Chapter Text
The present, viscerally
Yoongi was lonely.
Maybe that’s why he imagined the knock on the door.
No one was there to visit him. No one had been by in months.
Three raps on the front door, quick and sharp. Yoongi stared at the door in question - lit up only by the warm evening sun filtering in. The green looked more forest green than emerald in that light. Well. He imagined it did. He didn’t much care to inspect it so closely, but an old friend had made the comment once.
He couldn’t find the energy to have an original thought, so he circled through old comments and conversations. "Why's it so dark in here, Yoongi-yah? Put some lights on." He’d forgotten to turn on any lights in the house again. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to see and he would trip on that spot on the rug just as he always did.
Tack tack tack.
Yoongi was hearing things. He had to be. No one was there to visit him.
"We'll come back, okay? Just as soon as the winter is over."
It was easy enough to ignore the constant knocking when he thought he was making it all up, so he did. He went about his evening - cooked ever so slightly tough ramyeon, drank soda that had long since lost its carbonation. "Lights, Yoongi-yah. Lights." Remembered, this time, to turn on the little lamp beside his couch. Dodged the upturned corner of the rug. That felt like a victory, no matter how small.
Only when Yoongi was climbing up his creaking stairs to head to bed did he realize that the knocking had stopped.
He wasn’t sure why, but he felt a little sad.
He continued up the stairs anyway. The third stair from the top creaked, low and harsh.
Tack tack tack.
The bathroom door, just as he had passed, shuddered with the sudden noise. Yoongi didn’t pause. The second floor hallway stretched out before him, long and familiar and lonely.
"Hyung?"
The thought - the memory of the voice - shook Yoongi to his core. It had been sudden; unbidden. Painful. Yoongi hurried into his room, slammed the door shut, and hid under the covers for the rest of the night.
The woods surrounding his house were quiet. That was how Yoongi knew something was wrong. His two-storey cottage was small and tucked away deep into the woods. That was where he needed it to be, to get work done. Not an hour's walk to the slow stream up north, and going east was a slightly longer trek to the clearing with a single cedar tree in the middle. Two hours back the other way was to the shallow cave turned into a den for one of the forest spirits. It was a central point to all things there; a crossroads. It made it easy for Yoongi to find things, but made it even easier for things to find Yoongi. Sometimes, most times, that was a good thing. How could he do his job, after all, if no one came to him for help?
Sometimes, rare times as the forest was a relatively peaceful place, it was not good.
This felt like one such time, as Yoongi stood on his rickety front porch; wood groaning softly under his feet as he shifted his weight to lean over the railing to get a better look around the house. The air was quiet - no chirps, no rustle of leaves, no wind to be felt. No movement from a place that was ever shifting; living. It was concerning. Unnatural. Ominous.
Yoongi's plans to go harvesting for herbs and bark were immediately scratched as he felt a low, nearly physical humming in the air. Something was on its way, and Yoongi wasn't sure he wanted to be around to see what it was. With goosebumps crawling across his skin, he spun around on his heel and went inside.
Doors were locked, windows were shut, and curtains were closed. He made sure to go to all the mirrors in the house, just in case, and cover them with sheets.
The last mirror in the house was the one in the upstairs bathroom. He didn't like looking in that one anymore.
Sure enough, just as he lifted the sheet to place it over the mirror carefully - respectfully - he saw something just there in the corner. Yoongi looked away from the dark, shapeless smudge, and made sure the sheet was secured. Once he was done he locked the bathroom door, too. Just in case.
A cleansing ritual was easy and the smell of palo santo burning was familiar and comforting. He wasn't sure when whatever the wind was bringing would reach him, but he was ready to wait as long as he needed. He had no desire to involve himself in anything dangerous. The last time he had done that, he'd nearly gotten devoured.
“You’re the one.” That voice again. Yoongi didn’t have the energy to curse his traitorous mind for digging that moment up, so he just stood, steeped in old pain.
The memory stung. Not from fear, but from what came of the event. Something long gone; bitter sweet on his tongue. Something that reminded him of the emptiness around him; the hollow of his bones, his chest.
Yoongi shook himself of the heavy haze of memories draped over him like a suffocating blanket. He found himself in the middle of his dim living room; clutching a now darkened piece of palo santo to his chest. He couldn't be certain how long he'd stood there in reverie, but the tip of the wood was cool. He looked at his surroundings; detached. The blanket carefully folded across the back of the couch hadn't been moved in months. Dust had gathered on his coffee table, his window sills, the bookshelves. The air was stale and sepia; unmoving just like it had been outside.
Yoongi let out a breath. A soft exhale; tired.
He breathed in, long and slow.
The smell hit him like a tidal wave - familiar and comforting and terrifying.
What am I doing? Yoongi thought; heart pounding as the smell continued. He’d hoped it was a fluke, a trick of the mind. But.... it was still there. Just as real as if he was standing just beside him. Am I going crazy, here?
The smell was of the forest after rain. It was pleasant earth and little wildflowers hiding just under bushes and berries ripe enough to eat. It was nature. It was home and it was something dark and mysterious and it was his scent. The one Yoongi used to be near so often. The one he would wake up wrapped in after an afternoon nap. The one he chased after now and then; stood in the woods barefoot just before a storm for, but found nothing could compare.
Even nature Herself could not hope to replicate the intricacies of him.
Yoongi did not want to think about it anymore. His hands hurt from clutching the little sliver of palo santo so tightly.
He shook himself, and forcefully spun around to march into the kitchen. The smell did not follow him, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Yoongi went about making tea, and desperately trying not to think about - about him. About the grass under his feet, flowers being tucked carefully in his hair, a hand - calloused with dirt under the nails and slender and beautiful - hesitantly grabbing at his.
He failed.
Somewhere, in the past
Yoongi was running low on lavender. It was imperative that he gather more immediately, not only because it was useful but mostly because it was his favorite to sprinkle in his bath. Namjoon liked to tease him about his excessive use of herbs for his “bath teas” but Yoongi was hardly fazed. Namjoon, after all, had no taste for the finer things in life. His idea of a “bath” was about a five minute dip before he got distracted and/or bored and got out.
Absolute heathen.
So. Lavender.
Yoongi had this little basket. Hoseok had woven it himself many years ago; excited to show off his new spells. It was a deep, oranged wood that felt right in Yoongi’s hands. The handle had smoothed over time to fit his grip exactly. Yoongi had much more modern things, of course - he could easily collect herbs with a backpack or something. But he was a lover of aesthetics and even more a lover of such heartfelt gifts, so the basket it always was.
He also loved the delight that would shine in Hoseok’s eyes, even to that day, when he saw Yoongi using his gift.
The morning was calm, and cool, and a lovely transparent green. The second he stepped out onto his porch he took in a deep breath, and was rewarded with the faint smell of the wildflowers that had decided to make a home right beside his front steps. The leaves kept a slow waltz in the sky; a rhythm Yoongi easily hummed along to.
He took his steps two at a time, basket swinging in his grip as he made one last hop down onto the worn down path leading from his house to the large expanse of trees that grew all around.
Maybe I should see if hyung has made any jam recently, Yoongi thought absently. Sure, he could go to the store and get some, but Seokjin was the best baker in town. Once Yoongi had tried some of his homemade jam, he swore off (silently, one could not admit this to Seokjin aloud or else his ego would inflate so quickly he would drift off in the breeze) anything but his hyung’s. He could definitely go for a good toasted bread and jam -
Somewhere, deep in the woods, was a scream.
Yoongi froze; heart thundering in his ears at the sheer terror of it. The scream had been - guttural. Instinctual. Pained.
Before he quite realized, Yoongi had darted off into the woods - basket forgotten on his lawn.
Yoongi was no stranger to finding things in the middle of nowhere. It was part of his job, after all. He was a tracker, a healer, a diplomat. And he was good at what he did.
He wasn’t sure how long he ran, dodging roots and breathlessly thanking branches that tried their best to move out of his way. The trees held their arms up high for the most part in the forest - peaceful, playful, jovial - but sometimes they got tired and limp. Understandable. Yoongi didn’t hold it against them, even when they couldn’t move in time and he got a fierce swap against his arm or face. The forest floor had always been relatively barren - the favorite habitat for the bushes and flowers in those woods in particular had always been the stream - so it was easy enough to move quickly.
There hadn’t been another scream, but Yoongi didn’t need anything else to find the source. Something called him in the direction he needed to go - something that had always slept inside him, awoken only when he needed. That something brought him deeper and deeper into the woods. Slowly, or perhaps too quickly, the air turned chilled and loud with something.
Yoongi found - he wasn’t sure if it was the something in the air, but it definitely was a factor - something huddled just under a tree. He skid to a stop; breathing heavy and shoulders tense. The something was curled away from him; read splattered all over the forest floor around it. The tree it was under seemed to lean toward it; leaves reaching, perhaps to shield. Branches bending as far as they could.
“Are you okay?” Yoongi asked the something.
It jolted, and then let out a quiet; pitiful noise from the movement. It was injured, that much was certain. Slowly, Yoongi approached. Even slower, the something turned just enough to glance back toward Yoongi.
Yoongi held up his hands, and stopped after a handful of steps. He was still quite a ways away from the something. The trees were more dense, where they were. They tended to crowd around and gossip. “I won’t hurt you. Can I come closer?”
The something paused, just a moment, and nodded. At the distance Yoongi was at, they looked more like a dark smear across the tree trunk. He moved closer, as carefully as before. He was watched the entire time with a sharp, dark gaze.
Yoongi got within a few feet, and suddenly he could see the something perfectly. It was as if a haze was lifted from his eyes; a shield finally lowered.
And he understood why, as well.
There, cradled between two large roots of the tree, lay a fox spirit. The feeling was unmistakable; those dark eyes impossible to mistake for anything but. Yoongi had met a few fox spirits before, and they all had this same intensity to them - so real, so wild. This particular one was in its human form, rather than the abstract fox form some preferred. Clothed in extravagant deep greens and a large, heavy looking cloak, the spirit was a striking sight. The cloak was covered in shimmering black bird feathers. It was not unusual for a fox spirit to wear their prizes of a hard hunt, or to bargain for a particular shiny thing that caught their interest. They were always chasing treasures, after all. Whether that treasure be a difficult kill or a watch won in a game of wits, it did not matter. The spirit kept staring at Yoongi; somehow managing to be intimidating even while bleeding out on a forest floor.
There was a noise behind Yoongi - not far behind, maybe a minute or two a walk, his mind supplied - and the fox spirit’s eyes tore away to look around them. His hair was stuck to his face; lovely tanned skin soaked in sweat and dirt.
He was bloody, and a mess, and beautiful. "You're the one," he said; a rasp. His teeth were sharp and bared; eyes never ending in their search around them. "I was told you help."
"I do," Yoongi said; ignoring the raised hair on the back of his neck. He could feel something, there. Watching them. Ready. The man did, too. His eyes had finally stopped, and latched on to something just past Yoongi's shoulders. "it looks like you'll need quite a lot of it. Can you stand?"
The man paused; shifted his leg just slightly. He hissed; teeth grinding. He did not take his eyes off the spot behind Yoongi. "I don't think so."
Yoongi nodded. "I figured. This is pretty bad. You have another form, don't you? It will be easier to carry you back quickly. I can't keep it at bay for much longer."
"That's your doing?"
"Of course. I am always prepared,” Yoongi said easily, because it was true.
The spirit considered, for a moment, before he nodded. “Fine. Not like I won’t die any quicker anyway.”
Yoongi frowned, but he did have a point. The spirit took a deep breath, bracing, before his image flickered. Like the haze from before, it was suddenly difficult to make out the image of the spirit before him. Yoongi blinked hard, once; twice, and then suddenly the man was gone. In his place, there was a small gray fox. It was still bloodied - it’s hind legs were matted with blood and it was shivering violently. Yoongi’s frown deepened. Whatever did this to him had meant to toy first, before the kill. That was not an ideal situation, but not one out of Yoongi’s control. He would just have to ward his house even stronger than usual.
“Alright. I’m going to pick you up. Please don’t bite me,” Yoongi said as he stepped closer. The fox rolled its eyes. There were black markings across its face; curling around its eyes and mouth like someone had taken a calligraphy brush and tried to outline every curve and line of its face. There was also a small, blue ribbon around its neck with a gray tear shaped jewel hung from it. The prized possession, then, of this spirit if Yoongi’s previous experiences were to be believed. They would usually keep such treasures on their fox forms - usually their most powerful and hidden forms - for safe keeping in some way.
Yoongi made the mental note not to even accidentally brush this, lest he lose his fingers.
Yoongi could feel whatever had been hunting the spirit pushing at his boundaries; incessant and slobbering. It was disgusting. He shivered, a bit, at the feeling of a fist slamming against his invisible walls. The vibration went through his shoes. Time to go, then.
“Alright, sorry - “ Yoongi said as he stooped down and picked the fox up as carefully as possible. It didn’t stop the fox from yelping and squirming at the movement. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
The fox whined, long and low, but did its best to settle in Yoongi’s arms. It’s eyes looked heavy, but still warily trained into the trees.
“You can sleep. I won’t let it get you.”
“I trust you,” the fox grumbled, mouth open slightly but unmoving. Yoongi would never quite get used to that no matter how many times he saw it.
“Why?” Yoongi asked, perplexed. He didn’t often get requests for assistant from fox spirits. They usually could handle themselves quite well, and kept to their own kind for the most part. They were also, famously, distrustful. Not that he could blame them, when they used to be hunted for sport so long ago. That sort of trauma ran deep, even generations later.
“I saw you, once. That was when I knew.” The fox said, but that didn’t quite give Yoongi a proper answer. The spirit did not seem to care, however, as its eyes closed. “I will sleep. Don’t let us get eaten. I’d hate to die after trying so hard not to.”
Yoongi snorted. “Yeah, alright.” He began to walk; now the one that was constantly scanning the trees for something he knew was hovering close by. “What was after you, anyway?”
The fox did not answer. Yoongi didn’t know if he was really asleep or not, but he didn’t try to continue the conversation. He needed to concentrate, and the fox needed sleep.
It took him nearly an hour to get back home. He never quite saw hide or hair of whatever had been hunting the fox, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel it. It had pushed against his wards the entire way there; restless and attentive and determined to finish it. It was pretty much the worst case scenario for these sorts of things.
Yoongi sighed heavily when his house finally came back into view. The entire perimeter of the small clearing was covered in talismans and wards and spells so intricate it acted less like a chain link fence and more like a brick wall ten feet high. Yoongi felt the creeping, heavy breathing presence vanish immediately as he stepped past the tree line. He grimaced. That had been intensely unpleasant.
He looked down at the fox. It was definitely asleep, although it didn’t seem to be a restful sleep. Yoongi couldn't really blame him. He wouldn’t be able to sleep well that night either, and he hadn’t even been the one attacked. “Well,” Yoongi said to the fox. “I guess you’re stuck with me for a while.”