Chapter Text
"Where do you want to go next?" Namjoon asked one evening, sprawled out in the cushy Papasan chair in the last little dregs of sunlight falling into the room. He had a knee drawn up to his chest, a newspaper folded up close and held in front of his face, glasses perched carefully on his nose and Jimin was so fond, really.
"What do you mean?"
"Like for — well, we've been in Paris for over five years now it's — it's going to have to end here sometime. Would could maybe stretch it two more, but I wouldn't go any longer than that. The lady next door keeps cooing over your skin anyway." Jimin snickered and Namjoon kept going, adopting a ridiculous accent and stretching his words out. "Oh, Jim-eh, you look like a baby, you never age a day, you Koreans with your skincare."
"I bought her a rose water spritz thing for her birthday," Jimin admitted, a little sheepishly. He padded over to Namjoon, crawling into the ridiculous chair beside him and tucking himself against his side. The position was a little awkward, but it was nice anyway. Namjoon was warm.
Namjoon hummed. "That's just encouraging her, really."
"She's nice," Jimin defended.
"She is," Namjoon agreed, nodding softly. He brought a hand up to drag through Jimin's hair, a soft dark brown that Namjoon was unusually fond of, scratched gently at his scalp.
Jimin heard the note in his voice though, the uncertain one. "Hey," he said, sitting up a little. "I'll be okay. I can't just not get attached to people or whatever, but I'm not going to like — I'll be fine, Joonie."
Namjoon nodded but didn't look convinced. He pulled Jimin a little closer by his chin, kissed him softly. And even after six years of kissing each other like this, of their lips moving slowly together, of the soft little sounds Jimin made, Namjoon still got goosebumps. Still found himself aching to pull him even closer, still found himself a little bit in awe of the things Jimin had done for him, and seemed to have every indication of continuing to do for him.
What they had wasn't perfect, of course not, and pretending that it was wouldn't do any good for either of them, but — well, it made Namjoon feel unreasonably lucky anyway.
"I'm going to miss French when we leave, I think," Jimin said when he pulled back.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I've gotten almost good at it." Namjoon didn't say anything, but he knew that Jimin was proud. He wasn't close to fluent and his accent was a little bit awful, but they heard the language everywhere and so he'd caught on a lot faster than either of them had expected him to, admittedly. Namjoon just hummed.
"Other places speak French besides Paris. Hell, if you really wanted, we could probably even stay in France. Move to the countryside outside of Toulouse or somewhere else down by Spain, maybe?"
"No, I'd rather go somewhere different," Jimin said, flopping back down beside his boyfriend.
And so, the winter after, they moved to Canada.
Moving to Canada in the middle of winter was probably not the best idea they'd ever had, but once they'd gotten the idea, Jimin hadn't been able to stop giggling about it. And admittedly, Jimin was pretty cute, walking up their unshoveled driveway with grocery bags hanging from each hand, snow almost up to his knees as he took each careful step, even as he swore quite colorfully in about three different languages.
"You know, you could help instead of watching me struggle in that ridiculous robe," Jimin said as he shook snow from his boots. His nose was a little bit red from the cold and he had a smattering of snowflakes in his dark hair and Namjoon wanted to pull him close, but also that seemed like it would be really cold. Still, though.
"You're not wearing a robe," Namjoon said, waving Jimin's suggestion off and taking the bags from him.
"Ha," Jimin said flatly, unwinding his scarf. He threw it over his shoulder at the hooks they'd hung in the hallway. It caught on one, but slid slowly to the ground anyway.
"It's soft," Namjoon defended. He pulled it a little bit tighter around himself. It was soft and gray and they'd found it at some boutique they'd wandered into on a trip to Toranto and Namjoon had fallen a little in love.
"And you look adorable," Jimin said with a nod.
They milled around each other, Jimin taking off the rest of his outerwear and almost succeeding in hanging it up properly. Namjoon putting the groceries away, with minimal thumping and banging for once. Inexplicably, it made Namjoon a little bit happy, at the domesticity of it all. To just be wandering around each other in a shared space.
Their home was small and a little bit drafty, but it was warm when they curled up together. Especially under blankets.
He clunked a jar of pickles down into the fridge and heard Jimin snicker.
"Did you wear it when you went outside, too?" Jimin asked, wandering into the kitchen to rest his chin on Namjoon's shoulder.
"When I went outside?" Namjoon asked.
"Yeah, what were you even doing out there?" Jimin asked, laughing a little. He wrapped his arms around Namjoon and pressed his face into his neck. "There are tracks all over the backyard."
Namjoon felt an odd little chill travel through his body that was completely at odds with Jimin clinging to his back. That was nice, welcome, a dozen other pleasant things. This was not. He wrapped an arm over Jimin's.
"Baby, I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but I didn't go outside at all today."
"The — yeah?" Jimin said, pulling back for a moment. Namjoon let him go. "Didn't you? But the tracks. I figured that you'd — but you didn't?"
"No." Namjoon shook his head. "But like, wildlife is a thing. We live out in the country now. Maybe it was a deer or something." Jimin was shaking his head, though. He didn't look scared exactly, but his eyes were a little wide and he'd wrapped his arms around himself, tight.
"I've seen deer tracks, though. That time we were at that little cafe outside of town, you pointed them out to me. Deer have tiny little feet, Joonie." He'd stopped shaking his head, but he looked like he still wanted to be, if Namjoon was being honest. Namjoon ached a little bit to hold him. "The tracks out there are big."
"Show me?" Namjoon asked.
And so Jimin took his hand, slotting his smaller fingers between Namjoon's and drug him to look out their backdoor. Namjoon had hoped for something small and meandering, a fox's tracks maybe. Or a deer. Something he could confirm were regular and ordinary and in no way strange or dangerous. Mumble it into Jimin's skin if he had to. Laugh about it with him in a moment or two.
Worse would be something large and plodding. A bear, maybe. A human.
But worse yet was that when Namjoon peered out their backdoor and into their snow covered yard, all Namjoon saw was the squat little bushes that had always been there, Namjoon saw nothing else. No marks in the snow at all.
"Oh," Jimin said quietly.
Namjoon didn't need to ask if he was sure, because he saw it in his face, in the little furrow of his brow and the uncertain pout of his mouth. He kissed his cheek.
"It was snowing earlier, maybe they got filled it," Namjoon said.
"Yeah," Jimin said, not much more than a breath really. "Maybe."
He came along when Namjoon coaxed him back into helping put away groceries, laughed quietly at his jokes, teased him a little when his robe fell open later and flashed his bright pink boxer briefs, but Namjoon could tell he was distracted. Distracted and uneasy.
Truly uneasy for the first time in a long time. This wasn't something happening to someone else, something he needed to soothe for Namjoon or be brave for someone else for. This had happened to him specifically and Namjoon could see it bothering him, in the way his hands twisted together, in the way he curled up as small as he could get when they cuddled up on the couch later, in the way his bottom lip was chewed nearly raw when Namjoon kissed him later.
And Namjoon was nervous for him. For both of them.
"I really — there were so many tracks out there," Jimin said softly into the skin of his collarbone. He was tense and rigid and Namjoon wished there were something he could do to soothe it for him.
"I know," said Namjoon. "I believe you."
"I know," said Jimin. He didn't speak again, but Namjoon could tell that he wanted to say more, wanted to try and parse out exactly what had happened, wanted to understand and share how he was scared of whatever had happened outside. But he didn't and Namjoon didn't want to pry, to open whatever specifically Jimin was holding back. Just pressed soft kisses into his hair and held him while he fitfully slept.
Namjoon woke up cold, Jimin's spot in the bed beside him empty. He found him curled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, pulled so tightly around him that Namjoon could see his bare shoulders through the loose knit. He looked small and very tired, like he hadn't slept at all.
"What do you think happened?" Jimin asked him without looking at him.
"I'm not sure," Namjoon said quietly, settling down beside him. Almost immediately Jimin shifted closer, resting his head on Namjoon's shoulder.
"But you have a guess," Jimin said quietly.
They've been together awhile now. Through a few massive revelations and two moves across the world and a hundred spats over everything from creative differences to leaving contact lenses everywhere to awful bouts of self-loathing that left both of them feeling tired and spent. This sometimes felt like the thing they're best at, to Namjoon. Drifting back to each other. They might not know everything about each other, but Namjoon thought maybe they could have quite a lot of their conversations without speaking aloud.
He ran a hesitant hand through Jimin's hair.
"We've always lived in cities before," Namjoon started, quiet in the weird morning hour before the sun was really even starting to rise. "And sure, Seoul and Paris, they both have a magic of their own, but it's buried and hidden and you'd have to go looking for it to find it, I think."
"Like with the witches," supplied Jimin.
"Right. And we only really got to interact with them because we knew already that they were there, I think. Or that they wanted us to. Or maybe it's a little of both, honestly."
"You think they wanted me to go to them and — and ask them to change me?" Jimin sounded surprised, voice high and light and a little concerned. Maybe he hadn't thought about that before.
Namjoon shrugged because he didn't feel like any answer he had to that would be exactly right, and Jimin didn't press.
They felt into an uneasy silence, cuddled up together in it, and it almost felt a little like they were the only ones in the world, everything so quiet and odd feeling. Namjoon almost voiced that, the idea that if they'd wandered into town just now they'd be the only ones left in it. If they called anyone in their phones, there would be no answer (which was ridiculous, because it was something like five in the evening in Seoul and Taehyung never ignored their calls unless he was filming something where he wasn't supposed to have his phone on him).
But before he could speak, Jimin said, "We don't live in a city anymore, Joonie."
"No," Namjoon agreed. "And out here — well, I wonder if it isn't the kind of thing that could come and find you if it wanted to." He rubbed at Jimin's shoulder, his back, to try and soothe him a little bit. "Especially because we know that it's out there."
Jimin hummed and snuggled a little bit closer, warm against Namjoon's side.
Two weeks later they were sprawled across the living room floor, the incident mostly forgotten in favor of worrying about other things, like the leak that had sprung up in their bathroom, the disappearance of Namjoon's favorite sweater, and how much more odd Taehyung's photography pictures had gotten as of late.
Something moved outside the window that caught the both of their attention. Just a little blur of motion that shouldn't have been there. Almost not worth looking at, something in the back of Namjoon's mind buzzed. Not necessary to follow up on.
He looked anyway, curious. Saw something small and round that looked very like a small humanoid version of a sort of mossy rock wandering its way across their yard with short strides of its over-large feet.
"Do you see that," Jimin asked, sounding almost breathless.
Namjoon watched as the little troll stumbled and fell, a little puff of snow exploding around it. "I don't not see it," Namjoon said.
"It's kind of cute?" Jimin offered after a moment, unsure as it watched it turn itself in circles. The look on its face somewhat confused, as though it'd forgotten what it was doing in their yard in the first place. "And also ... I kind of hate it," he added. A glance over told Namjoon that he hadn't looked away from the creature yet.
"Trolls are a little bit awful," Namjoon said, nodding.
"That's a troll?" Jimin asked. He looked like he were debating on scooting closer. On pressing his face up against the glass to get the best look at the thing.
"Yeah."
"I thought they were bigger? Like house sized or something."
"I mean, yeah, some are," Namjoon said, considering. "But some are cat-sized too. All of them are at least sort of horrid from what I remember. Eating everything in sight and smelling terrible and being generally bad luck in too much proximity."
That startled Jimin a little. He blinked and looked at Namjoon, eyebrows scrunched up. "Is this too much proximity?"
"Nah, it should be fine as long as we don't try and pet it or something. I think, anyway, I should really ..." Namjoon trailed off, not sure if Jimin needed him at hand to watch the odd little creature bumble about in the snow. It wasn't particularly scary, but still — well, Jimin hadn't really been in contact with anything like this before, probably hadn't considered until recently that a creature like this might really exist.
Namjoon knew Jimin was strong, but that would surely be a lot for anyone.
"I'm fine, go call them," Jimin said, waving him off. "Your phone's in the bathroom."
"Oh," Namjoon said, unfolding himself from the ground and bending to kiss the top of Jimin's head before he went to go grab his phone. "Thank you."
Jimin reached for his hand without looking up at him and squeezed it once before letting go. It was comforting in a way Namjoon wasn't really sure how to describe. "Of course."