Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The house shakes. The house jerks. the house comes to a rest with a shudder.

“Yoongi-hyung?” Hoseok calls out.

“Did we know that was coming?” Seokjin asks from his place near the stove, still grasping the pot of broth he was making - he was fast, only some of it sloshed out. Hoseok shakes his head, then whirls around when Seokjin’s eyes flick over his shoulder.

Yoongi’s there. Leaning heavily on the doorframe, his face even paler than usual.

“Seven,” he says, before he falls to the floor.

Seokjin and Hoseok both shout when he goes down, but it’s Jungkook who gets to him first - he’d been coming up behind him, in search of everyone after the move.

He pulls off his sweatshirt fast, cushioning Yoongi’s head before Yoongi starts to seize. The plates clank and clack in the cupboards. The windows rattle in their frames. It’s blessedly brief - only a minute, Hoseok whispers when the shaking dies down, the house calming again in time with Yoongi’s body.

“Seven?” Hoseok asks, as he helps Jungkook roll Yoongi onto his side, Seokjin bending close to look him over.

“Hyungs?” Taehyung’s voice calls from upstairs - sleepy but tight, higher than usual.

“In the kitchen - we just moved, it’s okay,” Seokjin calls back, without looking up from Yoongi.

“Did we just move, though?” Hoseok murmurs, peering past Jungkook into the depths of the house. “That felt big, and he…” He looks down at Yoongi, face pulling into a distressed frown. “And why?”

Taehyung appears, pouting, hair disheveled. “Kitchen isn’t in the same direction,” he complains, knocking Jungkook on the back with a bony knee, then wrapping his fingers around his shoulder. “Is Yoongi-hyung okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” Seokjin says, though his brow is still furrowed in worry as he brushes Yoongi’s sweaty hair back from his forehead. “He had a seizure, but just a short one.”

“Okay. Are we going to go get the seventh? We need to. He’s in the garden.”

“Taehyungie,” Seokjin replies, finally looking up at him with a frown. “We don’t have a garden, you know that. Do you mean the fields? We moved, there’s no telling what’s out there now.” It’s a conversation they’ve had before. More than once. Taehyung’s a lot better at keeping track of what’s now and what’s later than he used to be, but he was napping when the move happened, which can be particularly disorienting.

“We do too have a garden,” Taehyung replies. He’s not annoyed, not on edge like the rest of them. All calm, collected, now that’s he’s over his initial moments of post-move anxiety. “Come on, we need to go.”

“Taehyung! There’s no garden!” Hoseok snaps. He’s a tight, quivering ball of worry where he’s crouched on the floor, eyes locked on Yoongi as he breathes, body relaxed now, but still unconscious.

“Hyung,” Jungkook puts in. He nods over Hosoek’s shoulder - towards the window near the back door.

Hoseok looks - and then jumps up, crossing to the window. “What the fuck.”

“Did we land in a garden?” Seokjin asks.

Taehyung lets out an exasperated sigh. “No. It’s ours. And he’s out there, hyungs, please - he’s hurting, it’s important.”

They all share a look as Taehyung shifts impatiently in the doorway. Seokjin raises an eyebrow at Hoseok, who nods back and answers the unspoken question. “I - I can feel him. Or, someone. Someone’s out there.”

“Okay,” Seokjin says. “I’ll stay with Yoongi, he should wake up soon. You three go.” He takes Yoongi’s unconscious form from Jungkook, cushioning his head in his lap. “Taehyung-ah, shoes!” Seokjin adds as they all pile towards the door and is gratified that Taehyung does, in fact, stop to pull on a pair of canvas slip-ons before tumbling out into their strange new surroundings.

Jungkook, Hoseok, and Taehyung stop when they’re on the other side of the kitchen door, pausing on the little back porch.

“What the fuck,” Hoseok murmurs again.

Taehyung grabs at Hoseok’s hoodie sleeve, pinching, tugging. “Hyung?”

“It’s big,” Jungkook says to him, and reaches out to touch his elbow - grounding, for both of them. Landing in a new place is always disorienting for Jungkook, even after all this time, and he knows it’s worse for Taehyung. “So many plants. So many, hyung, seriously. And a wall, but it’s like twenty feet away.”

Taehyung drops Hoseok’s sleeve, moves away from Jungkook’s touch, like he’s going to go down the steps - but Hoseok grabs him. “Taehyung-ah, no! It could be a trap.”

“It’s not.”

“Does it feel like one, hyung?” Jungkook asks, his voice going small with worry. He doesn’t have defensive magic. Neither does Taehyung, who’s tugging, trying to get out of Hoseok’s grip. Judging by his failure to do so, Hoseok’s put a block on him.

“No,” Hoseok says. “But that could be a trick itself.”

Taehyung whines, an unhappy sound, high in his throat. “We need to - hurt, hyung, he’s - please -“

“Okay Taehyung-ah, okay,” Hoseok says, his voice shifting - more reassuring in the face of Taehyung’s obvious distress. “Where is he, do you know? I can feel him, but, it’s like a jungle out there.”

“Flowers. Like love. Flowers.”

“Like… like love?” Hoseok frowns at him, then looks over at Jungkook. This would be easier if Yoongi was awake. He can usually understand Taehyung, even when he’s like this, worked up and struggling to communicate his second sight.

“Color. Love - Color. Flowers. Please, hyung.”

“Purple,” Jungkook says. “Love color. That’s purple.”

“Purple,” Hoseok breathes. “Right. Okay. He’s over that way. We can spread out, but stay close enough that I can keep shields on you.”

Jungkook is the one who finds him, lying among tall purple asters like he was dropped there, surrounded - cradled, like Seokjin was cradling Yoongi when they left the kitchen. He shouts for his hyungs, but kneels before they reach him. “Oh,” he breathes, because Taehyung was right - of course he was right - the man is hurt. Bleeding from a wound in his side into the plants, darkening their stems. They grow more abundantly on the side where he bleeds, almost like they’re fed by it - or seeking it.

He’s beautiful, and he’s powerful, and he’s in danger.

Taehyung reaches them first, and kneels down too, and puts his hands on the man’s chest. “He’s breathing,” he says. Jungkook was so stunned he hadn’t even thought to check. “I wish Jimin was here.”

“Fuck,” Hoseok breathes, when he joins them - then “Don’t touch him!”

“It’s okay, hyung, your shields are still on us, right? So if it’s not reacting…” Taehyung trails off. “We need to get him inside.”

“No,” Hoseok says. “This is weird. We can’t let him in, it might not be safe.”

“Hyung, he’s bleeding,” Jungkook says.

“We can put him outside. Outside the walls. Someone will help.” Hoseok steps forward just as the house behind them shifts again - doesn’t change place, but convulses, with a groan of wooden beams and walls.

“House doesn’t want us to,” Taehyung says. “Hyung, you know it doesn’t want us to, that’s not how this works.”

“None of this is how this works! None of us dropped right outside. They found us, not the other way around.”

“He’s been attacked,” Jungkook says.

“I can see that. All the more reason not to let him in, he might be dangerous!”

“Hyung,” Jungkook says, voice gentle - lilting. “It’s okay. We need to help him.” It’s a familiar tone, rhythm. They’ve used it before, plenty of times. It helps Hoseok when he’s upset; Jungkook has his permission to use it.

“Stop that!” Hoseok snaps, and Jungkook breaks off, surprised.

Taehyung stands up, and wraps Hoseok in his arms. “Hyung. It’s okay. We need to bring him in. You know it. He’s in danger. He’s in pain. We protect. And the house - the house.”

Hoseok lets out a long, shuddering sigh and sags against Taehyung.

“Jungkookie, can you carry him?” Taehyung asks.

“Yeah. He’s big, but.”

“But you’re strong,” Taehyung says, and smiles at him, even though he still looks strained around his eyes. “Be careful.”

“Of course.”

When they let themselves back into the kitchen, Seokjin rushes in from what at least used to be the direction of the living room, then stands blinking in the doorway.

“You’re okay - good. Good. You’re okay. And you were right, huh, Taehyungie?”

“Of course I was. He’s bleeding, hyung.”

“I can see that. Kookie, put him in the guest room, please.” Jungkook nods and disappears, the tall man still in his arms.

“But we need to fix him!” Taehyung protests.

“Soon, love, I promise.”

“What’s going on?” Hoseok finally asks, frowning across the room at Seokjin, who’s not at his best. Tense. Blinking a lot.

“Yoongi had another seizure. He still hasn’t woken up. I think he’s okay, it’s not… they’re just little ones, but… Jimin’s coming back. I just talked to him. The hospital’s going to help him with travel, then I’ll go pick him up - I figured out where we are. He’ll be here by nightfall.”

It’s only mid-morning.

“Where’s Yoongi-hyung?” Hoseok asks.

“Sofa. I was afraid to carry him upstairs, to be so far from you three…”

“I’ll take him up. You check on our guest.”

That leaves just Seokjin and Taehyung in the kitchen. Taehyung’s still hovering by the back door, frowning - Seokjin crosses to him, reaches out to touch his elbow. “Tae-ah. You okay?”

Taehyung folds into his arms, burying his face in his neck, and doesn’t speak for a few moments. “Worried,” he finally says. “I’m glad Jiminie’s coming home.”

“Me, too. You want to come check on the guest with me?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Chapter Text

The first time Namjoon wakes up, it’s because there are hands pressing against his side, and it hurts. A lot. He feels himself groan, and the hands pause.

“Hey there,” a voice says above him, calm, gentle. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m just trying to stop the bleeding.”

Namjoon groans again, and blinks his eyes open, blearily attempting to focus on - the most handsome man he has ever seen. All fine features and pillow lips and worried eyes.

“Hello,” the man says. “I’m Kim Seokjin.”

Namjoon grunts. Embarrassing. But words don’t seem interested in coming.

The man laughs - that might be even more embarrassing. “Take it slow, you’ve been unconscious for a while.”

“Hyung?” a voice says - close. Namjoon turns his head - even that hurts, everything hurts. Another man is standing in the doorway to whatever room they’re in. If this Seokjin with his hands pressed to Namjoon’s wound is the most handsome man Namjoon has ever seen, then this other guy is certainly in the running for second place. More delicate, with a messy mop of wavy hair, lovely features, wide eyes.

“Taehyung,” Seokjin says. “Our guest is awake. Sort of. Did you bring the water?”

“Mmhm,” the new man says, and comes in, carrying a bowl that he sets down carefully on a table near Seokjin’s elbow. He reaches out, towards the bed where Namjoon is lying, then stops, and instead reaches out to his right - to Seokjin, wrapping a hand around his arm. Seokjin leans towards him just a little, making it easier for them to be in contact.

“Hello?” he says.

“Hello,” Namjoon manages to grind out.

Tayhyung smiles brightly, then starts talking - a lot all at once. Namjoon picks up that he’s glad Namjoon is awake, and something about a garden, and a hyung - hyungs?, and blood, and -

Seokjin laughs again and elbows Taehyung softly in the ribs. “Hey. He’s barely awake. You can talk to him more later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, pulling himself up short.

“We’re going to clean your wound and bandage it,” Seokjin says. “There may be magic in the wound, but -“

“What’s your name?” Taehyung interrupts.

“Kim Namjoon.”

They both smile, then - Seokjin’s soft, Taehyung’s wide. The combined force of it is so powerful that Namjoon feels a bit dizzy. Maybe one of them has emotion-magic. Or maybe it’s just the blood loss.

“Already family!” Taehyung exclaims, and Seokjin elbows him again.

“Hush.” He turns his smile back to Namjoon. “We’re both Kims, too. Like I said - Kim Seokjin. And he’s Kim Taehyung.”

Namjoon grunts again. Makes sense, that two of the most beautiful men in the world would be brothers.

“Okay, I’m going to work on your wound now for real,” Seokjin says. “Our healer is coming soon, so this is just stabilization - don’t want you to lose any more blood, you left a lot in the flowers, and you might be a big guy, but…”

Namjoon loses the rest of what he says under a white-hot stab of pain.

“Shhh,” someone is saying, probably in response to the loud gasp that punched itself out of Namjoon’s chest. “Sorry, Namjoon-ssi, sorry, I can’t give you anything for the pain until Jimin-ah gets here. I’m sorry.”

“It will be okay,” another voice says, calm, deep. “I promise.”

The next time he wakes up, he’s alone. His instinct is to sit up, get his bearings, but when he shifts the dull ache in his side turns into a much more urgent type of pain, so he breathes as deep as he can under the circumstances and lies back.

Thus, the first bearing he takes is of the ceiling. Dark wood. Beams. Old-looking, but neat. Clean. No dust, no cobwebs. Some of the beams look like they might be carved, but the lighting is too dim to make it out.

Next, walls. Also wood. Some of it carved, definitely. He can feel the thrum of magic in it - strong, materials-based, object-based, but with a tone to it he doesn’t recognize. It feels warm, certainly. Unthreatening, which is nice. He itches to get up and take a closer look at the carving, but first - can’t do that - second - he should probably have other priorities, like figuring out where he is and why his whole left side hurts so bad.

Stabbing pain - oh. He definitely got stabbed, didn’t he. So why is he here, wherever this is, and not, like, a hospital? Or dying on the road? He’d been pretty afraid he’d bleed out right there between the canal and the fields. Then there had been - he scrambles in his mind, trying to parse it. Hallucinations, maybe? Flowers. There had been flowers. And maybe men, different than the people who tried to kill him.

Still not sure why that happened, but at least it doesn’t seem to be happening any longer.

There’s noise, now. outside the room. In the… house? It seems like a house, it seems like he’s in a bedroom. Now that he’s more awake, he’s pretty sure he’s woken up here at least once before.

The noise is coming though the door, which is half-open. People, multiple people, talking. That might have been what woke him.

And then people are going by - a boy in a big, bright green hoodie, moving fast, and another in black, long legs loping. The next is a smaller man who looks dressed to be outside - shoes off, but coat still on. Another man is literally hanging from his coattails, and he’s - wavy hair, a strangely fluid way of moving - he’s familiar.

The man dressed for the outdoors pauses in the doorway, turns, and looks directly at Namjoon. Their eyes meet, and the man bows - just a little nod of his head - before reaching back to wrap an arm around the shoulders of the wavy-haired man and continuing on.

Bringing up the rear is a man with neat hair and near-gawky limbs, who also stops in the doorway. Namjoon recognizes him, too, and it comes back: the wound. The two kind, odd men seeing to it. Their soothing words. Seokjin and… Taehyung. Brothers? Then who are all these other men?

“Namjoon-ssi, welcome back,” Seokjin says. “Jimin-ah will come see you soon - do you need anything?”

Seokjin is fidgeting. Someone down the hall says “Hyung,” voice questioning.

Namjoon shakes his head, and Seokjin bows slightly, and leaves the doorway.

Left alone, he continues to take stock of his surroundings. The room is pleasant. A little old-fashioned. White paint and wood panelling. None of the furniture looks new. There’s a nice vase on the dresser - blown glass, iridescent, catching the light. Pretty blue curtains in front of the window. The quilt on the bed is blue, too. It’s dark out - how long has he been unconscious? It was definitely daytime, morning, when he was attacked. For all he knows this is another day entirely.

He’s thirsty. His side hurts.

He might fall back asleep a little, because the next thing he knows there’s a soft knocking on the open door.

“Namjoon-ssi?” Seokjin says. It seems like he’s in charge of Namjoon. Maybe he’s in charge of everything - he looks older than most of the others. Definitely older than the slight man standing beside him in the doorway - the one who had bowed to Namjoon earlier. He’s taken off his coat now. He has a gentle-looking face, but his eyes are sharp, alert.

Namjoon clears his throat. “Hello.”

Seokjin smiles and steps inside the room. “This is Jimin. Park Jimin. Jimin, this is Kim Namjoon.”

Jimin enters, too, and bows. “Hello. I’m a healer - may I have a look at your injury?”

“Yes. Okay. I mean - of course. Please.”

Jimin is exceedingly polite and professional as he looks Namjoon over. Always warning before he touches, talking through what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, always calling him Namjoon-ssi. “There’s definitely magic in this,” he says, peering close, his warm fingers pressing into Namjoon’s skin. Namjoon is wearing pajamas that aren’t his. He wonders where his clothes are. He liked that coat, but the knife went through it - bummer.

“Namjoon-ssi?” Jimin says, and Namjoon realizes he’s been asked a question.

“Hm?”

“You have magic, right? It feels like you do, but I need your confirmation before I treat you.”

“Oh. Yes. Plant magic.”

Jimin hums and nods and goes back to looking. “The blade was nasty and spelled with something nastier, but I can clean it up. I think your body has already done some of it - those nature magics are good for that.”

“The flowers, too,” Namjoon says, and Jimin looks up at him, head cocked in a question. “There were flowers, right? In the - the garden here? I feel like I remember flowers.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Jungkookie said he was bleeding on them,” Seokjin says from the foot of the bed. “A lot.”

“That might have been helping,” Namjoon explains. “They might have been pulling the… whatever it is… out of me.”

“Makes sense,” Jimin says, and resumes his inspections, then nods, apparently satisfied, and stands up. “I need to go get some supplies and check, uh - anyway, I’ll be back. Seokjin-hyung, help him drink some water, I can’t believe you didn’t give him any yet.”

“He was unconscious!”

Jimin laughs, a gentle giggle, and pats Seokjin’s arm on his way out of the room.

Another man meets him in the hall - in the doorway. The one in the green hoodie. He peers inside the room, frowning, and the warm, cared-for feeling around Namjoon dissipates.

“When can I talk to him?” the man asks Jimin.

“Not yet, hyung, I need to treat his wound.”

The man keeps frowning, and Jimin reaches out to rub his hands up and down his arms. Namjoon wouldn’t have tried that - the man looks so angry, so upset.

“Let’s just get everything stable first, yeah?”

The man in the hoodie nods curtly and turns on his heel, disappearing again. Jimin goes, too, in the opposite direction.

Seokjin laughs as though the interaction was funny, but it sounds strained. “I’ll get you some water.”

The process of having his wound treated is not pleasant. In fact, it hurts like hell, even with the pain potion Jimin gave him. At one point, Namjoon is sure he feels the whole house shudder around him, like it’s in touch with his pain - but that seems impossible. Jimin, though, definitely does shudder. “I’m sorry, Namjoon-ssi, it’s the only way.”

That actually helps Namjoon, because it draws his focus. “You can feel it.”

Jimin nods and hums, eyes on his work.

“That’s unusual.”

Another hum.

“Isn’t it difficult?”

“It’s not so bad. I don’t feel it all at full strength, only indications. And it’s only - “ He seems like he’s going to say something, but then his eyes flick to Namjoon, and he changes his direction for some reason. “Only people in the house. I was just at a training at a teaching hospital, and that was fine. Then it’s just normal healing.”

Namjoon nods. “What’s it like, healing training?”

Jimin meets his eyes. “You’re very curious.”

“It’s a good distraction. And yeah. I’m an academic - I’m curious. It must be different from what I do, just reading dusty old scrolls all day.”

Jimin smiles. It’s a lovely thing, bright and crinkled, genuine. “Yeah, it’s different from that.” And while he works, finishing cleaning the wound and then stitching it up, he talks about his training - the classes and the practical work of it, learning all the things that let him build on his instincts and his inner power. He’s been doing advanced studies in magic neurology, which Namjoon immediately has about a thousand questions about, though he keeps them to himself for the moment.

The shape of it all is somewhat familiar - specialization, study - but it’s also so unlike the kind of research Namjoon does, and different even from refining his magic, which had only required him to get acquainted with some botany and gardening basics. It’s interesting. And Jimin has a nice voice - sweet, lilting, a little hesitant, like he’s shy, or at least careful with his words. It’s a good distraction.

“There you go,” Jimin says when he’s done. “It will take some time to heal - your body needs to finish flushing the toxins as well as healing the wound itself. I’ll help you along as much as I can.”

“Okay,” Namjoon says. “How long until I can go home?”

Jimin frowns a little, like he doesn’t understand the question - but then it clears, as if it was never there, and he smiles cheerily. “About a week, I’d think? We should also keep an eye on you because you got attacked.”

“Yeah,” a voice says from the doorway. “About that.”

It’s the man in hoodie again, his bright clothes not at all matching the dourness of his expression.

“Hoseok-hyung,” Jimin says. His voice is gentle, respectful, but there’s some steel in it. “I literally just finished closing up his wound, can it not wait?”

“Not really,” the man says, and steps inside. “I’m Jung Hoseok. I’m one of the ones who found you. Who are you?”

“Kim Namjoon,” he replies, and bows a little - just a tiny sway of his body, but it makes his side twinge, and Jimin shoots him a look that hovers somewhere between judgmental and teasing.

Hoseok bows back. “Do you know who attacked you?”

“No.”

“What do you remember?”

“I don’t know - I was just walking, I walk that path all the time, I like going by the river, and it’s just out in the fields, most of the time there’s not even anybody around, and then suddenly there were - people. A few of them. They came out of nowhere. Then a knife, and then things are blurry. A rush of energy. The flowers. Waking up here.”

“What kind of people? Magic users?”

“I mean, they must have been. Jimin-ssi said there was magic on the blade, and also, the way they appeared - it wasn’t right.”

“Wasn’t right?”

“The energy of it. The trees swayed away from them.”

“You’re trying to say they were using dark magic?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never encountered it out in the world before.”

“Never?”

“No, never at close quarters like that.”

Hoseok scoffs. “That must be nice.”

“Hyung,” Jimin chides. “Be nice. Namjoon-ssi got attacked.”

“Yeah. All right.” Hoseok squints at him, though, and doesn’t shift from his position near the end of the bed. “Who are you? Why did they come for you?”

Namjoon shrugs. “I really don’t know, Hoseok-ssi. I’m just an academic - a historian, so what I study doesn’t even impact the world like practical magic researchers. I live a quiet life. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Could it just be random?”

“I doubt it. It was a coordinated attack, on a magic user, and… anyway. Not random.” He sighs, looks away, runs a hand through his hair. “Let me know if you think of anything else relevant,” he says, and leaves the room.

Once he's gone, Jimin gives Namjoon a rueful smile. “You’ll have to excuse Hoesok-hyung. He’s got defensive magic - the only one of us who does. He takes his responsibility seriously.”

Namjoon just nods. He can tell. He’s still not exactly clear on where he is, or why, or who these people even are, but he can tell Hoseok wants to protect them. And he thinks he kind of understands that.

Chapter Text

The next day is strange, and the ones that follow it aren’t much more normal.

Namjoon sleeps heavily that night, aided by a stronger pain potion. He wakes at one point in the night, disoriented, and listens to soft voices in the corridor - voices that fade to nothing when they come close to his door, then pick up again a few paces away. But nothing more happens until Seokjin brings him his breakfast in the morning.

Seokjin sits with him while he eats. He’s friendly, kind. He answers a few of Namjoon’s questions - about them, about what’s going on.

Namjoon learns that Seokjin and Taehyung aren’t brothers, for one thing - when he mentions it, Seokjin laughs, grimaces, and says “Ew,” followed by “We are kind of family, though, I guess.”

Namjoon learns that they’re exactly where he was when he got stabbed - that it’s not him that moved, but the house itself.

“We help people,” Seokjin says with a shrug. “The house likes to help people. It knows, sometimes. When someone’s in trouble. We take people in, as guests, or - some of us stay.”

He doesn’t answer any of Namjoon’s curious follow-up questions about the mechanism of the house helping people - objects usually don’t act independently, especially not objects as huge as a house and a garden. Instead he just shrugs again. “I don’t really understand it, not my area of expertise. It just does what it does, and it’s our home.”

“Namjoon-ssi,” he says a bit later, as Namjoon picks at the last of his breakfast, “Is there anyone who will be looking for you?”

Namjoon considers that, and he must grimace, because Seokjin starts talking again, interjecting before Namjoon can say anything. “Sorry, sorry, that must sound creepy, I swear we’re not kidnapping you or anything! I just wondered if there was anyone you needed to contact.”

“No, no, it’s fine - that was what the face was. Realizing nobody would be looking. Not for a little while at least.”

Seokjin makes a soft, sympathetic noise.

“But it’s a good suggestion. If I can get a message to my neighbor, she can check on my plants. And work’s not expecting to hear from me, I’m on sabbatical, but it would be good to make sure they don’t decide I’m missing.”

“Great! We don’t have data, obviously, but I can give you the wi-fi password.”

Namjoon stares at him. Most magical spaces interfere with signals - hence no data - but that should also mean no wi-fi. “How do you make that work?”

“Magic!” Seokjin says, and laughs, a wild, squeaky thing, infectious, leaving Namjoon chuckling, too.

The long-legged boy in black comes looking for Seokjin after a while, and hovers in the doorway, steadfastly staring at the floor while he delivers his message - “Hobi needs you in the kitchen, the herbs all moved around last night.” Then he all but flees back down the hallway, out of sight.

“Is he scared of me?” Namjoon asks, as Seokjin gathers his breakfast dishes. He doesn’t understand the way everyone in the house reacts to him. It’s not consistent. And he’s definitely not scary.

“Who, Jungkook? Oh, no - he’s super curious about you. But he’s very shy.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Seokjin smiles at him. “He’ll warm up to you. Don’t worry.”

For a moment, Namjoon feels like something’s wrong. He’s almost lightheaded, but different than he was the night before, from the bloodloss. Maybe it’s the medicines Jimin’s been giving him?

He’s definitely not worried anymore, though.

He blinks. “Woah.”

“Shit,” Seokjin says. “Sorry, sorry.”

“What was that?”

“Charm. It’s my - that’s my magic. It barely works on anyone in the house anymore - doesn’t work on Taehyungie and Kookie at all - so I sometimes forget to keep it under control, I’m sorry.”

“No, uh… it’s okay. It’s interesting. It’s been ages since anyone has used charm on me, that was wild.”

“I’ll be more careful.”

“Okay. And thanks?”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Everything. Taking me in. Looking after me.”

Seokjin smiles, but it’s different this time. Smaller. More subtle. “Thank the house.”

“The house didn’t bring me breakfast.”

That raises a laugh, and another smile - bright, genuine. Namjoon likes those ones better than the one that came with the charm. “That’s true, it didn’t. Okay, I’m going to go help poor Hoseok. I think Jimin will be by soon to check on you.”

Jimin does come by not much later, with the shy one, Jungkook, in tow, apparently recruited as a beast of burden - he’s carrying a big tray with a bowl of water, some bandages, some medicines. He must be stronger than he looks. Namjoon wonders how young he is - how young they all are, because while Hoseok looks like he’s maybe about Namjoon’s age, Jimin and Taehyung look young too, and Seokjin has that kind of unknowable face that could be ten years older or younger than you think. Namjoon wonders if that’s an effect of the charm, or just his face. Namjoon wonders a lot of things.

Jungkook tries to flee after he sets down the tray, but Jimin catches at him, holds on. “Jungkook-ah, stay. You might be able to help. And have you introduced yourself? Namjoon-ssi, this is Jeon Jungkook. He’s the one who found you.”

Namjoon bows as much as he can while Jimin is actively peeling off his bandages. “Nice to meet you, Jungkook-ssi. Though I thought Hoseok-ssi said he found me?”

Jimin looks at Jungkook with raised eyebrows, apparently a prompt. Despite a nice collection of piercings and some tattoos peeking out from his too-long sweater sleeves, Jungkook looks like nothing more than a frightened rabbit, eyes huge, lips parted to reveal slight buck teeth. “I - uh - Taehyung-hyung knew you were there. In the, the, the - the purple. Purple flowers.” Namjoon’s starting to feel bad about asking a question and putting the kid on the spot, so he gives a smile and a nod like he does when students get nervous in seminars. Jungkook flushes, but the next part comes out easier. “We three went looking for you. I found you first, the others were right behind me.”

“Well then. Thank you. I think I might owe you my life.”

“Oh! Oh. No. Thank the house and - and, and - and Taehyung-hyung.”

“I will, next time he comes by.” He adds another entry to his list of things to wonder about: is there a specific way he’s meant to be thanking the house? Maybe they have a ritual. He’ll ask later, when nobody’s prodding around in - “Ah, shit, that hurts.”

“Sorry, Namjoon-ssi, there’s some lingering magic I need to clear away - Jungkook-ah, can you help? The one we’ve been practicing.”

Jungkook looks nervous, but he nods, and then - then he sings.

It’s not even a spell. Just a song. It sounds vaguely familiar, but Namjoon can’t place it. Maybe just the feeling itself is familiar. Like being taken care of. Like your parent kissing a scrape all better.

Jimin keeps working, but it hurts less. Maybe just because Namjoon’s distracted. Music magic is rare. He’s never seen it so close. Never had it used on him, either. He can feel it resonating with whatever Jimin is doing. Feel it in his own body. And Jungkook has a great voice, independent of any magic. Pure and confident, in a way his speech isn’t. He knows exactly what he’s doing and what’s needed of him. It’s beautiful.

After maybe only a minute or so, Jimin pulls back and nods at Jungkook. “Thank you, Kook-ah - ai, Namjoon-ssi!!” He shoves at Namjoon, who’d been so excited that he sat straight up after Jungkook stopped singing. “I just closed you up again!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, lowering himself back down. “Jungkook-ssi, that was amazing.”

“Oh. Thank you?”

“How did you - how does it - I’ve never seen music magic up close before. You’re amazing.”

Jungkook flushes again, and doesn’t seem able to find words to fill in after Namjoon’s enthusiasm. That’s okay, Namjoon has words enough for both of them. He rambles for a minute about music - tone, memory, resonance - and is happy to see that it lights Jungkook up.

“You like music?” he asks, when Namjoon finally stops for a breath.

“Like it? I love it.”

“Are you? A musician?” A few minutes ago, Jungkook had been hanging back, trying to put distance between himself and Namjoon in the small room. Now he pushes close, crowding Jimin, who just smiles up at him before going back to applying a bandage to Namjoon’s side.

“Sort of. I wanted to be a rapper when I was younger, and I’ve messed around with production, but I can’t play any instruments. Or sing.”

“Oh! That’s so cool though. I mostly sing. But I’ve been learning guitar.”

“Learning?” Jimin mumbles. “You’re great at it.”

Jungkook shrugs and smiles and even shuffles his feet.

Namjoon smiles at him. “I’d love to hear it sometime.”

“Yeah! Okay!”

So that’s how he makes friends with Jeon Jungkook.

For the rest of the day, Namjoon alternates between drowsing and going out of his mind with boredom. He’s not a good person for bed rest. He’s thankful whenever any of the men stop by - they seem busy, or distracted, always moving around the house, but sometimes they pause in his open doorway to check on him. Or, most of them check on him. Hoseok just looks, and moves on.

When Seokjin brings lunch, he also has a companion - Taehyung again, bouncing along in his hyung’s wake, smiling a boxy smile at Namjoon. “Taehyung thought you might be bored,” Seokjin says, as he hands over Namjoon’s food. “I told him you probably need rest, but…”

“But Jiminie said you’re doing well and he thinks you might get bored, too! Are you bored, Namjoon-ssi?”

“Ah, yeah, a little. I’m not good at sitting still with nothing to do.”

“Good, then I’ll entertain you. Seokjin-hyung, where can I sit?”

“There’s a chair on the other side of the bed. That comfortable light blue armchair. Right across from me.”

Taehyung nods and moves around the bed, his long fingers trailing on the footboard as he rounds it. He finds the chair easily, hand stretched out to meet its back, and flops down, all akimbo.

Namjoon had already suspected that Taehyung can’t see well. He never seems to be looking directly at him. Doesn’t make eye contact either, though not in the same way as Jungkook, who avoids it. He runs his fingers down the paneling of the hallway when he goes by. He always reaches out, hands on the things and people around him.

Now Taehyung cocks his head at Namjoon, smile still on his lips. “Are you curious, Namjoon-ssi?”

“Ah - about what?”

“Anything.”

Namjoon laughs. “I’m curious about everything, always. That’s why I went into research.”

“Jimin said you’re an academic?” Seokjin asks.

“Yes. Magical history. I specialize in magical material culture - objects - but I dabble in lots of things.”

“That sounds interesting,” Seokjin says.

Namjoon chuckles. “Most people think it’s boring. But maybe that’s just how I talk about it.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Taehyung says, with perfect confidence.

“Wait until you get me talking about how types of clay resonate with different magics. Taehyung-ssi, I am curious, though -“

“Yes, I am a seer.”

“Ah, I thought you might be.” Not all seers are blind, and not all blind magic-users are seers, but the traits do tend to correlate. Plus, Taehyung has a vibe - a little odd, a little abstracted. More so even than most magic-users. “But that’s not - I just wondered - is there anything I should know to help? I mean, I guess I’m not getting in your way being stuck in bed, but…”

Taehyung blinks, and smiles, gentler than his usual big grin. On the other side of the bed, Seokjin shifts in his chair, but doesn’t say anything.

“Thank you. There’s not much - in the house I’m usually fine. And I can see some - light, color. Lots of color. Just don’t leave things on the floor unexpectedly? But even if I do trip, it’s okay, it happens.”

“Yeah, mostly in your own room,” Seokjin puts in, a laugh in his voice.

Taehyung grins. “Jiminie’s a slob. But he’s good at healing bruises.”

When Namjoon’s done eating, Seokjin disappears with the dishes, but Taehyung lingers, sprawled in the chair. “Tell me about the types of clay!” he says, and so Namjoon laughs, and does. And Taehyung actually looks interested when Namjoon talks - leaning forward, intent even as his eyes drift around the room, fingers twitching like he might handle the materials himself. Namjoon knows the feeling. It’s one of the things he likes about working on objects. They’re so physical, so immediate. They have lives and forms of their own. They let you see what others have done, made - how they thought, worked.

And as he spills all that out, Taehyung nods, and smiles, like the best of Namjoon’s students. “I think I understand,” he says, when Namjoon stops to breathe, side aching from the overwork of just talking. “Especially magic objects… it’s like the house. Like, the house knows us. Knows what we need. Forms itself to us. It’s, it’s… it’s silver.” He lets the last word out on a sigh, and one of his hands tugs at the hem of his oversized sweater, twisting the fabric. His expression is different - inward-looking, subdued. Namjoon knows plenty about silver, but has absolutely no idea what he means.

“Mm? Yeah… The house is interesting. I don’t want to pry, but it’s just so much magic.” He’s so curious that it makes him feel twitchy, being confined to bed while this vast magical object is all around him. But he’s not here to be an academic. He’s here as a guest. Because somebody stabbed him. Which he’s eventually going to have to face, rather than just sitting here with this pretty, interested boy, talking about clay and houses.

“Yeah,” Taehyung breathes, then looks back up, expression shifting again, mercurial. “You have plant magic, right?? Why are roses pink?”

Namjoon laughs, riding the whiplash feeling of following Taehyung’s conversational strands. “It’s not because of magic. And not all roses are pink.”

“I know, but, roses that are pink, why?”

“I’m not a botanist…”

“Yeah, but I bet you know anyway.”

So Namjoon does his best, with mixed success, to explain pigments, and light refraction, and then pollinators, and then horticultural hybridization, until finally Jimin sticks his head in the room and says “Taehyung-ah, I could feel how tired and sore Namjoon-ssi is from halfway across the house, want to let him rest?”

Namjoon must look startled, because Jimin smiles. “Don’t worry, I just get sensations, I’m not a mind-reader. Here, this is for the pain. It’ll probably knock you out for a bit, is that all right?”

“Yeah. Thank you. I could use the rest.” He feels like shit, really. Apparently being stabbed will do that, especially with a magicked blade.

Jimin smiles his gentle smile at him and hands over the potion, then reaches out to wrap his hand in Taehyung’s. “Ready to go, baby? I want a nap, too.”

“Yeah. I’m hope you’re less bored now, thank you for talking to me, Namjoon-hyung!”

Jimin tsks at the familiarity, but Taehyung just smiles at him, and at Namjoon.

“Can I call you hyung, hyung?”

“Ah, yeah, okay.”

“Good. You can call me whatever you want, as long as it’s nice. Sleep well!”

“Thanks, you too.” It’s a silly response, like saying ‘have a good meal’ back at a waiter, and Namjoon grimaces - but maybe he was right, because Jimin’s got such a grip on Taehyung that it seems like they’re both probably destined for a nap. And Taehyung gives him a cheery “Thank you!” in return before Jimin drags him out the door.

There’s something going on there, and they do share a room apparently - but then, there’s something going on everywhere here, and with everyone.

That evening Namjoon wakes from half-sleep, overwarm and achy, to the sensation of the house shaking - like an earthquake, but also not. Less visceral, more localized. As he watches, a piece of art on the wall outside his room - a landscape view, he’s been looking at it all day - moves six inches to the right, not shaken there, simply sliding along then settling again. Down the corridor, there’s the groaning of shifting wood. Something breaks, further off, and a voice curses - maybe Seokjin. When it stops, doors open and close. Jimin hustles past. Everything settles into a stillness that feels wrong. Eerie. Like unconsciousness.

Namjoon falls back asleep.

It keeps being like that, all through the next day. The five men come and go through the house. Doors open and close. Once, twice, there are tremors in the house, though none so severe as the first one.

Eventually Jimin lets him up to use a real toilet, which also gives Namjoon a chance to see a bit more of the house. His room is one of many on a long corridor. There’s more wood paneling, more carved details, more art on the walls. A window at the end of the corridor gives another view of the expansive garden, but he resists the urge to limp down to look closer, because Jungkook, assigned to make sure he doesn’t fall or pass out, is hovering behind him. He manages the bathroom solo; even splashes some water on his face, which makes him feel slightly more human.

Outside the room a door opens; someone’s soft voice says “Oh, Jungkookie,” like his presence is a reassurance; a door snicks shut again.

Only one of the many doors on the corridor had been cracked open when Jungkook helped Namjoon past them. It had all felt closed off. Shut away. Not open, not to him, despite the general soft, welcoming air of the house around him.

Chapter Text

After the success of his first time out of bed, Jimin starts letting Namjoon get up more.

One of the first things Namjoon does is stand at the window at the end of the hall, looking out at the garden. It’s a big space - a country garden, not a city one. It’s bordered by a high brick wall in the traditional style, topped by tiles, but the garden itself is a mix of styles. Off to one side, almost out of view, Namjoon can see the edges of a traditional garden, stones and trees and some dots of bright azaleas. In front of him there are just simple paths and some scattered plantings, a small maple tree off to the other side blocking the rest of the grounds from view.

He squints at the plantings. He swears he can see hyacinths in a border, which is funny, because he was just thinking about hyacinths the day before, after he and Taehyung talked about roses - wondering if maybe Taehyung would like scented plants, or if he prefers color. It’s also funny because hyacinths bloom in early spring, and azaleas bloom as spring moves towards summer, but it’s autumn - definitely autumn, he hasn’t lost time, he can see color in the trees beyond the walls.

Those trees are familiar. He can tell just about where the house sprung up, in the empty land between the town and the river, where he’d really thought he was going to die.

“It’s new,” Seokjin says behind him. He’d escorted Namjoon - someone is always with him if he’s out of his room - but then disappeared into an adjacent room, saying he needed something. He’d left the door open, but Namjoon had tried not to pry, because it’s clearly a bedroom. He’d seen the edge of a bed before he looked away, and shelves holding a jumble of colorful objects.

“What’s new?”

“The garden.”

Namjoon swings around to stare at him. “What?”

Seokjin laughs and puts a hand on his shoulder blade to steady him as he sways. “Honestly, we were hoping you could explain that.”

“Oh.” Namjoon turns to look out the window again, frowning. The garden doesn’t look new - or maybe it does. The maple tree is young, but not a sapling. The plants out near the traditional garden look mature, well-established, lush. But the area in front of the windows is sparser, a few plantings dotted among empty beds and expanses of grass. Like the garden’s basic structure has been created, but not yet filled in. But then again, he can see roses, and those look mature, too - and, he’s somehow unsurprised to see, they’re pink. “I guess I - that’s weird. I’ve certainly never done anything like that before.” He’s also never heard of anything like that before, but he doesn’t know that much about garden magic. He keeps his plant magic to his houseplants, and his research interests lie elsewhere.

“Yeah. Okay. We weren’t sure if that was normal for you. Definitely weird, then. Once you’re a little more steady on your feet, we should go check it out.”

Namjoon just nods, staring out at the space. Did he really do that? That seems insane. Maybe it’s just the house reacting to his magic. Or to his blood.

He’s not sure he likes that option. Or any of those options, for that matter.

He lets Seokjin lead him away - lead him downstairs, in fact, and sit him at the kitchen table, and chatter away to him about everything and nothing while he cooks lunch. The other men filter in. Jungkook comes first, sniffing the air like a woodland creature and trying to sneak bits of food off the counter, only to get chided by his hyung; instead he flops into a chair beside Namjoon and launches into music talk. Hoseok is next, and he starts getting out plates and bowls, not acknowledging Namjoon at all. Taehyung follows not far behind, and is delighted to find Namjoon there, settling on his other side and listening intently to Jungkook’s ramble about rhythm even though he came in halfway through. Jimin doesn’t appear - “Nap,” Hoseok says when Namjoon asks if he’ll be joining them. People in this house seem to take a lot of naps - but then, so does Namjoon at the moment. He also feels like he keeps waking up to the sound of people trying to be quiet at all sorts of strange hours, or hears them when he’s already awake in the night, feeling achy or cold or sweaty. He doesn’t ask about it. He doesn’t ask about a lot of things. Doesn’t want to tread too heavily on the edges of these men’s hospitality.

The meal isn’t entirely comfortable. Hoseok is still so cold - apparently unhappy to even be in the same room as Namjoon, steadfastly ignoring him, frowning once or twice when the others talk to him. But everyone else is sweet. Jungkook keeps up his happy chatter while stuffing a truly remarkable amount of food into his mouth - “A growing boy,” Seokjin says, like a proud parent, even though Jungkook has to be in his early twenties. Jungkook engages Taehyung, too, and Namjoon learns that Taehyung likes jazz, and is trying to learn more about it. That sets Seokjin off groaning - apparently he’s not a fan.

“Are you all into music?” Namjoon asks.

“Yeah!” Jungkook says. “Me the most, maybe, because of the magic, but we’re all musical. Especially, uh - um. Hoseok-hyung likes hip-hop!”

“Oh! Me too!”

“I know!” Jungkook exclaims happily, but then Namjoon catches Hoseok’s eye - he’s frowning, still. Maybe deeper now. And then he stands up, feet of the chair clattering on the tile floor.

“I’m going looking for dirty dishes.”

“Hyung!” Jungkook exclaims, but Hoseok just shakes his head and leaves the room.

“Oh,” Namjoon says, and then feels a hand squeeze his knee.

“It’s not your fault,” Taehyung says, but Namjoon isn’t so sure.

After the meal, Seokjin nudges Namjoon into the living room with Jungkook. Hoseok had reappeared with an armful of mugs and glasses and bowls, and he and Taehyung are doing the dishes.

“I saw you staring at the bookshelves,” Seokjin says. “Why don’t you go browse?”

“Hyung,” Hoseok says, from deeper in the kitchen, but Seokjin shoots him a quelling look.

“He’s our guest, Hobi-yah, and he’s probably bored. You don’t need to guard a bunch of paperbacks.”

Namjoon moves away. Their conversations aren’t his business. And he did want to look at the books. In the living room, Jungkook hums something that sounds purposefully soothing, though Namjoon isn’t sure who it’s meant to soothe. Him? Hoseok and Seokjin? Jungkook? The house itself, which shakes gently as he crosses the room, then settles again?

Once he’s proved he’s steady on his feet, Namjoon is allowed to wander the house unattended. He tries not to stray from the places he knows, though: the guest bedroom, the living room and kitchen, bathrooms upstairs and down. That’s sometimes made difficult by the way the house’s layout changes during its tremors, but he quickly realizes that the patches of paint on the frames of the house’s otherwise plain wooden doors aren’t the random leftovers of some home improvement project: The bathrooms have a pretty shade of teal. The hall closet, huge but somehow still jammed full of coats, has orange. The darkened space smelling of woodshavings that makes Hoseok yell at him for snooping has a silver-grey. (He hadn’t been snooping. He’d just been in a rush to find the bathroom, feeling nauseous and strange after the latest shift and wanting to splash some water on his face.) The doors seem to travel with the rooms, and the color marks them out. Smart.

He doesn’t spend much time in bed after they’ve allowed him up. He prefers to be downstairs, where it isn’t so strange, so closed off, so quiet. The feverish spells and fatigue still come and go, to Jimin’s apparent consternation. But even when Namjoon’s not feeling great, he can just slouch sluggishly on the sofa, and not feel cooped up, and often one of the others will come check on him or keep him company, and he likes that.

He likes being where they all are, going about their days. He likes seeing them in their world together, in this house together. Seokjin and Jungkook cook, silent and efficient until Seokjin slips into joking and they both laugh loudly. Taehyung and Jimin carry on whole conversations with Namjoon while snuggled up in a single armchair, a tangle of limbs and cheerful voices keeping him company. Jimin sits at the kitchen table with Seokjin, the two of them talking quietly, seriously, while Jimin rubs a minty-smelling salve into Seokjin’s hands and long crooked fingers. Taehyung and Jungkook chatter with each other and with Namjoon, and play records on the hi-fi. And they all come together at meals, or seemingly at random, someone making tea and a few of them coming to relax on the living room’s soft, well-worn sofas and chairs.

The only one outside the constantly-shifting constellation is Hoseok, although sometimes Namjoon glimpses how he fits in, too, in little moments of smiles or caring touches before he notices Namjoon’s presence and breaks away from his - housemates? covenmates? partners?

Namjoon’s still not sure how all that works, and how he’s meant to read the clear affection, adoration, that radiates out from all of them, encompassing each other and spreading out to everything around them. Isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about how the affection seems to wash over him, too, include him in its warm circle, like it’s part of the very structure of the house, and he’s welcome inside it. Isn’t sure if he should even be so aware of that, or like it as much as he does.

Chapter Text

It takes Namjoon another two days after first getting up before he ventures out in the garden. It feels daunting, somehow, in a way the house doesn’t, for all its unusualness. The garden is outside the comfortable, warm world of cozily furnished rooms and wooden walls and caring men. The garden is big, and strange, and exposed despite its high walls.

And most of all, the garden is a mystery.

The garden is a mystery, and even the men in the house with their confident air and clearly powerful magic seem nervous about it. They haven’t been going out, Namjoon has noticed. They stay inside the house. They look out the windows at the garden, at shrubs and trees and unseasonable flowers. They sometimes look at him, at the same time. Like the garden is connected to him.

Because the garden is connected to him.

The first time he goes outside, he’s accompanied by Seokjin, who is the eldest and seems to be nominally in charge of the house, or of Namjoon, or something. Hoseok follows them out, and Namjoon spends a minute standing awkwardly on the pea-gravel pathway while Seokjin and Hoseok have a whisper-hissed discussion on the kitchen steps.

In the end, Hoseok settles on the steps, frowning, knees drawn up to his chest. Namjoon can feel the protective magic coming off him, as distinctly as if it were visible, like the shimmer of a heat mirage in the air. Hoseok’s monitoring him, feeling for Namjoon bringing up anything malicious with his own powers.

That’s okay, actually. It doesn’t feel bad - just present. Out in the open air, with most of the others off doing other things, Namjoon’s able to recognize that he’s felt this before. Often. The house is full of magic, and the steady thrum of Hoseok’s power is part of it. And despite Hoseok’s standoffishness, his obvious dislike of Namjoon’s appearance in their life, his magic has never felt malicious or dark. It’s as laced through with care as everything else. Even directed at him, a strange new invader, there’s only love behind it.

So, Namjoon doesn’t mind it.

What he does mind is the garden.

Even as he stands looking at the house, Namjoon can feel the garden’s presence all around him, in a way he’s never felt a space before - as though every square foot is present in his mind, as though if he concentrated he’d know precisely what was happening there: where plants were rooted, what they needed from water and light and nutrition. When they would grow, when they would bloom or fruit. How the sun shone above, or rain fell if the weather changed. What worms and beetles moved in the soil.

It’s how his houseplants feel - he knows them in that way - but he’s never had it before in a garden. Even in gardens he knows well, like his mother’s little flower patch back home in Ilsan. He doesn’t know those plants, that land. It isn’t his.

This garden, these plants, seem to tell him they’re his. But they’re not. None of this is his. He’s just a guest.

For a long moment, he just breathes, and concentrates on the house instead. He’s never seen it from outside. It’s a funny building, a hodgepodge of shapes and styles. The overall look is Korean, traditional, all carved wood and graceful tiled roofs. But the shape isn’t traditional, nor is it quite modern. More European than not, but also not like any European building he’s ever seen. It’s two-storied, and seems approximately square in footprint, but with variation in the walls, some rooms sticking out further than others. There are many corners, many windows, many rooflines. Namjoon assumes they must all shift as the house shifts. Yet it’s somehow cohesive - like it was intentional, all built at the same time, even designed by a single person. The fact that it’s all the same dark, weathered wood probably helps, but it’s more than that. The house is all one thing the way a plant is all one thing - a tree, branching and growing, but singular. It’s the magic running through it, he knows, but it’s still a remarkable thing. And beautiful, too. Like the finest work of a master craftsman.

He and Seokjin make a slow circuit of the house, their shoes crunching softly on the path that encircles it. The area just around the house is neat, mostly clipped lawn and low shrubs. Beyond, though, is something else entirely.

One whole sector of the garden, the first they reach, is full of plants, as dense and chaotic as a jungle or a long-vacant lot. When he pauses to look, though, Namjoon can see they aren’t weeds. It’s all garden plants, but free-growing, abundant, uncontrolled.

“They found you back in there,” Seokjin says, nodding into the garden-jungle, which extends far, spreading out towards one of the corners of the garden wall.

Namjoon just nods, and they move on.

The next section is one of the ones he can see from the upstairs windows - the flower beds, some planted, some not. Roses a riot of pink, hyacinths giving off their drunkenly heady scent.

Then beyond that, the traditional garden - the pond and rocks, azaleas in full flower, even a small bridge over the water. No carp, though, to his surprise - just dark water interspersed with aquatic plants, louts mature but not in bloom, just leaves and a few small, swaying buds.

The traditional garden flanks one side of the front door of the house, where a path runs out to an old-fashioned gate in the wall. A hedge and some empty flower beds separate the path from a driveway, which curves out to a wider gate, far enough away to not ruin the overall effect of the path near the garden. At the house, the driveway meets a small garage, which is mildly surprising given the historic effect of the rest of the building.

Seokjin, who has matched Namjoon’s silence with his own, smiles at him, apparently registering his surprise. “The house had to make me a garage. Otherwise my car would get left behind.” He pulls open the door to reveal a round-topped little electric car, painted green - the kind of thing you use to run errands in the city. It looks entirely out of place among the house and the garden, but its cheerful shape and color for some reason make Namjoon think of Seokjin’s smile and squeaky laugh - maybe because Seokjin is smiling right at that moment, bright and happy. “I love it,” Seokjin says. “Don’t make fun.”

“I wasn’t going to. And I can’t talk anyway, I don’t even know how to drive.”

Seokjin cocks his head, considers that, then nods decisively. “That seems right.”

“Hey!”

“What, huh? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Taehyung can’t drive either.”

Namjoon stares at him in disbelief for a moment - then Seokjin starts to laugh, loud, with the squeaking, and Namjoon follows. It’s not even that funny, but a tension has broken, lifted, and they feed off each other, not able to stop, until they can barely stand up for laughing. They’re leaning on each other. When they finally slow down, there are tears in Namjoon’s eyes. His side hurts enough that he half expects Jimin to stick his head out a window to check on him. But it’s good. It feels good to not be so serious, so worried, for a moment at least.

They just breathe, standing there in front of the garage, among the garden, house rising above them. Then Seokjin pats Namjoon on the back, and moves away. It’s remarkable how distinctly Namjoon feels his absence. For all his smiles and jokes and laughter, Seokjin is solid - strong and steady in personality, in magical power, in physical presence. Namjoon feels secure around him, and thinks the others must, too. He sees how they look to Seokjin, to their hyung, for confidence and reassurance. Feels that same instinct in himself, and doesn’t think it has anything to do with the occasional tendril-thin draws of Seokjin’s charm when he doesn’t quite manage to keep it under wraps. This doesn’t feel like magic. It just feels like him.

The next section of the garden, near the garage, isn’t so much a garden - just a large lawn, stretching to the walls. Seokjin contemplates it, nudges the perfect green grass with the toe of his shoe. “This is nice,” he says. “Sometimes we don’t have anywhere to spend time outside. The babies will like having the space to play around.”

“And you don’t like playing around?”

“Ya, I’m the eldest! I’m always serious and responsible!”

They grin at each other, but then move on. The lawn stretches almost all the way back to the kitchen door, all along one side of the house, giving way to the overgrown stretches only in the back corner. Tucked into a corner of the building, catching sun but protected from wind, there’s a little patch of soil surrounded by a path. It would be ideal to grow herbs, and so close to the back door.

“Does Jimin grow herbs for healing?” Namjoon asks.

Seokjin shakes his head. “He tried, once, in pots, but they got left behind in a move.”

It takes Namjoon a moment to realize what he means - how could you just leave potted plants behind? But then he blinks, looking around at the garden. Eventually, this house will move. It has before, it must again. What will happen? Will this garden sit here, an empty space at its heart where the house once stood? Or will it simply disappear? Can it move? Will it move?

Seokjin must be having similar thoughts, to judge by how he’s frowning down at the soil. But after a moment, he just sighs and claps a hand to Namjoon’s back. “That’s enough for today, yeah? Come on, it’ll be time to make dinner soon.”

The second day in the garden, Namjoon spends a long time sitting on a patch of grass between the flower beds and the tangle of plants, just taking the garden in - looking at it, and more than anything feeling it. He has a lot of questions and no answers, and is relieved when Taehyung appears on the back steps, calling out to him, wanting to join him. Namjoon goes to him, walks him over to the patch of grass, which Taehyung flops down onto with a big smile, head turning, green reflecting in his dark brown eyes.

“It’s nice out here,” he declares after a moment. “The plants are nice! You like plants.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“That’s good, since it’s your magic.”

“Yeah. I guess most people like their magic, though? Since it’s part of them?”

“I don’t think Hobi-hyung does. Or not always.”

“Oh.”

“It’s hard for him. Seokjin-hyung, too, in a different way, though he acts like it isn’t. It’s useful, but, he was so happy that his charm doesn’t work on Kookie or me.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Do you like your magic?”

“Oh, I… uh.” Taehyung arches his head back, stares at the sky, thinking. “It’s too tangled up. Part of me. The visions are bad sometimes. But they’re important. I don’t love - what it does. Did. What people did. Because of it. But that’s not my magic’s fault.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, though he can’t say he understood all of that. Taehyung’s thoughts jumps around a lot when he talks, and Namjoon doesn’t know what he means, about people doing something. “Here,” he says, instead of asking.

Taehyung makes an inquiring noise and turns to him. Namjoon touches a stem of hyacinths to his hand, and he takes it, delighted grin going even wider when he smells the flowers. “This is so nice!!”

“I thought you might like them. Hyacinths.”

“Hyacinths,” Taehyung repeats. “Thank you.” And he spends the next few minutes quiet, inspecting every detail of the effusive bottle-brush of blue-purple blooms - looking, touching, smelling - while Namjoon considers the soil nearby, wondering if other flowers the men will like will aslo appear there alongside the hyacinths, below the roses.

None of Namjoon’s questions about the garden resolve, not even as he spends more time outside in the days that follow. He’s almost obligated to go outside, spend time there - now that he’s seen the garden, been out in it, he can’t get it out of his head. It speaks to him, the way plants do - always on the edge of his awareness. He knows that the hyacinths are a little thirsty one morning. That a rhododendron on the edge of the traditional garden will need its soil augmented before the next spring.

The tangle of plants in the back corner of the garden and the flower beds beside it call to him the most. The tangle of plants needs the most attention; things will want to be pruned, separated, coaxed out from chaos, not into order, but into a freedom that will allow them to thrive. The mostly-empty soil of the flowerbeds is different. It feels like a brand new notebook, an empty calendar at the start of the year, all potential. He wants to plant in it. He can’t help it, it’s in his nature. But he leaves it be, because this isn’t his space. It’s these men’s garden. The house’s garden.

He can help, though, with the tangle. On the third day that Namjooin goes out into the garden, some garden tools have appeared on the back porch. Seokjin claims to have found them in the garage, but they’re immaculately clean, and the pruning shears still have half a pricetag stuck to them.

Tools in hand and permission apparently granted, Namjoon starts to spend hours at a time among the plants. As much as his still-depleted energy can sustain. He works some, but a lot of the time is just spent looking, inspecting. Feeling. He’s been so busy for so long. Even with his houseplants around him, he hasn’t had time like this to really spend with plants - with plants, and with his magic. It feels nice to turn his attention on them. To help them. And to feel them respond, their energy all around him. It’s like being in the house - surrounded by magic, by energy - but different, because it’s all plants, not walls and objects and men. More intensely felt, but also more mellow.

Sometimes when he’s out there, he feels tired or unwell, and he feels the plants respond to him - sway towards him, like they might support him. Sometimes the house shudders and shifts in that way it does, and he feels them sway towards it in the same way.

Sometimes others from the house join him, and he feels how the plants react to them, too. He’s not sure how much of it is feeling only, and how much is reality, but they seem to stretch for Seokjin, like they want to grow bigger for him. They move for Jimin like they’re dancing in a breeze only they can feel, graceful like the man’s own movements. They soften for Jungkook, especially the grass, like it wants to make the world comfortable for him. Hoseok, he doesn’t know. If the man goes outside at all, Namjoon hasn’t seen it.

Taehyung, though - it feels like Taehyung gets the biggest reaction. Like the flowers smell stronger for him. Like the colors of their petals are brighter. Like the so-soft lambs ears Namjoon found growing along one border press towards him, asking for his delighted touch.

But maybe that’s just Taehyung; maybe things are just more, around him, when he’s so much himself.

He spends the most time outside with Namjoon. Seokjin and Jimin seem busy with things Namjoon isn’t clear on; maybe they work some from home, he isn’t sure. Jungkook likes to help out, but is also a bit shy of the garden, like it makes him nervous - much like he’s still a bit shy of Namjoon, despite their continued, deep chats about music that are slowly expanding into other things - magic, life. Hoseok is nowhere to be seen. But Taehyung is there often.

He always comes to Namjoon among the plants; Namjoon’s not clear on how, because sometimes Taehyung simply appears on his own, and sometimes one of the other men delivers him. Sometimes he settles in, keeping out of Namjoon’s way but sitting nearby to chat and observe. Other times, he ranges around, touching plants, smelling them, peering at them with his eyes wide and face very close. He asks questions, too - all sorts of things, some that Namjoon can answer, some he can’t, some he barely understands.

Namjoon has always been solitary with his plants, and has trouble really communing with them while Taehyung is there talking to him, but it’s all right - he’s a welcome companion, and he never minds if Namjoon asks him for quiet for a moment when he needs to concentrate. Sometimes Namjoon even lets himself get distracted by him. Once, when Jungkook is outside too, he spends a happy ten minutes watching them run and tumble on the lawn like over-excited puppies.

Another day, Jimin comes looking for them, and Namjoon’s more than a little embarrassed to be discovered bending close over Taehyung where he’s lying on the ground - he knows what it looks like, but it’s not that, just a funny moment with a flower that turned into a whole activity. Jimin smiles when he sees the constellation of daisies lain across Taehyung’s cheeks, and says “You look beautiful, love, but hyung has dinner on the table.” Taehyung turns his face to Namjoon, but Namjoon, now sitting back on his heels, hesitates to cross the distance between them, and Jimin’s the one to brush the flowers from Taehyung’s skin before helping them both up from the ground.

A single petal clings to Taehyung’s hair all through dinner, and Namjoon does finally pluck that one away before saying goodnight.

Chapter Text

Inside the house, things are much the same as they have been. Taehyung seeks him out. Jungkook is warming to him, getting over his shyness. Seokjin obviously likes him, and they make each other laugh, which is nice. Jimin is harder for Namjoon to get a handle on. He seems preoccupied a lot, and Namjoon’s moments of feeling unwell or feverish make him frown with concern or confusion - Namjoon’s not sure which, and doesn’t love either option. But he’s also observant, and understanding, and kind. He lets Namjoon into the room he shares with Taehyung one day so he can borrow more books, saying he can tell Namjoon is bored with the offerings in the living room.

Jimin and Taehyung’s room is funny. Namjoon hadn’t really expected anything from it one way or another, but he’s still surprised by how it looks. Jimin and Taehyung are so close, and sleep in the same bed with its rumpled duvet and mess of pillows, but their room looks a little like two siblings live in it - clearly divided down the middle, one half messy, the other neat. There are clothes everywhere, but on the neat side hats and jackets and shirts hang on hooks, whereas on the messy side there’s an impressive mound of clothes in one corner that reminds Namjoon of being a teenager, and more piled on what looks like it was once an armchair before being totally overtaken as an extra closet. The neat side has bottles and boxes carefully lined up on a small desk, and colorful glass trinkets and crystals on a windowsill catching the light, and a shelf of oversized, white-bound books. Taehyung’s mentioned he prefers listening to audiobooks, but someone obviously knows where to get him Braille books when he wants them.

It’s no surprise that the messy side of the room belongs to Jimin - Namjoon’s seen his workshop, a little room off the kitchen, chaotic with dried herbs and bottles and all the other goods of a healer’s apothecary. Jimin knows where everything is, and he’s scrupulous in his care of ingredients and mixing of potions, but he’s not neat by any means.

Jimin sees him taking all that in, and laughs. “We have an agreement. I can do whatever I want on my side of the room as long as I don’t leave anything on Tae’s side that he could trip on.” A moment later he pulls a book off the shelf. “Here, have you read this?”

“Not for a while.”

Jimin laughs again, goes as if to toss the book to him, then clearly thinks better of it and comes over to hand it over, dodging between a box full of bags on the floor and the scarf-festooned post at the end of the bed. “You can look at my workshop books, too,” he says, and in the following days Namjoon does, and ends up working his way through a book about magio-neurology. Another day, a book on magio-musical theory appears from somewhere - he reads that too, and tries to engage Jungkook on it, but Jungkook just shrugs. He doesn’t know anything about the theory, just does what comes naturally. Namjoon figures it must be another one of Jimin’s books - he’s obviously a thinker, and curious, and Namjoon likes that a lot.

Things have settled in with the other men, and Hoseok - he’s Hoseok. Still wary of Namjoon, still unfriendly, though there are slivers of unguarded moments when another side of him shows through.

The most dramatic of those happens one afternoon a few days after the gardening began. Namjoon has been outside on his own, making steady progress with an overgrown verbena and still trying to puzzle through the question he knows the men in the house want an answer to: where did this garden come from? - as well as the question he wants his own answer to: what does it have to do with him? It doesn’t make sense - not that things with magic need to make sense. There’s a wild, random illogicality to some magic, especially powerful magic. A life and direction all its own, like a plant that refuses to be restrained by a garden plot or a trellis. It’s one of the things Namjoon likes about studying it. He likes it less, though, when it’s directly affecting his own life.

Verbena tamed but questions no closer to being answered, Namjoon lets himself into the kitchen. Seokjin gives him a welcoming smile from where he’s working at the stove, humming along to the pop beat coming from the living room.

There’s often music in the house. Jungkook is almost always messing with his guitar, or humming, or singing, and the others play things on speakers in the kitchen or the record player in the living room, or hum or whistle or sing to themselves. This sound is different, though - louder, and accompanied by happy voices. Namjoon doesn’t want to intrude, but he’s curious, especially as a raucously loud, joyful shout of laughter echoes through the kitchen. He hasn’t heard anything like it in the house before, and he’s drawn to it - it just sounds so bright, like sun breaking through clouds.

Namjoon doesn’t mean to sneak up on them, but the men in the living room are in their own world. Taehyung is sprawled on a sofa, Jungkook sitting at the floor near his head, swaying a little in time with the music. Someone has conjured a series of orbs in the air - like bubbles but more solid, and about the size of a balloon. They’re a normal beginner’s charm when you’re first learning magic, but usually they’re clear. These ones are opaque, and brilliantly colored, each a single tone, but shifting, shimmering, in time with the music. As Namjoon watches, Jungkook sings in harmony with the song on the radio, and Taehyung conjures another orb. As he manipulates it on his palm, it seems to respond to Jungkook’s singing, shifting through an apparently random sequence of colors until Taehyung smiles, and releases it, the color stabilized.

The orb rises and bounces off the shoulder of the man in the middle of the room, who again laughs that delighted laugh, and moves around it.

It’s Hoseok, and he’s dancing. Even his dodge of the orb is part of the dance, incorporated into a long, loose body roll that seems like it should send him falling over, but instead transitions into a series of locks in perfect time with the music. It’s impressive, even to Namjoon’s untrained eye. And it’s beautiful, the flow of a body perfectly in sync with the world around it. It makes Namjoon think of vines, of leaves, of magic.

And then Hoseok turns, and sees Namjoon in the doorway.

Hoseok startles badly, going from the flow of dance into flailing - and then there’s only the barest burst of magic in warning before Namjoon finds himself on his back on the kitchen floor, the breath knocked out of him.

“Jung Hoseok!” Seokjin shouts above him. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Then he’s bending over Namjoon. “Are you all right?”

Namjoon nods, still breathless, and apparently that’s enough for Seokjin, who turns and stalks into the living room. Namjoon manages to sit up in time to see him and Hoseok facing off - both silent, mouths set in tight frowns.

The music is still playing, but the orbs are gone, and Taehyung and Jungkook look frozen in place.

After a long moment of just glaring, Seokjin lets out a sharp sigh. “In the house, Hoseok-ah? Really? Someone could have gotten hurt!”

“Excuse me if he snuck up on me! Excuse me if there’s still a threat!”

“He didn’t sneak - and no, you can’t and shouldn’t monitor everything all the time, especially when you’re perfectly safe.”

Hoseok opens his mouth to protest, but Seokjin raises a warning hand.

“We’re not going to argue about this right now. But you are going to apologize to Namjoon, to our guest, for knocking him on his butt in the middle of my kitchen.”

The ‘Sorry’ and small bow Hoseok gives him is reluctant at best, but Namjoon accepts it, scrambling to his feet to return the bow.

“Jungkook and Taehyung, too,” Seokjin prompts, and Hoseok’s eyes go wide before he turns to the younger men.

“Tae-ah. Kookie. I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks a little as he apologizes, and Taehyung gets up, wraps him in a hug.

“Get some rest, hyung,” he murmurs, and Hoseok sags against him.

“Okay.” And he separates from Taehyung. “I’m sorry, hyung,” he says to Seokjin, who nods.

“Taehyung’s right. Go rest. We’ll see you at dinner.”

The Hoseok who leaves the room isn’t defensive or defiant. He just looks tired.

Seokjin sighs, and heads back into the kitchen.

By the sofa, Jungkook shifts, and Taehyung wraps a hand around his shoulder.

“Namjoon-hyung?” Taehyung asks, turning towards him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine.” He goes to them. Sits down on the sofa beside Taehyung.

“Hobi-hyung hasn’t been sleeping,” Taehyung says. “He wouldn’t… he doesn’t want to hurt you. Or anyone.”

Jungkook just stares at his hands.

“What were you doing with the orbs?” Namjoon asks. It’s an obvious attempt to change the subject, to cheer them up. But they accept it as the offering it is.

“It’s our color trick!” Taehyung says, and smiles at him, and it’s barely strained. “Jungkook makes a note and I make its color. Kookie, want to show him?”

Jungkook makes an affirmative noise and gets up - finally turning off the jangling pop music, and fetching his guitar instead. He settles again on the floor in front of Taehyung’s crossed legs, and Taehyung leans forward, burying his face in Jungkook’s messy hair for a moment, one hand on each shoulder. Jungkook takes a deep breath, then twists so he can look up at Taehyung. “Any requests?”

“Mm. Jiminie?”

Jungkook smiles and settles his guitar in his lap. Taehyung sits back and raises his hands. “Ready,” he says, and the orb starts to form in his hands, the normal kind, clear. It starts to shift to opaque, and then Jungkook plays a chord, and the milk-white is overtaken by a beautiful teal, seeping upwards from Taehyung’s hands, the orb growing at the same time, the color wavering slightly in time with the reverberations of the strings as the chord fades - and then Taehyung releases it, and smiles as it floats up into the room.

“Wow,” Namjoon says.

Taehyung grins at him, and Jungkook smiles down at his guitar. “Another?” Taehyung asks. “Any note, Jungkookie.”

They make a series of five before Taehyung sits back and declares himself done. The teal orb has already faded. A shimmering pink one bounces off a midnight-blue one.

Taehyung gets up and leaves the room after a few minutes, but Namjoon stays there with Jungkook, just hanging out and listening as he shifts from single chords to playing full songs.

“You’re really good at that,” he says at one point, and Jungkook smiles up at him, cheeks pushing his face into a sweet circle.

“Thanks, hyung.”

That afternoon is quiet. Eventually Jungkook gets bored of playing guitar and wanders off, and Namjoon spends some time reading. Seokjin keeps working in the kitchen. Jimin comes in and out, carrying things from his workroom, at one point leaving a potion for Namjoon to drink for his aching side. Hoseok keeps himself scarce - Namjoon hopes he really is resting, if only for the others’ sake. His bad mood isn’t helping anything, wearing on edges that already seem a little sharp, a little strained.

Chapter Text

When Namjoon arrives in the kitchen for dinner, most of the household is already there. Seokjin he passed a few minutes earlier carrying a tray of ramen and drinks upstairs - for Jungkook, apparently. When Namjoon heads for his normal seat beside Taehyung, something stops him. Like the air has suddenly become solid. He pulls up short, blinking. Jimin looks up from setting a pot of noodles on the table, eyebrows pulling together questioningly, but it’s Seokjin who speaks from the doorway.

“Hoseok!”

Hoseok had been slouched in his chair, frowning down at his hands in his lap, but he whips his head up. “What?!”

“Barrier,” Jimin says.

Hoseok frowns, opens his mouth like he’s going to protest, but then closes it again. The solidity in the air falls away, though it pushes a gust of magic with it that almost knocks Namjoon off balance.

Jimin sighs and leans forward, hands resting on the table, staring across at Hoseok. “What is up with you?”

Hoseok’s frown comes back. Namjoon is still hovering in the middle of the room where the barrier was until Seokjin touches his lower back, urges him forward.

Namjoon sits down with some hesitation while the strained silence holds out, Jimin still staring Hoseok down across the table, Taehyung shifting a little in his seat between Namjoon and Hoseok. Seokjin is doling out a serving to Namjoon’s plate when the quiet finally breaks.

“Fuck!” Hoseok’s voice is sharp, loud.

Taehyung whips around to face him, eyes wide. Jimin just keeps frowning at him, silent. Seokjin sighs and keeps serving.

“I don’t get why the rest of you aren’t upset,” Hoseok continues. “We all know what’s happening here!”

“We don’t know,” Seokjin says.

At the same time, Jimin grinds out “We’re all upset.”

Hoseok looks between the two of them, eyes wide like he’s somehow been betrayed. Then he leans forward suddenly, hands on the table, looking around Taehyung to lock eyes with Namjoon. When he speaks again, he’s not yelling, his voice even, low. Cold.

“I don’t see why you can’t just leave.”

“Hyung!” Taehyung exclaims.

“Do you feel better?” Jimin asks. It’s not said with the quiet care he uses when asking after their health.

“No,” Hoseok replies, but throws himself back in his chair like a pouting child. “I’m tired of this! It’s bad, you know it’s bad. The house won’t stop shifting, and that’s, that’s - it’s - it’s hard for Taehyung.”

Taehyung makes a soft noise of protest. “Don’t use me as an excuse.”

“You’re allowed to want things for yourself, hyung,” Jimin says, and it’s gentler now, but the pointedness isn’t really concealed by the softness of his voice.

Namjoon knows what they mean, too. The shifts disorient Taehyung, but he copes just fine - just bumps into stuff occasionally. But Namjoon has seen the frenetic edge Hoseok can get, how quickly he swings into action to clean things up, take stock, reorganize. How sometimes Seokjin or Jungkook go to help him, when that happens.

“None of us like this, Hobi-ah,” Seokjin says. “We know it’s bad. We know. But we don’t know how to solve it yet, and right now our food is getting cold, so we’re going to eat. Sit down, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin does, slowly, eyes still locked on Hoseok, who is frowning at the table top, refusing to look at any of them.

The meal is awkward, to say the least. Namjoon is a little relieved that Jungkook isn’t there - he seems particularly sensitive to the others’ moods, even more so than Taehyung, who’s sitting subdued beside him, picking at his food.

At first, the strained silence is only broken by Seokjin inquiring if anyone wants more of this and that. Nobody takes anything. Finally he sighs and just starts talking - about his trip to the market that morning, the foods coming into season, the aunties who seem impervious to his charm and threaten to charge him extra for being handsome. It makes Jimin smile a little, and Taehyung’s tense shoulders relax - until he suddenly snaps his head up and says “Jimin.”

Seokjin stops mid-word.

“Jimin,” Taehyung says again, voice sharp now, strange, eyes pulled open wide. “Jiminie help.”

Jimin scrambles to his feet and comes around Namjoon to push into Taehyung’s space, hands anchoring on his shoulders. “Taehyungie? What’s wrong?”

“Jiminie help.”

“Help what, Taehyung-ah,” Hoseok prompts from his other side, words fast, urgent, but voice much more gentle than it has been all day. “Who needs help? Is it -“

“Jungkook, does Jungkook need help?” Seokjin suggests, and Taehyung nods violently.

“Help Kookie, Jimin, help -“

“Okay, okay,” Jimin says, and scrambles from the room.

His jump to action doesn’t calm Taehyung down - he’s breathing raggedly, posture unnaturally tense and straight. His jaw looks clenched, painful. Hoseok doesn’t look much better, and Seokjin is blinking nervously.

Then the tremor hits.

It’s the worst one Namjoon has felt. It feels like a real earthquake. It feels like the house is going to shake apart at the seams. Dishes clatter in the cabinets; one swings open, and a stack of glasses tumbles out, shatters on the floor. Hoseok shrieks and Taehyung shakes. He’s crying. Namjoon puts a hand on his shoulder, murmurs Taehyung’s name, then adds “It’s Namjoon, it’s okay” as Taehyung rolls his head away, then towards him. They brace themselves against the table - Seokjin and Hoseok covering their heads, Namjoon folding Taehyung down, sheltering him with one arm while he guards his own head with the other.

It feels like it goes on for a long time. By the end, there are a lot more broken dishes, and Taehyung isn’t the only one with tears in his eyes.

Seokjin stands up as soon as the building stops moving. “I’m going to go check on Jimin and Jungkook. Hoseok, will you check the house? I’ll join you to help soon.”

“Hyung,” Hoseok says. “What about -“

Namjoon is only just unfolding himself from around Taehyung when Seokjin says his name.

“Namjoon-ssi. Would you mind staying with Taehyung? Visions like that can be disorienting. And with all the glass…”

“Of course,” Namjoon says. He was already thinking it - he wasn’t going to leave Taehyung alone, not like this, not while he’s shaking against Namjoon’s chest, maybe still crying.

Hoseok’s frowning at them, and at Seokjin too, but it’s not the severe triangle he usually makes at Namjoon - it’s softer. He’s worried. They’re all worried. But Seokjin smiles his gentle smile, the fear in his eyes shuttering away behind it. “Thank you.” He reaches out and runs a hand over Taehyung’s back. “Taetae, is that okay? Staying with Namjoon-ssi?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says weakly, his voice muffled in Namjoon’s shirt.

“Okay. We’ll be back soon.”

Seokjin leaves the room, and Hoseok follows.

After a minute, Namjoon shifts. “You want to sit somewhere more comfortable, Taehyung-ah?”

Taehyung gives another small, muffled “Yeah,” so Namjoon helps him up, then stops.

“Can I carry you a little ways? There’s glass all over the floor.” And Namjoon is wearing house slippers Seokjin gave him but Taehyung, as usual, is barefoot.

Taehyung hesitates. “Where?”

“The glass? Everywhere.”

“No. Carry, where.”

“Oh - just to the living room door. A few feet. Then you can walk, I think - I’ll check when we get there to see if anything else broke. I can’t carry you super far anyway, I’m not that strong.”

Taehyung hums like he doesn’t think that’s true, and reaches up to wrap his arms around Namjoon’s neck, ready to be picked up.

Namjoon’s feet crunch on the broken glass as he crosses the floor with Taehyung in his arms. Somewhere between kitchen table and living room doorway, the crushing sadness hits him.

He feels devastated for these men, his hosts. This house is beautiful, welcoming, warm, safe, filled to the brim with the best kind of magic - but something is so clearly, terribly wrong. He wishes he could help them, but he doesn’t know how. Even if he knew what was wrong, what could he do? He’s an academic. He understands magical objects, but only theoretically, and his own magic only touches plants. He doesn’t even have the skills of the conservators who can restore the frayed edges of object-spells along with wood finishes or discolored varnishes. And besides, this house is much more than a moon jar formed with healing magic in its clay and glaze or a wallhanging with protection patchworked among silk panels. It reminds him more of the organic magic of plants, the systems they form as they grow. But that doesn’t mean he can respond to it, doesn’t mean he can help these men who have been helping him.

He’s tired, his side aches, and he’s sad.

Taehyung shifts in his arms, sighs, buries his face in his neck. That feels a bit better, as does stepping through the threshold, out of the destruction, the floor no longer crunching and crushing under his feet.

The living room isn’t as much of a mess, but it has turned, its orientation 90 degrees off from what it had been before dinner. Namjoon tells Taehyung that as he sets him down, then leads him to the couch. Taehyung feels its arm, its back, then lets Namjoon pull him gently down to sit. He pulls a pillow into his lap, hugs it. He looks a little more alert now, though his face is pale and blotchy from crying.

“Your Hoseok-hyung went to check the rest of the house,” Namjoon says. “He’ll let you know what else has changed. You want to rest?”

Taehyung nods and hums and curls against him, snuggling close. Namjoon hums, too, and wraps an arm around him.

“Where’s Jiminie?” Taehyung mumbles.

“He went upstairs to help Jungkook, like you asked him to. They’re both still up there. Seokjin went to check on them, then he was going to help Hoseok.”

“Mm. Where’s…” He’s so mumbly that Namjoon can’t really understand what he asks next.

“What?”

Taehyung shakes his head and makes a soft, distressed noise, and pushes closer, practically in Namjoon’s lap. He looks teary again, blinking hard, and his breathing is going ragged.

“Okay,” Namjoon says. Not going to push whatever’s up - Taehyung will ask again if he needs to. “That seemed intense,” he adds. “Or I guess all of that was intense. For all of us. We can take a breather, yeah? And everyone will be back soon.”

Taehyung sighs, and snuffles, and presses his head against Namjoon’s chest - so Namjoon raises a hand, and strokes his hair. It works; Taehyung settles, relaxes, his limbs going loose and his breath beginning to even out.

It works for Namjoon, too. Gives him something to focus on, so he can push down the sickening tide of worry he’s feeling along with the sadness. Everything seems wrong, and Taehyung is so upset, and he’d said help Jungkook - what happened to Jungkook?

Hoseok is the first one to reappear. He comes to a stop in the doorway, and blinks at Namjoon and Taehyung. Namjoon gives him a tight smile in return - not sure what else there is to do. Hoseok takes a breath, and nods at him, then crosses to the sofa. “Hey, Taehyung-ah,” he says softly, and Taehyung hums at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Namjoon-hyung’s comfort, hm… able. ing. Comfort.”

Hoseok smiles, even lets out a little breath of a laugh - and Namjoon does, too. Nobody’s described him as any of those things before. Hoseok’s eyes flick to Namjoon’s, and for a moment Namjoon thinks that this glimmer of fond amusement might be something they share. But when Namjoon tries a softer smile, Hoseok’s expression shutters again.

“Okay, good. I’m gonna clean up. We can talk about what’s moved around when some of the others get back.”

“Wait,” Namjoon says, before he can leave. “How is everyone? Is Jungkook okay?”

Hoseok blinks at him, but then nods. “Yeah. Just shaken up. He bumped his head but he’ll be fine, no concussion.”

“Good.”

Hoseok nods, and doesn’t meet Namjoon’s eyes again, just heads to the kitchen to start sweeping up all the shards of ceramic and glass.

Jungkook is the next to come in. He steps into the room and looks at Namjoon and Taehyung, but doesn’t say anything. “Jungkook-ah,” Namjoon says. “Are you okay? Hoseok-ssi said you hit your head.”

Jungkook rubs a spot under his hair, but nods, even though he doesn’t really look okay - skin blotchy red-and-pale, eyes bloodshot.

“Do you want to come sit?” Namjoon asks.

Another nod, and then Jungkook is across the room in an instant, crawling onto the sofa, pressing up against Namjoon’s free side. Taehyung makes a small noise and reaches out for him, and Jungkook meets his hand, their fingers twining together and coming to rest on Namjoon’s stomach.

“Hey, Jungkookie,” Taehyung mumbles. Jungkook doesn’t reply out loud, but Namjoon can feel how tightly he squeezes Taehyung’s hand.

Namjoon shifts his own hand, the one not currently tangled in Taehyung’s hair, and gingerly rests it on Jungkook’s hair - giving him the option to move away if he doesn’t want to be touched or if his head is tender. Jungkook just sighs, though, melting into Namjoon further, so Namjoon starts to stoke his hair, too. He can’t remember the last time he touched one person like this, let alone two - has he ever snuggled with two people at once? - but it’s nice. Warm. Grounding, after the unsettling evening.

Eventually, Seokjin reappears, too. He looks exhausted, pale and blinking, shoulders slumping. But he smiles when he sees Namjoon on the sofa with the boys.

“Taking good care of our babies,” he says. “Thank you.”

Namjoon nods. Taehyung shifts a little, then sits up, but stays leaning against Namjoon, keeps his fingers intertwined with Jungkook’s. Jungkook doesn’t move at all - it feels like he’s fallen asleep. Seokjin sits at the end of the couch by Taehyung’s feet, puts a hand on his calf.

Hoseok appears at the kitchen doorway, broom in hand.

“The rooms upstairs shifted,” Seokjin says, his fingers tapping on Taehyung’s leg and his own knee. “Hoseok’s is between the guest room and Jimin and Tae’s now, and Jungkook’s and mine switched places. So check the door colors. And watch the floors - Namjoon, Jiminie’s sweeping up your room now, a lamp broke. I think we should call it a night, yeah? Everyone’s exhausted.”

His eyes are on Hoseok when he says it, but Taehyung is the one who responds. “Hyung?”

“Mm, yeah Tae-ah?”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“Of course, sweetheart. You want to go up now?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung hugs Namjoon, who’s a bit surprised but manages to hug back, awkwardly, with the arm that was already wrapped around him. The other one is draped over Jungkook’s back, which is still rising and falling steadily. “Thank you, hyung,” Taehyung murmurs against Namjoon’s chest, then sits up, and reaches for Seokjin, who takes his hands and helps him up.

Seokjin smiles down at Namjoon, and the younger man curled up against him, still deeply asleep despite the disturbances around him.

“You look stuck, Namjoon-ah.”

“Yeah - he fell asleep - is he okay?” Namjoon asks.

Seokjin laughs softly. “Yeah, he’s fine. He just sleeps really hard. Here, we can wake him up.”

They only manage to get Jungkook about a quarter of the way towards consciousness, but that’s okay. Namjoon helps him up the stairs, taking most of his weight.

“Gold room,” Seokjin says. Namjoon swings the door open and - he’s not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Maybe a mess like Jimin and Taehyung’s room, or like a teenaged boy’s room. Or even gold to match the strip of paint on the doorframe. But Jungkook’s room is simple and clean to the point of austerity. Everything is wood, like everywhere in the house, but lighter colored than in most of the rest of the rooms. There’s not really any furniture, just two mattresses on the floor, side-by-side to make a big bed, piled with a nest of pillows and blankets. A guitar and a keyboard stand against one wall, and that’s about it, except a shelf with some little trinkets on it that Namjoon can’t make out in the light from the doorway, and another full of sketchbooks.

When Namjoon lowers Jungkook down onto the mattress, he blinks his big eyes in apparent confusion, then rolls over and prods at a round device on the floor. It lights up, and dim, colorful light is projected all around them - it looks like galaxies.

Namjoon laughs, delighted. It seems to remind Jungkook that he’s there. Jungkook looks at him where he’s still crouched by the bed - then launches at him. Namjoon, caught entirely off guard, is knocked off balance and ends up sitting awkwardly on the edge of the mattress, Jungkook wrapped around him in a tight hug.

He pats his back. “Hey, Jungkook-ah. You can go back to sleep, yeah? Here, lie down.”

Jungkook does as he’s told, but blinks up at Namjoon. Namjoon isn’t sure what Jungkook wants him to do, so he just goes with his instincts, and tucks a blanket around him.

That seems to satisfy Jungkook, who smiles sleepily at him and rolls over, wrapped tight in the blanket, his wide eyes looking up at the galaxies on his walls.

Namjoon gets up and lets himself out, closing the door quietly behind him, headed for his own room. He can hear movement in the house - Seokjin and Taehyung talking quietly as they get ready for bed, Hoseok running the vacuum downstairs - but it’s all quiet, muted. Like the house itself is tired, ready for rest.

Chapter Text

Namjoon wakes up late the next morning, but the house is quiet. When he comes out of the bathroom after relieving himself and splashing some water on his face, there’s nobody in the hallway, but a door is open. He’s not sure if it was before he went in.

It’s not any of the doors he’s seen through before. Not Jungkook’s, with the patch of gold paint on its frame and simple white room beyond, or Jimin and Taehyung’s with the patch of striped lavender and green and chaos inside, or the pearly white with colorful interior that he thinks is Seokjin’s. This one is silver - not bright, but dark like pewter, like old metal. And he has to go by it to get downstairs.

He does mean to just go by quickly, head down. What’s inside the men’s bedrooms is none of his business, and besides, what if it’s Hoseok’s room? Things are already bad enough between them without him snooping where he isn’t wanted.

Even from where he’s standing, he can see the foot of a bed, a pretty thing, simple-lined, made of fine wood - maybe cherry.

He shouldn’t snoop, but something about the room - it feels warm. Loving, like the house.

And sad. It feels sad.

“Namjoon-ah.”

It’s Seokjin, and he’s inside the room, and the invitation is clear in his voice.

Namjoon takes a step forward, staying in the hall, but now able to see around the doorframe, see inside.

For a long moment, he just looks. Seokjin says nothing.

“Who is he?” Namjoon asks.

Seokjin smiles gently and looks down at the figure in the bed. Small, pale, his dark hair spread on the pillow, blankets tucked carefully around him. Eyes closed, lips parted as he breathes. Deeply asleep. Unconscious.

“His name is Yoongi. Min Yoongi.”

Namjoon steps into the room - then looks to Seokjin, wondering if that’s all right. Seokjin nods at him.

Namjoon stands at the foot of the bed. For a moment his hands hover, unsure, but then he lets them rest on the footboard.

It’s so filled with magic that it feels alive. Just like the walls of this house feel alive when his fingers brush against them.

“It’s him, with the house.”

It’s barely a question, but Seokjin answers anyway. “Yes.”

“I’ve never seen building magic before. It seems…”

“It’s not usually like this. Usually the house is stable, mostly. Usually Yoongi is…”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says. He can see it - the man looks so unwell. Diminished. But he’s powerful. And Namjoon can feel it, the magic running through the room, the house. Through him. Whatever is happening to the house, it’s also happening to Min Yoongi.

“Thank you for allowing me in, Seokjin-ssi.”

“You’re welcome, Namjoon-ah. We don’t need to keep him from you, I don’t think. You’re welcome to come back.”

“Thank you.” He bows to Seokjin, and then to Yoongi, before leaving the room, going in search of his breakfast.

Namjoon hears it, later that morning, when Hoseok finds out Namjoon has been allowed into Yoongi’s room.

It’s hard to ignore the pained shout that goes up.

Namjoon, Seokjin, and Jimin have been sitting in the kitchen, drinking teas Jimin brewed them. (Namjoon’s is meant to help with his still-lingering fevers and fatigue. Seokjin’s smells like herbs that help with aches and pains, Jimin’s like it’s meant to ease the stress he’s carrying across his shoulders - which Namjoon thinks he understands, now. Jimin’s their healer, after all.)

Jimin puts down his tea and leaves the room to intercept Hoseok in the hallway. Hoseok’s voice fades back into the upstairs, and Seokjin sighs, sags.

“He’s going to be furious with me,” Seokjin says. He sounds sad, more than anything. Sad, and tired.

“I’m sorry.”

Seokjin shrugs his shoulders sharply. “It’s not your fault. It’s hard for him. He feels so much responsibility. He loves us so much, and he gets so frightened. He’s usually so much better than this, but it’s…”

“It’s a hard time. I understand.”

“Jiminie can help him, sometimes. Jungkook, too. But it doesn’t mean a lot if he keeps on like this.” Seokjin heaves a sigh, twitches his shoulders. Namjoon lets instinct rule, again - he’s not usually like this, not at all, but sometimes in this house things just feel right. When he rests a hand on the back of Seokjin’s neck, Seokjin gives him a wan smile, and some of the tension bleeds out of him as he leans into the touch, ever so slightly.

“I know it’s me making things so bad,” Namjoon says. “I’m sorry.”

“No! No. It’s not. I mean - you’re involved in what’s happening, yes. But it’s not your fault. We all know that. Even Hoseok, when he’s able to really think about it. There’s something bigger going on. We just haven’t figured out what it is, yet.” He sighs, then turns to Namjoon, his mood shifting quickly into a smile. “Want to see something cool?”

“Uh… yeah? All right?” Namjoon isn’t sure if Seokjin is trying to distract him, or himself.

Seokjin pulls over a box that was sitting on the floor, full of broken dishes from the night before. He hums thoughtfully, then casts a charm. As he moves his hand, a few of the shattered pieces rise up from the box - and reassemble themselves into a bowl.

“Oh,” Namjoon says. “That is cool. And really advanced, right?” He’s seem repair charms before, of course - he can even cast a basic one, despite charms really not being his forte - but he’s never seen it combined with the finding charm that extracted the correct pieces from the jumble of broken, sharp-edged sherds. Seokjin probably had a traditional magical education, if he’s that skilled.

Seokjin grins at him. “That’s me, charming in every way.”

Namjoon chuckles, despite himself.

A little while later, they’re sittting at the table, drinking tea from charm-repaired cups, when Seokjin says “Namjoon-ah, are you happy?”

Namjoon chokes on the tea he was drinking, making Seokjin laugh.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “They chide me for being too direct, sometimes.”

Namjoon wonders if that’s a result of the charm. If your magic is capable of hiding everything behind a layer of obfuscation and suggestion, maybe it’s better to just be direct.

“I’m a bit stir-crazy,” he responds. “And the wound is weird. But you’re being so welcoming.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean here. I meant more that you don’t talk a lot about your life, beyond your research. And the little things Jungkook and Jimin ask you about. You don’t talk about people. You don’t seem worried to be gone, except about your houseplants.”

“Well, I mean, I’m on sabbatical this semester, so it doesn’t matter that much, I’m just missing a few research weeks, I’ll survive.”

Seokjin gives him a long look, and Namjoon hears it again. You don’t talk about your life, beyond your research.

“I’m not very close with my family,” he says, softly. “I like my work colleagues well enough, I guess.”

“No friends? No other loved ones?”

Namjoon shrugs. “I kept in touch with people from school. But I went through a tough patch of depression a few years ago, and, I don’t know. I should have tried to rebuild those relationships. But my work keeps me busy, and… and I guess I didn’t feel the need.”

“I didn’t really have friends, before Yoongi,” Seokjin says, after a moment of quiet. “Before the house. I always felt separate from people. The charm didn’t help. I never knew if people liked me for what I actually am, or what they perceived. I didn’t even really realize how lonely I was, how sad, until I wasn’t any longer.”

Namjoon thinks of the resonant, empty feeling of his depression. The uneasy companionship of the other professors and researchers, who he only has his work in common with. And he thinks of the warmth, when Taehyung presses against him, or Jungkook gets excited about showing off his skills for him, or Jimin grins and laughs. Even the unsteady reassurance of Hoseok tolerating his presence. And the solidity of Seokjin, sitting across from him, patient and open and saying something Namjoon knew, even if he hadn’t wanted to know it.

Namjoon nods.

“People who come to us, they need us,” Seokjin says. “They’re in danger, or they’re unhappy.”

“I did get stabbed.”

Seokjin snorts. “True. But you don’t know why. No one was threatening you before that.”

Namjoon shakes his head. He’s discussed it several times, mostly with Jimin, who’s obviously trying to puzzle something out about his wound, or about the whole situation.

“You’re always welcome here,” Seokjin says, gentle. It’s not really where Namjoon was expecting the conversation to go. “I think you know that. We bond fast. We like you. You don’t have to be lonely.”

Namjoon nods, and looks down at his tea, and Seokjin lets him. Nothing more to say.

Namjoon goes out into the garden after lunch. He’s alone, his usual companions Taehyung and Jungkook nowhere to be seen. Last he heard, Jungkook was still asleep, and everyone had agreed to let him get the rest he needed. Taehyung had been at lunch, but hardly able to keep his head upright - Jimin had dragged him upstairs afterwards for a nap.

Namjoon waters and weeds for a long while, not paying much attention to anything, just going through the motions and letting his mind drift down rabbitholes of thought about it all - these men. Yoongi. The house.

When he runs out of mindless work or directionless thoughts, he stretches his back, sighs. Drinks some water because Jimin gets mad if he doesn’t. He stands looking at the garden for a long while before he makes up his mind, and starts to work with his pruning scissors.

There are more flowers in the garden, now - some that appeared like the roses and hyacinths, others Namjoon has uncovered from the jungle-mess of the overgrown area as he’s worked steadily on disentangling it, freeing everything to grow healthier, happier.

He ends up with a big handful of small white daisies, the same ones he’d starred Taehyung’s face with - it feels like weeks ago, but must have only been days - and a single big burst of pretty purple-blue hydrangea, from a bush he’d uncovered the day before.

When he lets himself back into the kitchen, Jimin turns around from where he’s mixing something on the stove and smiles at him, warm as the room, as the sunshine outside. “Those are lovely, hyung.”

“Mm. Thank you. I thought, maybe… maybe they would be nice in Yoongi-ssi’s room?”

“Oh,” Jimin says - breathes, really, on a sigh. “That’s so sweet. There’s vases on the top shelf of that cabinet - here, give me the flowers, I can’t reach the vases.”

When Jimin takes the flowers, he immediately sinks his face into them, breathing in.

“Sorry, neither of those have much of a scent.”

“No, it’s nice, they smell like the outdoors. Fresh air. Sunlight. Life. And Yoongi-hyung doesn’t like highly-scented flowers anyway.”

“Who does?”

Jimin smiles at him, clearly aware that Namjoon’s not just making idle chat. “Me. Taehyungie, obviously. Hoseok-hyung. Seokjin-hyung not so much, but he likes color. Jungkook’s very sensitive to scents and also has a bit of a pollen allergy.”

“Oh, I -”

“He just gets a bit sneezy, don’t worry, it’s cute. And I have medicine for him. Get a vase.”

Jimin goes back to admiring the flowers, then says “Careful” without even looking up.

Namjoon, leaning on a shelf to reach up for a vase, pauses. “Do you have precognition too?” It’s sort of a joke, but sort of not. The level Taehyung has is very uncommon, but plenty of magic-users get little feelings. Twinges, of things that aren’t quite right or might go badly - usually linked to their powers. Jimin might have had a feeling he’s about to give Namjoon stitches, or treat another bump on the head.

Jimin laughs brightly. “I get feelings, but it doesn’t take that to know you’re about to break something. Our poor dishes have already been through so much. Put your weight on the counter instead.”

Namjoon does, and manages to get a vase down without a disaster. Jimin takes it to fill at the sink.

When he carries the flowers up, he finds Yoongi’s door ajar. Jungkook is now the one sitting by the bed. He’s got one of his guitars, and is noodling around with it, softly strumming out a tune, but he stops when Namjoon knocks. When he looks up, there’s something around his eyes - worry, probably. But it drops away almost immediately, taken over by a smile.

“Hi, hyung!”

“Hi, Jungkook-ah.”

“Oh! Are those for Yoongi-hyung? They’re so nice.”

Namjoon is still lingering in the doorway - hesitating, really.

“Do you want to come in?” Jungkook asks.

Namjoon really thinks about it. He’s not sure if he should. He doesn’t know Yoongi, and it’s his space, and Hoseok was so upset.

Jungkook seems to understand, and gets up, motions him in, takes the vase from him. He carries it around, considers several different places, then sets it on a dresser near the door. If Yoongi were to open his eyes, right in that moment, the flowers would be in his line of sight.

“Do you want to stay, for a bit?” Jungkook asks, and his eyes are so big, so dark - he so obviously wants company - that Namjoon can’t help but nod.

They’re silent, for a little while. Jungkook goes back to messing with his guitar, not really playing, just fidgeting. Namjoon just sits in one of the mismatched chairs near the bed, and looks around - trying not to pry, but curious, his interest in the house and in objects overriding the politeness that kept him in check that morning.

It’s a nice room, simple, comfortable. The furniture well-built, of wood, just like everywhere in the house, the tones warm. There’s something in the furniture that he’s noticed elsewhere, too - it’s simple, solid, clean-lined, but there are details that aren’t all minimalism. There are iron reinforcing brackets on table joins; lattice-work on desks; chairs with a graceful arch to their backs. Someone really knows traditional forms and techniques, as well as modern lines. And Namjoon knows exactly who that must be.

Yoongi’s headboard is a solid, simple rectangle of luminous cherry wood, but inset in the center is a circle of beautiful, dark lacquer with a single, simple sprig of cherry blossom najeon inlay. There’s also an antique-looking box of much more intricate najeonchilgi on a table against the wall. Beside it, there’s a simple plastic kitchen tray, very light pink, the kind of thing you buy at the market one aisle over from the bags of rice and bottles of cooking oil. It’s loaded up with a variety of decoctions in the little, round-bottomed glass bottles Jimin seems to favor.

It’s a comfortable room - comforting - but it’s also a sickroom. It still feels like sadness, worry, and it smells like potions, and herbs. Someone, presumably Jimin, has been burning incense that Namjoon recognizes - the mix helps with rest, recovery. It strikes Namjoon that this must be where Jungkook was last night, when things went so bad. And that the other men must come and go from here often, too. This must be where they’ve often been when he wasn’t sure where they were.

“How long,” he starts, though he’s not sure he should ask, and though he thinks he knows the answer.

Jungkook only has to meet his eyes to confirm. Namjoon reaches out, wraps a hand around his shoulder, and Jungkook takes a shaky breath and presses insistently into the touch.

“I miss him,” he mumbles.

“I’m sure,” Namjoon answers, and runs his hand across his back, feeling the tension there.

“He saved us.”

Namjoon doesn’t say anything - he’s not sure what to say, if he should ask - and Jungkook looks over at him. “Has anyone told you? About where they came from?”

“No. There’s been some mentions, but no details.”

Jungkook nods and goes back to fiddling with the guitar, but he’s talking now, and doesn’t seem to want to stop. “Yoongi-hyung saved us. He’d say it was the house, but… it’s… it’s him. He saves us. He takes care of us.” He’s quiet for a little bit, but Namjoon can tell which of his silences are the end of talking, and which are him gathering his thoughts, getting ready to say more. “I was in danger. And they came and got me, Seokjin-hyung and Yoongi. They did a lot for me. And, and, then Taehyung and Jimin… it was so bad. They were running away from bad people who’d hurt Taehyung-hyung, and he was so sick they thought he might die, and Jimin-hyung was so scared. But he saved them. And others, too - sometimes others come to stay, and he saves them, and then they leave. I don’t know about Seokjin-hyung, not really, because he was already here, but. I think he was sad, before. And, Hobi-hyung, too. He was so sad, when he first came. Unhappy. He, he.” Jungkook takes a breath, and it shakes, and Namjoon runs a hand across his back again. “He was like he is now, except sadder, and I miss him being happy, too.”

“Oh, Kook-ah,” Namjoon says, using a nickname he’s heard from Seokjin a few times - it must be welcome, because Jungkook sniffles and puts down his guitar and folds into Namjoon, resting his head against his chest. He doesn’t cry, at least not audibly, but it seems like a close-run thing. Namjoon just rubs his back. It makes sense, he thinks, that Jungkook came through something to be here - there’s a fragility to him, under his cheerfulness and strength, showing through sometimes in how his big eyes shine too brightly, or else go dull; how at the times when he seems to get overwhelmed, or lose his words. It makes sense that they all went through things, that it bonded them together in this house that cares so much. With this man who apparently cares so much.

Something’s happened to him, to Yoongi, and Namjoon doesn’t understand what it is, but he hates it, because he can feel it in the way the house shakes, and see it in the fraying edges of the men around him - Jimin so tired, jaw clenched; Seokjin alternately bustling around or sitting still and pained; Taehyung ebullient but avoiding topics, thoughts, only to slip down into a quiet sadness when he can’t help it any longer; Hoseok angry - frightened; Jungkook, so energetic and cheerful, but also teary against Namjoon’s chest. They love this man, and he’s suffering, and they’re suffering, and Namjoon has no idea what he could possibly do to help.

Chapter Text

The day after they let Namjoon in to see Yoongi, he’s sitting alone in the kitchen reading when Hoseok comes in. There’s a moment of pause like the other man is thinking about turning around and leaving, but then he stalks over to the sink and starts rinsing the dishes he’d carried in.

“Listen, Hoseok-ssi,” Namjoon says into the heavy silence, “I get it.”

Hoseok pauses at the sink, but doesn’t look at him, or acknowledge he’s spoken. He also doesn’t immediately leave the room, though, so Namjoon counts it as a win, and carries on.

“I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

“Why’s that, because you’re inherently untrustworthy, and a stranger in my home?”

“No. I hope I’m very trustworthy, actually.”

Hoseok doesn’t reply, but he also stays where he is, which is as good as asking Namjoon to go on.

“But I am a stranger, in a weird situation, in your home. And - they’re special, aren’t they?” He glances back through the kitchen doorway, like he can see them all standing there. Seokjin, Taehyung, Jimin, Jungkook. Yoongi. “If they were mine, I’d want to protect them too. With everything I had.”

Hoseok’s shoulders are rolled forward, hunching in on himself. He takes a breath, like he’s going to speak, but then closes his mouth again. After a moment, he straightens up. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Fair enough. I’ll leave you to it.”

It feels, weirdly, like progress. At least Hoseok listened to him. He doesn’t like him, and Namjoon truly can’t blame him, but at least they understand each other a little better, maybe. Namjoon knows why Hoseok values these men, this home, so much. And he doesn’t have protective magic, but he thinks he can understand how difficult it would be. How worrying, how destabilizing. It’s hard enough for Namjoon, knowing something’s wrong but unable to fix it, without also having a deep down, instinctive, magic-driven need to protect these people. To make things right.

He manages to remember that that night, too, when it’s Jimin who cracks. It happens suddenly, with no slow boil of annoyance and upset like there is with Hoseok. One moment he seems fine, and the next Taehyung is leaning close, messing with him, teasing, and Jimin’s voice cuts into the gentle chatter around the dinner table with a sharp “Taehyung stop, leave me alone!”

Taehyung snaps back into his own chair, eyes wide, face open with hurt that quickly shifts to irritation. “You don’t have to be mean!”

“I do, if it’ll make you give me my own space for one second!”

It’s shocking to Namjoon - those two are always attached at the hip, always in each other’s business and personal space. The only two who share a room - clearly with something special, beyond what the others share. The only two who came in together, according to Jungkook.

Seokjin, though, just sighs and waves a resigned hand at them both before they can work themselves up further. “Boys. Different sides of the table, please.”

Taehyung is the one who goes, switching with Jungkook. Namjoon wants to reach out to him, be comforting, but it doesn’t seem right. No one else is acting like it’s a big deal.

Jimin frowns at Jungkook. “I can feel you worrying yourself sick from here, stop it, I’m fine.”

“I - I can switch with Namjoon-hyung -”

“No,” Jimin snaps. “Just stop. Eat. Everyone leave me alone.”

They do, in tense quiet. Namjoon watches Jimin, as much as he can without being obvious. His shoulders are drawn up tight, so much so that it looks uncomfortable, making Namjoon roll out his own in sympathy. The shadows under his eyes are only getting darker by the day.

After dinner Jimin apologizes to Taehyung, who wraps him in his arms, and he looks so small - as slight as he actually is, without his power and personality filling the space around him.

Protective magic. Healing magic. There’s an obligation in it, an inextricable pull. Like the pull Namjoon feels towards the garden, maybe, but also so different. Jimin had said he can feel if people in the house are unwell, and Hoseok must be able to feel if they’re under threat. If Namjoon could do either, he’d be tense and sleepless, too. He wonders if the feelings from those two are leaking out into the house, getting shared - if it works that way - or if his own restless sleep, tiredness, unsettled tension is being picked up from the house itself. Or if it’s just himself, his own knowledge of this strange situation that’s making him feel this way.

Like bad things are happening, and worse ones are yet to come.

For a little while, though, things just continue as they have been.

Namjoon works in the garden. Jungkook and Taehyung join him. He jokes around some with Seokjin, trying to make him smile. He brings Jimin cuttings from herb bushes that have volunteered themselves around the place, until Jimin gently tells him he can’t use them, not until they have a better grasp on the magic underlying the garden - too much risk of cross-contamination.

Once every two days, he brings in a new bouquet, leaves it on the dresser in Yoongi’s bedroom.

He tries not to pry into the house, no matter how curious he is about all the things, all the rooms, especially now that he’s figured out who the craftsperson is. He learns little snatches of things about the others, still putting together the puzzles of who they are and how they live their lives in their unusual house.

“I liked the soup Jin-hyung made today,” Taehyung mumbles one afternoon from where he’s sprawled on the grass, soaking up the sun while Namjoon prunes back an enthusiastic lavender bush that has sprung up among the garden beds. “Made me feel all blue.”

“The soup made you sad?”

“What? No? Why would soup make me sad, it’s delicious.”

“I don’t know, maybe it reminded you of something?”

“No?” Taehyung sits up, focusing on him more. “Hyung, I’m confused.”

That makes two of them. “You said it made you feel blue?”

“Oh!!! Oh no, not sad, I don’t get that, blue’s not sad. It’s warm inside. Safe.”

“Oh.” Sometimes Namjoon feels like he mostly has a grip on how Taehyung talks. Other times he’s not so sure.

“That’s your color, too, you know. Blue.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. Yeah.” He drops back down onto the grass eyes closing again, conversational thread apparently at its end.

Namjoon keeps pruning the lavender and takes a moment to consider what it means that he shares a color with soup. He’s not sure. He has a lot of questions, yet again.

“Taehyung-ah?”

“Mm?”

“Do you have synesthesia, do you think?”

“Yeah. I mean, they think I do. Jiminie definitely thinks so, and I trust him.”

“Yeah. You never got diagnosed? I’d assume with…”

“Everything else? No. It was all too - is too - it’s all tangled up. What I can see, and what I see from visions, and what I see from words and thoughts and… it’s messy. And used to be messier. The others helped. Help.”

“Mm. Yeah.” Namjoon’s seen how they guide Taehyung’s thoughts into forms they can understand, forms that let Taehyung communicate what he’s thinking, feeling, seeing.

“You help, too.”

“Really?”

“Mmhm. You’re good at it. Especially for someone new.”

“Oh. I’m glad.”

“Yeah.” Taehyung smiles over at him. “You’re curious? You want to know about it?”

“I’m always curious.”

“I know!” Taehyung’s smile only gets brighter. “I like it. Want me to tell you about it?”

“Yeah, I’d really like that.”

“Okay! Come sit! It’ll be messy, I think. It’s just how I experience things, so it’s hard to describe? But I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Namjoon says, and sits down carefully in front of him.

Taehyung’s so close that he can see Namjoon’s smile - that’s clear from how he leans in, looking intently, then grins in response. It’s a lot, having him that close, smiling like that. Namjoon’s relieved when he sits back a little again.

“Words have colors. Some words. And… people. Concepts. Things overlap. I don’t see them here.” He makes a starburst gesture in front of his eyes. “I just. Feel them? In my mind.”

“Perceive them?”

“Yeah, that, maybe. You - you’re blue. Dark blue, deep, usually. Not like the soup, the soup was brighter. And blue is, mm… blue is other things, too. Other shades. ‘Cause shades don’t repeat. But usually they have things in common. Blue things are blue. Purple things are purple. Like each other.”

“So I’m like soup?”

Taehyung grins at him. “Yeah. Warm! Safe! Like good Jin-hyung soup.”

“Oh. That’s nice. What colors are the others?” It seems like a safer question to ask than ‘I make you feel warm?’ or ‘I make you feel safe?’

“Seokjin-hyung is white. Like, mm… not pure white. Shiny. Colorful. But still white. Like pearls, I think? That’s what Yoongi-hyung said, and Seokjin-hyung likes that. Jiminie is purple. Light purple - lavender? Hoseok-hyung is pink. But not like, roses pink. Not bright roses pink like the ones over there. Soft - not like babies, like… uh, dust? Dusty? That sounds gross. It’s not gross.” Taehyung sighs. “This would be easier if Jungkook was here.”

“Why?”

“He can make the colors, with his music. You’ve seen it! It’s complicated, we have to mess around with it to get things right when I describe them, but he knows everybody’s colors, can just make them if I ask. I’ll get him to do it for you, he’d love that, he loves showing off for you. Oh! He’s gold, you know? Sometimes like fancy, sometimes like glitter… everyone changes, some. But the base stays the same. Yoongi-hyung is silver. Dark, usually, but shining. It’s so pretty.”

“What about you?”

“Green! Deep green. Like that nice-smelling bush you showed me today, kinda.”

Namjoon knows what he means, and somehow it feels right, though he can’t say why. He feels like that about all of them, the colors Taehyung has for them. He wonders if they all know he’s blue. If that feels right to them, too.

“Here,” he says, instead of asking any of the questions on his mind, and presses a big bundle of cuttings to Taehyung’s hands. “You said Jimin is lavender… I know he can’t use this for spells, but maybe he’ll like it anyway.”

“Oh! Hyung, he will, thank you. And I like it, too.”

Later that day, Namjoon sees the cuttings in a vase in Jimin and Taehyung’s room. He likes that. Likes knowing his plants will be in there with them - that they like them. He’d fill every room of the house with flowers, if he thought they’d be welcome. If he thought it was his place to do so. And if he wasn’t so worried about making Jungkook sneeze.

Namjoon and Taehyung are in the garden again when it happens. It comes like a shift in the air, the movement of power - like the beat before the house starts shaking, but different. Like the rushing in of a wave, instead of the rushing out.

Taehyung’s been a little odd ever since the bad night. Odder. Tired and distracted, abstracted. But it’s nothing compared to this. One moment he’s there, chatting away, playing with the big head of a sunflower, smile on his face, and the next he’s gone. Present in body, but like everything else about him has stepped through a doorway to somewhere else entirely. Limbs perfectly still, eyes blown wide, expression blank - and then he throws his head back, and gasps in a breath, and says “Hyung” with a frightening desperation.

“Taehyungie, hey, it’s okay, I’m right here.” He reaches for him, touches his arm, then jerks back as Taehyung startles, struggles. But a moment later Taehyung throws himself at him, grabbing at him, one hand scrabbling at his chest, catching at his shirt, the other digging into his bare arm so hard it hurts.

“Hyung,” he says again, voice still gasping. His eyes are darting around, like he’s following things, but the only thing in front of him is Namjoon. Namjoon, who’s starting to panic a little.

“Taehyung-ah, it’s okay, you’re okay - what’s wrong?”

“Hyung, you have to help - you, you - ah, hyung, it’s -” He makes a desperate noise, pained - panicked - terrified. He moves suddenly, like he might run, and Namjoon catches at him, holds his arms. “Namjoon-hyung, you have to, you have to help. You n, n, and - Hoseok-hyung, please - come - you, together -”

“Shhh,” Namjoon murmurs. “Taehyung, shh, it’s okay.”

“It’s NOT okay!” he exclaims, much clearer, much sharper, and moves so suddenly that he startles Namjoon, breaks away from his hold. He doesn’t get far, uncoordinated, stumbling over his own feet and the edge between grass and walkway. He comes down on the fine gravel and he and Namjoon both hiss. He’s breathing raggedly, little distressed noises coming out on the exhales. Namjoon moves to him, but doesn’t touch him, not yet.

“Taehyung. Tae-ah.” Taehyung throws himself at him again. Namjoon manages to catch him, to gather him into his arms, to encompass him. To hopefully make him feel safe. “Shh,” he soothes again. “Shhh.” Taehyung’s holding onto one of his arms again, not painfully this time - not for Namjoon, at least. He’s leaving smears of blood, though - he must have skinned his palms on the path. At least his breathing is evening out.

“You want to go inside?” Namjoon asks after a few moments, careful and even. “See Jimin?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, voice small. He unfolds enough for Namjoon to help him up, and leans heavily on him as they make their way towards the house.

Jimin’s already at the kitchen door when they come shuffling up the walk. “Taehyung! What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Namjoon answers, fairly sure the question was addressed at him. Taehyung’s sniffling against his side, maybe not up for talking. He reaches a hand to Jimin, who comes down the back stairs to meet him.

“A vision?” Jimin asks.

Namjoon suddenly feels like he might be sick. Because that’s absolutely what it was - of course it was. That explains the rush of power. And how disoriented Taehyung is now.

And Taehyung had been so upset. Is so upset.

And he’d seen Namjoon.

“Want to talk about it?” Jimin asks, running a gentle hand across Taehyung’s cheek and into his hair.

Taehyung shakes his head. “Don’t remember. I’m sorry!” The apology sounds tearful again, and strange for Taehyung - tight and high. Younger than he is. Jimin immediately shushes him, comforting.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to. Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

“Why’s it hurt?” he asks, and the petulant whine in his voice doesn’t cover the fact that he’s afraid.

“You fell on the path.” Namjoon says, and Taehyung whips around, like he’d forgotten he was there.

“Hyung,” he says. “You were… I don’t remember - Jiminie -”

“Shh, baby, it’s okay. Come on inside.”

When Jimin comes to find him later, Namjoon’s stretched out on his back on his bed, feeling exhausted and still a little sick. He sits up immediately, but regrets it. Jimin gives a little grimace like he knows how much Namjoon’s stomach just lurched.

“He’s asleep,” he says, anticipating Namjoon’s question. “He’ll be okay. Nothing wrong beyond the scrapes. Sometimes the visions come easy, but sometimes…” He shrugs. He has that look to his face again - pale, drawn too thin.

Namjoon just nods, unsure of what to say.

“He said he saw you in the vision.”

“Yeah, I - I don’t know. He just said my name. And Hoseok-ssi’s. Nothing else - nothing clear.”

“It could mean a lot of things,” Jimin says. The fact that he’s still trying to be reassuring really only makes it worse - a lot like when he says, yet again, that he’s sure Namjoon’s lingering feverishness will go away on its own. Sometimes, it sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself.

Namjoon nods. It could. It could mean anything. He just doesn’t think any of the infinite options seem very good.

Instead of voicing that - it feels impossible to speak it, horrible - he says “Jungkook said that when you first came, Taehyung was sick. That you both were in danger.” It’s a question, sort of, if Jimin wants to take it as one.

Jimin sighs and folds down into the chair beside Namjoon’s bed, where nobody has sat since he was still so sick, right at the start of this.

“Has Taehyung said anything about it?”

“Not really, no. Except that people did something because of it. Something bad.”

“Yeah. He…” Jimin stops, chews his lip, clearly thinking about the direction to take. “Taehyungie’s visions are never clear. He sees things, but then they go. Mostly he comes away with feelings. Things he’s so sure about, but can’t explain why. The exception is when things are immediate, like at the table a few nights ago. The rest of the time it’s like that, today. And there’s never any telling what they’ll be about, though they’re almost always about himself and the people around him. The people he cares about. Us. But… how much do you know about second sight?”

“Not a lot.”

“Okay, well, most of it is like that. Like how Tae is. I think it’s probably like dreams - happening in a sector of the brain we’re not built to keep track of, so they’re disjointed, hard to keep hold of. But there are ways to direct it. Some seers choose to do it themselves - there are potions, spells. It’s helpful, if they want to put their ability to some use. But it’s also - it’s big magic, reshaping such a primal, powerful thing. It’s a big risk. There are side effects, inevitably. It’s a big decision for a seer to make.”

He pauses, and Namjoon reads it. Knows.

“It can be done to others,” Namjoon says. If it’s a spell, a potion, it can be done to a seer, not just chosen by them.

Jimin nods. “When I was just starting out as a healer, I worked in a clinic, but I’d also take private clients, like most healers do. One night, these men came. And they - I didn’t like them. Not at all. But they offered good money to see someone who was really in need of my help, and I… honestly I thought they might kidnap me or something, but rent was due, and… I don’t know. I had a feeling. Sometimes I can tell, when someone is going to need my help. So I went. And they took me to this place, this…”

He shudders, and Namjoon reaches out; Jimin wraps his small skilled fingers around Namjoon’s long, clumsy ones, and takes a breath.

“And they took me to him. And he was… he was dying. He wasn’t - the way he was today, it was so, so far beyond that. He was barely there in his own mind. It was just the things they were forcing him to see, and nothing else, and the spells were tearing him apart from the inside. And they didn’t care. They just wanted him fixed so he could keep producing visions until it finally killed him. They cared so little that they didn’t even bother to think someone else might - that I might care, beyond the job. But I did. I took him, and I ran. We ran. And ran and ran, until Yoongi-hyung and the others found us. Until the house found us. Even then, I still thought he might die. He was barely hanging on.”

He takes a ragged breath, and Namjoon squeezes his hand. “But he did. He did, and he’s so strong, and so perfect, and I wish the visions didn’t hurt him, but they do. But he’s okay. He’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay, because - because he’s said so. And he doesn’t lie. The visions don’t lie.”

Namjoon wishes he could find that as reassuring as Jimin clearly does.

Chapter Text

There’s not another big shaking episode after that one over dinner, but still, it feels like something has changed. Like everything, everyone, is getting worn thin. Sometimes Namjoon thinks it’s just him, actually - that it’s something that’s shifted in him.

That he’s tired of feeling tired and feverish.

That he knows he doesn’t belong here, that he has another life, another home, and surely his welcome will run out, sure he needs to get back to everything outside the walls of this house.

That he sees what’s at the heart of this, now, and it worries him, deeply, even though he doesn’t even know Yoongi.

But it’s not just him. Everyone is tired. Everyone is on edge. Everyone’s just doing their best.

He’s not sure what spurs it - maybe the others can feel his restlessness, like he can feel theirs. Maybe it’s just an instinct. Maybe Jimin knows how hard he’s been thinking of going home. Maybe there have been conversations when Namjoon’s not in the room, when he’s asleep. Maybe it’s just a whim.

Whatever it is, one afternoon Jimin catches Namjoon in the upstairs hallway after he drops off another bouquet for Yoongi. “Namjoon-hyung,” he says, and Namjoon’s not sure when the ever-polite Jimin started using the more familiar address, but he’s not complaining, either. Now Hoseok is the only one left calling him Namjoon-ssi.

“There’s something I think you should see,” Jimin says. “I don’t know why we haven’t… you deserve to see.”

There’s an edge in his eyes, in his voice. In the tension of his lithe body. Stress. Anticipation.

Namjoon just nods - what else can he do? Maybe whatever it is that Jimin wants to show him will solve at least some of the many questions always swirling around in his head these days.

It doesn’t.

Jimin swings open a door to his right. The frame is unmarked; Namjoon had assumed it was storage, an attic, a workroom, something that didn’t merit marking.

It isn’t.

The room is empty, but flooded with a beautiful, diffuse light. East-facing, he knows, in the same way he knows which plants need water in the mornings. The walls are finely made, paneling in the lower half and plaster above. Not the plain plaster of Jungkook’s room, or the full panelling, the wooden cocoon, of Yoongi’s. More like Jimin and Taehyung’s, or Jin’s, but the wood is different - honey-toned, warm as the sunlight.

Namjoon knows. Even before Jimin says “I’m sorry you have to be in the guest room, but without Yoongi-hyung we don’t have furniture” - even before that, he knows.

“It’s not his,” Hoseok interrupts, before Namjoon can say anything. He’s watching them warily from the hallway.

“Hyung,” Jimin admonishes, but Hoseok just shakes his head.

“There’s nothing in it, Jimin, it’s not ready, you know that, you know how it works. You shouldn’t have shown him, it’s not ours to show, we have to ask hyung what it’s for.”

“But -”

“No,” Hoseok says, simply, and turns around, goes back downstairs.

Jimin sighs, and looks back to Namjoon. Namjoon’s not sure what expression he has on his face - he’s barely sure of where his limbs are, if he’s standing still, if the house is moving around him or if it’s just his swirling thoughts making him feel so disoriented. Whatever his face is doing, though, apparently Jimin doesn’t like it.

“It’s okay,” Jimin says. “It’s all confusing, but. I just thought you’d like to see it.”

Namjoon manages a nod. “Thank you for showing me, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin gives him a smile, but it looks unsure. He touches Namjoon’s shoulder before heading downstairs after Hoseok.

Namjoon looks at the empty doorway. At the room beyond. At the honeyed wood of the wide floorboards and ceiling beams. The big, beautiful windows, looking out at the garden. The light raking across the grey-white plaster of the walls.

He feels it. Of course he does. The whole time he’s been here, the house has opened itself to him. Taken him under its protection, its love. It’s one of the reasons it’s been so hard to think about leaving - that, and the equivalent from the men. Their care for him, their open affection.

The room is different. The room lies before him empty, ready to be filled. The room is perfect.

Jimin hadn’t been able to say it, not in so many words, but he’d known Namjoon would understand.

The room is his.

The room is his, and he never agreed to any of this.

Namjoon isn’t an impulsive person. Quite the opposite. He’s prone to just go with the flow, see what unfolds - and he’s an overthinker, too, which tends to preclude doing things suddenly.

If he were impulsive, he might have gathered his few possessions as soon as he closed the door to the empty room and walked away.

As it is, he asks Seokjin, carefully, measuredly, if they can speak after dinner.

He feels a little bad, talking to Seokjin about it before the others. But there’s something different, in the way the two of them interact. For one thing, Seokjin is his hyung. But there’s also something so steady in him, so thoughtful, mixed in with the high spirits, the silliness, the squeal-squeak laughter.

Seokjin doesn’t seem surprised by the request, so Namjoon in turn isn’t surprised when they settle in Seokjin’s room late that evening and Seokjin says, with no preamble, “I’m not sure Jimin should have shown you the room. We’d agreed not to - that it wasn’t right, with it empty like that. Without Yoongi there, to show you himself.”

They’re in Seokjin’s room - the first time Namjoon has really been inside, not just glimpsed it through the doorway. It’s an odd room, odd in the way Seokjin is. It contains a lot of things at once. Traditional wood paneling is topped by shelves, and some of the shelves hold the paraphernalia of an active magical life - some of Jimin’s potion bottles, a few antique-looking metal objects Namjoon immediately itches to have a look at. They’re mixed in with things more aesthetic than practical, crystals and feathers and the kind of talismans aunties buy at markets for the experience and tradition rather than the usefulness. Most of the shelves, though, are covered not with magical goods, but with plastic collectables, a riot of color, squished in and arranged carefully, like with like. There’s a TV and a little collection of video game consoles in the corner, too - one of those rare hints of real modernity sneaking through, in the ways they do in all magical households, in the way phones will be tucked into satchels beside enchanted scrolls, in the way Namjoon has a mild warding charm permanently stuck to his laptop back home to protect it from spills.

Seokjin watches him taking it all in, and smiles, but it’s a tight sort of thing.

“How does it work?” Namjoon asks, looking at the shelves that perfectly fit Seokjin’s collections, thinking about Jungkook’s soothing simplicity and nest of a bed, the melding of the two styles into ordered chaos for Jimin and Taehyung, the rich minimal beauty of Yoongi’s bedroom, and what Hoseok’s room could possibly be like - and then the house, the power in it, the magic. Its uniqueness. The love in it, engrained in the wood of panelling and furnishing.

“The house makes rooms - you’ve already guessed that, I’m sure. We have our bedrooms, and we always keep one guest room. Sometimes we need more space for guests, and it appears. But the rooms for us, they’re different from the guest rooms. At first, they’re what you saw today. The basics are there, the shape. The panelling, that’s different for everyone. And it’s empty, but then Yoongi - Yoongi and the house - they react. The room gets what it needs. A bed, first. Sometimes we fill in with things we have elsewhere in the house - we have furniture in the attic, things we’ve picked up here and there. But a lot of it, Yoongi makes. Either with the house - things appear - or on his own, by hand.”

“The room usually doesn’t stay empty.”

“No. For Jimin and Taehyung and Hoseok, they had beds the first day. Jungkook was different, because saving him was hard, and Yoongi had to rest. And it was all so new, then, too. We all slept in the same room, because Jungkook was so scared. When he was ready a few weeks later, and Yoongi was feeling better, then they started furnishing.”

“What about you?”

Seokjin shrugs. “I’m different too. I was first. Yoongi didn’t… the house knew what it was doing, it always does, but it was harder for Yoongi. He’d been on his own a long time, much longer than he’d been with the house. So had I. We shared a room, at first, because he wouldn’t let me sleep on the sofa, and I wouldn’t let him, either. Stubborn. Plus, he wasn’t skilled enough to make a bed by hand back then. But eventually he worked out the process for making beds with the house, and he could build shelves of course, and I got this.” Seokjin gestures, and looks around, and Namjoon sees the flash of grief in his eyes before Seokjin hides it away again.

“What do you think?” Seokjin asks.

It’s not exactly what he means, but Namjoon understands the question.

He doesn’t answer immediately, though. Instead he looks at his feet. Thinks. Follows the path he’s already followed a thousand times that day in his mind.

Sees the empty room. Feels it: the draw of it. The rightness of it.

But this isn’t his home. He has a life, a life he’s left quietly languishing for the weeks he’s been here, hosted by these men in this wonderful house. His neighbor is watering his plants, but she’s no expert, and he can’t impinge on her goodwill forever. He told work he’s sick, not that they’d be checking up on him during his sabbatical anyway. He’s supposed to be working on his manuscript. He’s still wearing borrowed clothes.

He didn’t choose any of this. It happened to him. The room is there, waiting for him. The garden’s every leaf shifts towards him, his in the way even his beloved houseplants are not. But the house moves. These men move. They have their own lives, and he has his, and he never chose to join them here.

“I need to go home.”

Seokjin blinks at him, then sighs, and nods. Like he understands. Like he might have expected it.

“The room is there for you. It’s not my magic, but - I don’t think the room will stop being there for you.”

“I don’t want to leave you all - not forever - I - I don’t want that. But I need to go home, hyung.”

“I understand, Namjoon-ah. I do. Even when I sort of knew what I was choosing, walking away from my life and into Yoongi’s - into this house - it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t have predicted the joy it would bring me - the love - the other four. But it still wasn’t easy.”

Namjoon blinks at him, too. He knows Seokjin sees and understands a lot. But he’s also always surprising.

“They’re going to be upset,” Namjoon says. “Taehyung - Jungkook.”

“They are. We all are.”

“Not Hoseok.”

Seokjin laughs, just a soft scoff, not the loud, uncontrolled one Namjoon is so fond of. “Hoseok is complicated.”

“I’m worried about them.”

“They’ll be okay, Joon-ah. They’re stronger than they seem.”

“I know.”

“And besides, you’ll be back.”

Namjoon meets his eyes. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because Taehyung talks about you in the future tense. And because the room is there.”

Namjoon nods. He feels sick. Flushed, a little nauseous.

“We’ll work it out, Joon-ah. Whatever’s going on - we’ll work it out. And until then, it’s not our position to keep you here. It’s not our position to make you, anyone, do anything they don’t want to do. I’ll be there, when you talk to the youngsters. I’ll drive you home.”

“Thank you, hyung.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” And Seokjin steps forward, then - even though he doesn’t usually seek out physical contact like some of the others - he hugs Namjoon, brief, tight.

Telling the others is hard. Worse than hard. They’re shocked, and the confusion on some of their faces in turn confuses Namjoon. Surely they must have thought he would leave some day? He has a whole life beyond the house, beyond the garden walls. Beyond them.

But he remembers the room.

And he remembers the mostly-easy way they all have accepted him into their circle of magic, of warmth. Their circle of other things he doesn’t think he’s ready to name yet - might not ever be ready to name, if he’s walking away.

But knowing the room is there, empty, waiting, also makes him feel itchy and strange, like the discomforting feeling that still lingers around his mostly-healed knife wound.

The first reaction rises out of Jimin and Taehyung - Jimin concerned because Namjoon’s still not entirely well, Taehyung simply upset and confused that he’ll leave.

Seokjin is the one to soothe the two of them, with the voice he uses after the tremors - comforting, stable, gentle. Namjoon stands awkwardly, arms stiff by his sides, heart beating hard, until Jimin bustles off to get him a supply of potions and Seokjin nods at him - nods him towards Taehyung, who is standing across from him, just as stiff and awkward, and looking like he’s trying not to cry.

Namjoon crosses to him, says his name, low, and Taehyung flings himself into his arms. “I don’t want you to go.”

In the corner of his eye, Namjoon sees Seokjin fold Jungkook into a tight hug. He thinks he can hear sniffling, and it feels like another stab in his gut.

Hoseok stands in the doorway, silent, watching, his mouth pulled into its tight little frown. That, at least, is familiar.

“I know,” Namjoon says to Taehyung. “But I need to. And - and I’ll be back, Taehyung-ah. I don’t think I could stay away.” It’s the first time he’s said it, though he knows it to be true.

Seokjin perks his head up a little at that, murmurs something to Jungkook, rubs his back.

“I know,” Taehyung says, in that perfectly confident way of his. “I still don’t want you to go.”

Namjoon laughs softly and holds him tighter.

He can’t just walk away from this place, these men, for good. They’re too important to him, already. And he needs to know. Needs to know that they’re okay. That they’ll thrive. That Yoongi will get better, because he must. That Hoseok will be happier. That the house’s pall of sadness and worry will clear away.

He thinks - hopes - that this might help. Him going. Because him staying hasn’t been helping, has it?

If he can get back to his own apartment, his own bed, his plants, his familiar surroundings, maybe he’ll start to feel better. Less exhausted, feverish. Maybe he’ll go see his regular doctor - not that he doesn’t trust Jimin, but maybe he needs more help.

And since he’s clearly the one making Hoseok unhappy, then him leaving must surely help that. And - he doesn’t like to think it, as much. But he knows his arrival is what set off the problems in the house. He knows Yoongi fell unconscious that day and hasn’t woken up. So maybe Hoseok has been right all along. Maybe if he leaves, things will get better. They’ll be able to solve whatever’s wrong. He can come back, some time in the future - a month. A season. And everything will be better.

Seokjin insists on driving him home. Namjoon says he can just walk - it’s not even that far, less than two miles, a walk he did regularly before all this happened. But Seokjin won’t hear of it. “You have things to carry, Namjoon-ah, and besides…” he peters off, his hands suddenly twisting together.

Hoseok finishes his thought. “We still don’t know what’s out there.”

It’s the first time Hoseok has said anything since Namjoon announced he was leaving. It’s so like him - but it’s also true. A good reminder. They still don’t know what happened. Maybe Namjoon leaving will resolve it, but the fact remains: he was attacked. He doesn’t know why, or by whom. He needs to be careful.

He does have more stuff than he came with. Jimin presses a neatly-organized bag of potions and salves into his hands, way more than he’d need even in a year. And Seokjin gives him leftovers, and a bag of fruit too - because, he says, surely none of the food left in Namjoon’s apartment will be fresh any longer. Namjoon can’t bring himself to disabuse Seokjin’s notion that he might have had fresh food in his apartment to begin with.

He changes back into the clothes he was wearing the day he arrived. There’s still a slash through the coat and the shirt, though the blood is gone. “Sorry,” Seokjin says, as Namjoon inspects the damage to his coat. “Yoongi’s the only one of us who knows how to sew.”

They’re standing in Namjoon’s room, the guest room, as he packs. The mention of Yoongi makes him look up. Out into the hall. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but - he needs to do that, too.

Jimin is the one sitting with Yoongi. When he spots Namjoon he paints on a bright smile that doesn’t ring true, doesn’t cover the dark circles under his eyes or the way his shoulders had been slumped. “Can I…” Namjoon says, and Jimin smiles again, maybe more plausibly this time, and slips out of the room.

Left alone, Namjoon isn’t sure what to say. He wishes he’d thought to pick another bouquet - the one of pinks and willow leaves on the table is still fresh, he only made it the day before, but it feels wrong to have not brought anything. Maybe when he comes back he’ll bring something good from a florist. Or maybe their garden will have yielded up even more wonderful things and he won’t need to.

He clears his throat. Thinks. Tries. “I’m going, Yoongi-ssi. I need to. But I’ll be back. I - uh - I hope it will make things better, maybe. I would like to meet you.”

He pauses again, then bows deeply. “Thank you.”

Taehyung hugs him what feels like about ten times before he goes, even though he keeps repeating that he knows Namjoon will be back, like a reassurance to them both.

Jungkook hugs him once, tight as a clinging vine. He’s very strong, and it hurts a little, but Namjoon just lets out a little cough and hugs him back. “I’ll be back, Kook-ah.” And Jungkook just nods against his chest then retreats to sit on the sofa, arms around his knees. Jimin joins him after also hugging Namjoon goodbye, pressing a comforting hand to his back.

Hoseok, hovering in the front hallway, nods at him.

Namjoon nods back.

And then he’s outside, walking to Seokjin’s little electric car. Walking away from the house. From the garden. From Taehyung, and Jungkook, and Seokjin, and Jimin, and Hoseok, and Yoongi.

Chapter Text

Being home is strange.

Namjoon thought it would be nice. He likes his apartment. It’s not exactly what he would choose if he had all the money in the world - the building’s too new to have character but not new enough to be luxurious, the rooms are a bit small for his collections and his long legs, the shoddily-assembled flatpack furniture is rickety and a bit uncomfortable - but it’s his. He’s always glad to come home when he travels, and it’s a nice place to return to after a busy day, too. To go from being out in the noise and rush of the world, and be on his own, listening to music, reading.

It seems very quiet, now. And very empty. He might like living alone - he knows he likes living alone - but it’s been more than a month. He’s gotten used to being in a home with other people. He tells himself that it’s just like when he comes home from seeing his family at the holidays, but stranger, because the situation was strange to begin with, and lasted so long.

It doesn’t stop the echoey, lonely feeling he gets when he looks at his little rooms and the view of the city beyond. It doesn’t stop him from feeling bad for leaving them behind, even though he knows this is the best choice, the logical choice.

At least he’s back with his plants. At least they lean towards him, the press of their familiarity against his magic. If anything it feels stronger, his connection with them. And he can mostly ignore the thoughts of other plants that leaned towards him, that intertwined with his magic, that grew up from untouched soil, that sat in a blue vase on a hand-carved wooden table and nestled in Taehyung’s wavy hair.

It doesn’t help that he still doesn’t feel good. He’d thought, hoped, that that at least might be better. That sleeping in his own bed would help. Being in his own space. Having his familiar routines, the food he usually eats, the shower he’s used to, his books, his plants, all of it. But his side hurts. He’s tired, no matter how much he sleeps. His head still feels muzzy, not quite right. Like he can’t think as well as he thinks he should be able to. Like something’s off, or something’s just outside the edge of his awareness, or - he doesn’t even know. But it’s not right. A few times, he wakes up sweating in the night. Once when he goes downstairs to fetch a delivery, he feels like he’s going to pass out. On the third day, he calls his doctor, makes an appointment to come get checked out at the end of the week. He isn’t sure how he’ll explain the stab wound, but he’ll figure something out.

He doesn’t get the chance.

The sixth day after he leaves the house, leaves the men, he’s reading by the window in his favorite chair - or, really, scanning the same paragraph for the thousandth time without taking it in - when someone knocks on his door.

It’s weird. Nobody ever knocks. Deliveries message him. His neighbor who checks on his plants texts him. His work friends don’t stop by.

He does, at least, remember to look out the peephole before opening the door. When he does, he’s not sure what to do. What to think.

But he does open the door, and greets shining dark eyes puffy with exhaustion and a triangle-drawn frown.

“Namjoon-ssi,” Jung Hoseok says, then seems to get stuck, just looking at him.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Namjoon blurts out, at the same moment Hoseok finds his voice again and says “You’re sick.”

“I know,” Namjoon says, not bothering to conceal the bite of it. He’s well aware. He feels like shit. His side has been hurting worse today, and he’s so tired of it. Part of him wants to be rude. Hoseok has been rude to him, after all, plenty of times. But still, he steps back. Lets him in, before asking “Why are you here, Hoseok-ssi?”

Hoseok hasn’t even bothered to start taking off his shoes. He just stands there in the entryway and says, words coming out in a sudden, tight-voiced rush, “Please come back, Namjoon-ssi.”

It’s such a surprise that Namjoon feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him, or the words.

Hoseok doesn’t wait for a response, words still rushing like he’s released a dam. “I know you wanted to leave, and I know I didn’t help anything, I wasn’t good to you, I wasn’t kind, but please come back - please - it’s - it’s not better, it hasn’t gotten better, I think it’s worse - I know it’s worse, Jiminie and Seokjin-hyung won’t say but they’re so worried, and the house - Yoongi-hyung - it’s worse.” His voice cracks on the last word, like he really might start crying right there by Namjoon’s shoe rack. But he takes a steadying breath, gets himself together enough to say, almost evenly - “Please come back.”

“Oh,” Namjoon says.

He’s thought about it. Of course he’s thought about it. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He needs more time. He needs to see his doctor. He needs to feel better. He needed them to feel better, too.

“Let me get you some water,” he says, and steps away. Hoseok’s nodding, quiet now, eyes downcast, probably thankful for the moment to collect himself.

Namjoon’s barely halfway across the room when Hoseok shouts “Namjoon! Down!”

And then Namjoon feels it too, just in time to turn away from his windows, and duck, pressed against the wall. A sudden rush of magic, powerful and sharp and dark. And then the push of something else, something he recognizes from the afternoon Hoseok got upset and Namjoon found himself sprawled on the wooden house’s kitchen floor. It’s different now, stronger, powerfully formed - Hoseok’s defensive magic, his shield, enveloping them both in the split second before the sound of shattering glass reaches his ears.

Then Hoseok’s beside him, saying his name, checking him over. Namjoon glances around - his floor is covered in glass, but it stops a foot away from them. And his plants - his plants are different - more, and covering - he can’t take in anything else before Hoseok is saying “We’ve got to go, now, now Namjoon, come on,” and shoving shoes at him.

Another push of something violent and unpleasant hits the inside of his apartment door only a few moments after they shove it shut, and then they’re careening down the stairs to his building’s parking garage.

There’s a familiar little green car sitting in one of the visitor spots.

It goes much, much faster than he thinks it should be able to.

“Uh,” Namjoon says, as Hoseok takes a corner so hard that Namjoon’s pretty sure the two outer wheels lift off the ground. He can feel the shield around them, and also something thrumming through the car.

“Don’t tell Seokjin,” Hoseok says grimly. “I did figure out how to do the turbo charm for fun, but…” His eyes keep shooting to the rearview mirror, but it doesn’t seem like they’re being followed. It’s not like they’re hidden or anything, just shielded, it’s different magic. It’s weird. To attack Namjoon’s place like that, but then not follow through.

Namjoon’s concentrating so hard on making sure they’re safe, and wondering what the hell is happening, that the feeling blindsides him - the feeling, and the awareness that comes with it. “Fuck, Hoseok - they’re coming for the house.”

“What?” Hoseok yelps, looking to him for just a moment, before he lets out a wordless shriek, and Namjoon knows he’s felt it too. The house is under threat. Namjoon can feel it, massing outside the garden walls, trying to force its way in through masonry, above tiles, beyond - below, even? In the soil? For a moment he thinks he might vomit, the feeling of it is so visceral, so unpleasant.

Hoseok beside him looks very pale, breathing ragged.

And then they turn a corner and the familiar garden wall is in sight.

You wouldn’t know anything was happening. There’s no visible dark energy massing beyond the defenses, no shadowy figures forming an attack. Only blue skies and sunshine and an old-fashioned gate. Namjoon feels Hoseok’s power, though, the way it splits through whatever is happening and bangs the gate open, just long enough for the green car to streak through and come to a screeching halt on the drive.

The house, Namjoon notes vaguely as they both pile out, is a slightly different shape than before.

Jungkook is on the front porch, staring at them, before Seokjin pushes past him, yelling “Jung Hoseok, Kim Namjoon, what in the world is happening?!”

“Inside,” Hoseok yells. Screams, really. He rushes up the steps and pushes them inside in front of him, then turns back.

Namjoon is still standing on the drive. He can feel it - so much more, now. The threat of it, beyond the walls. Something is trying to get in. Something that means them harm, terrible harm. Something, someone, that would destroy this place, these men. The house is calling out against it, and - the garden too. The garden doesn’t like it, and the garden is glad Namjoon is back to help. He can feel the plants, reaching for him, for his power. Ready.

“Namjoon,” Hoseok says, and the desperation in his voice shakes Namjoon out of it. Brings him up the steps, and inside.

The others are all huddled in the front hall - all but Jimin, who must be with Yoongi. The house shudders, and Namjoon takes a shaky breath.

“Namjoon-hyung?” Taehyung asks, and his voice is small. Frightened. Namjoon reaches out to him instinctively, gathers him to his chest, and Taehyung comes, and it’s like Namjoon hasn’t been gone at all. Like he’s more here than he’s ever been, because these beautiful, wonderful, loving men are under threat, and he knows he’s not going to let anything hurt them. Not ever.

“Hyung,” Jungkook murmurs to Hoseok, who reaches out to him, too, reaching out to squeeze his hand.

“You’ve been resonating the defenses like I showed you, haven’t you? I can feel it. You’re doing a good job, Kookie.”

Jungkook sighs and rests his head against Hoseok’s shoulder, then says “Taehyungie?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “I don’t know, Kookie.”

That makes Jungkook suck in a breath, and Namjoon tries very hard not to think about what Jungkook must have been asking.

Instead, Namjoon turns to Hoseok, and asks “What do we do?”

Hoseok also shakes his head, then says the words Namjoon is really, really coming to hate - “Something’s wrong. The defenses - the house is still okay. For now. But something’s not right.”

“Upstairs,” Seokjin says. “Jimin will be worrying.”

And that’s how they all end up crammed around Min Yoongi’s bed, sitting on available chairs, leaning on walls, all staring at each other across the quiet, unconscious form in their midst.

Jimin looks terrible. Sleepless, anxious. He frowns in concern at Namjoon, but Namjoon shakes his head. His aching side is the least of their worries right now.

Seokjin and Hoseok and Jimin discuss spells, charms, Taehyung weighing in a bit, too. Jungkook is quiet, eyes big, watching, listening. Namjoon wants to contribute, his mind running along a million different paths, but he’s a researcher, not a practical magician. Even if he did have any ideas, he’d need books and time to figure anything out.

He feels the next pulse of power outside the garden walls deep in his gut, gasps from the force of it. Jimin makes a concerned noise, but then turns away, because the house is shaking and, for the first time, Namjoon sees Yoongi shake with it, too. He’s never seen a seizure in person, and it’s terrible, the twisting of the helpless body in front of him compounded by the abject worry of the men around him, and the pressing fear of what’s happening all around them.

It’s brief - only a small tremor of the house, only a short seizure - but it leaves them all blinking and catching their breath, and quiet, except Seokjin, who’s now sitting beside Yoongi on the bed, stroking his hair, murmuring reassurances that may or may not be directed at the room at large. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

It takes a minute for them to resume their conversation, and it’s more urgent now, but also more frustrated. They’re going in circles, unable to find any way in to a solution, and they all know it, but it doesn’t stop them from talking around and around, and over each other, and increasingly loudly.

Jungkook is the one who breaks the cycle, and the first time he speaks, it’s so quiet the others don’t even seem to register it. Only Namjoon hears the quiet “Hyung.”

The others do stop, in pure surprise, when Namjoon shushes them.

“What is it, Jungkook?” Namjoon prompts.

Jungkook has his eyes trained on Hoseok. “Do you remember - last year - Yoongi-hyung got so sick?”

“Yoongi-hyung got so -” Hoseok parrots back, then gasps and turns to Jimin. “The plant. When I brought home that damn plant.”

“A plant?” Namjoon asks. Surely he’d know if there was something wrong with any of the plants. And he didn’t bring one in, everything in the garden grew - or did it? It was there when he woke up, after all. Maybe he’s wrong. How would he know? But even so, what would a plant have to do with anything, a plant isn’t attacking them.

Jimin, though, has perked up, and turns to Namjoon. “The garden, hyung. Is there anything out in the garden - is there anywhere you don’t go? Any plants you don’t work on?”

“I - no? I don’t… I don’t know.” It feels like he should know. He spent so much time out there. But somehow, he doesn’t.

Jimin pushes past them all, and out of the room. When he comes back a few moments later, he’s holding one of Jungkook’s bigger sketchbooks and a marker.

They all brace a moment later as something happens. It’s not a physical feeling - the house doesn’t move. But it’s not unlike the moment when Namjoon’s windows blew out, and it makes him take a shaky breath, and Jungkook whimper, and Taehyung grasp at the end of Yoongi’s bed. Hoseok, meanwhile, is concentrating hard, eyes closed - when he opens them again, his expression is grim. “They’re using more force. We need to -”

Jimin opens the sketchbook on the table at the foot of Yoongi’s bed. To do so, he has to move that now-familiar blue vase. It still has pinks and willow leaves in it. Preserving charm, Namjoon thinks - surely Seokjin’s work.

“Jungkook-ah,” Jimin says, and hands over the marker.

Jungkook stands with the marker poised above the paper, looks at them - at Jimin, and Namjoon. Namjoon’s seen him draw, he’s quite talented. But this isn’t that.

“Namjoon-hyung, help us draw the garden,” Jimin says. “Tell us about the spaces.”

“I don’t see -”

“Just do it,” Hoseok says.

So he does. He talks about the area outside the back doors, where new flowers come up in the beds among the stretches of lawn. Jungkook knows it well, draws it in, in correct proportions to the vague outline of the house Jimin had already drawn in the middle of the paper. They work around from there, in the same direction Namjoon likes to walk. The traditional garden, with its trees and shrubs and rocks and ponds. The front of the house, the drive, the expanse of lawn. The sunny, secluded corner that would be an ideal herb garden. And the tangle of everything else, the areas Namjoon had slowly been taming. The spreading maple with ferns below. The winding walkway he’d found beneath leaf litter. Everything, everything, except - except.

“What’s in this corner, hyung?” Jimin asks, gesturing at the empty space left when everything else had been described.

“The wall,” he answers, “And - and -”

Behind him, Seokjin curses.

“He didn’t say the purple,” Taehyung says. “Namjoon-hyung, you didn’t say the purple.”

“Purple?”

“Flowers like daisies,” Hoseok says. “But big, bushy - the plants I mean, not the flowers, the flowers were small. Delicate. Lots and lots of them.”

“Asters,” Namjoon says. “That’s asters. There aren’t any asters in the garden.” Too bad, they’re a favorite of his. He loves how wild and abundantly they grow, and their cheerful color as fall starts to get grey.

“Stay inside,” Hoseok is saying.

“What?” Namjoon feels totally lost. He can’t stop looking at that empty space in the drawing. He feels dizzy. It’s too warm in the room. When the next burst of power comes from beyond their defenses, he’s almost knocked over by it.

Hoseok is heading for the door.

“Wait!” Namjoon exclaims. Shouts, probably, to judge from how several of the others jump. “What’s going on?”

Jimin rests a finger on the empty spot in the drawing. “It’s hidden. Trying to avoid our attention. Your attention. Hidden in plain sight.”

“Fuck,” Namjoon says. It was the garden. It was - whatever’s happening, it was there with him, all along.

He moves to the door, too.

“No,” Hoseok says, and raises a hand. Namjoon can feel the edges of shielding raised with it.

“Absolutely not,” Namjoon responds, sharp. “You need me. The garden’s my space. You know that - it’s keeping them from the walls. From the house. I know you can feel it. And whatever’s out there - it’s my garden. I can clear it. It’s not your magic.”

Hoseok just stares at him for a moment, but then he nods, because Namjoon’s right. Of course he’s right.

“The rest of you, stay inside,” Hoseok says. “The house -”

“It will protect us,” Jungkook says. “You’ll protect us. And I’ll keep resonating it. Be careful, hyungs.”

“Be careful,” Seokjin echoes. His voice is different. It’s only the second time Namjoon has really heard the power in it - in him. He always keeps it so carefully under control. But this time, he lets it out. It’s not a compelling - that’s not Seokjin’s magic. But it’s something he wants to make sure they hear. That they understand. He needs them to be careful, to be all right. All the men huddled around Yoongi’s bed, they need Hoseok and Namjoon to be careful.

Namjoon and Hoseok both nod. “We will, hyung,” Hoseok says, and darts forward, kisses Seokjin on the cheek. Namjoon has never seen Hoseok show physical affection for the others like that. Somehow that’s the first thing that makes him feel really, truly afraid.

He only lets himself glance at the others for a moment before he follows Hoseok from the room.

They’re at the back door before Hoseok speaks again. “Most of my power is concentrated on the house. I’ve worked with Yoongi, gotten it into the structure, the wood. We’ll be less protected when we step outside. It’ll just be my own shield.”

Namjoon nods. “The garden’s holding its own, for the moment. Plants are powerful. But I don’t have my own defensive magic.”

“I know. I’ve got plenty for two.”

“Okay.” Namjoon reaches for the door, then turns back, frowns. “The asters. What’s up with the asters?”

“We found you in them,” Hoseok says. “When you were bleeding.”

“Fuck,” Namjoon says.

“Yeah. Fuck.”

It’s as good a note as any to end on. Namjoon puts his hand on the door, and pushes.

Outside is quiet.

Not the right kind of quiet. Not the peaceful quiet of the garden. Still. Utterly. No breeze. No birds. No insects. Nothing.

Namjoon can feel Hoseok’s shields around them, and beyond that - the emptiness of something coming. Of something all around them. He’s never been in a typhoon, but he imagines the eye must be just like this. He looks at Hoseok, then to the corner of the garden. It’s so obvious, now. The way it’s there, but not there. The way it doesn’t want to be seen.

Hoseok nods, and they step down off the back porch together.

Their feet crunch on the pea-gravel paths as they walk, deafening in the silence. Namjoon doesn’t feel like he can take full breaths. Doesn’t think he should. Like it would disturb the balance. But maybe that’s what they want. It must be better than the terrible anticipation in the air.

He can feel it, as they approach the corner of the garden where he’s never been. A path leads there, but his instinct is to turn away. Go look somewhere else, be somewhere else. It’s not a feeling of dread - more distraction. He tries to focus on the plants ahead, and his mind wants to slide away.

“It’s a simple ward,” Hoseok says, his voice low and serious. “We use similar ones on the house, to keep people from thinking too hard about its sudden appearance. But this one is applied unusually.” He’s frowning deeply, squinting at the point they’re trying to reach. “It’s the same as before. That fucking plant I brought home.”

Namjoon nods, and resists the urge to put a supportive hand on Hoseok’s back, like he might for any of the other men.

“It wasn’t like this when you first arrived,” Hoseok goes on. “Otherwise we might never have found you.”

That’s a chilling thought, and Hoseok glances over, giving him a grim smile.

“Then maybe I should go in first,” Namjoon says. “If the ward didn’t work around me.”

“I’m not sure…”

“I’m going in first.”

“No. I’m the one with protective magic.”

“I’m the one with plant magic.” He steps forward, reaches out. There’s a stand of dahlias in front of them, not flowering, but tall - a high fence of green. They lean towards him. He glances back at Hoseok - he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to stop him. So Namjoon touches the closest stems, and they part. He nods, and says a small thank you, and then steps through, knowing Hoseok will follow.

It feels worse, once he’s breached that barrier. What was distraction, misdirection, quickly turns to dread. He takes the first deep breath in some time, and his side twinges. He moves forward.

It’s not the plants. Those lean towards him, like they’re pushed by the slightest breeze. It’s a greeting, or maybe a warning. Even here, in this strange corner of his garden, they’re his plants. They respond happily to his magic - which he sends out, gently, just a breath of it, so that they know he acknowledges them back. Greets them. Regrets not having visited them earlier.

Behind him, Hoseok makes a soft noise. Namjoon looks back in concern, but he shakes his head. “It just feels so much like Yoongi-hyung with the house.”

Namjoon hums. That’s interesting. But maybe not totally surprising. He takes a few steps further forward, and feels Hoseok press closer behind him. Dread is shifting to fear, his heart rate accelerating.

They way is blocked - a hedge of quince rises before them, dense with sunset-pink flowers and long thorns. Namjoon reaches towards it; it doesn’t move.

“Is it…” Hoseok begins.

“Not malicious,” Namjoon replies. “I think it’s trying to protect us.”

He puts his hands into the hedge, deep, up to the wrist. Thorns prickle and scrape. He asks, with urgency behind it, to be let through.

The hedge shudders and shifts. He feels blood rise on his skin. Whole blooms fall off onto the ground.

And then there’s a gap, barely wide enough for a person, and he reaches back for Hoseok, pulls him through.

And there, finally, are the asters. As tall as him, purple-flowered, so enthusiastic in their growth - and amongst them, like scorching, like death, a bare patch of land.

“Oh,” he says.

“Fuck,” Hoseok whispers.

Namjoon can feel it, and he assumes Hoseok must be able to, too. There’s energy in that barren soil - thrumming, and malicious.

Namjoon feels like he might be sick. Like he might faint. When he wavers, though, he feels a solidity behind him - Hoseok, close.

“What do we do?” Hoseok asks.

Namjoon shakes his head - he doesn’t know, this isn’t his life, he’s an academic with a collection of house plants, not a curse-breaker, not even a gardener. But then he closes his eyes. Takes a breath. Feels.

“There’s something under the topsoil,” he says. “Buried. In the middle.” He glances back. “I might need your help getting to it, can you feel those wards?”

Hoseok nods grimly, and steps forward, so they’re side-by-side. “This is our home. I can break them.”

For a moment he’s quiet, breathing shallowly, gaze sharp and considering as he looks at the bare ground - and then he raises a hand in a fluid, precise motion, flicks his wrist, his fingers, and something in front of them, around them, shudders.

Hoseok has to push against it five times before it breaks. When it finally does, he’s panting, flushed, but there’s a satisfaction in his eyes when he turns back to Namjoon, and nods.

They step forward together, and then the ground is alight. Lines of blue flame, dancing around their feet. The asters lean away.

“Fuck,” they say, in unison. Any other time, Namjoon would find it funny.

The flames trace lines - a shape - a sigil. It would take another scholar, a different expertise, to read it, but that’s not what matters, because it’s not a defensive mark, it’s a revealing. It’s clearly what’s powering the terrible, creeping badness that has infected this place - that bursts in Namjoon’s side again, as sharp as a knife twisting there, making him flinch.

“Okay?” Hoseok asks.

Namjoon nods, taking a shuddering breath, straightening up. “Look.”

The sigil radiates out from a point in the middle of the barren earth - a circle left blank, without the flames. He steps towards it, and Hoseok shouts.

The attack comes not from within the circle, but from outside - the same burst of energy as before, in his apartment, dark and shattering. Hoseok raises a shield around them, fast and strong, and they both crouch, sheltering. The flames of the sigil go out within the small dome of the shield, leaving them only with bare earth again. But it doesn’t matter, Namjoon knows exactly where to go. Now that he’s been pointed there, he can feel it. The heart of the wrongness, pulsating, putrid. It’s in the soil. It’s in his soil. Their soil. Outside their house, in their garden.

The fury that shoots through him is like nothing he’s ever felt. Unadulterated feeling, unadulterated power. He plunges his fingers into the soil. Beside him, Hoseok lets out a small noise - maybe anxious, maybe pained. The attack is ongoing - no short burst of assault like before, this is a fight, a battle.

He can feel his own blood in the earth, as though it’s still damp with it. His breath comes in shudders as he scrabbles through it, pushes it away, like digging a hole for a root ball, like burrowing - and then his fingers touch cold. Touch metal.

He brings the knife up carefully, knowing full well that contact with the blade would be a very, very bad idea.

Hoseok blinks at it.

“What do we do?” Namjoon asks.

“Throw it,” Hoseok replies. His voice is hoarse, breathing rough. “I’m - I’ll drop the shield. Throw it. As hard as you can. Towards the walls - over the wall.” They’re not far from it. Only a few feet. Namjoon thinks he can do that. Knows he can - knows he can do anything, if it gets this thing away from them.

They both stand, shaky, cautious, pressed together for support, Namjoon holding the knife as far away from them as he can while keeping it inside the small dome of protection Hoseok has raised around them.

They breathe, in unison. Once. Twice.

“Now!” Hoseok yells, and the moment the shield drops, Namjoon throws.

The knife arcs through the air, towards the wall - cresting its highest point, beginning to fall - it’s gone beyond, he can feel that it’s outside the line of the garden wall, away from them - “Now!” he shouts, too, and Hoseok’s hand flicks.

Plants bow away like in a gale. Tiles fly from the top of the wall. The knife shatters with a burst of purple light and an explosive noise.

Silence. Silence, and then the soft brush of leaves in a gentle, warm wind. Silence, and then a wren cautiously starting up a new song.

Namjoon and Hoseok turn to each other, on the bare dirt, among the asters. Hoseok sways - Namjoon catches his elbow - they look at each other, panting for breath, and then Hoseok presses forward, and kisses him.

Namjoon receives him happily. Easily. Somehow without any surprise. He wraps his arms around him, touches a hand to the back of his head, and kisses him back.

It’s brief, soft. Hoseok’s lips part, and so do Namjoon’s, so their still-short breaths meet, and then they pull away.

“You did it,” Hoseok says.

“We did it,” Namjoon replies.

“It’s gone. They’re gone.”

“It is. They are.” There’s nothing outside the garden walls. And nothing inside, either. Namjoon leans down and kisses him again. Quickly, just a peck on the lips.

Hoseok laughs, and then sways again. Namjoon, still standing with a hand on his waist, the other on his shoulder, catches at him. Namjoon feels depleted, but Hoseok - Hoseok’s used so much power, keeping them safe, today but also for weeks and weeks before.

“You’re okay,” Namjoon murmurs. “Let’s get you inside - let’s go see the others.” The thought thrills in his heart. The others. They’ve protected the others. Seokjin, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook - Yoongi. Yoongi.

Hoseok nods, and they move together, leaning on each other, Namjoon’s arm around Hoseok, hand anchored solid on his waist. Past the asters, which Namjoon reaches out to touch as they pass, hand among the flowers. Thanking them - knowing they’ve been doing their best to keep him safe, keep everyone safe. They can rest now, and grow free.

The quinces have drawn back politely on either side of the path. Namjoon feels their apology for the scratches on his hands, and smiles. Beyond, he can see the roofline of the house. Still there. Still solid. Waiting for them. He pauses to look, and Hoseok does, too, then stumbles as they step forward again; Namjoon only just manages to catch him. His breath is shallow, eyelids fluttering - he’s barely maintaining consciousness.

Namjoon is careful when he sweeps Hoseok up into his arms. He knows Hoseok might not like it, might protest, wants to give him a chance to say no. But instead he just makes a tiny, surprised noise, and then lets his head flop over to rest against Namjoon’s shoulder.

Namjoon laughs, very softly, and steps forward again.

Hoseok is surprisingly light - Namjoon can feel how slight he is, under the bulky, baggy clothes he favors. He’s just one man, desperately trying to keep those he loves safe. Maybe now he can rest.

Maybe now they both can rest. Namjoon is exhausted. He just wants to sleep. But more than that, he wants to be in the house, and he wants to get Hoseok there - back inside, back to the others, back to the love that surrounds them.

Chapter Text

Seokjin and Jimin meet them at the kitchen door, all bustling energy and questions. They can obviously both feel it - Namjoon can see it in their eyes, the knowledge that the curse that has been slowly leaching its infection from that untouched corner of the garden is gone. Lifted. Exterminated.

All he can do is nod at their inquiries - if it really is gone, if those attacking them have fled, if Namjoon and Hoseok are okay.

Namjoon puts Hoseok down on one of the kitchen chairs. He’s coming back to consciousness, somewhat - at least able to hold himself up as Jimin looks him over, though his head bobs like he’ll fall asleep at any moment.

Namjoon doesn’t realize he’s doing the same until Jimin says “Namjoon, sit,” without even looking up from Hoseok.

Namjoon does.

And then Taehyung and Jungkook are there, too, hovering in the doorway, wrapped up in each other, eyes big.

“Tae-ah, Kook-ah,” Seokjin chides, “I told you to stay upstairs.”

“It’s okay?” Jungkook asks.

Namjoon nods. “It’s okay. We did it.”

Taehyung almost knocks Namjoon out of his chair when he throws himself at him, arms around his neck. Seokjin’s burst of concerned, babbling scolding is enough to make Namjoon smile, and laugh. Taehyung presses his face into Namjoon’s neck, and laughs too, relief bubbling out of him. Namjoon threads his fingers through Taehyung’s wavy hair and holds on.

They’re okay. They really might be okay.

Jimin comes to him a moment later, wipes off his scraped hands with a warm damp towel, touches an energy point. “How do you feel?”

“Depleted.”

“How’s your side?”

Namjoon considers. Breathes. “Hurts like hell.”

Jimin raises his shirt and presses a hand there, gentle fingers cool against Namjoon’s flushed skin. “It’s dissipating. I’m sorry I couldn’t fix it before, I -”

“It’s okay, Jimin-ah. You couldn’t know. None of us could know.”

Jimin looks up and meets his eyes; Namjoon squeezes his shoulder, briefly, and gets a tight smile back.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says, sincere and warm, and that gets a better smile, bigger.

Jimin bustles them upstairs not long after. Seokjin holds onto Hoseok, and Jungkook sticks a supporting shoulder under Namjoon’s armpit, wraps an arm around him - which seems unnecessary until a wave of lightheadedness hits him halfway up the stairs.

In the hallway, they start to split, Jungkook and Namjoon to the guest room, Seokjin and Hoseok to the door with the rose-pink on its doorframe, until Hoseok lets out a small, distressed noise, and reaches out.

They all pause, surprise painting itself across Seokjin’s face, and Jimin’s, and Jungkook’s, but not Taehyung’s - Taehyung, in fact, looks pleased with himself, and Namjoon laughs softly at his cat-with-the-cream expression. “You knew, huh?” he asks, as he passes Taehyung, and reaches out to take Hoseok’s hand.

“I thought maybe,” Taehyung says, and then presses forward, planting a kiss on Namjoon’s cheek - or, close to it. Kind of more on the hinge of his jaw.

Seokjin laughs, with a soft “Tae-ah” that makes Taehyung detach, come to snuggle against his oldest hyung’s side.

Hoseok isn’t going to let go. He’s barely keeping above sleep, unconsciousness, but his grip is tight. So Namjoon follows him, supports him on one side while Jimin holds the other.

Their clothes are covered in bits of leaf, flower petal, and lots of dirt. Jungkook manages to disentangle their fingers with soothing, sing-song words to Hoseok, and then he, blushing, and Jimin, businesslike, strip them down, brush them off, put them to bed.

Hoseok again searches for Namjoon, eyes big and soft with sleepiness - and Namjoon reaches for him, wraps an arm around him. Hoseok presses close against his side, head on his shoulder.

How scared he must have felt, in this room, alone, trying to keep them safe from the unseen thing beyond, not knowing what might happen if he lost his alertness for even a moment.

Now, he falls into sleep, and Namjoon follows soon after.

Namjoon wakes with the disorientation of an afternoon nap, with no idea where he is, or when it is. He could have been asleep fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. He doesn’t recognize the simple gray quilt pulled over him, or the room with its dark wood dado, its figurines and framed photos. He does recognize the green hoodie draped neatly over the back of the desk chair, and the mess of dark hair still resting on his shoulder, and the familiar sound of urgent, whispered voices outside the half-shut door.

His stomach gives a lurch of anxiety before he hears the phrase, louder - “Waking up” - and then Seokjin is sticking his head around the door, eyes bright with excitement. “Namjoon-ah, hi - is Hobi-ah awake -”

Hoseok mumbles against Namjoon’s shoulder, and Namjoon shifts him a little, sees his eyes blinking open.

“Loves,” Seokin says, “Yoongi’s waking up.”

Hoseok shoots up to sitting so fast that Namjoon’s afraid he’ll make himself faint. But Namjoon and Seokjin are there to support him, help him out of bed.

The door to Yoongi’s room is wide open, and Yoongi - Yoongi is awake. His eyes are open, blinking, taking in the room, and Jimin and Jungkook are helping him sit up a little against a pile of pillows. Taehyung’s beside the bed, his head on the quilt, holding one of Yoongi’s hands with both of his.

Seokjin slips into the room, coming to stand behind Jungkook, one hand on his back. Jungkook’s crying a little, and leans into Seokjin’s touch.

Namjoon and Hoseok stop in the doorway. Namjoon has an arm around Hoseok again, letting him lean on him.

Yoongi’s been looking at Seokjin and Jungkook, but then he turns his head, just a little movement, and locks onto Namjoon and Hoseok. One of his hands moves, and he hums, and Namjoon frowns, confused.

“He wants to know your name, hyung,” Jungkook says, in a teary little voice that makes Namjoon want to hug him - but Seokjin’s got that under control, and Namjoon has other things to focus on.

“Kim Namjoon,” Namjoon says, and bows.

Yoongi nods his head a little, in his own bow.

Another gesture, and Jungkook says “Seven.”

“Seven,” Yoongi repeats, in a low, rough voice, slow. He just looks at Namjoon for a moment. Namjoon looks back. There’s so much feeling in the room, so much coming from all the men, but this moment - this is meeting Min Yoongi. Really, actually meeting him. And he can feel how the energy moves around them. How the house feels, now that Yoongi has woken up. It reminds Namjoon of how the plants shift to greet him when he walks out into the garden. Shared energy. Love.

“Welcome, Kim Namjoon,” Yoongi says, clearer now, though still rough, still slow. If Namjoon feels this sleepy and disorientated after a nap - after the fight in the garden - how must Yoongi feel?

“Thank you, Yoongi-ssi.” Namjoon bows again, and Yoongi smiles, a gentle tug of his lips into a straight line, pushing back his round cheeks. Namjoon smiles back, just as gentle.

Hoseok, beside him, lets out a little sniff, and Yoongi’s attention snaps to him immediately.

“Hoba,” he murmurs, and reaches for him. Hoseok scrambles across the room, and Jungkook backs up to let him climb into the bed beside Yoongi, bury his face in his chest. Yoongi lets out a breath and reaches up, starts to pet his hair, fingers clumsy but purposeful.

Hoseok really starts to cry, then. Heaving, full-body sobs. He presses his body against Yoongi, and Yoongi keeps stroking his hair. “It’s okay,” Yoongi mumbles, “You did such a good job, Hoba. It’s going to be okay.”

Namjoon feels like he might cry, too, and feels silly, because he isn’t even part of this - but no. He is. He is part of this. These are his people. His friends. His - whatever they are. Yoongi is new - Yoongi being awake is new - but Namjoon is part of this.

Yoongi gives him a gentle tug of a smile over Hoseok’s bowed head, like he can feel him thinking from across the room.

Namjoon smiles back.

Hoseok quiets quickly - clearly exhausted, he stays where he is, pressed against Yoongi, just breathing. Yoongi looks tired, too, despite having just woken up.

“Bath?” Jimin asks.

“Fuck, please,” Yoongi replies, making Hoseok giggle against his chest and Seokjin laugh his windshield laugh.

“There’s my Yoongi-ah.”

Yoongi sticks out his tongue at him, and that makes Namjoon laugh, too.

“Okay,” Seokjin says, clapping his hands like he does when he’s trying to get them organized for dinner. “Kook-ah, our dear muscle bunny, help Jimin and Yoongi in the bathroom. Tae-ah, I need your help changing the bedding in here.”

Yoongi lets out a soft “Mm” of disagreement, and Seokjin turns to him immediately.

“Yoongi-ah?”

“Big bed?”

“Big bed!! Taetae, help me with that instead. Namjoon and Hoseok… eh, just come with us.”

Everyone falls in like soldiers given their orders, and Namjoon finds himself with an armful of Hoseok again. He’s regained some strength, and not as sleepy, but he still leans on Namjoon as he guides him down the hall, to a door Namjoon hasn’t seen open before. Its patch of color is a shimmering, opalescent purple. He touches it briefly as they walk through the doorway, the way he sees the other men do sometimes, and it feels warm on his fingertips. Pleasant. Comforting. He wonders how they get that opalescent effect with the color - he supposes he can ask Yoongi, now.

He and Hoseok end up folded up together on a window seat, watching Seokjin and Taehyung make up a remarkably large bed. Taehyung’s doing the precise work of putting on the sheets while Seokjin comes and goes with armfuls of blankets and pillows. Namjoon recognizes most of them from the others’ bedrooms, a few even from the guest room bed.

“So the big bed,” he says, like a question, and Seokjin smiles at him.

“We mostly use it when someone’s feeling in need of comfort. Like if we’ve been sick, or, you know - when Yoongi’s been struggling.”

“Or when I’ve been having too many visions,” Taehyung says.

“Or when I’m anxious,” Hoseok murmurs. He’s lying mostly on Namjoon’s chest. The only time they haven’t been in contact since waking up - or even before that, since the garden, the knife - was when Hoseok was in Yoongi’s bed. Somehow, it doesn’t feel strange. Not at all. Namjoon reaches up to stroke his sleep-messy hair, behind one ear, and Hoseok melts into the touch.

“We also use it for special occasions,” Taehyung adds, brightly, and Seokjin laughs.

“Tae-ah, he’s still new -”

“I was aware you must fuck,” Namjoon says, and that sets Hoseok off - he laughs so suddenly, so explosively, and with so much of his body that Namjoon almost takes a bony elbow to a very tender place.

Namjoon laughs, too, and holds him tighter to keep him on the seat with him.

“You can fuck us, if you want,” Taehyung says, his tone all innocence, like he’s suggesting sharing a piece of cake, or going on a walk - and then he doubles over laughing, too, as Seokjin slaps him on the back, chiding him loudly.

“Or be fucked,” Hoseok says. “Or all of the above. Or none of the above. It’s all part of… you’re part of…”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says. “I know. I am.” Because it is all -. He is -. Even with all the dictionary of his mind, he can’t think of a word for what he is. What they are. But it’s fine, because he knows it, feels it, and knows he’s part of it.

He looks up from Hoseok, and Taehyung is there. Very close, blinking down at him. “Hyung, can I kiss you?”

“Yeah, Tae-ah. Of course. Come here.”

Hoseok pushes up to sitting, disengages enough to give Namjoon and Taehyung this - this thing that has been floating around the two of them, maybe more than any of them in the house. Namjoon adores Taehyung. Namjoon adores him, and reaches for him. Hand on his face, in his hair. Taehyung, to his surprise, doesn’t touch him. Not yet. He just leans in so close, and focuses on Namjoon below his long, dark lashes, and smiles, and meets his lips.

It’s a long kiss, tender. Namjoon’s fingers tangle in Taehyung’s hair; Taehyung sighs against him. It feels inevitable. It feels beautiful. Namjoon wonders if the sureness of it is how Taehyung feels, when he knows so clearly that the future will be okay.

When they pull away from each other, Hoseok grabs at Taehyung, pulls him close for a hug, a kiss. And beyond, standing just far enough away to seem outside their little circle of fondness, Seokjin is there, too. Watching, and quiet now. Namjoon meets his eyes, and gives him a tentative smile, and Seokjin’s still face breaks into a grin.

“Ya, Namjoon-ah! Don’t turn those dimples on me.”

Namjoon stands up, and Seokjin slips into stillness again as he steps close. “May I, hyung?”

Seokjin nods, and presses his full lips together briefly before Namjoon leans in and kisses him, too. It’s brief, but it’s a promise, and at the end of it, Seokjin chuckles, and pushes at his shoulder fondly. “Charmer.”

“Takes one to know one.”

That brings out the squeaky laugh, and Namjoon grins at him.

“Okay,” Seokjin says, waving him away. “The bed’s ready, you two go lie down already, before you fall asleep sitting up.”

Hoseok does, in fact, look sleepy again, eyelids drooping where he sits on the window seat, Taehyung draped across him like a comfortable housecat.

“Where should we -” Namjoon asks, hesitating above the bed.

“Eh, wherever,” Seokjin says, waving him forward. “We’ll all get comfortable. And nudge you if we have to.”

“I snore…”

“Oh, we know,” Hoseok says, laughing, and prods him towards the bed, Taehyung trailing behind, their hands wrapped together. “C’mon, Joonie, let’s go back to sleep.”

Namjoon’s vaguely aware, a little while later, of other people coming into the room, settling down. Of murmured conversations. Of bodies moving, close to him. Most of all of the comforting feeling, deep inside, that everyone is in one place, together, well.

In the morning, he wakes feeling warm, but pleasantly so, like lying in a sunbeam. There’s an already-familiar, boney-elbowed body pressed against his side, and he opens his eyes to see the top of Hoseok’s head resting by his shoulder. Taehyung is beyond Hoseok, and then the shock of Jimin’s bleached hair peeking from behind Taehyung’s shoulder.

Namjoon turns his head, and at the same time the body on his other side shifts, uncurls, and he finds himself meeting Min Yoongi’s dark, sleepy eyes.

“Morning,” Yoongi mumbles.

“Morning,” Namjoon whispers back. He can see Seokjin on Yoongi’s other side, curled around a barely-glimpsed figure that must be Jungkook.

Yoongi yawns, long and wide, like a cat, and pushes up just enough to glance at the others. “Want to come downstairs?”

“You don’t want to rest?”

Yoongi huffs a half-laugh through his nose. “Had enough of resting. I’m tired of beds.”

And so they disentangle themselves from the bed. Hoseok makes a distressed noise when Namjoon moves, and blinks to half-waking.

“It’s okay, Hoseok-ah,” Namjoon says. “We’re just going downstairs. Go back to sleep.”

And Hoseok hums, and closes his eyes again.

They slide to the foot of the bed, and Namjoon holds out an arm to Yoongi, helps him up. He’s not terribly steady on his feet.

“You’re sure…?” Namjoon whispers, as they move towards the door together, Yoongi shuffling more than walking.

Yoongi nods, giving him a frown Namjoon has a feeling is difficult to argue with.

“My body’s still waking back up,” he says, when they’re out of the room, less likely to wake the others. “I didn’t move for over a month - I’ll be weak. Plus the fucking seizures. I’m sore as hell.”

It makes sense. Namjoon helps him down the stairs, and gets them both settled on the most comfortable of the living room sofas. Yoongi curls at one end, and turns his considering gaze on Namjoon, who finds himself sitting up straight, stiff, like he’s in a job interview.

Yoongi chuckles, then, and shakes his head at him. “Don’t worry. I’m not judging you.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No. Just looking. You’re new, for me.”

“It must be odd.”

“It is, a little. I’m sorry I wasn’t around, for you - I should be, when you come, but -”

“You couldn’t help it.”

Yoongi shrugs.

“Are you okay, now?”

Another shrug. “I think so. Jimin thinks so, too. I’m awake, that’s a good sign. I haven’t had another seizure. And the house feels good. Better, if what Jimin and Jungkook and Seokjin-hyung told me is any indication.”

Namjoon nods. He can feel it. It’s like when you open the windows on the first warm day of spring, fresh air and sunlight flooding in - and maybe you hadn’t even noticed that your rooms had gotten stuffy, stifled, but as soon as the breeze and light reach them, you know things are better.

“What’s it like?” he asks, after a moment of them just sitting in comfortable, half-sleepy silence. “The house, I mean - being connected to it like you are.”

Yoongi frowns, thoughtful. He takes time to think before he says things. Namjoon likes that. “It’s hard to articulate, because it’s part of me. Like the way Taehyung thinks about things, or how Jungkook feels music - it’s like trying to describe what it’s like to have an arm. What do you feel from the garden?”

Namjoon also thinks. Reaches out, feels. “Mm. I know what you mean. It’s there. I can feel it, like part of me.”

“And that’s new for you, right? But for me it’s been years. So it’s just… connected. But I guess - I can feel things. I know things. I know what the house needs. What we need. I know who belongs, because the house knows who belongs, for whatever reason.” His sleepy-lidded eyes lock onto Namjoon for a moment before glancing away. “I don’t control it. It just is - it’s something beyond me. Beyond us. But part of us.”

“Magic’s like that,” Namjoon says. “There’s a thousand different dense, academic theories about why. But I don’t think they explain it. It just is the way it is.”

Yoongi laughs softly. “Yeah. That was hard for me to understand at first. Hard for me to accept. That it could just be true, that I belonged with this place. With these people. That I didn’t have any say in the matter. Seokjin-hyung and I struggled. It was easier with Jungkook. Because he so clearly needed us. The house was so clearly rescuing him. And he’s so easy to love. Hoseok - he felt right. But he’s not always easy.”

Namjoon makes a small sound, not intentionally, and Yoongi gives him a small, wry smile.

“Jimin and Taehyung, that was hard too, because they were a unit. And they were so sick, and so afraid. But, you know. You see. It worked. We all fit. The house knows. It’s - it’s like love. Or it is love. You can’t predict it, can’t control it. And it happens in all sorts of ways, on all sorts of levels - we love each other romantically, but it’s more than that. It’s a bigger kind of love.”

His eyes flick to Namjoon again, and the expression is different. Guarded, or maybe worried. “Fuck, I probably shouldn’t have said that. You’re still so new - you don’t have to love us yet - or like that - or at all -”

“No, hyung - it’s okay. I do. I love all of you.” It’s as sure as the solidity of the couch below them. The house around them. The garden outside, within the protecting walls. As sure as he’s breathing, and the sun’s shining through the windows.

“You barely know me. It’s okay, we’ll get to know each other.”

“I know the house, though.”

Yoongi’s head snaps up, and he stares at Namjoon for a long moment.

“I can feel it,” Namjoon says. “I’m sure we all can. The love in the walls. The love in everything.” He runs a hand along the back of the couch. It feels warm, but not physically. Maybe it’s like the way Taehyung knows things are blue, or purple. He can feel that this place, these people - this man in front of him - are full of love. And they all contribute to it, but Yoongi is at the center, with the house that is part of him.

Yoongi finally nods, and blinks, and Namjoon glances away, giving him a moment - but then looks back. Reaches out a hand. Yoongi takes it, and uses it to pull himself across the couch, until they’re sitting right beside each other. Yoongi’s fingers play with the textured sleeve of Namjoon’s sweater.

“You’re the last one,” he says. “I’ve known it would be seven for a while. Taehyung, too. It’s right. It’s true. We’re seven.”

Namjoon reaches out again. It’s new. Yoongi is new. He’s not sure how he’ll react. But he doesn’t move away when Namjoon touches his jawline - in fact he leans in, just a little, pressing into the touch like a cat that wants to be petted. His lips part before Namjoon is even finished leaning in, and when they kiss it’s deep, intense, something thrilling through Namjoon, electric - right. It’s just all so right. He hadn’t know it was possible for something to feel so right. To know, with bedrock confidence, that he belongs.

“So you’ll stay?” Yoongi asks, when they finally pull away.

“Yeah. Of course.” There's no longer any question.

Yoongi stays close on the couch, curled up, head leaning on the back, knees pressed to Namjoon’s thigh, and they chat. It’s mostly about Namjoon. About who he is, where he came from. There will be things to figure out in the future - whether the house will move again. Whether he’ll keep his job. What he’ll tell his sister about his weird new life. But none of it feels important right now.

They’re interrupted not much later by Taehyung’s voice, calling from the hallway. “Hyung?”

“Which hyung?” Yoongi calls back.

Taehyung comes in looking supremely rumpled, hair all over the place, one hand on the doorway, the other rubbing at his eyes like a sleepy kid. “Oh, you’re here? I was looking for Namjoonie-hyung - he’s not upstairs.”

“I’m here too, Tae-ah.”

“Oh, good - good morning.”

“You searched for him in bed but not for me?” Yoongi asks. It’s deadpan, but Namjoon can hear the tease in it.

“I didn’t have to search. There wasn’t any snoring.”

“Aiya!” Namjoon exclaims, and Yoongi laughs, bright, with a wide, tooth-baring smile Namjoon hasn’t seen before. It’s ridiculously cute.

“I’m going to have Seokjin improve the soundproofing charms,” Yoongi says, still smiling. “C’mere, Tae-ah.”

Taehyung comes around the couch and very intentionally pushes himself right in between Namjoon and Yoongi, making them both laugh. For all his long-leggedness, he folds into the spot until he seems small, head on Yoongi’s shoulder, fingers playing with one of Namjoon’s hands, and sits quiet and sleepy while they talk about the garden.

Yoongi seems tired again, too, so after a little while Namjoon goes quiet and lets them rest. Instead he listens to the sound of the others starting to wake and move around upstairs. When Seokjin appears a few minutes later, he smiles at them then heads right into the kitchen to start cooking. Jimin follows close behind and starts making a range of teas for them all. Hoseok stumbles in right around when the food is ready, saying Jungkook refused to get up.

“Aish, you’re not firm enough with him,” Seokjin says, and goes upstairs to wake up their maknae.

And then they’re all sitting around the table - the first time it’s been all of them, the first time it’s been more than five. Someone was always upstairs with Yoongi. Now they’re all here, and there are seven chairs, and Namjoon wonders if he’s imagining that the table seems a little bigger to accommodate them all.

The meal is relatively subdued. Namjoon keeps catching them all casting glances at Yoongi like they can’t believe he’s really there, or like they’re afraid he’ll go again. They look at Namjoon, too, and Jungkook is sitting very close, so that their knees touch under the table.

There’s a little conversation about what happened. Together they conclude that it was a trap. That Namjoon was stabbed to put him in danger, and thereby to attract the house, and thereby to plant the putrid knife in their midst. It had sunk into the soil after wounding Namjoon, and stayed there, leaching its ill-effects into the house, into all of them. Whoever it was maybe knew, or maybe didn’t, that Namjoon would be the seventh. They certainly knew that the house would come for him, and these men would take him in, and everything would weaken around him.

They don’t know who it was, though Namjoon feels like the others have some ideas - he’ll have to learn more about that, later, if he’s going to help keep the men he loves safe. He supposes they must have made enemies, in their time rescuing magic users from bad situations.

“I’m not sure those particular ones will come back,” Hoseok says. “Not for a long time, at least. Something shattered, when the knife broke.”

Namjoon nods. He’d felt it too, resonating across his magic. He’s never been violent in his life, but he hopes they did harm those people, their assailants. Hopes their magic was too broken to ever recover.

After breakfast, Yoongi disappears back upstairs with Jungkook, apparently headed for a nap. Namjoon settles in the living room, and Hoseok comes with him. Sits in one of the arm chairs, distant, stiff, awkward. When he opens his mouth, it’s clear he’s going to apologize. Namjoon makes a dismissive noise, and reaches for him.

“You were so brave,” Namjoon murmurs, when Hoseok settles beside him on the sofa. “You kept everyone so safe.”

“I acted like an asshole. For weeks.”

“Mmhm. And I would’ve too, in your place.” Namjoon plants a kiss in his hair. “It’s nice having this Hoseok instead, though.”

Hoseok looks up, and smiles at him, and it’s a brilliant, shining thing.

“Namjoon-hyung!!!”

It’s hours later, after lunch, and Jungkook is standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at Namjoon with wide eyes. Taehyung’s behind him, smiling in a way that says he might have been making mischief.

“What, Jungkook-ah? You okay?”

“Taehyungie said you kissed him!”

“Me, too,” Hoseok says.

Jungkook gasps like a soap opera actress taking offense.

“Same,” Seokjin says.

“And me, obviously,” Yoongi says.

“What!” Jimin shouts, and comes stomping out of his workshop. “Not me!”

“And not me!!!” Jungkook reminds them.

Namjoon rests his forehead in his hand for a moment.

“It’s always like this,” Yoongi says. “Welcome.”

Namjoon ignores him, and reaches out to Jungkook and Jimin. “Poor babies. I’m sorry I neglected you - even you, Jungkookie, who’s been asleep almost all morning -”

Jungkook whines, but comes to him anyway.

“He’ll do fine,” he hears Yoongi comment to Hoseok.

Jimin’s the older of the two, so he gets the first kiss. He has to press up on his tip-toes, which is unspeakably adorable, though the glare he locks on Namjoon just dares him to say anything about it. It’s fine. Namjoon will have plenty of opportunities to call him cute. His lips are soft, perfect, not a bit of chapping or rough spot, and Namjoon can feel the fierce power of him when they press together. When he pulls back, Jimin’s grinning at him, and Namjoon laughs, and smiles back.

“Best for last?” Jungkook asks, and steps forward.

“You’re all ridiculous,” Namjoon says.

“But you love us,” Taehyung replies.

Namjoon kisses Jungkook. He doesn’t hit it quite right with his lip ring, feels it knock against his lip and maybe Jungkook’s teeth, but it’s okay. He’s got plenty of time to learn, and they’re all used to him being a little clumsy.

He pulls back, and looks down at them all, gathered around the table, in that welcoming kitchen, that magical house.

“Mm, yeah. That’s true. I do love you.”

Chapter Text

Over the next week, they settle into a different kind of life. One Namjoon assumes is more like how things were before - but now with him in the mix. There’s much more laughter, more music. Worry doesn’t haunt their glances. There are no more hushed, rushed voices in the night. They all sit together at meals, another chair added to the mix, the circumference of the table definitely a bit larger than it was before. The men move, live, in a comfortable rhythm - chatting, laughing, working, kissing, sleeping in each other’s beds - and somehow Namjoon fits into it easily, naturally. Like he’s never fit anywhere before. And around them the house is steady, and warm, and bright.

Namjoon gets to see Hoseok dancing with Jungkook and Jimin, and it’s a beautiful thing. Seokjin and Taehyung go out together to charm the aunties at the market. Jimin stops looking so on edge. Jungkook swings from quiet to chatterbox. Hoseok smiles, so much, so bright. Seokjin’s laugh is ever-present. Taehyung flits around the house, no longer sinking into himself, his worries.

Yoongi sleeps a lot, despite his protestations that he’s had enough rest for a year. But even his sleep is different, because now he curls on his side, hands tucked between his knees, sometimes in his own bed or someone else’s, but often on the sofa, where he’s close to everyone else as they move through their days.

When he’s awake, he and Namjoon talk a lot - not just about everything’s that’s happened, not just about Namjoon settling into the house, but also about magic theory; about hip-hop; about books, and art.

They sit on the floor in Namjoon’s room, and talk about that, too. About how Namjoon might like it to be furnished. About how frightened Namjoon was of the empty space waiting for him, and how sorry Yoongi is that he wasn’t there to help.

It will be a little time, yet, before Yoongi’s recovered enough to channel his magic through the house and make things for the room the way he usually would - conjuring some up, constructing other pieces by hand. So instead, the men work together to move things into the room so that Namjoon start his life there. The bed from the guest room. A fine old table from the attic, surely antique. A deceptively simple chair, all clean lines, blonde wood, that Namjoon knows Yoongi made without having to ask.

Things come from Namjoon’s apartment, too, after the police and fire department give up on investigating the mysterious explosion. Everything has to be inspected carefully, very carefully, before they bring it into their home. Seokjin and Hoseok spends hours with him, by the boarded-up windows of his old home, using charms and protection spells to make sure nothing else has been poisoned by the people who attacked them. But in the end he does get to bring his books, his plants, his art.

His plants are odd, now - different, but not in a bad way. Stronger, both from the burst of energy when they defended him in the apartment and from their introduction to the magic of the house and the garden that surrounds it. Activated, maybe. Somehow more alive. Namjoon arranges some in his room, and some in a conservatory he hadn’t seen before, and assumes has appeared for him - but no, Hoseok lingers in the door, a sliver of his previous pain present in his eyes, and says it was his. Before the bad plant he brought in. The insidious thing, like the knife. Before the household decided it was safest to just destroy all the plants, in order to keep them all safe.

Seokjin drives Namjoon and Hoseok to a nursery, and they select new plants. Ones Hoseok likes - funny-shaped cacti, a bright-blooming succulent. They add them to the shelves Namjoon has left clear in the conservatory, so Hoseok can start growing again, too.

On one of the first days Yoongi spends more awake than asleep, he finds Namjoon and says “I want to see your garden.”

Namjoon feels himself flush, which is a little embarrassing and a little baffling. But as they walk through the house to the kitchen door, he thinks he might understand it.

It’s intimate. The garden really is his, he knows now. Or more than that: it is him. The way the house is Yoongi, the garden is Namjoon. An extension of him, a part of him, a system with him. And it wraps around the house and the men inside it, sheltering, holding - and Namjoon offers his arm to help Yoongi down the steps.

Yoongi looks around first, with the quiet, considering look he has sometimes. Serious. And Namjoon can feel it. Feel the way the house, too, reaches out towards the garden. Connects with it.

The beautiful maple tree close to the kitchen door has grown, and its branches and leaves wave against the walls and the roof tiles. There are passionfruit vines growing up to surround the living room windows now, purple flowers brushing the glass.

The house is alive again, awake, and the garden feels like it has fully awoken, too - and Namjoon is no longer tired, no longer falling into feverish half-sleeps.

Yoongi nods, and they walk forward. They stroll first among the beds and grass near the kitchen door, and Yoongi smiles softly at the riot of color and textures exploding there - and wider when Namjoon tells him how it happens. How he’ll think of a plant, or one of the other men will mention it, and the plants will appear there, hearty and full-grown and blooming, no matter if the season is wrong.

“What will happen in the winter?” Yoongi asks, looking up at a brilliant, towering sunflower that makes Namjoon think of Hoseok.

“I don’t know. I hope things will go dormant. It will be better for them.”

Yoongi nods. “We all need to rest, sometimes.”

The sunflower sways a little, like it can’t decide if it wants to turn to the sun or to Yoongi. Namjoon knows the feeling.

“What flowers do you like?” Namjoon asks.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought much about it before.”

“That’s okay. The garden will figure it out.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Namjoon laughs, because there’s something fond and familiar in it. They both know it’s the same thing, in a way even the others really can’t understand. Yoongi smiles up at him, then grins suddenly, all teeth and gums, and reaches out to poke one of Namjoon’s dimples, which makes Namjoon laugh harder.

“You’re a menace,” Namjoon says.

“So I’ve been told.”

They walk on, slowly, through all the flowerbeds. Yoongi stops to touch things a lot, and leans in to smell - he’s surprisingly like Taehyung in that way, tactile, sensory. Namjoon’s already noticed how he likes to be touching someone else, especially when he’s tired. How he’ll reach out, just the smallest gesture, and another one of the men will know to take his hand. And he’d spent a happy hour in Namjoon’s room the day before, looking at Namjoon’s little collection of magical antiques with him, picking things up, turning them over, inspecting materials, construction. Namjoon is looking forward to when Yoongi gets back into his woodshop and they can really delve into objects together. And he thinks he’ll plant some celosia. Maybe some grasses. Nice things to touch.

They emerge from the flowerbeds and turn towards the traditional garden, and Yoongi pauses, taking it in. “This is nice,” he says.

“I thought you might like it,” Namjoon replies. They’re both interested in the past, after all - in historic forms, craft traditions.

They move closer, and the view opens up beyond the azaleas and the rocks, and Yoongi lets out an “Oh” that sounds punched out of him, stopping so suddenly that it makes Namjoon’s stomach lurch with worry. He looks down in concern, but Yoongi’s just looking at the garden, the pond, eyes wide and shining.

“I like lotuses,” he murmurs, like a revelation. Like he’d forgotten.

And Namjoon looks, and says “Oh,” too - soft.

Yoongi looks up at him, the clutch of his hand on Namjoon’s arm and tilt of his eyebrows forming a question.

“They weren’t blooming, before.”

Yoongi sways into him, and Namjoon wraps an arm around him. The pond is beautifully ornamented with lotus bloom now, pink and white blossoms on the dark, shining water.

When Yoongi shifts again, ready to move on, Namjoon leans down and kisses the top of his head. He’s glad Yoongi is with them, now, and he knows he doesn’t have to say that. That it would only make Yoongi grimace if he did.

“We need chairs,” Yoongi says, as they look over the lawn a minute later. “And barbecue gear. And shade from the sun. A tent?”

“Do you think they’ll stay if we move?”

Yoongi hums thoughtfully, corners of his mouth pulling back as he considers. “I’m not sure we’re going anywhere again.”

That’s a genuine surprise. “Really? The house has always moved.”

“I know. But we weren’t whole, before. And we didn’t have a garden.”

It’s still a revelation, sometimes, to hear them speak of Namjoon as a completion, their final piece. But he feels it, too. The wholeness of it. Of them. “Will we be safe?” he asks. He’s gleaned a bit of why they’ve moved around in the past - not just their rescue missions, but also rescuing themselves. Avoiding attacks like the one a few days before, and avoiding the people who seek to exploit powers like Taehyung’s and Jungkook’s.

Yoongi sighs. “I’m not sure. But I think we’re safer, now, and Hoseok does too. We have the garden around us, for one thing - another layer of protection. We’ll have to see. If we have to, we’ll move again, and the garden will come with us, because it’s you.”

“I’ll go with you. Wherever we have to go.”

“I know. But I don’t want to make you do that. I don’t want to do that. We don’t always have to run. It’s nice here. This feels good.”

Yoongi’s tired, by then - Namjoon can see it, can feel it. But they have a final stop to make.

In the back corner of the garden, among the purple stars of the asters, Yoongi sinks down onto the ground, his long fingers spread on the still-bare soil. Namjoon kneels across from him, and does the same.

Yoongi has said he doesn’t connect with nature the way Namjoon does, but he can obviously feel this. He breathes, eyes fluttering closed, then opening again to meet Namjoon’s gaze.

“You and Hoseok saved us,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, too.”

Yoongi nods, and they sit together in silence for a little while, until it’s time to get up and go back inside, where Jimin is waiting to press cups of tea into their autumn-cool hands and chide them for over-exerting themselves, and Seokjin is clattering around making that blue-feeling soup they all like, and Hoseok and Taehyung and Jungkook are gathered around the table already, chattering happily, laughing loud. It’s noisy and it’s warm and it’s so, so, utterly full of love.