Chapter Text
Yoongi is crying again. Namjoon savors the precious few seconds he has to soak up the last dredges of sleep. Then he gets up, stretching, and makes the short walk to the five-year-old’s room.
The thing about Yoongi is that he’s the easiest child ever. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t argue, doesn’t even ask him or Jin for anything. In fact, it’s rare that he even talks unless spoken to. Because he’s such a small and well-mannered kid, Yoongi’s screaming nightmares in the middle of the night always manage to terrify Namjoon, even though he’s been taking care of Yoongi through them for about nine months now.
Not that any of this was unexpected. The social worker had specifically spelled out the myriad of issues that Yoongi Min would come with and the reasons for them. It hadn’t mattered. The Kims had been adamant.
“Yoongi-yah,” Namjoon says quietly, closing the door behind him and quickly moving to his son’s bed, where he’s thrashing wildly. He wrestles with the blanket, a thin sheen of sweat visible on his forehead and a cry audible between his spit-slicked pink lips. His whimpers aren’t intelligible anymore.
Then, “Dad…Daddy, help.”
Namjoon’s heart stutters. He picks Yoongi up, careful and kind even as one of his small fists catches him in the chin and his knee lands against his stomach brutally hard. “Yoongi,” he says softly. “It’s okay. You’re okay now. Daddy’s right here, you’re safe.” His lips curve around the words until they blend into something unrecognizable, but Namjoon doesn’t stop reassuring Yoongi. He whispers them into his inky hair and against his cheek and into his palm when Yoongi accidentally smacks Namjoon in the face with his struggling.
Slowly, as if the words have finally penetrated Yoongi’s restless sleep, his pleas for help start fading into soft snores. Namjoon sighs in relief as his own heart rate goes back to a normal pace. He places Yoongi onto the bed, trying to ease his finger out of his son’s death grip.
“D-dad,” Yoongi whispers, holding him tighter. Namjoon freezes.
He clears his throat. “Yes, Yoongi-yah?”
“Stay here,” Yoongi says, tugging at the bottom of Namjoon’s shirt. “Please stay here, Daddy, or they’ll come back for me and take me away. Please stay with me, Daddy.”
“Okay,” Namjoon whispers. His lips can’t help but quirk upwards. This is the first time Yoongi has called him something other than ‘Namjoon hyung’ or ‘sir’ or ‘you’. The first time Yoongi has called him Dad.
The butterflies in his stomach explode as Yoongi snuggles up right on top of Namjoon and tangle his fingers in Namjoon’s blond hair and press his nose into Namjoon’s neck. Yoongi’s feather-light body settles comfortably on top of him, squirming slightly until Namjoon’s arms come to rest on top of his back. The weight is warm and safe, and they stay curled up that way for the remainder of the night and halfway through the day. Jin doesn’t have the heart to wake them.
When Yoongi zombie-walks into the kitchen rubbing his eyes sleepily, Daddy is already halfway through inhaling a bowl of cereal. Jin hyung is in the middle of a snort of laughter, leaning against the kitchen counter. Daddy grins at him like he put the stars in the sky. Yoongi whines softly in the back of his throat to draw attention to himself. A beat later, he freezes in place, ready to apologize for interrupting them.
But neither of them look like they want to punish him. Now both their smiles are focused on Yoongi, brighter somehow. “Good morning, Yoongi-yah,” Jin hyung says. He walks slowly towards Yoongi, giving him the chance to back away. “What would you like for breakfast?”
When he’s close enough, Yoongi extends a cautious hand, silently refusing the hug. Jin hyung’s smile doesn’t falter. He leads Yoongi to the kitchen table and pulls out a chair for him.
Almost impulsively, Yoongi reaches for Daddy, wanting to be safe in his arms like last night. Then his face blanks and he backs away. Father would never hug him or let him sit on his lap.
But Daddy’s smile turns soft. He lifts Yoongi into his lap anyway, keeping a secure arm around him. Quietly, he asks, “What do you want to eat, Yoongi?”
Yoongi shrugs, burrowing his face into Daddy’s shoulder. Father would have asked this as a trick question, and if Yoongi answered he wouldn’t get anything to eat at all. Yoongi thinks Daddy’s cereal looks good, though.
Daddy must be able to read Yoongi’s mind, though. “Do you want cereal?” Yoongi hesitantly points at the bowl in front of him. Daddy simply smiles and starts spooning some into Yoongi’s mouth carefully. Yoongi knows he’s old enough to feed himself and he doesn’t want to get in trouble or be called lazy, so he chews quickly in case someone’s going to start yelling at him and he won’t be able to eat anymore.
No one does. Instead, Jin hyung asks, “How did you sleep Yoongi?” He sits in the chair next to Daddy.
Unthinkingly, Yoongi replies, “Really well after Daddy came to my room.”
The spoon that was about to feed Yoongi clatters back into the bowl. Yoongi recognizes his mistake a second too late. He looks up, expression stricken, to see the shock on Jin hyung’s face.
“Hyung - Namjoon hyung,” he corrects hastily, but the deed is done. Tears start welling up in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - I’m sorry for calling you that, hyung, I’m sorry,” he blubbers.
“Yoongi,” Jin hyung starts, but Yoongi jumps off of Namjoon hyung’s lap and runs out of the kitchen. He goes into his room, burying himself under the covers of his bed. Dread fills his stomach and his breathing stutters, cuts and shortens. There are too many thoughts in his head. They filter out all the happy times he’s had with his new parents and replaces them with memories of Father; memories Yoongi’s spent the past almost-year trying to escape.
“Yoongi? Yoongi-yah, look at me.” The voice cuts through everything, sort of panicked yet strong. Yoongi blearily looks up and vaguely recognizes Namjoon hyung through his tears. “Breathe, Yoongi,” he says, scooping the boy into his large arms. Yoongi wants to fight it, but the punishment only gets worse if he does. He resorts to lying limply in Namjoon hyung’s arms. He has to calm himself down, or Father – no, Daddy - Namjoon hyung will just get angry.
“I’m s-sorry,” he whimpers. Namjoon hyung cradles Yoongi in his arms gently, pressing a kiss to his damp forehead.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says quietly. “I think…Jin hyung and I made a mistake.”
Yoongi goes completely still, then starts sobbing again. “Please, please don’t send me back to Father,” he wails. “Please, I promise I’ll be good, please please please don’t send me back!” Even if Namjoon hyung decides to punish him now, it’ll be better than going back to live with his old parents. At least he’s spent the last nine months safe and relatively happy with his hyungs.
Namjoon hyung looks alarmed. “No, no!” he says. “We’re not sending you back! We’d never do that! Are you crazy, Yoongi-yah?”
“What?” he asks, sniffling.
“We would never, ever get rid of you,” Namjoon hyung says firmly. He presses his thumb to Yoongi’s cheeks, brushing away tears. “Don’t even think that again. We messed up, because we didn’t explain the rules to you well enough.
“Yoongi-yah, when you called me Daddy, I felt really, really honored. I love you, Yoongi. I was so happy that you were comfortable enough with the idea of me being your dad that you called me Daddy instead of hyung. Yoongi, you can call me whatever you want, and Jin, too. The rules are just the normal stuff, like eating all three meals and going to sleep on time and listening to us. There’s no punishment, we would never hit you or – or not let you eat or anything like that -”
“I don’t know the normal stuff,” Yoongi says miserably. “The social worker, I heard her tell you, I’m not a normal kid. She said,” and here he stops to sniffle and hold back more tears, “I’d give you trouble. I’m sorry,” he adds pitifully.
“You’re not any trouble,” Namjoon hyung - Daddy says. He looks very, very serious.“You’re my son.”
“You’re not…mad at me?” Yoongi asks.
“It’s literally impossible for me to be mad at you, Yoongi-yah,” he says, laughing.
Yoongi grins back, tentative. Daddy ruffles his hair affectionately.
“Now come on,” he says, swinging Yoongi up onto his shoulders like it’s not hard and Yoongi isn’t heavy. Yoongi giggles in surprise. “You still have to finish breakfast. That’s a big rule, okay? You always have to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Just tell us what you want to eat.”
Yoongi wraps his arms tight around Daddy’s neck. “Okay. Thank you, Daddy. And, um, like you said before.”
“What?”
“I love you.”