Chapter Text
It's cold in space. That's the first thing Jungkook notices as he tumbles towards Earth. Ice clings to him as he falls, snuffing out his light the further he plummets. The fire that used to cradle him, keeping him warm within their flames, wanes, sparks flying from his skin as he helicopters down, down, down. The space around him shifts at a dizzying pace, a kaleidoscope of colours and lights drench him with each twist and turn.
The earth catches him when he lands, nestling him in a Jungkook-sized crater. He lays there, stunned, as the last embers of his fire burn out around him, the night encapsulating him once the orange has faded to black.
Staring up at the space he just catapulted through, the darkness stretches on for miles before tiny specks of light come to life before his eyes. It takes a moment longer before Jungkook realises he’s looking at stars.
His fire returns, not as a soft glow that fills his body, but a burning behind his eyes, blurring the longer he stares at the only home he’s ever known and barely recognises it.
A star is not supposed to see the night sky from down here. It’s reserved for the watchful eyes on Earth. For the outsiders.
As he views home from an unreachable distance, Jungkook wonders if that makes him an outsider now, too.
His tears are interrupted by a sharp beam of light. It cuts back and forth across the crater before flooding over Jungkook in a white fluorescent spotlight so harsh he has to turn his head away from the brightness.
“Hey,” the owner of the light calls into the night, “are you okay down there?”
The light is unlike anything Jungkook has ever seen. It’s too cold to be natural and his skin crawls with the lack of warmth that encompasses it as it sweeps over him again.
“Sorry,” the man says, shining the torch towards the other end of the crater after Jungkook shies away from it.
A few pebbles shift at the edge of the hole as the man slides down to join Jungkook at the bottom. The crater isn’t overly deep, but steep enough that he stumbles slightly before he reaches Jungkook.
The man mumbles something that Jungkook doesn’t catch, before quickly shucking his jacket off and draping it over Jungkook’s shoulders as he sits up.
“What happened to your clothes?”
Jungkook isn’t sure how to answer that. He’s never worn clothes before; the only covering he’s ever needed was the golden glow of his flames. It’s only now that he’s without them that he realises how vulnerable he is.
The jacket on his shoulders is warm as he pulls it tighter, curling into it as much as he can.
“Are you hurt?”
Jungkook shakes his head. There isn’t so much as a scorch mark or bruise on his skin.
“Do you think you can stand?”
He nods, letting the man help him up and out of the crater.
From here, Earth looks different. It’s still dark, and far too cold, but at the end of the darkness a small house sits, glowing in amber, like a beacon calling to him.
The man guides Jungkook with an arm around his shoulder. It’s unnecessary, but the man's skin bleeds a welcomed warmth through the jacket, so Jungkook lets his touch linger.
The patch of grass in front of them gradually grows lighter the closer to the house they get, the two windows printing on the soil with their warmth. Around them, the night swallows what Jungkook presumes is a large garden. The distant twinkling of stars is the only other light that can be seen.
A slight creak of a wooden door is the single warning Jungkook gets before he’s engulfed in a warmth so consuming he audibly sighs. He hadn’t realised how much he was shivering until his limbs relaxed, the muscles aching from the tension.
“Let’s get you warmed up.” The man offers him a kind smile while he directs him to sit on a wooden dining chair.
It’s hard and cold as he settles into it, eyes following the man as he scurries out of the room. Jungkook misses his warmth instantly.
He takes in the room while he waits. Jungkook isn’t sure what constitutes a nice home, but this one has a flickering candle on the dining table, warm lights glowing beneath the kitchen cabinets, and smells faintly like strawberries. There’s a fluffy rug underneath the table that Jungkook sinks his feet into, warming his freezing toes, and there are fresh herbs growing on the kitchen windowsill. He decides that this must be a very nice home indeed.
“Here.” The man places a pile of folded clothes on the table.
The clothes are soft as Jungkook picks them up and shrugs the jacket off, stepping into the bottoms first.
“Oh—” the man hurries into the kitchen, “I’ll make you some tea.”
By the time Jungkook is fully dressed, he’s considerably warmer and much cosier when he sits back on the chair, grateful for the layer of soft material between his skin and the wood.
When the man hands the mug of tea over to Jungkook, he resists the urge to cry at the delightful warmth filling his hands. The cup is steaming, billowing up into his face and defrosting the tip of his nose. He peers into it and wonders how this man has managed to capture such warmth in a cup. Whatever levels of sorcery he used, Jungkook is grateful that this was the garden he crash landed into.
“My name is Min Yoongi.” The man settles into the chair opposite Jungkook, his own steaming mug of warmth placed on the table in front of him. “Can you tell me yours?”
“Jungkook,” he tries, his voice slightly dry as he speaks.
“How did you get here?” It isn’t an accusatory question, but one filled with concern, Yoongi’s deep voice gentle and eyebrows drawn.
Jungkook doesn’t answer, taking a sip of his drink and relishing at how it fills his stomach with a heat that reminds him of home.
“Where did you come from?”
The answer for both questions is the same, but it’s one Jungkook isn’t willing to give. He’s too afraid the man might banish him back into the dark, cold night if he found out the truth.
“Do you want me to call someone for you? A partner, or a friend?”
Jungkook shakes his head at that. There is no one he could call. They’re all far too out of reach to hear.
“Do you want me to drive you home?”
“I can’t go home.” The admission makes Jungkook’s eyes fill with tears again, Yoongi’s filling with panic in response.
“Okay, um…” he chews on his nail for a moment, observing Jungkook, “You can stay here for tonight. We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”
Jungkook finds himself laid on a sofa in the dark, a fluffy grey blanket adorned with white stars stretched over him. He couldn’t decide whether to giggle or sob when Yoongi had offered it to him.
As kind as Yoongi has been by letting him stay in his living room, the dark is creating an unhappy knot in Jungkook’s stomach. No matter how tightly he curls himself into a ball, he is never warm enough. He makes one single, failed attempt to crawl into Yoongi’s bed with him, searching out the warmth that only another person can offer him. He is promptly shooed away with a deep, nonsensical grumble that has Jungkook returning to the sofa with a pout.
Sleep evades him, his body yelling at him to get up—he has work to do. He tries to ignore it, tossing and turning on the lumpy sofa, hoping that with enough flips he might forget that he’s lost all of his purpose. What’s a star supposed to do on Earth? There’s already enough light down here—there’s no need for his glow anymore.
Yoongi wakes him the next morning with a gentle shake to his shoulder. There’s a steaming bowl of soup waiting for him on the dining table. The food tastes as delicious as it looks, sitting warmly in Jungkook’s belly as he empties the bowl in record speed.
“Hungry?” Yoongi huffs.
Jungkook hadn’t realised how starved he was until the smell had hit his nose.
“It was good.” He scrapes the spoon around the empty bowl, searching for any dregs he may have missed.
“Here,” Yoongi pushes his untouched bowl towards Jungkook, “You look like you need it more than I do.”
“Thank you.” He smiles, digging into the second portion, feeling more like himself with every mouthful.
They don’t speak again until Jungkook’s second bowl is over half empty, Yoongi seemingly content watching Jungkook eat in silence.
“How do you feel this morning?”
“Tired,” Jungkook replies instantly around the spoon.
“Are you hurt at all?”
Jungkook shakes his head.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I didn’t forget.”
Yoongi’s eyebrows twitch slightly as though to frown. It’s a slight movement, but Jungkook catches it before he wipes his expression clean again.
“Last night you couldn’t tell me.”
Jungkook shrugs, tipping the bowl slightly to collect the last of the soup in his spoon. “Didn’t want to.”
“Are you in danger?”
“No.”
“But you can’t go home?”
The last drops land on Jungkook’s tongue, their warmth not protecting him from the coldness that settles within him at the reminder. He shakes his head.
“Where do you want to go?” Jungkook can tell that Yoongi’s trying to be gentle with the question, his voice soft but words clear.
Still, the question confuses Jungkook.
“Can’t I stay here?”
Yoongi huffs out a surprised laugh. “You don’t even know me.”
“Of course I do. You’re Min Yoongi.”
Both bowls are empty, their contents filling Jungkook’s stomach with a fire that feels safe. Then Yoongi smiles, something small that he’s trying to hide, and the fire rises to fill his chest, too.
“Just for a few days.”
✫✫✫✫
A few days turns into a week, and Yoongi hasn’t brought the topic up again. Jungkook feels slightly as though he’s standing on the edge of his crater, toes tilting over the side, waiting for Yoongi to push him back in. But he doesn’t. Instead, Yoongi seems to be adapting to having Jungkook around just as much as Jungkook is welcoming life on Earth.
The sun is bright today. Jungkook’s still learning to enjoy the daytime, to appreciate the light despite the wrongness to it. Normally, he hates this time of day, hates the way the sunlight snuffs out all of the rest of the stars half of the time, hates how the sun is always the main star of the show.
It’s much warmer than it’s been this week and Jungkook thinks he might be starting to get it. He’s standing in the centre of Yoongi’s garden. It’s much larger than it had looked in the dark. Now, it doesn’t seem to end, a landscape of greenery and brightly coloured flowers stretching on forever.
He tips his head back, closing his eyes as the sunlight warms him. It feels different than when the burning was coming from within, but it’s comparable enough that his cheeks bunch up with a wide smile. When he opens his eyes and looks down, the smile only grows as the sun highlights the bare skin on his arms so much that he can almost trick himself into believing the glow is coming from him.
“Yoongi, look!” he calls out to where Yoongi is tending to a flower bed at the other end of the garden. “I’m glowing!”
Yoongi doesn’t say anything back, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face that makes Jungkook glow brighter. When their eyes meet and Yoongi’s smile stretches to his eyes, the heat covers Jungkook’s entire body, seeping into his skin and sparking to life within him.
✫✫✫✫
Over the next few weeks Jungkook learns a lot about himself.
His favourite pastime is to soak in the bath. He discovered this when he’d watched Yoongi washing their breakfast pots and had asked to learn. Yoongi had seemed puzzled by the request, but like everything else Jungkook asks of him, Yoongi agreed.
Washing the pots was fun, but the best part was the water. Jungkook had never experienced that type of heat burning against his skin. He wanted to climb into it, let it cascade over his whole body.
He managed to get both his arms in before Yoongi returned with alarm filling his face. After Jungkook explained, Yoongi hadn’t been able to stop laughing as he dragged him into the bathroom and filled the tub for him.
The heat from the water had paled in comparison to the flickering inside Jungkook’s stomach at Yoongi’s laughter.
He’d also learnt that fire is just as warm when it exists outside of him.
When the sun set, it grew cold inside their small home. Yoongi was always there to light the living room fireplace, keeping them both warm even when Jungkook hogged the spot in front of it.
The flames looked different from the outside, dancing to their own rhythm while Jungkook quickly grew mesmerised by their flicker. Still, the heat that coated his skin felt like greeting an old friend.
On the third night, he had managed to successfully crawl into Yoongi’s bed with him, realising that it was completely impossible to get a good night’s sleep alone. Yoongi hadn’t put up much of a fight, claiming he could hear Jungkook’s pout even in the dark and it was keeping him awake.
Now, he sleeps soundly every night pressed against Yoongi’s chest.
✫✫✫✫
They’ve gotten into a habit of spending the final hour before bed stargazing.
At first, Jungkook couldn’t tear his eyes away from the night sky, aching to be outside the moment dusk fell. There was a longing weighing down his bones, a desperation to reunite with his fellow stars.
After a few days, Yoongi started to join him. Sometimes, music filters from inside the kitchen, but often it’s silent. They share a drink, usually something warm, but Yoongi is trying to slowly introduce his bitter alcohol into the mix. Jungkook doesn’t appreciate it—although it does warm his insides in a different way to the tea he’s grown to love.
Tonight, Jungkook’s mind has been wandering. He can’t focus on the stars; the noise in his head is making his eyes glaze over.
“Why do you live so far away from everyone else?”
From space, Jungkook could never decide if he loved or hated the big cities. The way they sparkled always beckoned him towards them, like the Earth was shining back at him. But the humans living beneath those lights never paid attention to him. Why would they bother when their cities glittered so brilliantly already?
Jungkook always felt the most appreciated in the countryside. Sometimes, when he was shining at his brightest, the people below would gather in large crowds to ogle at him. Laying blankets on the grass so they could stay for hours. Some of them even bought special devices to see Jungkook clearer.
From up there, nothing felt better than having his shine appreciated.
But now that he’s down here, he can’t shake the feeling that the countryside is awfully lonely without the city lights to shield them.
Yoongi doesn’t answer for a moment, contemplating his words. Jungkook has come to learn this about him; he doesn’t speak often, but when he does it is with purpose.
“The city made my head feel muddy,” he eventually says.
Sometimes, when Jungkook was in space, he would eavesdrop on conversations from Earth. Mostly, it passed the time nicely, but sometimes the noise would become too much. Chatter would overlap, conversations mushing into a singular buzzing that grew unbearable. He supposes ‘muddy’ is an appropriate word to describe it.
Still, in comparison, the silence of the countryside is hauntingly quiet.
“Don’t you get lonely?”
It’s been an increasingly growing worry to Jungkook. Not just Yoongi’s loneliness, but his wellbeing in general. It’s obvious to Jungkook that Yoongi lives in solitude, not often venturing outside his house.
He’s been smiling more recently, talking more even when Jungkook isn’t firing questions at him. Jungkook even caught him humming while he was cooking yesterday and while he doesn’t want to claim to be the sole reason Yoongi is in better spirits, he does think that taking care of Jungkook might have given him a new purpose.
Their arms are brushing where they sit almost leaning against one another. Jungkook doesn’t have to move, even when Yoongi links his fingers between his own. Heat seeps from Yoongi’s palm, blanketing Jungkook’s skin and sending sparks at each point of contact. He wants to climb inside it, to live within that warmth Yoongi offers him so willingly.
“Not anymore.” Yoongi doesn’t look at Jungkook while he speaks, keeping his eyes trained on the stars, but Jungkook can see the way they shine more than normal, rimmed with something he quickly blinks away.
Jungkook relaxes into the seat, shuffling down so he can rest his head on Yoongi’s shoulder. His vision turns black as he closes his eyes; the stark darkness no longer frightens him. He’s not relying on the stars for his comfort anymore, not when he has the calming rise and fall of Yoongi’s shoulder beneath him.
At the end of the garden, the ditch Jungkook created when he fell has been filled in and returned to its original state, flowers now blooming in its place. Time has passed, the flowers continued to grow, the stars continued to shine, and at some point, they stopped calling Jungkook home.
Or perhaps, Jungkook simply stopped listening, his home no longer needing to call to him from a lightyear away. Not when it sits beside him, keeping him warm and safe, slowly rekindling Jungkook’s fire one flame at a time.
✫✫✫✫