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Namjoon stumbles across the clearing quite by accident.
He’s usually more cautious about straying too far from familiar paths, especially when journeying alone - the wild woods aren’t safe even for experienced travellers, and Namjoon should know; he’s spent years studying the sentient flora and fauna that live here, only narrowly escaping being eaten on several occasions - but with his head bent over a notebook as he hastily scribbled down a new theory on the life cycle of bracken pixies, he hadn’t really been paying attention to where his feet were taking him.
One moment he’s walking through familiar woodland, and then in a gust of cool, blossom-scented air, he's suddenly somewhere else. He jerks his head up, startled, but in doing so fails to pay attention to where he's putting his feet. The toe of his boot catches against something solid jutting out of the ground, and he goes toppling forwards with a yelp, his pencil and notebook skittering out ahead of him as he automatically goes to catch himself, glasses flying from his face as he hits the ground in an inelegant sprawl.
The moment of impact is far less painful than anticipated - the surface beneath him unexpectedly soft, almost sponge-like - and he raises his head to peer at his blurry surroundings in disorientation.
He has absolutely no idea where he is.
Gone is the familiar path and shaded, peaceful woodland. Even without his glasses, he can tell that much.
The luscious green grass is soft and springy beneath Namjoon’s stinging palm as he braces his weight on one arm to push himself up, getting his knees beneath him as he reaches out with the other hand towards the blurred outline of his spectacles a few inches ahead of him, wiping them off on the sleeve of his tunic and slipping them back onto the bridge of his nose.
His sight thus restored, Namjoon sits back heavily on his heels and proceeds to stare in silent wonderment.
A ring of tall, grey standing-stones lies ahead of him in a perfect circle, the moss-covered rocks clearly weathered by time and exposure to the elements, unfamiliar runes carved into the surface to form spiralling, elegant designs vaguely similar to the swirling ink that spans Hoseok's torso and forearms. Namjoon’s ancient Druidaen is rusty at best (he relies on Yoongi and Jimin for help with translation whenever he comes across a more archaic form of the language written in an old scroll or tome), but he knows enough to recognise that whatever binding rune is carved into those standing stones poses some sort of ritualistic significance. Something about them feels powerful, and it makes the hair on the back of Namjoon’s neck prickle with unease.
He's utterly alone here, but it feels eerily like he’s being watched.
Namjoon scans the clearing cautiously, reaching for his notebook and pencil where they lay discarded on the grass and stuffing them back into his satchel without looking away from his surroundings, wary of letting his guard down even for a moment. Beyond the standing stones, the wider clearing is at least thirty metres in diameter, cast in a pale light and steeped with a fine blanket of thin fog, the air cool and damp and strangely thick in Namjoon's lungs. The perfectly-circular meadow is surrounded on all sides by a line of pale-barked trees whose branches and trunks are interwoven so closely that it seems to be almost by design. To keep trespassers out, perhaps.
Or to keep something fenced in.
A quick glance over his shoulder reveals a small gap in the treeline a short distance behind him, scarcely a half-metre wide and far too low for someone of Namjoon’s height to have stumbled through accidentally.
Which begs the question - how, exactly, had he come to find himself here?
Namjoon generally considers himself to be a man of science, but he’s also married to a coven of powerful sorcerers, so his realm of understanding extends somewhat beyond the strictly academic. It certainly isn’t the first time he’s encountered something inexplicable - Yoongi's piano tends to play itself out of boredom whenever it's feeling neglected, Seokjin's favourite tea-set has a habit of trying to sneak extra lumps of sugar into Namjoon's cup when he isn't looking, Hoseok had once charmed his entire collection of shoes to dance (and the enchanted clogs had gone waltzing off into the sunset, never to be seen again), Taehyung's antique wardrobe frequently critiques the stylistic choices of anyone within a ten metre radius, and Jimin's hair seems to change colour in his sleep at least twice a week.
The impossible has quickly become his everyday norm.
‘Where logic fails, assume magic is to blame’ is the mantra that Namjoon tends to live by. Less headaches, that way.
And he knows what he ought to do in a situation like this - break the seal on the enchanted talisman around his neck and wait for one of his husbands to find him (all five hyungs had had poured their magic into the amulet for that very purpose; to act as an emergency beacon should Namjoon ever stumble - quite literally - into danger) - but as it so often does, curiosity gets the better of him, and he finds himself slowly inching closer to the circle of standing stones.
The dampness in the air seems to diminish as he steps into the ring, the temperature somehow growing warmer by several degrees, that atmospheric heaviness from before dissipating almost immediately. Namjoon could've sworn the whole area had been blanketed in fog only moments ago, but that too has disappeared. He finds his gaze zeroing in on the centremost stone that stands directly opposite him on the other side of the circle, an inch or two taller than its fellows on either side, and before he's even given it conscious thought, his feet are carrying him closer.
Namjoon can’t say for sure why he’s drawn towards that stone in particular, only that it feels immensely important, somehow, that he approach it. Even as he tries to spare a wary glance at his surroundings again, he finds his attention snapping back towards the pillar of rock almost immediately, compelled to move closer still, as though the stone itself is calling to him.
And then, between one step and the next, he sees it.
Something pale-blue and glowing sits nestled deep within the longer tufts of grass at the base of the standing stone, and Namjoon pauses, one hand coming up to hover near the talisman around his neck (just in case), even as he inches closer and sinks down into a careful crouch to get a better look.
It’s...it's a bunny.
Or bunny-shaped, at least.
Small, barely the size of his palm, the creature's pale-blue glow seems to fade and then intensify in slow, rhythmic pulses as it slumbers peacefully in its grassy nest, velvety-soft-looking ears tucked back and eyes closed.
Namjoon has never seen anything like it - and he's studied countless species from myth and legend over the years, befriended a myriad of impossible creatures from fire-breathing salamanders to actual griffins, but this small, innocent-looking rabbit is unlike anything he's ever encountered. Maybe it's the bunny's eerie glow, or the way it doesn't look entirely solid, as though Namjoon's hand might just pass straight through if he tried to reach out and touch it.
Perhaps a will-o'wisp? The strange pale-blue glow is certainly similar, but Namjoon hasn't come across a written account of an ignis fatuus that cared to mimic corporeal form.
The longer he stares, the more intensely those glowing pulses come, until even the soft grass beneath his feet seems to thrum in sync with it - faint, humming vibrations that he can feel through the soles of his boots. It's...hypnotic, in a way. And as all other ambient sound seems to fade around him, Namjoon swears he can almost hear the heartbeat of the tiny creature; a soft, muffled fluttering sound, one that audibly gains strength with each passing moment.
Namjoon finds himself leaning in closer still, enthralled, holding his breath as he stares at the tiny, impossible creature. There's high-pitched ringing in his ears, and the air around him feels strange, but he can't seem to look away, can scarcely draw breath-
And then the bunny opens it's eyes and looks at him.
A strong blast of blossom-scented breeze suddenly whistles through the gaps between the standing stones, and the shock of cold air against his heated face is enough to startle Namjoon into jerking back, head whipping around towards the source of that unexpected gust of wind, blinking several times as the rest of the world seems to come back into focus with sudden, disorienting clarity.
It feels though a bucket of cold water has been dumped over his head, and there's a dull sort of ache in his chest that Namjoon can't quite explain, a thick fog in his mind like he's finally waking from a heavy sleep.
How long has he been kneeling here, transfixed?
It’s darker than it had been a moment ago, daylight already starting to fade as shadows begin to creep across the clearing. It feels as though only minutes have passed, but the angle of the setting sun and the throbbing ache in his knees suggests otherwise. He fumbles for his pocket-watch, breath catching in his throat when he registers the time.
Goddess above, it’s been hours.
He needs to go home.
Namjoon glances back towards the foot of the standing stone, and is startled for a second time in as many minutes to find that the glowing blue bunny has vanished. There's only a faint oval-shaped impression left in the grass where the tiny creature had previously been nestled. A quick visual scan of his surroundings reveals no sign of it, but...surely he would've noticed if a glowing rabbit had darted off right under his damn nose.
Then again, perhaps not. Namjoon decides not to pursue that line of inquiry. He doubts he’ll find a reassuringly logical answer.
Magic, indeed.
Ugh.
Namjoon has a headache.
With another glance at the empty bunny-nest, he pushes himself reluctantly, wincingly, to his feet, wishing he had just another hour of daylight so that he could sit with his journal and document his findings on-site (there’s always the risk of inaccurate detailing when he’s sketching something from memory), but he knows better than to linger with the light already fading fast. The nocturnal creatures who roam the wild woods after dark wouldn’t care whether he kept to familiar paths or not, they’d try to eat him either way.
Not that Namjoon is entirely defenceless - he may not carry a bow and quiver as he once did, back when he still journeyed through the forest after nightfall, but the hunting knife strapped to his thigh has warded off wendigos and bog-trolls alike. He isn't afraid of the dark.
No, the real issue is that if he isn’t home by supper, his husbands will start to fret, and probably convince themselves that he's slipping back into old, dangerous habits. Given that the first time they'd met him, Namjoon had been badly injured and barely lucid after an unfortunate run-in with a venomous nightcrawler, perhaps their concerns aren't without merit. Still, he's worked hard these past few years to prove to them that he's not just some reckless, headstrong youth, and he'd hate to ruin all that progress and find himself assigned an escort (again) whenever he set foot out the door.
No, he'll make it home in time. Worrying the hyungs simply isn't a viable option.
Pausing a moment to fasten the clasp on his satchel (he’s already lost enough drawing materials to inquisitive flower faeries), Namjoon adjusts the strap over his shoulder and turns to head back towards the impossibly-interwoven treeline with it’s impossibly-narrow opening that Namjoon just knows he couldn't have accidentally stumbled through, holding his breath as he ducks down and bracing himself for whatever magical trickery the guardian of this place might see fit to unleash upon him as he passes back through the barrier that separates this strange pocket of netherworld from the rest of the forest.
Much to his surprise, he slips through the gap without incident, and between one blink and the next he finds himself back in the centre of a familiar well-worn path, only metres away from one of Yoongi’s marker stones with its neatly-carved protection rune to keep the more dangerous beasts at bay.
It feels somewhat…anticlimactic.
Namjoon turns to look back towards the clearing, but stops short when he finds no sign of the knotted barrier of trees that had served as its perimeter a moment ago - only the forest as he’s always known it, tranquil and unobtrusive, the faint rustling of leaves a soothing background whisper as a gentle breeze tickles at his fringe.
Gusting out a sigh - because fucking magic - Namjoon turns on his heel and sets off down the path towards home at as brisk a pace as he can manage without the risk of falling flat on his face.
…
Seokjin takes one look at his scuffed palms and sighs, aggrieved.
“Ai, Joonie. Again?”
Namjoon doesn’t pout, because he’s above that, thank you. Instead, he gives a perfectly dignified sniff and returns his attention to the bowl of herb-infused water that Yoongi is currently using to bathe his cuts.
The shorter man sits on a stool directly in front of him, almost seated between Namjoon's parted thighs, the silver basin balanced on a towel in the healer's lap and a faint crease of concentration lining his brow as he lifts one of Namjoon’s hands from the water to blow on the graze, murmuring something under his breath before brushing a kiss against his skin. It tingles, a pleasant sort of heat that travels up his arm, and the faint stinging in his palms immediately numbs.
“At least these aren’t as deep as the last ones,” Yoongi comments softly, pressing another kiss to the base of his wrist, pale grey eyes flickering up to peer at Namjoon. “You’ll tell me if it hurts, won’t you?”
Namjoon nods, even though he already knows it won’t hurt. Yoongi wouldn’t let it - the healer's always so careful with him, so gentle. When Namjoon had badly broken his arm last year after tumbling out of a tree (having been attempting to return a fallen bird's nest to a safer perch), Yoongi had barely left his side for more than a few minutes while the injury healed. Especially those first few days when the pain and swelling had been at their worst, the sorcerer murmuring healing spells to ease his discomfort, soothing him with tender kisses and whispered reassurances, coaxing spoonfuls of bitter, herbal medicine past his lips to ease Namjoon into a blissful, pain-free slumber. Yoongi would never allow him to suffer, even from the mildest of afflictions - splinters and sore throats are treated with the same tender thoroughness as mortal wounds.
Still, it seems a little excessive. The grazes on his palms are so shallow that they hadn’t even bled properly, and in truth, Namjoon been so distracted by his encounter in the forest that he hadn’t even noticed the tiny cuts until Yoongi had come to meet him at the gate. The healer had taken one look at him, made a quiet noise of distress, and promptly whisked him away indoors to fuss over his scuffed palms - all before Namjoon had managed so much as a ‘good evening'.
It’s something he’s come to expect, as the youngest member of the coven. If there’s one unchanging constant he can be sure of, it’s that the hyungs will never miss an opportunity to dote on him at the slightest provocation. Never mind the fact that he's built taller and broader than all of them - he stands a full head and shoulders above both Jimin and Yoongi, and has at least a couple of inches on Hoseok and Taehyung. Even Seokjin, who matches him in height, appears a slender waif beside the solid musculature Namjoon has gained over many long years of hiking and climbing and fending off beasts in the forest.
All five of them treat him like precious, delicate spun glass nonetheless.
And Namjoon understands their inclination to fuss, or at least he tries to. He may have a full twenty-five summers behind him, but he knows the coven surpasses him in age by at least several decades, despite their otherwise youthful appearance - a byproduct of the binding magic that ties them to the forest, he's been told. They aren't immortal, Seokjin had been careful to clarify - simply gifted longevity in exchange for a lifetime of service as Peacekeepers. A gift that had been readily extended to Namjoon, upon their marriage - with a bit of blood magic, and a complicated full-moon ritual that Namjoon had decided he preferred not to know the finer details thereof (Yoongi had placed him into an induced slumber for the duration of the ceremony, for his own comfort). So in appearances, he's changed very little these past few years, but likewise the hyungs haven't lost the habit of treating him like the overeager, bordering-on-reckless nature enthusiast they'd first encountered all those years ago.
“At least you didn’t break your glasses this time,” Hoseok pipes up cheerfully from the doorway, slipping in past Seokjin to cross over to the chaise-lounge. “That permanent shielding charm seems to be holding up."
“Mm,” Seokjin hums softly, a teasing smile curling at his lips. “A pity it can’t be used on living tissue. Perhaps we ought to work on that; goddess knows it would do wonders for my blood pressure if I could just bubble him for safekeeping before he left the house.”
"I used to fend off cave trolls," Namjoon tries to remind him, but Seokjin waves a flapping hand to shush him, his grimace faintly pained.
"Now is not the time to recount the reckless escapades of your previous life, my darling. Or goddess help me, I really will bubble you."
He still isn't pouting. Nope.
Hoseok laughs, the sound bright and full of warmth as he nimbly climbs over the back of the cushioned chaise to wriggle in behind Namjoon for a cuddle, arms winding around his waist as he nuzzles in against the back of the scholar's neck.
“You had your nose in a book again, didn’t you?” his husband guesses, a smile in his voice. At Namjoon’s answering silence (and intensifying not-a-pout), Hoseok huffs another fond laugh and squeezes him a little tighter. “You're adorably hopeless, you clumsy bumble of a man. But we love you all the same. Just…next time you want to sketch, try to remember to stop and take a seat first. Please?”
Namjoon appreciates his choice of phrasing. Hoseok isn’t demanding a promise that it won’t happen again - because they both know it will, he just gets so caught up in his research that he forgets himself and his surroundings - the sorcerer’s simply asking Namjoon to try. And he can do that. He'd do just about anything, if Hoseok asked him to.
“I'll try, hyung,” he agrees, and the soft kiss placed behind his ear serves as his reward.
Gusting out another fondly exasperated sigh, Seokjin comes closer to perch on the arm of the chaise-lounge, reaching out to comb a gentle hand through Namjoon’s hair. It helps to ease the dull ache that’s been steadily building up behind his temples ever since he left the forest, and he leans into the touch with a soft, appreciative hum.
“Don’t go playing cute,” Jin murmurs, although the wealth of affection in his voice undermines the attempted scolding. “You’re still getting a lecture after Yoongi’s finished with you.”
With a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Namjoon tips his head back against Hoseok’s shoulder to glance towards his eldest partner with as much sass as he feels physically capable of mustering
“Promises, promises."
“Ooh,” Jimin’s voice crows from the doorway. “Someone’s feeling brave.”
Namjoon sends him a dour look, but his husband is unaffected, shoulder braced against the door jamb and arms crossed as his gaze passes over Namjoon from head to toe, quietly assessing. Jimin’s never quite so hands-on with his fussing compared to the other hyungs, being the coven's second-youngest (alongside Tae) and generally less inclined to baby him to quite the same extent, but he still frets in his own subtler ways.
“Aw Joonie, not again,” Taehyung bemoans, appearing in the doorway beside Jimin with his usual flair for dramatics and an exaggeratedly distressed pout. Despite being the exact same age as Jimin, apparently down the the very minute they were born, Tae’s personality is very much the opposite of his soulmate’s. Namjoon adores them both equally, even when he wants to bang his head against a wall at their overprotective tendencies. “That’s twice this week already, hon. This is why Jiminie and I wanted to come with you.”
With a sigh, Namjoon drops his head back against Hoseok’s shoulder and closes his eyes tiredly, tempted to pray to the goddess for patience.
“I’m fine,” he tries to reassure, even though he knows it’s futile.
There’s something of an unspoken agreement between the six of them, a truce formed over the years after many frayed tempers and frustrated missteps - that his husbands will give him the peace and quiet he needs to conduct his studies and explore the wild woods alone without their constant hovering, in exchange for Namjoon’s cooperation in allowing them to take care of him in the aftermath of an inevitable clumsy moment, regardless of how minor the damage is.
He’s learned that it’s better to let the five of them fuss now and get it out of their systems, otherwise he’s sure to have a tag-along trailing after him into the woods tomorrow.
“Well you don’t feel fine,” Taehyung argues, and crosses the room to plop himself down on the floor beside Namjoon’s feet, passing a careful hand over the smudged knee of his trousers.
A phantom sort of tingling trickles down Namjoon’s leg, a familiar (but still not entirely pleasant) sensation as the sorcerer uses his magic to check him for injuries.
“His knees are fine, Tae,” Yoongi murmurs, still bent over one of Namjoon’s hands while the other (now healed) has been returned to soak in the warm herbal bath, the healer’s fingertips tracing careful runes across his grazed palm. “Superficial damage, that’s all. Nothing bent or broken.”
“This time,” Seokjin adds pointedly, because he’s never been one to miss an opportunity to scold Namjoon for his general disregard for self-preservation. Which is fair. Namjoon’s broken and bent rather a lot of things over the years.
Over by the door, Jimin shifts, uncrossing his arms and pushing away from the wooden frame to wander closer to the chaise-lounge.
“Are you sure that’s everything?” the blond sorcerer presses quietly, coming to stand just behind Yoongi’s stool and touching a hand to the healer’s shoulder. “Tae’s right, hyung, he doesn’t…he doesn’t feel fine.”
Yoongi pauses, and glances up from the newly-healed skin to peer back at the younger sorcerer, before fixing Namjoon with an intense, narrow-eyed look.
“His aura?”
Jimin nods, lips pressed together in a thin line. “I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s causing it, but something’s definitely off.”
Namjoon glances between the two of them warily. “And that’s…bad?”
“Not necessarily,” Seokjin is quick to soothe, ever the voice of reason, fingers threading gently through his hair again as he leans in to press a kiss to Namjoon's temple. “A lot of fairly inconsequential things can influence your aura. You might just be tired, or hungry, or upset.”
Hoseok brushes another kiss behind his ear. “Did anything happen today, in the forest? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Truthfully, he'd hoped to delay this inevitable conversation for a short while longer, and for one brief, foolish moment, Namjoon contemplates keeping the events of this afternoon to himself - his husbands will only fret, after all (as magically-gifted hyungs are wont to do), and the chances of them letting him go back into the forest alone for the next fortnight will be fairly slim - but he thinks better of it when that niggling throb pulses beneath his temples again. It isn't advisable to trifle with magical phenomena.
“When I fell,” he begins without preamble, because sometimes it’s better to pull the thorn out in one swift tug. “I found myself in a clearing I hadn’t come across during my previous travels. It was fenced in on all sides by interlocking trees, and something about it didn’t feel…entirely natural. Druid-built, if I had to guess.”
Taehyung’s hand tightens on his knee as all five of his partners seem to take a collective indrawn breath, herb-scented water sloshing over the side of the bowl as his now-healed hand slips from Yoongi’s slackened grip.
“What,” Seokin croaks.
Hoseok’s arms squeeze him a little more firmly. “Druid-built?”
“Probably?” Namjoon offers, and gives a tiny one-shouldered shrug. “I mean, there were standing stones, so...”
Yoongi curses under his breath, vanishing the bowl of water in his lap with a dismissive wave and unfolding the towel instead, wrapping it around both of Namjoon’s hands and busying himself carefully rubbing the appendages dry.
“Did you touch any of the stones?” Seokjin asks, gentle fingers cupping Namjoon’s chin to turn his head towards him. “Think carefully, dearheart.”
Namjoon shakes his head, mildly offended that his husband would actually think him stupid enough to be so careless around standing stones, on sacred ground. He might have been willing to take a closer look, but he’d never deliberately allow himself to come into direct contact with an ancient magical artefact of unknown origin.
“But hyung,” Jimin says softly, urgently, glancing towards Seokjin with poorly-veiled concern, “there aren't any standing stones this side of the mountain. We’ve all walked those same paths a thousand times - if there was a doorway hidden there, why haven't we sensed it before?”
“Presumably,” Yoongi murmurs, his voice carefully controlled, “because whoever guards the stones usually keeps the gateway sealed.”
“And our Joonie somehow found an open window and fell right through,” Taehyung concludes despairingly, leaning his forehead against the side of Namjoon’s thigh and patting his knee. “Poor love. I swear you have the worst luck.”
Hoseok sighs behind him, a warm puff of air against the side of Namjoon’s neck.
“There’s something else you’re not telling us,” he surmises, because Hoseok’s always been perceptive like that. “What is it?”
Namjoon hesitates for a longer moment, mostly because he isn’t entirely sure how best to describe the creature he’d encountered in the clearing - to articulate the way it had made him feel, the way it had drawn him in, how hours had passed in a span of mere minutes, the strange ringing in his ears that had lasted the full duration of his journey home and still seems to linger even now.
“There was a bunny,” he settles on, "sleeping at the base of one of the standing stones. Just a tiny little thing, no bigger than my palm. And it was…glowing.”
“Glowing,” Yoongi echoes, another crease forming in his brow.
“Pulsing, actually,” Namjoon clarifies, because accuracy is important for identification purposes. Goddess knows he would’ve poisoned himself long ago if he hadn’t learned that particular lesson as an apprentice scholar regarding edible and non-edible species of fungi. “Rhythmically, like a heartbeat. I found it hard to look away, it was...mesmerising. But then it vanished."
Yoongi and Seokjin share another worried glance that Namjoon doesn’t like at all.
“What colour was it?” Jimin presses quietly, keenly, slipping into Yoongi’s lap so that he can steal Namjoon’s hands from the elder sorcerer, discarding the towel to squeeze them between his own.
“Blue,” Namjoon answers, a little startled by Jimin’s uncharacteristic intensity. “A pale sort of sky blue. I thought perhaps it was a will-o'wisp at first, but they're not known to mimic other creatures in appearance, so...”
He trails off, glancing between a wide-eyed Jimin and equally enthralled Taehyung, feeling Hoseok's breath whoosh out of him in a shuddering exhale as the sorcerer cuddles him tighter still.
“A spirit hatchling?” Hoseok murmurs in wonderment, and Yoongi nods, his smile strangely wistful, covering Jimin’s hands with his own where they cradle Namjoon’s.
“Joon must’ve stumbled across a nesting site,” he surmises. “Probably the first mortal in a hundred years to have seen one in person."
"A hundred and fifty," Seokjin corrects, hushed, his hand still where it rests on top of Namjoon's head.
Hoseok hums in intrigue. “Well, that would explain why you feel so tired,” he deduces. “Magic or no magic, a hatchling will latch onto your soul like a calf to a teat. It's purely instinctive, of course - they don't really mean any harm by it. That little bunny probably gorged itself on a few hours of your life, and then left when it was full."
Well fuck. No wonder those glowing pulses had intensified the longer Namjoon stared at it. That tiny, innocent-looking creature had been quite literally sucking the life from him. And yes, while a few hours is pretty inconsequential given his recently-gifted longevity, it's the fact that Namjoon had obliviously thought it cute and harmless.
Honestly, he's slightly offended.
And on the flip side, the scientist in him desperately wants to find that clearing again to study the phenomena in more detail.
"The forest guardians are normally fiercely protective of their nesting sites," Yoongi muses, sharing another brief glance with Seokjin. "It's odd that they left your memories of the event so intact. Trespassers are rarely tolerated.”
"Well it wasn't Joonie's fault if they left the door wide open," Taehyung mutters defensively. "Some guardian - abandoning a nest just like that, and at the height of Spring too. And what if the hatchling had taken too much from Joon? He could've been hurt."
Yoongi nudges the younger sorcerer's shoulder, gently chiding. "The guardian wouldn't have allowed that that to happen. They protect the innocent. And besides, they know Joonie belongs to the coven."
Another significant look passes between Yoongi and Seokjin, one that Namjoon can't even begin to decipher, but he gets the distinct impression that the two coven-leaders are somehow familiar with this particular guardian.
Namjoon has so many questions.
Clapping his hands together, Seokjin successfully dispels the brief moment of silent tension that has settled over them, offering Namjoon a warm, easy smile.
“You need to eat,” his eldest husband insists, with that tone of finality that suggests it’s in Namjoon’s best interests not to try and negotiate his way out of it. “Dinner and an early night all round, I think.”
Jimin and Taehyung both make token protests, because as fellow maknaes it’s their duty not to go quietly, but for once Namjoon doesn’t argue. He really is tired. And the headache thrumming behind his temples still hasn’t faded.
A hot meal and a soft bed sounds wonderful.
…
The knocking wakes him a little after midnight.
At first he lays still, eyes barely open to a semi-squint, waiting for the bedroom door to open. The hyungs don’t often knock these days, unless Namjoon’s holed himself up in his study, because the six of them generally don’t keep to the same bedroom arrangements every night and extra company is always welcome. It’s odd, but not enough to rouse his interest into full wakefulness.
Until the knocking comes again, a series of loud, distant thumps, and it becomes immediately apparent that the visitor isn’t standing outside the bedroom door - they’re at the front door, a full floor below, and knocking with enough force that the sound echoes all the way up to the east wing of the manor.
Namjoon is suddenly very much awake.
He shoots up in bed, heart in his throat, and Taehyung mumbles an incoherent protest beside him at his sudden movement.
The knocking stops again, but even the silence it leaves in its wake feels loud.
“Tae,” he hisses, already rolling out of bed and fumbling on the nightstand for his spectacles as he stuffs his feet into slippers, movements clumsy in the darkness. “Hyung, wake up. Someone's outside.”
“Baby, s’too early t'go outside,” Tae moans, dragging a pillow over his head. “We’ll go mushroom-picking once the sun’s up, promise. Go back t’sleep.”
Namjoon grabs the pillow and thwacks it down against the tangled lump of blankets.
“Wha’ssit?” Jimin slurs, immediately pushing himself up on one arm and waving a hand towards the nearby lamp to light it, bathing the bedroom in a dim amber glow. The blond-haired sorcerer blinks at him in sleepy confusion. “Joon-ah?”
Another series of distant knocks echo in Namjoon's ears, and he flinches, gripping onto one of the bedposts for support as the room seems to spin for a moment.
“Sweetheart?” Jimin presses, faintly alarmed, pushing the bedcovers aside to swing his legs out of bed, reaching out to snag the sleeve of Namjoon’s nightshirt to reel him back in. “Hey, shh, it’s alright. Did you have a nigthmare?”
Namjoon stares at him, incredulous.
“There’s someone outside,” he reiterates, pulling away to grab a housecoat to throw over his nightclothes and knotting the belt quickly.
"Not your best look, dear," sighs the antique wardrobe on the opposite side of the room.
Namjoon barely hears the criticism, flinching again as another set of knocks hammer in his ears. There's something tightening in his chest that feels vaguely like panic, and he doesn't know why, because he's always felt perfectly safe inside their home and logically he knows nobody can get past the protection wards while the hyungs stand guard, but his heart's fluttering away in terror all the same.
Taehyung, now sitting up in bed, shares a brief, worried glance with his fellow sorcerer.
“Who's outside, baby?” Jimin asks gently, standing up and moving closer to Namjoon, hand outstretched as though he expects the younger man to bolt.
"I don't know," Namjoon stresses, growing frustrated. “Whoever’s knocking at the door."
Jimin steps up to take hold of his hands gently, then drags his grip up his forearms, his biceps, to grip the width of his shoulders, before drawing Namjoon in for a hug.
“Okay,” the shorter man murmurs, soft and soothing. “You’re okay. Come on back to bed, it’s alright.”
“Is he sleepwalking?” Taehyung asks, hushed, pulling the blankets back to make room as Jimin tries to gently herd Namjoon back towards the bed. “He’s never done that before.”
Namjoon might be going mad, but he’s definitely not dreaming - he knows that much, at least. The panic feels too real.
Pulling away from Jimin’s hold as sharply as he can without hurting his partner, Namjoon takes several steps back and holds up a hand to halt the blond’s approach.
“I’m not sleepwalking,” he insists firmly. “There’s someone knocking at the door, and they’re angry with me.” Namjoon pauses for a moment, unable to explain precisely how he knows that; why the creature outside feels somehow familiar, but in a way that makes him want to run and hide. Like he’s been caught. “You…you really can’t hear them?”
“No,” Jimin confirms gently, and takes another careful step closer, his expression serious. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Tae, go wake the others.”
Taehyung nods sharply and takes off at a run, and the urgency behind his actions is comforting, somehow - just the reassurance of knowing that even if his partners can’t sense the disgruntled visitor currently waiting outside their front door, they’re still willing to believe him, to act on his word alone in spite of their own doubts.
Jimin steps closer again to pull him into another hug, as careful and gentle as the first, and Namjoon allows himself to be held this time, pressing his face down against the sorcerer's soft hair to hide his flinch as another series of powerful knocks rap a painful beat against his aching skull.
“Shh,” his partner soothes, pressing a kiss to the side of his throat, the highest point Jimin can reach at this angle without Namjoon leaning down to accommodate him. “You’re safe, sweetheart. Whatever that thing is, we won’t let it inside the house. The walls are warded to hell and back, nothing gets in here without our say-so. And I'm here - I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Which, naturally, is the precise moment the front door slams open downstairs with an audible crash.
“Fuck!” Jimin yelps, jumping back, and a startled cry that sounds distressingly like Hoseok echoes from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. Jimin releases his hold on Namjoon and goes running for the exit, calling back to him over his shoulder. “Joonie, stay here and lock the door behind me!”
Oh, fuck that.
Like hell Namjoon’s going to wait here like a sitting duck while his husbands fend off whatever creature just broke into their house. He may not be magically gifted, but he isn’t defenceless. You don’t survive a lifetime of study in the wild woods without learning how to fight a beast or two. He was documenting fyreflower saplings in wendigo territory as a teenage apprentice, years before he even met the coven. And while he hasn’t needed to carry more than a knife on him these past few years, having stopped journeying into the woods after dusk at his husbands’ request, that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten how to fight.
Ducking down quickly, he reaches for the bow and arrows he keeps stored beneath the bed frame, shouldering the quiver and taking a moment to string the bow with quick, practised motions, testing the tautness as he stands again before hurrying out into the corridor after his partner.
It’s quiet, alarmingly so, and Namjoon quickly notches an arrow on the bowstring as he treads carefully along the corridor towards the central staircase.
As he reaches the upper landing and peers down over the railing, he stumbles to a halt, the arrow slipping a little from its notch as his grip falters.
The hallway at the foot of the stairs is gone.
Or rather, familiar floorboards are now hidden almost entirely beneath a meadow of grass, with young ferns and pale blue snowdrop-like flowers scattered about and glowing faintly in the darkness, casting the entrance hall in an eerie sort of twilight.
Most concerning, however, is the sight of his husbands held captive several feet above the ground, coils of pale blue smoke wrapped about their torsos like translucent rope, suspending them in an almost-perfect semi-circle around a central figure.
The newcomer's tall, broad-shouldered frame is hidden beneath a dark cloak that shimmers faintly as though cut from the night’s sky itself. The hood is pulled up, and from this angle Namjoon can scarcely make out more than the shadow of a nose and a wisp of dark hair, but they look human enough. Not a nightcrawler or wendigo, then - not creature of dark magic or a Dralloch, a cursed soul-eater. Something else. Something far more powerful.
“Please, I don’t want to fight you,” the stranger says, his voice surprisingly young and soft for one so physically intimidating. “Just allow me to take back what belongs to me, and I’ll go.”
Taehyung wriggles against the glowing bindings that keep the five of them suspended aloft.
“Joonie isn’t yours,” Tae protests, offended. “You can’t have him, fuck off.”
“Tae,” Seokjin hisses urgently. “Hush.”
“I don’t want the vessel,” the stranger dismisses, aggrieved. “I was the one who gave him to you for safekeeping, why would I steal him back? No, I'm here to recover what was taken from me.”
Namjoon sinks slowly into a careful crouch behind the pillar of the upper landing, just out of sight, his bow lax in his grip despite his best efforts to hold it tighter. He can’t quite explain it, but there’s a part of him that quakes at the notion of harming this intruder, as though the mere thought of seeing him hurt is somehow abhorrent.
“I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding,” Yoongi says calmly, and tries for a soothing smile as the cloaked stranger spins around to face him. “Jungkook, please. I know you're upset, and I’m sorry we attacked you - but in our defence, you did break our door in half. We thought you were a Dralloch."
The stranger - Jungkook - seems to deflate at that, and vines of glowing blue flowers wind their way up the banisters of the central staircase, puffing tiny clouds of sweet-smelling pollen into the air.
"It wasn't my intention to break anything," the ethereal being offers, and his tone sounds almost...embarrassed? Ashamed, even? "I was hoping he'd come to me of his own volition when I knocked, so I wouldn't have to disturb your coven, but then the little thief started thinking about trying to escape so I knew I had to intervene, and your wards really are very impressive, so the hinges gave out before the magic did, but I promise I'll fix that before I go-"
"Jungkookie," Seokjin interjects, in that gentle tone he usually reserves for Namjoon when he's gotten too caught up in his work and needs someone to ease him back down again. "Dearheart, you know you're always welcome here. Yoongi and I had hoped you might find your way back to us one day. Having said that, if you call my husband a 'little thief' one more time-"
"He wouldn't steal something from you," Yoongi interjects with absolute certainty. "Joon loves the forest more than any of us. Hell, he won't even take cuttings to plant in his garden. He's not like the townsfolk, Koo - he's good and kind-"
"I know!" Jungkook stamps his bare foot and makes a soft, low noise of frustration (it sounds…unbelievably cute), and a fresh sprig of glowing snowdrops burst out of the grass beneath the foot he’d just stomped. He side-steps the newborn flowers with a huff, and continues, "I know he's good, that's why I let you keep him."
"Then why-"
"Whether he was a willing participant in the theft or not,” Jungkook continues, “is beside the point. He has something of mine, and I want it back. Look, I’m not going to hurt him, just…just let me speak to him. Please.”
A beat of silence passes. Another.
Hoseok, Jimin and Taehyung all seem to be looking towards their coven-leaders for direction, but Yoongi and Seokjin are too busy having a silent conversation with each other, their eyes locked across the distance between them.
Finally, after a long minute of deliberation, they seem to come to a decision.
“Let us down,” Seokjin bargains gently. “So we can talk things over in a civilised manner. Joonie's never met a forest guardian before, so I'm going to need you to tone it down a little, bun - he's been through enough today already. Let me go upstairs to speak with him first, and I’ll bring him to you.”
Namjoon’s long grown tired of being talked about.
“No need,” he calls, his voice echoing loudly in the heavy silence of the hallway-turned-meadow. “I’m here.”
He straightens up from his crouch, leaving the bow and arrows behind (because pointing anything at Jungkook still feels wrong on a very instinctive level) as he steps out from his hiding place and into plain view. Five pairs of eyes widen as they swivel towards him, but Namjoon’s focus is drawn to the cloaked figure as it pivots in place, shimmering fabric fanning out around him as his head snaps up, and Namjoon gets his first real look at Jungkook’s face.
He’s…young. Pretty. Beautiful, even. Soft, youthful features. Huge, dark eyes and rosebud lips, which twitch up in a tiny smile as their eyes meet.
“There you are, little one,” Jungkook murmurs, and the cadence of his voice has changed now. Gone is the sharp authority from before - he sounds fond, almost amused. “Having fun, are we?”
Then, in a blur of shimmering fabric, Jungkook leaps. Namjoon hears his husbands cry out in alarm - garbled warnings, soft pleas of “ Jungkookie, wait”, but the newcomer is undeterred as he goes soaring high into the air, missing the chandelier only by a hairsbreadth before arcing down again to land gracefully in a crouch on the upper landing a scarce few metres from Namjoon’s position.
As the being stands up, the momentum sweeps his hood back, and Namjoon stares open-mouthed as a pair of tall, faintly glowing blue ears ping upwards to pencil-points, iridescent against the dark black of Jungkook's hair.
A rabbit
The forest guardian is a rabbit.
Huh.
“I turn my back for five minutes,” Jungkook sighs, faintly exasperated, stalking towards him. “And you go and steal a vessel. Well, playtime’s over. Give it back.”
Rooted to the spot, Namjoon can only blink at him stupidly for a moment.
“I’m sorry, but…I’m not sure I understand,” he manages hoarsely, once he’s able to drag his gaze away from the whole ear situation. "I haven't stolen anything."
“Ah, forgive me,” Jungkook shakes his head and offers him an apologetic smile. “I wasn’t talking to you.” He pokes at Namjoon’s chest, right over his sternum, holding his gaze. “Enough hiding, bratling. If you're not out on the count of three, I'm pulling you out myself. One...two..."
It’s ridiculous, but Namjoon feels an overwhelming urge to stomp his foot. He opens his mouth again to reiterate his confusion, but the words that come out are something else entirely.
“You never let me do anything,” he hears himself gripe. “I only wanted to see what it was like to walk around in one.”
Jungkook sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “We’ve been over this, Soobin. You’re too young for a corporeal body.”
To his shame, Namjoon does stomp his foot this time, but it’s certainly not of his own volition.
“I’m twenty!” he argues, aggrieved.
“Precisely,” Jungkook concurs, tapping his chest again. “Barely a fledgling. Now stop this nonsense, and let Joonie go. He feels stressed.”
Namjoon can’t deny that he’s feeling moderately unhinged right now, but it seems perfectly justifiable, given the circumstances.
He purses his lips (again, not willingly) in a pout, and sees Jungkook’s expression soften into something fonder, warmer.
“Ai, you’re cute,” the forest guardian murmurs, and hesitates a moment before reaching up to cup his cheek. Then he winces in concern, and traces his fingers up to press against Namjoon’s throbbing temple, his expression darkening a little. “Soobin, that’s enough. You’re hurting him.”
Namjoon feels a pulse of alarm in his chest, the sensation twisting into a churning ball of guilt and uncertainty that he’s fairly certain doesn’t belong to him, but to whoever (or whatever) this ‘Soobin’ creature is.
“I didn’t mean to,” his mouth blurts. “I was going to get unstuck before we left the forest, but it was hard.”
Jungkook’s severe expression softens again. “That’s because you’re too young to shift between forms,” he reiterates, stroking gentle fingers across Namjoon’s brow to ease the tightness there. “You’re lucky I caught you before you managed to do permanent damage. Now hush, and let me help.”
The forest guardian presses the flat of his hand to Namjoon’s sternum and closes his eyes.
There’s a brief pulling sensation that’s not at all pleasant, the breath sucked from Namjoon’s lungs as his knees buckle, and then a glowing blue something emerges from his chest in wispy strands of mist, swirling together to form a glowing orb that hovers directly above Jungkook’s hand.
The orb pulses brighter for a moment, poofs, and a tiny pale-blue bunny drops down into Jungkook’s waiting palm.
“There you are, Soobinnie,” the bunny's guardian coos, cupping the tiny semi-translucent creature between both hands and bringing it up to his face to press kisses to its furry little head, wandering away a few paces as he murmurs to it sweetly. “Don’t scare me like that again. I told you I was coming back, you should have waited for me. Stealing a human vessel, ai - what were you thinking? Such a silly bunny.”
Namjoon’s knees finally give out, and he drops heavily to the floor, head spinning.
“Joonie!”
In another poof of magic, Seokjin appears behind him him, drawing Namjoon back against his chest in a tight embrace, propping him upright as the thunder of rapidly approaching footsteps heralds the arrival of the rest of the coven.
“I’m fine,” he manages, albeit through slightly ragged breaths (goddess, it feels like he’s just run a mile). “I’m not hurt. Just a little winded.”
Yoongi drops to his knees directly in front of him, his smile a little wobbly around the edges.
“You just had a spirit sucked out of your chest,” the healer reminds him, hands tracing diagnostic runes across Namjoon’s torso. “You’re allowed to feel more than ‘just a little winded’, love.”
Namjoon hums in acknowledgement, too tired to argue the point further. Nothing hurts, and the background aches that had plagued him before had vanished at the first touch of Jungkook’s hand, but he feels like he could sleep for a solid week.
“His aura’s back to normal,” he hears Jimin murmur, his relief audible as soft fingers curl around one of Namjoon’s hands. “Those peripheral fluctuations I noticed before, I guess that must’ve been the hatchling. I shouldn’t have dismissed it so easily as simple fatigue.”
Opening his eyes again, Namjoon glances in Jimin’s direction to protest the sorcerer’s self-flagellation, but Hoseok beats him to it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the elder soothes, wrapping an arm around Jimin’s shoulders. “There was no way any of us could’ve guessed the real underlying cause.”
Taehyung hums in agreement, taking Namjoon’s other hand as he settles down cross-legged on the opposite side.
“I can’t believe you got possessed by a spirit hatchling,” Tae sighs. “A bunny spirit hatchling, at that. Like, I literally just watched a bunny get sucked out of your chest, and I still can’t believe it really happened. Seriously, Joonie, you have the worst luck.”
Namjoon can’t argue with that. He’s a man of science, and all available evidence would suggest that yes, he does have the worst luck.
“May I speak with you for a moment?”
His partners fall quiet at the forest guardian's approach, and Taehyung's hands tighten around Namjoon's as he regards the stranger warily.
Undeterred, the forest guardian closes the distance between them calmly, Soobin’s glowing bunny-form perched comfortably on his shoulder. The ethereal being sinks into a graceful crouch, shimmering cloak pooling at his feet as he fixes Namjoon with a gentle, apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry,” Jungkook murmurs, “for what Soobinnie put you through. He was a childe under my care, and I ought to have kept a closer eye on him. The fault lies with me, and I’ll do everything in my power to rectify it. Is there anything I can do for you, in recompense? Perhaps a favour I can grant you? A gift? What is it you humans usually covet - wealth? The strength of ten men? Beauty beyond compare?”
Namjoon contemplates his answer for a moment.
“Faeries,” is what he settles on, and watches as the forest guardian blinks at him, taken aback.
Yoongi drops his head into his hands with a soft moan, but Namjoon can see his lips twitching.
“The flower faeries,” Namjoon elaborates, ignoring his other husbands’ poorly veiled incredulity. “They keep sneaking into my satchel and stealing all my best drawing pencils. If it’s in your power to ask them to stop, I’d be very much obliged.”
Jungkook stares at him for a moment longer, before a wide, nose-scrunching smile curls at his lips and he throws his head back with a bubble of delighted laughter. Pale-blue orchids erupt from the nearby railing in a shower of glittering pollen, and Soobin makes an offended squeaking noise when the force of the laughter unsettles his perch, but Jungkook reaches up without looking to stabilise the bunny, rubbing a finger between the creature’s tiny blue ears by way of an apology.
“Faeries,” Jungkook echoes, still laughing softly. “As you wish. I'll see to it that they leave your art supplies alone.”
Namjoon returns his smile, albeit tiredly.
“There is one more thing, dearheart,” Seokjin adds, and Namjoon watches as Jungkook's gaze darts up, the frozen, wide-eyed forest guardian suddenly looking like a rabbit caught in a snare. “If you wouldn’t mind restoring the entrance hall to its original design?”
Jungkook starts a little, gaze cutting to the side to peer through the gaps between the flower-bedecked railing towards the hall-turned-meadow below, and the guardian winces, looking almost adorably embarrassed.
“Ah,” the spirit-walker utters. “About that…”
…
The soft rustle of foliage has Namjoon glancing up from his sketchbook, a soft smile curling at the corner of his mouth as a familiar pale-blue form emerges from the bushes.
“Hello, Soobin,” he murmurs, lowering a hand as the young spirit-hatchling comes hopping over, and laughing as it presses up into his palm demandingly. “Yes, yes, alright. Wait a moment.”
He carefully sets the notepad aside (with the flower faeries no longer pinching his supplies every other day, he’s grown less paranoid about leaving his things unattended) and reaches down to scoop the tiny bunny into his cupped palms, drawing him up close to his chest.
“Don’t tell me you wandered off on your own again, little one?” he chides, even as he rubs a gentle finger between the bunny’s velvety ears. “You know how much that upsets hyung.”
Soobin’s head turns to the left, and Namjoon follows his gaze, unsurprised to find a familiar figure leaning against a nearby tree, arms crossed over his chest. In the daylight, Jungkook’s cloak is a pure, brilliant white, but he’s left the hood down again today, the soft-looking velvet of his long, pale-blue rabbit ears gleaming in the sunlight.
“We’ve reached a reluctant compromise,” the forest guardian admits, regarding the tiny ball of fur in Namjoon’s lap with obvious fondness. “Soobinnie won’t try to run off without telling me, and I’ll begin teaching him how to skin-shift into a corporeal form.”
Namjoon glances down at the bunny with a smile. He can’t say why, but he gets the distinct impression that Soobin’s feeling very smug about this ‘reluctant compromise’.
“How’s the coven?” Jungkook presses on, pushing away from the tree to meander closer, dragging his fingertips lovingly over a spurl of budding ferns as he passes by, the plant uncoiling and visibly growing several inches in height in the space of a few heartbeats. "Are your husbands in good health?"
Several months ago, Namjoon might have mistaken such a question for simple politeness, a passing formality and nothing more. But Jungkook, he’s come to learn, rarely takes a passing interest in anything. He loves wholeheartedly, and protects what he loves just as fiercely, and as it turns out, the coven falls under that purview.
“Everyone's fine,” he returns, shifting a little to one side on the felled log to make room, smiling when Jungkook accepts the silent invitation and settles down beside him. “Hobi-hyung asked me to thank you for the heads-up you gave him about the fyrehawk migration. He’s spoken to the northern villages, and they’ve agreed to call for a ban on hunting until the flock has finished passing through. And Jimin-hyung said to tell you the unicorn foal made it through the night; they're hoping to introduce it to a new herd in another few days. Oh,” he fights to suppress a grin, “and Seokjin wants to know if you’ve found a replacement rug yet.”
Jungkook purses his lips, ears twitching, but he’s clearly trying not to smile.
“Perhaps he should’ve thought about his rug before he tried to hex me.”
Namjoon tries and fails to hide his answering grin. “In fairness, hyung,” he reasons, “you did break the door down first.”
“I knocked,” Jungkook sniffs.
“You spirit-knocked,” Namjoon reasons, “knowing full well that only Soobinnie and I could hear you. And then you broke the door down without warning.”
It’s a familiar faux-argument between them, a comfortable back-and-forth they’ve been playing with for months now. Jungkook, despite being older than all of Namjoon's husbands by at least a millennia or so, still has that air of youthfulness about him - a playful, sometimes almost bratty way of interacting with the people he cares about, a side of him that Namjoon's only recently begun to witness in person as he's come to know the guardian better.
“Someone had stolen my child,” Jungkook reminds him pointedly, swaying into him to gently bump their shoulders together. “I was vexed.”
As always, that single point of contact sends a pleasant sort of tingling heat rippling through him.
“Your child stole me,” Namjoon points out, and lifts Soobin in his cupped hands emphatically. “Because he’s a brat.”
Soobin nibbles at the pad of his finger, unbothered.
“Mm,” Jungkook agrees, reaching out to smooth tender fingertips down the bunny’s back as he leans in closer against Namjoon’s side. “Although I’ll admit, he’s been much less of a handful since he merged with you. I can only surmise that when I forced your separation, a tiny piece of your maturity came with him. Much to his horror, I’m sure.”
Soobin levels an unimpressed look towards his caretaker, which on the face of a tiny blue bunny still looks downright adorable, and Jungkook laughs fondly as he reaches out to take the bunny from Namjoon’s cupped palms, lifting him up to his usual favourite perch on the guardian's left shoulder. He strokes the bunny's ears tenderly and Soobin closes his eyes, clearly enjoying the attention.
Namjoon watches them for a long moment, deliberating.
"I never got a chance to thank you properly," he finally murmurs, after a comfortable beat of silence. "For helping me."
Jungkook sniffs a grin and shakes his head. "Like I've told you before, the fault was mine for leaving Soobinnie unattended. If I'd realised sooner that he'd gained enough strength to open the gateway on his own-"
"No, not...not for that," Namjoon interrupts softly, and finds himself the focus of Jungkook's attention once more. "For saving me all those years ago. For delivering me to the hyungs before the nightcrawler's venom could kill me."
The forest guardian's expression morphs into one of surprise, faint splotches of colour rising into his cheeks as his ears seem to glow a brighter blue.
"They told you?" Jungkook splutters. "Jinnie promised-"
"I deduced," Namjoon corrects gently. "Not that I didn't try asking Jin-hyung first, but he and Yoongi-hyung wouldn't tell me anything." He hesitates a moment longer, then softly nudges the rabbit guardian in the side. "To be honest, I wasn't sure my suspicions were correct until just now. It was a working theory, but...thank you, for the confirmation. And for dropping me off on the hyungs' doorstep that night. If I'd never met them...well. I imagine my life might've turned out very differently."
Jungkook opens his mouth as though to argue his innocence, then closes it again and looks away, lips pressed together in a tight line, cheeks still tinged pink and blue ears twitching.
For an ancient forest spirit, he really is adorable.
"Why did you?" Namjoon persists after another moment, holding his hand out to catch Soobin as the tiny bunny wriggles in preparation to hop down from his guardian's shoulder. The blue rabbit lands safely in his palm, and he brings it in close to his chest again to let the fluffy spirit hatchling snuggle against him. "Deliver me to the hyungs, I mean?"
The forest guardian glances sideways at him, arching an incredulous eyebrow. "Because you were dying."
Namjoon shakes his head. "No, but...why not just heal me yourself? Purge the venom from my blood, alter my memories to make me forget everything, and send me back to the village? Isn't that what usually happens, when a mortal crosses paths with a spirit guardian?"
Both Yoongi and Seokjin had alluded to that much, at least. Even if they refused to tell him anything else about their past lives with Jungkook; about what had happened to make the bunny guardian distance himself from the coven leaders so completely. Namjoon's determined to find out the truth one way or another, but he's a patient man - he can wait.
Jungkook tips his head back and sighs, faintly exasperated.
"Because I'd been watching you stumble about the forest for years," the spirit-walker gripes. "Strolling into hostile cave-troll territory looking for flowers, journeying through the woods after dark and getting stalked by every carnivorous prey animal within a two-mile radius. Trying to climb the fyre-falls twice because you wanted to study the spawning cycle of rainbow fish. Goddess, if you knew how many times you almost got yourself killed over the years. The nightcrawler attack was the final straw - I had hatchlings to raise, I couldn't keep herding you away from danger every other day, and I needed to know you were somewhere safe. And Jinnie's always had a soft spot for injured strays. Giving you to the coven seemed like the easiest way to keep you out of trouble."
Well. That's...a lot to take in.
Namjoon apparently has a very long list of things to thank Jungkook for.
"Yoongi-hyung made us lunch again," is what he settles on instead, because he's going to need at least a day or two to unpack everything he's just learned and find an appropriate way to thank the guardian properly - he's certain he can find an ancient Druid ritual of gratitude somewhere in Seokjin's expansive library. "He packed a lot, so I hope you're hungry."
Jungkook's lips twitch upwards a little. "My physical form is immortal - it doesn't require nutritional sustenance."
"Maybe not," Namjoon agrees, setting Soobin down on his knee to reach for his satchel, pulling out the cloth-wrapped dosirak. "But I know you can eat. And hyung says he made all your favourites."
Despite the spirit-walker's previous dismissal, Jungkook still leans in closer when Namjoon unwraps the dyed cloth and lifts the wooden lid of the dosirak, the guardian making a pleased sound when he spies the array of colourful sweet and savoury delicacies packed tightly within.
Tiny ears perking up in interest, Soobin scoots closer along Namjoon's thigh to sniff at a sugared plum curiously, but Jungkook makes a soft noise of alarm and scoops up the tiny bunny in both hands, lifting him away.
"Absolutely not. You've only just mastered basic corporeal mimicry," Jungkook chides, lifting the bunny to eye-level and fixing him with a scolding look. "You don't even have teeth yet, Soobinnie."
The glowing rabbit abruptly chomps down on the side of Jungkook's thumb in protest, but all that does is prove the guardian's point - Namjoon knows from experience that the tiny spirit-bun's gummy nibbling feels more like a tickle than a bite.
"And just like that," Jungkook announces, "it's naptime."
Soobin's eyes widen a little, the bunny shaking his head with a soft squeak of dismay, but Jungkook simply blows on his twitching nose softly. The hatchling's eyelids flutter, pricked-up ears drooping, and a few seconds later he's dozing peacefully in the spirit-walker's palm.
Jungkook smiles down at him, clearly endeared, and leans in to press a tender kiss to the bunny's tiny head, before opening one side of his white cloak to tuck the dozing rabbit safely away against his chest. A pulse of sweet blossom-scented air tickles Namjoon's nose, but the scent is gone again a moment later when Jungkook folds the seams of his cloak together again and returns his full attention to the scholar.
In a move that feels strangely domestic, Namjoon offers Jungkook the second pair of chopsticks and balances the dosirak on his right thigh to make it easier for the guardian to reach.
And for the next several minutes, the two of them eat in companionable silence, Jungkook initially taking cautious little bites, but soon tucking in with gusto, uttering soft little hums of appreciation and delight every time he samples something new. Namjoon tries not to smile around his own chopsticks, but the bunny-guardian really is very cute. And clearly a big fan of Yoongi's cooking.
He'll be sure to feed that back to his husband. Given that Yoongi had looked to be on the verge of tears last week when Namjoon had first reported sharing a bite of his lunch with the spirit guardian, he can only imagine how thrilled the healer will be to learn that Jungkook has eagerly eaten at least one of everything in the dosirak.
“You know,” the forest guardian murmurs a while later, spinning the chopsticks idly between his fingers as Namjoon uncorks his charmed flask of warm, honey-sweetened tea to take a drink, “Soobin is the eldest of his batch. A number of his brothers are due to begin hatching over the next few months - I don’t suppose you’d be interested in joining me for their rebirth?”
Namjoon almost spills hot tea all over himself as he fumbles with the flask, his gaze cutting sideways in time to catch the elder being’s gentle smile - a soft, fond little teasing curl at the corner of Jungkook's mouth.
“For research purposes, of course,” the spirit guardian clarifies.
The last time Namjoon said yes to something so quickly, he’d found himself wedded to five powerful sorcerers.
Somehow, this particular ‘yes’ feels just as binding.