

That was ages ago and she’s not as virile in her advanced age. Yoongi and Jimin don’t know what they’re up against. The things after them are more than just men. More than simple spellcasting mercenaries and bounty hunters. 

Those types of men Yoongi could deal with; dozens at a time if need be. He’s practiced and powerful.

But something else had been on their trail and he’d not been able to sense them. Jimin had. 

The first night they’d fled the compound Yoongi had tried to help Jimin but had been useless as his lover had thrown sheild and fled from some invisible thing trying to reach him. And, as Yoongi discovered afterward, invade his thoughts. 

Eyes narrowing and stomach turning, Yoongi gnaws the inner flesh of his lip as he scours his memory. Thinking back through all the books he’s consumed. Antique volumes he’s poured through. Nothing from his years of magical study aligned with what Jimin had described. 

Like a film turned negative, Jimin had said when they had finally broken loose of the chase and hunkered down in hiding. Black figures came for him when he went to rest as if drawn by his slipping consciousness. The only saving grace of the exiled pair had been Jimin’s loosened tether to this Earth. 

The faded Vera doesn’t sleep. Not really. His mind, body and soul all equally split between here and the realm of his dragon god, never fully in either. 

If he concentrates hard enough, Jimin is able to slip a bit from one side to the other. If he expends a great deal of energy, he can touch objects and sometimes move them, but never for more than a few moments at a time and the recovery afterward is more taxing than they are willing to admit is reasonable while on the run. 

They also found he can pass some of his mortal energy to Yoongi in times of crisis, but it had side effects Yoongi wasn’t willing to accept.

Just a week into their escape, when they’d been running for days and unable to gain any sort of lead, Jimin had desperately spelled a large portion of his own energy to Yoongi when his stamina had looked ready to give out. 

It worked. Yoongi and he put enough ground between themselves and their pursuers that they were able to take a desperately needed rest. 

But the exertion proved too much for Jimin’s spirit and he faded almost completely from view for two days. Barely conscious, he drifted behind Yoongi in a daze, like a true ghost gone from this world. And it had nearly ruined Yoongi to see it, unable to do anything but wait for Jimin’s spirit to recover or accept it had been expended past the point of return. 

He’ll forgive himself the deep pangs of worry he’s battling at the moment. 

Yoongi leans to one side and digs in a pocket, pulling out a carefully wrapped protein bar and nipping off an edge. He has to stay alert. He has to stay energized and take care of himself. He has to stay healthy, for Jimin’s sake. 

The bar is tasteless and he consumes a quarter of it methodically, pinching off bite sized pieces with two fingers and popping the morsels into his unenthused mouth before rewrapping it and allowing himself some water from a flask at his side. 

Three minutes down. Fifty-seven to go. 

--------

The guilt is gut-wrenching, but Jimin soars. 

His surroundings liquify like a watercolor painting dipped in the landscape, rushing by in fresh greens and deep blue shade and warm wooden tones all muted with the mists of rain letting up. Himself a streak of white ribbon robes through the muddled paint. 

Hating how he’s been forced away from the one person anchoring him to this world, Jimin focuses on the task at hand and surges forward. It’s immensely taxing.

Heavy lidded eyes peirce along their route and Jimin paces himself by light, knowing he’s faded too far, pulled too much speed for his flight from the other realm when the path gets too bright and he has to pull himself back towards the ground, concentrate on the soil underfoot and reach for the sting of branches whipping by. 

He balances the pull from his god’s realm, warm and ever present, with the cold hard reality of Earth and pushes forward. A break in the trees and he’s flying over river-rock and upstream, heading North. Heading precisely where Yoongi and he had been avoiding, for fear of bringing their pursuers closer to anyone they could harm. 

Jimin glides several more miles in a moment before slipping back into the line of the trees. They’re taller, here. Denser. And their age thickens the air with a certain magic all their own the deeper he goes. 

Carefully, Jimin slows and opens his senses. His ethereal body laces through a maze of underbrush, the drifting glow of his passing falling upon the footpaths of small animals before twinkling out. 

Taking the forest’s magic into his lungs, he exhales between his silent lips. Eyes easing nearly closed,  Jimin feels the space with his body and dances flowing lines between the beings that make up this forest, allowing his mind to reach delicately for a familiar thrum of energy, a current that will feel close to home and recognizable if not exact, and moments later he lands upon it. The bloodline of the family he loves.

Thin as a wisp of willow but strung tight and sturdy as thick woodened vines, the energy marked border of the Elder Jeon’s homestead rises like walls around a smattering of small wooded hills as Jimin approaches. 

A single road of sloppily pressed asphalt zigzags up the Southern embankment, stained with a single track of muddy tires from he can’t guess when, mostly washed away by the recent rain.

Still effortlessly gliding through the trees in elegant arcs, Jimin banks wide and surveys the larger area, lifting his sights to the sky and outward in an impressive dome to blanket the surrounding mountains with traces of his consciousness. It spreads thin, thinner than his semi-perceivable form and then falls, settling as an extension of his awareness should anyone cross into the land his mind now covers. 

His circling gets tighter and he slows again, letting his feet touch down and immediately senses the old woman in her home, still out of sight. It’s a passive awareness, like a tripwire of visitation more than an entrapment and Jimin sends back a non-threatening  pulse of his own as he takes steps towards the source, announcing himself. 

He chooses to use the paved road, climbing the hill as a pedestrian. It’s subtle, but he notices the way the forest crowds closer the higher he climbs. He’s not met Jungkook’s Nan, the Elder Jeon. But he knows she’s been an ally in the past and Jimin, in his service as Vera, has been privy to details about her that others haven’t. 

Time will tell if she’s willing and able to help them. But at the very least Jimin believes she will be able to help him in his search for a connection with Jungkook. 

The black asphalt crumbles gradually away to be replaced by a worn path of natural pressed earth. The incline is evening out and a faint plume of woodsmoke rises ahead.

Fall is just tipping into play, but the foliage here doesn’t know it. Deep lilac bushes cushion trees draped in soft wisteria, the star-shaped white wildflowers edging the pathway like trim and fiddleheads as high as Jimin’s waist like curled stanchions. 

Above, dripping clouds of white lichen sit like crown molding and Jimin steps forward into the clearing of the Elder Jeon’s small home. It’s as though the forest birthed the traditional hanok, letting it bubble up from the ground beneath and kept it embraced in the fabric of its making. Even the paper shuttering the windows appears made from the same clouded sky and pools of rain on the cobbled courtyard that holds a single rundown pickup truck, its fenders softened with moss.

The home slides open and a small bent woman fills the doorway, white haired and warm skinned. She smiles deep, her face soft folds of kindness and hidden eyes as she beckons. 

“Jimin, love..” she coos like an old dear friend as he approaches. She’s reaching for him and without thought, Jimin takes her hand, eyes widening when he feels the bony fingers wrap securely around his own. He has to bend slightly when she reaches her other hand to his face, patting his cheek gently, “You dear thing, so loyal..” 

‘Elder Jeon, I’m sor-’ he begins, stopping when he thinks he hears the far off drone of his own voice. 

“Come inside, come..” she invites, shushing him as she’s shuffling around to pull him through the entryway. 

The kitchen welcomes him, the lights shuddering a bit from limited electricity, but the hearth is burning bright. As expected of a functioning home, the hanok has been fitted with modern conveniences and appliances, though perhaps a few decades since new. 

Elder Jeon attempts to steady the hanging lamp swinging above the center table but concedes to Jimin’s better reach with gratitude. His fingertips manage to interact with it’s cool metal frame just enough to steady it. 

“I had ‘Gukk tighten it before he left, but.. Damn thing.” she laments, turning her back to Jimin and climbing a step stool to busy herself at some sort of ice chest. 

Jimin glances around the room, eyes falling on more than half a dozen step stools at varying distances around the counters and cabinets, thinking he’d have a hard time leaving them in place as they’d obviously been placed with purpose. Elder Jeon’s kitchen seems utilitarian and accessible for her, specifically. 

But he also notes small traces of Yoongi’s brother. Some knives tossed on the chest by the door. Wood carvings of small animals in the window alongside tiny pots of succulents. A pair of men’s boots caked in mud and grass. A flannel shirt on the back of the door and a handwritten note next to a flip phone on the counter, ‘keep me plugged in!’

It’s not. 

There’s a note to the right of that one, taped into place on a breadbox, ‘Rebecca’s food’. A small stick figure cat is drawn in the corner. 

Once he’s seen those first two, dozens of notes catch his eye and Jimin feels a heavy knot twist in his stomach. They really are cut from the same cloth, those Jeons. 

‘Elder Jeon, we need your help.’ Jimin finally says, turning back to the old woman digging through chipped ice. He had heard himself, then.. If not from very far away.

She pulls out a mason jar and turns, triumphant. “Grab those glasses.” 

Pursing his lips a bit hesitantly, Jimin looks to where she indicates and points, his brows lifting in silent question. He takes a step towards them and maneuvers around a step stool, pointing more directly, and can suddenly picture an unfamiliar figure extending his own reach while standing back from the counters because of all the stools. 

It’s a figure of energy this home knows well, who moves through the space with learned muscle memory, and once attuned to it Jimin is amazed by the amount of Jungkook’s energy that is left here. 

“Yes, those. Grab them.”

Jimin doesn’t think, he just obeys and stares at the glasses he’s just placed on the kitchen table. Then at his hands. They still look the same. Translucent and clouded, and yet.. 

“Call me ‘Nan’. I hate that Elder shit.” the woman says, climbing up onto a chair and motioning Jimin to join her. 

Jimin tries not to smile, but he can’t help it. He wishes more than anything Yoongi were here with him. He carefully settles himself onto the adjacent stool and finds he can lean his forearms on the table with a light balance. 

‘Alright. I will.’ he agrees, watching Jungkook’s grandmother unlid the jar. She deftly pours a honey golden liquid into each glass and places one in front of him. 

The scent of honeysuckle suddenly wafts and Jimin’s breath catches, his mind immediately thrown back to childhood summers spent weaving aromatic bushes into fae castles fit for princes. 

He looks down at the liquid in front of him and his throat constricts with thirst. 

“Not yet.” Nan says conversationally, setting the lid back on the mason jar. 

Jimin eyes his glass and looks apologetic, a bit wistful, ‘I don’t think I can, anyway..’ It’s odd, hearing himself like a muffled humming. 

“You can. Just not yet.” she quips back. “I was expecting you both sooner. Where’s Yoongi?”

‘I… he stayed back. We don’t think it’s safe.’

“Mmm. Pity. I would have liked to have seen him. But I guess I’m not surprised.”

‘Nan…’ Jimin starts, experimentally touching the sides of the glass in front of him. He tips it gently from side to side, watching the contents shift and a fresh plume of floral honey perfumes the room, ‘do you know what’s going on? I came for your help reaching your grandson.’

“I do. And I will.” She answers, “I prepared this for us once I knew you were coming.” She motions not only to the drink before them, but the air around as well. The levels of magic at play are woven so intricately Jimin can’t sort out which are new and which had been built into the initial warding of the home. 

“But first,” Nan pulls him back, “Tell me what you and Yoongi have been doing all this time- I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of the news.” she sounds irritated, even waving a hand behind her that Jimin can only assume is directed at a television or radio somewhere deeper in the house. 

‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to press, but it is vitally important I reach Jungkook as soon as possible. We’re worried he’s not safe.’ It’s uncomfortable responding to her hospitality like this, but more than anything Jimin feels the nervous pulse of his Charge in the back of his mind. As well as his own worry for Yoongi’s young brother. 

Nan frowns, nodding her head. She looks towards the door and her eyes glaze to mirror the overcast skies outside. “It’s not time. Not yet.. But he’s okay at the moment. Soon.” She reaches out and pats Jimin’s hand with her own. 

‘Is.. can you reach Namjoon-hyung?’ Jimin asks, eyes narrowing,  ‘Are you still assigned Hoseok-hyung’s blessing as Namjoon-hyung’s Conduit?’

“Fancy names.” she scoffs, dragging her gaze from the door and back to her own glass. “Sometimes I feel the work of Vera Namjoon’s god in me. Sometimes I don’t. Less, now that ‘Gguk isn’t here.” 

‘But this place, your home, the magic..’ Jimin asks. 

“Hoseok is a kind boy. He’s helped me secure this place. For me and for Jeongguk. We were safe here.”

‘Are you not any more?’

“I am. But I doubt I’d have been able to protect him here. His spirit became too big for me to hide.” Nan sighs, tapping fingertips along her glass. “There are things at work, now. Things I don’t see or understand. I feel it as you probably do- dear, dear Jimin.” She reaches to pat his hand again, then presses a bit firmer until it slowly starts passing through him. She moves her hand as though through water. 

“I feel the trace of those shadows on you. They catch up to you while you’re resting. Follow you while you’re fleeing, yes?”

Memories of that morning’s pursuit resurface, fresh at hand. They’d been running from men sent from Parliament, but the spiritual shades had been on their trail as well. Jimin can feel their reaching energy in the wake of his own, always needling and grasping at the edge of his mind, trying to take hold and lock down their location. Yoongi hasn’t been able to detect them, but Jimin feels them constantly at their heels.

‘What are they?’ Jimin asks.

“People like you, I’d imagine. Or they were. Trying to reach someone.”

Jimin frowns, moving his hand slowly through Nan’s. ‘They’re after Jungkook.’

“Yes.” she admits.

‘Why do they come after hyung and me, then?’

“I don’t know. Why did you come to me?”

Jimin bows his head, ‘I can’t make the connection, myself.’

“I assume it’s the same for them, whoever they are.” Nan takes her hand back and motions to Jimin’s glass. “He’s almost ready, drink up.” 

Jimin looks back up at her, startled to see a faint illumination in just the white’s of her eyes. He’s never been exposed to magic like this. It’s abrupt and precise the way it falls inside her and she focuses her attention on the glass in her hands. 

Jimin looks to his own and a faint etching catches the light, a hairline row of letters barely legible but spelling out their target’s name, ‘Ggukkie’. He’d wager the same hand that had carved the woodland creatures in the window had etched his claim on this glass. 

With one final glance to the older woman, Jimin brings the rim to his lips and for a moment the honeysuckle mask gives way to a powerful substance that burns his nose, but he’s already letting it spill into his mouth.

It burns like coals. The alcohol spreads over his tongue and evaporates almost immediately when he gapes, trying not to cough, the vapors of it permeating him and clouding his eyes. 

Nan watches him, sipping carefully at her own like hot afternoon tea. She reaches slowly and parts Jimin’s white hair, pressing her palm to his forehead and Jimin feels a flash of something come alive in his chest. “Your mantle is still strong.” She says, meeting his hazel eyes. “And renewed. You’ve been with your dragon god recently.”

Licking his lips, Jimin sets his glass back down and his shoulders sink. He peers under Nan’s warm touch and gives a short nod. “I don’t remember it, but that’s what I thought, too.”

“How recent?”

“A few weeks ago. I over-expended to get Yoongi somewhere safe.”

“How long were you out?”

Jimin sighs and thinks back, trying to weigh what Yoongi had told him against the probability of him keeping some of the truth to himself to spare Jimin the worry. “He said a couple days. Felt like longer, but I think it was about that long.”

“Mmm.” Nan hums, letting her hand fall away but the spark it had evoked keeps pulsing inside Jimin. He can almost see the light of it through his skin, coursing in his veins. “Do you remember dreaming?”

He nods. “I saw her. My dragon god.” he admits, looking up towards the ceiling but eyes far off, remembering. “Clearer than when I’d come into service, but she didn’t say anything this time.” The lights of the lamps glisten in his eyes at the memory. 

“Do you think she wanted to?”

Jimin frowns, feeling the rush of emotions flood into him as they had when he’d dreamt himself in the presence of his immense god. “Not sure. It felt like… it felt like she wanted me to stay with her.”

“But here you are.”

He nods. “Don’t think she meant for me to stay, just.. She was sad to see me leave.” 

“Even gods have their favorites.” Nan smiles and Jimin looks at her, answering with his own sad curve of lips. 

The lights suddenly flicker and Jimin startles, feeling the air shudder throughout the entire home. Even his ward across the mountains trembles like an aftershock.

“Drink. He’s ready.” Nan orders, and picks her own glass up, tipping it back and downing half its contents in three large pulls. 

Eyebrows pulling down tight, Jimin squares his shoulders and takes a settling breath before following instructions. This time he’s prepared and he empties the glass all at once, feeling the molten liquid light him up from the inside. The first physical thing he’s felt stir him since his damnation. 

The glass toples empty to the table and Jimin watches as Jungkook’s name disappears from it’s rim. He feels himself grow in space, feels the confines of the kitchen holding him inside and he presses his will against the walls, feeling the house shake again, more violently. 

“Focus, Jimin, focus..” Nan is saying beside him. She’s taken both his hands now and they lean close together. “Go on. He’s ready. Take my guidance and go..”

At the last word Jimin is exploding outward. He no longer has form. His body far behind. His spirit is everywhere and he feels as vast as the world itself. It’s terrifying each time he does this, but under it all he feels the guiding warmth of a directing voice. 

‘They’re coming. Now fly..’

Nan’s mind shoves him and he goes. He follows the path he’s gone a dozen times already, feels the pull of the Jeon ancestral estate beckoning him home. With a thought, he’s a presence there in an instant. And this time he knows he’s going to succeed.

An arrow of familiar energy guides him like a compass towards a mass of whirling energy where there hadn’t been before. He gathers his guts and his glory, zeroes in on it and is diving wholly inside the opaque vortex to reach the trace of his love’s bloodline encased inside. 

He blinks, breathes, and Jimin is standing beside a bed looking down at a sleeping boy. He’s never seen him, but he knows this is the boy who carved those animals and tiptoed around step stools and cared for a cat named Rebecca. 

Everything else around Jimin is blown away in streaking broad strokes from brushes too large to control, but he feels movement all around the estate. Souls and bundles of energy of each living being residing within. 

Hurried and disoriented, Jimin searches for a moment and pinpoints the most familiar heart. Taehyung. Outside his reach but his soulmate is there. 

Then Namjoon. Jimin looks towards his left and he can’t make out a solid figure, but he sees the familiar illumination of Namjoon’s being at rest. His is the most pure energy Jimin’s seen, simply kind purpose and beauty without his body. 

‘Hurry..’ Nan reminds deep in his thoughts and Jimin whips back towards the sleeping boy. 

‘Jungkook .’ he calls, pouring a careful dose of his god’s will into the name until he sees the visage of Jungkook’s energy stir from his body. It’s strikingly similar to Namjoon’s and Jimin has to force himself not to look back for comparison. 

Alarmed, Jungkook’s dream embodiment sits up and looks to Jimin, recognition hitting and he sucks in an echoing breath, ‘Jimin-ssi?...’

‘ Yes, I don’t have time.. ’ he breathes out and collapses onto his knees in front of Jungkook on his bed. Distantly he can feel the first of an unknown number of intruders pass the mental barrier he’d laid around Nan’s home. He looks around frantically, knowing he’s got moments before they track his spiritual scent here. 

‘ You need to be careful, this place isn’t safe.. ’

“Is my brother okay?” he interupts, with pleading large eyes like a fawn and Jimin’s heart snaps. 

‘ Yes. But Jungkook, liste-’ Jimin cuts off, inhaling sharply when he feels the presence of something dark far too close. It’s distorted, broken apart but large and inside the compound already. There’s no way it could have made the leap that quick. It had already been here, whatever it is. And Jimin’s arrival had awakened it. 

He keeps looking around for signs of it’s approach as he speaks and sees Jungkook looking around as well, ‘ There are things here, things that we’re pretty sure killed your father, and they reach you this way.. As I am.. ’ he explains and then stops, another piece falling into place. 

‘You haven’t been sleeping..’

“N-no..” Jungkook answers, looking towards the brighter area of the washed out room. ‘Namjoon-hyung let me..”

Jimin puzzles it over for a moment and nods, grabbing Jungkook by the shoulders. ‘Keep him close. Okay? Don’t let him get separated from you. They try to send him off to do something alone, you refuse to leave his side. Promise me!’

“O-okay. I promise.” Jungkook agrees with eyes so wide and bright they look ready to spill over and Jimin feels a twist in his heart for bringing fear to him this way. 

‘I’m sorry, I have to go- Yoongi will be fine, I promise, okay? So just stay safe for him.’

Jimin scowls as he sees Namjoon’s spirit flare brighter, encasing them in a protective shield like an automatic defense. He can’t remain here any longer, drawing greater attention to Jungkook’s whereabouts. ‘Do me a favor- tell TaeTae I’m alright, and whatever you’ve been doing to stay hidden, keep doing it.’ he gives one last pointed look and then explodes back into the atmosphere, racing back to defend the border’s he’d left behind. 

-------------------

Gasping, Jungkook bolts upright, scrambling to look in all directions from the center of his bed. His heart feels explosive, his ribs aching from the pressure of containing all that he’s feeling. He gulps in air, sweat trickling down his temple and swallows, eyes locking on Namjoon sleeping in his chair by their window. 

Raising a trembling hand to his head, he pushes his longer hair back and attempts to quiet his breathing. He can feel nothing but the calm embrace of his Vera’s energy around them, sleeping like its owner, and has to wonder how real his dreams had been. 

His limbs shaking from the downfall of adrenaline, Jungkook manages to swing his legs off the bed and get his feet on the cold floor. Tentatively he reaches out and confirms Chang is outside his door, at ease. 

His mind is a mess, sorting through memories or dreams or magic realities.. He feels his eyes begin to brim hot with frustration and frowns, bearing down on his diaphragm to beat his emotions into submission, nauseous with it all and still unable to sleep, it would seem.

When he feels the last of his shivers ebb away, he gets to his feet and shuffles quietly across the floor, watching Namjoon’s face for any hint of waking, but he remains peacefully unaware. 

Jungkook reaches Namjoon’s side and looks down at his Vera, almost able to touch the pressure and exhaustion Namjoon must be feeling because of him, and he doesn't know how he could possibly wake him to ask what just happened. Not when Namjoon’s face is so beautifully at rest and his soft puffs of breath so calm. 

Carefully, Jungkook sinks to the floor at Namjoon’s feet and sets his head against the chair, the hollow ache in his chest blossoming upwards and expanding the knot in his throat. He wishes with everything that he is that Namjoon can rest and not be bothered by him, cushioning his Vera in the calmest blues he’s ever held inside himself. 

It feels marginally better. 

Jungkook ignores his next broken breath and presses his face gently into Namjoon’s knee, feeling the fabric seep the moisture right from his eyes. 

Chapter Text

The phase returning to his body is instantaneous compared to leaving. Jimin slams back into himself and catches the edge of the kitchen table, swaying when he grips too tight causing his fingertips to slip beyond the surface. 

From being nearly overrun by forces crowding close and trying to reach him to just a single embracing presence, the sudden shift in energy around him is disorienting. 

Trying to wrap his senses around his new reality, Jimin takes several steadying breaths waiting for his ears to stop ringing and his vision to adjust from the blinding flash of shifting, but a piercing light won’t seem to fade. 

Jimin’s eyes remain narrow slits, peering through the tight squeeze of his dark lashes and he shields his face with one hand. The light is gradually losing its intensity and he can just make out the confines of the kitchen, noting the bright light isn’t as all-encompassing as he’d thought. It’s coming from his left; from Kim Namjoon’s Conduit. 

The old bent woman who had held his hand is gone, leaving instead the Jeon Matriarche in her prime. She stands straight and tall, face once again youthful and severe, with a fist cradled against her other palm, magic pouring out of her in flushing waves that rush past the walls in every direction sounding of crashing rapids and hurricane gales. 

Balking with trepidation faced with this force, Jimin checks his own wards finding them obliterated under the weight of this new warding magic. But even as he watches, he feels it sputter and the lights flicker. The woman in front of him buckles under her own spell and chokes out a strangled breath as the outpouring of magic runs dry. 

“Nan?..”

Rushing to her side, Jimin carefully steadies the women as she comes down from the heights of casting Greater Magic, watching as the skin around her face grows loose once again, her spine bending and hands gnarled. He begins pouring his own magic out into a new ward, even from hundreds of meters away able to sense the irritating tap of dozens of shadowed beings attempting to crack into the territory they’re holding. 

In his mind’s eye Jimin can see a slithering group of them like misting black visages of the undead, moving with sharp contorting joints. They’re crowding one point in the defensive wall, clawing until one shoves the first half of their body through, scrabbling and weaseling further even as Jimin braces himself to strengthen the fortitude of his spell’s barrier.

But Nan is sinking in his grasp and he stumbles reaching for a chair, misses, and has to concentrate to hold more of her weight without letting her literally slip through his grasp. “N-n-no no no.. hold on, Nan.”

Grimacing, he focuses back on the assault against his ward just in time to see a single form slip through and come racing towards them. He can see its trajectory like a projection over his sight and begins the arduous task of gathering more energy while holding the current spell intact. 

It’s too much. He can’t hold the spell, summon energy for a defensive attack and hold himself solid enough to support Nan and he chokes out a distressed noise, realizing he’ll have to let the women slip to the floor as gently as possible in order to protect her. 

The black shade is crossing the courtyard outside and Jimin has a thought to flee with them on his trail, but dismisses it immediately without the assurance they’d leave Nan alone. He crouches and regretfully uses his hip and leg to slip her towards the ground, turning as the intruder phases through the walls of the kitchen and launches towards him. 

Snarling through the hair flipped in his eyes, Jimin redirects the energy spent holding Nan to his defensive spell and blasts the humanoid shadow straight in the chest, its reaching hands falling just shy of Jimin’s face. 

The black thing whirls like thinning smoke where Jimin hit it, faltering back before dissipating into not much more than a faint afternoon shadow skittering along the walls. Jimin watches and readies another blast in his palms, forearms extended, but the weakened figure feints once more before diving through the walls again, retreating. 

It’s not much of a reprieve. Jimin feels the wriggling press of maybe half a dozen more of them breaching his failing defensive barrier and glances down at Nan. She’s moving, but barely and Jimin can’t be sure she wasn’t injured when he’d let her drop, nor how much of her energy had been spent warding them during his time with Jungkook. 

The distraction costs him when the attacking figures appear right before him, faster than the first cautious scout. They come all at once, suddenly in the rom with them, an incoming torrent of dense smoke blocking out the light. 

Teeth bared, Jimin lets loose two white blasts from each palm before the shade that had retreated attacks from behind, wrapping cold fingers around his throat. 

The remaining attackers collide against him, into him and with sickening realization Jimin feels them peering into his mind and ripping through his thoughts, searching. His magic flares inward and he tries to shield from the mental intrusion but the hands that push into his ethereal form tug at his veins, shift his tendons, scrape at his nerves and he cries out feeling utterly and entirely trespassed. 

Bile rises and Jimin chokes on it, his mouth acrid with humility and hatred focused so intently inward he doesn’t know how he can stand to live anymore. He’s a failure. Useless. Unworthy of his station or his place beside any of the Jeon’s, let alone Yoongi. His mind screams, but it also aches with intrusion and lies that threaten to turn him inside out if he can’t break free of the twisting entities dirtying his thoughts. 

He tries to find some notion to ground himself in, but he can’t shake the dread that captures him hostage with promises of a future alone and shoved into small dark caverns that smell like quiet death and his childhood. His mother’s voice echoing from chambers away to go a bit deeper. Look a bit further. Don’t come out until you find more. 

A raw noise scrapes from his throat and Jimin thrashes, sinking to his knees. 

Nan’s presence alights from behind him and he panics anew, unable to turn and protect her but as the figures claw deeper and deeper inside him, another blinding light fills the room. He can’t tell what’s happening and falls between memories of never ending cold stone blanketed nights and the burning ember of a star’s heat blasting into existence. 

The essence of his god fills the space around him and Jimin lets out a dry sob, curling tighter to hold in all the fleeting moments of connection from past, present, future colliding in a great calamity of conflict inside his body. Agonizing but beautiful. There’s not room for it all and he feels about ready to tear at the seams. 

It’s silent for a full moment before a deafening sonic bass note shakes the mountain and the wave that shudders through them like a nuclear blast evaporates the black enemies into nothingness. Annihilated and leaving nothing but the sound of Jimin’s harsh breathing.

He stumbles onto his feet again, swaying from the sudden lift of weight and reels around, diving to catch the old woman in his arms from where she’s falling from thin air. 

They sink to the kitchen floor again, Jimin supporting her carefully as he breathes heavily, eyes darting in every direction but there’s not a trace of another being for leagues in any direction. She wiped them all out. 

Wide-eyed, Jimin sees Nan trying to look up at him, her lips curved in a wry smile. 

“Showed them.”

Choking on a laugh, Jimin smoothes her hair away where it had escaped it’s pins. His head falls back and he gasps for breath through his smile, completely spent. 

-----------------

After leaving Jungkook’s room, Taehyung had meant to return to his own but the idea of shutting himself indoors didn’t sit well. The mood in the Jeon Estate is charged higher than normal. Even without having been in the meeting, he’s sure the magic that had been thrown around is coursing through the complex. 

Those types of spells are illegal for good reason. Aside from the ethical implications, there’s no way to track them back to the caster once set loose and the residual energy from a spell that large lingers for some time if not masterfully directed. 

Jungkook hadn’t even known he’d been spelling a dozen officials. Of course he didn’t direct it efficiently. 

Taehyung heads down the stairs to the man foyer and his suspicions are confirmed as he feels the magical equivalent of a temperature shift. He takes the last few steps and sinks into the thick press of sloppy persuasion muddling around in the space of the ground floor. 

He hadn’t felt the effects upstairs in the East Wing where they all room down different halls, but here at the halfway point where the main stair sinks to the lower level, Taehyung is only halfway to Namjoon’s library where the meeting had been held and he can’t imagine how pervasive the lingering energy must be on that end. 

Taehyung’s upper lip curls and he hates to admit it but It’s annoying in that it’s so soothing. His mouth widens into a grimace to showcase his displeasure,  trying to hold on to his contempt for the act. He knows the only reason he’s annoyed is because unlike the poor unsuspecting people in that conference, he recognizes the smooth atmosphere is being forced upon him. It’s not real. He doesn’t feel good right now. He doesn’t. This calm is a lie and he doesn’t do lies. 

Taehyung misses many things about holding his mantle as Vera when his dragon god had closed their eyes. He’s had to make adjustments over the years but he thinks he’s done a proper job of treading the line between having his mantle put on pause and knowing he’s still responsible to uphold the virtues of his Vera race. 

Being affected by the magic of mortals is not something he’s accepted easily, and he’d trade many of his current leisures of everyday living to have that perk of Vera abilities granted back to him. It’s exhausting, especially in this homestead, to be on constant alert for persuasive magic. 

Pulling his brows tighter together, Taehyung makes for the main entrance and throws the doors wide, stomping out into the sunlight and only garnering a few glances from the staff. 

Out here it’s easier to breathe. Out here he can feel himself and know it's genuine. As he steps down from the front patio he glances behind him and gives a perfunctory nod of farewell to the seeping mound of Jungkook’s magic that oozes out the front door. 

That it’s such a pretty energy annoys him, too. 

At least he knows there’s one person more irritated than he is at the slip up. Taehyung pulls out his phone as he walks across the lawn, sending a text to Jin suggesting he check up on their Magic Defense Master. 

Chang had looked downright ill where Taehyung had left him standing guard outside Jungkook’s room and he’s sure Jin’s the only person on the grounds who could approach him about it and not be ignored out-rite. 

Once the text is sent Taehyung looks around to see where his feet are taking him and isn’t surprised when a particular checkpoint is coming into view. Two buildings away from the housing structure, Taehyung nods to the security guard standing outside a stone tower clipped on to the back end of the Defense Station. 

A small stone building, by comparison. Cubical and efficient, housing the majority of the security staff of the Estate as well as several practice areas for both martial and ballistic arts. 

“Is he up there?” Taehyung asks, shielding his eyes as he looks up towards the top of the tower. A small group of finches flit around the pinnacled rooftop, shining yellow in the sunlight. 

“Yes, sir.” 

Taehyung bows his head in thanks and ducks inside, happy he’s slowly becoming accustomed to the smell. It’s not offensive to his senses any more, just musty in that very particular way this tower will never be rid off. 

Pinching his pants at his thighs to raise the wide hems, he takes the stone steps around and around, climbing the tower. About three quarters of the way he hears the staccato warning from one of the tower’s residents. 

“Is that RoseMary?” Tae calls out sweetly through his smile, reaching the top of the steps. 

“It was Toba.” Hoseok answers. He’s standing across the circular room in his tan painter’s overalls repurposed for these visits, tucked into old Timberlands and a grey cap covering his head. He melds into the Aviary as a long term occupant, stained and textured for durability. 

Toba, the very large bird in question, is eyeing Taehyung from his waist-high perch beside Hoseok, his black and white plumage rising in irritation around his neck. Half the size of Hoseok and twice as intimidating, the bird clacks it’s maw once at Taehyung and then turns away. 

“Aw, be a good boy, Toba, it’s just Tae..” Hoseok whispers in his voice he pulls out just for these creatures. High and coo’ing and wubbling his consonants. It’s not a voice you’d think to use with giant birds of prey looking straight out of the Jurassic period. 

Bearded Vultures, Taehyung had learned from Hoseok. And their personalities were as wide-spread as their colors. 

Taehyung nods and forces a grin at Toba, but steps over to the coral colored female closer to him. She chirps sweetly at his approach and he coos at her, raising one curled index finger to stroke her breast feathers under Hoseok’s watchful eye. “Here’s my girl.” 

Her golden eyes squint behind red lids and she shakes her feathers, enjoying the pets and Taehyung giggles. He looks across the room and Hoseok is smirking at him. 

“Don’t care what you say, she’s the only one that likes me.” Taehyung sulks, leaning in to nuzzle against RoseMary’s fluffing neck feathers. Hoseok scoffs quietly, but doesn’t argue. 

“Toba.. kiss-kiss.” he says, turning his cheek and the larger bird lightly taps his beak against Hoseok’s tiny dimple. “Good boy.” he says, giving him one more stroke along his chest. As soon as Hoseok steps away, Toba cocks his glare in Taehyung’s direction and squawks, causing the other to jump. 

Taehyung glares back at him before giving Hoseok a vindicated expression. 

“He likes you,” Hoseok grins as he steps up to the other side of RoseMary, “He just likes me more.”

“You’re the ONLY one he likes.” Taehyung insists, to which Hoseok only shrugs. 

“How’s my girl?” Hoseok asks, raising a fist up in front of RoseMary. She awkwardly leans to one side to lift a foot, curling her talons into a fist and Hoseok taps against it proudly. 

Taehyung laughs, “That’s new. What a smart girl you are!”

RoseMary lets out a high whistling chortle and ruffles again. Like Hoseok’s baby talk, the pleased vocalizations don’t sound like anything that would come out of a bird looking as she does. Proof that you don’t judge by appearance. 

“Where’s the rest?” Taehyung asks, motioning to several empty ledges around the room. The Aviary is home to not just Hoseok’s two Bearded Vultures, but an array of predatory birds housed and sported by the Jeon Group. 

“Hunting.” Hoseok shrugs, leaning his overalls-clad rear back against the further end of RoseMary’s perch. “Keung took them out this morning.”

Taehyung nods, running a fingertip over the long talons curled around the post, smiling when RoseMary moves her foot at the slight disturbance. “You were on a call earlier.. Jin said they’re trying to postpone the thing tomorrow?”

“Tchhhh..” Hoseok frowns with half an abrupt head tilt, pushing back to his feet and turning away, hands on hips and Taehyung feels a bit bad for bringing irritation back to him when Hoseok had come here to clear his head. 

“Well, they can’t.” Hoseok gripes, his words round and drawn through his sulking mouth,  “But not for lack of trying. They tried to issue a junction that because hyung hasn’t served his preliminary period with his Charge they can postpone their official swearing-in until later this year.” 

“But they can’t?”

“No. Not in time. Jungkook and Hyung sign tomorrow and only an officiated order would stop it now.” Hoseok explains, going to a cooler he’d pushed to the side and pulling out a sawed-off portion of beef bone. He tosses it in one hand, end over end to get Toba’s attention and then hands it to him. 

“It needs your approval.” Taehyung concludes, grinning wryly. Hoseok really could be an underhanded asshole when he wanted. 

“No, but it does need my superior’s, and she wasn’t having it.” He grins back at Taehyung, playing a bit of tug-of-war with Toba before letting him tear into the bone. “The forms will sit in her inbox until at least next week.” He frowns deeper, looking pensive with too many thoughts. 

“Didn’t think having Jungkook back would stir up so much.” 

“Understatement.” Hoseok sighs, giving Toba another pat before stepping back over toward Taehyung. He pulls a folded high stool from against the wall and props it open, crawling up onto it with his hands gripping the canvas seat between his spread thighs. “You heard about the mess in the conference room?”

“Mm. Just came from ‘Kook’s room, actually.” Taehyung leaves RoseMary and paces around Hoseok, using his hands in his pockets to hoist his pants up higher around his abdomen to keep the ends from trailing the wooden white-spattered floor. “Hyung was gonna put him to sleep.”

“Good. For both of them, really.”

“Mmm. I wasn’t there for the meeting, but it sounds like our little Jeon got a bit defensive over Namjoon-hyung.”

“Deja vu. That what you’re thinking?”

“They’re brothers.” Taehyung shrugs. “It makes sense. Just.” he exhales and doesn’t continue even when Hoseok waits. 

“Wondering how many similarities the four of them share?”

Still no answer, and Hoseok turns back to admiring his female companion. There is no sense prodding Taehyung for conversation he’s not ready for. Hoseok knows this and has grown to accept it as one of his closest friends. He’ll speak or he won’t. 

Sometimes you can speak the words for him, but other times you risk putting words in his mouth he’ll spit right back and Hoseok’s not confident he’s been given enough to read this conversation that’s barely begun.

Taehyung stands still behind him, hands deep in his pockets and watches Hoseok remove his cap to settle his hair before replacing it. “Hyung..” 

“Mm.” he responds, swaying back and forth on his own perch, looking at the ground now.

Taehyung doesn’t answer for another time. It’s not something he wants to ask like a knife in the back. He makes up his mind and steps in front of Hoseok, watching him slowly straighten up and look him in the eye. 

“I guess I just… I wanna know if it felt the same, selecting the three of us.” 

Hoseok’s lips purse up, his small dimples pressing into his face when he takes in Taehyung’s hardening expression. Something he hides behind when the question means more to him than he’d like to let on. 

Running his tongue over his teeth while he thinks, Hoseok startles when Taehyung’s long delicate fingers pry Hoseok’s from their grip on his seat. He looks back to Taehyung but sees nothing in his expression. He’s a stone. Handsome and carved and unreadable. 

But the way he wraps his fingers around Hoseok’s hand is slow and methodical and careful. They don’t typically touch one another outside friendly banter, sun basking naps in the yard, laughing backhugs. 

Certainly not during serious conversations. Perhaps it’s meant to encourage Hoseok’s thought process, but Hoseok frowns and averts his eyes from Taehyung’s intense attention when it doesn’t. Even out of service his gaze pierces through all pretense. 

Sometimes Taehyung is nothing but questions, filling his bowl with every word he can pull from you. Endless inquisitiveness that seems it could outlast the gods themselves. But the times he’s not are heavy like the scales of perdition, his ability to read circumstance everlasting, absorbing every nuance, breath and intention no matter how quietly presented. 

Had they all felt the same?

“You didn’t.” Hoseok finally admits. He quirks a brow when he glances at Taehyung’s reaction, face falling when he sees the discerning set of the Vera’s features. 

“But Hyung and Jimin did.” Taehyung challenges, smooth voice deep and penetrating. It’s hard to listen to this close up and Hoseok sighs, shrugging again, his fingers twitching awkwardly but he doesn’t take his hand back. 

“You were my first, Tae. It’s hard to compare. I don’t know how I found you, but I knew you were right for the blessing. You are Vera and I stand by my selection.” Hoseok sounds sure of his answer, and finally seems prepared to watch his response. 

The tables turn. 

Taehyung’s bottom lip falls just a touch, his eyes averted when he doesn’t know how to respond to that. Few people in the world know more about the world of Vera than Hoseok and the pure-born Vera themselves. 

Perhaps the gods themselves have secrets because even as an active Vera, Taehyung had been unable to see the truth behind Hoseok’s past, present or future. How he or his predecessors had come to hold the power to bestow the mantle of Vera through their gods’ blessing, enriching the world with greater numbers of the race aside from those born into it. 

“It’s true, Jimin and Namjoon-hyung I selected under different circumstances. I knew a bit more about what I was doing by then. Does that bother you?” Hoseok asks, voice gentle and coaxing. 

Taehyung looks off to the side, sees Toba cock his head quizzically at him and then look away. He leaves his hand around Hoseok’s. “You selected them because of who they were for. Because you knew they’d have their counterparts in Yoongi-hyung and Jungkook.”

“Yes. In large part.” 

Taehyung watches Hoseok for several seconds, leaving his unasked question hanging in the air. Tips his mouth in displeasure when Hoseok doesn’t seem to notice. 

“...Then no, it doesn’t bother me.” Taehyung decides, but his tone doesn’t sound convincing. It’s been decades since Taehyung has been in service to the only Charge he’s ever had. They’d gotten along well and once she’d retired from service, so had he. Easy. Simple.

Concluding. 

And not at all what his friends are now experiencing. Taehyung finally breathes out what he refuses to be a sigh and takes his hand back, stepping back over to his favorite bird. 

“Are you going with them tomorrow?” he asks, stroking RoseMary’s head with two fingers while she lets her eyes drift closed. 

“No, I’ll be here.”

“Okay. Bye, pretty.” he dips in and gives RoseMary a kiss goodbye before descending the tower again. 

Pressing his lips tight together, Taehyung steps back out into the sun and realizes he swapped one annoyance for another. He’d give anything to roll up into Jimin’s bedroom and prostrate himself across his soulmate’s bed, telling all his secrets to an understanding ear. 

Lamenting from one Vera to another the burden of truth. Even strictly human he could have seen the truth. That Hoseok had chosen Jimin for yoongi. Namjoon for Jungkook. 

And Taehyung for himself, though Hoseok didn’t realize it then and can’t see it now. 

But instead of  having a healthy exchange of thoughts around his feelings to someone who understood him to his core, Taehyung begins the disappointing trek back to his own room by cutting diagonally across half a dozen lawns and dark mulched flower beds. And maybe it’s because he’s too far into his own head, but even his own energy seems unreliable and flimsy, whisked aside with the breeze that feels laced with foreign entities. 

And under it all, he faces a hollow, aching need to see Jimin again. 

Taehyung heads to the far East end of their building and finds himself rubbing his chest through his white tunic, licking his lips and pressing them together. A nagging sense won’t slide away from his thoughts, feeling like an anticipatory call or text bringing bad news. 

Avoiding the main entrance, Taehyung opts for the spiral stair clipped to the stone corner of the home by Jungkook’s room. Once inside it only gets worse, and Taehyung searches the hall but feels nothing out of the ordinary. Chang is still standing at his post. No one is screaming. 

But it feels unnervingly like the night he’d felt Jimin on the outskirts of his dreams. 

“Anything new?” Taehyung asks hesitantly when Chang watches him walk up. “Anyone call? Stop by?”

Chang raises a brow but shakes his head. “No, nothing. I believe they’ve been successful with their plans.”

Taehyung nods and presses his lips together again, looking at the door as if he can see through it. He can’t sense either of the occupants within. “Wanna break?” he asks, nodding back towards the way he’d come but Chang only looks at him like he’s given the stupidest suggestion ever uttered. 

Rolling his eyes, Taehyung grips Chang’s shoulder and physically pulls him into the center of the hall, “I don’t wanna go back to my room and I think you need to .. go outside. Something.”

“What.”

“You’re all.. You look like.. ” Taehyung makes a face at Chang’s deadpan expression, “You feel like you’re gonna tear this place to the ground. It can’t be helping Jungkook.”

Chang has the decency to look perplexed by the notion, glancing at the door himself as if he hadn’t considered the implications his state of mind may have on those around him.

“I get that you can chameleon your way through most shit, but maybe not with him, hm?” Taehyung tries for gentle, but winces a bit when he can tell he’s struck another cord in the shorter man. 

Chang gives him one more good glare and then steps past him, headed for the outdoor stairs. “Call me if anything changes.”

“Promise.”

Perhaps that hadn’t been the best way to reach the prideful man, but Taehyung can’t take it back now. And he was right. They don’t know enough about Jungkook’s abilities and what he can sense. He may very well be able to read them out here in the hall even while under Namjoon’s directive sleep order. 

He waits until he can no longer hear the footfalls on the metal rungs outside before turning back to the door. His hand hesitates and then lowers. Of course he can’t knock. He pulls out his phone, then puts that away as well. There’s no guarantee Namjoon has his phone on silent. 

Taehyung’s not sure what sort of compromises they made after he’d left them, but he doesn’t want to be responsible for waking Jungkook after so much trouble. Huffing out a breath through his nose, Taehyung decides to enter without announcing himself, hoping the circumstances will absolve him of any ill feelings from the intrusion. 

He gently takes the door’s lever in hand and tips it, hearing the faint click of the apparatus and tentatively cracks the door open. 

He’d meant to enter as slowly as possible once visually confirming the coast is clear, but the blast of magic energies that pours into him nearly knocks him back a step and he overcompensates, stepping forward into the room with wide eyes and a quiet pant of surprise. 

His attention falls first on the bed in front of him, rumpled and empty, before following the trail of a disheveled sheet dragged half off the mattress pointing towards the window. There Taehyung finds his two compatriots and he straightens, his head cocking sideways. 

Huh. 

Namjoon sits slumped back in his floral patterned armchair, mouth slightly agape and clearly in a deep sleep. His neck gently nestled against what appears to be a folded garment, his long hands threaded over his stomach. He’s dressed down in a black tshirt and linen slacks, his socked feet crossed comfortably at the ankles. 

And half kneeling but mostly collapsed against him at his feet, a wavy haired Jungkook rests his head against Namjoon’s thigh, both his arms draped lazily around his calf and shin so his hands rest like dead weight between Namjoon’s crossed ankles. 

Taehyung can’t help the disbelief on his face, wondering what the hell had happened in the short time he’d been away. Jungkook isn’t asleep. His face turns minutely towards Taehyung in the entryway before turning back towards Namjoon, lifting the heel of his hand to rub into each eye. 

Once the novelty of the moment passes, Taehyung feels it. The underlying current of something dark but very distant like it had visited in no more than a recollection, and it begins to make sense. The myriad of twisting thoughts he’d been navigating regarding Jimin. 

Pushing the door closed behind him, Taehyung approaches the other two quickly but carefully, squatting down towards Jungkook who is shifting up a bit from his place against Namjoon, pulling his legs under himself. 

“...you okay?” Taehyung asks, peering through waves of black hair he could have sworn hadn’t been that long, and when Jungkook looks at him Taehyung blinks back. “What happened to you?”

He could be referring to anything. Why he’s not sleeping. Why he’s on the floor. Why he’s taken to clinging to Namjoon like a teddy bear. The unnatural lilac color of his eyes. 

Jungkook glances up at Namjoon and seems to relax when he sees he’s still sleeping, but then he’s rubbing at his face again and doesn’t want to come back out from behind his hands as he curls over his folded legs. “I dunno.” 

Teahyung almost doesn’t hear him. He’s so softly spoken. But also the energy in the room is fluctuating wildly and Taehyung can’t get a bead on if Jungkook’s doing it or something else is whirling unchecked. 

“Are you doing this? Can you feel it?” Taehyung asks, indicating the room at large. 

“..I dunno.” comes again, even quieter than before and Jungkook’s voice breaks. 

“Jungkook.” Taehyung says a bit firmer, but still carefully, “Jungkook I need to know if .. did you see Jimin?”

He nods, his face in his hands and Taehyung lets out an unsteady breath. 

“Maybe we should wake Namjoon.”

A longer pause, but then another nod. 

Taehyung stands and leans over, setting his hand on Namjoon’s shoulder and gives him a light push, “Namjoon-hyung.”

The sleeping Vera continues deeply breathing, Taehyung’s attempt useless. He narrows his eyes and tries again, louder, “Namjoon-hyung. Wake up.” Another shove. 

Namjoon still doesn’t stir and Taehyung looks between the two of them, starting to panic. Vera are not affected by mortal magic. They aren’t. It just doesn’t happen and either Namjoon’s mantle has also been stripped or Jungkook is unexplainably maintaining an impossible feat, and Taehyung can’t imagine either being true. 

He crouches down to Jungkook again, pressing at the younger heir’s shoulders to get him to sit upright, to drop his hands away so Taehyung can see his forlorn face with bright altered eyes. “You want Namjoon to rest, don’t you?” Taehyung prods, not wanting to upset the already unsteady boy. 

Jungkook looks away, biting down on his bottom lip but he nods again. 

“‘Kook.. that’s good. That’s nice. Hyung needs to rest but.. you need to let him wake up now.”

Jungkook swings his wide eyes back to Taehyung and his mouth falls open, “Oh, god..” He looks up towards Namjoon and a moment later Jungkook’s on his feet, leaning over his Vera and placing both hands on his shoulders. “Hyung??” he calls quietly, his voice sounding on the edge of desperate when he realizes he may have once again used his magic irresponsibly. 

Messed up, again. He doesn’t want to be a fuck up. He doesn’t want to cause trouble. 

“Hyung?” he tries one more time, anxious and willing Namjoon to hear him. 

Namjoon stirs, his mouth closing and he swallows, eyes clenching tight twice before he’s blinking them open and then baffled to be under Jungkook’s gaze. 

Taehyung huffs, standing and setting his hands on his hips and wondering how the hell he’s going to explain this. He rocks back on his heels and watches Namjoon come awake, looking around him and appearing more and more confused. 

Through the apprehension in his narrowed eyes, Namjoon’s jaw tenses and his chin protrudes slightly. “What’s happened? What..” he mutters, looking around and undoubtedly feeling the still turbulent forces meandering around the room. “What is going on?” he asks, looking at Jungkook who shirks away and then to Taehyung. 

“He spelled you.” Taehyung says. 

“What do you mean?” Namjoon’s eyes narrow even further and he keeps glancing between the other two, a creeping impatience causing him to sit forwards. 

“I mean he fucking spelled you to sleep, hyung, not the other way around.” Taehyung argues back, his arms motioning in his exasperation of being questioned about something he had no part in. “What the hell happened after I left?”

Namjoon whips around to face Jungkook and the younger boy flinches, rubbing a hand over his other arm. “I didn’t mean to.. I didn’t realize I was , I..” he’s trying to explain, but even now his energy is pouring out of him, feeding the thick magic in the air with his intent and both other men feel a sudden pang of love for the struggling heir. 

Taehyung laughs, wry and dry and unkind. 

Namjoon just sits back again, staring at Jungkook as if he’d struck him across the face, brows harsh and mouth slack. 

“I’m calling Hoseok.” Tae mutters, pulling his phone out and to his ear in one movement. He glances at Jungkook, then looks to his hyung. “All the fucking power in him, and that’s the persuasion he goes with?”

Namjoon forces himself to look away, contemplating Taehyung’s assessment regarding the pull of compassion towards the Jeon heir. It shouldn’t have been possible. But clear as a heartfelt request Namjoon had felt the magic enter him and gently coax ‘ please, love me .’

“He’s just falling back to what he’s needing.. What he’s missing.. It’s instinctual.” Namjoon explains, but doesn’t seem to be directing it to the one who asked. Taehyung, who’s glaring at Jungkook and waiting for Hoseok to answer. 

“What did Jimin say?” Taehyung asks, and Namjoon enters a whole new session of confusion, looking between them. 

“What?”

Jungkook is looking like he’s struggling to keep his breath deep and steady, his jaw clenching when he grits his teeth trying to get a hold of himself but his mind is drowning and overstimulated and he can’t tell what thoughts are his and which he’s drinking up from Taehyung and the electrifying current of Namjoon’s mind over it all. 

He closes his eyes and threads his fingers together behind his neck. “I’m not safe. Stay close to Namjoon-hyung. Something’s trying to reach me when I sleep.” he recites, opening his eyes to see Taehyung scowling deeper just before he turns away. 

“Hobi-hyung.. This is getting out of control, you need to come stop him…. Yes, that kind of stop him… I don’t know! Namjoon could? Maybe?... I really think it should be you… okay.”

Jungkook takes several more deep breaths, feeling himself hit a higher sense of panic when he can’t stop the trembling in his hands, “I’m sorry..” he murmurs through equally trembling lips, “I’m trying..” and he exhales again, searching for a starting point inside himself to bottle everything up but he can’t tell where any of his thoughts begin or end. “I think I’m gonna be sick..”

“Jungkook..” Namjoon says gently, stepping towards him and setting his hand on Jungkook’s shoulder, feeling the way it rises with each mindful breath. Jungkook presses his lips together and glances at him, “Can I help you?”

Jungkook nods, lowering his head. Dropping his hands from his neck to instead wrap his arms around his midsection. It feels better standing closer to Namjoon, a few steps away from the unadulterated agitation pouring off of Taehyung. 

But Namjoon is solely focused on Jungkook, giving him a softly encouraging smile and he nods back. A faint illumination gradually smooths the contours of Namjoon’s features and he speaks slowly, “You’re going to recover from this, okay? You’ll be able to breathe and let go of the tension clouding your control. You can concentrate. You can do this.”

Jungkook does as he’s told, each breath he takes feeling a small step closer to easier and he keeps nodding along, embracing the way Namjoon’s honey voice feels when it releases him from his own debilitating thoughts.  His lungs open wider and sure enough, he turns his attention inward and can sense the general ends of his energy that needs to be contained. 

Concentrating on the soothing voice and warm press of another body connecting at his shoulder, Jungkook begins the process of arduously building restraints around his energy. The whirling, confusing torrents of magic in the room slow down and stop rotating, time seems to slow when opalescent motes hang in the air, still too thick to dissipate. But it’s marginally easier to exist. To find himself in all the colors. 

“Good, Jungkook, you’re doing well.” Namjoon praises and Jungkook exhales again. 

“I’m sorry, hyung.” he hears himself say and longs for someone to tell him it’s alright. He bites his lip and keeps himself from apologizing again when Namjoon doesn’t respond. 

“Hoseok is on his way.” Taehyung says from a few steps away, watching this exchange closely. Carefully. “He’s going to Limit you. Do you know what that means?”

Jungkook can guess, but he shakes his head, “No.” 

“He can temporarily take away your magic. All of it.” Taehyung explains, turning to claim Jungkook’s armchair. “Indefinitely, too, if needed, but..”

“Tae.” Namjoon gently scolds. 

“ But ,” he continues brazenly with an exaggerated look at Namjoon, “That probably won’t be necessary.” 

Jungkook doesn’t look all that comforted by that, but nods again anyway. Clearly something needs to be done and he doesn't have enough of his mental faculties performing at anything close to normal to make these decisions on his own. He looks to Namjoon, “Will it hurt?”

His Vera’s hand grips a little harder around his shoulder and Jungkook realizes a thread of calming energy is seeping into him at the contact point, “It can be different from person to person.”

They turn quiet. Introspective. Namjoon keeps his hand on Jungkook and Jungkook works to separate his thoughts from his spiking impulses of energy itching to pour out of him. There’s still too much noise in the atmosphere and Jungkook zeroes in on a sour sense of hurt. Disappointment. Envy. 

Clarity is returning and after another few minutes he can trace it back to its source. 

“Taehyung, hyung..” Jungkook quietly addresses, “He’s okay.”

Taehyung sits back in his chair and lifts one sharply arched brow over his hard eyes and Jungkook swallows before continuing. “Jimin said to tell you. Said ‘tell Tae-Tae I’m okay’”. 

The hostile colors ebbing around Taehyung simmer down to the surface and nearly disappear, low enough that Jungkook can no longer taste the bitterness of it. 

Taehyung lowers his head until his face is hidden, folding his hands across his stomach and finally nods once to acknowledge he’d heard Jungkook. 

Worrying the inside of his cheek, Jungkook glances at Namjoon for guidance but only gets a small shrug. He finally drops his hand from Jungkook’s shoulder and turns once, falling back into his armchair. 

“Did you sleep?” Namjoon asks quietly, obviously not wanting to disturb Taehyung in his thoughts but the other jolts to his feet anyway, heading towards the door. 

“I’m gonna wait for Hobi-hyung..” he mutters before the door closes between them. 

Jungkook exhales again and sinks into a cross-legged seat at Namjoon’s feet, his Vera leaning away a little at the unexpected proximity when Jungkook’s chair is there for the taking. 

Unaware of Namjoon’s confusion, Jungkook tilts to the side and rests his head against the chair’s padded arm. “Not really, no..” he answers Namjoon’s initial question, “At least I don’t think so..” his voice softens, “I remember talking to you.. I remember feeling like I could sleep.. And then Jimin was here.”

Jungkook sets his attention to the leg of the coffee table in front of them, tracing the curves of the carved wood with his eyes. Comparing the warm tone of the finish with the white of the rug below it, trying not to think about the way Namjoon had been unable to forgive his earlier apology. His eyes burn with exhaustion, his temple tensing with the ache of emotions welling up underneath. 

His scalp tingles and then he feels fingertips tentatively thread through his long hair before retreating. 

“Do you want me to reverse this?” Namjoon asks from beside him, and a moment later his touch is back, combing gently. 

Jungkook shakes his head, letting it fall against Namjoon’s thigh once again, “No.”

Chapter Text

“Hey.”

“Mm.” Chang doesn’t move, sitting stock still where he’s cross-legged on the stone bench and Jin softens as he approaches over the white gravel. Perhaps the floating white seeds and gentle sunlight help, but Chang’s reticence to overstate anything never fails to make him grin. 

The other man is in a mood and Jin knows he should be a bit more compassionate, but he can’t help finding it humorous that he found Chang right where he knew he’d be, where he always finds him in this very particular corner of the Estate when things go sideways. A secluded clear space through a maze of Hiroki spruce and narrowing stone paths. 

Jin takes his seat next to Chang and crosses his denim-clad legs, pulling up the sleeves of his pink sweatshirt and leaning back on his hands to enjoy the sunlight. 

One of them has to. It’s a lovely day. 

Jin lets the silence persist for now. Chang is poised, staring straight ahead and wearing a face so stoic it’s composed of elegant slashes of brow, eyes and mouth. His features perfectly spaced and angled beautifully in his exquisite bone structure. 

Alright, Jin is staring. 

Maybe that’s enough silence. Jin takes a last look at the other’s serious demeanor and sighs dramatically. 

“What’s the matter, did you conjugate ‘they’re’ incorrectly again?”

Because he was looking for it, Jin catches Chang’s sharp eyebrow twitch and he smiles wider, waiting. 

“Hardly.” It’s minuscule, but Chang’s chin tips up. 

Jin’s shoulders threaten to start shaking with his silent amusement but he perseveres, his eyes glinting the deeper he smiles without letting out his laugh. He lets his head loll over one shoulder and his nose scrunches in the sunlight. 

“...And that was one time.” Chang finally mutters, his chin lifting again. 

It was a lost battle from the start. Jin’s nasal passages can’t contain the noise anymore and he snorts before letting out his light squeaking laughter. Chang’s answering grumble does nothing to quiet him and Jin chuckles a few more times before sighing airily. “I know. And I will continue to remind you of that one time until it’s no longer funny.”

Chang lets out his own silent exhalation and finally glances over at Jin. “I fail to see how poor grammar amuses you so thoroughly.” 

Jin shrugs, “It doesn’t. You do.” he leans in and bumps Chang with his shoulder, who doesn’t react but for a deepening frown, which is acceptance as far as Jin is concerned. 

Now that he’s verified Chang is in a perceptive mood, Jin takes a deeper breath and lets the bantering tone slip away. “Heard about the meeting.” 

“Mm.”

“What do you think?”

Chang blinks a few times, staring straight ahead. His wrists rest on his knees, hands lax but fingers undulating rhythmically as he thinks. Jin watches his features harden and gives him time to sort it out. 

“I don’t think it was me.”

Jin nods, knowing that’s what had been bothering the other man the most. The thought that he could have possibly missed something. Grown lax. Lacked the skill to stay ahead of his purpose. Jin’s never known someone more disciplined. 

“Jungkook’s really something, hm?” Jin adds, coaxing the conversation farther when Chang seems ready to simply continue reflecting on his perceived failure in silence. 

Chang’s head falls back a fraction and his eyes fall closed, a sign he’s replaying past events. Dissecting them. Retracing the spells still lingering in his thoughts like aromas that conjure memories. 

Jin watches silently from beside him, beset with the way the man is facing the sun with his porcelain skin and silken hair pulled tight. The way his bowed lip tucks over his lower in concentration. 

The way he’s perfection in form and function. 

Jin swallows what would have been an embarrassing vocalization and scolds himself. This is serious. The man is clearly working through something troublesome. It’s just hard to remember when he keeps it so expertly under wraps. 

Jin can generally feel the ails of the people around him. It’s what he does. It’s his job as a Healer, let alone a large part of who he is and he prides himself in being able to feel out what’s toxic to any one individual and then lead them through recovery. 

Mental. Spiritual. Physical. He’s gifted in all aspects of his craft, but Jin excels in the spiritual health of others. It’s what drew him to this place and the people in it. It’s easy to sort through the good and the bad of people when you can see what truly irks them, and the people in this homestead are, for the most part, good people. Some of the best, in Jin’s not-so-humble opinion, since in all the times he’s witnessed them help other factions he’s never once felt an ounce of annoyance or bitterness. The Jeons, as a whole, genuinely want to serve others with their abilities. 

But persuasion magic is complicated. There are so many ways to turn it into something ugly. So many subtle intricacies that remain untraceable even to the user. Upon meeting the late Master Jeon, Jin had recognized the inner turmoil at once. And his sons share that doubt in their notion of trust; a notion they understand can be manipulated because it’s within their power to do so. It breeds mistrust in themselves and those around them.

Chang had been the enigma. 

Seemingly unphased by both Jin’s assessing nature and the magic of the Jeon’s household, he’d been the easy choice when it came to their home security. The impenetrable Chang Minwei. 

To Jin’s knowledge, it has never been confirmed. Or even asked. But he’s fairly confident he knows the secret to Chang’s supposed immunity. 

Very few living beings harbor the type of magic Chang does, and this particular brand had been thought to be extinct. It would not surprise Jin in the slightest if this specimen of perfection was the last of his kind. 

And Jungkook, an untrained lesser magic caster, had spelled him. To say he was ‘something’ was an understatement. 

“I don’t know what he is.” Chang finally answers, unfolding his legs and setting his feet upon the ground once again, apparently done meditating on this for the time being. He shifts into a more natural position and lets his back curve the slightest bit, but it’s slouching as far as Jin has ever seen him. 

“Do you mean he may be something other than human?”

Chang shakes his head, “No. Nothing like that. He’s born of his father and mother, like any other Jeon. But perhaps they’re evolving.” Chang explains, sounding as though he’s thinking out loud more than reporting his opinion on the matter. 

Jin purses his lips, “Like his magic is evolving? He’s not trained..”

“Maybe that’s the point.” 

“Hm.” That holds water. Other Groups with magical talents have reported similar things happening. Where members of the family developed quirks outside the regular repertoire of spells due to the lack of training. Their magic simply found its way to the surface. 

Those cases usually just meant they could do the Group’s spells without the same casting stance or mantra. Not that they surpassed all their predecessors and accidentally blew through the Group’s Magical Defense Master. 

Jin finds himself watching Chang again, always, because Chang never watches back. It’s like giving Jin free rein to look as long as he wants. So he catches the very gradual way Chang falls into himself. The lowering of his gaze and then his head. And he knows exactly the train of thought he’s working through. 

“Even if you figure out you can detect this.. evolved magic, somehow..” Jin starts, leaning in a little bit just because his voice is lower. He sees the way Chang’s hand tightens against the stone of the bench, but continues, “You didn’t fail our late Master Jeon. You know?”

Chang slowly leans back again, looking up and watching the tips of the steepled trees sway in front of them. “I’m finding..” he starts, taking a moment to actually turn and look Jin in the eye. “Knowing and believing are not the same, as I once thought.”

And what can Jin say to that? He feels the vicarious injury, then. The shame and disappointment that punctures a hole straight through Chang’s torso. Jin doesn’t react when it hits him, simply draws in a breath and lets it ease out of him with a veil of healing comfort to take the sting from the edges of their atmosphere. 

Chang continues looking at him and under any other circumstances, Jin would close the distance and lean into him, molecules at a time to memorize this moment like the few others like this one he’s collected between them. But it’s still not the time. The spiritual injury surges again from behind a collapsed shield and Jin watches Chang sadly, feeling his own vast caches quickly fill with an overabundance Jin’s hard pressed to conceal. 

When Chang lets his guard down, which is almost never, his metaphysical injuries always hit Jin this way. Sudden and flooded like a dam breaking and you wonder how so much could have been held back with no trace of it on the surface. 

The one time Chang’s guards had outright failed him, the day after the late Jeon’s passing, the onslaught of misery and shame had choked the last breath from Jin’s lungs and left him wobbling, barely able to keep them both standing. 

But this is measured. Intentional, if not overly calculated and Jin has to wonder how much of a conscious decision it was for Chang to let him feel this from him. He lets the soft sorrow well around them both and reads it. Weighs it. Counters it. 

Jin casts his healing around them and lets it penetrate in slow, warm waves that feel like a body shuddering from newfound heat after an icy chill. Comforting. 

Chang finally looks away and drops his head again, pulling his hands into his lap and rotating the ring on his middle finger. He doesn’t thank Jin for his small spell, but he doesn’t tell him to stop either. 

“I should get back to my post.” he says. 

Jin hums in acknowledgment, but neither of them moves. He leans his weight to one hand and raises the other to the nape of Chang’s neck. Gently, he brushes Chang’s black hair aside to fit his palm around the muscle there before gently squeezing. “Namjoon’s there.”

Chang nods and lets his head fall further, allowing Jin to slowly knead at his neck. 

-------------

Once Jimin has managed to sit Nan back in her chair he takes a few minutes to solidify the spells around them, though it seems unnecessary. He can’t sense a thing stirring in the wilderness for miles, and she says as much. 

“They won’t be back. And no more have been sent.” she lazily waves a hand at Jimin who’s laying the last directional ward. “You’re wasting time.”

“I just want to be sure.” Jimin says with his voice full and audible. He stops, turning to stare wide-eyed at Nan, arms dropping to his sides. “I… did you?”

Nan chuckles at his disbelieving voice. His voice that sounds clear and present in this very room. And only now he realizes he’d had no trouble physically lifting the woman from the floor after her impressive burst of power earlier. 

She beckons him to come over. “It’s temporary. Like I said, you’re wasting time. I’m sure you don’t want to spend it here with me, hmm?” 

Jimin shakes his head but then stops himself, mindful of coming across rude but Nan just snorts again. She sounds tired. And she idly rubs her wrists with knobby hands as Jimin steps up to her side with worry soft in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Fine. Just aches, I’ll manage. You should go make use of this gift, Jimin..”

“Is it a spell?” he asks, confused how this is happening. 

“No. It’s a side-effect.” she says, “Physical presences have been strengthened here, but that means your connection to your god has weakened. Gotta be careful.” She shimmies in her seat for a moment, straightening her sleeves with a sigh, “Grab me a drink, will you?” and she motions to the ice chest once more.

Jimin complies, leaning around her stepstool to pick two mason jars from the chipped ice. One the matching honey hue from earlier, and another a bit deeper in color. He sets them down on the table in front of her, trying not to stare at his own hands and the way he can barely see through them. 

“You got through to ‘Gguk? Told him everything you needed to?” She asks, reaching for the darker liquid and struggling for a moment before Jimin pops the lid off for her and pours some into her glass from earlier. 

“Yes, he’s okay. Namjoon-hyung is with him and I told him to stay beside him.”

Nan smiles, lifting the glass with both hands. She gulps half of it down, smacking her lips, “Good. Good boy. Now get back to Yoongi- I suspect he’s worried.”

“What about you?” Jimin asks, already feeling light on his feet with the urge to fly back to his partner, but Nan is taking another long sip from her glass, holding up a finger and Jimin grins at her ability to drink the contents like plain water. 

“The wards will hold, and with you gone those bastards won’t be back for me.” She explains, taking a deep breath and releasing as though the thirst of nations had been quenched. Jimin pours her some more and she nods in approval. “I’d offer you some, but you have some travel ahead of you, still.” she grins wider, raising a white brow up at Jimin. 

She points a finger at the other jar, “You should take that. It won’t do you much good without a safe place to retreat to after using it, but the components in it are powerful. Useful.” 

Jimin knew this. He’d used similar potions to boost his spells in the past. Honeysuckle for deepening the bond of traced minds. Lilac for concentration. “What’s the alcohol for?”

“It gets you drunk.” she says, gulping down her next sip and Jimin laughs. “Now get out of here, I’d say you have an hour, tops.” 

Jimin bends into a deep bow, thanking her and then secures the mason jar by the wire lid to the hook on his travel belt at the small of his back. Something on the counter catches his eye and Jimin hesitates, “Nan, could I ask one more favor?”

She straightens and looks over, turning back to Jimin with a smile. “Of course.”

--------------------

Seventy three minutes. 

Yoongi stalks around his small clearing, hands on hips and matching his own footprints to the soles of his boots. He’d tossed off his cloak a while ago, letting it drape over some small prickly bush that would probably give him a rash. 

His head hurts from the mental whiplash he’s given himself, between facing his worries and trying to distract himself. Most recently he’s turned to his utmost hatred of all things botanical. 

His ass is wet. His toes will never be warm again. The trees in this forest give off some sort of sap that coats everything with a waxy stickiness that Yoongi decides is worse than the pain of a swarm of bees and twice as annoying. He’d kill a man for a scalding hot bath to melt all the woods off of him. 

He doesn’t know how Jimin survived practically alone in the woods as a child and enjoye d it. 

Once again he’s back to thinking about Jimin. Yoongi halts his pacing and props his hands backwards on his hips, elbows bent wide. He restarts the mental clock, feeling agitated because it’s easier to swallow than fear. 

Only this time, along with his thoughts of Jimin, he feels the rush of familiar energy trip over his wards and suddenly the woods don’t seem so terrible a place. 

Yoongi breathes in through his nose, feels the pressure in his chest and slowly breathes out over pouting lips. His wait is over and Jimin is alright, on his way back to him. 

He turns and begins gathering up his things. The energy heading towards him seems rushed, but not panicked. He’ll be ready to go, just in case. 

Yoongi stashes his water and picks up his cloak, shaking it out once. He watches a handful of briers drop off of it and sighs, his face contorting in a nose-scrunching grimace as he shakes it more violently to dislodge any other prickers. 

He pauses, thinking he hears something approaching and wonders if Jimin is stirring up wildlife in his passing. But then he feels something more. He hears something more. The cloak falls from his hands and Jimin comes barreling into the clearing, not slowing as he casts aside his own cloak and travel belt, his beautiful laughter bubbling out in a high giggle when he sees Yoongi’s face. 

“J-Jimin?!” Yoongi goes wide-eyed as he’s run into, Jimin jumping into his arms and smacking their bodies together so roughly it knocks the air out of both of them, lifting onto his toes as Yoongi takes him into his arms, his small feet continuing to take steps forward when there’s no farther for him to go. 

“It’s just temporary, just temporary!” Jimin is saying urgently in his ear as he holds him closer, not wanting Yoongi to get the wrong idea. Not wanting to get his hopes up. 

He leans back and cradles Yoongi’s stricken face with both hands, his own smile bright and crowding his eyes almost too small to see,  “It’s temporary, but it’s real for now.” he says, biting his lip when he sees the welling of stars in Yoongi’s eyes. 

Yoongi faintly shakes his head, not wanting to dislodge Jimin’s hold on him, the warm press of small fingers cupping his cheeks and under his jaw. Standing in the silent clearing he can’t believe he can hear Jimin breathing. Can still hear the echo of his laughter that had sang out like wind chimes through his veins. And the growing warmth along his cheeks from Jimin’s soft hands is enough to start Yoongi taking in a few more shallow breaths as his emotions spike. He shakes his head like he doesn’t believe it, his mouth working wordlessly, eyes blinking repeatedly as he tries to find words. 

Jimin knows, though. Knows what Yoongi wants him to say. 

“Yoongi.” he says delicately, and swipes his short thumbs across mounding cheeks before pressing forward into Yoongi’s smiling lips. 

Yoongi’s throat lets out a devastated noise at the first touch of Jimin’s cushioned lips and Jimin grins, their mouths pressing tight together before being left parted and pliant. Yoongi’s brows invert desperately and Jimin tries to remain still for him, letting Yoongi come to terms with what’s happening when all Jimin wants to do is grab hold of him. 

But with Yoongi touch is sacred and not touching enough is worse than not touching at all. He’s been starved of Jimin’s contact for far too long and Jimin can see in the way Yoongi’s glassy eyes are fixed on him that he’ll need time. More time than they have. 

“~honeybae…” Jimin croons cheekily and Yoongi’s lips try to pull back over the smile Jimin’s voice is bringing to the surface. 

Yoongi sets a hand on Jimin’s waist and his other hovers at Jimin’s hard jawline before gently smoothing over it, Yoongi’s sharp hooded eyes dropping to Jimin’s lips as he drags the pad of his thumb across them, watching them get pulled aside before gliding back to their full inflation and Yoongi holds his breath for too long. Feels it fight against his throat and then stutter out of him and he can’t decide whether to push his own lips against Jimin’s flushed pout or continue playing his touch across the soft surface of them. 

He moves closer three times, hesitates three times before Jimin gives a loving half roll of his eyes, licks his full lips and flirtatiously waggles his arched brows. “Ready yet?” Jimin murmurs against Yoongi’s thumb, “Because I’m getting impatient, Hyung…” and he turns slightly into Yoongi’s touch, mouthing a kiss around the press of his finger and Yoongi lets out another noise deep from his throat. 

Yoongi jerks closer but stops a breathe away, just as Jimin knew he would. Because Jimin knows as much as Yoongi wants this he will take every moment as a gift. Jimin can feel it in the way Yoongi breathes against him and his fingers curl around the nape of his neck and fingers delve into his hair. The way Yoongi tilts his head and noses along Jimin’s face while their mouths fleetingly grace each other. He can feel Yoongi’s heart racing and he loves the way he can read Yoongi’s heart in his eyes. 

Jimin lets out a fairy of a laugh, soft and light, nosing Yoongi back, “C’mon..” he whines through his gentle smile. 

Yoongi smiles then, slow and sincere. Jimin thought he was ready but is barely prepared when two hands wrap around the small of his back and pull him closer. He feels his heart tip an extra beat and leans into Yoongi’s firm body. He lets his hands glide from Yoongi’s face and into his hair, pulling him in as well and when Yoongi tips his face up into him, mouth opening, Jimin lets his eyes sink shut and thinks ‘thank the gods..’ when they finally connect in an honest kiss. 

Yoongi’s hands at the small of Jimi’s back gently coax him closer, his jaw nudging encouragingly through their melding mouths and Jimin eagerly takes the invitation to deepen the kiss, feeling himself react to the gentle groan from Yoongi’s throat when they finally taste each other. He is melting against Jimin, turning absolutely liquid in his arms, Yoongi's hold easing from firm to clinging with the way his fingers curl into Jimin’s clothes. 

Yoongi sways forward into Jimin and they fumble a step, grabbing at each other to keep from stumbling and Jimin laughs at Yoongi’s insistence to keep kissing him through it.

As gently as possible, Jimin pulls back and gives Yoongi a kiss to his cheek before setting a small hand to Yoongi’s chest, signaling a pause to their reunion. Yoongi pouts severely, his eyes looking comically betrayed and Jimin giggles, smooching Yoongi’s little button nose as he takes him by both hands, leading him to the tree that had supported Yoongi during his rest. Jimin turns and leans against it, pulling Yoongi back into his arms.  

“How long?” Yoongi asks in a small voice, ducking into Jimin’s arms and nestling close to his neck. Nudging at his shoulder. Tipping his small nose under Jimin’s ear and pressing kittenish kisses along his skin. 

He revels in the heat of him, feeling Jimin’s pulse pushing a warm tempo against his sulking lips that press around the column of Jimin’s neck. 

“Not long.” Jimin sighs, letting his hands run up Yoongi’s back, then down again, cupping comfortably around the swell of his ass and he pulls him closer.

Yoongi tries not to, but gives in and nestles his whole body forward into Jimin’s arms until he’s dead weight. Not long enough. 

“Is it.. Can we replicate this?” Yoongi asks, his own large hands fitting around the pronounced peaks of Jimin’s hip bones as Yoongi suckles glistening red marks into his skin. His hands travel around Jimin’s small waist and Yoongi grazes fingertips into the swells of muscled flesh below the small of his back, teasing over the cleft between. 

Yoongi leans back, able to watch the way Jimin’s mouth devilishly falls open and Yoongi moves into it, fitting his lips around the gasp. Stroking his articulate tongue against Jimin’s, slow and careful to feel every cushioned tug and glide of Jimin’s plush lips against his own. 

Jimin tilts his head to deepen their kiss, tasting Yoongi sweetly before pulling back and letting out a sigh, feeling his chest flush hotter. “Not easily.. Maybe..” he breathes, letting Yoongi nibble once at the swell of his lower lip as he speaks. Yoongi’s small teeth grazing him elicit a low groan from his throat and Jimin’s eyes flutter shut.

Drinking in the sight of him looking so affected with so little, Yoongi feels the pit of his stomach burning and can’t help pushing harder, closer against him just because he finally can . Jimin’s body heats so quickly and his small hands grab again, fingertips dragging along the tender back of Yoongi’s thighs just under the curve of his ass.

Yoongi lets out an embarrassing breath like a whimper, dropping his head to rest on Jimin’s collarbone. He takes a few steadying breaths, unconsciously nudging one of his thighs between Jimin’s, his body remembering how well they fit together and Jimin easily presses back against Yoongi’s thigh. 

“..an’ your Vera mantle?” Yoongi somehow remembers to ask. 

Jimin shakes his head, stilling. “N-no. I can’t.” he mutters and Yoongi’s heart contracts almost violently at the disappointment heard in Jimin’s soft voice. His beautifully angelic voice Yoongi’s been waiting to hear. Dreaming about. 

“Okay, it’s okay, Jimin.. It’s fine. This is enough..” Yoongi rambles sweetly against Jimin’s throat, his arms moving to envelop around Jimin’s waist again. “Mini, it’s alright, I promise...” Yoongi’s works his lips slowly upward, mouthing the words against Jimin to keep as much touch as possible between them, kissing the tip of his trembling chin before pressing a chaste kiss to his lips once more. 

But Jimin still looks doubtful when Yoongi pulls back, his expression giving away the guilt or remorse he’s feeling. For not being able to fix this for them. Yoongi tries to appease him with a small smile, “Chim.. chickadee..” Yoongi grins wider when that awards him a soft breathy laugh, “Just let me love on you, hm?” Yoongi utters in his deepening voice, leaning in once again to feel his lips slowly drag and catch along Jimin’s in that way that never fails to send electric currents straight through him. He lets out a low groan and Jimin tenses, rocking his hips against Yoongi’s thigh between his own. 

“Miss hearing you..” Jimin says, fighting to stay still for Yoongi. 

“You hear me all the time..” Yoongi argues against him but Jimin shakes his head. 

“Not like this.. Wanna hear you.. You know..” he blushes, but boldly drags his fingers along the backs of Yoongi’s thighs again until Yoongi’s eyes widen and he groans out, rolling his hips forward into Jimin before he can stop himself. 

Yoongi shoots Jimin a warning glare but Jimin just grins proudly, “Yeah. Like that.”

“Ass.” Yoongi grumbles, stilling himself and leaning in again, dropping his head back to Jimin’s chest. “No time for that. Utter ass.”

Jimin laughs and pulls his head back until his chin tucks into his neck, trying to get a look at Yoongi who’s determinedly hiding against him. But Yoongi never could refuse Jimin, and he lets his face be raised by the gentle encouragement of Jimin’s hand, averting his eyes because he knows his expression is pouty and flushed. 

Jimin loves it. 

“Worth it.” Jimin laughs darkly, going so far as to tilt Yoongi’s face up and to either side as he admires him like a fine painting. “Hyung is beautiful but you sound even better.” Jimin teases and laughs again when he can watch the flush blossom deeper across Yoongi’s porcelain skin. 

Yoongi lets out a resigned sigh and waits for Jimin to release him instead of fighting it, rewarded with the pleased look softening Jimin’s features, so much better than the sadness from before. 

“Are you done?” Yoongi grumbles with affronted raised brows but they both know its in jest and both are smiling a moment later, moving to hold each other closer. 

“Never.” Jimin quips and then leans back, inviting Yoongi to come to him, to take what he wants, to pace himself how he needs to. Jimin effortlessly presents himself, the most beautiful being Yoongi has ever seen, and they wordlessly agree to make use of the time they have left. 

This means Yoongi moving in slow, touching him slower, continuing his doting affections in small nosing kisses that heat and drag and pull and pout Yoongi’s mouth over the lively pulse of Jimin’s skin anywhere he can reach as they hold each other and it’s enough. Jimin absorbs the attention and Yoongi slowly makes his way back to his lover’s lips. 

They kiss in halting chapters full of longing between their breaths and Yoongi can’t stop saying Jimin’s name, nor Jimin Yoongi’s. And when the air between them gets too thin and their skin too heated Yoongi presses closer still, snaking his arms up under Jimin’s and cradling his large hands across strong shoulder blades.  

Their bodies burn against one another and Jimin is breathing heavier in his ear, but they don’t press for more. They revel in the tension between them and accept it as their new threshold of passion. Thighs pressed close and bodies trembling with adrenaline spiked pulses, they kiss and hold each other until the moment they both realize their time like this is ending. 

Wordlessly, they pause longer between the press of their mouths. Their foreheads touch instead, hands stilling and dropping to waists. Jimin’s hand raises and gently strokes through Yoongi’s hair and suddenly he remembers its not just touch they’re about to lose. 

“Yoongi. I love you.” he says, pressing his lips to Yoongi’s forehead and his eyes stinging because he’s already sounding echoed. 

Yoongi’s mouth pulls into a hard line and he nods once, forcing himself to look up into Jimin’s face when he touches him again, letting Jimin lean into his palm. “Always, Park Jimin. I love you.” he answers, taking hold of Jimin’s hand with his other and bringing the small knuckles against his lips. 

It happens in a few short moments, until Jimin’s breaths are no longer heard and the warmth in their touches dissipates to nearly nothing. But Yoongi keeps hold of Jimin’s hand as long as he can, meeting his lover’s eyes in a promise to fix this, no matter how. 

“That was a nice gift.” Yoongi finally says, words falling quietly into the air. 

Jimin nods with a sad smile, then startles and looks at Yoongi with excitement, holding up a bossy finger to tell him to wait. Yoongi watches quizzically as Jimin steps over to his discarded travel belt and unhooks a small glass flask filled with black liquid. He concentrates in order to hold the precious solid item, offering it to Yoongi. 

Yoongi’s one brow remains peaked high as he takes it, frowning at the flask and then Jimin, but when he unstoppers the container the aroma fills the space of their clearing and he curses, “R-really?” he asks, glancing at Jimin with hopeful eyes. 

Jimin smiles proudly and motions Yoongi to proceed. 

Yoongi runs the flask under his nose and inhales hesitantly, his eyes alighting a moment later when the smell fully hits him, “Fuck, oh my god..” he curses again, setting the flask to his lips and taking a slow sip. 

The coffee melts over his tongue in the smoothest syrupy cascade of roasted perfection and he lets out the most lewd moan of his life, eyes rolling back and Jimin silently chokes, giving him an exasperated look of betrayal. 

All Jimin can do is sigh, shaking his head.  Not the circumstances he would have chosen, but Yoongi sounds amazing all the same, and Jimin again smiles proudly when Yoongi takes another sip and continues to moan appreciatively. 

“Mmm~ Fuck, that’s good, oh my god..”

Jimin crouches and hides his face in his hands. Never again. 

Chapter Text

Every once in a while, Jungkook tries to remember. 

Nothing in particular, just a practicing curiosity searching back to earlier times. His memories are full of time spent inside the cottage in the woods, years spent next to his Nan and the ways they passed the time. And for these recollections, it’s emotions he recalls more than activities. 

Before that time he’d never been good with names. Faces. People, in general. And although he knows he spent his first 6 years with another family, his original family, he can’t pull a single concrete memory from that place. Only disjointed clips of motion through the lens of his empathetic senses, and they’d been predominantly guarded. 

Contrarily, in recent years Jungkook has struggled to process all that he feels from himself and those around him, preferring to remain mostly solitary for the amount of breathing space it affords him. But there had been a time he’d wondered if he was capable of feeling anything to the extent others seem to. 

If he searches back hard enough, back to his time at the Jeon Estate, he remembers being hugged in a woman’s arms, and he thinks they belonged to his mother but he can’t remember a face. There should be a warm fondness attached to the memory, he knows, but all he recalls is an unbothered sense of physical restraint. 

He’d had his hair ruffled, and been scooped up along hipbones and felt supportive hands at his back but the memories are static. Noisy and frazzled, trapped within his little body without purpose or direction. Slowly, emotions would build inside him and he’d gradually become so full, discreetly building to near seam-splitting levels that he felt ready to fragment up into the sky with how he yearned to let any of it out. 

He didn’t know how. 

He felt his emotions. He felt the emotions of others, and he didn’t know much but he knew some weren’t his and he didn’t know what to do with those, either. And it wasn’t fair that he had to keep them all inside without knowing who could take some back. He was so very small to be holding so much inside. He needed to let it out. 

He didn’t know how . So he practiced holding tight and waiting out the feelings of combusting until not even he could tell where he began and ended in the colors around him. Lost himself in the vast atmosphere of it all, that small boy who didn’t know how to recognize himself. 

Until he’d felt the magic of the woods and been called into the arms of a kind faced old woman who’d winked down at him and lit in his individual memories the ability to latch onto his heart, his own emotions, and declare their importance separate from the rest. 

She’d sat him at the kitchen table and taught him to read about things past his age’s curriculum and how to feel good about the accomplishment. How to write and express himself and take note of how it changed the course of his thoughts. She’d taught him how to become himself and that’s when he’d first felt the way an embrace could be comforting in a way he could pull inside himself and call his own to keep. 

It was so simple a thing; to hug someone like that. The way his Nan pulled his small frame to her with such affection that he felt the edges of himself more clearly. 

Sometimes Jungkook wonders if he’d been an unlovable child. If his mother had let him go too easily because he’d found it too hard to assign feelings to those around him. 

But then he remembers sitting small in his Nan’s lap and feeling her fingers comb through his unruly hair and he thinks those are memories of his favorite feelings. When she cradled him in the crook of her arm even when he grew lanky and spilled over her smaller frame. Because she would boop his nose and tell him he was such a sweet boy for feeling as big and as much as he did. 

Hours, he’d spent having his hair stroked as they napped off afternoon heat and talked, laughed, and experienced the love of familiar bonding. Learned as a 8 year old boy that it felt like warm tingling giddiness simmering deeper into sleepy contentment surrounded by someone who cared for your innermost wellbeing. 

He understood what parts were his when she held him together that way. He grew in those arms so rapidly that before he knew it his frame was large- so much larger than hers. Until he was frequently enveloping her, instead. 

Sometimes, like now, head resting against Namjoon’s thigh, Jungkook tries to remember the lessons taught to him when he learned how to feel for himself. 

So when Namjoon’s hesitant fingers first delve through Jungkook’s hair, when fingertips touch down warm on his scalp and glide smooth with a thrill of sensations sparking like granular, molecular explosions up Jungkook’s spine, he thinks perhaps this will become his new favorite feeling. 

It’s almost enough to cancel out the twisting in his stomach. 

“Hyung.”

Jungkook hadn’t even known he was about to speak. Leaning near lifeless against his Vera’s chair, the atmosphere around them is calm, in the way air stops circulating before pressure changes. Before the faroff roll of thunder creeps closer.

 His eyes downcast and still, Jungkook hears Namjoon hum an acknowledgement as his hand makes another pass through his hair. 

“I don’t want to do this,” he admits quietly. Voicing his fear tightens the knot in his stomach, making it real. Like he can sense Hoseok traveling the corridors towards them. Coming to take part of him away. A part that he’s sure he relies on far too much even when he doesn't know how. 

He worries that Limiting his magic will erase the lessons that allowed him to find himself. That he’ll once again be lost in the myriad of emotions and thoughts and forced to feel everything or nothing at all. 

Namjoon lets out a breath like he’s thinking. Almost a sigh, but he’s too kind for that. 

“What is it you’re worried about?” he asks, probably knowing it’s not the fear of it hurting. Jungkook already asked, and he didn’t seem that concerned once he was told it was possible but unlikely. Namjoon surely knows something else has Jungkook brooding. 

“I dunno.” he mutters and Namjoon waits. Because Jungkook does know, he’s just unsure how to phrase it. After years of practice he’s still not sure how to verbalize what he thinks and feels so others understand. 

Nan had gotten him to find and claim himself inside the mess he thinks and feels, but not how to begin the process of expressing it. 

“I guess I just don’t want to move backwards.” he says haltingly, finding his words.

“Backwards?” another slow pass of fingers through Jungkook’s hair, lifting at the ends. 

“I want to be able to read you.” he says like a quiet confession. Like a complaint. 

It’s the softest complaint Namjoon’s ever received. 

“I think you’ll still be able to, to some extent.” Namjoon suggests and his hand pulls away when Jungkook turns to face him. “It seems like you’re naturally intuitive? I mean, underneath the persuasion abilities. You seem… it feels like you’ve read me without that magic before.” 

That’s encouraging. Jungkook had hoped as much during their first meeting, but it’s a gift to be told he didn’t imagine it. Still, he can’t help but worry even with comforting words from his Vera. Wasn’t it his magic that had let him navigate that first meeting? The way he’d felt a pathway through the interaction, guiding him to be understanding of the position Namjoon was in. Ensuring Jungkook didn’t ask too much of him in his troubled state. 

He’s not convinced he did that without help from his magic, lesser as it is. 

Jungkook props his hand on Namjoon’s knee before setting his chin on it, looking up at him. The angle makes his eyes look bigger than someone his age has any business possessing. 

“But what if I can’t.” 

“I’ll tell you.” Namjoon promises with a grin, his voice hinting he thinks Jungkook is groundlessly worried. 

They look at each other in this small argument, Jungkook’s brows angry but his mouth pouting and Namjoon’s eyes look like he’s hiding a response to that, as well. 

Jungkook’s pocket vibrates and he startles, shifting to pull his phone out until he’s kneeling again. He thumbs through his messages and Namjoon jostles slightly when he drops his head against his thigh again. 

Namjoon’s hand hovers over the armrest for a moment before settling back into Jungkook’s hair. A silent static somehow quiets, and Jungkook vaguely wonders if Namjoon can sense it, too. The way it gets louder when they move away from each other, simmers into nothing when they’re close. 

Hoping it’s not something he’s responsible for, Jungkook wonders if this is just what it feels like when Vera and Charge come together. 

He wishes he could ask someone. But for now, he exhales at the seemingly automated touch continuing through his hair. Maybe it is his magic. 

And then Jungkook wishes he knew if he should be worried if it is.

Somehow it feels natural. They didn’t acknowledge it, the way Jungkook’s desires had manifested in his magic, earlier. Nor the way Namjoon is now readily providing a physical connection of what was asked for. 

Persuasion magic complicated every damn thing. Something as simple as a comforting gesture twists into a puzzle of truth and reality. 

Still, if any question of intent or sincerity rises in either of them at this moment, it’s buried deep under the small pleasant sensation afforded to them by being like this.

Maybe, due to circumstance, they both believe they’ve earned this small comfort. Even if Namjoon’s jaw works hard when the warmth of Jungkook’s cheek grows against his thigh. His soft hair continues passing between his fingers. 

There is no precedent for this. For them. Jungkook is existing by instinct only, and trusting his senses that are telling him to get close to his Vera and stay there. And hoping he’s not turned away when this feels correct, even if there’s no logical reason it should aside from Jimin’s warning. 

“Hoseok-hyung says he’s on his way.” Jungkook explains in his soft voice, tapping out a reply when Namjoon hums an approval. 

“Have you eaten?” Namjoon asks and Jungkook shakes his head.

“Hoseok hyung’ll bring you something.”

Jungkook’s phone vrrs a moment later and he sighs, “Did you just-” He looks up at Namjoon and frowns, “Namjoon hyung.”

He shows Namjoon his new text from Hoseok, proclaiming he’ll be a few minutes longer so he can stop by the kitchen. 

Namjoon’s grin isn’t quite as abashed as Jungkook thinks it should be and he frowns, looking back down at his phone. “I don’t want to be a bigger issue… inconvenience.”

“Jungkook-ah-”

Those unnaturally bright eyes look up at him again and Namjoon falters, swallowing around his words. Struck by the dark outline of Jungkook’s irises next to that change of color he’s responsible for.

Jungkook’s just waiting, expectantly, Namjoon’s hand brushes aside more hair and he sighs. “Can I…” he motions to Jungkook who blinks, confused, until Namjoon points at his own eyes. 

“O-oh, yeah.. Sure. I forgot.” he admits, dropping his gaze but pulling the waves of hair at the back of his head before smoothing them down. Missing Namjoon’s fond grin that follows. 

Jungkook sees the faint pulse of light under the skin of Namjoon’s wrist at his eye level and blinks back up at Namjoon. “Go ahead.”

“I did.” 

“You didn’t say anything..”

Namjoon shrugs, “Didn’t have to.” 

Jungkook cocks his head and looks up again, genuine interest peeling back another layer of reservations. It brings his wrist and forearm cradling over the bend of Namjoon’s knee, his chin propped and small lips pouting around his words, “Really?”

Namjoon chuckles, “You sound surprised.” 

Jungkook’s nose scrunches a little, thinking maybe he shouldn’t doubt his Vera but this was new information to him. He sobers for a moment, “My hair?” he inquires, wondering if he’ll feel the weight of it gone once Namjoon undoes that, too. 

“That was something you wanted.” Namjoon explains with a single shake of his head, dropping Jungkook’s gaze in favor of watching his own hand move through the longer waves again. As if this explanation didn’t confuse Jungkook further. 

“You said it would be distracting.” 

“I said it could be distracting.” 

Jungkook frowns and Namjoon smiles. 

It feels like a small breakthrough, this back and forth, but Jungkook is wary of being over confident and only sulks deeper, turning his cheek against his arm and looking to the floor. He can sense that Namjoon is still grinning, and wonders if he’s imagining the airy sense of accomplishment lingering along his periphery. 

Fingers continue combing through his hair and Jungkook wonders if this is okay just to the extent of curiosity, not stopping him from letting his eyes rest under the soothing touch that feels like a familiar warmth from his past. 

With his sight trapped behind his tired lids, Jungkook feels the approach of another familiar energy and concentrates, “Hoseok-hyung is here.” he says quietly. Like a sentencing. 

Namjoon hums his low acknowledgement he seems to favor and the next measured pass of fingers over Jungkook’s scalp doesn’t come, bringing Jungkook’s eyes slowly open again. 

They wait, but the door remains closed and Jungkook wonders how long he has left to feel the pleasant current of Namjoon’s presence around him. His nerves are flaring to life with the impending task to be carried out, as much as he tries to breathe deeper. Keep calm. He trusts them to know what’s best and to keep him safe. 

His breath pauses for half a moment when Namjoon touches fingertips to his forehead again, sliding back into his hair with deliberate care. Curving around the back of Jungkook’s head and smoothing down the length of his hair to the nape before sliding fingertips along the skin, pulling back up into his hairline. 

Jungkook’s eyes slip shut again at the comforting tingle that shoots through him and he feels his emotions harden before they can tremble apart, wanting to know for sure that Namjoon knows what he’s doing when he does this but is too afraid to ask. Too afraid he’ll find out his immaturity is responsible for him being irresponsible with his magic again, losing control, manipulating, because he wants-

The door opens and Jungkook freezes when he hears Namjoon breathe in and take his hand back. 

Nobody says anything, and Jungkook tilts his head towards the door to face whatever expression he’ll find on Hoseok’s face. 

Not surprisingly, it’s concern written in Hoseok’s eyes. But it’s aimed above Jungkook, who turns to look at Namjoon. 

A tension builds in his chest at the concentrated effort he sees there, Namjoon’s features struggling to feign a natural position while not looking at either of them. A faint trace of something close to the warmth of embarrassment is creeping along the edges of Namjoon’s energy, or guilt. Blurred along the edges so it’s barely noticeable. 

Jungkook’s not sure what to make of it. Persistent worries melding with new worries that perhaps Namjoon knew how selfish and young Jungkook’s magic is. Of course he would know. He knows everything. But does that mean he’d let it happen? Jungkook’s thoughts turn inward and he frowns, scouring the last few minutes and desperately trying to detect if his magic senses had been engaged or not. 

He thinks Namjoon knows he’s looking at him. The Vera’s jaw tenses along that hard line that forms when he’s concentrating. But Jungkook can’t quite make himself look away from his face while he’s struggling to figure out what influence, if any, he’s had on him the last few minutes. 

It’s not supposed to be possible. But nothing has gone right since he got here. 

Moments pass and then Jungkook is feeling more than hearing Hoseok approach them, finally turning back when he feels a gentle touch on his shoulder. Hoseok is crouching beside him, a careful grin. 

“Jungkook-ah, it’s okay. It was both of you.” 

He’s standing before Jungkook can acknowledge him, leaving him to dissect the meaning of his statement. It wouldn't surprise him if Hoseok knew what he was worrying over, and if he says they were both at fault, well, Jungkook doesn’t think he can be blamed at the moment for wanting to believe him. He doesn’t want to face any more realizations that he could have been harming Namjoon. 

“And you.” Hoseok is saying, words direct but spoken gently. Jungkook looks up and watches the way Hoseok leans forward, braced on Namjoon’s armrest to get in his field of vision. It seems half a step shy of poking Namjoon in the chest and telling him ‘listen to me when I’m talking to you’.

“You’re doing really well, Joon. This is what you’re meant to do, it’s okay.” 

Jungkook shifts from his place on the floor, suddenly very aware of just how close he is to Namjoon. He can’t help but wonder what Hoseok’s reaction would have been had he come earlier when Jungkook had been basically wrapped around Namjoon’s leg as he slept. 

Heat building under his skin, he scoots back a bit under the pretense of being able to see both their faces better. 

Namjoon is giving Hoseok just a few short nods, and then he’s looking down at Jungkook. And maybe it's from this prolonged proximity, or the way Jungkook is attuned to the impending loss, but he can read the prussian waves of protection pulsing off his Vera and sliding around him like a hammock. Gentle and supportive and fitting perfectly around his joints and bends until it takes less energy to remain upright. 

“You should take your seat, Jungkook-ah.” Namjoon offers with a motion towards the other chair, “For now.” 

Jungkook’s not sure why he added that ‘for now’, but he’s grateful because without it his anxiety spiked and he doesn’t like the implication that his body is reacting this way at the mere suggestion of moving away from his Vera. But Jimin’s warning is fresh on his mind, along with the remnants of fear he’d felt upon waking and Jungkook shakes his head. He’s not sure he could move even if he wanted to.

He wants to say something, to explain himself- his disobedience. 

‘I don’t want to ’, or 

‘ not yet ’, or 

‘let me stay here ’. 

But he only looks down into his hands in his lap and shakes his head again. 

“I’ll take it.” Hoseok says about the seat, giving Jungkook’s shoulder a touch before dropping down into the armchair adjacent to Namjoon. 

After a labored sigh, he crosses a thin ankle over his other knee. “Tae opted to head back to his room… You know how he feels about this part.” 

Jungkook looks up at that, but Namjoon is just nodding like he does know. Jungkook’s lips part and he alerts like he’ll ask, but then closes his mouth again. 

Hoseok has traded his red tracksuit for a white one with black and red color blocks. His sneakers are coordinated and he looks polished. He looks relaxed, resting a thumb against his own lip that moves when he smiles down at Jungkook, “He doesn’t like the act of limiting. Or that I can do it? Not sure… but he usually dips when it’s being done.” he explains, a shoulder rising in half a shrug and it sounds like he’s trying to keep the tone light. 

Jungkook has a feeling there is more to Taehyung’s absence than that. Notably his irritation with Jungkook, at the moment, for having interacted with his best friend and soulmate. He can’t really blame him for being angry, so Jungkook says nothing to Hoseok about this and resorts back to nodding wordlessly like he understands. 

He can’t help that this new information increases his trepidation of what’s about to occur. Knowing an off-duty Vera is uncomfortable around what Jungkook is about to experience isn’t exactly soothing. 

He pivots just a few degrees more, turning to face Hoseok more than Namjoon. His legs cross and he habitually picks at the seam of his pants. 

“What do you need me to do?” he asks, glancing at Hoseok, then Namjoon briefly before lowering his gaze to his lap. His breathing takes effort to keep measured. 

“Seriously.” Hoseok says like an exclamation, rounding it out with his heart shaped smile he directs at Namjoon, a half shake of his head like he’s not believing what he’s hearing. “He’s never had a day of training and he’s like this.” 

“Like what?” Jungkook pouts out, brows uneven because he doesn’t understand what there is to smile about. 

Hoseok looks at Namjoon and motions with a wave of his hand for him to take this one. 

Namjoon breathes out and seems to hesitate when Jungkook fixes his eyes on him, “He mean’s you’re already an exemplary Charge for a Vera.” 

“For you .” Hoseok stresses. 

“....For me.” Namjoon agrees. 

Doe eyes look up more readily then, searching, and Jungkook’s lungs grow bigger and smaller at once seeing the color that barely surfaces across Namjoon’s impeccable complexion. 

Hand raking through his silver hair, Namjoon breathes out again and this time directs a stern look to Hoseok, “Is this really the time for … this.”

Hoseok is still smiling, lounging back and giving another half shrug. “It’s not hurting anything. In fact, I think it’s helping. Give you more to talk about.” 

“Literally how.” Namjoon argues blandly. Disbelieving. 

Hoseok smiles deeper. 

Jungkook is confused. 

Namjoon doesn't look happy about that smile. 

“I’m going to limit you, too.” 

“What?” Both Namjoon and Jungkook ask in varying levels of emphasis and then nervously look at each other, then back to the smiling man across from them. 

“You can do that? Why? How? Is that even allowed?” Jungkook is stuttering out in lisped syllables, leaning a bit forward over his crossed legs. He looks at Namjoon like he’s expecting him to deny it. 

Namjoon’s mouth is opening around words that aren’t sounding out, looking a bit too unsure for Jungkook’s health as the Vera sets an accusatory scowl towards Hoseok. 

“I can. Because I say it’s necessary, and because Namjoon hyung’s dragon god permits it of me as I see fit,” Hoseok answers clinically as he counts off on long fingers, then glances at Namjoon before easing out the next phrase in a more apologetic tone, “just as she saw fit to entrust me with his selection.” 

“Fuck.” punches out of Namjoon and Jungkook jumps, wide-eyed and dumbfounded as he stares disbelieving at his Vera. 

An amused little chortle falls out of Hoseok but he’s sobering at the same time, shaking his head. “Joon-ah. He needs to know everything. Quickly. You know I’m right.” 

“He just said ‘fuck’...” Jungkook is relaying to Hoseok, pointing at Namjoon. 

“Yes, sweetie, he did.” 

“And I’ll say it again.” Namjoon actually sulks. 

He snaps out of it the next moment, scrubbing both hands through his hair this time and then sitting forward, confronting Hoseok more directly. 

“So you’re saying you’re going to limit us both. And then- everything? You expect me to-”

“Yes.” 

Jungkook is frowning, volleying his attention between the other two. “Am I allowed to know what’s going on? What the plan is?”

Hoseok takes pity on him and directs a warm sunray of a smile down at him, “Yes. I’m giving you two the chance to catch up on years’ worth of bonding. You’re too disconnected and we need you up to par as a team. Fast.” 

“So you’re going to ‘limit’ both of us- wait.” Jungkook stops, holding up a hand as he looks to the side, eyes moving over the carpet as he retraces the conversation before turning back to Hoseok. “Did you say you selected him? As in..” 

“Made him Vera, yes.” Hoseok answers. 

Jungkook blinks and leans back, catching himself on his hands. “I knew he wasn’t always like this, but. What does that make you?” 

Hoseok does his wider smile again. 

“Hoseok-hyung…”, Jungkook says with his starry eyes to full effect, “are you a god?”

This has Hoseok boisterously erupting into laughter, shaking a hand in refusal, “No, no.. nothing like that. It’s just,” he shrugs. “my job.” 

Jungkook’s brows furrow and he tilts his head a fraction to the side, small lips pursing like he doesn’t accept that. He takes a breath to speak but Hoseok raises a hand. 

“I’m sorry, but I’m not taking questions during this portion of the evening, please refer to our earlier agenda.”

“But that doesn’t seem right.” Jungkook argues quietly as ever, looking to Namjoon when Hoseok just chuckles. “Does it? You’re the most powerful being ever and he can just-”

“I’m not the most powerful being ever.” Namjoon corrects and Jungkook actually rolls his eyes. 

“Still! It doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone other than- than a god? Be able to take that from you. It isn’t right.” he says again, and this time Hoseok looks a bit more gentle when Jungkook turns accusatory eyes at him. 

Hoseok lets out a longer sigh, “You’re not gonna let us continue, are you.”

Jungkook’s expression hardens. 

Namjoon grins beside him though he’s desperately trying not to. 

“Listen,” Hoseok amends, realizing he’d unintentionally triggered Jungkook into a protective state for his Vera, “I’m not taking anything from him. I’m limiting it. Limiting! He can override it, if he wants. His dragon’s still in there,” he motions, waving a hand indicating Namjoon from top to bottom, “She’s in there, all knowing, all seeing- I’m just requesting she keep her energy to herself for a bit.” 

Jungkook’s cheek indents and he scowls, thinking it over. It’s Namjoon’s almost amused expression that has him lowering his hackles. “You’re okay with this?”

“Don’t ask him that,” Hoseok complains, with his own roll of eyes. 

Jungkook looks apologetic for a moment, realizing his Vera is still bound by his mantle, but then looks back to Namjoon for an answer anyway. 

Namjoon surprises them both, “I’m okay with it.” 

Hoseok smiles, looking oddly proud of his friend. 

What can Jungkook do at this point but concede? Though he’s still looking decidedly unsure about this entire ordeal. He swallows around any last protests and feels himself nodding his head, the motion giving him a bit of vertigo. 

He’s simply too exhausted to think for himself, reminded once again it’s been days since he’s slept more than an hour. “Okay. Alright. Tell me what to do.”

Hearing himself give consent flairs his mounting worries into a jumble of anxiety that he closes his eyes against, taking a deep breath. The nausea of the first day reawakens and he makes a last ditch effort to sort through his own emotions and draw a barrier around them. 

This won’t be like his first day. He was alone, then. Now he has a Vera to keep him safe and look after him. His very own Vera. 

“Wait.” he hears Namjoon say, and knows it wasn’t directed at him. 

A few silent seconds pass where nothing happens and then, “Veil yourself.” 

Hoseok makes an inquisitive noise, but Jungkook can tell he already followed Namjoon’s instructions. The level of energies in the room decreased by nearly a third and suddenly their shapes and colors are dialed a bit more resolutely in Jungkook’s mind. He can still feel more emotions than he knows are his, but the possibility of being filled with all of them at once isn’t as daunting now that roughly half of the energy is clearly his own. 

Reopening his eyes to the sounds of someone shifting, Jungkook is met with the sight of Hoseok kneeling down in front of him as Namjoon’s hand comes to rest on Jungkook’s shoulder. He looks at it, then up at Namjoon who gives him a reassuring nod and a faint grin. 

“Better?” 

Jungkook nods, “better.” 

Maybe with time Jungkook will get used to the fact that Namjoon can know exactly what he’s feeling- and how to help. He logs that away for another time’s pondering, trying to remain alert to what’s happening and what he should do. 

“You don’t have to do anything.” Hoseok explains, his hand coming to rest on Jungkook’s other shoulder. “I’m not sure how it’ll affect you, though.” he adds, and there’s a bit of apology in his tone. “I think, since it manifested, you’ve been using a lot more magic than anyone guessed, including you.” 

Hoseok glances at Namjoon, so Jungkook does, just in time to see Namjoon nodding agreement and it causes Hoseok to sigh and also nod. 

“So, yeah. Maybe a little overwhelming. At first.” 

Jungkook nods also, but his mind is conjuring up theories of what this will be like. “Will I still feel everything?”

“I think so.” Hoseok answers with half a shrug. 

A glance to Namjoon shows him a blank expression. 

“But- I won’t be able to do anything with it.” he adds, looking again to Namjoon with a sinking feeling but Namjoon’s hand on his shoulder gives a reassuring squeeze. 

“I’ll help you. It’ll be fine.” 

“It’s just temporary,” Hoseok reiterates, “Try a couple hours. See how it goes. You can learn what you need to from Namjoon and then I’ll start easing you back into it. Best case scenario? Over a couple of days with instruction along the way to keep control of it all. Sort of a… reintroduction to your magic.” 

Jungkook huffs out a breath with a final nod. A couple days, tops. Just a few hours to start. He can do that. He lived several years of his life dealing with excess energies and emotions without outlet, he can learn to process it now. 

This is a gift. A good thing. Not backtracking at all. 

“Right. I trust you.”

Hoseok’s expression softens and he pats Jungkook’s shoulder before moving his hand to the crown of his head. “Relax. Just like turning off the tap.” 

Exhaling one more steadying breath, Jungkook stares into the middle distance right through Hoseok’s torso and waits to feel something. 

And waits. 

Seconds pass and Jungkook begins wondering when he’ll feel something, but then begins wondering if he should be feeling something already. Nervously, he glances up at Hoseok and frowns at the other man’s expression. 

Hoseok is also frowning, but with a touch of uncertainty with his head tilted slightly aside, jaw sort of quirked in the other direction like he’s puzzled. 

He glances up and behind Jungkook, looking at Namjoon, then thinks better of something and removes his hand from Jungkook’s head and gradually presses it to Jungkook’s chest.

Jungkook’s large eyes follow the movement, then glance back to catch the perplexed tilt of Hoseok’s grin, “huh… go figure,” Hoseok murmurs. 

And Jungkook gasps, bewildered with the unnerving, sliding pull of something slithering through his heart and seeping through his sternum into the heat of Hoseok’s palm. 

Crackling white noise encompasses his thoughts and he hears himself breathing harsher, feels a weight against his back and a soothing voice beside him. 

“Easy, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Namjoon is saying, another arm forming around Jungkook's ribs just under Hoseok’s hand. 

Jungkook feels his head fall back against Namjoon and he closes his eyes only to throw them open again with a small noise from his throat, the static suddenly in his mind too much and too dizzying in the dark. 

He feels empty behind his ribs and too full in his brain and his skin throws waves of shivers up and down his body like adrenaline with nowhere to go until he’s quietly panting. 

“Namjoon..” Hoseok murmurs, eyes on Jungkook as he’s still attempting to complete the process. 

“I know,” Namjoon answers, then to Jungkook, “Hold on, it’ll get better.”

Jungkook wants to ask when but only a quiet, pained noise ebbs out. He can only look at Hoseok in front of him with questioning eyes. 

“It’s residual,” Hoseok explains calmly, and Jungkook wonders if he’s emitting blue traces of soothing energy he can no longer pick up on, “You have… or had a sort of cache of stuff piled up in there, Jungkookie, give it a minute to dissipate. Focus. Feel this.” he’s saying, pressing more contact to his chest. 

As Jungkook listens, he tries to do as he’s told and finds he can feel the gathered emotions being lured to his chest and then pulled outside of him. Every gradient of emotion he’s felt since leaving his Nan’s side is stretched thin and layered on top of one another to press into his conscious all at once in a sensation that feels like he’s losing his mind, urging him to shut it all off and feel nothing and he grits his teeth against the temptation to slide into the apathy he knows can erase him. 

He can feel the memory of it, how the world was too big and he too small; how he was scentless and completely empty.

“Namjoon…” Hoseok says again, this time with a bit of warning.

“Recover.” Namjoon answers, his voice heavy with intent and power, and Jungkook reels with relief. 

He catches his breath and comes back to himself, sitting up when he realizes he’d half collapsed back into Namjoon during the process. 

Hoseok sits back on his heels and expels his own breath. “Well. Never seen that before.” 

Jungkook looks at him, then back at Namjoon, and raises his face to the ceiling to recenter. There’s a silence in his mind that’s unnerving. A vast whiteness that even as he notices it begins to fray at the edges as recognizable emotions begin to slowly seep back in. 

The emotions are all his own. Trepidation and fear and uncertainty, but also trust and loyalty. He’s identifying the last to creep in, locking eyes with his Vera in the process. 

Namjoon reaches towards Jungkook, who remains frozen in place until two thumbs slide across his cheeks removing identical tear tracks. 

Seven degrees of something far more pleasant than familiarity fall into place when Namjoon doesn’t look away.