Work Text:
Yoongi wakes up with a splitting headache, the type of pain that has him shutting his eyes the second after he opens them. To make matters worse, his entire body aches. Almost like he's sore from pulling a tire a mile through sand, but the most physical exercise he did yesterday was run to grab his wand to extinguish the fire his potion had combusted into.
He feels sick. Which shouldn't be real, because witches don't get sick.
These are the basic facts: he has a boyfriend named Taehyung; vampires like his best friend Hoseok don't have shadows even on the sunniest of days; and witches don't get sick.
But here he is, with a throat that feels like red ants are biting at it, body aches that make him moan, and a headache that makes him want to suffocate himself with his pillow. Yoongi should amend one of his facts to: witches don't easily get sick.
He should have put the extra vitamin C packet in his water bottle when Taehyung had told him to.
Right as he is about to grab the pillow next to him and stuff it into his face, a light touch skids up his arm.
"Yoongi?"
Yoongi creaks his eyes open. He knows the morning sunlight will make the pounding of his head increase tenfold. But the room is dim when he opens his eyes, Taehyung taking up the majority of his view and blocking a good portion of the sun.
"Here, drink this. It'll help. I'll call work for you, don't worry." Taehyung fixes the pillows up so Yoongi can sit up and hands him a warm cup of something sweet-smelling. If Yoongi wasn't feeling as if he was a piece of shit that had gotten run over by a monster truck, he'd put up a bit of a fight before drinking the concoction. He'd ask questions like: Where did you get this? What is in it? Why are you giving it to me?
But he doesn't have the energy to protest, so he drinks the warm liquid and sighs when Taehyung tucks him back into bed and kisses his forehead.
"Feel better, hyung."
--
Yoongi wakes up an odd amount of hours later. The concept of time has slipped from underneath him. Was it daytime when he first woke up? Is it daytime now?
There is a steady stream of light filtering through the blinds of the bedroom window, so Yoongi would guess that it's at least some time in the day. But the exact details are lost on him.
He shakily gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom. He still feels like a piece of shit, but before the being run over by a monster truck part. After thoroughly brushing his teeth and stepping under a steaming hot shower, Yoongi feels like a living, breathing person again.
A living, breathing person that is incredibly hungry.
Yoongi finds Taehyung in the kitchen, staring at a boiling pot of a water with such an intense gaze that Yoongi has to clear his throat twice before Taehyung turns around and notices him. He gives Yoongi a blinding smile.
"You're awake!"
"I am. I could also go for some ham."
Taehyung scrunches his face. "That's specific. The healing potion must have had some side effects. I should write those down." Taehyung searches the messy kitchen counters for his notebook. Yoongi rolls his eyes, knowing exactly where Taehyung left his notebook. He always leaves it in the same place yet never remembers where that place is.
Yoongi walks to the oven, opens the door, grabs the threadbare notebook and passes it to Taehyung with a small sigh. Taehyung graciously accepts the notebook and starts scribbling in it. Yoongi doesn't think that he will ever get used to the way Taehyung's creative brain functions. Yoongi likes order and simplicity; Taehyung says that his best ideas come when he's in the middle of figuring out another problem.
Despite having to have two different work areas, they balance each other out quite well.
Taehyung asks, "So what did you say you were in the mood for? You should probably still be resting; that flu really took you out."
"Flu?" Yoongi points to Taehyung. "You too?"
Taehyung shakes his head. "No, I'm fine. But Jungkook had it last week. So I'm not surprised that one of us got it; he's around so often." Taehyung grabs Yoongi's arm and pushes him out of the kitchen. "Go sit down. I'll bring you something to eat."
Yoongi wants to refuse, wants to say that He's his own person that can make his own food, thank you very much , but the more he stands up, the dizzier he's getting. Sitting down sounds like a great idea right about now. "Thanks. I'll go sit like an empty tank."
Like a what?
Yoongi's head must still be going through it. He practically throws himself onto the living room couch and even though he knows food is a few minutes away, Yoongi falls back asleep.
--
Yoongi notices something is wrong the next day. After eating the soup that Taehyung had made him, the two had cuddled into bed and fell asleep watching a movie. The sickness was making its last course through Yoongi's body, and consequently he spent most the late afternoon and evening in and out of a light doze. Taehyung fed him one more time before they officially went to bed and the last thing that Yoongi remembers of the day is Taehyung's arms around him.
But the next day, Yoongi wakes up with his bladder screaming expletives at him. He untangles himself from his boyfriend's octopus hug, ever grateful that only something like a 7.0 earthquake would wake Taehyung up from REM sleep.
Yoongi stretches as he pads to the bathroom. The linoleum of the floor is cold, and after using the bathroom, he turns on the floor heating.
REPLACE BATTERY, the thermostat screen reads, after letting out a blood-curdling beep that makes Yoongi jump two feet into the air.
Yoongi presses a random button, trying to get the screen to return to normal. "What the fuck? This sucks. Didn't we just replace this the other day? Nay, nay."
Yoongi drops his hand to his mouth. What the fuck? Nay? What century is this?
"What...?" Yoongi says and to his utter horror, he follows up with: "But."
But what? But nothing! What was his entire sentence. He is sure of it.
"This is wrong." Yoongi turns and walks back towards the bedroom to wake Taehyung up. "It's like I'm singing a fucking song."
"Tae." Yoongi shakes his boyfriend awake. "Bae."
Yoongi is going to scream. He's never called Taehyung, nor any of his previous romantic partners for that matter, something like Bae .
" Whatsthematter ?" Taehyung slurs. Taehyung is not a morning person in any sense of the word. He'd much rather spend the entire morning lounging around in bed until finally forcing himself up at noon, but Yoongi needs him to get up now.
Finally, after some poking his arms and tugging on his hands, Taehyung sits up in bed. On any other occasion, a sleep-eyed bed-headed Taehyung would make Yoongi's heart melt. But Yoongi needs answers. And he's sure that his boyfriend has them. Taehyung is always pulling sly tricks and gags just for the hell of it.
"There's a problem," Yoongi says and he winches as he follows up with. "And it's going to blossom. Into something big. Because of my stupid swig. Of your stupid, stupid tea. That had leaves from a tree."
Taehyung's eyes go wide. And then wider and wider until he closes his eyes entirely and starts laughing. He falls back onto the bed, taking the sheets and blankets with him as he rolls around and giggles. "Oh my god," he cries in between his laughs. Yoongi is standing, unamused, at the edge of the bed.
"It's not funny, honey. I have to speak in rhymes; this is a fucking crime."
Taehyung bursts into another round of laughter and Yoongi stalks out of the room. He'll find his own cure for this.
--
Yoongi is on his third attempt of an antidote when Taehyung makes his way into the room. Yoongi doesn't spare him a glance, instead watching as the bubbling red liquid quickly changes to pink. Yoongi glances at the potion book he's following to make sure that the color is the same before taking the pot off of the heat and immediately laddling some into a chilled cup.
Yoongi finally turns around and meets Taehyung's eyes. Then he down the entire potion in one go. He sets the empty cup on the counter and wipes off his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn’t break eye contact.
Taehyung took his sweet time getting down. He's freshly showered, and probably even made up the bed and had a bowl of cereal before making his way back to Yoongi. "Good morning."
Yoongi takes a deep breath. He can feel the warmth of the potion running down his throat, into his chest and his stomach. "Good morning," he says and closes his eyes when nothing else comes out.
Taehyung quirks an eyebrow in surprise. "It worked?"
"It's a forewarning," Yoongi says and he has never wanted to bite off his tongue more than in this moment. “This is not bliss. Whatever you did, you have to rid me of this."
Taehyung's eyes spark with amusement, but before he can say anything, Yoongi puts a hand up to stop him from talking.
Yoongi says, "Don't talk. Or balk. Just do and get rid of this..." Yoongi waves his hand around himself, "view."
Taehyung nods his head. "So I know what caused this." He reaches for his notebook that he's shrunk to fit in his back pocket. He makes quick work of resizing it. "It was definitely the tea, as you said." He flips to a page that hopefully has some useful information in it. "But I don't know exactly how to fix it," he says, sheepishly smiling. "Sorry?"
Yoongi points towards the door. He doesn't say anything, but Taehyung gets the hint and slinks towards the door.
"...Sorry," he says again right before shutting the door. "Really sorry."
It's barely noon. Yoongi is a smart, capable witch. He can figure out a cure before sunset.
Hopefully.
--
They don't speak for the rest of the day, which Yoongi is grateful for. Yoongi is even more thankful to find out that the charm doesn't translate over to messaging. He doesn't know how to rhyme a keysmash, and apparently the charm doesn't feel like doing that work either.
He messages Namjoon and Seokjin, the only two other witches at the moment that he trusts to help him figure this out. He would trust more, but he's sure that Taehyung has already messaged their other friends as he pouts about Yoongi kicking him out of the room.
Unluckily, his friends don't have anything to add but a few laughing emojis, an encouragement that Now is the time to start your rapping career! , and on Seokjin's part, a voice message asking politely (Seokjin's words, not his) to send a voice message back. After listening to that message, Yoongi rolls off his eyes and turns off his phone. Usually, when Yoongi is as stumped as he is now, he would turn to Taehyung to bounce ideas off of. But Taehyung has already sacuid that he doesn't know how to fix it and Yoongi is still too mad at him to look him in the eye.
Taehyung's potions are always full of unexpected side-effects like this. He has a bad habit of throwing things together, always thinking about why he's creating a potion, not how he's creating it. How has he not figured out how to cure it already?
Yoongi has to go teach tomorrow, and the last thing he wants is a bunch of snooty high-school aged witches laughing at him as he stumbles through his lesson plan. He's probably going to have to call in sick, which means that Hoseok will have to take over his class. And while Yoongi has no idea about how to fix this charm, he does know that his students will eat Hoseok alive the second they lay eyes on him.
Yoongi tries his umpteenth potion of the day, but it's acidic going down his throat and he is still rhyming his words a minute after. If anything, it seems like throughout the course of the day, the rhyming has gotten worse, faster and more corny. By this rate, he's going to be Dr. Seuss book before bedtime.
By dinnertime, Yoongi is unsatisfied and hungry. In spite, he makes one more potion. It's a clear liquid and can almost pass as bubbling water if not for the way it sparkles at certain angles. He puts it into a cup and walks out to the kitchen with it. Taehyung, probably in part to win back Yoongi's favor has made the two of them dinner. Yoongi can smell it all the way from his study, so he's not surprised when he finds Taehyung setting the table.
Yoongi puts the potion-filled cup on the table and sits down on the opposite side.
"Hey, Yoongi," Taehyung greets, handing him a plate of food that makes Yoongi's mouth water and his heart soften a bit. He sits across from Yoongi, hands outstretched on the table. "But before you eat–"
Yoongi looks up, fork already halfway to his mouth. He puts the utensil down and nods at Taehyung to continue.
"So, I might have lied about the cure thing. I know how to cure it," he rushes out, almost too fast for Yoongi to catch it.
You what , Yoongi almost says. He catches himself before the words come out. He's sick and tired of rhyming all of his words. It's making his head spin. Yoongi raises his eyebrows instead.
Taehyung leans across the table, putting out a hand to cup Yoongi's cheek. Yoongi stares at him, unblinking, and is only a bit surprised when Taehyung closes the distance between them and kisses him on the lips.
Taehyung pulls away, a small smile on his lips. If Yoongi wasn't irritated at the situation, he'd find Taehyung's expression heartwarming.
But instead Yoongi leans back as well and says without rhyming, "Really? A kiss? That’s it?"
"True love's kiss is always a good cure." Taehyung shrugs his shoulders. "Speaking in rhymes was a little funny, though. You're cute when you're frustrated. But you didn't think I'd let you go into work like that, right?" He takes a sip from the full cup.
Yoongi grumbles and folds his arms over his chest. "You're lucky I love you." He picks up his fork and starts eating.
Taehyung laughs and gets up to serve himself food. He ruffles Yoongi's hair as he's walking over and presses a kiss to the top of his head. "You're the best," he says. "I feel pretty blessed."
Taehyung stills, and Yoongi tries his best to not react. "The glass," Taehyung says. "Oh, you're an ass."
"What?" Yoongi asks around a mouthful of food. "Didn't you say just say that speaking in rhymes was fun?"
Taehyung pouts and Yoongi laughs harder than he has in a while.
--
Later that night, when the dishes are cleaned and the leftover food is in the fridge, Taehyung sits on the edge of their bed and says, "Kiss me? Let me be free?"
Yoongi shakes his head and tries to not mind how unfair it is that Yoongi is barely taller than Taehyung while Taehyung is sitting down. Who let his boyfriend be this tall and lanky? He puts his hands on the side of Taehyung's face and kisses him once, twice, thrice. And then some more to make sure that they're both truly cured.
Sometimes, charms aren't too bad.