Chapter Text
Yoongi had fallen asleep at his music again. Curled up catlike near the hearth, his guitar beside him and scraps of paper full of scribbled notes scattered around, he’d probably meant to rest his eyes just for a moment. Scoffing to himself, Hoseok moved the guitar out of harm’s way and gathered up the notes to avoid scattering them when he laid a blanket over Yoongi. The coals were warm, but the floor was not, and the whole cabin would be icy cold before morning. Hoseok tucked a pillow under his head as well. Yoongi didn’t so much as stir, either too asleep or too used to Hoseok maneuvering him into slightly more comfortable places when he found him like this at least once a week to even be bothered.
“Night-night,” said Hoseok under his breath.
He finished his initial mission to the kitchen for water and scurried back to bed. Blessedly, his covers had retained some of his warmth from before, and he snuggled in and fell quickly back to sleep.
The smell of roasting sweet potato roused him, his stomach growling for food before he was even fully awake. Yoongi was already up, bent over his notes at the table with his head propped in his hand.
“How long did you sleep?” said Hoseok.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I was asleep.” Yoongi got up to check on the sweet potato in the coals.
He’d hardly slept at all, then. Hoseok made an effort not to sigh too loudly.
“Come eat, it’s ready.”
They split the potato, and it was hard to stay frustrated with Yoongi for getting up so early when there was something so good to show for it.
“How’s the song coming?” Hoseok asked, warm from potato and slightly less hungry than usual.
“The same.” Now it was Yoongi’s turn to hold back a sigh.
“It seems like you must have tried every possible combination of notes by now.”
“At least twice each.” Yoongi squinted at one of his papers. “What do you think I meant by ‘scale switching back and forth’?”
“Beats me. You should really get some rest, then maybe your notes will actually make sense.”
“They made perfect sense when I wrote them,” Yoongi pouted. “I just can’t remember now.”
“It’ll come to you,” said Hoseok.
“It better come soon.”
Between them, they made short work of the sweet potato while talking about music and the latest gossip, and not talking about how few they had left.
“Can I show you what I came up with and you tell me what you think?”
“I’m not the lord of spring, but I’ll do my best impression.”
They went to the clearing, because Yoongi always said his music felt better out in the nature he was trying to affect, and Hoseok arranged himself against the base of the old oak tree with a blanket grabbed from inside as a godly robe and a stick as a scepter. Yoongi fidgeted at the strings of his guitar with fingers less sure than usual and cleared his throat. Hoseok piled a few dead leaves on his head for a crown and scattered more across his robe for decoration.
“I’m listening.”
“Okay.” Tragically, Yoongi kept his head ducked over his guitar and avoided looking at Hoseok. “So, I was playing with the beginning of the melody again, so it’s a little weird now, but bear with me til I get past that part.”
He scratched the back of his head. Shy . Hoseok could have cooed.
“Hyung.”
Yoongi looked up, and the tree root that Hoseok had unfortunately rested his hip on was worth it for the shocked laugh that burst out of him.
“Play for me, mortal.” He gestured imperiously with his scepter.
“Hobi!” Yoongi laughed. “You’re lucky he’s not up here right now!”
Hoseok shrugged, grinning, and a few leaves fell off his shoulders. “Maybe the humor will add to the appeal. Show me what you have.”
“Okay. Don’t-“ Yoongi pointed a stern finger at him and absolutely failed at mustering an expression to match it- “laugh at me.”
“I would never.” Hoseok was dangerously close to laughing already, but he held it back for Yoongi’s sake. “I won’t even look at you.”
He closed his eyes to prove it and heard Yoongi take a deep breath before beginning to play. It sounded perfectly ordinary, just notes plucked out on a guitar, until a shiver rattled through the branches above them and the cold air, still as it was, thrummed along. A shiver ran through Hoseok, too; it was times like this that he was reminded that Yoongi’s ability wasn’t exactly ordinary. He pressed his hand to the ground and felt the minute reverberation of the earth like a barely-touched string under Yoongi’s fingers. The song swelled, the vibration grew, and-
Just a guitar, and just Yoongi, sheepish when Hoseok’s eyes flew open to look at him.
“Tell me you felt that, hyung.”
“I did.” Yoongi didn’t sound nearly as awed as Hoseok felt. “Can you tell what went wrong right before it stopped?”
“It sounded fine the whole time. It wasn’t the sound, either, it was everything .” Hoseok sat normally again and brushed the leaves out of his hair. “You could tell it really was doing something before that, couldn’t you?”
“Yes. But why can’t I find the rest? It’s like something’s missing, and I can keep it going for a few measures if I really try, but eventually it all falls off without whatever it is I’m looking for.”
Hoseok wished he could be of more help when it came to the ways of spring-summoning music, but it was all beyond him. In the end, as always, he offered Yoongi as much encouragement as he could and prayed that some way, the song would be finished.
~
Taehyung was in high spirits, even for a guy with wings on his shoes. Yoongi could tell- not because Taehyung told him so or smiled or laughed- but because Taehyung scooped him up and flew off with him in the direction of the train station without so much as a hello. The sound that escaped Yoongi was embarrassingly high-pitched, and he scrambled, first to get away and then to hold on for dear life once he thought better of the previous attempt.
“Sorry!’ said Taehyung, not sorry at all. “Stop screaming, it’s me. The train’s coming!”
“Great!” Held like he was with Taehyung’s arms wrapped around him from behind, Yoongi couldn’t even glare at him, but the effect of such a glare would probably be negated by the death grip he had on the god’s arms as the ground raced along below them. “A little warning would have been nice!”
“That’s no fun, though.” Taehyung’s pout was audible in his voice.
Clearly getting nowhere, Yoongi changed the subject. “You’re not bringing me to actually meet Jimin, are you?”
“Of course I am. He’ll love you, don’t worry.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“How could it be a bad one?” Taehyung swooped, and Yoongi held on tight and squeezed his eyes closed. “Here we are!”
The platform was suddenly solid under Yoongi’s feet, and he stumbled. Taehyung steadied him, and took the opportunity to straighten his shirt and finger-comb his windblown hair as the train chuffed to a stop in front of them. Yoongi couldn’t tell if the queasy feeling was from his flight or from nerves.
“There.” Taehyung stepped back, satisfied at last. “You look handsome.”
Yoongi reached for the the comfort of his guitar- not there, left in the house and not with him when he was so rudely snatched up. “Taehyung-“
“Tae-Tae!”
A blur of a person burst from the train and leaped into Taehyung’s arms. Yoongi watched as the two gods embraced and hopped around each other like two puppies, enough divine power to tear him atom from atom focused on giggling instead. Then Jimin turned his bright gaze to him, and he bowed himself to the ground.
“Oh cute!”
Yoongi didn’t dare look up yet. As immortals went, Jimin had a reputation for being extremely good natured, but as Yoongi was the only inhabitant of Earth present, a lot could be riding on this interaction.
“Is he okay?”
“You know mortals,” said Taehyung. “It’s okay, Yoongi. I won’t let him eat you.”
“Rise,” said Jimin, like someone trying to sound formal, and Yoongi did.
Jimin took his hands and pulled him to stand. Tiny hands , Yoongi noted without meaning to. Right in front of him now, Jimin was suddenly much less intimidating, with hair the color of a spring morning and his eyes becoming crescents as he smiled.
“You’re squishy.” He pinched Yoongi’s cheek with his small fingers. “It’s good to meet you, I’m Jimin, bringer of spring, you know the drill- ahhhhh it’s good to breathe fresh air again! I hope you appreciate it, living up here with it all the time. I didn’t catch your name?”
“Min Yoongi,” said Yoongi.
“Hmm, I’ve probably met a couple Mins, but I can’t remember now. Oh well. Tell me about the world.”
So Yoongi, sandwiched between Jimin and Taehyung as they walked, seemingly to nowhere in particular, told him. About the winter, about the festivities when spring arrived and the famines when winter came, about his home and the people he knew. He left out anything about his mission or his music, not sure how Jimin would react to the idea.
“So, if you like it up here so much, what would it take to persuade you to stay a little longer this year?” he tried instead.
Clouds covered Jimin’s sunny demeanor, and Yoongi leaned away slightly. “I’m not the one you have to convince.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t think I stay down there in that hellhole of my own choice, do you?”
“Well…” Yoongi wasn’t sure what he thought, exactly, which was part of why the song was such slow going. The ways of the gods were strange, borderline nonsensical, and Taehyung wasn’t exactly forthcoming with hard information.
“Ah, you don’t know,” said Jimin. “It’s Hades you’d have to persuade; I’m just a decoration- something pretty to look at, but what good am I? The only things that grow in that place are the numbers and the wall.”
“I’m sorry,” said Yoongi, and he meant it. “We’re glad to have you here, even for a short time. We’d all be dead by now if not for you.”
“Thank you.” Jimin beamed at him. “But let’s not talk about such gloomy things any more now. It’s spring!”
Spring bloomed, and summer followed. Jimin stayed a little longer, and as always, left too soon. Summer left with him, and a storm blew in.
~
Hoseok didn’t like the look of the gathering clouds. Neither did Yoongi, it seemed, because he started walking faster, glancing back to check that Hoseok was following.
“Hoba?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to scare you…”
“Should we be running?”
Yoongi took him by the hand, and they ran. The wind chased them, icy hands at their backs and dead leaves skittering between their feet.
“I think we’ll make it,” Hoseok tried to reassure the both of them. It wasn’t like they hadn’t ever gotten caught in a storm before, either; as long as it wasn’t a blizzard, they’d get home all right either way. The darkness that encroached after them like the earth itself moving to swallow them off its surface, and the feeling of absolute dread that came with it, seemed to speak differently. Yoongi just hurried on, his face grim, but Hoseok’s hand clasped warmly in his.
They reached home a half step ahead of the storm, tumbling shivering and panting through the door and struggling to close it against a monstrous gust of wind that shook the very walls. Hoseok laughed, more than a little shaken himself, but relieved. Big storms spooked him at the best of times, but once safely inside, the protection of the walls and the warmth of a fire made it more of an excited kind of fear than a frightened one.
Usually.
“Yoongi?”
Yoongi still looked scared. Yoongi, who never paid attention to storms outside, even the ones that howled so hard they seemed about to break the house to bits and had Hoseok wrapping himself up in a blanket like a cloak of protection.
“This isn’t an ordinary storm.”
That could mean any number of things, ranging from “an ordinary storm but worse” to “the earth really is about to swallow us”, and Hoseok was already looking around for a blanket.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well that’s reassuring. How do you know it’s not just a storm then?”
“I can just feel it.”
Hoseok had learned long ago to accept that Yoongi could, indeed, just feel things, the same way he could just make things happen with his music.
“Okay…. How worried should I be right now?”
“I don’t know, Hobi.”
Yoongi sat down and started tuning his guitar while Hoseok stared at him, at a loss for what to try to ask next. In the end, he gave up and sat down near him, a blanket secure around his shoulders. The wind raged around the little house, cold drafts finding their way in through even the tiniest cracks. It was the way the house shuddered that was the worst, Hoseok thought, like it might not be able to protect them at all.
“What are you doing?” he asked Yoongi finally, when he really needed a distraction from the wind.
“I’m figuring it out. I can’t make Jimin come back, and I can’t stop it, but maybe I can calm it a little.”
“Really?” Hoseok had seen Yoongi turn a bear away from attacking and make a flower sprout from dead soil, but he’d never demonstrated more than a momentary influence over the weather before.
Yoongi shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
He started to play. More than half expecting something to change despite never having seen Yoongi do something like this before, Hoseok jumped when the storm seemed to redouble its fury instead. Undeterred, Yoongi played on. The storm continued, and instead of calming, it grew even more, shaking the little house to its foundations.
Hoseok was seriously considering crawling under the table when Yoongi stood suddenly. “I need to be outside.”
“Now?” Hoseok squeaked.
“Now.” Throwing on his coat, Yoongi started for the door.
“Yoongi!” Hoseok sprang up as well. “You can’t go out in this!”
“I have to.”
“Why though? We’re safe here, and it has to end eventually, doesn’t it?”
“There’s something different about this one, and I want to try before it gets any worse. I think I can do it if I try.”
“You’ll freeze! Or literally blow away- please don’t go out there.”
“Just a few minutes. I’ll be right outside.”
“That’s still a terrible idea.”
“Stay here.”
With that, he was gone into the howling darkness. Hoseok, coward that he was, didn’t follow, but he ran to the window and breathed a sigh of relief to see him in the faint glow.
“I’ll make tea,” he decided. “He’s coming in when it’s ready.”
He paced in front of the hearth while the kettle took its time warming. Yoongi was barely a shadow in the night, long hair whipped to disarray by the wind. Any effect of his song was lost in the wild storm.
Hoseok peered outside once again, and his heart lurched. Without a thought, he raced to the door and flung it open, and the storm threatened to sweep him away as he leaned out.
“Yoongi!”
Yoongi was gone.
Hoseok scanned everywhere he could see, which was hardly anywhere in the darkness, but there was no sign of him. Swearing under his breath, he ducked back inside to put on his coat and light a lantern with shaking hands. The wind roared as he stood at the door, and he clutched the blanket closer around himself like it really was a cloak. Yoongi was out there all alone- that was what did it, and he stepped out into the storm.
The cold took his breath away, and the wind snatched his calls for Yoongi right from his lips. He circled the house, hoping to find Yoongi sheltered behind it, but there was no sign of him there or anywhere around. Hoseok stood for a moment, at a loss, and sleet began to fall.
“The clearing!” he thought, and took off at a dogged run against the wind, shielding his face against the stinging sleet as best he could.
It was a long time - too long - later when he finally found Yoongi huddled against a tree, stiff hands moving soundlessly over the guitar strings.
“You moron.”
Yoongi didn’t contest the statement, and only mumbled something indistinct as Hoseok hoisted him to his feet and threw the blanket around his shoulders. By the time they made it home, he was stumbling and had to be more or less carried inside. Somehow through it all he’d kept a death grip on his guitar, which Hoseok set aside in favor of peeling off his shoes and wet outer clothes and shuffling him into bed under as many blankets as he could find.
“I thought you said you’d be just outside!”he was shaking almost as much as Yoongi was. “What in Hades were you thinking?”
Yoongi turned his head away and murmured something unhappy.
“I’ll yell at you later.” Hoseok crawled under the covers with him and hugged him close. It felt more like hugging a Yoongi-shaped block of ice, if ice could shiver violently.
“Hob…”
“Shh. I’ve got you.”
“Th’ song.”
“It can wait.” Hoseok pulled him in closer to his chest to share as much warmth as he could. “You’re still too cold.”
Thankfully, an inkling of self-preservation seemed to dawn on Yoongi, and he snuggled up to Hoseok with a noise not very far off from a whine. Hoseok’s eyes were already drooping with exhaustion, but he forced himself to stay awake until Yoongi’s shivering had eased a little. Only once he was sure Yoongi was out of danger did he give in, falling immediately to sleep despite the cold and the howling storm.
He woke up sweating. If Yoongi had been a block of ice before, now he was a furnace. His face was flushed, and his skin was burning and dry to the touch. Carefully, Hoseok got up to dampen a towel with cold water and laid it on Yoongi’s forehead. His eyebrows scrunched together, but he otherwise didn’t appear awake.
“Sorry,” Hoseok murmured.
It looked like his lecture about not running off into the woods to do battle with a storm would have to wait a little longer. Speaking of the storm, it was still going strong, though not as furiously as before. Hoseok looked at Yoongi again.
He couldn’t start questioning him and quite possibly freaking out about the answers just yet, so he set to straightening the mild chaos the night’s adventure had caused. Yoongi’s guitar lay where he’d set it when they stumbled inside, and Hoseok cringed to check its condition after the freezing temperatures and sleet. To his surprise, it looked to be perfectly alright; being blessed by a Muse was really no joke, it seemed.
When Yoongi awoke, Hoseok found he still didn’t have the heart to scold him. Not when he was still so small and pale under the blankets, and certainly not when he launched into a coughing fit that made Hoseok genuinely afraid for his lungs. He rubbed his back and made him drink water and tucked him in to rest more when he fell back exhausted against the pillows.
After that, Yoongi’s condition grew steadily worse. He slept, but only fitfully as his fever continued to rise, and he stirred and mumbled in his sleep.
“Wait!” he cried out quite clearly at one point, and Hoseok hurried to his side thinking he must have just woken up. “Wait, Seok…” Still asleep.
“It’s okay,” Hoseok soothed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t…”
“You’re dreaming, hyung.” Hoseok rubbed his arm softly. “Everything’s okay.”
Yoongi stilled.
Over time the dreams, whatever they were, were replaced by an eerie stillness. The fever wasn’t broken, but Yoongi lay like the dead. Watching his breathing to be sure he still was, Hoseok came to the realization that this illness might be beyond his capacity to treat. His fears were confirmed as Yoongi only grew worse, and he made his decision. Better to go now, even with Yoongi as sick as he was, than to wait until it was even worse.
“I’m going to find someone who can help you, hyung.” Hoseok dropped a light kiss to Yoongi’s fevered brow. “Don’t go anywhere.”
He left, walking quickly through the woods and to the train station where a car and engine sat puffing and chugging. Nothing good could come of that. Hoseok shivered and hurried past.
“Wait, little squirrel,” a voice rumbled.
Hoseok jumped, a yelp escaping his lips, and whipped around. He was not mistaken.
“Hades?”
“At your service.” The king of the Underworld gave a flourishing bow.
Hoseok clutched the strap of his bag. “What are you doing here?”
“Just checking in on my next acquisition. Poor Yoongi-hyung - I’d hurry home if I were you.”
Hoseok’s blood turned to ice all in a moment. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie to you? ”
“Why not?” Hoseok trembled; this was the kind of thing that got mortals smited (smote? smitten?) for sure, but he couldn’t seem to stop.
“Do you need me to make it plainer? You’re nothing to me, and neither is your friend, just another soul who’s outlived his time. Now are you going to stand here arguing with me, or will you be there to see him off?”
Hoseok wanted to run, back to Yoongi, to save him- but there would be no saving- to hold his hand, then, and make his journey across the river Styx a little less lonely, but his feet refused to move. His mind refused to think, his lungs refused to breathe.
“Unless…”
“Unless what?” he croaked.
“I’d be willing to accept a trade.”
“What kind of trade?”
“You can take his place, if you’re brave enough.”
Hoseok blanched.
“Oh don’t look like that, you don’t have to die . All you have to do is come with me and sign the contract.”
“That’s as good as dying.” No one who went down to Hadestown ever returned to the world above.
“But your friend will live, to a good old age. I’ll even throw in a nice peaceful death at the end if I can swing it with the Fates.”
Hoseok’s heart seemed to pound against his ribs.
“I would say take all the time you need to think it over, but this offer’s going to expire soon, I’m afraid.”
“I want to see him,” said Hoseok. “If I go with you, I want to see him well first.”
“Sorry, but that’s not part of the agreement,” Hades drawled. “The train’s leaving in a moment. Are you getting on or not?”
“Yes!” Hoseok burst out before he could stop himself, because he would have if he’d given himself the chance. He scrambled aboard so quickly that he lost his balance and was saved from falling by Hades’s iron-cold hand around his arm. He gulped. “I’ll go with you.”
Hades chuckled, long and low like a rockfall deep underground. “It’s not often that I meet someone so eager. I appreciate a good work ethic.”
The train began to move, slowly at first, but picking up speed at an unnatural rate. Hoseok cast one last look back at the world as the entrance to the tunnel (was it really a tunnel if it never came out again, he wondered) loomed before them. He half expected to see Yoongi, somehow, demanding to know why he was leaving and how he could be so stupid. He was relieved to see only the dead trunks of the trees.
“Forgive me.”
~
Yoongi woke up to silence, cold, and the pale light of a winter’s day. He stretched his stiff limbs and quickly drew them in under the blankets again. The fireplace was cold.
Frowning, he ventured a little further out of his refuge. He’d been ill, he knew that much from snippets of memory: coughing until his head spun, a cold compress on his forehead, frightening dreams chased away by a familiar voice and a gentle hand. That had been Hoseok, he was sure (there weren’t a lot of other options), but Hoseok wasn’t one to leave him alone long enough for the fire to die.
“Seok-ah?” Yoongi called.
No answer. That was odd, but it wasn’t time to panic yet. There were other places he could be, things that could have distracted him, and Yoongi was self-admittedly the kind of person who tended to jump to the worst possible conclusion early on. He searched the house, the area outside, and ventured further into the woods, calling Hoseok’s name and becoming more concerned by the minute. But it wasn’t time to panic, there were plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for Hoseok’s lengthy absence that didn’t involve kidnapping or grievous bodily harm or-
“Taehyung!”
Taehyung turned, smiled- but not a very big smile, not even slightly rectangular. “Yoongi! It’s good to see you on your feet again.”
“Have you seen Hoseok?”
Taehyung’s smile fully faded then. “You don’t know?”
Maybe now it was time to panic. “Where is he?”
“He um.” Taehyung looked downright uncomfortable now. “Hadestown.”
Everything else in the world stopped. It felt like Yoongi had been punched in the chest.
“He took the train. I wasn’t allowed to interfere. I’m sorry.”
“What happened?” Yoongi heard his own voice ask, like he was listening from underwater.
“Uhh.”
“Just tell me what happened to him, please.”
“Nothing! He- you were really sick, and he struck a deal with Hades and went. Otherwise you’d be there instead.”
There was a tiny red flower in the leaves at the base of a huge dead tree. Yoongi didn’t know how long he stared at it. There was no sound.
“He traded himself for me?”
“I’m sorry.”
Yoongi turned and started waking.
“Where are you going?” Taehyung was sill there, it seemed.
“To find him.”
“That’s not how-“
“He’s not dead, is he?”
“Well, he didn’t die, exactly, but for the purposes of this world, he is dead, yes.”
“So I’m going down there where he is. If he took the train in, he can take the train out.”
“Do you have a ticket?”
“No.” Yoongi kept walking.
“Yoongi, wait!” Finally catching up to him, Taehyung grabbed him around the middle, but he ducked out of his arms. “There’s another way!”
Yoongi stopped.
“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I know the long way around. I have to warn you, though, it isn’t easy, and it’s dangerous. If you’re caught, there’s no telling what they’ll do to you, and I won’t be able to help you.”
“I understand.” Yoongi squared his shoulders. “Show me the way.”
“Yoongi… why do this? What do you plan to accomplish when you get there?”
“I’ll bring him back.”
“And stay in his place? He made a deal, you know.”
“If I have to.” A tremor ran through him at the thought of Hadestown’s never ending mines and foundries and factories, where Hoseok was trapped now. “I can’t just leave him there.”
“It’s your funeral,” said Taehyung.
“Show me the way.”