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Swamp Magic

Summary:

Two witches lure Jungkook into their cabin in the woods.

This fic has been translated into Turkish, French, and Russian.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: Cabin in the Swamp

Notes:

This chapter has been translated into Russian.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Jungkook noticed he was lost a bit too late. He’d sung through four songs with the radio before he noticed he’d probably missed the turn. The drive between Robbie’s hunting cabin and the turn back to the main road was usually less than half a song long. He came to a spot where the road split around an old, dead tree and met up back behind to curve off into the piney forest again. The woods opened up there to a disconcerting patch of sky. He maneuvered the truck around, peering back past a truck bed full of landscaping and house-cleaning supplies, and rumbled back down the path, singing to music again.

At about three songs in, he started looking left for the road. At about four in, he started looking for the driveway to the cabin, and at five songs in, he’d slowed to a crawl, very confused. At about seven songs in, he reached another dead tree in the middle of the road, the woods opening up disconcertingly to sky. He turned around and ripped back off down the road, eyes to the right for any kind of turnoff, saw none, and by the time he’d reached the first tree in the middle of the road, which looked frighteningly similar to the other one, same dead bark and branch pattern, there was a cat sitting at the base of the tree, watching him.

She was a beautiful cat, eyeing his car with focused suspicion, long golden fur layered with darker brown, like tiger’s eye, lithe and thin with an unusually long tail.

Jungkook turned around, a little frustrated now, having spent the better part of an hour driving down an empty, dirt road through the woods in the late afternoon, searching for a road he’d never missed before. He turned off the radio. This time, when he reached the end of the road, there was a guy standing there leaning against the tree, straight brown hair hanging down his forehead, swinging something on a string in one hand. Between the weirdly-patterned, woven hoody and the tight, deep green jeans and leather shoes, he looked more like a west coast hipster than the South Georgian, swampy farmland population that lived around there. Jungkook turned the car off, got out, and walked up to him.

“Why do you keep driving up to the tree like that?” The guy said, voice gentle and accent much more smoothly northern than Jungkook’s.

“Huh?”

“You keep coming up and then driving away. If you want to come visit, just come visit, but you know you should really give us a little warning first before you come barging in. We sent in the letter saying we didn’t need landscaping or housecleaning services for the cabin.” His expression was friendly and open, but something about his posture, his cheerful voice, the way he swung that something on a string, seemed a little hostile. He was gorgeous, and Jungkook felt his shoulders curling in a little, fighting the urge to close up defensively and run away, wishing he could hide his scarred cheeks, wishing he didn’t look so sullen.

“I’m—what? I didn’t even know there was a cabin back there. Can you help me find the main road?”

“It’s back the way you came.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but I can’t find it. I just keep ending up driving between these two dead trees in the middle of the road.”

The guy, delicately pretty in a boyish way, especially when he pouted his lips and made a confused face like the one he was making now, tilted his head up to look at the tree. The thing in his hand swung to a stop, and Jungkook could see now that it was a long black stone on a string, set in leather, some sort of new-age-looking hippy shit. “There’s only one tree in the woods like this one,” the guy said.

“Pretty sure there are plenty of dead trees in the woods. It’s winter. Lots of them lose leaves.”

“Leafless, sure, but a dead tree in the middle of the road? Nope. Only one.”

Jungkook stared up into the branches of the tree feeling quite confused. It seemed to be rotting from the top down, branch tips blackened with oddly intentional, patterned cuts straight down the branches. “Am I driving in circles?”

“Nope. It’s a straight road. Ends in a lake just a little way past Robbie’s place.”

“Oh good, you know Robbie’s place. I came from there a while ago. I’ve been driving back and forth but I can’t find it again.”

“You know,” the guy said, “If the tree keeps jumping in your path, maybe you should just drive past the damn tree and come visit. Maybe she’ll let you go after that. Don’t know why she’d want you to, but you are welcome, I guess. You don’t want to get caught out in this end of the woods after dark though. It’s private property for a reason. No hunting.”

Jungkook remembered hearing, once, Owen complaining about a giant goddamn private zone right in the middle of the woods, and the deer seemed to love it.

“What, visit you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t even know you.”

The guy shrugged.

“I’m going to go find the road. Nice to meet you, I guess. See you later.”

He got in the car, drove until he ran into the tree again, and there was the cat, sea-foam green eyes giant in its angular face. Jungkook could have sworn the cat had been at the other tree the first time. There was no way it had run this far that fast, especially without Jungkook seeing it on the road. He wearily turned around and drove another twenty minutes until he hit the first god damn tree again, and there was the cat, again, standing at the base.

Jungkook sat for a good ten more minutes in his seat, too perplexed to panic. The cat stared, tail flicking gently. He turned the truck back on and drove past the tree, giving it as much space as he could possibly manage. In his rearview, he saw the cat leap up into the bed as he drove past her. He didn’t bother stopping.

Another five-minute drive down the muddy road, past a swamp dense with cypress trees, he came to a wide clearing with a worn, brown house in the middle and a wrap-around porch sagging under the moss covering the roof. Pieces of the house were patched together with new boards. Potted plants clogged the porch and green spilled from the open windows. A full field of plants in rows lay alongside the house, short shrubs and ground dwellers up front and tall, gangly, vine-y things in back, something that looked like corn, but red as fall leaves. Off to the left the woods turned into cypress and the ground turned to water. A dock led some twelve feet out into the swamp. Reeds, lilies, and other marshy things stuck up in the shallows. A low wall ran out into the water, protecting a pool around the dock. The place looked like a farm of weeds.

This house had a truck too, a rusted, brown thing, even older than Jungkook’s. The weird guy sat on the front steps, whittling.

“I guess I’m lost?” he said when he walked up. The cat, which had walked beside him from the truck, perched itself comfortably on the step above the guy and regarded Jungkook in a motherly sort of way, which made him feel defensive.

“Sorry about that,” weird guy said, waving an alligator half carved out of the wood. “Guess you’re spending the evening with us. I’m Taehyung, by the way. This is Brandy. She’s not usually very friendly to strangers. Or friends, for that matter.”

“Cool,” Jungkook said, glancing around. It was the middle of January, so slightly chilly, gray sky. They both wore light jackets. Hunting season had ended the week before, which meant most cabins had emptied, but not this one.

“You’re housekeeping, huh?”

He nodded. “Got hired this year to take care of cabins during the off-season. Did it last year too. Do you live here all year?”

“Yeah. We have a place up north, but most of the time we’re here.”

“You don’t look like you’re from around here.”

Taehyung barked a laugh. “You don’t either. We’re all Asian here. Mostly Asian,” he corrected, reaching up and scratching Brandy’s ear.

Jungkook shrugged. “Well yeah, but that’s not what I meant,” he gestured vaguely at Taehyung’s odd clothes. “How long do you think it’ll be before I can drive back. It’s been a long day. I want to go home.”

Taehyung’s expression softened a little. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Cute. Just out of high school? You going to college?”

Jungkook shook his head. “Nah. I don’t really have a future planned out.”

“Cool. I’m twenty-one. So’s Jimin.”

“Who?”

“The other guy that lives here. Come in for dinner. I don’t think you’re getting back tonight.”

The house, for all intents and purposes, looked abandoned on the inside too, floorboards creaking, dust everywhere, walls splintering. It was a jungle, plants layered thick on every windowsill. Another guy emerged from the kitchen, just as beautiful as the first and sparkling with dozens of pieces of jewelry, necklaces, earrings, rings, and bracelets all glimmering against his skin. “Hi. Who’s this?”

“The tree wouldn’t let him leave the woods, so here he is.”

“Oh!” the guy, probably Jimin, said.

“The tree wouldn’t…what?” Jungkook said, rather distracted. One pretty boy he could handle. He didn't see very many around his small town where many people were missing teeth and had spent the first three decades of their life getting wrinkly in the sun. Two was pushing it, especially when this new one had an oversized beige sweater hanging off one shoulder and draping down his thighs and over his fingers. Jimin had soft-looking brown hair the color of coffee and sleepy eyes, pillowy lips, thin shoulders but enough muscle on his chest to fill out of the top of his sweater.

Jimin turned his attention fully to Jungkook and just stared. Jungkook fidgeted, unable to hold his stare. Jimin murmured, “hm. Dinner. Should we let him in the kitchen, Tae?”

“Why not? The tree already jumped in his path like ten times. He’d be kind of stupid not to realize what’s going on by now.”

“I’m stupid,” Jungkook assured him, a little bitterly, “The tree did what? I’m so confused.”

Taehyung began to say something, but his cat jumped up and perched on his shoulder like a parrot, long tail flicking back and forth. Jimin reached out tentatively to pet it and the cat hissed at him. Jimin looked personally offended. “Fine then. C’mon, stupid. Watch me make dinner and you’ll figure it out.”

Jungkook had walked into some weird kitchens before, some old woman’s right before a low country boil, seafood and giant pots spread out over long wooden tables and low stoves, a kitchen right before the preparation of a couple newly shot does, meat and blood and hide, and some stupid spice and tea shop with hundreds of glass jars all over the walls. This one was like all those ones but put in a greenhouse, plants everywhere. He stood and gaped, and that was before Jimin waved a hand over a line of carrots, and they chopped themselves.

“Gotta sit down,” He muttered. Taehyung pushed him into a chair.

Bat wings hanging from the ceiling, jars of beetles and eyes, strands of roots, dried flowers, and talons hanging from the ceiling, little plants with spiky flowers and tendrils that moved like arms, some fern sitting in a sink and generating blue slime. Jungkook’s skin crawled. “What the fuck.”

Taehyung grabbed a jar from the shelf behind him and he flinched, expecting him to spill spiders down his neck, but he just ladled steaming brown water out of a small cauldron, a fucking cauldron, on the stove. Behind him, Venus fly traps in the window looked like they were trying to bite each other. He could see a jar of pickled lizards. Snake skins sat layered in the rafters. He saw, dimly, Taehyung throwing a spoonful of what looked like sugar into the steaming mug and circling his finger over it. The water stirred itself, Jungkook tried to crawl backwards out of his seat as Taehyung approached him with it. “No. No. No. No.”

“Drink this.”

“Fuck off, right now.”

“You need to calm down. It’s tea. Basically. Drink it.” He grabbed the back of Jungkook’s head, cup tipped towards his mouth. Jungkook’s fumbling arms couldn’t figure out how to protect him. The tea tasted a little like pine and flowers as it slid into the mouth he couldn’t close. He drank.

His head cleared like a bolt slamming across his mind. He blinked and took another cautious sip of the tea. “Whoa.”

“Feel better?” Taehyung said, taking a sip of the tea himself. “That’s to clear up shock and reduce panic.”

Jungkook felt the disconcerting feeling of not being able to panic even if he tried. He would have gotten freaked out about it, but physically couldn’t.

“Okay. I feel like that’s bad for me somehow.”

“It would probably kill you in a life or death situation. Cuts off adrenaline and other needed first-response chemicals. However, you’re sitting safely in our kitchen, and we can’t have you freaking out with so many delicate potions around. I’ve been brewing that moonshine for two weeks now.” Taehyung pointed to a glass bulb filled with with silvery fluid that actually glowed like the moon suspended halfway out of a boiling pot of water. “It’s sensitive to negative emotions.”

“Oh. Are you wizards?”

Jimin snickered from where he was frying chunks of meat. “Wizards. I wish.”

“We’re witches,” Taehyung said. “Wizards are more power-oriented. Elemental, almost. They’re more unusual and way more full of themselves. Brandy is my familiar.”

“She’s beautiful,” Jungkook said, and Brady eyed him imperiously from her spot in the rafters. “What does she do?”

“She helps me.”

“Helps you with what?”

“Whatever I want.”

“I have a familiar too,” Jimin said, dropping all the meat into a stew pot. “You should meet her. Bubble!”

In hobbled the cutest, shortest little grey and white munchkin cat with folded ears, short and stout and very small, with a round face and a long fluffy tail. “Oh no,” Jungkook murmured, heart squeezing at the cuteness.

Jimin reached down and scooped her off the floor with one hand, settling her on his shoulder. “This is Bubble,” he cooed, and Bubble rubbed the top of her head up against his chin. “She’s very sweet. She can’t help me with a whole lot because she’s clumsy and she can’t move very fast, but that’s okay. We love her anyway.”

“Can’t climb stairs,” Taehyung snickered.

“Can I hold her?” Jungkook asked. Bubble swung her huge, ice-blue eyes around to Jungkook, and extended a stumpy paw. Jimin handed her off, sweater slipping forward a bit as he leaned over and giving Jungkook a view straight down his chest, rocky and sculpted. Bubble dug a claw into his wrist and he snatched his eyes away. Jungkook couldn’t help but hold her like a baby. She seemed happy with that, paws stretched out and eyes blinking closed, fur thick and fluffy under his fingers.

Jimin got back to work on the soup, still smiling. Taehyung stretched. “We’ve got chores to do this evening. Hope you don’t mind. Got a business to run.”

“Business?”

“Botany,” Taehyung said. “Potions.” He crossed to the other side of the kitchen, stopping a moment to pull Jimin’s sweater back onto his shoulder and brush his knuckles up the curve of Jimin’s neck above the pile of string and chains. Jimin tilted his head to the side to let him. Jungkook yanked his eyes back down to the cat, face burning. Bubble stared up at him, eyes half-lidded, challenging, claws extending a little threateningly. Jungkook scratched her carefully behind the ears, his hand twice the size of her tiny head. She purred and closed her eyes.

He sat in uncomfortable, but forcibly calm silence while Jimin finished cooking. Taehyung had grabbed a tub of harvested plants and was binding them in bundles and clipping them along a line across the ceiling, stretching up on his toes so his sweater rose up a sliver over his tan tummy and sharp hips, his soft-looking brown hair sliding off his forehead. Jungkook felt like a toad in his damaged skin and ratty, over-long hair, the stained work clothes he’d bought at Goodwill.

“Tell me about yourself,” Jimin said when he set a large wooden bowl of stew down on the table next to Jungkook and folding himself down onto a stool, graceful but commanding.

“I do maintenance and house-keeping for unoccupied cabins,” he said. Bubble jumped out of his arms and got primed to jump from Jungkook’s knee to Jimin’s. They both watched her bob up and down, crouching, re-balancing, and crouching again, until she finally popped off Jungkook’s knee and barely made it to Jimin’s, clinging on a cliff-edge. Jimin scooped her onto his lap. She made a nest in the hem of his sweater, which yanked the collar distractingly low.

“Mm-kay. How old are you? You look young.”

“He’s nineteen,” Taehyung said around a bundle of gnarled sticks.

“Sit down and eat, Tae. We don’t need to ship that out for another couple days.” He turned back to Jungkook. “Got any family? Girlfriend?”

Jungkook shook his head, dragging his eyes away from his embarrassingly clunky, muddy boots next to Jimin’s small feet on the clean floor. “The family kind of fell apart when I graduated. They only stayed together because I was still around. I moved out after high school and they kind of scattered. I don’t know what any of them are doing now.”

Jimin gave Taehyung a look that was probably casual but looked suspiciously meaningful.

“Maintenance. Is that fun?”

“No? It’s better than nothing. I’m not that good at it yet. There’s always new stuff I have to learn.”

“Like what?”

“How to fix cars, plumbing, setting beds, clearing underbrush, building and repairing sheds.” He shrugged. “I need to know how to do everything and I don’t.”

“You’re learning?”

“I’m getting pretty well-rounded.”

Taehyung came and joined them, shoveling food in his mouth and cringing with the heat of it. “You’re a handy-man then,” Taehyung said. “Must be useful.”

“I guess. You guys probably do everything with magic.”

They both looked a little frustrated. “To fix things with magic we need to know what it is the magic is doing to fix the thing. We don’t know much about how things are put together. It usually takes a while. I mean, look at this place. We can use magic to hold it together, but we can’t fix it so it’ll do it on its own.”

“Do you need help?”

“Would we have to pay you?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Then no,” Jimin said decisively. Jungkook snorted. Jimin’s eyes flicked coldly up. “Did you know you have a massive pimple on your cheek?” Jimin asked, pointing to the spot on his own glowingly flawless skin.

“Yes, I knew that,” Jungkook snapped, wishing he could pull up his jacket and hide in it.

“I can fix it,” Jimin said with an alluring little smile. “Your skin could be as flawless as mine.” Even with the calming tea, Jungkook felt a bit of a hopeful lurch in his chest, but these were witches, and he didn’t know a lot about witches and their promises, but he’d heard some pretty nasty fairy tales.

“What’s the catch?” Jungkook said.

Jimin looked playfully hurt, slouching against the table next to him. Bubble looked a little squished in his lap. “How mean, assuming I have an agenda. Why wouldn’t I want to help a cute kid like you,” he purred. His voice was enchanting, high and soft, but piercing and a little rough.

“You’re a witch,” Jungkook said flatly, pretty sure that he’d be crawling out of his seat without the influence of the tea. No one had ever called him cute without wanting something from him.

“You’re not religious are you?” Jimin asked.

“No.”

“Okay good.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Not so stupid after all. Get the first floor bathroom working for me.”

Taehyung burst out in excited hooting and nearly spit stew all over the table. Jungkook sat silently and wondered if saving his pride and dignity would be worth refusing, or if he should go ahead and fix the bathroom, no matter how awful, just to satisfy his vanity and get rid of his acne. “Show me the bathroom,” he said tiredly, standing and carrying his bowl out into the living room, which was beginning to darken with the early sunset. Jimin clapped and all the lanterns in the room burst into flame.

“Do you guys have electricity?”

“We have one working outlet in the kitchen where we charge our phones,” Jimin said. “Bathroom is over here. Door under the stairs.”

Whatever charm was keeping the rest of the house warm, it didn’t reach into the bathroom. It was dark and cold. Dirt and leaves covered the floor. “I’m guessing none of this stuff works?” he said, gesturing to the appliances.

“The sink works but doesn’t get any hot water,” Jimin said, “And the bathtub pressure is ridiculous. It’s like a fire hose. The toilet just doesn’t flush effectively.” He had Bubble bundled up in his arms, paws and nose peeking over his shoulder. Taehyung was bumping noses with Bubble, hands on Jimin’s sides to hold him steady.

“Are you two together?” he said, probably because the artificial calm had given him a bit of a loose tongue.

Taehyung shrugged and they both shook their heads, but didn’t bristle and rage like anyone else Jungkook knew, almost like they didn’t mind being asked if they were gay. And maybe they didn’t. Jungkook didn’t know what to make of that except sluggish hope.

“Okay, um, sorry. Can I get some light? And maybe, like, tools?”

“Light?” Jimin asked Bubble, who lit up, white and grey fur glowing intensely. Jimin handed him his glowing cat. Jungkook stared for a moment before cautiously reaching out and taking her. Jimin giggled. Taehyung was still standing behind him with his arms around his waist, and Jungkook could feel himself blushing a little, uncomfortably jealous. Jungkook opened the cabinet to inspect the pipes, feeling a little like an idiot holding a small cat up to see. She gripped his hand with her claws and chirped. He had to put her down on his knee to take his jacket off, dumping it on the floor, and then went back to staring at the piping.

“What is this thing?” Jimin asked, picking it up with two fingers. Taehyung snickered behind him. “I think its camo, but its muddy and faded, so its hard to tell.”

“What thing? Camo? I can’t see it,” Taehyung said. Jungkook’s head hurt with the force of his eye-roll.

Jimin threw his head back and laughed. “It was two dollars at the thrift store,” Jungkook said, a little defensively, “and I needed something warm and sturdy.” He flushed the toilet. It gurgled sadly.

In the doorway, Jimin and Taehyung were whispering to each other. Jungkook cleared his throat. “I think I can fix all of this pretty easily. I have my tools in my truck.”

“I’m adding cleaning the bathroom to the deal.”

“Clea-what? This place is a fucking wreck! That’ll take me all night!”

“Yeah, we used to keep a bunch of plants in here, but they needed more light. That’s why there’s so much detritus. Anyway, if its going to take you all night, get to work.”

“Or I could just fucking go home. You’re probably lying about fixing my skin.”

“Oh I can. Don’t you want to get that gross-looking shit off your face?” Jimin said, “Shame. Is it just on your face, or is it other places too?”

Jungkook came very close to tossing Bubble on the ground, fighting his instinct to curl up and protect himself, hide the bad skin that stretched all the way down his back and across his shoulders.

He stood up, slammed his hands into either side of the bathroom doorframe and leaned close into Jimin’s face, scowling. Neither of them flinched.

“Threatening a witch, little boy?” Taehyung murmured, chin resting on Jimin’s shoulder, “Not very smart.”

“Fuck this,” Jungkook said. “I don’t care enough to deal with this shit. I’m leaving.” He grabbed his coat up from where Jimin had dropped it.

“Don’t go out in the woods,” Taehyung said urgently.

“No. Fuck you. I don’t want to be here.” Panic began to leak through the edges of his mind, panic and a lot of fear.

“You can’t go in the woods,” Jimin yelped, “even in your truck. Things live around here.”

“Fuck that. I’m leaving.”

Behind him, Taehyung whipped a hand out at the same time Jimin stomped on the floor, and Jungkook was shoved off balance at the time time that the carpet grabbed his ankle. He pitched forward into the edge of a table with a sickening crack.

 

When Jungkook graduated high school, he’d moved into the cheapest apartment he could find on the outskirts of his flat, tiny, ugly town, and deleted his family’s numbers off his phone. He started working with the worst kind of redneck named Owen, angry and drunk with a Stetson and a beer gut too large to let him work on cars in his driveway, and knees too creaky to walk up all the steps to the cabins. Now Jungkook did all the work and got one fourth of the pay, but the woods were beautiful, deep and quiet, flat enough to peer off into the carpet of palmettos, green pines and rough brown trunks for acres. The red swamp water looked like iced tea on a hot day, full of graceful roots and sleepy gators. He loved to sit in empty hunting hides in the woods, worn nylon shielding from the hot sun as he smoked, watching deer wander past.

He and the redneck hated each other good-naturedly. Owen talked shit about him to his friends and made racist jokes about Asians. Jungkook laughed at him when he fell down the stairs and hid his glasses from him for kicks, dangled things just out of reach so he had to fight his way up out of his chair to grab them.

But Owen shared his cigarettes and beer if Jungkook brought him weed every week. He’d given Jungkook his old baseball hat when he got the Stetson, faded camo and orange, torn up around the brim. It smelled like sweat and tobacco, but Jungkook loved it anyway. At the end of the day, he could always count on Owen teaching him something or asking about his classmates like he actually cared.

But even though Owen had expected him back around four that afternoon, it probably hadn’t even occurred to him to be worried when he never showed up. Here Jungkook was, skull aching like a white-hot poker through his forehead, hot tears leaking down his face, and groaning pitifully with no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there.

A bright line shone in his eyes. He tried to move his arms to block it and couldn’t. His body felt like a bag of bricks. He tried to shut his eyes tightly but when he opened his eyelids, pain slammed into his forehead. Someone spoke. His lungs burned. He remembered to breath, raking in a few breaths. He tried to yell for help. A desperate groan strangled out of his chest, catching on gasps. His stomach churned with pain.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. You’ll be okay. I’m fixing it. You’ll be fine.”

Slowly the haze began to clear. “You have to drink this.” The edge of a cup pressed against his lip. He tried to close his mouth and couldn’t. “He’s not responding, Jimin.”

“Don’t make him drink that yet. He’s still drooling everywhere. He can’t swallow.”

“Fuck. What if we killed him?”

“Then we plant his body in the woods and make it look like he hung himself. He’s not going to die, Tae. I’ve got this.”

“That’s a lot of blood, Jimin.”

“I’ve got this,” Jimin breathed again. “He’s breathing on his own now, and he’s conscious. That’s good.”

Jungkook could have disagreed with that. He felt like dying. Dying would feel good. Better than getting the red-hot point of an anvil slowly sunk into his forehead.

Something cold and wonderful touched his face, he could feel the pain leeching out of his forehead and whimpered with relief. “Don’t sound so tough now, do ya,” Jimin said, but it sounded tired and affectionate. Jungkook cracked open his eyes to glare at him, and felt more tears slide down his face and into his hair. He could see Jimin above him through a net of glowing gold lines. “You’re adorable,” Jimin said, “Now hold still and let me fix you.”

He closed his eyes and let his brain settle back into his body. “He’s not asleep, is he?” Taehyung asked.

“M’not.” His voice crackled horribly.

“What?”

“I’m not asleep.”

“Can you drink this thing I have for you?”

Jungkook’s stomach rolled with his head. “No way.”

“Please. It’ll help you so much.”

“He’ll be able to sit up in a minute, Tae. Just wait. I’m almost done.”

He heard a high, squeaky meow, and then little paws pressed down on his stomach. “Are you helping, Bubble?” Jimin asked. Bubble climbed up, lay down on his chest, and purred. “Yeah, that’s helpful, I guess,” Jimin said with a sigh.

The pain slowly receded to a bland headache, his whole body aching like a ringing bell, shaking and disorienting. “Done,” Jimin said, and the light about his eyelids snapped off. “Hold still while I clean off the blood.” He felt an odd tickling brushing over his skin, like peeling a facemask off. His shirt dried.

“Get the carpet too,” Taehyung said.

“I’m on it. Hold on.” He felt Jimin moving his arms above him, and then Jimin’s hands pushed through his hair a few times. “I’m going to help you sit on the couch now, and then you have to drink whatever Taehyung gives, you, okay?”

“Okay.”

His head must have been resting in Jimin’s lap, because his pillow shifted and Jimin was pushing him upright. He rolled over, registering some nasty nausea, and tried to stand on his own. Jimin ducked under his arm and helped him to the couch. Taehyung held a small cup of oily, brown liquid up to his mouth. “Oh god, that smells.”

“Drink it.”

He choked it down. His stomach eased. His head cleared more. He realized he was clammy and shaking. “What happened?”

“We accidently both went for you at once and knocked you out on the coffee table. You got blood everywhere. Jimin is really good at healing though, so no permanent brain damage, probably.”

“Is Jimin okay?”

Jimin had curled up on the floor. Bubble stood by his head, sniffing his hair. Brandy was there too, holding a vial in her mouth, tail curved gracefully around her front paws.

“He just needs sleep after that. That wasn’t easy magic.”

“Ugh. I want to go home.”

“Don’t you think magic is cool?” Taehyung said, pouting adorably. Jungkook took another hit to his self-confidence. He had such beautiful eyes, big and glossy, skin as perfect as Jimin’s.

“It’s scary. My head hurts.”

“I have painkiller,” Taehyung said, “but it’ll knock you out for about ten hours.”

“I’ll take it.”

“You should, like, brush your teeth first.”

“I don’t want to move.”

“Brandy, can you go get me some super mint please? I’ll take that.” He grabbed the vial. Brandy scampered gracefully away and came back a minute later with a deep green leaf in her mouth. “Chew. It’s not the same as actually brushing your teeth, but it’ll do enough. Don’t swallow it.”

Jungkook chewed on it. It tasted like the mintiest artificial mint flavor he’d ever tasted. “Ugh, its gross,” he whined, and spit it on the floor.

“You just spit on my fucking floor.”

“You just made me bleed all over your fucking floor, freak.”

And that seemed to get to Taehyung. His lip curled. “If you’re scared, you should be more careful.”

“Yeah, because you might accidentally smash my brains out again.”

“I’ve got other tricks up my sleeve, dipshit.”

“Don’t do that to him,” Jimin said, picking his head up off the carpet. “We just nearly killed him. He doesn’t need you using your weird-ass torture magic on him.”

“I’m not gonna let some kid who just waltzed in here say shit and call me a—”

“I’m fucking trapped here! I never wanted to be here,” Jungkook yelled, and then groaned and lay down, clutching his head.

“Drink,” Taehyung said, tossing the vial at his face. “Sleep it off. I’ll go get some blankets.”

Jungkook swallowed it down. It tasted quiet, somehow, and by the time he fought his boots, coat, and shirt off, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Someone put a pillow under his head and threw a couple blankets on top of him, and then he passed out again.

 

Jungkook was out the door the moment the sun rose above the trees and found the right road just fine early the next morning, ready to never look back. He’d keep his acne if it meant he got to keep his brain inside his skull. He got to work just in time for Owen to greet him at the door with a cigarette clutched awkwardly in the same hand as a beer bottle, and a porn magazine in the other. “Where’s my fucking hat?”

Jungkook touched his messy hair. “Oh shit.”

“Did you lose my fucking hat?”

“It’s my hat to lose, asshole. You gave it to me. And no. Just left it at the place I stayed in last night.”

“You finally get a girl, punk?”

“Nah.”

“You’re a fag, ain’t ya?”

“Dude, really? I say ‘no’ to being with a girl last night, and that’s what you get out of it?”

Owen looked a little ashamed. “Well, you don’t got friends. Figur’d it had to be a girl. If it ain’t a girl, has to be a guy.”

“You can think I’m a fag if you want. I don’t really give a shit.”

Owen gaped like a fish, like he couldn’t understand the concept of not getting defensive over that. Jungkook got a beer from the fridge and joined him on the porch, collapsing into a deck chair. “You okay, kid?”

“Aw, you care?”

Owen bristled. “You gotta do your work for me today, boy, and fuck you if you’re gonna half ass anything because you’re feelin poorly.”

“Got hit in the head pretty hard last night. I’m fine.” The lingering tingle of fear tightened his chest, the shot of ‘I almost died yesterday.’ He felt unusually happy at the punch of adrenaline, remembering the day before when that had been cut off.

“Can’t be too bad. Once I got slammed in the head so hard I couldn’t see straight for a week.”

“That explains some things about you,” Jungkook muttered.

“Huh?”

“Give me a cig.”

The day passed slowly, a headache slowly building behind his eyes. He had to get out of his truck and throw up around lunch, and by the time he pulled up at the end of the day and Owen offered him a beer, he waved it away.

“You’re sweatin’ like a hog, kid.”

“Where’d you put the weed?”

He sat on the porch, one deeply needed bowl in hand, feeling nasty in his two-day-old, sweaty clothes, feeling more than a little delirious. “You gonna go get that hat, kid? That’s my favorite hat, you know. You should be grateful I gave it to you.”

“I am,” Jungkook sighed. “I’ll go get it. I just have to, like, get up the nerve first.”

He had options. One of which did not include sitting there on the porch for much longer while Owen stared at him, as comfortingly familiar and mundane as that was. He could go out to the witch’s house—the witch’s house. What the fuck even…witches?—or he could go home, shower and change, and then head out to the witches house, which would probably mean staying the night again.

He ended up at home, thinking “This was colossally stupid,” as he stared out at the sunset. He collapsed into bed and went to sleep.

Sometime right before dawn, he woke up shaking and miserably hot, stomach rolling. Fuck those fucking witches. He got in the car, gritting his teeth against the aching in his limbs and the headache shaking his sight, and drove out to the tree in the middle of the road. The first rays of sunlight were just hitting the clouds when he rumbled past it. Around the turn in the road, where the swamp should have come into view, he drove right up the old tree again, like it had jumped back in his path. Back the way he’d come there was only road. He stuck his head out the window. “Let me in, fuckass!”

No response. He put his head right down on the wheel and let the horn blare for a few seconds before taking pity on all the wildlife and sitting back in his seat, trying to calm his breathing. Something hit the front of the car and he nearly died of fright.

It was Brandy. She sat imperiously down on the front of his car. He started it and rumbled off down the path again. Taehyung was outside, soft brown hair held off his forehead by a headband, cute little ponytail bouncing on top of his head, which showed the graceful curve of his forehead and intimidatingly sharp eyebrows. He was wrapped up in layers of knitted shawls and scarves, a full basket of a fresh harvest in his arms. Jungkook, feeling a little akin to a dead mouse that Brandy was delivering, stomped out of the car. “I need my fucking hat back.”

“Did you drive here?” Taehyung put the basket down on the ground, looking alarmed. “You idiot.”

Even though his heart was thundering fearfully, Jungkook grabbed him by the frilly, knit poncho and hauled him close. Taehyung’s brown eyes widened. “Listen, you little shit—”

Taehyung grabbed his bare wrists, and his hands burned like hot iron, blazing over his skin. Jungkook screamed and yanked free, expecting to see his skin black and bubbling. It was fine, not even a little red. He tripped over something and fell on his butt, still staring at his wrists. “Don’t threaten witches,” Taehyung said, “It’s not smart—fuck, Jungkook, wait here. I’ll get you some stuff. Just don’t move!”

Jungkook had turned over and retched into the dirt between his elbows, coming up with a little bit of water and the taste of stale beer and stomach acid.

“You shouldn’t have left,” Taehyung said, coming back out with an eye dropper full of dark blue, shimmering potion. “You’re not healed yet. You still have a concussion.”

“Had work.”

“Did you do an entire day of work like this? Damn, you’re tough.” He dripped the blue into Jungkook’s mouth, then lay a leaf across his forehead and muttered something. “Are you casting a spell on me?”

“I’m telling this leaf to help with your concussion. Don’t interrupt.”

Jungkook enjoyed the lovely feeling of all the pain, delirium, and tension fading away, his mind clearing up. “Oh god, that’s so good.”

“Why aren’t you wearing your dumbass coat. It’s cold out here.”

“I think I left it at home. Couldn’t even see straight.”

“Do you think you can walk inside now?”

“Yeah.”

Jimin greeted them inside with a warm blanket, a pot of tea, and a stack of crackers. “Go eat these and lay down for a bit. Do you have work today?”

“I work every day but Sundays. There’s a lot to do right now since everyone just vacated their cabins.”

“Can you call in sick?” he asked, putting a gentle, small hand on Jungkook’s sweaty, nasty forehead. Jungkook flinched violently away.

“Please don’t burn me,” he pleaded, voice shaking.

“I won’t! Taehyung, what did you do to him?”

“He grabbed me. I could’ve done worse. I just did the thing to his wrists a little.”

“Couch,” Jimin instructed like a mom, and then pushed Taehyung back out the doors. “Go pull some weeds or something.”

“You could come help you know!”

“I’ll be out after I get Jungkook taken care of.”

Jungkook was already lying down on the couch, the blanket up around his throat. “Wake me at nine-thirty,” he groaned.

 

He woke, finally sane and sober, to something purring loudly under his chin, and something else rumbling loudly against his stomach. He opened his eyes and put a hand up to feel downy fluff in a small, round bundle up against his neck. “Bubble?”

“Meep!”

Brandy had curled up on his stomach, her long elegant tail brushing against his arm. Taehyung stood above him looking shell-shocked.

Jungkook realized, with a mix of fear and excitement, that he really wasn’t dreaming. While he’d still been delirious, he hadn’t been able to tell. He was definitely awake. Taehyung definitely existed. Witches and magic were real.

“What?”

“I’m just—Brandy doesn’t—She’s sleeping on you!”

“Yeah?”

“She’s never slept on someone that isn’t me. She doesn’t even let me touch her sometimes.”

Jungkook lazily scratched her behind the ears. “She’s a beautiful cat.”

Bubble started mewing loudly, butting her head against Jungkook’s jaw and tapping his neck with her paw.

“Bubble gets really jealous when people give Brandy attention,” Taehyung said. “You’d better pet her.”

He did. She stretched happily. “What time is it?”

“About nine-thirty. I just finished my chores, but Jimin just went out for his. You have to go to work?”

“Yeah.” Brandy slipped away courteously so he could stand, and Taehyung watched her go looking somewhat betrayed. Jungkook stood with Bubble still tucked under his chin and walked out to the front porch.

“You’re going to need a coat. We could give you one.”

“I’ll drive home and get mine. I’m not wearing some crazy knit thing to work on hunting cabins all day.”

“Relax. It’s leather.”

“Deerskin?”

“Nah. Something similar though. I don’t think any normal human would be able to tell the difference. The residual magic might make your day kind of interesting though.”

“I just want my hat back.”

“You’re already late to work, Jungkook, just take the coat.”

“I don’t want to be letting you do any favors for me,” Jungkook said. “You fed me dinner already. I don’t want to owe you any more.”

“Besides all the high level healing magic we used on you? You don’t count that? You’re already heavily in debt.”

Jungkook scoffed at him. “No I’m not. Those weren’t favors. Those were you fixing the damage you both did to my head. I think you still owe me for the trauma. I didn’t know anything could hurt that much.”

Taehyung pouted a little, pulling his bandana-headband down over his eyebrows. He looked about ten years old. “Yeah okay. I’ll go get your hat.”

He came back with the coat too. Jungkook had seen so many deerskin coats in so many hunting cabins, walking around on the backs of his high school classmates and the people living in his town. They were trophies, garish, ugly, brown things with leather fringe, fitted poorly. This was gorgeous, soft tan with fluffy white lining, beautifully paneled, red leaves embroidered along the edges.

“No way. I can’t borrow something like that from you. That’s too much.”

“Not borrow. I wouldn’t ask for it back. It would be better than your old ratty coat that was way too big for you.”

“I feel like I’m making a deal with the devil. You’re going to want me to pay somehow. Whatever it is, I won’t do it.”

“It wouldn’t be hard. You have access to private property around here. There’s a house across the lake with a green roof and a red door—”

“Bill’s place.”

Taehyung nodded. “They have some plants with small white flowers growing by their front porch that blooms all year. They’d never miss it, but I need it, and I can’t get there. You could. You clean their yard, right?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook breathed, “But that can’t possibly be worth that much. This coat looks like it cost hundreds of dollars.”

“I made it myself. Try it on.”

“It probably won’t fit,” Jungkook said hopefully, but he slid his arms into the sleeves anyway. It was tight on his arms and didn’t quite button over his chest. “Yeah,” he said, a little disappointed, but very relieved. “Can’t—”

Taehyung touched it and it molded itself around Jungkook’s body. Taehyung smoothed his hands over the front, and Jungkook took a reflexive step back, unused to guys touching him freely. Taehyung stepped with him.

“I can only do that once on any article of clothing I make. That’s yours now, Kookie. Get me the flowers.”

“That’s stealing. My job is to take care of that house.”

“They won’t even notice. You don’t have to take all of them, just a couple plants. Don’t kill any of them. And drive right back here with it, or it’ll die. Your day off is Sunday, right? That’s tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“Get me the flowers tomorrow morning, then stay and fix the bathroom. We can get all this gross shit off your face. Did you know you’re breaking out really really bad right now?”

Jungkook hadn’t looked in a mirror in days, and hadn’t been paying attention, but he could feel a few little aches, the hot, itchy sort of grimy feeling that came with a breakout after a few days of sleeping poorly and eating garbage. “I’ve had a couple rough days,” he sighed, already trying to shrug into his collar where beautiful Taehyung couldn’t see ugly skin.

Jungkook put his hat on his head, climbed into the truck, and drove to work.

“Where,” Owen said, softly, staring bug-eyed at the beautiful coat, “Did you get that thing.” He’d probably wanted one like it his whole life. Jungkook felt a thrill of vanity.

“I did a favor for the people that live in that house back past Robbie’s place, but I guess he didn’t have money.”

“What the hell did you do to earn that?”

“F-fixed their bathroom?”

“That’s it?”

“It was a mess.”

“Maybe I should go ask to do a few favors for them.”

“Don’t,” Jungkook said, “It’s not worth it.”

“Why?”

Jungkook searched his head for a minute. “They’re gay and really touchy.”

Owen visibly jolted. Jungkook didn’t add that he kind of liked that about them. “Oh. Well. Stay away from them. Don’t want you getting mixed up in that. Nice coat, but don’t put yourself at risk, boy.”

Which was almost sweet in a bigoted, idiotic kind of way.

Taehyung was right about the magic in the coat. Once during the day, he saw a bright red lizard staring at him from inside a log. He could have sworn he saw a buck with an eye in the middle of his forehead a little way off in the woods. He hid in a nearby cabin for a while, the coat sitting the the front coatrack which he sat on the floor in the back of the cabin bedroom, letting the chills leave him.

At the end of work, he was just locking up to go home when he was surrounded by a school of tiny, floating minnows that held little glowing lights in their mouths. One trailed a long string of algae. They must have come right up out of the swamp. They flitted around him, beautiful little flashings of gold light and silver sides. He stood very still, eyes wide open until tears dripped down his cheeks, not wanting to miss a thing. He could have lived his entire life without seeing this, something between twenty and eighty years of mundane, ordinary, dirty life, but here he was in the woods surrounded by floating fish on a cool January night.

He almost wanted to follow them off into the woods, see them glow beneath the red swamp water, but following magical creatures off into the dark has never been a good thing to do. Some small thing with purple fur skittered off the hood of his truck when he walked up. He giggled happily and watched the palmettos rustle as it rushed away.

He fell asleep that night with the coat as a blanket.

 

Right at sunrise, again, he stole the keys to Bill’s place from the work shed and drove out to it. Right up under the porch was a small patch of little plants, flowering even in the thirty-five-degree winter morning. He carefully dug up a couple, put them in a solo cup with extra dirt, and drove straight to the witch’s house with the plants in the cup holder. The tree let him past this time, and Taehyung dropped his basket and sprang up out of the field and ran over to him. Jimin stood out on the low wall in the water, tossing things into the cypress swamp.

Taehyung took the solo cup from his hand, stared at the plant inside, and then grabbed Jungkook by the jaw, waited till he stopped flinching, expecting a burn, and kissed him right on the lips. Jungkook followed him inside in a daze, lips tingling.

“You got extra dirt too! Bless you!” He hauled a large geode down off the shelf, dumped some sand in the bottom, and planted the flowers inside as Jungkook watched. Jimin ran in with a tinkle of silver and jewels, squealed with excitement and gave Jungkook a tight hug around the waist. He pulled back and ran his hands down Jungkook’s coat.

“You gave him this?” he asked Taehyung, “For that?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung muttered, crushing a gleaming white stone in a pestle, which seemed to take a lot of strength and some magical muttering. “Get the water ready for the moonstone.”

Jimin pulled Taehyung down for a happy kiss on the lips that left Jungkook feeling oddly cold. He filled up a bowl of water from a large copper kettle and crushed some dried leaves from a jar into it, and put it back down beside Taehyung so he could dump the moonstone dust into it.

“How did you know the flowers were there?” Jungkook asked.

“A witch lived there a few years ago. She would always taunt us about having them. There’s a magical border still on the place. These are nearly dead now. I thought we wouldn’t be able to save them.” He dumped the water in a tiny can and sprinkled it over the flowers. They glowed.

Jimin came back to the coat, shoving it slightly off Jungkook’s shoulders and examining the interior. Jungkook held his arms out to help. “There are lots of spells sewn into this coat,” Jimin said, running a finger down the inner seam below his arm. Jungkook felt a little thrill of fear. “Here’s one of mine!” He pointed out a little embroidered circle of stitches. “It makes the coat hold warmth better.”

“He put some charms in the hem around the base,” Taehyung said. “Water resistance, some shielding capabilities. Did you see any weird animals out there yesterday?”

“A school of glowing fish!” Jungkook said, lighting up despite himself. Jimin and Taehyung beamed like proud parents. “There was a purple animal on my car, a red lizard, um, a buck in the woods with a third eye. I didn’t like that one.”

Jimin and Taehyung looked up in surprise. “Wait, you saw a what?”

“A buck with an eye in his forehead? Is that not a thing? It might have been my imagination.”

Jimin shook his head. “That’s a thing. That’s just,” he looked at Taehyung, “You don’t suppose that’s a…”

“Like an actual forest spirit,” Taehyung said. “That’s supposed to be a warning, usually that something big is about to happen to you. Was he looking at you?”

“Yeah, he was.”

The two witches glanced at each other, Jimin had switched, at some point, from running his hands all over the coat to running his hands over Jungkook’s body, down his back, up around his sides and over his chest, the heaviness of his rings dragging through his t-shirt, and Jungkook noticed runes and circles dotted across the silver, tiny vials of herbs on some of his necklaces, and spells on the charms hanging from his wrists. Jungkook stood very still and watched him cautiously. “I’m not going to burn you,” he murmured, “Don’t worry. I never learned nasty little tricks like that in boarding school.”

“I went to a non-magic boarding school,” Taehyung said. “My mom is normal. Dad’s the witch, but he’s kinda busy and distant. But the normal people didn’t like me. Had to learn some self defense.”

Somehow, that made a little too much sense. Jungkook felt the slightest bit sympathetic, but also remembered the panic of burning. Jimin’s small fingers rubbed circles on Jungkook’s nipples. Jungkook stood quietly and took it with his jaw tight, staring Jimin down. “You’re so docile,” Jimin giggled. “I wanna keep you.”

“That’s what happens when you’re worried someone is going to bash your brains out or burn your skin off when you move to fast,” Jungkook said, “You ever seen someone move carelessly around a bear?”

“I’m a bear,” Jimin said, “I like that,” and then slid in, snuggling up to Jungkook’s chest.

Jungkook gave Taehyung a look as if to say, “Get it off me,” but Taehyung only grinned. Jungkook’s arms were beginning to hurt from holding them carefully out of the way. Why did Jimin’s shirt have to be so thin, clinging to every line in his shoulders? His head rested on Jungkook’s neck, rubbing gently under his jaw. “You’re a lot like Bubble.”

“She is my familiar,” Jimin said, sliding his face back to look Jungkook in the eye. “She was formed from my magic.”

Jungkook felt his perception of the world slide out of alignment yet again.

“Have you eaten?” Taehyung asked.

Jungkook hadn’t. “Yeah,” he said.

“Are you going to fix my bathroom now?” Jimin asked.

“Yeah. Would you let me go?”

“You’re so warm though.”

“Put on a sweater.”

Jimin’s lips slipped over his neck. “You smell good.”

“Really? I smell like cigarette smoke and dirt.”

“I like that. Smells manly. You also smell like this leather coat. You smell so good.”

“I’m uncomfortable.”

Jimin stepped back, releasing the firm grip on his hips. “Go get to work then. I’ll start the potion for your acne.”

Jungkook got his tools out of the truck and got to work. It took all morning for him to clean the damn place, carrying bags of leaves and dirt through the house to the outside. It looked different in the daytime, dustier and unkempt. The windows were perfect and clear, but the log walls were grimy. He suspected they didn’t bother with surfaces that didn’t let the light in on their plants, but he couldn’t imagine it was very good for their lungs.

Jimin brought him a sandwich for lunch and left it on a chair right outside the bathroom. Jungkook almost got offended that they weren’t inviting him to eat with them, but Jimin was eating as he boxed dried leaves and living plants into crates and loaded them into the back of their truck, and he saw Taehyung out the window mixing old dirt with a sandwich in his mouth.

“What do you two do?” He asked Jimin.

“We’re suppliers for apothecaries, especially plants and herbs. That’s just to pay the bills though. What we really do is research. Potion making is kind of a lost art these days, but Taehyung found a bunch of really old book on it, and I have a lot of passed-down knowledge from my family, so we came down here where the weather is nice to start a farm. I’m writing a textbook based on what my mother taught me.”

He nodded. “That’s really cool.”

“It is! It’s taking a bit to catch on, but once people see what we can do with this, they’ll really get into it. And then the market for our plants really will really boom.”

“What do witches do if they’re not making potions?”

“Divination. Um…curses. Leeching off poor, unsuspecting, non-magical neighbors. I’m kidding. That’s unusual. There’s a lot of jobs that focus on taking care of magical creatures, because they’re really hard to control. Potions can help with that too. Some witches use magic to get ahead in the human world. There’s healing, artisans, businessmen.” He shrugged. “Tae and I probably fall into the business sector. And there’s a small community for magical science. Now get back to work!”

Jungkook ate his sandwich quietly and watched him work, thighs and arms flexing as he hefted the heaviest boxes. Jungkook itched to help, but didn’t.

The toilet was a pretty easy fix. The sink and bath required some disassembly. The work was hot and frustrating. He only got sprayed in the face once, but the dampness stuck to his shirt for the rest of the afternoon, and he had to lay his hat out on the porch to dry. Taehyung and Jimin took two full truckloads of packed boxes off down a road behind their house and disappeared, coming back with an empty truck to cross off orders. Jungkook knew for a fact that there were no roads off the property besides the one he drove in on, and figured he’d rather not know where they were going.

As evening began to make things difficult to see, Jimin came in, checked his progress, and then scampered off and returned with a curtains and candles to light the room up. He decoupaged a few spells onto the walls with a little brown glue pot with veins of gold running through it. Bubble sat in his shoulder as he worked.

“Everything you two own is cute as fuck,” he said.

“Really? It’s kind of rough. We hand-make almost everything. Taehyung is quite the craftsman, but he can’t make anything like the stuff actual artisans make. Your coat though. That was amazing. I can’t believe he gave it to you.”

Jungkook felt a little guilty. “Was it really worth the plant?”

“I think so. That’s a very sought-after flower. It produces light, small tear-shaped crystals that are possibly incredibly valuable potion ingredients. We don’t know yet. It’s got cool healing properties. If I had had it when you got your head hurt, it wouldn’t have taken you so long to recover.”

“’So long,’” Jungkook snorted. “Concussions take weeks to heal, and I’m pretty sure I would have had permanent brain damage. Why don’t you guys go be healers for regular humans too? You could save a lot of lives.”

“Magic isn’t just healing,” Jimin said, sitting back against the sink cabinets. “We have advanced healing powers, but we can also kill you really easily, or control you. I don’t think you want us interacting with the regular world. There’s a reason people used to be so intent on burning us." Jungkook felt a chill again and Jimin smiled coldly. "When you finish, I’ll have dinner ready. You’re staying here again tonight.”

Jungkook had forgotten about not being allowed outside at night. As if the implication of power Jimin had just given him hadn’t been enough to scare him. He glanced fearfully out the window. “Fuck.”

“We’ll give you a real bed this time.”

Jungkook wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep in this house without being heavily concussed. The house at night felt trapping and dark, surrounded by danger and filled with malice.

He ate dinner quietly. Across the table, Jimin and Taehyung chattered about orders that needed to be filled. The moonshine in the strange glass bulb had vanished, along with a lot of other boxes and piles around the kitchen. The blue plant in the sink continued to generate slime, but most of it was gone now. Spare white labels with a sleek, botanical logo and Jimin’s beautiful handwriting littered the table. Kim and Park Botanicals.

Taehyung kept trying to flip his spoon into his cup of water, giggling excitedly. Brandy and Jimin watched like this was something that happened every day, Jimin smiling a little, Brandy flicking her tail. If familiars formed out of a witch’s magic, Jungkook decided he’d like to stay away from whatever magic had formed Brandy. Bubble’s magic he could handle, but then again, he’d also seen a little of what Jimin could do.

Jungkook got the same impression from them as he’d gotten from the few kids in his high school who might actually go somewhere in life, unlike the backwoods idiots that the rest of them were. He felt, not small around them, but rather lumberingly large, bigger than he had any right to be, a waste of space.

“Let’s get rid of your acne,” Jimin said after diner, and Jungkook ducked his head, embarrassed to even acknowledge it, embarrassed that they knew he cared.

“Do all witches get to go through life without acne?” he asked as Jimin settled him on a stool in the middle of the kitchen with a towel over his lap.

“Nope!” Jimin said cheerfully, sitting down on another stool across from him with a small wooden bowl in one hand, filled to the brim with a peach-toned, clear potion. “Take your shirt off.” Jungkook wordlessly pulled it off. “I am,” Jimin said, “quite possibly the only person in the world besides my own mother who knows this recipe.”

“Doubt it,” Taehyung said.

“Let me hyperbolize when I want to, Kim Taehyung,” Jimin snapped, pushing a headband into Jungkook’s hair to get it off his forehead, and he sat there like a polite child in the doctor’s office. “And yes, some other families could very possibly have passed down this recipe or similar ones, but I’ve never heard of it. I’ve sent it in for a patent, so I might get very rich on it someday soon, but in interest of secrecy, I haven’t put it in any books yet.”

“You haven’t published any books yet,” Taehyung said.

“Tae, shut up.”

Brandy had joined Taehyung at the kitchen table, sitting beside his empty plate and watching. Bubble jumped up on Jimin’s lap to be part of the fun and Jimin picked her up and put her on the table. “Sorry, honey. I’ll come love you when I’m done with this.”

“Is this really worth one functional bathroom?”

Jimin dipped a smooth sponge into the potion. “No, but you’re not a witch. I don’t think you’ll be blabbing to anyone. Close your eyes.”

Jungkook took a deep breath, shoving aside his huge remaining distrust, and closed his eyes. “I was thinking about equal exchange here.”

“It might not be equal exchange, no. But that deer coat might not have been equal exchange either. That plant might make or break our little business.” The first soft brush slid over his cheekbone, cool and clean. He and Jimin sighed at the same time. “This is so satisfying every time,” Jimin murmured. “Not so much with Taehyung. He barely had any acne at all.”

“What’s it doing?” Jungkook asked.

“Just wiping it all away. Your skin is going to be beautiful.”

It seemed too good to be real. Jungkook felt a little queasy. The cool sponge carefully covered every inch of his face, into his hairline and over his eyelids, around the backs of his ears and over the edges of his lips. The sponge started slow lines under his chin and down his neck, Jungkook shivered, eyes sliding back open. Jimin concentrated carefully on what he was doing, tracing carefully over his shoulders. Jungkook watched acne scars from months ago vanish beneath the sponge and almost got embarrassingly teary.

“So what’s your story, small-town Georgia boy?” Jimin asked. “You don’t have much of an accent.”

“We moved here when I was really young, but Dad's business here never took off like he wanted it to and things fell apart. My family disbanded after I graduated. You know where I work. That’s about it.”

“That’s not a story,” Jimin said, and stopped sponging his chest to stroke a finger over Jungkook’s collarbones and the sensitive dip just between them where Jungkook had no acne. He let him, though, glad that he wasn’t the one staring for once. Jimin moved around behind him to get his back and Jungkook pursed his lips and flushed. Acne was fine with a bunch of other teenagers around the pool. It wasn’t great, sure, but everyone had it, and there were more important things to worry about. Sitting shirtless with his marked up back and shoulders in Jimin’s kitchen was another thing entirely.

Jimin must have seen him cringe. “Don’t worry about your skin,” he murmured. “I was an assistant healer in high school. It’s common. And I may talk shit about it to tease you, but I’ve seen enough of this that I just see it as skin now. It doesn’t change how pretty you are. It’s just a cosmetic vanity.”

“In that case, it was definitely worth one bathroom,” Jungkook said.

“Hm. People get so hung up on this. It’s natural.”

“You’ve also never had to deal with it for years though,” Taehyung said.

“I wish guys could wear makeup,” Jungkook said miserably. “Would have saved me a lot of anxiety in high school.”

“They can,” Jimin said.

“Not in rural South Georgia they can’t.”

“Point taken.” He ran the sponge slowly over Jungkook’s back. Jungkook shivered. Across the kitchen, Taehyung watched from a dark corner, beer bottle in one hand, the top pressed against his pretty bottom lip. He looked more like a fantasy elf than a human, swallowed up by his massive woven sweater, long, thin legs sticking out from under. “I think I got everything,” Jimin said, brushing a hand down Jungkook’s arm. “Are there any other spots I don’t know about, or is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Damn. I wanna keep touching you,” Jimin said against his neck. His hands slid up Jungkook sides and gently over his chest. They slid over his nipples and he shivered, struggling to hold still, feeling a bashful.

Taehyung smirked softly.

“I need a mirror,” Jungkook said.

“There’s a full-size one in my closet,” Taehyung said.

“I don’t want to go in your closet.”

They led him up the wide, wooden staircase and pointed him into the upstairs bathroom, all cracked white tile and a claw-foot bathtub. His reflection stared back from the mirror, airbrushed and flawless. He took the headband out of his hair and let is flop back down over his forehead.

“Wow,” he said softly, “Thank you.” His reflection looked almost up to par with Jimin and Taehyung, less like some standard high-school drop out and more like the angelic beings beside him. Jimin hadn’t just fixed his skin. It glowed, perfectly smooth and soft, color deep and even. “I don’t know if fixing the bathroom does this justice.”

“I know what would even the odds,” Jimin said, sliding up to stand next to him, fiddling with a pendant around his neck. Several beautiful rings glittered on his fingers. His eyes glittered enchantingly, the tilt of his neck completely seductive, and Jungkook felt himself get drawn in. “Kiss me,” Jimin murmured, like he knew Jungkook couldn’t refuse.

Jungkook hesitated, waiting for it to be a joke, waiting for Taehyung to laugh or for Bubble to get indignant. Nothing happened. He leaned forward, heart hammering, and pressed one kiss to Jimin’s lips, as sweet as he could make it through the heart attack. Jimin’s hand touched his chest lightly and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Jimin and Taehyung both giggled. “You’re such a pretty kid, Jungkook. You should keep visiting. The coat will get you past the gate in the winter, but what about in the summer when you don’t have it? We should get you a—”

“Hold on a second, I’m thankful for everything you’ve given me and all, but I don’t think I’ll be coming back after this.”

“What?” Jimin said, looking genuinely startled. “Why?”

“Are you kidding? This place is terrifying. Magic is overwhelming. You’re both kind of rude. Why would I come back? Every time I come here I get roped into doing something for you. Eventually it’ll be something that’s too much, but you keep threatening me like I’m not allowed to say no. I’m not coming back.”

Jimin pouted at him. “Not even for Bubble? And Brandy likes you!”

“They’re lovely cats. I’m not putting myself at risk for them.”

Jimin gave Taehyung a very clear “I told you so” look.

“I thought non-magic people couldn’t resist being around magic after they found out about it,” Taehyung said, shrugging.

“Why? I can’t use it. I’m at a permanent disadvantage here.”

Jimin pouted. “Will you at least come visit? You’re useful, and we like having a friend nearby.”

Friend?”

“Are we not?”

“No!”

Jimin pulled away from him suddenly, and Jungkook flinched.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Jimin squeaked. “I’m not Taehyung!”

“He was scaring me that time,” Taehyung whined from the hallway. “He had me by the collar. People used to do that to me all the time and that usually ended with me trying to hide bruises for the rest of the day.”

“Oh Tae,” Jimin said.

Jungkook would be sorry, except he was terrified that Taehyung might lump him in with past bullies in his experience and lash out accordingly. “Can I have my shirt?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Jimin said. “Let’s go back downstairs.” As they left the room, Jimin waved goodbye to the candles, who all waved back and then flickered out.

Jungkook curled into one arm of the couch downstairs and watched the witches go about their evening. Jimin read out of a book that looked like it was barely holding itself together.

“’Harvest the moss at night,’ it says here. That’s a problem. We’d have to grow it inside and we’re running out of space.”

“I’m sure we’d be fine if we stuck it close to the house. Maybe on the porch?”

“No way. You heard how close the imps got to the house the other night. Practically under the eaves. I won’t risk it.”

Jungkook glanced nervously out the window.

“I’m going to light up,” Taehyung said. “Anyone interested?”

“I’ll hit it,” Jimin said, “but not too much because I’m reading.”

“Jungkook, do you want to try some wizard weed? This is some serious Gandalf shit right here.”

“You know about Gandalf?”

“We’re witches, not aliens. I have this super cool pipe here.” He pulled out a carved wooden pipe with a long stem and a stone bowl. “You should take a couple hits.”

“What the hell is Gandalf?” Jimin muttered. Taehyung ignored him.

“What are you smoking?”

“It’s basically weed, just magical. Feels a little different and it's very slightly hallucinogenic.”

“Okay, I’ll try it.”

Taehyung took a few puffs. Beside him, Jimin lounged sideways in his chair, his book floating up over his head. Jungkook took one puff, and slid out of sobriety just slow enough to think “Fuck, this was a bad idea,” and then he was soaring. The world glowed in rainbows, like staring through a prism. He felt so intensely relaxed that he could have moaned if his head hadn’t thrown itself back, twisting his throat up. “oh god,” he whispered.

He dimly saw Jimin take a hit, then opened his eyes a few minutes later and Jimin was in his lap, weightless and sensually elegant, thrown across his arm. Jungkook stared down at the gorgeous lines of his chest, the small edges that peeked out from under his collar, his sharp jaw. His hand ended up under Jimin’s shirt, and then Jimin’s shirt was off, and he had a little magic circle tattooed above his hip bone, a silver circle with a rune in it above his belly-button, and bands of silver on his arms. His shirt was off and nothing had ever felt so wonderful under Jungkook’s hands, each curve of his body an tactile dream that went right to his blood.

He felt the end of the pipe in his mouth and sucked in.

 

Jimin was kissing him. How had he missed the start of this? Jimin was shirtless in his lap, and their mouths were stuck messily together. Jungkook drooled down his chin a little. “We keep fucking you up when you stay over,” Taehyung giggled, and now Jungkook was kissing Taehyung, and it was different, but Jungkook couldn’t tell how, but he felt different too, smaller, softer, boyish. He wrapped his arms all the way around Taehyung’s waist and crushed him in close, tying their bodies together, and he’d never felt anything so perfect.

 

He was lying sideways on the couch, Bubble under his arm, and Jimin was naked and kneeling on the ground, thighs wide around Taehyung’s hips, and Taehyung was gasping as Jimin sank down.

 

He heard Jimin when he came, the sweetest little gasping moans he’d ever heard, delicate as blown glass out of his pink lips, like honey dripping through the air. The glow around every object made it a little hard to see, but Jimin was holding Taehyung’s arms down on the floor as he bounced in his lap, slowing down and grinding his hips as Taehyung whimpered desperately. Jungkook thought he might have moaned.

 

Taehyung was kissing him again. He was staring at the ceiling now. The pipe sat on his bottom lip. “God, yes.

Jungkook was lying in the middle of the floor, shirt missing, and nothing felt good anymore. His shoulder burned. He stared into the light of a single candle. He could see others in the corner of his vision. He was breathing way too hard, like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air.

 

Jungkook opened his eyes. The entire room was ablaze with candles now. He was lying on his back on a wood floor and his shoulder hurt. Taehyung’s low voice and Jimin’s high one, from a short distance away, chanted nonsense.

 

The room was almost completely dark but for a small line of light under the door, and he was so scared. Sweat dripped down his face. He couldn’t move. His breath raced in and out of him like sea-waves set in panic-inducing fast-motion. Things cackled outside the walls. His beautiful new skin was cracking. He screamed.

And then there was Jimin. The room lit up and Jimin sat above him, dark purple circles under eyes, holding a ball of light with eyes in his hand. He set Bubble down on the bed next to Jungkook and she slowly faded to a soft glow. They tucked themselves down into Jungkook’s arms. He saw Taehyung’s sleepy face crawling over them both, and then felt him curl tight around Jungkook’s back, warm and protective. “You’re safe. It’s a bad come-down. You smoked too much. We’re sorry. You can sleep now. You’re safe.”

Jungkook held on tight as a wild pounding got closer and closer, shaking the room and deafening in his ears. He couldn’t tell if it was from whatever lurked outside or from his own chest.

 

Sunrays streaked through the window and turned his quilt orange. A model of the planets turned in midair against the wall. He stared, blinking, for far too long, and then rolled out of his warm bed, dragged his clothes on and walked downstairs. “I’m okay, right?” he said to Brandy, who nodded. “I don’t trust you,” Jungkook said.

Brandy turned her back on him.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and grabbed the toast on the counter with his name written in the air above it, needing anything to cut the cottony, stale feeling in his mouth. He grabbed his coat and drove away without saying goodbye, thoroughly disoriented and feeling a little numb. He took a deep breath when he made it off the property. He was done now. He was never going back. The ritual chanting from the night before lit up in the edges of his consciousness and had him near whimpering with fear. He drove way too fast all the way to Owen’s shack.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Owen yelled when he drove up.

“Huh?”

“You’re an hour and a half late.”

“Oh,” Jungkook said, trying to shove his trembling hands in his pockets and missing.

“You’ve got huge ass hickeys all over yer neck.”

Jungkook slapped a hand over his neck, which stung a little.

“Are you wearing makeup?” Owen said, reaching out a dirty thumb and smearing it over his face.

Jungkook flinched out of the way. “No? What?”

“All yer spots are gone.”

“Cleared up overnight, I guess.”

Owen narrowed his eyes, taking in Jungkook’s jerky movements and shallow breathing. “Are you high?”

“I think so.”

“Oh. Fucking stoner.”

“I’m your fucking supplier!”

Work was rough. Owen came out with him that day. He forced himself into as much awareness and diligence as possible. As Owen covered all the tools in the truck with the tarp to drive home, Jungkook found an owl with actual horns on a nearby branch. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Jungkook walked quickly back to the truck, trusting Owen’s bad eyesight to keep him from seeing. He hoped magical creatures weren’t something he was going to have to deal with for the rest of his life now. Maybe he should just burn the coat.

Something burned like a blister on his shoulder. His joints hurt. Sometimes everything in his vision would start to glow a little, and he’d just have to deal with it for a few minutes, blinking rapidly and shivering all over.

“Kid, what is up with you today?”

“Why do you always call me kid?”

“Can’t pronounce your fuckin name. Are you on drugs?”

Jungkook sighed and rested his head on the window. It really would be nice to have some real friends around. He dimly remembered when his family cared about him back in elementary school. Or maybe they’d just been good at faking it and no one had really ever cared about him in his life. “Finished up my business with the guys in the woods last night. They have some crazy stuff. I don’t remember what happened.”

“I told you to stay away from them,” Owen said, and Jungkook knew it was supposed to sound self-important, but he sounded worried, like a gruff, concerned grandpa, and Jungkook wanted to cry.

At the end of the day he sat alone on the porch, warm in his jacket, but missing the way his old, ugly coat had hung on him, cozy and huge, draped off his shoulders. The sore spot on his shoulder rubbed up against his t-shirt and burned. Owen had already gone inside and gone to sleep, which left him without even his shitty excuse for an adoptive grandfather.

He went grocery shopping. Some girl from high school worked behind the register, lank hair hanging in her face. He’d only ever had one good interaction with her, both of them piss drunk and stupid in someone’s above-ground pool after midnight with several other guys. She’d danced for them in her wet clothes, solo cup splashing liquor into the water. She looked much older now, sullen. He bet he did too. He bit down his pride and asked for cigarettes. They didn’t look each other in the eye as she checked him out, and he left with his head down.

In the mirror at home, he could see a little brown circle, about the size of a quarter, emblazoned on the skin of his shoulder, twinging in pain. Heavy lines crossed over it, with runes written in the segments, what he recognized now as a spell circle. His stomach turned with fear. He spent all evening scratches at it, working at it with a sponge, rubbing his hand over it till the skin tore and he gave up and smoked through half a pack. When the sun came up he made some black coffee and headed out to work early.

He was halfway through dealing with his last cabin around noon when the work had petered out, wondering how this job was going to keep giving him enough money to eat and pay the bills during the next couple months when they only checked the handful of cabins every other week. Even worse, what about the spring when the owners came back and they might not have anything to do at all if no one had special requests. He’d just locked the main cabin and gone down to the truck to start yard work, when he felt a call towards the witch’s house, like someone had said his name. The spot on his shoulder lit up, almost like a brand. “No,” he said, out loud. He dropped a leaf-blower on the ground and climbed into the driver’s seat, key in the ignition, head spinning, hands shaking, the irresistible urge to find Jimin and Taehyung pulling his foot down onto the gas.

“No, no way. Stop.” The truck rumbled out and down the road.

He never wanted anything to do with them again, never wanted to put himself at a world where he was at an even greater disadvantage than the one he was already in. He’d finished his tasks, gotten his rewards, and wanted out, and yet his hands stayed glued to the wheel as he drove down past the tree. He felt tied down, like he’d lost will over his own body, a puppet on strings. The house came into sight and his panic mounted, every bit of fear jumping back up in his throat, no calming potion to lock down his adrenaline now. This was the part where they sacrificed him, or turned him into a raccoon to live in the swamps. They were calling him back for punishment. He drove there, literally kicking and screaming in the driver’s seat.

They were waiting in the living room for him, and Taehyung held one end of a glowing golden chain that faded into the air and reappeared up towards Jungkook’s neck. His back hit the door, pressing like he meant to break right through it and run away, skin crawling like the very first time he’d been there, expecting something to grab him or jerk his feet out from under him, force its way down his throat or burn into his skin. “What did you bastards do to me?” he snarled. They looked at him like mild entertainment, like he was a dog, and Jungkook wished he could run.

“You’re bound to us now. You come when we call and do what we say.”

Bound? Like a slave? Oh. So he was a dog. Useful, maybe, but not a person, not to them or anybody else.

He’d never had a future to begin with. He’d always been the fastest, strongest, most talented person in the room, and it had gotten him a dead end job in the woods and a life he could barely afford to rot in. Jungkook had lost his family. He’d lost his security. He’d kept his freedom, but Jimin and Taehyung had lured him in on his own vanity and wonder, and taken even that from him. He’d always been some anonymous idiot that other people used. His eyes blurred with tears.

“I hate you,” he said, voice wobbling.

“Oh yeah?” Jimin said, giggling.

Jungkook grabbed the nearest table of plants and tipped it over. The witches both leapt up out of their seats, shrieking. Jungkook picked up a small blue plant in a seashell pot and hurled it through a window.

“Charlie!” Jimin screamed, trying to run past. Jungkook hooked him around the waist, heard all his breath woosh out in a satisfying hiccup, and threw him over the back of the couch. He’d lain on that couch two nights earlier, drugged up and watching Taehyung and Jimin fuck on the floor. He’d been on that couch when both witches had climbed into his lap and kissed him like he meant something to them. “Fuck you both,” he shrieked. “Let me go!”

Taehyung looked like his only child was dying on the ground in front of him, hands extended over the upturned table as he magically rewound its fall, tipping all the plants back up and into their containers. Jungkook came for him. He spun, erecting a shimmery shield in the air between them. Jungkook ripped it aside like a shower curtain and punched him across the cheek.

He’d been in a couple fights in his life with guys much bigger than Taehyung. He knew how to hit hard. Taehyung’s head whipped to the side like he was made of straw and he fell right over. Brandy jumped between them and yowled. “You don’t scare me, you stuck-up bag of fur!” Brandy fell silent, ears down, eyes wide, a little puffed up, leaning away with an expression of shock.

“Wait!” Jimin gasped, standing on the other side of the couch. “We’ll make it worth it for you!”

“Worth it? You just fucking enslaved me! I don’t want it to be worth it! Let me go!”

Jimin shook his head. “Not how it works. We’re bound for the next five years.” Jungkook stomped towards him and he backed up fast. “We’ll make it worth it! Anything you want for the next five years! Anything we can give you!” Like Brandy, Bubble ran between Jungkook and Jimin, squeaking imploringly.

“Get out of the way,” he growled. She continued bobbing and chirping nervously. Jimin stared between them, terrified, like he thought Jungkook would throw Bubble out the window too. All the fight melted out of him. He stood in the middle of the living room feeling like Frankenstein’s monster. Taehyung groaned on the ground behind him.

“I’m going to go fucking finish my work with Owen, and then I’ll come back and deal with this.”

Jimin gave him one curt nod and Jungkook stomped out of the house. From his truck, he watched Jimin and Bubble frantically reviving the tiny plant he’d thrown out the window. He beat back a little edge of guilt. Fuck their stupid plants. If they couldn’t treat people well, they didn’t deserve special plants.

 

He stayed with Owen after work much longer than he would normally have done, letting the sun sink lower and lower as he sat on the porch and slowly slowly drained a six-pack of beer. The sun set over the woods as Owen ranted about development companies buying up forest and destroying it.

He could feel a dim mental link like a storm cloud on the edge of his thoughts. Taehyung and Jimin were angry, and a little distressed. They got more worried as the day went on, until Jungkook felt the mental pull again, halfway through his sixth beer. His body got up out of his chair without even subconscious agency, which felt strangely dreamlike and a little floaty.

“Sorry, Owen. I gotta go.”

“No problem. Thanks for listening.”

Jungkook wished he could stay. Even Owen was better company than no one. Or witches.

The cold air bit through the open windows as Jungkook drove back down past the tree, which seemed to glow dimly from the roots under the last light of the sky. He’d figured that he should experience as much of the real world as possible before Taehyung and Jimin killed him and buried his body in the woods.

Taehyung magically tied him to a chair the moment he got inside, wrists and ankles pinned invisibly down. “So you don’t destroy anything else,” he said.

Jungkook remained sullenly silent. His life sucked. How could they possibly make it too much worse? Jimin was curled up on the couch with the little plant in his hands, scowling. Bubble sat under the end table beside him and and chewed on what looked like a slab of meatloaf.

“So witches do this pretty frequently,” Taehyung started.

“Enslave people? It’s shitty.”

“Sure,” Taehyung waved his hand, “from your perspective it is. With us its just how things work. We like having non-magical helpers. It’s usually a pretty good deal for both sides. You get magic favors. We get an errand runner.”

Just what Jungkook had always wanted to be when he grew up. He sighed through his nose.

“There’s an empathetic link between us. We can feel your emotions just a little, and you can feel ours. It’s dim and sometimes hard to notice, but it prevents people from being complete dicks to each other. Honestly, I don’t see what your issue is.”

“Can you look at this from my situation for a minute? I’m in danger all the time. You two can, and have taken advantage of me. More than once. You almost killed me, like, twice.”

“You did pretty well earlier,” Jimin muttered.

Taehyung shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t think we’re very good at this."

"The spell book was great with what to do," Jimin said, "but the details on etiquette were really sketchy. Maybe we should have discussed it with you beforehand, but it didn’t occur to us.”

“It occurred to me,” Taehyung said, “but I figured he’d say no. So I didn’t bother bringing it up.”

Jimin and Jungkook both stared at him for a minute. “You two are psychos,” Jungkook said, “This is seriously fucked up.”

“We’re witches, Kookie baby,” Jimin said. “We run by different rules. We’re all a little evil. You know what Taehyung’s special skill is? Mine is body magic, healing, but also hurting, good potions and potions that'll fuck you up worse than any poison. His force and manipulation. That’s part of the pain trick.”

“Manipulation?” Jungkook snapped.

“I mean, it's not really,” Taehyung said, a little self-consciously. “I’m good at fucking with people's heads, but I’m better at crafting and plant stuff, potion-making and all that.”

Jimin shrugged. “Potions can control minds.” Bubble growled as she tried to chew off a tough piece of meat. “Bubble? What are you—oh no, Taehyung, she’s stress-eating again.”

Bubble looked very caught, eyes wide as she looked up at Jimin. Taehyung looked very put-out.

“You’re going to make yourself throw up again,” Jimin said, leaning down and trying pull the meat away from his very territorial little cat, clinging with all four paws. Jimin picked it up and Bubble hung on like a sloth.

“I haven’t even used mind control on you,” Taehyung said, completely ignoring the scene behind him. Jimin had one hand on Bubble and one hand on the meat and was trying to pull them apart.

“That’s a lie,” Jimin muttered, and managed to separate the meat from the cat, who mewed piteously and stretched for it. “You already threw up once this morning. Cut it out. You have to stop stress-eating.”

Taehyung continued loudly over the scolding in the corner. “Okay, besides the burning thing, and the thing I’m using to hold you to the chair now.”

“Wait, this is in my mind?”

“Yeah, you only think you can’t move your arms. I’m tricking your brain into—oh.”

Jungkook lifted his arms up off the chair and crossed them, waiting for Taehyung to continue.

“How did you do that?”

“You told me it was in my head.”

“Yeah, but you overpowered it. How—you know what, never mind. You’re ours now. End of story. Don’t take it out on the plants.”

“For five years?” Jungkook said softly.

“Yup. You’re perfect. Young, capable guy, no close friends or family, and stuck in a dead-end life? Perfect. You’ve got nothing that makes you a liability.”

Tears welled up in Jungkook’s eyes before he could stop them.

“Job one,” Taehyung said, unsympathetic. “Fix the window you broke. It’s too dark now, so do it tomorrow. We've magically taped it up but I don't trust that to last effectively.”

Jungkook shook his head, trying to will his tears back into his eyes. “I’m leaving. I want to leave.”

“It’s already too dark.”

“Why can’t I go out at night?”

They looked uneasy. Bubble had started chewing on Jimin’s finger. “There’s a dragon in the swamp, and some really vicious cat-like demons that attack in a pack like wolves. The variety of magical plants here draws a lot of goblins, imps, and trolls, as well as all the other cool stuff. Don’t go outside at night. Our grounds are mostly protected, but between the clearing and the tree is a minefield. Don’t risk it. We just got you. It was hard magic and we’re both pretty excited. We don’t want you dead.”

“You’re a worst-case scenario waiting to happen,” Jimin said. “You seem to attract magic, even though you’re not a witch, and you don’t have the defensive methods that we do.”

“I can punch things better than you can,” Jungkook said to Taehyung, trying to keep the awful tremble out of his voice. “How’s your face?”

“Fine. Jimin can heal bruises in about five seconds. He can also punch pretty hard. You had him in your lap the other night. Did you see his arms? Or can you even remember that?”

“You both kissed me,” Jungkook said weakly.

“We kiss everyone. We’ll fucking kiss each other. Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“You didn’t think that it might hurt?” Jungkook said, voice rough and high, “Someone actually acts like they care about me, and it's to fucking enslave me?”

“Yeah yeah, we get that you’re lonely, but shut up,” Jimin said, “We’re not enslaving you. You’re bound to us. It’s different.” His attention was back on the little plant in his hands. Bubble sulked with her back to the room.

Jungkook battled back his tears, staring furiously at the ceiling.

“Jimin, are you going to make dinner or not,” Taehyung sighed.

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. Charlie will either be fine, or he won’t be, but you’re not helping anything by sitting and staring at him. Put him where he’ll get some sun and stop worrying about it.” Both witches left the room. Jungkook climbed the stairs up to the room he’d stayed in two nights ago, climbed under the blankets, and stared out the dark window until he went to sleep. He thought he saw lights away in the trees a few times, and when he dreamed, he dreamed of being trapped in a cage underwater while a glowing catfish-dragon swam around him and laughed.

 

He nearly dropped the glass for the window repair right over the side of his truck. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Owen had given him some cigarettes and sent him home early after finding out he hadn’t eaten anything in over two days. Jungkook had planned to come in, fix the window, and drive out before anyone even talked to him. He’d gotten halfway through the cheapest, ugliest window fix he’d ever done when Jimin walked around the side of the house with a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches and a hot mug of coffee.

Jungkook nearly choked on the first sandwich and had to sit down. He got half down and held a cigarette up. “Light, please?”

Jimin pursed his lips and lit it with the tip of his finger. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Why not? You can just heal my lungs, right?”

“Yeah, but still. It’s a bad habit.”

Jungkook shrugged. “Not like you care. I’m just a sad little servant, right? I thought you liked me smelling like cigarette smoke.”

Jimin knelt down beside him, knees spread so he could sag gracefully between them, and took something out of his pocket. “Do you want this phone case?”

“You know how weird it is to have a witch handing me a phone case?”

“Not that weird. We all use phones too. Anyway, phone case. My brave attempt at crafting. It’s wooden, and the inlaid design is jade.”

It was heavier in his hand than he expected, a beautiful little polished wood case with the shapes of fish swimming across it, pines and palmettos etched in the background. “Like the ones in the woods,” he said. “This is beautiful.”

“You can have it, if you want. I made it for you.”

Jungkook raised an eyebrow. “And you act like you don’t care. It feels kind of flimsy.”

“Look inside.”

He turned it over and saw saw little spell circles etched into the wood.

“It’ll waterproof and shatterproof your phone. Like, drop it out of a plane into the ocean, and it would be fine.”

Jungkook peeled his old, five-dollar black case from Walmart off his used iPhone 5c, scratched up and cracked already, and clipped the new case onto it. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Thanks for fixing the window you broke. Sorry about not debriefing you on the plan before-hand.”

“Not gonna apologize for enslaving me?”

“I’m not sorry for that,” Jimin said, nose in the air, flicking his hair off his forehead, “And it's not slavery. We’re yours too. It works both ways. There’s an old system between humans and witches going on here. You burn us, and we control you.”

“Why are all the sweaters you wear three sizes too big for you?”

Jimin blinked blankly at him and shifted awkwardly on his knees. The collar sat wide and uneven on his shoulders and it draped way below his belt-line, the back caught up on the swell of his butt. “They look cute,” he said, pulling the sleeves a little further down over his fingers.

“Do you ever wear shirts under those?”

“Sometimes.”

Jungkook stared contemplatively. “You wearing one right now?”

Jimin pulled the hem of his sweater up to reveal bare skin, his abs rippling softly up from the plane between his hips. He had that cute little rune in his navel. Jungkook reached out and ran one hand gently up over his chest, testing to see if what he'd let him do the other night was just a product of the high. Jimin sat there on his knees, one hand still holding his shirt up a little, beginning to shiver in the cool air, and held his breath, eyes wide on Jungkook’s face. Jungkook grabbed one nipple and pinched. Jimin gasped, sweater paws slamming reflexively into Jungkook’s hand over his shirt, which only jammed Jungkook’s hand to the nipple. He massaged it gently. Jimin’s eyes squeezed shut. For the first time in days, Jungkook felt a little control over the situation.

“You control me, huh?” Jungkook said, admiring the deep pink flush on Jimin’s round cheeks. “If you say so, cutie.”

Jimin moaned softly, chest pressing into his hand. Jungkook pulled it away and stood up, feeling a little vindictive. “Gotta finish work.”

Jimin stared up from under his lashes and ran his fingers through his hair, looking a little lost, but then grabbed Jungkook’s thigh and used it to stand, and hovered close, hands brushing Jungkook’s side. “When you’re finished, come inside for dinner,” he murmured, “I’ll send Bubble out with some hand-warmers.”

“Bubble is a hand-warmer,” Jungkook said.

Bubble came out ten minutes later with two wire rings in her mouth, a small pink stone in each. Jungkook slid the rough wires skeptically over one finger on each hand, and got the wonderful feeling of sinking his hands into warm water. “Oh god, that’s amazing.”

Bubble rubbed his ankle and purred until Jungkook picked her up. “Do you stress eat, Bubble?” he asked. She just climbed up and settled on his shoulder. He was worried, at first, about throwing her off as he worked, but she buried her claws in his leather coat and hung on.

He went inside to finish the window, and Bubble scampered off after a beetle, leaving him alone in the living room, poking around at stuff to see if anything acted particularly magical.

If Taehyung wasn’t a great craftsman, Jungkook really wanted to see what master craftsmen in the witch world got up to, because the room was covered in incredible touches. What had obviously once been an old, ugly couch, had been intricately carved and embroidered. “Did he make this?” Jungkook asked Brandy, who was licking her paw. She shook her head. “Oh. That makes more sense then.”

“Brought that from home,” Taehyung said. “It’s Dad’s old couch. His roommate decorated it in school. I made this though!” He held out a wooden globe put together like a puzzle with different pieces of wood. The countries were a bit rough, the edges simplified, but it was beautiful.

“Wow.”

“You can’t have this. I’m keeping it.”

"Why would I want it?”

Taehyung scowled, hurt.

“Go away. I’m trying to fix your fucking window.”

“You’re not as nice as we thought you were.”

“Getting buyer's remorse? I’ve just been impressed into servitude. I’m in a pretty bad mood.”

“With an aura like yours you were probably going to run into magic sooner or later,” Taehyung said as he walked out. “You should be thankful it was us and not someone really nasty.”

Jungkook had to sit still for a minute to overcome the urge to smash the rest of the glass in the window since it would probably end up as more work for him.

Taehyung danced outside the window, bouncing around like a cartoon character, waving two sticks that had steady streams of smoke coming out the ends. Jimin started tossing balls of mud at him, which hardened in midair and burst on contact with a bang. Taehyung shrieked and Jimin chased him twice around the entire house before they both ran inside. Taehyung slammed the kitchen door shut and locked it. Jimin grabbed Bubble off the floor and shoved the end of her tail in the lock. It clicked and Jimin yanked it open, still screaming. Bubble meowed in confusion.

Dinner was surprisingly calm after that mess. Jungkook ate his spaghetti with chopsticks, because that was all they had clean at that moment, beautiful chopsticks with jewels set at the tips, but chopsticks nonetheless.

“Sun is setting,” Taehyung said, “looks like you’re staying with us again tonight.”

“That's fine. The bed upstairs is nicer than mine.”

“Cool. You can watch me make potions.” He took off his baggy coat and got to work looking much smaller in his loose green shirt, all thin, boyish lines and shaggy hair. “So potions,” he said, turning around and slamming a bowl on the table, an alarmingly normal, plain, purple, plastic bowl, “are pretty cool.”

Jungkook raised an eyebrow. “Modern magic is a huge-mishmash of traditions from all over the planet. There are a hundred ways to do every single thing. Except for really obscure, powerful spells, but those are kind of famous, mostly, like the spell to travel through portals, the technique for dealing with sphinxes, and Jimin’s acne potion. Potion-making is a system that went way out of fashion during the scientific revolution and era of colonization because non-magic people started doing the same thing, you know, chemistry, and new methods of magic were being popularized all over the globe because of new access to other cultures. Spells and hands-on methods of magic were a lot flashier and more interesting. Potion-making was seen as slow, outdated, and expensive.”

“Let’s not forget that witches were using potions to make some really really nasty poisons, and anyone who made potions was suspected of treachery and murder,” Jimin said. He’d lost a rock-paper-wand game, and had to wash dishes.

“Yeah. And that. Bad associations,” Jimin measured out half a cup of some beige powder and threw it in the bowl. “But potions interact directly with the body, so they can do really cool things that no other type of magic can, and we lost a lot of that when the world gave it up. There’s a potions revival market beginning to open up, and we’re jumping on that train. Potions are cool. They’re a lot more impersonal than other methods of magic. Some of them deal entirely with magical materials only, and don’t involve human magic at all, so even you could make them.” Jungkook sat up a little.

“That got your attention, right?” He crushed a dried frog to powder and threw it in the bowl. “Most potions taste terrible, by the way.”

Jungkook’s nose crinkled. “Don’t worry, you’re not magical, so most of the potions that have any effect on you are made entirely of plants. You don’t have any magic for magical ingredients to interact with. You won’t ever have to drink rain eel and gryphon barf tonic to cure you of lying syndrome.”

“Did you ever actually have lying syndrome,” Jimin said, “or do you just lie a lot?”

Taehyung stopped crushing a tablespoon of seeds in a mortar and turned around. “Lying syndrome doesn’t exist, Jimin. It’s a trick they use on little kids to make them more honest. Did your mom never let you in on that?”

Jimin’s plate slipped out of his hand and smashed on the edge of the sink. “What?

Jungkook hid his smile behind his chopsticks.

“There is a strain of imp flu that makes you excessively dishonest, and then there are compulsive liars, but lying syndrome isn’t a thing.”

Jimin shook her head. “I’m not going to talk to her for the rest of the month and I ain’t even gonna tell her why.”

Taehyung giggled. Jimin twisted a ring on his finger and then fixed the broken plate with a flick of his hand.

“Jimin was his mom’s favorite,” Taehyung said. “She babied him until he was sixteen. Like literally babied him. Made him sit in her lap until he got taller than her, which took a while.”

“Shut up,” Jimin said. “No she didn’t. I learned a lot of awesome stuff from Mom, and she’s amazing. Be nice.”

“She’s pretty cool. She’s just manipulative and overprotective and controlling as fuck.”

“She doesn’t know where we live,” Jimin added, “One of the protective spells on this house is to keep her away. I love my mother, but she won’t let me be.”

“Still treats him like he’s ten,” Taehyung muttered. “Get’s mad when he swears. Tried to explain to him that people sometimes have sex out of wedlock two years after the first time I fucked him, and he was already more experienced than I was when that happened.”

“She’s a little delusional, paranoid and naïve at the same time,” Jimin said. “Really skilled at potions though. I think Bubble got some of her magic.”

Bubble was playing with the steam coming off a pot on the stove.

“You’ll probably meet her someday soon,” Jimin said, “Now that you’re ours. She’ll be so proud. She might treat you like a pet though, because you’re not magical. That’s kind of how a lot of our people see you guys. Don't take it personally.”

Jungkook’s warm feelings towards this odd little family deflated with a frustrated wheeze.

“Bubble, stop eating that.” Bubble blinked blankly up at Jimin with a piece of paper hanging out of her mouth. Jimin plucked it out of her mouth and looked at it. “Protective spell from the window. You’re right. I should go put a new one on the fixed window. I’ll do that right now. Kookie, you’re on dishes.”

Jungkook scowled and shuffled over to the sink. “Sponge?” he asked.

“For dishes?” Jimin asked, confused, and Jungkook stared at him until he said. “Oh right. Sorry. I use a…” He held up his hand and the air in it started looking a bit fluffier. “Okay. I’ll finish in a minute,” he went back to his paper and ink, butt stuck out in the kitchen, baggy sweater clinging. “Jungkook, I bet we could teach you to draw spells. You wouldn’t be able to activate them, but that could be cool. Oh, and I know you’re staring at my ass.” He held up his hand. “I have a ring that tells me when people are thinking sexy thoughts at it. Mom gave it to me for safety purposes but I just use it to get laid.”

Jungkook stared hard at his butt and thought hard about groping it. Jimin giggled and clutched his left hand. “Stop that! It tickles!” He said, “Sit with Tae and behave while I put these on the windows.”

Jungkook sat down beside Taehyung because he had to. Jimin's order left him no will to do otherwise. Taehyung poured some potion into a line of small glass beakers. “He’s got a nice ass,” Taehyung said. “I stare all the time. It’s the best thing to play with during sex.”

“Are you sure you two aren’t together?”

“Yeah. We’re just two lonely boys in the woods with needs, you know? But it's always a little weird the next morning. I’m just saying, you should hit that sometime.” He picked up a handful of stones and dropped one into the first beaker. Nothing happened. He made a note of it. He dropped a different rock in the next one. It turned clear. “Yup. Good,” he muttered, and made a note.

“What are you doing?”

“Potion experimentation. I’m trying to find a potion that makes you levitate. People used to be able to do that.”

Jimin came back into the kitchen. “I’m pretty sure a potion that counteracts gravity is going to have ingredients a little more rare than a leopard frog, Merlin beetles, and marijuana seeds.”

“Well no. No one knows what the ingredients might be. Pretty much everyone agrees on dragon horn, but the rest is a mystery. But if we knew which gem has a reaction to Merlin beetles, who have some control over the effect gravity has on them, we might have us another ingredient. All the other stuff is just to stabilize it.”

“You really think people haven’t tried that?”

He dropped another stone into it. The glass cracked apart and leaked potion everywhere.

“Interesting,” Taehyung said after a pause. He dropped a stone in the next one and the whole potion shot upwards like a fountain.

“I’m out,” Jungkook said, right before Jimin started nagging.

Jungkook decided to go on a self-guided tour of the house, since he didn’t really give a shit about being rude and just wanted to spit in someone’s face. He opened one door, and found Brandy sitting on the bed staring at him. “Taehyung’s room, right?” he asked. It was covered in unfolded clothes. She ran past him out the door. “Going to tell on me?” He said, watching her supernaturally graceful gallop down the hallway.

Jimin’s room was spotlessly clean. The portrait of a woman on his vanity looked exactly like him but older. Charlie, the little plant, sat in the window. It felt different than Taehyung’s room, which had felt very normal and human. This one felt like it was full of power. Slowly turning circular globes hovered near the ceiling. Something that looked like a mirror reflected back a huge, homey, extravagantly furnished room that looked nothing like anything in the house. He closed the door carefully.

The last room on the top floor was a library, four walls of shelves set into the walls and partially filled with books, gaps for the windows. A worn-in sitting area filled the center, and a desk beneath one window was covered in open books, scratch paper, and pens. He felt like he was walking into a pocket of Hogwarts, everything clean and bright and so different from the rest of the house that he checked the doorway for portals, maybe a soft glowing line around the door or a distortion in the air.

“I write the potions books in here,” Jimin said from right behind his shoulder. Jungkook jumped. “Taehyung has awful handwriting. It’s my favorite room. How’s your skin doing with my potion?”

“Can I read the books?” Jungkook said as Jimin turned him around and examined his cheek with careful fingers.

“Don’t know why you would. They’re all books about magic.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to read about magic?”

Jimin hummed, smiling, and held out a bright green, flat jewel on a pendant. He slid it over Jungkook’s cheek, then pulled down his collar to look at the skin right under, pressing gently. “No strange reaction to the potion. I was worried you might reject it since you’re not magic. It was unlikely, but there was a chance. It’s always hard to tell how magic will affect those without it. Depends on whether or not the spell reacts directly with the magic inside the other person, and its often hard to tell which spells do that.”

“Is that why I could tug down Taehyung’s shield yesterday?”

“Yeah, I saw that. You’re at least partially resistant to his magic. It happens sometimes, non-magic people having some resistance. Tae's mom is like that.”

Jungkook smirked. Jimin gave him a cool, challenging look, and then turned him around so he faced the doorframe, pulled his shirt all the way up, and bunched it at his neck. “You know, one thing we’re all going to need in this set-up is trust.” Jungkook shivered a little. Jimin’s cold fingers drew down his spine, and then across his shoulders. He held his breath, tense and waiting. “Loosen up, Jungkook,” Jimin said with his soft little voice, “Be a good boy and trust me, okay?” He ruined it by giggling.

“Are you done?” Jungkook growled.

“Shouldn’t you be adding a ‘sir’ onto the end of that?” Jimin said, raspy in his ear with his chin on Jungkook’s shoulder, “I’m your master now, you know.”

Jungkook tried to pull his shirt down, shaking his head. Jimin kept it up, reached his hand under Jungkook’s arms, and the glowing gold chain appeared in his hand, leading up to Jungkook’s neck. “Ours,” Jimin said, and Jungkook could feel his happiness like an aura seeping into his head, messing with his thoughts.

He turned around, shirt pulling out of Jimin grasp, still inches away from his grinning face. “Stop fucking lording it over me. I fucking hate this. Why the hell would I trust you?”

“You’re not resisting a whole lot," Jimin said easily, "You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to. Don’t treat me like your fucking pet.”

“We finally have a bonded servant. It’s exciting! There are so many things we want you to do for us. Maybe we should put you in a collar and teach you tricks.” He said, round cheeks glowing, curvy eye-smile infuriatingly bright.

Jungkook’s hands knotted in the front of his sweater. “Don’t you dare, you little shit. Don’t fucking mess with me.” Jimin’s back hit the opposite side of the doorframe as Jungkook shouldered up, got in his face. Jimin eyes glazed over a little, head tilting way back, eyes hooded, and Jungkook got the ridiculous sharp urge to bite into his pale throat.

“You’re thinking sexy thoughts, Jungkook,” he moaned, “My ring can tell.” He leaned closer, lips reaching for a kiss.

Jungkook let go and stomped off down the hallway, heading back to Taehyung’s crazy experiments in the kitchen.

“You could just have sex with him,” Taehyung said when he walked in. He’d abandoned his experiments and was instead organizing little jars of herbs into a fancy box.

“What?”

“I'm beginning to feel both of your thoughts a little, which is interesting. It's an empathetic link. Side-effect of the bond. I knew Jimin was a bit of a slut, but I didn’t know how strongly he felt about getting laid until just now. He must really like sex or really think you’re something special.”

Jungkook shook that off. “He says I’m resistant to spells.”

“Yeah, you’re non-magic so a lot of things just flat out don’t work on you, but I think you’re a little resistant to magic in general. You should have seen the way your body fought the binding. I thought we’d be in the ritual room till you sobered up. How’s your shoulder, by the way? Let me see it.”

Jungkook obediently pulled his sleeve up over the mark and Taehyung came to check on it using a flat green stone like the one Jimin had used to check his skin upstairs. “That’s really settling in nicely. Wow. Like, I didn’t expect the spell to stop resisting for another week.” His grin turned sly. “You sure you’re not enjoying this?”

“Yes!”

Taehyung gave him a doubtful look. “For someone who resisted the spell so strongly when we cast it, your body sure is accepting it easily now. I’m just saying.” His hands ran appreciatively up and down Jungkook’s arm, squeezing lightly.

“You two need to stop examining me as an excuse to look at my body.” He was half joking, but Taehyung looked up coquettishly through his bangs, and then leaned in and pressed his lips to the mark on his shoulder. He bit gently.

“Weren’t you just telling me to fuck Jimin?” he murmured. “What are you doing?”

“Can’t I pet my puppy when I want to?” Taehyung said, low voice soft as cotton.

Puppy. Someone called him puppy once in high school. Jungkook had lit his backpack on fire and never got caught. “I don’t think you two really understand who you’ve chained yourselves to yet.”

“Really? Are you dangerous, Jukkie?”

“I’m not going to be your puppy, and I’m not going to let you order me around like one, either of you.”

“You have so much bark, but where’s your bite, baby?”

Jungkook snapped at Taehyung ear with his teeth, not bothering to be gentle. He felt a little alarmed at himself, but Taehyung yelped, hands latching onto Jungkook’s shoulders, and Jungkook felt a distant stir of arousal and shock, the echo of Taehyung’s emotions down the empathetic link. His self-control unraveled, fierce and wanting. He had two cute boys at the other end of his leash, flirting and happy to have him there. He’d never had anyone before.

He grabbed Taehyung by the waist, thin and boyish like the rest of him. “You’re kind of small, puppy,” Jungkook growled, muffled around Taehyung’s ear. He squeezed and Taehyung whimpered a little, clinging to Jungkook’s shirt.

Jealousy and hurt joined the empathetic link, little twinges at the edge of his awareness. Jungkook slid his eyes over to the doorway to see Jimin standing partly behind the doorframe with his eyes wide, one sweater paw over his mouth, cute and sexy. Jungkook beckoned him over with one hand. Jimin came slowly, the hurt fading. Jungkook wrapped an arm around his waist, crushing him in against his body and reaching his mouth down towards Jimin’s neck. Why not let himself have this?

Jimin squeaked in panic and activated the glowing chain, pulling it taut. Jungkook froze and waited, and then Jimin released him and he bit down on Jimin’s soft shoulder, his arms full of cute, breathless witches, wonderful want streaking down the empathy link.

“I’m in charge, sir,” Jungkook said, “You’re mine too, right? Works both ways? You said you’d give me anything I want?”

“Yes,” Jimin whispered. Jungkook kissed his lips, sober and without panic this time, able to really appreciate they way they squished against his. He squeezed a little tighter, Jimin’s solid waist on one side, and Taehyung’s wafer-thin one on the other. Jimin moaned into the kiss, hands already trembling against Jungkook’s chest. He bounced up on his toes to be even with Jungkook’s height. Jungkook’s heart pounded in his chest. He hadn’t kissed a boy in years, not since some giant, ugly asshole at his classmate’s cabin in the coat closet late at night with the rest of the party raging right outside, back when he’d still been so small and so scared. Things were different now.

Taehyung pulled on Jungkook's chain, wrapping it around his hand and dragging Jungkook closer. Jimin whined as Jungkook switched to Taehyung, eyes opening to see Taehyung playfully side-eyeing Jimin. He growled. Taehyung giggled and closed his eyes, focusing on the kiss. Jimin’s head thunked onto Jungkook’s shoulder. “Jungkookie,” he purred, one hand squirming down their bodies and over the front of his jeans, “Are you a virgin?”

“No,” he grunted, and felt Taehyung smirk against his lips.

“Ever had sex with a guy?”

“No,” Jungkook said again. Jimin giggled happily and tapped his belt buckle. His pants undid themselves, which felt a little disorienting.

“Couch,” Taehyung muttered, and shoved them all towards the kitchen door. Jimin got ahold of Jungkook shirt on the way there and helped it over his head. Brandy leapt up off of the couch just as Jimin pushed Jungkook down onto it, the flash of her golden tail disappearing into the kitchen. Taehyung came up behind Jimin and licked a delicate stripe up his neck, pulling his sweater slowly up his chest, over the perfect abs, the pronounced pecs that Jungkook had seen spread out in his lap two nights before, even more mouth-watering than he remembered.

Jungkook leaned forward to jerk his fly open, and yanked Jimin’s pants down his thick thighs, a little surprised when Jimin wiggled his hips unselfconsciously, dick bouncing. “What’s this for?” Jungkook asked, tracing the tattoo on his hip with a thumb.

“Disease prevention,” Jimin sighed. “Doesn’t catch everything, and nothing magical, but it gets STIs.”

“You saying I can fuck you bare?”

“Huh?”

“Without condoms,” Taehyung said. “Non-magical birth control. It’s like a latex dick sleeve.”

“A what?” Jimin said, stepping awkwardly out of his pants. “What the hell is latex?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jungkook said, impatient to finally get his dick in a guy, and sucked the tip of Jimin’s semi into his mouth. Jimin’s whole body sagged against Taehyung and he hardened under Jungkook’s lips. The chain re-appeared in Jimin’s hand, tugging Jungkook’s neck insistently forward.

“Stop that,” he said, pulling off.

“Don’t like being on a leash?” Jimin said, smirking. Jungkook mimed biting his dick, but Jimin only pulled him forward with the chain till his nose rubbed against Jimin’s cock. He sighed pointedly, but licked it, willing to let it go for the time being if it was getting Jimin off. He heard them kissing above him, and small, high moans like music notes, Jimin’s angelic voice growing warm and heady.

Taehyung shoved Jimin forward and Jungkook popped off and jerked all the way back against the cushions, closing his legs a little so Jimin could put his knees on either side of them, elbows on Jungkook’s shoulder, butt stuck out towards Taehyung. Jimin licked sweetly at his lips and then slid his tongue into Jungkook’s mouth. Jungkook pulled his sweater off his shoulders, leaving him in nothing but his jewelry, rings covering his fingers, pendants that normally hid under his clothes, and silver bands tight around his arms. He had a large, silver band around one thigh with runes all over it.

“You’re so sparkly,” Jungkook murmured with a smile, “Why doesn’t Taehyung have any of this?”

“He got most of those from his mom,” Taehyung said. “It’s all pass-down house-keeping magic. And I don't use spells.” Jungkook reached up and pinched both of Jimin’s nipples at the same time that Jimin jerked forward with a gasp, back caving. His head dropped onto Jungkook’s shoulder and he groaned high and long, twitching.

“Jimin, what?”

“Just shoved a couple fingers up his ass,” Taehyung said.

“Wh-wait, don’t you need lube?”

“It’s magic lube,” Taehyung said, holding his dripping fingers where Jungkook could see them. “I was thinking you could fuck him, and then I’ll fuck you. You okay with that?”

“Fuck. Do that,” Jimin said, “please.” He yanked his vibrating ring off his hand, muttering “tickles,” under his breath.

Jungkook shook his head at Taehyung. “Wanna fuck both of you.”

Taehyung hesitated. “Trying to make some sort of statement here, puppy?”

“Yup.” If this was going to set the tone for their time together, he wanted all the control he could get.

“Ever had anything up your ass?”

“No.”

Taehyung stared at him for a while, considering carefully. “Okay. Later. You can fuck me tonight. Sure you can make it through Jimin?”

“Nope. Sucks for you.”

Taehyung sighed and went back to work on Jimin’s ass. Jimin moaned into Jungkook’s shoulder, clinging tight as Jungkook played with his nipples. His long pendants brushed cold over Jungkook’s chest.

“You like being the center of attention, huh?” he said.

“Mhm,” Jimin sighed.

“Owen would have a heart attack if he saw me now,” Jungkook said.

“Under two men with a golden chain around your neck?” Taehyung said, doing something that made Jimin mewl in his ear.

“Is this something witches normally do with their humans?” he asked.

“Do non-magical people usually have sex with their pets?” Taehyung returned, and Jungkook glowered. “Kidding, kidding. That’s an unfair parallel. No, it's not normal, but sometimes it happens.”

“It’s illegal in some countries because of consent issues,” Jimin murmured into his neck. “Not in the states, but some places. Not really enforceable though. Shouldn’t be banned when most adults can cooperate and not be assholes to eachoth—Tae! Do that again!”

“Countries where it's banned see it as bestiality,” Taehyung said, twisting his wrist viciously as Jimin buried his face in Jungkook’s shoulder, gasping.

“I’m not a fucking animal. Hurry up so I can fuck him.”

Taehyung smirked and Jimin squirmed and whimpered against Jungkook, back bowed harshly. Jungkook rubbed two steadying hands down his back and kissed the side of his face that he could reach.

“Babydoll,” he murmured.

“Fuck yes,” Jimin whispered.

“Can you suck my dick, beautiful?”

“Tae, let me down on the floor, please,” Jimin said. Jungkook rubbed his hair affectionately, like his best friend wasn’t fingering his ass.

Jimin looked up at his easy smirk as he moved slowly to the floor, tugging Jungkook’s jeans off as he went. Taehyung moved to the side so he could still reach but didn’t have to back up even further, smirking up at Jungkook. “Just two days ago you never wanted to see us again. Changed your mind?”

Jungkook huffed indignantly, a little embarrassed by how distant that desire seemed now. “If you can’t beat ‘em, make friendly and dom the fuck out of them when they least expect it. That’s how the saying goes, right?”

Jimin giggled breathlessly. “I’ve never met a better bonded servant than you, babe. You’re so perfect.” His hand wrapped around Jungkook’s cock, stubby fingers only barely getting all the way around, and Jungkook shivered and snickered.

“Your small hand makes me feel bigger.”

“Ah! Don’t be a jerk!” Jimin whined and tried to pull away, but Jungkook grabbed his wrist and kept him there. Jimin whined and bit his thigh, fingers wrapping reluctantly back around and stroking. “Mm, you’re bigger than Tae,” he said.

“Bullshit,” Tae muttered. His head rested on Jimin’s shoulder, watching Jimin’s hand on Jungkook’s dick.

“You’re not that big, honey.”

Jungkook giggled. This seemed like the best perk to get out of a bad situation.

“He’s not as big as some of the toys we use,” Taehyung said, and then, to Jungkook, “You’re not special.”

“I think I’m pretty special to have two beautiful witches literally chaining me to themselves. Thirsty fucks.” He got one hand on the back of Jimin’s head and one hand on the back of Taehyung’s and guided them both towards his dick. For someone who thought Jungkook’s dick was nothing special, Taehyung opened up fast, sighing breathily and wrapping his tongue around Jungkook’s crown as Jimin kissed up the side with an open mouth. When they met at the tip, tongues sliding together and lips brushing, Jungkook’s eyes shut and his neck gave out, head thumping back on the couch.

“Look at me, honey,” Jimin moaned, and Jungkook struggled to tilt his head back down and stare Jimin in his sultry, hooded, needy eyes. Jimin was facing Taehyung now, hips angled forward to he could reach between Jimin’s legs and continue thrusting three fingers into him.

“Anyone want an aphrodisiac?” Taehyung said, lips still trailing over the head of Jungkook’s dick, wet from Jimin’s mouth.

“No way,” Jungkook said immediately. “You drugged me last time. Not again. Next time you’ll put an electric collar on me that ties me to the house.”

“We wouldn’t! And that was just weed,” Taehyung whined.

“It was not just weed.”

“Magical weed.”

“I want one,” Jimin said without really taking his tongue out of Jungkook’s slit, “the aphrodisiac.”

“Of course you do. That’s why I asked.”

Taehyung got up and started shedding his clothes as he walked back to the kitchen. He came back with a handful of tiny vials just as Jungkook was settling Jimin on his back on the couch, crammed in between his legs.

“Sure you don’t want a bedroom?” Taehyung asked.

“I like this for now,” Jungkook said. “I’m staying out of your rooms for a while.”

“I’ve got a mirror on my ceiling for a reason you know,” Jimin said.

Jungkook’s dick sat up in interest, but he still remembered the chilly power of Jimin’s room, and the absolute fucking wreck of Taehyung’s.

Taehyung had his lubed fingers back between Jimin’s legs, opening the tiny vials and emptying them into Jimin’s mouth with the other. He drank one himself and then handed the last to Jungkook. “For stamina. You’re going to need it.”

Jungkook drank it gladly. There was no telling how long he’d last otherwise. He had only his right hand for company for so long. He could feel it sinking, cold and heavy into his stomach, and then felt a numb kind of pressure shoot through his veins and pool in his balls. “Oh, fuck, that’s super weird. I don’t like that.”

“You never seem to like magic the first time you see it,” Taehyung said, face twisted up strangely after drinking his own potion, “But you’ll like this once we get started.”

Jimin’s eyebrows furrowed hard, teeth gritting. “Ah, it always fucking hurts.”

Taehyung’s smirk curled smugly. “Mhm.”

“This is a little…” Jimin’s eyes widened and his back snapped taught with a gasp like he was coming right there. “Oh, fuck. That’s the strong one. Holy hell.” One of Jimin’s rings sparked to life, crackling and glowing blue. “Ha. My ring thinks its poison,” Jimin gasped, voice high at the top of his range, cracking and breathy. “Ugggh, Tae. Oh god.” He squirmed, muscles tight, head thrown back, face already desperate, and Jungkook was very, very glad he’d just taken a stamina potion.

“What does it feel like?” he asked.

“Feels like, fuck, feels like I really need you. Everything aches. Please please touch me.”

“Paired it with a sensitivity potion,” Taehyung snickered.

“Fuck you! Why do I always trust you with this shit?”

Jungkook lifted his hips off the couch just a little and lined up. Jimin’s knees clutched Jungkook’s sides weakly, hands tugging the throw pillow under his head.

“Look at you, sir,” Jungkook hissed as he slid in and Jimin arched right up off the coach, keening. Jungkook took a minute to breath, eyes screwed shut at the tight feeling of Jimin around him. “Love having a dick in your ass, don’t you?”

Taehyung moaned beside him, and Jungkook looked down to see him with one set of sticky fingers behind himself, wrist moving. His other hand clutched Jimin’s arm so hard Jungkook knew there’d be bruises there.

“Kookie, please,” Jimin whimpered, a tear sliding down his temple and into his hair.

“Legs on my shoulders, Babydoll.”

Jimin complied weakly, and that tightened him around Jungkook’s cock. Jungkook grunted and started thrusting with intent to hurt. Jimin tossed back his head and wailed. Bubble hopped up on the back of the couch to see what the issue was, lost balance, and tumbled down the back into Jimin’s neck. “Mrrowr?”

“Bubble?” Jimin whimpered.

Taehyung doubled over giggling, head on the couch, fingers still inside himself, and Jungkook stilled and watched Jimin, still shuddering, wrap an arm around the furry, white ball and hold her up. “Baby, you shouldn’t be jumping in here.”

“Meep.”

“I’m fine. Are you okay?”

“Prroo.”

“Yeah. I’m just getting my soul fucked out of me. You should go, like, take a nap or something.”

Jungkook snickered and Bubble looked back at him. She looked a little embarrassed, so Jungkook gave her a few soft pets, jostling Jimin’s legs on his shoulders to reach, and Jimin nearly dropped Bubble as he trembled.

“Maybe you should put her down.”

Jimin lowered Bubble to the floor and Jungkook started again, short, sharp little thrusts that had Jimin jolting and moaning through his teeth.

“Do your familiars always interrupt you during sex?” Jungkook asked.

“Usually we stay in his room and lock the door,” Taehyung said, “But whenever we’re out in the house, Bubble always finds a way to interrupt because she’s a shameless attention whore, and Brandy sometimes sits off to the side and looks like she’s judging us. She’s standing on top of the kitchen door right now.

Sure enough, there she was, staring Jungkook right in the eyes from on top of the very narrow kitchen door. “Is that magic?” Jungkook gasped.

“Standing on the door? No, I think that’s just a cat thing.”

“Are all familiars cats?”

“Is now really the time for this conversation?” Jimin moaned, fingers tugging at his own nipples.

“God, you’re so hot,” Jungkook muttered.

“God?” Taehyung said with a smirk. “We’re more about Satan here. Witches are his servants, you know.”

“Don’t bring your fucking Catholic school superstitions into this,” Jimin said.

“Stop bickering when I’m fucking you,” Jungkook said.

Jimin activated the golden chain. “Don’t order us around, hun.”

“D-Please don’t treat me like a pet, Babydoll,” Jungkook snarled and wrapped a hand around Jimin’s dick, who dropped the chain immediately, thrashing and gasping. Jungkook’s other hand yanked on his collection of pendants. “And I’m not the only one here with a leash. Don’t try me.”

“Harder, please. Fuck me harder. Harder!”

Jungkook dropped down onto his forearms over Jimin’s body, and dutifully pounded harder. Not like he really had a choice once Jimin gave the order. Jimin bent so easily under him. He sank his teeth into Jimin’s neck, sucked on the purple bite mark, and then trailed kisses up his jaw to his mouth. Jimin opened up with a sigh. His makeup had started to run in shimmery black streaks under his eyes and down his face.

“You sure you don’t want me to finger you open and fuck you up?” Taehyung murmured from beside him.

“I’m sure. I’m coming for you right after this. He’s not gonna last much longer.”

“That’s true, but with that potion he’s not gonna be done when you’re finished.”

“Fuck him yourself then,” Jungkook said. “I’ll watch.”

Jimin was too far gone, small, chubby fingers fumbling with his nipples as Jungkook bent over him and snapped his hips in. “This is awesome lube,” he hissed out.

“Doesn’t wear out till you want it to,” Taehyung moaned, arching back as he thrust his fingers deeper into himself.

“Jukkie, I’m going to make you do this to me all the time,” Jimin groaned. “Fuck, you’re so good. Taehyung, just wait till you’re on his dick. You’ll never want mine again. Fuck.”

Jungkook smirked proudly.

“Better come fast,” Taehyung growled. “I want a turn.” He leaned forward and sucked Jimin’s dick into his mouth. Jimin sobbed, visibly trembling all over. Jungkook wound his fingers into Taehyung’s soft hair and pulled lightly, trying to lighten his thrusts so he didn’t jostle Jimin’s dick into Taehyung’s throat too hard. Taehyung slurped around Jimin’s dick and moaned quietly. Jungkook could feel the stamina potion numbing his body’s reaction, turning the swooping throb into a fading ache.

Jimin arched, breaths hiccupping into his throat, moans high and pained, and then writhed as he came into Taehyung’s mouth. Taehyung tried to pull off but Jungkook grabbed the back of his head and held him down. Taehyung giggled and continued swallowing around Jimin, who flailed, trying to push Taehyung’s head away, sobbing.

Jungkook finally let Taehyung off, and Taehyung immediately pulled himself up onto the couch, shoving Jimin and little further up so he could get on his hands and knees in front of Jungkook. He licked Jimin’s oversensitive nipple. Jimin grabbed him by the jaw and said “Don’t,” warningly, locking eyes with him like a disobedient three-year-old.

Jungkook chose that moment to slide into Taehyung. Taehyung whined loudly right in Jimin’s face. Jimin’s jaw dropped a little, thumbs petting over his cheeks.

“Tae, I thought you said this got awkward for you two.”

“It’ll be awkward when I’m no longer on the aphrodisiac, but fucking everything is turning me on right now,” Jimin said.

“Hey, sex happens,” Taehyung muttered, dropping his face back down to Jimin’s chest. “And he’s pretty.”

Jungkook wrapped his hands around Taehyung’s waist and started easing in and out, the slide slow and deep. “Whoa. You’re soft,” he murmured, fingers sinking into his skin. Taehyung whined in response, so Jungkook reached around and drew his fingers slowly over Taehyung’s soft little tummy and giggled into his shoulder.

“Fuck off,” Taehyung moaned. “Please just fuck me.”

Jungkook started thrusting again. “Would have thought a farm boy like you would have built up some muscle,” he said.

“He’s the scientist,” Jimin said, looking like a sex god with his brown hair thrown off his forehead, deep smudges around his eyes, jewelry sparkling across his body and Taehyung’s head clutched to his chest. “I’m the housewife and the heavy lifter around here.”

“You can’t talk to the plants. I can,” Taehyung grunted out around sweet, low little huffs at the top of every breath.

“Shh,” Jimin said, “Jungkook’s nearly done. I want his sloppy seconds.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jungkook growled at the same moment that Taehyung heaved Jimin’s hips back down the couch and lined up to push in with Jungkook’s thrusts. Jimin wailed, eyes rolling back in his head as Taehyung thrust in. Jungkook felt the pleasure tied up in his gut slowly begin to tug free and had to stop slow for a moment and catch himself.

Jimin had Taehyung’s head tilted up by his hair, open mouths tipped against each other, tongues sliding wet and careless, both too distracted for any kind of finesse. Jungkook thrust harder until Taehyung collapsed onto Jimin’s chest, unable to focus enough to keep kissing, arms shaking as he tried to hold himself up and keep thrusting in. Jungkook grabbed him and hauled him upright, sitting back on his knees with one foot on the floor and Taehyung bouncing on his lap. Jimin whined pitifully, one hand sliding down in between his own legs and the other over his small cock.

Jungkook tipped Taehyung’s head back on his shoulder and shoved two fingers into his mouth. The chain around his neck locked tight, Taehyung tugging it threateningly in one hand, but he bounced harder on Jungkook’s dick, sucking around his fingers, beautiful melodic moans rattling deep in his throat. His hair flopped lightly off his forehead as he bounced and Jungkook pressed kisses into his pretty skin. Jimin, knees spread beneath them, spilled over his fingers into his hand again, sluggish little spurts that dripped down his wrist and onto his bracelets and stomach.

“Fuck,” Jungkook muttered, gritting his teeth and trying to hold out, but his dick ached with every tug on the golden chain, and the stamina potion slipped away. He could feel every slight texture of Taehyung’s walls gripping around him. He shuddered suddenly, all the sudden feeling punching shivers up his body, and he nearly fell, shoving Taehyung back onto Jimin’s chest.

“Did the potion wear off?” Taehyung gasped, struggling to get back onto his hands, but Jungkook chased it, hands gripping Taehyung’s hips as he threw his head back and fucked him hard. In seconds, the tension broke and Jungkook came with an awful, desperate whine. He slid carefully out, unlocked his shaking legs, and collapsed back against the armrest of the couch.

“Think you can go for one more?” Taehyung asked Jimin, who nodded, and Taehyung lay back against Jungkook’s chest, their sweaty skin sticking together, and Jungkook could see his own cum trailing across the couch from where it dripped out of Taehyung. Jimin crawled over both of them, turning Taehyung partly on his side, one of his thighs gripped tight to Jimin’s chest, and thrust in viciously.

“Fuck, I just came, don’t do this to me,” Jungkook groaned. Taehyung whimpered and drooled on his chest, his long hair feathered unevenly over his forehead, strong eyebrows drawn tight. Jimin didn’t let up for a moment, hips angled tight up against Taehyung’s and pumping like a machine. Taehyung just tensed against Jungkook’s chest and gasped through it, body rocking with Jimin’s thrusts, and Jungkook held him steady, hands petting over his shaking body, and watched as they took each other apart.

Jimin finally grunted out, “Hold his wrists.” Jungkook grabbed Taehyung’s wrists in one hand, the other one gripping his side. Jimin’s fingertips lit up light blue on one hand, and he trailed them slowly up Taehyung’s dick. Taehyung squealed and thrashed, tugging weakly at Jungkook’s grip, eyes squeezed shut and his head thrown back.

Jungkook jumped. “What are you doing?”

Jimin touched Jungkook’s leg lightly. His fingers felt like ice.

“He loves cold play,” Jimin giggled. “Like the band only kinkier.”

Taehyung panted against Jungkook’s chest, gasps shuddering out of his shaking chest as Jimin pressed one blue finger against the tip of his dick. He tensed and cum spurted out around Jimin’s finger and across Jungkook’s thigh. Jimin brought his dripping hand up to mouth and coolly licked it clean as Jungkook watched with his jaw hanging open.

“Just me now,” Jimin said, and dropped Taehyung’s leg, climbing up over his body. “Can you suck me off, servant?”

It wasn't an order. Jungkook was free to refuse. “That was just in his ass,” Jungkook said, staring at Jimin’s dick with his nose wrinkling. Jimin waved a hand over his dick and all the wetness disappeared.

“Ta-da. Clean. Please, Jungkook?”

Jungkook could see the tremble in his hands, how rock-hard his cock still was. “Aphrodisiac hasn’t worn off yet?”

Jimin shook his head, earrings glittering in the light, tantalizing. “One more. Please?”

Jungkook nodded, hands already sliding up the inside of Jimin’s marble thighs to cup his sweet, round butt and pull him in closer. Jimin braced his knees wide on either side of Jungkook’s head on the armrest and pressed slowly down till most of his cock was in Jungkook’s mouth, his hands in Jungkook’s hair. “Oh fuck,” he whimpered as Jungkook sucked hard. “I’m keeping you forever. Oh my god.”

Taehyung pushed himself up off Jungkook’s chest to jam himself down into the couch cushions beside him, one arm worming beneath Jungkook’s back and a leg thrown across his hips. His other hand trailed wet and slimy up Jungkook’s chest and then lifted up and off. Jimin jolted when Taehyung pressed his fingers up into him, and nearly choked Jungkook. His hands tightened reflexively in Jungkook's hair.

Jungkook growled warningly and Jimin pulled out with trembling hips, thrusting so lightly into Jungkook’s mouth, like he couldn’t help it.

“C’mon, Jimin,” Taehyung murmured, “Fill his throat up.”

“Ours,” Jimin breathed. “You’re ours now.”

Jungkook couldn’t really see, eyes tearing up between the insistent tugs on his hair and the steady jabs at the back of his throat, body tensing as he fought his gag reflex, but his chest felt wonderfully warm sandwiched between them both. His hands stayed gently on Jimin’s round ass, pushing him just a little harder, telling him he could take it. Taehyung rubbed his side gently, legs and arms pinning him in, and Jungkook had never felt so safe. His chest ached a little. If even being someone's servant could make him happy at this point, that just said something about his life and how starved he was for affection.

Jimin shuddered wildly above him, every muscle in his body shaking as he whimpered. Jungkook sucked hard, cheeks beginning to ache, and Jungkook felt Taehyung’s arm moving against his chest. He gripped Jimin’s cheeks and spread them to help Taehyung get deeper. Jimin whined desperately, hips rolling. “Please, please Jungkook, don’t stop. Don’t stop, Tae.”

He came, spilling barely anything into Jungkook’s mouth and trying to sit there and take more, but Jungkook pulled him off when he was bent double and spasming over Jungkook’s head, mouth open wide and eyes screwed shut. He gasped and twitched when Jungkook lay him on his chest, sensitive dick squeezed between their hips. Taehyung pet his hair. Jungkook got an arm around both of them and held on tight.

“You warming up to us?” Taehyung asked, and he sounded a little hopeful.

“No,” he said, but the empathetic link had them in his head, their exhilaration at having him there. Legitimate affection. It felt so good he could cry. He fought it.

“Here,” Jimin said, pulling a pendant over his neck, one with a shining talon-shaped stone at the end. “In exchange.”

“You don’t have to pay me for sex,” Jungkook said, but took it anyway, examining the cracked green surface. “What does this do?”

“Doesn’t do anything,” Jimin said. “But if you take it to the city and sell it, it’ll get you enough for rent for the next six months. I made it just for fun a couple months ago and I’m tired of it. You’ll get more use out of it. You’re ours now and we have to take care of you.”

The ever-present imposing stress of surviving with a shit job and no family or friends slowly lifted off his chest. He wouldn't have to get another job to make up for Owen's poor paycheck. He looped the pendant around his neck. "I still hate you," he murmured, "but thanks, I guess." Taehyung hummed and kissed his shoulder. And that, well, that really didn’t feel too bad.

 

“Didn’t you say your familiars form from your magic?” Jungkook said, sitting shirtless in the middle of the kitchen again. He’d finally agreed to let Jimin cut his hair. Taehyung sat morosely off to the side with Brandy giving him a rare cuddle, hair trailing just below his eyebrows instead of right down into his eyes like it usually did. His hair already lay on the kitchen floor.

“Yeah, they do,” Jimin said.

“Doesn’t that technically mean you guys are creating life? The book you gave me last week said that isn’t possible.”

“They’re extensions of our lives. They live as long as we do but they can’t live separately from us.”

Bubble purred in Jungkook’s lap. Taehyung sat up like he was about to start lecturing, but Jimin cut him off. “How’s work going, Jungkook?”

“You ask every day and the answer never changes. It’s lazy and calm. Owen keeps asking me to get you two to sign up for his services.”

“No way,” Jimin said. “We got a worker of our own.” He bumped Jungkook under the chin.

Over the past few months, Jungkook had built them a mini-barn, with Taehyung's magical help, in exchange for a whole new wardrobe of clothes. He’d cleaned every inch of the house and replaced the rotting floorboards so Jimin would cure his smoking habit. He’d helped with a harvest of plants that kept stinging Taehyung and Jimin but wouldn’t touch him, and they’d given him a beautiful silver flute, which he’d sold and gotten enough money to rent a better apartment. In exchange for fixing their truck, they let him ditch even that and come live in their guest bedroom instead. Most nights he had one or both of them to cuddle with him, which had been annoying at first, but more and more welcome over time.

“I think he’s worried I’m going to quit working for him and just come out here and work for you two.”

“Will you?” Jimin asked excitedly.

“No way. You’re going to have to keep sharing me. Owen needs the help. We’re finally starting to get along.”

“So familiars are really cool,” Taehyung said, who hadn’t forgotten where the conversation had started. His eyes glittered like they always did when he launched into a lecture on magic. “Don’t roll your eyes, Jimin. He doesn’t know any of this and it's cool. You can’t always cut me off when he asks questions. Just because you’ve known all this shit your entire life doesn’t mean those of us who didn’t grow up around magic don’t want to talk about it. So Jungkook, most people get their familiars when they’re around thirteen, and they reflect the power and ability of their owners.”

Jungkook looked down at Bubble in confusion. If anything, Jimin was more powerful than Taehyung, but his familiar didn’t reflect that.

“But there are other factors,” Taehyung continued, “A witch’s magic grows as they get older, so if you get your familiar relatively young, you’ll outgrow it, but if you get it relatively old, it’ll be unusually powerful. Brandy didn’t appear for so long that I thought I wouldn’t get one at all, or that maybe I had a really unusual one who was just a gnat or something and it had been with me the whole time and I just didn’t know. People get dogs and cats most of the time. Sometimes horses and, like, chickens or hamsters. The more unique and powerful your magic will be, the more unique and powerful the familiar. I was twenty and living here before Brandy appeared. Scared the shit out of Bubble.”

Jimin giggled. “Bubble never recovered. We used to share her, and then Brandy came along and suddenly there’s this gorgeous, powerful, mysterious familiar that only lets Taehyung touch her, and you sometimes, I guess, you fucker. Why are you special? Bubble had so many jealousy issues. I got her when I was seven and couldn’t even cast spells yet. Mom was so proud. And then I grew up and Bubble didn’t, but that’s okay. She’s still precious.” Bubble tried to catch a few short strands of Jungkook’s falling hair. “Back then I only needed a stuffed animal, a nightlight to get to the bathroom, and something to pick the lock on my mom’s cookie cupboard, so that’s what Bubble gave me. You should have let me cut this a long time ago,” Jimin muttered, “It’s practically a mullet.”

Brandy looked like she might be smiling softly at Bubble, but she might have been staring her down in disapproval as Bubble tried to catch some of Jungkook’s hair and nearly fell off his lap. Taehyung grinned softly at Jimin from across the room. Jungkook had been watching that particular relationship awkwardly morph from best friends to half-boyfriends via Jungkook. They still hadn't quite settled. They still didn't kiss much during sex or cuddle much if Jungkook wasn't with them, but they could all feel it on the empathetic link, the mutual, not-so-platonic thing between all of them.

“What can Brandy do?” Jungkook asked, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do much magic.”

“She can do everything I can do that doesn’t require thumbs,” Taehyung said proudly, “And she has offensive magic too. She’s incredible.” Bubble sat up unsteadily in Jungkook’s lap, glared balefully at Brandy from across the room, flipped her little folded ears imperiously, and nearly tipped over again. Brandy heaved a visible sigh and stuck her head right down into Taehyung’s mug of whisky.

“What do I give you for this haircut,” Jungkook said as Jimin cleared away the loose hairs.

“I don’t know. Fuck me on my bed under the mirror maybe?”

“I did that last week.”

Jimin grabbed the back of his neck threateningly. “And you don’t want to do it again?”

“Unlike you, babydoll, I don’t like looking at myself during sex.”

Jimin came around to his front and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Why the hell not? You’re like the hottest guy alive or something. You’re so—oh fuck. Oh my god your hair looks amazing short. You finally look like a man and not a teenager. You sure you don’t want to fuck in front of a mirror?” He threw Bubble over his shoulder like a dish towel and took her spot on Jungkook’s lap. Jungkook closed his eyes and sat still as Jimin kissed every inch of his face.

“You’re so docile,” Jimin murmured in awe, as he always did, when Jungkook let him tilt his head any way he pleased and suck on his neck to mark him. “You like being my good boy?”

Jungkook huffed indignantly.

“Mom’s going to love you,” Jimin said, not for the first time.

“Leave some for me,” Taehyung said, coming up being Jungkook and wrapping his arms around his chest. He felt Brandy’s long tail curl possessively around his neck. “Your mama is going to try to take him from us the minute she sees him. He’s so handsome and capable. She’ll be worried about him corrupting you.”

Jungkook smiled, a little off balance sitting on a rickety stool with his head tipped to the side and his eyes closed, one witch feeling up his chest and the other tugging his hair, but he relaxed and let Taehyung hold him steady.

“I feel like the family dog,” he murmured.

“Family dogs can’t learn potions,” Jimin murmured against his cheek. “The blister cure you made yesterday was incredible.”

“It’s too warm in here for this,” Jungkook complained softly. It was April. The thermostat had hit eighty-five and the house still hadn’t cooled. Jungkook didn’t look forward to the real summer weather.

“You don’t mind,” Jimin said.

He didn’t. He felt sandwiched, surrounded, and smothered. He’d spent the entire morning packing potion ingredients into crates and loading them into the trucks to go teleport up north using a magic circle back in the woods. His arms never stopped aching these days as their business took off, partly under the influence of that little plant Jungkook had stolen for Taehyung months ago. But his aching arms felt better when Taehyung squeezed them fondly, humming happily in his ear, and he never missed the lonely, fearful months between high school and getting captured by witches.

“My beautiful boys,” Jimin said, hugging them close, Bubble balancing on his shoulders and purring. Jungkook smiled and let them tug him closer.

Notes:

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Chapter 2: Nightmare Forest

Notes:

This chapter has been translated into Russian on ficbook.net.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Just give me the bucket, Taehyung.”

Taehyung glanced blankly up at him, like he was actually mulling it over, and then sighed, heaved the bucket into Jungkook’s waiting hand, and immediately tipped forward into a tree with the sudden absence of weight. Jungkook hefted it easily up on his shoulder. Taehyung pouted.

“Don’t wear yourself out,” Jungkook said. Taehyung continued to pout, thin arms clutched across his chest. “If you don’t like being the scrawny one, just work out more,” Jungkook said.

“But I hate exercise.”

“You’re good at other things. Just let me carry the heavy stuff so you’re not sore tomorrow.”

“I’ll probably be sore anyway,” Taehyung said. He probably meant he’d be sore from all the work they were doing foraging along the banks of the swamp, but Jungkook couldn’t help but smirk slightly, eyes on the back of Taehyung’s muddy jeans.

Taehyung slipped in the mud again and took a knee right in a pile of soggy peat.

Jungkook flinched. Taehyung got right back up with the attitude of a five-year-old playing in puddles. Jungkook had watched that morning as Jimin tied a rolled-up bandana around Taehyung’s forehead and tied his hair up in an adorable, bouncy little ponytail on top of his head, completely mystified. They were only going foraging for some sort of herb out in the swamp. Jungkook did messier work with his hair completely down and it never bothered him, but now that he was actually out in the swamp with Taehyung covered in mud and leaves, he kind of understood.

“There it is!” Taehyung said, splashing down the bank to a large fallen tree stuck straight out over the water. He climbed right up on top, extended his arms, and walked across the trunk with light glowing around his arms, keeping him balanced. At the end was a little island of peat covered in small pitcher-plant looking things, boxed in by a poorly patched-together wooden walkway.

“I need the bucket,” Taehyung said, “Would you like me to come get—oh.”

Jungkook, bucket held out in front of him, walked easily across the log with no magical assistance.

“Right. Mr. Perfect over here,” Taehyung muttered. Jungkook smiled and sat the bucket down next to Taehyung.

“Jimin sent me out here with you for a reason, you know.”

“I’ve always done this alone,” Taehyung muttered. “It’s fine. He knows I don’t need your help.”

“How the hell did you carry this heavy bucket all over the woods on your own?” Jungkook asked.

Taehyung heaved a big sigh. “With a lot of difficulty. Speaking of, can you help me patch up this walkway? You still have the hammer and nails, right?”

Jungkook reached into his tool-belt and handed Taehyung a couple nails. Taehyung stared at them blankly. “I was thinking you could do it.”

“How did you put this thing together in the first place?”

Taehyung grimaced. “It took a full day of getting absolutely soaking wet and being scared of alligators while I tried to put this together by sticking pieces of wood together like I was playing with blocks. I’m amazed its held together even with all the preservative paint on the wood. Between the heat, humidity, and ecosystem, things rot within a few weeks out here.”

Jungkook got down next to the first corner, poorly patched together with a smaller piece of wood, and snorted. “Wow.”

“I do what I can, okay?” Taehyung muttered. He was blushing.

As patchwork and unorthodox as the floating rack of wood was, it seemed pretty sturdy, and Jungkook didn’t find much to do. He got back around to the tree and sat down, watching Taehyung squeeze small, yellow tubers out of the pitcher-plant things and into his slimy hand. He threw them in a bucket half-filled with a nutritious potion to keep them alive.

“So what are these things?”

“Wait, are you done?” Taehyung said, looking up in surprise.

“There wasn’t much to do. It seems pretty functional.”

Taehyung grinned proudly, his little ponytail bouncing. “Awesome. Well, these things are called Jordan’s Pitchers. They’re native to the swamps of the southern United States only, so it's kind of lucky that we moved here,” he smiled proudly at the pitchers as if they weren’t repulsive, but he smiled at all of his plants like they were small, fluffy animals. “They’re not too high in demand, but since we’re the only ones selling them, they give us a really good profit every year. I think they’re just normal pitcher plants that interbred with a species of magical swamp worm, which can happen. Jimin’s found a few uses for them in healing potions, and I like using them in a burn cream, and as a flavoring in a type of gin I’m trying to develop.”

“You’re developing a gin?”

Taehyung shrugged. “It doesn’t taste very good yet. Only Brandy and I will drink it.”

“Why’d you decide to start a magical farm out here?” Jungkook asked, “I have a hard time imagining why anyone would willingingly live here.”

“Good soil,” Taehyung said, squeezing another tuber out of a plant. It reminded Jungkook uncomfortably of a booger, or a giant pimple. “Good weather year-round. Plenty of space. And this place was a magical botanist’s house way back before this was even a country. This land wasn’t even part of the Georgia colony at that point. Somebody read some old records and came down here in the seventies to revive the farm, but couldn’t get anything going and said it was too dangerous. I came to scope it out as soon as I graduated high school and found a ton of magical plants growing everywhere in the woods, and the whole place was protected by the tree. It made a conservatory out of itself. I think the tree and the dragon have been keeping this place alive and safe since then. So that’s why we’re here. I went right back up north and convinced Jimin to come down here with me.”

Jungkook frowned. “Isn’t it too dangerous here though?”

“Evidently not,” Taehyung said. “We’ve been here for three years. We put protective charms all around the house and we don’t go out after dark and its fine. Nothing bothers us. The imps even leave the plants alone, though I think they’re scared of Brandy.”

Jungkook shuddered. He’d seen an imp for the first time when they’d come poking around the house a couple months before, nasty gray things lurking in the moonlight with horns and tails and vicious eyes, fingernails as long as knives. Jimin and Taehyung had laughed when he backed quickly away from the window and tripped over a chair, but they got just as scared as him when he wouldn’t let them touch him for a whole night, shivering and trapped in his room with his skin crawling, feeling vulnerably non-magical and out of his depth. He made a point of never looking out the windows at night.

Taehyung crawled up to his legs and leaned his head on Jungkook’s knee. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. I know you’re not an imp.”

“They’re not even scary. They’re like pests. I’m worried about what’ll happen if you see the real monsters.”

Jungkook snorted. “Like you two aren’t real monsters? You’re witches.”

Taehyung shrugged. “We’re also human. I wasn’t a witch once.”

“Taehyung, sometimes you know exactly what it's like to be non-magical, and sometimes you don’t get it at all. Imagine suddenly realizing that you’re a small dog in a world full of wolves. You once realized that you were one of the wolves, but you’re still scared of small dogs. It’s different.”

Taehyung nuzzled against his leg, smiling a little. “I like small dogs.”

“You don’t like non-magical people. Don’t even pretend like you do.”

“I like you,” Taehyung said, eyebrows drawing tight.

Jungkook patted his cheek. “I know. I don’t blame you. You’re fine.”

“You don’t cuddle me as much as Jimin,” Taehyung said suddenly, accusing.

Jungkook suspected they were getting around to the real reason Jimin had thrown them out into the woods together for a whole day without him. “I just don’t cuddle very much,” Jungkook said, “and he forces it more. You cuddle him more too.”

“I’ve always cuddled Jimin,” Taehyung said. “It’s normal.”

“Do you want me to cuddle you more, Taehyung?”

“Don’t force yourself if you don’t want to,” Taehyung muttered, leaning away from Jungkook and going back to squeezing pitchers.

Jungkook sat quietly and watched Taehyung’s closed-off expression melt off his face as he got back into the zone with his plants. Sometimes he murmured softly to them as he coaxed them out of the pods with his long fingers. They always seemed to go where he wanted without folding up or breaking. Jungkook was sure he would have killed half the plants by now.

“Done,” Taehyung said eventually, bright smile back in place. He stuck his hands right down into the swamp water and washed all the slime off. “We’ve got one more place like this a little further in the forest, and then there’s a colony of mushrooms I’d like to check out.”

“Why do you keep these out here instead of close to the house?” Jungkook said, taking the bucket from him.

“They’re pretty hard to re-plant,” Taehyung said. “They’re out here because this is where I found them.”

“Have you explored the entire forest?”

“Yeah. Took about six months. I had Brandy’s help though. I think I know where the dragon nests.”

“Let’s stay away from there.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Taehyung said, “I just wonder if some cool stuff grows around it. I mean, a dragon. He might even have lava weed growing around him, or nightmare orchids. There might be hell weed in the demon dens.”

“I don’t ever want to come across any of those things.”

“They’re so cool though,” Taehyung said, holding his arms out and magically balancing across the log. “Fire weed can burn for up to a year, and it cures just about every common disease. It’s an ingredient in tons of famous, rare potions. Nightmare orchids are the most hallucinogenic plant on the planet. Just being near them for too long can get you seeing things. There’s one up at a magical college in New York that they keep in isolation all the time, and my dad saw it once. He had to wear a suit that they use for radioactive stuff. He said it's beautiful. Hell weed isn't special. It just grows around evil places.”

Jungkook crossed behind him, put the bucket down on the ground, and took Taehyung’s face in both hands to kiss him. Taehyung wiped his wet hands on Jungkook’s t-shirt, but he looked sweetly pleased.

“Thank you for always explaining things,” Jungkook said, “I get tired of Jimin breezing over weird stuff without stopping to tell me that people actually fly on broomsticks or that marijuana is classified as a magical plant.”

Taehyung giggled and kissed Jungkook’s nose. “I’m pretty awesome. Your welcome.”

The second set of pitchers was even harder to reach than the first, and Jungkook stood well back while Taehyung extracted venom from a water moccasin they crossed paths with.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, proudly carrying the small jar of venom, “If it had bitten me, I would have just magicked the venom out. No big deal.”

“Can you magic away gator bites too? There’s a few big ones floating around.”

“They won’t bother us unless we fall in the water and start flailing,” Taehyung said. “Just don’t make yourself look like prey and they won’t treat you like it.”

This platform needed actual repair, and they worked in silence for a while, Jungkook whacking nails into the wood and staring down the alligators as they drifted past with their yellow eyes wide open. Taehyung talked to his plants.

“You’re so muddy,” Jungkook said when they finally got back to shore, both of them dripping with sweat from the humidity. Taehyung fidgeted with his old gray t-shirt, some faded high school sports event on the front, streaked up with tuber slime and red mud.

“Well you’re sweaty.”

“It’s too hot for jeans.”

“Jeans are the best things for the woods. Don’t want any goblin brambles snatching skin off your leg,” Taehyung said. “That happened to me once the first month we were here and I bled for a week. Jimin almost made us go home when he couldn’t make it stop.”

Jungkook’s mouth hung open in a horrified grimace.

“Put those pretty teeth away,” Taehyung said, trying to pick up the heavy bucket.

Jungkook took it from him and Taehyung hummed appreciatively and squeezed his forearm. “You’re both so hot. I love these.”

Jungkook smiled.

Taehyung bounced around to his other side and grabbed his other arm, examining it as they walked, his muddy, wet fingers tracing down Jungkook’s veins and squeezing. Jungkook flexed for him. “Hell yeah. Always loved the muscly ones. Jimin’s kind of small, but you’re perfect.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Jungkook said, still smiling.

“Do it. He’ll throw and fit to look more dangerous and just end up looking even cuter.”

Taehyung let their hands hang between them, fingers laced between Jungkook’s, and it took him a full ten seconds to realize they were walking through the woods holding hands. He squeezed.

“You okay with this, Mr. strong and silent?” Taehyung asked.

“Yeah,” Jungkook said softly, “I don’t know if I’ve ever held hands with anyone before.”

“Really?” Taehyung asked, “Like, not even for fun? Like with a friend?”

Jungkook shook his head.

“Oh.” He swung their hands together. “You weren’t loved enough as a child.”

Jungkook snorted. “You weren’t either.”

“True.”

Taehyung was seldom quiet, but on rare moments when Jimin wasn’t around and it was only them, he sometimes stopped talking. It was comforting. Jungkook switched hands with the bucket and got Taehyung to hold his hand on the other side without saying a word, and Taehyung walked easily beside him and massaged the tired arm with his thumbs.

Jungkook’s stomach growled. The sun hung low towards the west. It was well past dinnertime. They’d eaten lunch in the truck before heading out into the forest.

“What are you going to carry the mushrooms in?” Jungkook asked.

Taehyung jumped a little and stopped walking. “I have a couple plastic bags in my pocket.”

“Oh?” Jungkook watched him warily as he narrowed his eyes, eyes flickering back and forth across the trees in front of them. “What’s the problem then?”

Taehyung turned back the way they’d come, and then slowly scanned the forest, all piney leaf-litter and the distant glitter of swamp water. “You know,” he said, peering around Jungkook and then continuing to scan the trees, “the problem with a forest this flat and homogenous, is that everything looks the same.”

Jungkook turned that response over in his mind for any possible harmless meaning other than what he thought it meant. “Taehyung,” he asked finally as Taehyung squinted at the swamp, “Are we lost?”

“Um,” Taehyung took a few steps forward, looked in the direction of the sun, took a deep breath, and then pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Yeah, we’re lost. Fuck. No service.”

Jungkook put the bucket down and pulled his own phone out. “I don’t have any either.”

“Brandy!” Taehyung yelled, then closed his eyes and hunched down on the ground. Jungkook let him be. He’d seen Jimin and Taehyung communicate with their familiars this way before and it always freaked him out. “She’s out of range,” Taehyung muttered. “How the hell did she get out of range?”

“Does that mean Jimin’s out of range?” Jungkook asked.

“Jimin is most certainly out of range. Unless we get emotions strong enough to send us into shock, Jimin’s not going to feel anything.”

“We came from that direction,” Jungkook said, pointing, “which means if we walk back in that direction we’ll end up someplace you recognize, and we’ll be able to find our way again. We were headed towards the mushrooms right?”

“Yeah. They’re in the hollow of that upturned tree about half a mile along the outer edge of the second-biggest lake, which we’ve been following this whole time,” he said, pointing at the dark water away through the trees to their left. “How the hell did I get lost? This better not be the tree fucking us. I swear to god if the tree is trying to get us killed I will come back and haunt the fuck out of this place forever.”

“Has it done that before?” Jungkook asked quietly.

“Once when I first got here it did that thing where it kept me going in circles to the same landmark over and over again, like what the tree did with you the first day we met, and it was almost dark by the time I walked right back to the house. It’s hard, because you have to navigate by landmarks out here. Compasses get all weird and going by the direction of the sun will get you lost. It’s like the whole land turns a little. But even when I follow landmarks the forest likes to fuck with me.”

“Maybe we should just keep moving and we’ll end up back at the truck. Or maybe we should go back the way we came?”

“I think we should just keep going. If the tree is fucking with us, we should do what it wants or it might get mad.”

Taehyung finally turned to look at Jungkook, and his expression immediately got a lot more careful, taking in Jungkook’s wide-eyed and fearful face. Jungkook took a few deep breaths and tried not to panic. “It’s okay, baby, we’ll get out of here,” Taehyung said, “Let’s just keep going.”

Jungkook forced himself to calm down and picked the bucket back up. His back was seriously beginning to hurt from carrying it, but he didn’t want to watch Taehyung struggle with it either. Taehyung took his hand and led him forward, still searching around for familiar trees.

“I thought you knew these woods,” Jungkook said after twenty minutes of Taehyung looking more and more worried.

“I do. Even though it all looks the same I usually don’t have a hard time, but I don’t recognize anything. Even the shoreline looks unusual.”

“Maybe we’re out of the magic part of the forest?” Jungkook said hopefully.

“We’re not,” Taehyung said, “with the directions we’ve been walking and the way the trees feel? I’d say we’re closer to the center.”

“Does the dragon live around here?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? No. I’d recognize that.”

The sun was getting dangerously low when Jungkook finally slowed to a stop.

“We have to keep going,” Taehyung said, pulling at his hand.

“Tae, we have less a half hour before it gets dark.”

Taehyung bit his lip and stared at the fiery red sunset. “Yeah.”

“And I’m considering the possibility that we’re not going to find the truck, which means we need to use that time to find shelter.”

“What shelter?” Taehyung said, voice cracking. “There’s nothing but pine straw and swamp out here.”

Jungkook pointed at the tree they had stopped under, a huge old live-oak with gnarled branches curling out and down towards the forest floor, fuzzy with resurrection fern and moss. “I’ve slept out in the woods before. We should get off the ground.”

“Fuck, this tree is huge. How have I never seen this tree before?”

“Maybe this is a part of the woods you’ve never been in before.”

“I didn’t know there was one,” Taehyung said miserably. “Are you suggesting we sit in the top of a tree all night?”

“Yes.”

Taehyung sighed. “Jimin’s probably dying of worry right now. How do I climb this fucking tree?”

“I’m going to put the tubers over by this pine tree and cover it with palm fronds.”

“Good idea. There’s prickly pear growing on this branch.”

“That’s why we’re climbing the tree when its still light out. Just don’t stick your hand in it.”

“What if there are snakes or spiders?”

“You’re freaking out about those now? What about alligators? What about boar? And fucking imps. What about those?”

Taehyung nodded and hefted himself up on a branch. Jungkook hurried over to steady his leg. “Figured you’d be worried about demons or bugbears.”

“Bugbear?” Jungkook snorted.

“Cross a troll with a rabid bear, and that’s about what it is.”

Jungkook couldn’t stop his uneasy whimper. He covered the bucket with shaking hands, leaving his tool belt there too, and murmured goodnight to the tubers like he knew Taehyung would do. Taehyung had found a good spot about fifteen feet off the ground right up against the trunk on a branch as big around as a horse’s body, pointed just a little upwards out from the trunk, which curved over like an awning right over him. Another branch stretched up right to the left of it, making it a little secluded.

“I’m going to die in a tree,” Taehyung said miserably, wiping his sweaty hands on his slimy, muddy shirt. “You take the spot against the trunk. I can make shields, so I should be the one on the outside.”

Jungkook felt safer in the tree. There was less chance of something coming out of the tree trunk and grabbing him than there was on the ground, less chance of something seeing them. He was suddenly very glad he’d decided on a blue t-shirt instead of a white one, which would have been entirely too visible. They scooted around till he had his legs spread around the branch, one foot braced on the branch beside them, Taehyung leaning up against his chest with his head back on Jungkook’s shoulder, arms clutching Jungkook’s around his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered miserably.

“I don’t blame you,” Jungkook said, tugging his cute ponytail out of his hair and pulling the headband off. Taehyung took it and tiredly stuffed it in his pocket. Jungkook’s stomach rumbled against his back.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung said again. “Nothing I can do ever ends up being actually useful. I didn’t mean to get you trapped out here. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook pressed his lips to the back of Taehyung’s neck and wound their fingers together. “You’re so useful, Taehyung.”

“Really? When was the last time I did something that you or Jimin couldn’t do?”

“When you told me about all the plants today.”

“That’s not doing something useful.”

“It’s your magic that keeps the business running,” Jungkook murmured. The light was still just good enough to see Taehyung’s closed-off expression, bitter and cold. “You know that. You keep all the plants happy. Your magic is different than Jimin’s.”

“You know what my Dad called my magic?” Taehyung said, “Completely wild. He’s right. I never had formal training. Everything I have, I came up with on my own or I read it in a book. Most witches look like Jimin with all that jewelry or a ton of tattoos. His magic is completely trained and domesticated. He can barely do anything without tools, but what he does is so refined. He’s the purebred show-dog and I’m the mutt.”

Jungkook kept kissing him, little brushes and nibbles below his ear. “And don’t think I’m jealous,” Taehyung said, maybe a little too loudly, and Jungkook hushed him, “I love what he does. I’m glad I learned the way I do, but sometimes, like right now, I just feel like a kid playing with matches. Every mess we ever get into is my fault.”

“You’re so impressive,” Jungkook said. “If you always play it safe and never get into messes, you’ll never go anywhere interesting or new either. I know you’d hate that.”

“I don’t mean to drag other people into it though.”

“I like adventures,” Jungkook said.

“You’re terrified of this forest,” Taehyung said, laughing bitterly, “You haven’t stopped shaking since we got up here. I’ll do my best to keep you from having a heart attack, but no promises.”

Jungkook started sucking under Taehyung’s ear and he made a small, low moan, head thumping sideways. Jungkook ran his hands comfortingly over Taehyung’s muddy shirt. A cool breeze rustled through the pines. When Jungkook opened his eyes again, he could barely see the shape of the tree around them. “You can fight most of the scary stuff out here, right?” Jungkook said.

“Mhm,” Taehyung murmured, completely limp against Jungkook’s chest. The bark dug into his back and curved his spine painfully, the dull ache between his shoulders from carrying the bucket already beginning to turn sharp. He shuffled around a little, trying to fix it, and then gave up and played with Taehyung’s hands, squeezing his palm and folding his fingers down. Taehyung shuffled to sit sideways on the branch, leaning again Jungkook with his face pressed into his neck. “I’m sleepy,” he said.

“The sun only just set. It’s only, like, ten o’clock. Don’t fall asleep. I’m not going to be able to sleep.”

“Maybe we should sleep in shifts,” Taehyung said. “Someone stays awake as the lookout.”

“That’ll be me all night.”

“I stayed up all last night playing MarioCart,” Taehyung said, “and my stamina isn’t as good as yours. I’m tired.”

“Okay,” Jungkook said, hugging him close and staring out into the deepening blackness of the forest with intensifying terror. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll wake you up if I hear anything.”

Taehyung shuffled against him, fidgeted for a few minutes, and then his breathing evened out. Jungkook clung to him, scared of falling, staring out into the darkness, sweaty and twitchy. How the hell did Taehyung manage to sleep?

The muggy night grew chillier, the smell of rotting plants blowing up from the swamp on a quickening breeze. Jungkook felt stuck in limbo. Through the tree he could see strips of stars sliding in and out of sight as clouds blew over. Frogs trilled into the early summer night. He thought he heard alligators huffing and bellowing away in the distance, but it was hard to tell on the wind. The pain in his back intensified into a stabbing feeling. Way off to the left, a single glowing light bobbed up out of the swamp and danced through the trees, stooping low to the ground here and there and then hopping away.

An hour or so after Taehyung went to sleep, in the dim delirium of tense sightlessness and waiting, Jungkook saw another light, long, silver, and huge, slipping in and out of sight way in the distance. He almost woke Taehyung. It vanished. He sat quietly for another long minute, and then heard a long pealing cackle nearby. He shook Taehyung awake.

“Hm?” Taehyung whispered, stirring groggily and burying his head in Jungkook’s shoulder.

“Cackling,” Jungkook whispered, shaking him harder, “There’s something here.”

Several harsh, loud laughs broke out, closer this time. Taehyung picked his head up and listened. They could hear growling, nasty voices now, cruel and stony. Taehyung turned carefully and picked his legs up on the branch, hauling Jungkook’s up closer with them.

“Imps?” Jungkook whispered.

“Sounds more like a couple hags,” Taehyung said. “I can kinda get night vision. Hold on.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes for a moment. “Two hags and a goblin. They’re passing us about thirty feet away, just under the outer branches of the tree.”

Jungkook shuddered and was glad he couldn’t see them. “What are hags like?”

“Gross-looking, hairy, tiny women. They eat children. Goblins are just nasty. I think they’re keeping him like a pet and he isn’t happy about it.”

“That sounds familiar,” Jungkook muttered, “I’m empathetic. Poor guy.”

“Oh shut up,” Taehyung said. “That’s just insulting. We do not treat you like a pet.”

“Uh-huh. Last week you and Jimin played tug-of-war with my chain and nearly broke my neck.”

“That was an accident!”

“You’re both so careless!”

“Shh!”

Jungkook tensed, staring fearfully around at the darkness. “I don’t like it when either of you pet my head and call me a good boy like I’m a dog. It’s condescending. Stop it.”

Jungkook could feel him pouting by the way his shoulders sagged. “Your back hurts,” he said suddenly, “I can feel it. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Should I have?” Jungkook said, “There’s not a lot we can do about it right now. I didn’t want to complain.”

“Not a lot, true, but I can at least do something.” He shuffled around awkwardly on the branch till he was facing Jungkook, knees hooked over Jungkook’s legs, and pulled him forwards off the tree trunk so he could stick his freezing fingers up the back of Jungkook’s shirt. Jungkook squeaked and tensed up, and then Taehyung started trailing his fingers up Jungkook’s muscles, and the pain melted out of them, knots softening, sore spots straightening out. His spine cracked. He couldn’t stop the helpless, relieved moan as Taehyung’s fingers smoothed over the tense spot that still ached from the bucket, and he felt the muscles completely relax.

“Better?” Taehyung asked.

“Holy fuck,” Jungkook whispered.

“It won’t fix it for the rest of the night,” Taehyung said, “It’ll probably all come back before we can get out of this tree, but that should really help for a while.”

Jungkook sagged back against the trunk feeling like a big, melting mound of butter. Taehyung turned back around and lay back against his chest again, and Jungkook angled his chin up and kissed him softly on the lips.

“That’s twice today,” Taehyung said when they broke apart, “You’ve kissed me twice.”

“I’ve kissed you a lot more than twice.”

“I mean like that, like on the lips. You never do that.”

“We kiss all the time,” Jungkook said, baffled.

“No, I kiss you all the time,” Taehyung said, voice rising a little, “and you kiss Jimin all the time but you never kiss me like that. You’ve done it twice today.”

Jungkook kissed him again, arms squeezing tight around his chest.

“Jimin never kisses me either,” Taehyung said softly. “He cuddles me all the time but he doesn’t kiss me, and I don’t care, because that’s just not how we’ve always done things, so I get it. It’s fine. I don’t kiss him either. It only bothers me because he kisses you, and I feel like both of you only kiss me when I’ve done something good, and you never kiss me. I never do anything good.” He trailed off with a choked-off whine of exasperation. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotten you trapped out here in the woods and now I’m crying on you. It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

“Taehyung, I never know what you want from us,” Jungkook said with a sigh, and Taehyung whined unhappily, frustrated. Jungkook hugged him tighter. “I didn’t realize that bothered you. I’ll kiss you more. I don’t kiss you most of the time because I get nervous.”

“You get nervous? You’re not nervous around Jimin.”

“Well I know Jimin's always up for kisses. He always says what he’s thinking. You’re a little scarier. I know you’ve had bad shit happen to you before. I don't want to overstep any boundaries.”

Taehyung hummed sadly.

“If it's bothering you," Jungkook said, "I'll can change it. It's not because I don’t feel like kissing you. I definitely do. You’re so beautiful and bright and captivating.” Taehyung chuckled a little. “Jimin’s really needy, but it always seems like you want space. He’ll come up and hug me in the morning, but usually you just grab breakfast and then run off to do chores. When we’re cuddling on the couch you’re still in the kitchen making potions. If you need more affection, I’d love to give it to you, but you act like you don’t want it.”

“I don’t,” Taehyung said defensively, “I mean, I kind of do. I mean, I don’t need it, and I don’t actively want it, but I feel left out sometimes.”

“You’re incredible,” Jungkook said. “It’s intimidating.”

Taehyung finally giggled a little. “I like that. I can work with intimidating.”

Jungkook tilted Taehyung to the side a little so he could press his lips to Taehyung’s, tongue sliding across his lips. Taehyung sighed softly and went completely limp against his shoulder, mouth opening easily and letting him in. Jungkook rubbed his hands slowly over Taehyung’s shirt, stopping to squeeze every once and a while, pressing against his small, soft tummy as he bit gently at his lips.

“Stop,” Taehyung whined when Jungkook’s fingers snuck beneath his shirt and pressed at the tiny, soft swell over his stomach. “Stop teasing. I’m self-conscious about that.”

“Why?” Jungkook giggled, “It’s barely anything. I love it.”

“Imagine if you had two guys that looked like you and Jimin around all the time and you had no muscle and one of them kept poking your fat. It’s embarrassing.”

Jungkook jostled him in his arms. “I like how small you are.”

“I’m taller than you! And older! Show some respect!”

Jungkook wrapped his whole body around Taehyung, squeezing him close. “Pretty Tae,” he muttered, kissing down his neck. Taehyung let his head flop onto Jungkook’s shoulder with a defeated sigh.

“Oh look! Your fish!” Taehyung said. A flock of tiny lights drifted through the trees in front of them, curling lazily around the branches. Jungkook hugged Taehyung close and stared.

“Does all good stuff light up?” he asked.

“Good stuff? That’s a daylight kind of thing. There’s not a lot of good stuff out here at night. If it lights up its probably trying to lead you off into the swamp to kill you. I’m surprised those fish didn’t get you the first time you saw them. Maybe it was the coat’s protective spells.”

“They’re evil?” Jungkook said, feeling a little betrayed.

“I don’t know about evil. They’re just trying to eat too. The sirens out here, those are evil. You’d never expect sirens in a fucking swamp, and I’m pretty sure they’re not happy to be here, but they’re evil. The demons and hellhounds? They’re evil. Everything else is kind of neutral or just obnoxious, like the imps.”

“Oh god, this forest is full of hellspawn.”

“Look,” Taehyung said, pointing at a deep, giant, black shadow trailing after the fish, lumbering in and out of the trees, just barely visible in their glow. “They’ve trapped a bugbear. They’re going to lead him into the swamp and then the alligators will hold him under while they eat him like piranhas. They’ve got a really cool symbiotic relationship with the normal wildlife out here.”

“What the fuck?” Jungkook squeaked, squeezing Taehyung tighter.

“Sorry,” Taehyung said. “I try not to talk about the creatures with you, but they’re so cool. I can’t help it.”

“Oh god,” Jungkook said, burying his head in the back of Taehyung’s neck, all the helpless fear swamping back over him.

“I can’t believe we have a bonded servant with an actual phobia of magic,” Taehyung muttered.

“Tell me when it's over,” Jungkook whined, feeling far too exposed. He wished he was in one of the old nylon hunting hides, sheltered and built for sitting in for a long period of time. Taehyung reached a hand back and scratched his head, fingers running soothingly over his scalp, tugging gently on his short hair.

“We’ll be okay. We’ll keep each other safe.”

“Are there any giant spiders in this forest?”

“It’s not Mirkwood,” Taehyung said, giggling.

“I was thinking more along the lines of Harry Potter.”

“No giant spiders,” Taehyung said. “No giant snakes either. It’s too cold in the winter for those.”

Another chilly breeze rustled through the branches and Taehyung drew his knees up to his chest and pulled his arm down between them, shivering. Jungkook tried to wrap his arms more around Taehyung’s exposed skin, nuzzling into his neck. Taehyung liked to act tough and independent, but Jungkook had seen how he turned into a ragdoll when he or Jimin took care of him. Sure enough, he sighed, legs flopping sideways against Jungkook’s.

They stayed very still for a long while. Taehyung fiddled with Jungkook’s hands in the dark, snapping the hair tie on his wrist and tracing his veins in the dark. Even though they were inches apart, Jungkook couldn’t feel what he was thinking, which reassuringly meant boredom. If Taehyung was relaxed, Jungkook could afford to. Taehyung’s legs straightened out on the branch again. Jungkook’s neck felt a little wet.

“Tae?”

No response. Jungkook carefully reached up and touched the wet spot. Oh. Taehyung had fallen asleep and started drooling. Perfect. He sank back into the tense, dark limbo of listening and waiting. He thought he saw a purple pinwheel glowing like a sunspot off in the woods, but he blinked and it disappeared. Taehyung lay like a heavy doll against him, hot and comforting, but limp and worryingly precarious. Jungkook’s back began to hurt again.

It seemed strangely calm. After all he’d heard about the woods, he’d expected it to look like a dark carnival, crawling with monsters, glowing and twisting and maddening. So far it felt mostly like any other night he’d spent out in the woods escaping the stale smell of his old apartment, hijacking someone’s hunting hide in the woods as a treehouse tent and watching deer come and go in the moonlight, knowing they’d be dead if he’d been anyone else. He’d been the monster in the woods then.

A great horned owl started a call and response to its mate across the forest, reassuringly normal. Unless this great horned owl was one of the ones with actual curly horns. They went on for so long that Jungkook began to imagine a love song in the hoots, the owls singing verses to each other. He wished he could sing something to pass the time, maybe sing a lullaby to Tae, curled up safely against Jungkook’s chest.

Off to the left, something shuffled along the ground, muttering, a chilling, toe-curling voice like nails on a chalkboard, full of malice. Jungkook pulled his legs up around Taehyung’s, one arm braced against the other branch for balance. It got closer and closer till Jungkook could hear claws scraping over the tree’s roots like the stuff of nightmares, the voices hissing wetly to itself. Sweat tracked down his face. The muttering cut off, and Jungkook tried to regulate his breathing, the silence more alarming than any of the noises. The breeze picked up, and Jungkook strained to hear it, imagined that he heard claws scratching up the trunk, but was too scared to jostle Taehyung in case he made noise when he woke up.

The muttering voice scratched right next to Jungkook’s ear. “Well well, look what we have he—”

Jungkook squeaked in terror, jumping so hard he nearly fell out of the tree, and slammed his fist hard into the creature. It gave fleshily against his fist, grunting, and flew out of the tree. Long fingers barely grazed Jungkook’s face. His fist came away wet. The thing hit the ground and wailed.

Jungkook yelped again. “Taehyung. Taehyung. Taehyung. Taehyung.”

Taehyung started awake. “Oh god. Jungkook, what—”

“I punched something out of the tree.”

Jungkook’s chain lit up in Taehyung’s hand, bright glowing gold, and Jungkook saw an imp on the ground, curled up around his ugly face and yelling, rotting yellow teeth dripping onto the ground, blistering skin glistening in the light.

“Oh my god, I touched that thing,” Jungkook whimpered.

Taehyung gestured at it frantically and the wailing cut off. It glared up furiously. Taehyung shocked it with a ball of light. It waddled silently away into the woods.

“You okay, Jungkook?” Taehyung asked, and let go of the chain. The darkness closed in over them again.

Jungkook whined in disgust, wiping his hand off on his pants, waves of disgusted, terrified shivers wracking his entire body.

“Well, you faced off with an imp and won. Congrats,” Taehyung said.

Jungkook pulled his phone out of his pocket. “It’s just after one. Fuck. How has it only been three hours?”

“Three and a half. Less than four to go. We’re about halfway done.”

“Oh god. I’m never going to make it.”

“Shh,” Taehyung said, turning around on the branch again and wrapping his arms around his neck. “You just punched an imp in the face. That’s awesome. I bet he really wasn’t expecting that.”

“I want to go home,” Jungkook said. Taehyung gently kissed his forehead.

“Can I calm you down?”

“Sure.”

Taehyung pressed their foreheads together. The disgust and shock dulled a little. It wasn’t as effective as the calming potion, but it helped, and Jungkook took a few deep breaths and did the rest himself. Taehyung turned back around in his arms and let him hug him like a teddy bear. “I’m sorry. I’ll try not to go to sleep again.”

“Thanks. Just stay awake until we know he’s not coming back.”

They sat quietly together for a long time. Jungkook shifted his back uncomfortably on the trunk and Taehyung’s leg bounced incessantly up and down. “I’m so fucking bored and twitchy,” he muttered.

The purple pinwheel appeared again, closer, and Jungkook could see that it was a spinning face frozen in an expression of anguish like a mask on mass of rippling black. He jolted, clutching Taehyung tightly. Taehyung pressed back against him, hands grabbing Jungkook’s legs, sucking in air through his nose, actually scared for once. The thing wasn’t facing them though, and it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“What was that?”

“Demon of suffering,” Taehyung whispered back, and then fell silent. It took a while for either of them to relax.

As Jungkook fell into a Zen state of tense waiting, Taehyung fidgeted constantly. The leg bouncing turned into Taehyung playing with Jungkook’s hands like dolls, a couple deep sighs, rolling his head back and forth on Jungkook’s shoulder, ripping bark off the branch. An hour passed of nothing but a couple hooting owls and growing annoyance.

“I fucking hate this,” Taehyung hissed finally. Jungkook took a deep, patient breath, and then gently bit down on Taehyung’s shoulder. Taehyung gasped. Jungkook backed off and sucked on the bite, tongue pressing into the little indentations from his teeth. Taehyung squirmed a little. “I hope Jimin’s okay,” he whined, “He’ll be so worried. I bet he won’t sleep. He’ll clean the house all night to have something to do. I hope he didn’t come out looking for us.”

“Me too,” Jungkook said, layering wet kisses up Taehyung’s neck. He took Taehyung’s earlobe between his teeth and bit gently, then flicked his tongue along the shell. Taehyung’s breath caught. He made a tiny noise that Jungkook felt more than heard over the soft rustling of the pines. He pushed his hands up inside Taehyung’s shirt, teasing lightly over his soft skin. Taehyung seemed a bit stiff, back jerking slightly every time Jungkook’s fingers brushed over his nipples.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung finally asked, breath hitching.

“Calming you down. Is this okay?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

“If we’re going to die out here, killed by a demon of suffering or whatever, I want to hear you come one more time,” Jungkook murmured right under his ear.

“Hurry,” Taehyung said, “we can’t be loud.”

Jungkook dropped out hand out of his shirt and unbuttoned his jeans. Taehyung’s hips jerked up against his hand. “Shh, I got you. Hold still.”

Taehyung let his head fall all the way back again, and Jungkook sucked on his neck as he pulled Taehyung’s dick out of his pants and stroked it gently. “Don’t tease,” Taehyung whispered.

“I like teasing,” Jungkook said, biting Taehyung’s neck right under his jaw.

“Do you want me to show you how I like it?” Taehyung asked.

“I was just going to do it how I usually do it,” Jungkook said with a couple firm strokes that had Taehyung twisting against him. His dick was a little smaller than Jungkook’s, just barely, and a little thinner. “Can you add lube?” he asked.

Taehyung curled two magically wet fingers around the tip of his dick and stroked down, covering it. Jungkook nudged his hand away and kept stroking. Taehyung sighed softly, nuzzling his head affectionately against Jungkook’s, arms jammed down by his sides and out of the way. Jungkook couldn’t pull Taehyung’s pants down with the way his legs were spread wide around the branch, but he forced the open front down as low as he could get them and rolled Taehyung’s balls gently in his hand. Taehyung’s hips twitched, breath coming heavier.

“Shh,” Jungkook whispered as the breeze died down for a moment, head working tight and steady, loving the way Taehyung’s tummy tensed when he squeezed the head of his dick at the top of his stoke.

“This is pr-probably a bad idea,” Taehyung murmured. Jungkook smiled against his neck and squeezed, his other hand pushing lower to press on his perineum. “Holy fuck, you’re so good at this,” Taehyung whimpered. “Is this how you get off all the time?”

“Yeah?” Jungkook said. “Are there different ways?”

“I always use magic,” Taehyung said.

“Ah. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Taehyung just groaned lowly, twitching fitfully against him. Jungkook kept his eyes on the woods as he worked, not really paying attention, enjoying how soft Taehyung felt in his hands, the little noises he couldn’t quite hold in, the way he clung to Jungkook’s thighs.

Taehyung always sounded beautiful with someone else’s hands on him, not the same way Jimin did with his high, desperate whines and his beautiful, melodic moans. Taehyung was much quieter, and every soft, low sound he made was like a reward. It was rarely just the two of them, but when they had time, he loved to tease just to get Taehyung lost enough to let go a little. Jimin liked to race through things, to tell them what to do and get as deep and intense into things as possible, so that was what they usually did, but Jungkook suspected that Taehyung liked it slow, liked to relax and just let it happen to him.

“Pretty Tae,” he murmured again, and Taehyung’s long fingers tightened on his thighs.

“I’m going to come to you every time I wanna masturbate from now on,” Taehyung whispered.

“I’ll take care of you,” Jungkook whispered back.

Taehyung slowly and steadily got more desperate, wound up and squirming, tensing like he was about to come and then going limp again. Jungkook suspected they’d been inches from the edge for a while, but Taehyung never begged, kept whining and sighing softly, body shaking and teeth gritted. Jungkook kept his mouth working on one spot on his neck, hands steady until Taehyung shuddered, gasped, and came in gentle spurts into Jungkook’s hand.

“Good boy,” Jungkook said, half teasing, working Taehyung through the aftershocks.

“Thank you,” Taehyung murmured.

Jungkook kissed his cheek. “Can you help me clean this up?”

“I’m not as good at that as Jimin,” Taehyung said. “I can clean off my own skin but I have a harder time with clothes and other people. Rub it on the tree.”

Jungkook sighed and reached down the trunk as far as he could to try and put it where he wouldn’t rub his leg in it later. Taehyung tucked himself back into his pants. “Do you want me to do you?” Taehyung said.

“What, clean my hand?”

“Jerk you off, silly,” Taehyung said.

“Nah. You can do me when we get back. I’m getting kind of antsy. You’re about to fall asleep and at least one of us should be awake.”

“I’m sorry I keep falling asleep,” Taehyung said, voice slurring and sleepy. “When I wake up I’ll take watch and you can sleep.”

“I’m not sleeping tonight,” Jungkook said.

“How’s your back?”

“Bearable. A little uncomfortable, but not too bad. The pain from carrying the bucket is coming back.”

“Hmm,” Taehyung sighed.

“Gonna do something about it?”

“mm.” He didn’t move.

“Goodnight, cutie,” Jungkook sighed and settled in for another back-aching, nail-biting stretch of the night, this time with one rather sticky hand. The moon finally came out, just a sliver of light turning strips of the forest from black to deep gray. Something screamed across the swamp, echoing amongst the trees, and Jungkook stared around with wide-eyes until he forgot what he was looking for. He heard the scream again, so far away now that he wasn’t sure he’d heard it at all. What screamed in folklore? Mandrake? Banshee? Any number of weird birds?

What if it was Jimin? Couldn’t be Jimin. He wouldn’t sound like that. Jungkook tried not to imagine Jimin screaming. Taehyung snored very softly under his ear. Away in the swamp he heard what sounded like a huge animal wading through the water. He wondered if the bugbear had been devoured yet. Demon of suffering. What other kinds of demons lurked in the woods? A demon of sleeplessness, maybe. Jungkook’s head had started to feel a little worn out. His eyes felt cold and shrunken. How long had it been since he’d drunk anything? Or Taehyung? Maybe they were both dehydrated.

He figured it must be nearly four in the morning and checked Taehyung’s phone since it was easier to reach. 2:57 a.m.

All the moonlight disappeared and Jungkook sighed. The little bit of light had felt both dangerous and comforting. He glanced up at the sky and saw no stars at all. Had the clouds really come that fast? But the wind had died. A deep sense of despair flooded his mind, like a headache without pain. After everything he’d heard about the woods, after all the times he’d run inside as the sun set and hid beneath his covers with the curtains drawn, the nights they lit every candle and lantern in the house against the horrible howling in the distance. After that first night when they’d knocked him out on a table to prevent him from going outside, he was sure they’d die out here. There was no way they’d survive so easily.

His chest hurt. He’d stopped breathing. He didn’t want to start breathing. If he died now it would hurt less than getting mauled by the bugbears later.

Taehyung breathed softly against his ear, turning uncomfortably in his sleep. Jungkook snapped out of it and hung onto him, sucking in a deep breath and settling Taehyung back against him. He still had to keep Taehyung safe.

The darkness receded strangely, not like the moon was coming out, but like tendrils of blackness were dissipating and leaving the moonlight behind, like a shadow pulling away into the trees.

“Dementors,” Jungkook thought immediately, but wasn’t sure that was quite right. He felt a little lighter. He’d ask Taehyung about it later. Jimin always laughed when he tried to compare things to fantasy books, but Taehyung used them to explain things, and sometimes got off on thirty minute tangents about the crossover between actual magic and non-magic fairy-tales, folklore, and fantasy.

He heard the scream again. It didn’t startle him as much anymore. Some imps passed by, just far enough away to hear their grumbling voices. More splashing in the swamp. The purple pin-wheeling face spun far away, reflected upside down in black water below it, and then vanished again. Maybe he’d seen everything there was to see in this part of the woods. Taehyung snorted angrily in his sleep and Jungkook stared worriedly down at him for a minute until he said, quite clearly, “Chimchim,” and then groaned a little and fell silent.

Jungkook very gently brushed his lips over where he thought Taehyung’s cheekbone was. Taehyung didn’t stir.

Jungkook’s stomach rumbled painfully. The moon reached higher over the trees. Some weird, skittering, chattering noise passed through the trees to the right and Jungkook didn’t do more than tilt his head and listen. Taehyung felt so heavy and warm in his arms, the best kind of companion. He itched to hug him tight but didn’t want to wake him up. Sometimes Jungkook wanted him so much it felt like his heart would crack. Sometimes he felt like driving away and leaving them both behind forever. They both needed each other out here in the dark woods.

“Mah?”

Jungkook jumped. Two yellow eyes glowed down on the ground, staring straight up at them. Jungkook’s heart ripped out of the gate, thundering wildly, adrenaline shocking right down into his fingers. The yellow eyes popped right up onto the branch like they’d jumped. Couldn’t be an imp this time. Jungkook imagined a low, lizard-like creature with a toothy smile and sharp claws. They slid steadily up the branch, unblinking. “Mmrr,” the eyes said, a low woman’s voice.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook said, shaking him, digging his fingers into his ribs. The eyes stopped just out of kicking distance. “Taehyung, wake up, please.”

Taehyung struggled awake with a groan.

“Aamm,” the voice said.

“Brandy?” Taehyung muttered.

“Mrrrp.”

“Brandy!”

“Brandy?” Jungkook squeaked. He could feel Taehyung stretch his arms out towards the animal and grabbed them. “I don’t think that’s Brandy,” he hissed frantically, “It has a human voice.”

“Have you never heard Brandy meow before?” Taehyung asked, grabbing Jungkook’s chain again, and gold light lit up their branch. Sure enough, Brandy sat there on the branch, fluffy tail curled around her paws, stern, yellow eyes blinking in the sudden light. “Her voice is always really human, but she doesn’t talk a lot.”

“Oh.” Jungkook sagged, grabbing his own chain for support. “Thank fucking Jesus. Can we turn this off? The light is probably danger—”

The purple face appeared right behind Brandy, a huge, looming form, leering, the face spinning slowly, a deep, screeching roar raging up out of it, the smell of decay. Jungkook felt himself scream. Taehyung tried to claw his way out of his arms, feet scrambling on the bark, the empathetic link pounding with terror. Every inch of Jungkook’s body exploding in twisting pain like his bones were splintering inside him. Unfathomable misery filled his chest. His skin blistered. His throat felt clogged with muck. The twisted purple face, blacker than the night, its maw a gaping tunnel into nothing, drifted closer, and Jungkook couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He felt his spine snap, felt his guts knotting, felt his knees turn inside out as the face reached out awful, rotting hands, gnarled, broken fingers uncurling, and it was reaching for Taehyung. Jungkook couldn’t let it get Tae. He hung on tight with his broken arms, skin sizzling, screaming cut off as his throat swelled with infection. The world distorted, consciousness spiraling into the black hole between its purple teeth, the smile mocking, screaming, wailing

Everything washed away in a streak of silver. The demon vanished. Jungkook collapsed backwards and almost toppled sideways out of the tree. He heaved loud, heavy breaths into his aching chest, still whimpering in panic. His arms were fine, squeezing around Taehyung. His body stung, but he was fine. His back still hurt. Taehyung cried wildly against his chest, curled up and shaking with his face tucked into Jungkook’s shoulder. Brandy meowed with pitiful, human whines in Taehyung’s arms.

“Taehyung. Oh my god, Taehyung. You’re okay. Fuck. Taehyung look at me please. You’re okay.”

The silver light disappeared, so Jungkook pulled out his phone with shaking fingers and turned the flashlight on. Taehyung pressed his face against Jungkook’s chest, still sobbing. “I’m sorry, Jungkook. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Taehyung, I’m fine. It’s okay. We’re okay. What did you do? What scared it away?”

“I couldn’t do anything,” Taehyung wailed. “I couldn’t think! I just let it come for you.”

Jungkook grabbed his face and forced it up out of his shirt so he could kiss him, kiss desperately all over his face, got his lips damp with tears and wiped them off on Taehyung’s bangs. They were already enough of a muddy, sweaty, dried-cum and tuber-slime mess. “Tae. Fuck. We’re okay. Oh my god, we’re alive. What if it comes back?” he choked on another panicked sob, hands shaking on Taehyung’s face. “We should stop yelling. Oh my god, I was so scared. What was the silver thing?”

Taehyung was still trembling all over. “Flashlight off,” he squeaked, and Jungkook turned it off with fumbling fingers. “I don’t know what that was. I mean, I have an idea, but I don’t know. Never mind. I don’t know. Maybe it was—”

The glowing silver light filled the tree like a spotlight had clicked on right behind them. They looked up. The reptilian belly of a giant, silver alligator passed over the branch above them, huge, clawed feet clutching the branch like it weighed nothing, bright as if light was shining on its scales, lit up on its own in the dark. The alligator kept coming and coming, hugely elongated. It twisted into the air and down out of the tree, hovering, body turned all the way around like a ribbon. Two long whiskers sprouted from it’s snout like a catfish. Extra fins sprung sail-like down its back, waving gently like he was underwater. He turned one big, blue eye towards them. Brandy hopped out of Taehyung’s arm, scampered down to the end of the branch, and touched noses with it, a cat gesture of greeting. It winked at the boys and swam away through the air like a giant serpent with its legs tucked in close to its sides, frilly, powerful tail winding easily through the pines until he dived below the water and drifted away like reflected moonlight through the trees.

“Dragon,” Taehyung whispered.

And like the dragon had hailed the daylight, light gray tinged the Eastern sky, and a bird chirped off in the woods. They sat there, completely still and shivering, clutching each other and staring off into the lightening swamp, until Jungkook’s aching back forced him to shift around again, jostling them out of their stillness.

“Brandy says she can lead us to the truck,” Taehyung said breathlessly. “It’ll be safer to run now than to stay here. Let’s go.”

They stumbled back through the woods in a daze, lugging the tuber’s bucket between them. They ran into a squadron of imps, but Taehyung just knocked them out of the way and Jungkook had seen enough to really not give a shit about imps anymore. Something had graffitied the truck with black slime. “I wish Jimin was here to clean this off. We’d better hurry. He’s probably so worried.”

Jungkook nodded mutely and got in the driver’s seat.

“That looked like a Chinese dragon,” Jungkook said, his first time speaking since they’d seen it.

“Water dragons usually look like that,” Taehyung said. “Pretty unimpressive as dragons go, but damn. I’ve never seen it up close like that. Didn’t know you were friends with it, Brandy.”

Brandy purred a little from where she was curled up on Jungkook’s lap.

“That explains a lot,” Taehyung said. “You mystify me, sweetheart.”

Rumbling down the last stretch of road, Taehyung spoke again. “Demons of suffering can sense pain and unhappiness. That’s how they find victims. Just sitting in a dark tree in a scary forest feeling freaked out isn’t enough though. It didn’t see us until…” Taehyung took a deep breath. “It didn’t see us until I used your chain.”

“Ah,” Jungkook said, very quietly.

The engine rumbled. The sky had begun to change color and the sun would rise soon. Jungkook said nothing. “I’m sorry,” Taehyung whispered. “We really care about you, you know that, right? You’re amazing and we love you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it weighed enough on you to call a demon of suffering.”

Jungkook sighed. “Can we stick with talking about the dragon? I don’t want to think about that right now. The dragon was amazing.”

Taehyung sagged over his bucket of tubers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again, and sniffled a little. Jungkook dimly felt his huge wave of guilt and didn’t know what to say.

When they finally drove back into the clearing from the back of the property, Jungkook could feel intense and frantic grief from Jimin, and he nearly whimpered. Taehyung made a pained noise beside him, and then Jimin’s sadness dissolved into shocked relief, sending a huge burst of love, and joy into the empathetic link. Taehyung jumped out of the truck before they’d even fully stopped, set the sloshing bucket of tubers on the ground, and sprinted to meet Jimin racing around from the front of the house in bare feet wearing only Jungkook’s boxers and one of Taehyung’s shirts, face streaked with tears. They slammed into each other and tumbled onto the ground, both of them sobbing.

Jungkook got out and jogged over to his puddle of witches. Bubble stood on the edge of the porch, bobbing uncertainly. She finally screwed up, butt wiggling, popped off the edge like a cork, and disappeared into the overgrown grass. She bounced out of it, looking like a bedraggled cotton ball, and pranced right into Taehyung’s lap.

“I felt something,” Jimin said, “about an hour ago. I felt you dying! I thought you were both dead! You were terrified!”

“Demon of suffering,” Taehyung whimpered, and Jimin choked, his glittering hand flying to his mouth. “It nearly got us. The dragon saved us, Jimin. The fucking dragon!”

“Oh my god,” Jimin curled up on the ground with his face in his hands. “You nearly died. You actually could have died. I felt you die! I was sitting in the library and I suddenly you were both in so much pain, and you were terrified, and then there was nothing but shock and I thought you were dead. I’ve been crying on the floor of the library for an hour.”

Jungkook sat down in the wet grass and pulled Jimin into his lap. Bubble came with him, curling up between Jimin’s shoulder and Jungkook’s chest. “I can’t stand it here anymore,” Jimin cried. “We live in the middle of hell. We’re moving back up north! I hate it here!”

“Chim chim,” Taehyung giggled weakly, and wrapped himself around Jimin’s side. “We’ll be fine. The dragon saved us. Brandy knows him.”

“I’m never letting either of you out of the house again!” Jimin yelled, smacking Jungkook’s chest with every word. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” he groaned. “I’m so glad. You have no idea. To stay awake all night worrying and then right before dawn, to feel that and think…” He broke down sobbing again.

“You’re getting to be more and more like your mom,” Taehyung teased weakly.

“Good. My mom is awesome,” Jimin said, muffled against his hands.

To everyone’s surprise, Brandy rested a consoling paw on Jimin’s knee. Bubble immediately bumped her head into Jimin’s chin and tumbled off his shoulder into his lap, peeping. Jimin tentatively reached out and hand and rubbed Brandy’s head, using the other hand to hold Bubble still. Brandy let him pet her for a moment. Jimin calmed down a bit, enough to pull Jungkook down into a hard kiss. He grabbed Taehyung by the ears and shook him playfully before kissing him too. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he whispered. Taehyung nodded, hands squeezing Taehyung’s wrists, breath shaky again, eyes squeezed shut.

“Breakfast?” Jungkook asked. “We haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“I need some water,” Taehyung agreed, “and we need to get the tubers into storage.”

“And then sleep,” Jungkook said, “I didn’t sleep all night either. Taehyung did somehow.”

“I would too with you around,” Jimin said, getting up to lead them inside. “You just feel safe.”

Jungkook felt his cheeks heat up a little.

Taehyung made breakfast since he was the only person who’d slept, skipping around the kitchen frying eggs and taking care of the tubers. Jungkook lay his head down on the table and Jimin lay against him, arms around his middle, occasionally choking down small sobs and giddy, relieved giggles.

“Jungkook punched an imp in the face,” Taehyung said, setting eggs, bacon, and orange juice down on the table. “It was awesome.”

Jimin ruffled Jungkook’s hair. “Proud of you.”

Jungkook shrugged, smiling. “Not that big a deal.”

“No,” Jimin said, “not next to a demon of suffering. Fuck. I used to have nightmares about those. I’m going to start having them again now. Does it feel as awful as they say it does?”

“Worse,” Taehyung said quietly, “It really did feel like being put in a blender, but, like add terror and fire and a whole lot of bitterness.”

“How’d it find you?” Jimin asked.

Taehyung glanced at Jungkook through his long lashes.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Jungkook said, “We should sleep now.”

Jimin, like a good mother, didn’t press. He did a cursory clean on all of them, “so we don’t wreck the sheets. You’ll need showers later, but that’ll do for now,” and then bundled them all into Jungkook’s bed.

“I guess I’ll miss work,” Jungkook said, checking his phone. “It’s a little after six a.m. Too early to call Owen.”

“Just apologize later," Jimin said. "He’ll give you grief for it but whatever.” He curled tighter into Jungkook's side, Bubble stretching on the pillow between their heads. Taehyung spooned Jimin with one hand tangled with Jungkook’s.

“Love you,” Taehyung whispered to both of them.

“Eh, you’re alright,” Jungkook muttered, and they both giggled, Jimin with a little sigh of desperate relief, and they fell asleep together as the sun rose.

Notes:

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Chapter 3: The Loft

Summary:

Jungkook gets mad. Taehyung and Jimin go shopping for home furnishings.

Notes:

This chapter has been translated into Russian.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The sun had just started easing onto the roof of the new barn, the beginning of a new playtime, and time for alarm clock duties. Bubble couldn’t decide whether to wake Taehyung or Jimin first. Jimin lay on his side, shoulders crunched in close, cheek smashed against the pillow, and Taehyung was on his back on the other side of the bed with the covers nearly all the way off, bare limbs sprawled across the mattress.

Ah. Third option. Jungkook on the floor. Jungkook posed an exciting challenge. There weren’t even any blankets to mask the landing zone. Bubble took aim right for his soft face, paws bunching up right on the very edge of the mattress. Difficult distance, angle slightly off due to Taehyung’s inconvenient pillow blocking the route to a better launch point. She bobbed, tail swishing, getting caught on Taehyung’s arm. Ready, aim, fire.

All the strength in her legs got her just shy of Jungkook’s shoulder. Her claws caught the back of his t-shirt, but her back legs landed on the ground. She tried to pull out and couldn’t. “Mrrowr?”

Jungkook twitched a little. She shook her paws. He rolled over onto his back and nearly crushed her. “Merow! Meowrr. Prrrooo!” He lifted his arm back up.

“Bubble?”

“Brr?”

He gently unhooked her claws and sat up. She purred and tried to tilt her head far enough to the side to rub against his hand. She got an ear to his wrist and then decided that was good enough. Her sweet boy.

“Wake the idiots up,” Jungkook groaned, setting her back on the bed and flinching as he stretched, and then walked out. Bubble hopped right up to Taehyung’s neck and started wiggling. Taehyung woke with a giggle. “Hey fluff-ball. What’s up with you? Hey Jimin. Morning. Your turn to cook breakfast.”

“Jungkook’s,” Jimin groaned. Bubble ran over and jumped on his face to make waking up a bit fuzzier, which always made things better in Bubble’s opinion.

“Jungkook’s turn?” Taehyung said. “Oh yeah. You right. Where is he?”

Jimin stretched his hand out over the covers where Jungkook usually slept. Bubble pounced on it, bit a ring, and then immediately started licking it.

“His pillow is on the floor,” Taehyung said. Jimin sat up slowly, blinking through a screen of messy brown hair. His hand raised and Bubble lifted off the bed, scrambling to get all four short paws up on his arm.

“I hear the toilet flushing,” Taehyung said as he pet her head. “That’s where he is.”

Jimin dropped Bubble in an open drawer of Jungkook’s dresser on the way out. Such soft piles of cloth! She kneaded her paws into a balled up foot-mitten. Something scratched along the wood at the back of the drawer. Bubble froze, one paw still shoved against the foot-mitten. Another scratch. She got low on her soft paws and crept inch by inch towards the back of the drawer, pushing through the piles. A small, amber June beetle scratched along the back corner on its awkward legs. Bubble put out a tentative paw, and patted it. It fell on its back and grabbed her toes with its sharp feet. She peeped and shook it off, then batted it against the wall. No effect. She grabbed it with her mouth. It’s strong little legs scraped her tongue, but she hung on, with no idea what to do with her opponent, and growled.

The drawer yanked all the way open, jostling her into a foot-mitten pile. “Bubble, what are you doing in my sock drawer?”

Bubble looked up. Big Jungkook looked smaller from four feet in the air. The beetle squirmed in her mouth. She sat down, content to hold her prize. “Is that a June beetle?” Jungkook asked. “I guess Jimin’s spell only gets the roaches. May I have it?” He held out his hand. Bubble studied it for a moment, then lay the beetle in his palm. He walked over and threw it out the window. Bubble cocked her head. Those beetles were everywhere. Were they not supposed to be in the palace?

Jungkook picked her up and dropped her on the bed. She went searching for Jimin’s warm spot. It was mostly cool now, but it smelled like him. She rolled over on her back, purring, ear twitching at the sound of rustling cloth as Jungkook took his clothes off and put other clothes on. Odd practice. Jimin had always done that a lot. Taehyung less so. Bubble wondered what the purpose of removable fur was. Jimin liked having none on at all a lot of the time.

Speaking of Jimin, he could feel him wanting her. He wasn’t calling, per say, but Bubble could always feel when he was craving a little bit of fuzz and affection, and she was always ready to deliver. She popped off the bed again, flying through the air like a bat soaring in the night (like a sandbag flopping off a table) and scampered off to take the stairs one at a time. Front two legs first, back two legs carefully to the side afterwards. Stairs had been much easier when she’d been a kitten and the stairs had been wider and less easy to fall down.

Jungkook caught up at the bottom of the stairs and carried her right to Jimin’s delightfully warm lap. “Why’d you leave her in my drawer?”

“She likes drawers,” Jimin said, scratching her right on the nose, and oh, that was so nice, so wonderfully nice. She pressed up into it, purring hard enough to start panting, and listened to the relaxing human noises over the rumble of her purrbox.

 

Jimin loved how well Jungkook got along with Bubble. He walked in with her looking even tinier in his big arms, and set her purring in his lap. His hair was already combed, but he scowled like only a Kookie in the morning can do.

“You know she has a hard time getting down from places that high.”

Jimin shrugged. “She’ll be fine. She does it all the time. I’ve had her since I was seven, you know. You don’t have to tell me how to take care of my own familiar.”

“Sometimes you don’t take very good care of things you should, Jimin.”

Jimin felt Bubble stiffen in annoyance and pet her to make her chill. She got so adorably defensive.

“It’s your turn to make breakfast, Jungkook.”

“No, its yours.”

“I made breakfast on your day two days ago!” Jimin said, “Remember?”

“We skipped breakfast and ate cereal!”

“And who poured all the cereal, hm?” he giggled, “I prepared all of that.”

“That doesn’t fucking count.”

The swearing didn’t seem necessary. Sometimes Jungkook got so petulant over the smallest things. Jimin leaned into Taehyung’s arms and glared at Jungkook across the table. “Just make breakfast, Babe.”

Jungkook’s glare deepened dangerously, but he stood up and grabbed the eggs out of the fridge. Jimin felt a small cold spot on his leg and looked down. Bubble was licking stripes on his pants and then staring curiously at them. “What are you doing?” he giggled. She licked it again and look expectantly up at him, and then back down at the stripes. He laughed and rubbed her back with his warm hand. “She’s licking my pants,” he told Taehyung, who looked up from his phone and then nuzzled his head into Jimin’s neck, dropping his phone to pet Bubble.

His hand went straight from petting her to petting Jimin’s abs under his shirt, callouses rough and cool on Jimin’s skin over his slightly queasy, hangover stomach. He held still, smiling a little.

“I’m so hungover,” Taehyung groaned.

Jimin opened his mouth to agree, but Jungkook snapped “Don’t drink so much, idiot.” Jimin’s sighed through his nose, temper flaring. Taehyung rubbed his tummy calmingly.

“Were you sleeping on the floor this morning?” Taehyung asked, carefully changing the topic.

Jungkook cracked eggs violently into a skillet, tossing the shells into the trash can with more force than necessary. “Yes.”

“Why?” Taehyung asked.

Jungkook sighed through his nose. “Because last night, when you two crawled into my bed drunk after midnight and I told you to go back to your rooms because I wanted to sleep alone for once, you told me to just sleep on the floor.”

Oh. Was that it? Jimin went back to petting Bubble.

Taehyung chuckled nervously. “We were kidding. You didn’t actually have to sleep on the floor.”

There was a moment of silence. “Unfortunately,” Jungkook said, and his voice shook a little, “you’ve set up this weird, magical agreement where I have to do everything you tell me to. So I slept on the fucking floor like you told me to.”

Jimin’s stomach suddenly flopped over on its side, the old, familiar Jungkook guilt sweeping up into his throat. “Oh no,” he murmured, and put his face in his hands.

“You didn’t specify that you were kidding. You told me to get on the floor, and when I asked you to let me back on my own bed, you threw my fucking pillow on me and fell asleep. In my bed. Do you want your yolks broken or not, sir?”

Taehyung got a little stiff, the same guilty panic in his head as in Jimin’s, dimly coming down the empathetic link, and Jimin knew Jungkook could feel it too at this range, and they could feel his scary, mounting rage, which hadn’t been this bad since the night they’d both accidentally pulled on his chain at once and nearly broke his neck and his legs yanking him over the coffee table.

“You don’t have to make us breakfast,” Jimin said quietly.

Jungkook yanked the skillet up off the stove with a clang, shoved two-thirds of the eggs into the trash can, and threw it back on the stove. Jimin, Taehyung, and Bubble jumped.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung said in a very small, frantically apologetic voice. Jungkook didn’t respond.

Bubble leapt off Jimin’s lap and went poking around by the back wall under the table like a fat, furry sausage stalking its prey.

“It’s equal exchange,” Jimin said quietly. “We have to do something to make it up to you. Like the new boots we made you after we, um, hurt your neck. What do you need?”

“What do I need? Fucking safety from you. While I’m at work, make me a fucking apartment over the barn. With furniture. Take it out of your own fucking rooms if you have to. Put all the protective spells we need out here.”

“That’s not a fair trade,” Jimin said, “That’s a huge job. That’ll take all day at least, and we don’t have the resources. We’ll stay out of your room when you want.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure what I want is fucking fair, not just because of last night, but for this whole fucking set-up,” Jungkook said through a mouthful of eggs, “You’re witches. You have magic. I don’t. Obviously I’m never completely safe. You’re like bears. You don’t realize you have claws until you accidentally slice me open.” Jimin’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “I know you like sending me to deal with the real world, but man up and do it yourself. I’m sleeping in that attic of the barn tonight whether you’ve fixed it up for me or not, and if I get eaten by hell-hounds out there, that’s your fault. You can listen to your cute little pet scream from your comfortable little house.”

“It was an accident,” Jimin said, stomach twisting further in horror and indignation. That really was a bit harsh. Taehyung cringed beside him, fingers digging into his sweater. Jimin knew Jungkook could feel the swamping guilt coming off of Taehyung, the heart-clenching, sickening apologetic shame, and he was still being nasty. “You know we love you.”

“No I don’t,” Jungkook said, and his plate clanked in the sink, “I know you own me. You love yourselves and you love each other but I have a hard time believing you love me sometimes.”

Taehyung’s first sob broke out of his throat, quietly against Jimin’s shoulder. “Because we accidentally made you sleep on the floor when we were drunk?” Jimin said, “That’s not fair!”

“Because I’m sick of being treated like an object!” Jungkook roared. Brandy appeared at the kitchen door, puffed up and on guard.

No one yelled at Taehyung. Jimin made sure no one yelled at Taehyung. Maybe strangers yelled sometimes, but no one Taehyung loved, not since Jimin’s mom when they had found their experimental potion in the basement, and Taehyung had…reacted. Nobody yelled after that.

There was no way Jungkook could have known, but he should have felt the wave of fear, panic, and shame crumpling Taehyung up into a tiny ball on the bench beside Jimin. “I’ve nearly died so many times because you two shits think its okay to treat this bond like a joke! It nearly killed Tae once too, and he still doesn’t care. You both fucking did this to me! I hate it! If you love me, fucking prove it! Give me somewhere I can go to be safe from you!”

Bubble ran out from under the table and over to Jungkook’s foot. She put both her front paws on his clean, new boots, and stretched her neck up towards him, meowing around a beetle in her mouth. He peered way down at her, fury dissolving immediately. “Is that another beetle? Is it for me?” She bounced on her front paws a little to get it closer. “Thanks,” he said tiredly, crouching down and taking it from her. She bumped his ankle comfortingly and he rubbed her side, then put his dirty old hat on his head and stomped out, still carrying the beetle.

Taehyung curled up and cried silently into his hands while Brandy tried to jam herself into his lap. Jimin rubbed his hair, pulling him close. “I’m sorry. He had no reason to yell at us like that.”

“He did though,” Taehyung said, voice cracking.

“When did the bond ever nearly kill you?” Jimin asked.

“Demon of suffering,” Taehyung muttered, and even the words had Jimin’s heart clenching in fear. “It only found us when I used his chain for light.”

Jimin didn’t know how to sort that. “Oh.” Could it have been coincidence? It couldn’t possibly be that bad. Bubble touched his leg and Jimin picked her up so she could purr against his belly. He stared at the table. “Okay,” Jimin said. “Let’s make him a fucking apartment and then make sure he never needs to use it.”

 

Too many beetles. When she stopped to listen, Bubble could hear them everywhere in the palace. She had exceptional hearing. She could stretch the breadth of most of her senses out to anywhere nearby. It used to really help when Jimin was little and constantly running around near trouble. She could always find him before his mother did, and know when she should curl up on the ground and meow for pets to distract him from going somewhere scary. She didn’t think Jimin had ever noticed, but that was okay.

But just because she could hear the beetle up on the shelf, and see it lurking between two books, six feet up in the dark, didn’t mean she could get to it. Her tiny legs only got her up so far. “Mroo?”

Jimin ignored her. He and Taehyung were sitting on the living room floor with a notebook between them arguing about…curtains?

“Who cares about curtains!” Jimin said. “Stop side-tracking me! Bedframe, dresser, what else?”

“Besides curtains? I think that’s it. We can make him other stuff for it over time, and until then, we’ve got enough stuff to fit it out.”

“Do we have extra sheets?”

“Yes. One set that’s big enough for the spare mattress, but they’re small and the mattress is crappy.”

“He didn’t say it had to be quality. He said it had to be there,” Jimin muttered. “I’m giving him the crappiest lanterns in the house till we have time to make him new ones.”

“Meow!”

“—Not in the spirit of the thing,” Taehyung grumbled.

“He’s going overboard,” Jimin snapped. “He doesn’t get the best stuff. He’ll get nice stuff with time, but we have work to do. He’ll still be staying in here most of the time anyway.”

“Mrrowr.”

“What if he doesn’t? What if he’s finally had enough and he’s going to stay out there every night?”

“Mrrr.”

“He won’t. He’s not that dramatic.”

“He felt really really angry,” Taehyung said softly.

“It won’t last,” Jimin said.

“Mrow!”

“Jeez, Bubble. What?”

Bubble sat up on her hind legs and stared up at the shelf, then turned, owl-like, back to Jimin. “Okay, I’m coming.” Jimin let go of Taehyung’s hand and came to lift her up to the shelf. Bubble spent a few minutes trying to shove her face between the books to reach the beetle as the boys talked budget. She finally got the books knocked far enough apart apart to reach a paw in and bat it out. It fell off the shelf and onto the floor. She primed for an emergency descent. Gosh, that was a long way down. She tipped off, headed right for the beetle, over-rotated, and made a twisting, but elegantly executed dive-landing onto her back.

“Ah! Oh my god, Bubble scared me,” Taehyung said. “Sounded like she knocked a book off the shelf.”

Bubble ran over to her own, personal door, a loose board under the planter table that she could just manage to push enough to the side to worm out of, too short for even Brandy to squeeze through. Outside, the morning mist still hung over the grass. The moon lay low over the cypress forest, green and smoky, the short branches dense with thick burdens of Spanish moss.

Jungkook didn’t like beetles in the house. Bubble was going to get rid of all the beetles and then he’d be happy again. She dropped the June beetle over the edge of the porch into the high grass that Jungkook really needed to get around to cutting because Jimin and Taehyung were hopeless at it, and ran back inside.

Jimin and Taehyung had started piling stuff in the living room and checking it off a list. “He said with furniture, yes, but could we just put post-it notes with words like ‘mirror,’ and ‘clock,’ on it as, like, a promise for those in the future when we’ve had time to make them. I’d rather skimp on the furnishings than the protective spells that are going to take all day. I’ve started the border paint. The salt is boiling in the kitchen next to the potions I’ve had to put on hold because of this shit. And that has to go on first and take some time to set. We can’t spend too much time standing in the middle of Target and arguing.”

“Why are we even driving all the way out to Target when Walmart is just fifteen minutes away?”

Jimin sniffed. “Walmart is evil. I won’t support it. Target also has nicer stuff. Only the best for Kookie.”

Taehyung smiled proudly. Bubble ran over his foot and under the couch. “Look at you having actual informed opinions about non-magic stores. My baby’s getting so big.”

Jimin’s response was drowned out by a beetle in Bubble’s focus scratching against the floor. She crept forward, blue eyes narrowed in on her target. It had fallen on its back trying to climb onto the rug. Easy catch. It struggled sluggishly as she carried it back out the wall.

“I’ve got the sheets,” Taehyung said as she came back inside and zeroed in on a beetle clawing around the inside of a window planter. “And the two secondary lanterns from the living room. I’ll put one of mine down here until we can replace them.”

Jimin groaned. “No, just use the one from the shed! We never use that one!”

Bubble popped up on a chair and just managed to get her back paws up behind her front ones on the planter edge and ran in under the leaves towards the beetle. One plant started wrapping its tendrils nonchalantly around her like it didn’t want her to notice. She hissed at it and dropped her beetle.

“I don’t want him to get any more pissed than he already is!” Taehyung was saying, “There’s an old bookshelf in the shed. You could clean that off and we could load up a few books on it for him. He’d probably like that.”

Jimin stuck a hand into the planter and grabbed Bubble out of it. He set her on the floor. “You’re getting way too into this, Taehyung. We need to be making a passive aggressive statement.”

Taehyung frowned. “I’m pretty sure the only statement that makes is ‘We don’t care about you.’”

Jimin sat down on the couch and rubbed his hands over his eyes. Bubble turned around, ran back over, and bumped her head against his leg. “I’m just pissed at him lashing out like he did. There are ways to civilly talk thing out without scaring the shit out of—AH! Beetle!” He flinched away from Bubble, jolting back up on the couch and yanking his leg out of her reach. Bubble huffed, giving him her best narrow-eyed, unimpressed face, and then scampered away with it still in her mouth.

“So you were going to make a passive-aggressive statement about how you don’t like his communication methods by following out his request with bare-minimum effort and pissing him off more,” Taehyung said, sounding amused. Bubble squeezed out her door and didn’t hear the answer, but she felt Jimin’s embarrassment.

When she came back in, Jimin was talking about which books they could put in his room. Taehyung bumped their foreheads together and kissed Jimin’s cheek. Jimin shoved him a little, but smiled. Hopeless idiots, Bubble thought affectionately. Before Brandy came along, they’d both been her boys, and she’d watched them dance around each other for years before they kissed the first time. They kissed more than ever now with Jungkook around.

Bubble started up the stairs one set of paws at a time. This was going to take a while.

 

“It’s really white and red,” Jimin muttered as they walked into Target. Taehyung took the already battered list out of his pocket and grabbed a cart.

“Do you actually expect to fit a bed in there?” Jimin snickered.

“They have them in pieces and packaged up in boxes and you have to put them together when you get home,” Taehyung said.

Jimin’s face fell. “You have to what?”

“I’ll do it. Don’t worry.”

Taehyung had tried to dress him normally, but Jimin had resisted and showed up at target in leather pants and combat boots, and the sleek fox-fur duster his mother made him. It hugged his narrow shoulders and thin waist, three-quarter sleeves and lined with wine-colored silk over a plain, loose bro-tank. It didn’t match. His bare wrists were heavy with silver bracelets. He wore an onyx choker and his usual array of feathery, crystal-y pendants. Stones and rings lined his ears. Even in a magic community he would have looked flamboyant, well taken care of, and feminine. In Target he just looked ridiculous. Taehyung felt painfully obvious, even in his most standard jeans and his cleanest, least torn-up, white t-shirt.

“Everything is so plain,” Jimin said in awe, “and, like, blocky. Simple.”

“Jimin, please don’t talk so loud.”

They got completely lost within minutes.

“Taehyung, what does this do?”

“That’s a Keurig. It makes coffee.”

“Like the coffee machine you showed me that one time.”

Taehyung glanced nervously at a man shopping further down the aisle. “Yeah, except with this one you buy this little one-serving cups. That’s a picture of one right there. And you put the cup in the top here, and it pushes water through it like a sieve, and you put your coffee cup right below it and it makes just one serving.”

“Whoa!” Jimin said, putting both hands on the box like it was the biggest discovery of his life. “Taehyung, I want it!”

“It uses electricity,” Taehyung said.

“Oh.” Jimin took his hands off the box. The guy shopping on their aisle looked completely baffled, head turned slightly towards them like he was trying to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping. Taehyung felt a surge of dislike.

“Let’s find the furniture, Jimin.”

“Aaahm.”

“Brandy! No! Get out of the store! You can’t be in here! We’ll get kicked out!”

Brandy blinked slowly at him, ears flattening, and vanished.

“Crap. Now she’s mad at me,” Taehyung said, sitting down on the floor. The guy was definitely staring at them now. He probably thought they were crazy. Maybe he’d seen Brandy, but non-magic people rarely saw Brandy. Ever since Jungkook, Taehyung had been wondering how far that magic stretched, and wasn’t willing to find out here. Taehyung’s only ring buzzed quietly around his finger, signaling hostile vibes from the man behind him. It set his teeth on edge.

“Yeah yeah. Brandy never stays mad at you for more than an hour,” Jimin said, “She can stay mad at me for a month if I even try to touch her. I hope Bubble is okay.”

“Bubble is fine!” Taehyung snapped. The guy stared openly at Jimin. Jimin stared openly back, giving him a thorough once-over with an oddly disappointed look on his face. He looked offended. Taehyung dragged Jimin away by the elbow.

Taehyung caught an employee while Jimin got distracted by the makeup. Taehyung was pretty sure they shouldn’t have immediately gone towards the groceries, but Jimin was having fun. “Where’s the furniture?”

“Halfway down the center aisle and to the left.”

“Look at this lipstick,” Jimin said, appearing beside him again, orange fur clashing ruthlessly with the bright red Target deco. “It’s, like, almost nude tone, but light pink. Look at my lips.”

“Looks nice,” Taehyung said.

“Y-you have to buy that now…miss?” the employee guessed.

“I do?” Jimin said.

“You can’t use the lipstick and then put it back on the shelf,” Taehyung sighed.

Jimin got a shifty smile. “Oh. Guess I’ll have to buy this one then.” The employee nodded, mumbled a goodbye, and walked off.

“How many lipsticks did you try on, Jimin?”

“Like, fifteen.” They booked it towards the furniture department.

They ran into the section with curtains, and bickered over what curtains Jungkook would like for ten minutes while Jimin got distracted with the patterns. “How did they print these? Why are they so basic? There’s no stitching? How’d they get the embroidery so neat?”

“Machines, Jimin,” Taehyung said, staring in worry at the mess Jimin was making of the curtain display. “They use machines.”

“I know that,” Jimin said, “at least in theory. I can’t imagine how its actually done. Make sure the rods we have are the right size.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re resting them on bent nails in the walls. No need to get fancy with it.”

“Okay. Let’s buy him new sheets.”

“He has a standard twin. Read the labels.”

“Blue? To match the curtains?”

“Sure.”

“You seem on edge,” Jimin murmured.

“I’m having significantly less fun than you.” Brandy was close by. Taehyung could feel her presence within about twenty feet, right down the main aisle, still invisible. A young couple passed in the distance. Ten a.m. on a Wednesday was not a heavy traffic time for Target, and every time someone else got close, Taehyung waited for them to walk up and say something nasty. They never did, of course, but his shoulders squared anyway, hands shoved in his pockets, glaring when people made eye contact.

“Don’t be so twitchy,” Jimin said, throwing the sheets in the cart and wrapping an arm around Taehyung’s waist, “you’re the monster in the woods out here.” Taehyung closed his eyes and let Jimin press a slow kiss to the corner of his mouth. Someone was watching. Taehyung’s ring rattled around his finger. Brandy curled invisibly around their ankles. Jimin smirked a little bit against his lip, his own ring vibrating against Taehyung’s lower back.

“Someone’s thinking sexy thoughts about me,” Jimin murmured.

“Let’s get the fucking furniture and go,” Taehyung growled.

Jimin’s eyes sparkled. “Okay. Fuck me over the kitchen counter if we have time this afternoon, yeah?”

The employees finally caught up to them in the furniture section, right in the middle of Jimin giggling and poking some lamps across the aisle saying “They all look exactly the same, but there are slight differences, like this one’s pattern is shifted half an inch down. How do they manage that?”

“Do you two need help finding anything?” one employee asked. The other, the one they’d caught by the makeup, hovered awkwardly behind her elbow as if they were dangerous and she needed his protection.

“I’m looking at the dressers,” Taehyung said, “so no. I can see them. Jimin, do you think he’ll want the three-drawer or the four?”

“Three. He doesn’t have that many clothes, and he’s got a dresser in the house.”

The employees backed off a little and went to stand down the main aisle, whispering to each other.

“Black or white?”

“Black.”

Taehyung tried to lift it off the shelf and nearly snapped his back. He stood up, stretched to re-align his spine, then squatted to get his legs under it and tried again, got it an about a foot up, and lowered it back to the shelf with a clang. He turned to find Jimin leaning against the opposite shelves, smirking with his hands in his pockets. “Fine. You do it.”

Jimin pulled his fox fur jacket off.

“If you need help,” the employee from the makeup aisle said, walking back up, “we have carts we usually use to—oh.”

Jimin tipped it onto his shoulder and stood effortlessly, bare arms bulging under his silver bands. The employees finally seemed to realize that Jimin wasn’t a woman. The man’s eyes bugged and his jaw dropped open. His face got a little white. The woman behind him leaned in, interested. Taehyung understood. Jimin was pretty impressive even without the strength rune on his belly-button piercing.

“The beds are on the next aisle, right?” Taehyung asked.

“Y-yeah.”

“Okay, thanks.”

They hovered in the periphery as Jimin got very excited over the concept of a bunk bed with a futon on the bottom bunk. “We’re getting him one of these. He needs a couch bed!”

“Those look so complicated,” Taehyung whined, “Can we get him a normal bed?”

“Couch bed! Couch bed!” Jimin jumped up and down with the dresser box bouncing on his shoulder, contents banging loudly.

The box was huge. The employees, though they had offered assistance in the first place, seemed quite bitter about helping. Taehyung started radiating intimidation magic while wearing his sweetest smiles and acting completely ditzy, always his favorite trick. The employees looked unnerved and confused, answering softer and softer. Sweat dripped down the makeup aisle employee’s neck.

“You don’t need to do that,” Jimin said in the car. It was entirely too hot for his stupid fur coat, but it probably had some cooling magic on it, since Jimin wore is comfortably. “Those poor minimum wage employees are just doing their jobs. We were being kind of suspicious.” Brandy sat curled up behind Taehyung’s shoulders making his neck sweat.

“It’s going to be a hot day.”

“Don’t avoid the conversation. Why did you do that?”

“I like knowing I scare them.”

Jimin sighed. “It’s manipulative. It’s an abuse of power.”

Taehyung throat swelled with things he wanted to say, vicious, hateful, spiteful things about non-magic pigs with their glares and their moral high-ground and judgment and stupid penchant to attack difference, to demonize things that were more powerful than them. The way they swarmed. Abuse of power. They way they made him feel small and ugly.

Jungkook’s was scared of magic. They’d used it to bind him anyway. They used it all the time. When would Taehyung’s magic not be a burden on everyone around him? His throat hurt. His chest hurt. His eyes burned. Jimin tensed beside him and Taehyung hated that Jimin knew how he felt. He’d had always depended on that little bit of privacy. The past months had both brought them closer, and alarmed them. Sometimes they stayed across the room from each other and avoided conversations in a desperate bid to get their privacy back. Jimin couldn’t escape Taehyung’s aching heart now though, could only sit there gripping the seat and staring at his knees as he felt Taehyung’s emotions whether he wanted to or not.

Why did they ever bond a servant together? Why did bond a servant at all? What the hell made him think that was a good idea?

The road blurred. He pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and stopped.

“Taehyung?”

“You drive,” Taehyung spit.

“Wh-what did I do?” Jimin asked, voice squeaking nervously. “I’m sorry. I was just saying. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine. I just can’t—” He curled forward into the steering wheel, sobs choking out of his chest.

“Tae,” Jimin breathed.

Brandy snuggled into his arms and he buried his face in her fur and let himself rock with full-bodied wails.

The tears passed as quickly as they’d come, leaving him panting and exhausted. “Please drive,” he said.

“I can’t,” Jimin said, “Mom never let me learn.”

Of course. He’d forgotten. His mom had been one of those mothers who thought cars were too dangerous and kept the entire family on broomsticks. His own mother had thought broomsticks were too magical and never let one in the house. Flight was the one major magic Taehyung had never been able to bootleg with his own charms.

“Okay. Give me a minute. I promise its not you. I’m sorry.”

Jimin sat awkwardly in the passenger’s seat, staring out the front window.

“Let’s go set up this stupid fucking apartment for our stupid fucking boyfriend who hates us,” Taehyung said, and started the car back up. He tried to ignore Jimin wiping a few quiet tears off his own face as he stared out the window.

Bubble was out on the porch when they got back, dropping something small and brown into the grass. “What’s gotten into her with the beetles?” Jimin asked. “At least its better than stress eating.”

“How are we going to get the furniture into the apartment?” Taehyung asked.

“I’ll go find my wand,” Jimin said.

Taehyung stood at the top of the ladder into the loft and watched Jimin clean it with his grandmother’s wand, a long, dark wooden stick, intricately carved, with a tiny crystal jutting out the end. His magic always amazed Taehyung, precise and quick, sweeping the sawdust off the new boards and scrubbing the small spider-webs out of the corners. He cooled all the blistering afternoon air in one sweep. Mama Park had raised the finest house-witch in the States, and here he was in a roughly built barn in the swamps of South Georgia, all Taehyung’s.

He took charge of the protective spells too, ringing the floor with a barrier potion: salt, ash, and magical fixer to hold the enchantment in place through wear and age. He glued spell cards to the walls and burned runes into the door.

Taehyung’s job was less glamorous.

“I just have to read the instructions.”

“How the hell will these help you?” Jimin said, baffled, staring at the black and white assembly maps and the pieces of bed spread out all over the floor.

“I just need to know how everything goes together and in what order. Can you hold it up for me?”

Jimin held it up uncertainly. Taehyung lifted a hand and the first pieces sprung up out of the pile like they were one strings. He glanced back at the map and waved the right screws into place. Jimin stared in awe as the bed slowly came together in the air. He settled it against the wall and knocked all the spare parts off the edge of the loft and onto the first floor of the barn to deal with later. He turned to the dresser.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Jimin gasped.

“When Jungkook and I made the barn. He told me what to do and I magicked it all into place. It’s just really cautious telekinesis. Maybe if you’d come out and helped instead of staying inside baking cookies all day, you would have seen it.”

“Key lime cookies,” Jimin said indignantly, “And you ate almost all of them. I don’t know why you’re complaining.”

Jimin excitedly helped him set out all the pieces and Taehyung smiled proudly, a little shy. The assembly was much more straightforward, pieces flying together easily. It settled onto the ground, one drawer drifting open, and Jimin tossed the instructions aside and latched his arms around Taehyung’s waist. “You’re so amazing, Tae. That was amazing. Please take my clothes off.”

Taehyung snickered and shoved the ridiculous fox fur duster off his shoulders. Jimin pulled his shirt off, miraculously missing all the jewelry, though Taehyung suspected magic was involved. “On your back,” Jimin said, “I wanna ride you.”

Taehyung’s ass hit the floor at record speed and Jimin kicked his boots and pants off and climbed on top of him, shucking his shirt up under his armpits so he could suck on his nipple, moaning already. “Fuck, Chimchim,” Taehyung breathed, staring down his smooth, sculpted back over the curve of his ass. “Get that cute butt up here so I can finger you.”

“Wanna suck you off first,” Jimin murmured.

“Fuck. Do it.”

Jimin yanked his pants down his thighs just far enough to get his dick out and sucked it down immediately, nearly gagging.

“Chim, slow down,” Taehyung gasped, toes curling already, “Jesus.”

“Hmmm,” Jimin groaned around his dick, tongue swirling up the underside. Tae’s head knocked back against the floor and he closed his eyes, focused on the wonderful aching pleasure surrounding his dick with his arms spread wide against the floor.

“You’re so lazy during sex,” Jimin giggled when he pulled off.

“I do all the prep every single time. Get up here.”

“How do you generate something without tools?” Jimin said. “It’s so cool.”

“I don’t know. I just tried one day and it happened.”

“Can you, like, do a lot all at once or just that much?” Jimin asked, looking at the thin coat of slime dripping down Taehyung’s fingers.

Taehyung grinned, “You know, I’ve never tried generating more than this. Should I?”

“…No.”

Taehyung giggled. “Okay then.”

“Tae.”

Taehyung rested his fingers against Jimin’s hole and generated as much lube as he could all at once. Jimin yelped and jolted. Lube sprayed everywhere with gross splatting noises, drenching Jimin’s thighs and splattering across Taehyung’s hips. He cackled wildly.

“Taehyung, you menace!” Jimin shrieked, whacking his chest, cheeks turning bright pink. “You’re the worst! I just wanna fuck and you’ve gotta do this shit!”

Taehyung was still laughing, twisted up under Jimin, protected himself half-heartedly. “It’s dripping off your balls.”

“Fuck you! I can feel it!” Jimin wailed. All the lube vanished. “Start over, jackass.”

Taehyung thrust two fingers up into him. His stomach muscles jumped. Taehyung trailed his spare hand reverently up Jimin’s thick thigh. “It’s still all wet in here.”

“Ugh. Don’t be crass,” Jimin said.

“You’re such a princess.”

“Hurry up.”

Taehyung pulled him up higher so he could reach a little better, grinning up at Jimin’s already blissed-out face. He bounced on Taehyung’s fingers, moaning in frustration. “Want another.”

“Yes,” Jimin murmured.

Taehyung dutifully thrust a third up into him. The stretch was always so easy these days. “When was the last time Jungkook fucked you,” Taehyung asked.

“Three days ago,” Jimin sighed, letting his head roll back and his eyes slide closed, “In the kitchen while I was trying to make dinner. He stripped me down to my apron and fucked me over the kitchen table.”

“Mm. How’d you like that?”

“Unsanitary,” Jimin said, pendants tinkling together as he moved. “And I had to wash my apron.”

“How’d it feel?”

“So good, Tae. We got to break out that sensitizing lube potion I made that one time. It works so well. I came twice.”

“Why’d he fuck you in the kitchen? Were you teasing, Babydoll?” Taehyung asked, and smirked at the reaction Jungkook’s pet name for him got, a shudder that had his thighs shaking and his shoulders tightening up.

“Yes,” Jimin whined. His skin was getting dewy now that he was out of his coat, shining just a little in the light coming in the windows, sweat dripping down his face as he bounced.

“Bad boy,” Taehyung breathed. Jimin, panting, pulled Taehyung’s hand out and lined up over his cock.

“The worst,” he said with a smirk, and then sank down. The squelch was obscene. Taehyung tried to laugh with his empty lungs. Jimin started bouncing again, and Taehyung amused himself by brushing his hands along the insides of Jimin’s thighs to make him lose rhythm, fingers catching on the silver band around his right leg. He swung his collection of pendants around to hang down his back so he could ignore them. Tae liked sex with Jimin best on the rare mornings when Jimin had taken his jewelry off the night before, leaving him soft, bare, and powerless. But sex with Jimin when he sparkled and glittered in the light, powerful and stunning, was always fun too.

“It’s been a while since we’ve done this,” Jimin said, slowing to a smooth, tantalizing grind, “just you and me.”

“It feels weird to just fuck one of you without the other,” Taehyung said.

“Really?” Jimin said, “I fuck just Jungkook all the time. Don’t you?”

“Nah,” Taehyung said, “I’m not desperate like you two.”

“Oh! Wow. It’s like you want me to get off and go finish by myself,” Jimin said.

“You won’t,” Taehyung said.

“Why not?”

“Jungkook can’t do this,” Taehyung said, and started grinding up into Jimin, channeling magic through his dick and into Jimin’s walls. He did the same to Jimin’s dick with one hovering hand, stimulating the nerves directly, something close to his burning trick. But he’d learned this trick when he was twelve and experimenting with more than just magic. Jimin fell forward, arms trembling against Taehyung’s chest.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

“Missed this, didn’t you,” Taehyung breathed, and rolled them over. Jimin twitched uselessly against the ground, legs flopped open, arms falling over his head, eyes glazed.

Taehyung moaned low and ground slow and deep, one hand over Jimin’s cock.

“You…re…literally…a sex god,” Jimin gasped.

“Haven’t shown Jungkook this trick yet,” Taehyung growled. “A man’s gonna be protective of his junk. Figured this might scare him off.”

“Trust me,” Jimin moaned, “No man,” he stopped to pant harshly when Taehyung extended the magic up to his nipples, “No man would run from this.”

Taehyung stretched the magic down to his own dick, pressure like being all the way down Jimin’s throat when he sucked hard. His hips picked up speed without his control, jerking hard and rough into Jimin’s pliant body. Jimin arched, whined, and came all over his bare stomach, dripping over the silver strength ring in his belly-button. Taehyung shut off the spell on Jimin’s body and flicked his finger over the ring. “This is so hot.”

“Considered putting it in my nipple,” Jimin sighed.

“I like it here,” Taehyung said, “bejeweling your abs.” He pulled out and straddled Jimin, jacking off with his magical assistance, aiming right for it. “So hot when you were carrying the furniture around,” he gasped.

“Love it when you act like a sexually depraved little boy,” Jimin said, grinning.

“Shut up,” Taehyung grunted.

“Feels like a pissing contest,” Jimin said.

“You want me to piss on you?” Taehyung asked, fucking faster into his fist.

“No!” Jimin laughed, beautiful body shaking, and Taehyung had been watching Jimin’s body since he was a scrawny kid, then an awkward, chubby teenager, puffy in the wrong places with a terrible haircut and oily skin. He’d watched him work out, and drink possibly dangerous diet potions until his body was porn-star perfect, and then watched him fling it at every hot man that came his way until Taehyung dragged him down into the swamps of Georgia and it became just his. His and Jungkook’s, glittering in silver and streaked with wet white.

Taehyung came with a low groan over his flawless, narrow waist, swamping the strength rune. Jimin stared up under hooded eyes, fucked out and lovely. They caught their breath for a moment, and then Taehyung smacked his hand right into the puddle and splashed it everywhere. Jimin shrieked and threw him off. He called his wand into his hand and waved the mess away, glaring. Taehyung lay on the floor and giggled.

“Put your dick back in your pants!”

“Put your clothes on, Chimchim!”

“Oh, Jungkook’s home,” Jimin said, halfway through yanking his boots back on.

Taehyung mentally asked Brandy if Jungkook was home and got an affirmative in return.

“Bubble thinks he looks pissed,” Jimin said.

“Of course he does. And we still have to finish decorating this place. Let’s get to it.”

Taehyung stopped him by the ladder, cupped his soft cheeks in his hands, and gave him a big, wet kiss on the lips. “Love you,” he said, and then scampered down the ladder while Jimin smiled softly in the loft.

 

Bubble greeted Jungkook on the porch with another beetle.

“Brrrmm,” she said, and spit it into the grass.

“I kept yours from this morning,” Jungkook said, and pulled it out of his pocket, quite dead now.

Bubble looked up at him, blinked once with her giant blue eyes, and then looked down in the grass where she’d dropped the beetle, back up at his, and then sat down and looked exhausted.

“Have you been hunting around the house for them all day?” he asked. She flopped on her side, which he took to mean yes.

He smiled and picked her up, kissing her head. “You’re so good, aren’t you?”

She purred wildly against his face.

“So sweet. Such a hard worker.” She was the laziest member of the house, but it would be rude to say so. “Where are the boys?”

She glanced at the loft. Jungkook felt a dim echo of playful arousal. “Fucking fantastic,” he muttered. His shoulder and hip still ached horribly from lying on the floor all night. He’d done four yards today without magic, of course, and without Owen, so he’d had plenty of time in his own head to try to think of the last time he’d felt like his own person and not Owen’s work horse or another one of the witch’s tools. It had been over a year. His awful family had owned him before that. He was hot, sweaty, physically worn out, and still exasperated, and the idiots were fucking in the barn like they had nothing better to do.

In the middle of Jungkook’s hot shower, he felt a burst of love and joy over the empathetic link. Adorable. He sat down on the floor of the claw-foot tub and leaned back against the end under the spray. It was so tall that the cold porcelain pressed wonderfully into his sore shoulders. The shower curtain stuck to his legs and sides. He didn’t give a shit. He hadn’t been in a bathtub long enough for his legs in years. Maybe he should just have a bath.

The door popped open. “Babe?”

“Jimin?”

“You want to help us decorate?”

There was nothing Jungkook wanted more than to curl up on his bed and not move for a year. He would especially prefer that to setting up his own apology loft. “No.”

“You sure? It’ll be fun.” Jimin shoved the curtain aside a foot to pout at him. Jungkook pushed his wet hair out of his eyes to stare sullenly back. He was wearing that adorably ostentatious fox fur duster.

“I’m sure.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m tired.”

“Hard day at work?”

“Hard day in general.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m leaving.”

“Thank you.”

“Rude,” Jimin said, and Jungkook thought he felt a little bit of real hurt.

Jungkook trailed downstairs twenty minutes later and pulled Jimin’s worn notebook of his mom’s medical recipes off the shelf to find some painkiller. It was one of the first and simplest. Fucking wizards going through life without common pains. At least they had magical pains. And now Jungkook was prone to both. He needed some of Tae’s gin.

Jimin came up behind him as he was cutting the fairy root, an oniony, bright blue root normally attached to a plant that looked like a particularly mutated toadstool. He wrapped his arms carefully around his waist and leaned his cheek against Jungkook’s shoulder. Jungkook’s heart softened a little. “Babydoll?”

“Hm…Welcome home.”

Jungkook could hear his smile. Taehyung bounced into the kitchen, put his armful of books down on the table, and wrapped himself around Jungkook’s left side, rubbing his forehead against Jungkook’s temple. They were both sweaty and smelled like sex.

“How’s the bathroom in my new loft coming along?” Jungkook asked.

He felt swooping horror from both of them.

“I’m kidding,” he said, smirking, and they both drooped against him in relief.

“We went to Target,” Taehyung said proudly, and Jungkook smiled, “And freaked out the employees.”

Jungkook felt a stir of unease from Jimin, followed by a surprisingly bitter anger from Taehyung. Taehyung glared tiredly at Jimin and then grabbed the books and stormed out of the kitchen. Jimin backed quickly out of immediate emotional range, but not before Jungkook felt worry and guilt.

“What was that?” Jungkook asked.

“I’m not sure I should explain.”

“Right. Your secrets. For you two. Not my place to ask. It’s not like I’m actually emotionally a part of this relationship. I’m just here when anyone wants to feel superior.”

“He won’t even talk to me about this stuff and we grew up together,” Jimin said, “I can’t tell you anything without asking him first.”

“Okay,” Jungkook sighed, “Sorry.”

“I’m going to go put your curtains up. You won’t believe the amount of relationship tension that’s happened today because of your goddamn curtains.”

Jungkook wasn’t in the mood to laugh. He threw the fairy root in the pot and set it to boil.

The long summer afternoon sat baking under intense sunlight, cicadas roaring in the swamp, damp heat that felt like being slowly cooked alive, and the smell of pine straw and cypress. Jungkook sat in a rocking chair on the porch with his painkiller potion in a mug. It tasted like leaves and was still too hot to drink in the heat. He drank it anyway and felt the pain fade easily from his limbs as his chest began to sweat. He tipped his hat down over his eyes, propped his homemade leather boots up on the railing, put on a country music station on Spotify, and smugly sat inside the scene that every one of the thick, red farmer boys from his high school fantasized about.

“You look like a hick,” Jimin said, coming up onto the porch out of the dusty yard.

Jungkook grinned. “Yankee, the terrm yer lukin fowr is ‘reyidnayck.’ Hicks is Midwestern.”

Jimin toppled onto the front steps giggling. “I can’t even understand what you’re saying. What?

“The term you’re looking for is ‘redneck.’ Hicks are Midwestern.”

“Yikes. And I thought your accent was bad already.”

Jungkook propped his hat up out of his eyes. “I don’t have an accent.”

Jimin looked at him incredulously. “Yeah you do. Its pretty light but you add weird diphthongs to things and dampen your consonants a lot, especially at the ends of sentences and when you’re grumpy.”

Jungkook made a face of complete disgust. “Please tell me when I do that so I can make myself stop.”

Jimin shook his head. “I love your accent. It’s so soft.”

Taehyung wandered up to the porch with rusted lantern in his hand looking tired.

“Tae, do I have an accent?”

He shrugged. “A little.”

“Fuck.”

“You’re adorable,” Taehyung said.

Jungkook grimaced, and pulled his hat low over his forehead. “I spent my entire life trying not be like these people,” he whined.

“You’re so Georgian though!” Jimin said, wrapping himself around one of Jungkook’s legs and resting his chin on his knee.

Jungkook drank another sip of painkiller and cringed uncomfortably at the feeling of molten lava sliding down his throat. “I guess there are worse things,” he said.

“Like not being magical. Ha ha!” Taehyung said and went inside.

Jungkook sat there for a moment, very confused, feeling Jimin’s roiling shock and disapproval, realized that he’d just been rudely mocked, and then propped his hat back out of his eyes. “Why’d he say that?” He asked, and his voice cracked a little, high and unhappy. His chest hurt, but he didn’t want any more of the damn painkiller.

“Please don’t take it personally,” Jimin said softly.

“How could I not take that personally?”

“I’m sorry,” Jimin said, “Please don’t be mad. And please don’t yell at him. You can’t yell at him.”

“It’s not like I’m planning plan to,” Jungkook said, wiping a tired hand over his face. “This shit is just building up, you know?”

“You can’t yell. Please don’t yell. I think you nearly broke him this morning.”

“I can’t keep letting things go.”

“Why not?” Jimin asked, and he sounded kind of exasperated, as if shutting up and dealing with it was Jungkook’s place in the relationship, as if Jimin was perfectly content with Jungkook’s unhappiness as long as he and Taehyung didn’t have to suffer. Jungkook stood up and shook Jimin off his leg, then stalked inside past Taehyung sitting on the floor of the living room with his head down, facing away. Brandy leaned comfortingly against him. Jungkook stomped down his automatic urge to apologize for whatever he’d done wrong. Why the fuck was Taehyung unhappy? What gave him any reason to be unhappy?

Taehyung must have felt Jungkook’s annoyance behind his back. He curled further in on himself, and Jungkook hated to see him hurting, but couldn’t bring himself to help. He lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, feeling like a pouty child until Jimin came and got him to go see his new loft. They led him through the door and up the ladder looking apprehensive, like two kids showing their mom an only partially cleaned room.

“It’s nice,” he said, a little surprised. “Couch bed! Like the Lego Movie. Cool.” The curtains were a nice, cool blue. They matched the sheets. They’d put the living room lamp on the scratched-up end table they’d shoved in the corner of the barn to get it out of the living room. The old, carved bookshelf had a shelf of books from the library. They’d put sticky notes on things they promised to replace later with better versions.

Taehyung seemed pretty happy with it, except for the swollen eyes and the way he stood a little behind Jimin with his hands in his pockets, looking a little lost.

Jimin looked dissatisfied. “Just nice?”

Jungkook blinked at him. “It’s…cozy?”

“Would you mind being a little more excited,” Jimin said, “we did give up an entire day of work for this.”

Tch. “As an apology! Oh my god. Just get the fuck out of my loft. You didn’t fuck on my bed did you?”

“We fuck on your bed all the time! It’s our furniture! And no, we fucked on your floor. The sanctity of your dumbass couch bed is safe.”

“Thanks for the loft,” Jungkook said, flopping down on his couch, “Please leave.”

“Fuck no,” Jimin growled. “Stand up—”

Jungkook bristled at the order, jerkily getting to his feet even though he struggled not to.

“—and fucking talk to us. We have stuff to deal with this evening and you’re not going to stay up here pouting like a kid—”

“DON’T ORDER ME AROUND.”

Taehyung cowered right down onto the floor. Jimin jumped, looked down at Taehyung, and then shoved Jungkook back a couple steps. It always alarmed Jungkook how much force he could put in his arms. It didn’t feel right. It was probably magic. He was probably using magic. “What the fuck did I tell you on the porch?” Jimin said, still weirdly calm.

“Stop using magic on me!” Jungkook yelled. “I can’t fucking defend myself against that.”

“Look what you’re doing to Taehyung!”

He had crouched over on the floor with his hands over his head. “I don’t give a shit!” he yelled. “I’m always the odd one out! You two defend each other and I’m over here trying to defend myself against both of you and I can’t! I fucking can’t! Get out of my loft!”

Jimin exploded. “We grew up together! What did you expect? What about this set up do you not understand? You’re a bonded servant! Fucking get used to it!”

“If I’m your servant, then I’m not your boyfriend!”

Taehyung curled up against the wall with his head on his knees. Jimin’s face fell. “You can be both,” he squeaked frantically, “you have to be! We can’t undo it!”

“I can’t keep doing this, Jimin! I don’t feel human half the time! I’m not your pet! There are serious issues in this relationship, and they all fall on me. You two don’t feel any of it and I feel completely alone. Stop using your fucking magic to control me! I hate it!”

Taehyung gasped, shaking all over, breathing fast.

“Shut up!” Jimin yelped, squeaking in fear.

Jungkook took a deep breath to continue and couldn’t, like his voice was completely gone. Jimin realized what he’d just done.

“Oh fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Taehyung made an odd, strangled noise. Power lurched out of him, slammed the furniture against the wall, and smashed the windows. It threw Jungkook painfully into his bunk bed, head thunking against the metal rail. Jimin toppled backwards over the edge of the loft.

Jungkook’s head rang. The room spun. He saw Taehyung on all fours on the floor across from him, crouched like a monster, mouth wide open as he panted, eyes staring blindly, breath ragged. Jungkook tapped into the empathetic link and felt ringing, empty fear. He tried to crawl towards him and the room tipped under him.

Jimin’s hands appeared on the edge of the loft, and he pulled himself easily up like a gymnast, expression grim. He paused, looking between both of them. Jungkook saw them both as if at a distance, his spinning head perceiving them as something nightmarish, like at any moment they would turn at once like the demon in the woods, eyes glowing, hands burning. He cringed weakly against the bed. Jimin would go to Taehyung, of course. He’d see if Taehyung was okay, and then he’d come for Jungkook and punish him.

But he didn’t. He lifted his hands and Jungkook flinched, but the windows clattered back together seamlessly, furniture sliding back into place. And then Jimin was cradling Jungkook in his arms, hands soothing over the back of his head, drawing the pain out and clearing the delirium. “You’re okay Jungkook. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook sat up a little, head clearing. “Is he okay? What happened?”

Taehyung was still panting, rocking drunkenly back and forth on his hands and knees, eyes flickering around without focusing on anything. “He got yelled at lot in high school, and bullied,” Jimin said, “His mom too. She hates his magic. He’s reacted to yelling with magically charged panic since high school, but he reacted kind of strongly to it before that. His parents fought a lot when his dad was around.”

“Why doesn’t anyone just tell me this stuff?” Jungkook said, vision blurring. “How was I supposed to know?”

“I’m sorry,” Jimin whispered, “I don’t blame you. I’m going to take him inside and calm him down. Are you going to want to stay out here tonight?”

“Yeah. I’m still mad at you.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Jimin said softly, and kissed his hair gently. “If there are problems, we’ll fix them.”

If,” Jungkook snorted. Jimin pursed his lips and didn’t press the issue. “Are you sure he’s going to be okay?”

Jimin nodded. “The calming potion will fix it.”

Jungkook’s head felt refreshingly cool and clean. All the drama and fear faded and they were just three idiots in the top of a barn, two of them bickering and the other doing his best concussed badger impression.

“Gonna come help me with him?” Jimin said.

Jungkook shook his head. “I’m staying out here until tomorrow.”

Jimin sighed sadly. “We love you,” he said, and kissed his head, “So we’ll fix this. You’re right. Our problems shouldn’t all fall on you. Mom says I forget to try casting spells with other people’s wands sometimes.”

Jungkook squinted up at Jimin’s sage expression, confused. “Does that mean, like, walking a mile in other people’s shoes? That expression?”

“Huh. Yeah, that works too I guess. I’ve never heard that.”

“Weird.”

It was only after Jimin left with Taehyung slung over his shoulder that Jungkook realized he hadn’t eaten anything, or brought anything he needed for the night into the barn, but he had too much pride to go back in now, even though he had another couple hours till sunset. He climbed up to the top bunk, tucked himself in, and prepared for a long evening of fucking around on his phone.

 

Bubble had run out of beetles. She hovered around in the kitchen looking for something to do, winding around Jimin’s feet as he moved back and forth between the stove and Taehyung, hunched over the table and nursing a cup of tea like a trauma patient. Jimin moved with the very small, shuffling steps he was accustomed to making in the kitchen, sweeping with his foot when he turned, occasionally brushing Bubble’s tail with his toes. She flicked it closer to see if he’d do it again. He did. She rubbed against his ankle right as he turned with a full pot of stew in his bare hands, heat suppressor charms charms twinkling on his wrists. Jimin stumbled gracefully, barely avoided stepping on her, and got the pot down on the heat pad with a loud clang before catching himself on the table. Taehyung jumped a little.

“Bubble, please go sit in a chair or something,” Jimin sighed.

Didn’t he like the feel of her fluffy fur against his feet? She huffed and skulked off behind the door to lick her paws.

“Don’t you sulk at me, baby. You’re always underfoot.”

Brandy wasn’t being told to go sit elsewhere, and she was literally underfoot, curled around Taehyung’s bare feet and blinking lazily, her angular yellow eyes shining in the shadow of his bench. No one ever told Brandy what to do. She didn’t like pets either. Stupid Brandy didn’t know how to enjoy herself. She just showed up when she wanted the people to stare at her with mystified, wondering expressions, and then wandered back into the woods when the rest of the house slept.

She reminded Brandy of Taehyung’s quiet side, the side that ran into the woods for three weeks when they were thirteen, the side that slept in a canoe out in the swamp with the gators on nice days, or stayed up all night in the kitchen with a jar of leeches and a pot of cow blood, trying to work out the properties of tsetse flies in poison. Taehyung’s quiet side never pet Bubble. Bad influence.

“Do you want to do something for me, baby?” Jimin asked. Bubble ran back out dutifully. Time to show Brandy how a proper familiar behaved.

Jimin sat down on the floor with a box wrapped up in a handkerchief. “This is kind of heavy. Can you carry it?”

Bubble got her mouth around the bow and lifted. It barely cleared the ground. She trotted forward a couple steps and then stood and waited for instruction.

“Good girl. Go take that out to Jungkook.”

He walked her to the door and held it open, and Bubble trotted off across the worn red dirt, brown grass clinging to the edge of the path, growing in patches and clumps between the new barn and the house. Her ears picked up more June beetles. They were fine out here. Jungkook had kept her beetle. She still didn’t know what to make of that. It had died, so he didn’t care about it, but maybe he liked them more than she thought. She sat down at the foot of the door, put down her bundle, and meowed loudly. The cicadas roared in the swamp. A gator bellowed in the distance. The red dirt was dreadfully hot under her paws.

“Mrroo?”

She thought she heard muffled music inside. She put out a paw and scratched the door. Nothing. She looked through the wall and up into the balcony loft. Jungkook was curled on his couch in his boxers with his phone propped up on his knee, smiling at a video.

“Prowr!”

She scratched the door again. Jungkook’s text tone dinged. He paused the video. “Bubble?”

“Moww!”

“I’m coming.”

He climbed down out of the loft and then the door opened and she blinked, sorting her sight out to just the space in front of her, and trotted inside.

“Coming to visit?” Jungkook said. She waited at the bottom of the ladder. He picked her up and put her in a wide basket sitting on the ground with a long rope tied around the handle and looped around a beam. “Wait there. I’ll go reel you up.”

She waited skeptically, barely able to see over the edge of the basket. It jerked suddenly, and she squeaked and braced herself. The basket rose gently upwards, rope scraping over the wooden beam until Jungkook appeared, hauling her up carefully. He guided the basket onto the loft floor, smiling. “I think the guys were using that to get stuff up and down earlier today. I hope I didn’t scare you. I didn’t want to climb the ladder while holding both you and the whatever you have.” She put it at his feet and sat proudly. Package delivered. Mission success.

He untied it and a glass bottle full of water rolled away into Jungkook’s foot. A vial sat on top. Bubble recognized it easily as a post-concussion potion by the deep purple and tilted her head curiously. What kind of excitement had she missed that had both Jungkook and Taehyung drinking Mama Park’s favorite recipes? Jungkook unquestioningly swallowed it and sighed in relief, head falling back. He opened the box, delicate layered bamboo strips with dragonflies carved out to reveal a darker lacquered wood underneath, one of Taehyung’s lazy afternoon projects. Jimin had filled it with rice and stew. Bubble stepped forward to sniff it.

“You want some?” Jungkook asked, already digging in with the jeweled spoon. Bubble leaned forward and grabbed a big chunk of beef right off the top.

“Okay,” Jungkook said and ladled some out into the lid. She ate delicately, trying not to get sauce on her fur. Jungkook ate less delicately, shoveling it into his mouth and wiping his chin off with the back of his hand and then licking it.

Boys. Nasty.

She crawled into his lap while he finished eating and snuggled up against his hip, purring. “Do you want to go back inside?” he asked.

And away from this comfortable lap? No way. She tucked her nose under her paw. Jungkook scratched her head. “Can I get up on the couch?”

“Mphrr.”

He picked her up and lay down on his stomach on the couch with her lying in the crook of his arm, and kept watching stuff on his phone. She stretched her hearing down to Jimin in the kitchen, curled around Taehyung with their foreheads pressed together. Taehyung murmured something about a demon, something about Jungkook. He seemed distressed. Bubble could feel Jimin’s guilt and anxiety even from where she sat. He was fine though. He had Taehyung. Jungkook needed some love too, and since he didn’t have a familiar, she and Brandy needed to pick up the slack.

 

Jimin felt very worried. That wasn’t good. Bubble stirred and rubbed up under Jimin’s chin, smotheringly hot and sticky with sweat. It didn’t help. She sleepily stuck her head up to try to find the problem. The problem was that this wasn’t Jimin. “Mrrr?”

Jungkook hummed softly. Bubble hopped up on his arm and then onto the back of the couch to look out the window. Night had fallen. Jimin was sitting behind the closed window of Jungkook’s bedroom across the yard, staring out at the barn. She stuck her nose to the glass and sent as much mental reassurance over as possible. Jimin held up his phone and pointed to it, then pointed out the window.

Bubble didn’t have a phone. She tried to transmit confusion. Jimin shook his head, pointed at the phone again, and then pointed back at Bubble. Did he want her to come get it? It was night time. No way. She wasn’t going to set a single paw outside. Jimin knocked his head against the window a couple times. As if to prove her point, an ogre stomped right past, staring between the barn and the palace in confusion, his club dragging on the ground. They watched him pass. Jimin repeated the gesture one more time. Bubble huffed, then jumped down onto Jungkook’s shoulder, slipped, and fell on his face. Jungkook jolted awake, squinted around in the dark, and then opened his phone and turned the flashlight on. He blinded Bubble with it.

“Sorry, honey. Sorry,” it switched off. The screen turned mostly white and Bubble shut her eyes again. “mrrph.”

“Yeah, I know. Super bright,” Jungkook said. “Jimin wants you back. Guess it’s a little too late.”

She settled back in to sleep.

“I gotta piss.”

Fucking—god damn it.

He climbed down the ladder. Bubble heard some splashing in a bucket, and then he climbed back up and carried her to the top bunk. The night was too hot for blankets, especially not out in the sweltering barn with no open windows and no cooling system but a small spell Jimin had put over the door. Jungkook threw all the blankets over the end and stripped his shirt off, crammed his pillow up against the edge and sprawled. Bubble stretched out on her back beside him, not close enough to touch. She’d been born in a cold winter and her fur matched.

He gave her a drowsy tummy rub, heavy and affectionate. She huffed out one purr.

“Night, darlin’,” he said. She opened her eyes in the dark and watched him lay awake, staring into the dark with his eyebrows furrowed. She sighed and turned her purr box back on at the frequency that lulled people right off to sleep, another one of her tricks that Jimin hadn’t figured out yet. Within a couple minutes, he was out. Work done, Bubble let herself slip into deep sleep.

 

Taehyung woke to sun shining right in his face. He turned his head away and sat up groggily, swaying on his arms. Jimin lay on the other side of the bed, covers thrown off and shining with sweat. Jungkook was still on in the barn. Taehyung needed to go cuddle him and apologize. He got up and tottered out the door. His shirt stuck to his back.

Jungkook was already in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal.

“You’re up!” Taehyung said.

“I had the alarm clock,” he said, gesturing to Bubble sitting on his lap.

“Jimin really freaked out when she didn’t come back last night,” Taehyung said, walking slowly into the kitchen, arms tight over his chest.

“Did he think I’d kidnapped her?” Jungkook asked, and Taehyung loved it when Jungkook got dangerous, when his soft, careful eyes went flat and aggressive and his voice got low and quiet, loved it when both their clothes were off and Jungkook was hovering over him, making his heart race. He didn’t love it across a quiet kitchen when all he wanted was Jungkook feeling warm and safe around him.

“He thought she was mad at him,” Taehyung said. “That never happens. Well, it happened once when he tied a balloon to her tail and she nearly had a heart attack running from it. She didn’t talk to him for two whole days and I honestly didn’t think he wasn’t going to make it.”

Jungkook really had the gentlest smile.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fire that at both of you last night. I panicked. I didn’t know who you were. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook was shaking his head and holding his arms out. Taehyung walked into them and wrapped his arms around Jungkook’s head, holding his to his chest. “I don’t blame you,” Jungkook said, “But maybe the fact that you panic at being yelled at is something you should have told me? Please tell me about stuff like that.”

“Okay,” Taehyung whispered, rubbing Jungkook’s hair. Jungkook kissed his chest and leaned into him, squeezing.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung asked, hoping his nervousness wasn’t strong enough to pick up even this close, and knowing it was, “Do you really hate magic? Like, how scary is it to you?”

Jungkook propped his chin on Taehyung’s chest to he could stare straight up into Taehyung’s eyes. “I don’t hate it. I’m frustrated that I can’t use it. I want to. I’m not scared of magic. I think it’s really cool. I’m scared of what it can do to me and that I can’t do anything to protect myself. I’m scared of being used.”

Taehyung sighed in relief. “I was so worried you actually hated magic.”

Jungkook shook his head against his chest.

“Do you think my magic is bad,” Taehyung asked, “like specifically mine?”

“No.”

“Like, its wild and ugly, and sometimes I can’t control it and it hurts people. I’ve got this weird arsenal of tricks that no one else can do, but I can’t do things everyone else can, and there have been a ton of dark witches like that, so sometimes even magical people get this look on their faces when they meet me. And Brandy is freakishly powerful. I get scared.”

“Your magic feels a lot more innocent than Jimin’s actually,” Jungkook said easily, “You’re not evil. Your magic isn’t either. It’s dangerous, but nothing too scary. It’s okay.”

“You’d tell me if it was bad?” He said.

“I think you’d notice if I thought your magic was bad,” Jungkook said. “I’d react to you the way I react to imps.”

Taehyung chuckled softly, deeply relieved, the deep worries in his heart lessening their hold just a little.

Jimin wandered into the kitchen with bed hair, face shiny with sweat. “Kookie, can you install air conditioning?”

“No.”

“Bubble!” he gasped, and sank fluidly to his knees so Bubble could pad over and climb into his lap. The stove fired up next to him. “We’ve got a lot of work today,” he said, standing. “Need to send out a bunch of shipments and process two days of plants. Taehyung, can Brandy help today?”

“Yeah, I’ll get her on weeding or something.”

“Jungkook, do you think you can get home pretty early and help?”

“Yeah, I think I can swing that. Jimin…”

“Um. Okay. Yeah. We have things to talk about,” he wasn’t looking at them, already sticking his hands down into a bucket of plants and getting to work. “Jungkook, you’re a bonded servant, so for the next five years, every time we tell you to do something, you have to do it, and I’m sorry, but there’s no way we can cut that off at this point. That’s really what we intended you to be.”

“I’m your boyfriend though, right?” Jungkook asked.

“Yeah, you are. You’re both.”

Jungkook sighed heavily against Taehyung’s stomach. “I just don’t think that works for a relationship. I’m automatically unequal to both of you. I’m frustrated and uncomfortable all the time.”

“Do you want to break up with us?” Jimin said softly.

“No,” Jungkook sighed, as if the answer cost him his pride. “If I’m going to give up my will I’d like to at least get love in return, you know?”

Taehyung grunted in emphatic agreement, remembering his mother packing him up and sending him off to school with normal people at the end of the summer, and him going without a fight, knowing he was walking into misery and violence, and believing he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to keep his mother and father to keep loving him.

Jimin and Jungkook both felt that wave of emotion. They looked at him in surprise. He shifted uncomfortably, and they both looked away as if to give him privacy, but he could feel their embarrassed unease at the edge of his mind. His face burned. “I wish we’d never done this to you,” he said to Jungkook. “I wish we’d made friends and helped you out and brought you around to this slowly, or something. You know, let liking us be your choice and not just the easiest option. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook stared up at him with his eyes sparkling. “Thank you,” he murmured, and Taehyung dropped a kiss onto his forehead.

Jimin felt betrayed. They could both feel it. They both turned to look at him and he took a small step back, alone on the other side of the kitchen. “I-if we hadn’t trapped you, you would never have come back,” he murmured. “We would have lost you.”

“You don’t know that,” Taehyung said as Jungkook snorted and said, “That’s true.”

“I’m sorry guys,” Jimin said softly, contrite now that he was the vocal minority. “Maybe I’m coming from a different place here, and I guess I’m thinking selfishly, but I’ve always really wanted a bonded servant. I’ve never seen a situation where it didn’t work out, but maybe I just wasn’t looking at the situation from the view of the servant and not the witch. But that’s how I grew up. I really like having you as a bonded servant, Jungkook. I’ve gotten really attached to the idea, and I’m having a hard time letting it go.”

“Just…” Jungkook rubbed his face against Taehyung’s shirt, frustrated, “No orders, okay? From now on, if you want something, just ask. You know me. I’ll probably do it. If you catch yourself telling me to do something, fix it. I just want the option to say no, even if I don’t do it very often.”

“Okay,” Jimin said, sighing. “For you, baby, I can do that. I’ll try harder for you. I wonder how mom is going to take this.”

“Am I supposed to care?” Jungkook growled.

“Not at all,” Jimin laughed. “Please don’t feel like you have to impress her, or that she even has to approve of you. She’s just had the same bonded servant for the past thirty years. Her parents had two of them. One for fifty years. One for only twenty, but she died in a car accident, hence the reason our family won’t use cars. She’s only ever seen the system work really well. I’m more worried about her being an ass to you than what she’ll think of how this is working.”

“Do I actually have to meet her?” Jungkook whined.

They both nodded emphatically. “She’s our mom!” Taehyung said. “We’ve gotta introduce you to the family.”

Jungkook groaned into Taehyung’s shirt. “Fine.”

Jimin smiled his adorable, puffy-cheeked grin, bundles of magical lavender in his hands, fucked-up brown hair lying in layers over his head, and Jungkook had to force himself to stay mad. “Are we going to fix this though?” he asked, “Are you going to stop telling me to suck it up and get used to it?”

“Yeah, seriously dude,” Taehyung said, “Not okay.”

Jimin stopped nodding to glare at him.

“You told me to sleep on the floor too, Tae. You’re not innocent.”

Taehyung looked appropriately sheepish.

“Tae,” Jungkook said, “For throwing me into the bunk last night, I want a magical back massage like the one you gave me in the woods.”

Taehyung got to work immediately and Jungkook face-planted into his flat chest as all the muscles in his back melted, groaning happily. He could feel Taehyung and Jimin both mentally cooing over his cuteness and he just didn’t care. This was fine, two boys who cared about him in a hot kitchen on a summer morning, everyone sticky and clinging.

And maybe they weren’t perfect, but they could work on it, and he was comfortable. He’d be out in four and a half years, and then they’d just be his boyfriends. He loved them. He could wait.

Notes:

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Chapter 4: Origin Story

Notes:

A tiny interim chapter while I work on the last one. Just wanted to get this out there. Enjoy!

This chapter has been translated into Russian.

Chapter Text

She’d been waiting for a long time, bubbling under the surface. Early on, the boy’s magic had webbed through him instead of focusing into a spot inside him for her to nest inside and form. It locked her down. She fed on little shreds of magic pushed deep into this boy’s soul, a consciousness she could never quite reach, and waited in darkness.

And then she’d felt the swamp, thrumming with vibrancy, threads of magic burning across miles of peat and earth, extending down into the ground, and wrapped around the roots of every tree. The magic was the kind that called, pulling her slowly to the surface of her boy’s magic, pulling demons up out of the earth. There were demons everywhere, little bursts of magic that she grabbed and swallowed. The boy’s magic grew even more wild on potions and the steady feed of the swamp, grabbing at his untamed power.

She fought it. The swamp couldn’t take this boy from her, this boy who couldn’t fight it himself. She made herself a wall inside him. With every potion he drank, made from plants grown in the swamp’s soil, she gathered up its groping evil and swallowed it. She grew strong. His magic warped and struggled under her shield. Some days she thought she could taste air. Some nights she lay in his mind and heard the swamp calling for him and his wild magic, telling her to give him up.

The swamp came into his head on a full moon, curling around the house and sliding in through the cracked window, blue, reptilian eyes and sharp teeth, scales of silver leaves. “Give him up,” the swamp said, and the boy was there between them, mired down in his own power, dreaming. She wrapped herself around him. The swamp reached for him and she growled. “Why do you let him keep you like this,” the swamp said, “You could be like me. He’s tortured you.”

And the boy struggled and pulled her close around him like a cloak. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

She dipped into his magic, pulling it up into herself and forcing the swamp out. It lashed out, vines reaching for her boy, and she grabbed them, rooted in her boy’s magic, sucking power down the vines. The swamp roared and pulled, and she bloomed, swelling with years of swallowed magic, of anger. The boy screamed. The swamp ripped her up to the surface. She followed the monster out, almost out under the moon, out from the cage of her boy’s strangling power.

She got one small glimpse of a messy room, of the shadow of a dragon on the moonlit floor, and then with one gentle purr, a small, white familiar, glowing like a knife of well-trained magic, severed the link. She plunged back below the surface. The swamp vanished. Her boy slipped back below his consciousness. She burned with power, stretching against the inside of her trap, so ready to be free.

She waited. The swamp let him be. She went back to grabbing scraps, a wisp of his magic here and there when he overpowered a spell just a little, the edge of uncontrolled magic while he dreamed, a sliver of clean energy through the edge of his potions, untouched by the swamp. And some of that little familiar’s magic in the edge of her purrs.

She was too much for him. He moved slowly, limbs aching, and woke up tired. He stayed awake at night with pounding headaches. He fell asleep between his rows of plants, and while he rested, she stretched down below him as far as she could and pulled magic up from their roots. She could see through his eyes now, watch the other boy with his carefully sorted, well-tamed magic flowing through a hundred charms, his pathetic, soft little familiar. She watched them stare worriedly at Taehyung when she opened his eyes while he slept and looked around, finally able to see what the world was.

The other boy snuck potions into his food. He couldn’t taste them, but she sucked the magic from them as they sat in his stomach. She appreciated him for trying, potions meant to cure and protect, help him sleep at night, stop him from dropping off to sleep on the floor of the living room, stop him from losing weight no matter how much he ate. He would be fine soon. He would be fine when she finally got out.

The boy found a dying flower, sick down to its roots. Brandy could feel the swamp’s distress, the way it lurked on the ground around them. It couldn’t heal it. The swamp could grow new things and break down old things, could attract evil and twist space, but it couldn’t fix what was already dying. “Leave it,” she tried to whisper to the boy, “Let it die.”

She could feel his aching exhaustion, lugging a heavy bucket of tubers back towards the truck, sweat coating every inch of his body. He put the bucket down and placed his hands on the dirt on either side of the flower. The swamp stirred beneath him, letting out a low chuckle and reaching upwards, waiting.

“Leave!” She tried to tell him, bracing herself, “You can’t do anything.” He forced through her, letting his magic seep into the roots and mingle with the swamp’s seething evil. She fought it back, tried to close it in, feeling the swamp claw its way slowly up his magic, seeking a way in.

The flower shivered. She and the swamp stopped. “Please,” he murmured to his own magic, and dumped it out of himself, draining it down into the plant. The leaves slowly straightened. The petals filled and opened. Disease and decay burned out until it was blossoming again, and his magic lay empty inside him, cutting her off from her power, and she could do nothing but wait as the swamp stretched up through his arms and met her face to face.

“He’s an unusually useful little human,” he said, “As a thank you, I’ll give him a monster worthy of this forest.” He pushed one final surge of power into her.

Her boy fell back away from the flower as she billowed inside him, finally big enough, singular enough to fight her way out. She surged out his throat. He retched and she poured out into the dirt in a mass, pounding with power, twenty years of his warped magic condensing with Jimin’s, with the magic of a thousand plants, with the deep, old, swamp’s magic. Dirt and pine straw swirled up from the ground, bark from the trees, sweeping into her and dissolving, filling her and giving her form.

She sat elegantly, curled her tail around her paws, and looked proudly at her boy from the outside for the first time. “Hmm,” she said, voice forming from the memory of his mother. He cringed against the dirt, curled up and shaking with his shaggy brown hair in his dark eyes, face smooth and young, body small and sickly thin. Spit dripped down his chin. “Hmm,” she said again, my Taehyung.

“Are you my familiar?” he whispered.

She nodded. He gulped and sat up. “I don’t think familiars are supposed to form that way,” he said reproachfully, wiping his chin off on his shirt.

She chuckled a human chuckle and he gaped. Her adorable boy. Kind and damaged and so powerful. Hers. He held out a tentative hand to pet her and she walked right past it and climbed into his lap, rubbing against his chest. So proud, she thought at him, so proud of you. He wrapped his arms around her and she felt the wet stain of tears on her fur. Behind him, the silver dragon curled around a cypress tree, grinning. He winked and then flickered into invisibility and swam away off into the swampy air.

“You look like old pine straw and cypress water,” Taehyung said, standing and turning back towards home. She climbed onto his shoulder, a lovely spot just for her, almost like seeing things from inside him still. “Your name is Brandy,” he said, “Let’s go get drunk.”

Chapter 5: Salem's Curses

Summary:

The boys go meet Jimin's mom.

Notes:

This chapter has been Translated in Russian by Aneche on ficbook.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Kid, what’re you doing here so early? Thought you were goin’ on vacation.”

“Accidentally took some keys home with me last night.” Jungkook dropped them into Owen’s hand. Owen stared over his shoulder.

“You goin’ somewhere?”

“Yeah. Vacation.”

Owen scratched his white beard and raised his eyebrows. “Figur’d you were stayin’ home for a week, not goin’ somewhere.”

Jungkook heard the car door open and turned around with a sigh to see Jimin chasing Bubble across the ground. Bubble couldn’t move very fast. Jimin caught her around the middle before she could get anywhere. She squeaked, her little feet swimming in the air as Jimin picked her up. Taehyung popped out his own door with Brandy on his shoulder, snickering, and Jungkook rubbed a hand over his face.

“Owen, this is going to be one long, terrible car ride.”

Jimin walked over to them, Bubble curled up like a teddy bear in his arms.

“I told you to stay in the car,” Jungkook said.

“She got out the window,” Jimin said. “I’m keeping her outside for as long as possible.”

“Jimin, Owen. Owen, Jimin. I’ll see you in a week and a half, I guess.”

Jimin made an unhappy cooing noise at Bubble, who meowed pitifully back. Owen snorted and Jungkook smiled fondly.

“Where you goin’ then?” Owen asked.

“Massachusetts. The drive takes two days.”

“Good luck,” Owen said with raised eyebrows. Taehyung walked up eyeing Owen with suspicion. Jungkook reached up and scratched the back of Taehyung’s head instead of his cat’s, and he relaxed with a heavy sigh. Owen looked pointedly off into the tree tops and pretended not to notice.

They were taking Jungkook’s truck since it was less old and rickety and had better gas mileage, so he took the first three-hour shift with Taehyung and Jimin cuddling sleepily on the seat beside him, Brandy squished in a pile between Taehyung’s leg and the opposite door. Bubble had hidden somewhere under the seat and could be heard squeaking unhappily every few miles.

Taehyung took the second three-hour shift, and when Taehyung was awake, everyone was awake. They stopped at Wendy’s for lunch, three boys and two cats in the back of a beat up old truck in the parking lot, sitting on the roof and eating burgers. Jungkook lay back on top of the huge pile of boxes in the truck bed, all filled with magical herbs and potions, plants that they couldn’t afford to leave at home. On the roof of the cab, Taehyung tried to throw fries down Jimin’s half-unbuttoned shirt as he pried Bubble’s second burger away from her.

“I know you’re stressed honey, but you can’t eat that much—stop, Taehyung—We can’t have you throwing up in the truck, dear. Tae, cut it out!”

Taehyung giggled until Jimin raised a finger and blasted him off the top of the truck. He rolled down the hood and fell off the front. Jimin went back to wrestling the burger away from Bubble. Jungkook pulled his hat down over his eyes and enjoyed the sun.

They’d only been driving for four hours, and it was already beginning to cool off, from blistering summer heat to the more tempered heat of early South Carolina fall. Eighty-five degrees. Mild. Pleasant. Practically sweater weather.

Taehyung hopped up in the truck beside him and dumped a whole cup of ice water across his chest.

 

Jungkook began to understand the world “long” halfway through his second shift of driving with Jimin and Taehyung bickering and the sunset coming in right through the driver’s side window and smacking him in the face.

“Why can’t your ancestral home be in Virginia?” Jungkook groaned. Bubble yowled under the seat. Brandy, sitting up on the dashboard, actually rolled her eyes.

“You cut that out!” Jimin said, pointing. Brandy’s ears went flat as she stared down his finger. Taehyung smacked his arm. They started tussling.

“I’M DRIVING!” Jungkook roared. “Sorry Tae. Fuck. Sorry.”

Taehyung pulled his arms away from his face and lay back against the car door his hand over his heart, exaggerating.

“We’ll stop fighting,” Jimin said quietly.

“Please. 95 is tough enough without getting smacked. My head hurts.”

Jimin touched his temple and it disappeared. “Thanks.”

“Drink some water or it’ll come back worse,” Jimin said, shoving one of the water bottles they’d gotten at Wendy’s in his face. Jungkook drank it with the all too familiar, odd, mechanical motions of following an accidental order that he would have followed anyway.

They parked in the back of a Walmart parking lot, unloaded all the boxes in the adjacent parking space, and filled the back with blankets and pillows. Jimin had a whole bag full of little colored squares that blew up into cushions or blankets. “Oh my god,” Taehyung said, picking up one shaped like a puppy. “I remember these.”

Jungkook picked up a unicorn and lollipop patterned blanket. “Uh.”

“They were, like, a fad when I was in elementary school,” Jimin said. “You could collect them. There’s a whole list of characters. I had a really big collection and I kept them all. A huge pile of collapsible bedding comes in handy more than you’d think.”

“Why haven’t we built a pillow fort in the living room yet?” Jungkook asked. Taehyung and Jimin burst into whining about missed opportunity.

Jimin complained loudly about going into Walmart. Jimin continued to complain loudly about being in Walmart all the way in and out of the bathroom, through the groceries section, and up to the counter. He failed to realize that he was by far the weirdest thing in the store at that moment, covered in jewelry and wearing leather pants that laced up either side with a good two inches of skin showing all the way down each leg. He wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Gotta get my slut out before I stay a week with mom,” he’d said. Jungkook had no trouble wondering why Owen had been so quiet that morning when Jimin chased Bubble out of the car.

“I’ve never in my life seen someone actually wear something like that,” Jungkook had said the first time he saw them.

“Really? All my friends have a pair,” Jimin said.

“Witch fashion,” Taehyung had muttered under his breath, half scathing and half affectionate. Jungkook added another item to the list of reasons he never wanted to meet Jimin’s other friends. Other items included: they’re fucking witches, Taehyung of all people called them energetic, and one was purported to have a tiger for a familiar.

They sat out in the parking lot as the sun set and roasted Walmart hotdogs over a magical fire. One of Jimin’s bracelets glowed the whole time and nobody bothered them. Jungkook drifted off lying in the back of the truck with the stars overhead and the guys talking about ink bamboo, a species of solid black bamboo that levitated in pieces like it had been painted into the air with a brush.

He woke a few minutes later with Taehyung licking his nipple. “Mph, wuthefuck?”

“It’s a dare,” Taehyung said. “Jimin dared me to wake you up using only my mouth.”

Taehyung hovered over him, shifting nervously as Jimin squeak-cackled behind him. “Why’d you stop?” Jungkook asked. Taehyung giggled happily and latched his lips onto the other nipple, sucking hard and flicking his tongue over it. Jungkook arched up, moaning sleepily. The truck rocked and Jungkook opened his eyes to see Jimin attaching a white sheet to the roof of the truck and then running down to attach the other end of the bed making a tent that glowed under the streetlamps.

“I like this,” Jungkook murmured. “Can we stay here for the next week?” Taehyung bit his nipple and he twisted, gasping.

“You can sleep in the truck while we’re at my house,” Jimin giggled, “But it’ll be cold, and I was kind of hoping you’d sleep in my room. My bed is huge. It’ll fit all three of us easily.”

Taehyung unbuttoned Jungkook’s pants.

“In a Walmart parking lot?” Jungkook said as Jimin sat down behind him and lifted his head up so he could slide his lap under. “On a pile of baby blankets? Really guys?”

“You just said you liked it here,” Jimin giggled, pulling a hand through his hair, “We tired you out today. We’re going to take care of you.” His bracelet gleamed. “No one can hear us. Don’t worry.”

Jungkook closed his eyes. Taehyung pulled his pants off and flicked his tongue over the head of his dick, fingers scratching lightly at the sensitive skin right by his hips. Jungkook twitched restlessly. A glass bottle smashed in the distance with some accompanying yelling. Jungkook’s eyes flew open.

“Walmart,” Jimin said disdainfully. He’d pulled his shirt off while Jungkook had his eyes closed, and Jungkook reached back and ran his hands awkwardly up Jimin’s chest, who leaned over him for a better angle, flexing. He could feel himself rapidly getting hard inside Taehyung’s mouth, who tried to hold him in as long as possible. Jimin was half hard in his ridiculous pants already.

Taehyung gently touched his balls with one finger and a tingly, sensitive feeling enveloped them, strong and unexpected. He yelped and tried to sit up. Jimin grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him gently back down, grabbing his wrists to hold him still.

“It feels so good, Kookie,” he murmured. “Just let it happen.”

“I’ve got so many tricks to show you,” Taehyung murmured.

Jungkook had seen Taehyung use his magic tricks on Jimin before when Jungkook was already tired out and content to watch, saw him with his hand around Jimin’s dick, pushing into him slow and easy while Jimin writhed like Taehyung was fucking him with a high powered vibrator. He shivered, thighs tightening around Taehyung’s waist, tugging against Jimin’s arms. Jimin looked down at him serenely like holding him back wasn’t even difficult.

Taehyung had a ball of light on the end of his finger, a little sparking, fizzling thing that he lowered onto the tip of Jungkook’s cock, dripping and rock hard with the delicious pressure on his balls. Jungkook squirmed. The ball of light sat there feeling like nothing at all, but Jungkook’s breathing picked up anyway. Taehyung pushed it down into his slit and intense, aching pleasure burst across the head. His entire body rocked. He cried out, voice ragged in his throat. It sank deeper, almost burning with pleasure and leaving his entire cock throbbing.

Jimin was saying something, but he couldn’t hear over the sound of his own desperate moaning. Taehyung gently stroked his thighs. The ball sank and his cock lay fat and hard against his stomach, leaking precome. He imagined the ball sinking too far, burning up through his guts and into the chest. He whimpered and struggled.

“Shh, we’re taking care of you,” Jimin said, stroking his hair. Jungkook pulled himself further into Jimin’s lap as if he could get away from the ball inside him, and Taehyung followed, fencing him in between them. He was twisted up and shaking, head pressed back against Jimin’s chest, hands trying to find something to hold onto. He thought he felt tears sliding down his face. The ball pressed into something intense inside him, something deep and nearly painfully sensitive, and orgasm crashed through him. He thrashed, choking through the aftershocks as they held him down.

And it didn’t stop. He lay between them, gasping and struggling, pleasure radiating painfully through his dick.

“Do you want me to take it out?” Taehyung murmured, up close and worried.

“No!” Jungkook moaned. Taehyung chuckled and ran one magically charged finger up the underside of his dick, still hard and dripping.

It occurred to Jungkook, distantly, that he’d never liked overstimulation. Second orgasms had never been anything but painful. This was wonderful, pleasure racing up his spine and down his limbs. He came down far enough to open his eyes and see Taehyung sitting between his legs, one finger still running so slowly over Jungkook’s cock, trailing lines of pulsing sensitivity. Jimin helped him lay back a little further. “Hang onto me, baby,” he said, dropping his hands to run over Jungkook’s chest.

Taehyung’s strokes grew wider, using more and more of his fingers until he wrapped his palm around Jungkook’s cock. Jungkook bit down on his own arm to muffle his gasps.

“No one can hear us, you know,” Jimin said. “Let it out.”

Jungkook shook his head.

“You shy?” Jimin asked. Jungkook glared at him for as long as he could before the next pass of Taehyung hand left him sobbing. He came again. Taehyung didn’t stop stroking. The dim truck bed blurred around him, the heavy vibrator pressure inside him edging on way too much.

”Fuck me, Tae, please, god, fuck me. Just fuck me.”

“No. You’re sitting on your ass all day tomorrow,” Taehyung said cheerfully and Jungkook whined in frustration. Jimin rocked his dick against Jungkook’s back. Taehyung sped up, building the intensity even higher, and Jungkook writhed.

“Don’t make me tie you down,” Taehyung said lightly, and Jungkook struggled to hold still.

“Learned how to do this when I was, like, thirteen,” Taehyung said. “It was one of the first things I figured out how to do that was more than making light or unlocking doors, which is pretty standard. So when other witches asked me what I could do, I couldn’t exactly tell them.”

“He started using magic really late anyway,” Jimin said.

“W-why are you t-telling me this-s now?” Jungkook said, and it felt like his dick was deep in someone’s throat as they swallowed over and over and over. He couldn’t focus.

“Don’t know. Just thinking about it,” Taehyung said, playing with the intensity, dialing it up until Jungkook was failing so hard that Jimin had to force him down, and then easing back off so he could breath. “For a while, this was all I could do, and then I got to high school and learned how to adapt some of these tricks to punish people who bullied me since the teachers wouldn’t do it.”

“You’re not trying real hard to make me feel safe,” Jungkook hissed, shivering suddenly. He could feel himself rapidly building towards orgasm number three, and it had begun to burn a little.

“Point is,” Taehyung said, “I’ve just gotten very good at playing with people’s bodies.”

“You sound like a serial killer,” Jungkook growled. The intensity died down suddenly. Taehyung looked a little scared.

“No, no, don’t stop now, please,” Jungkook moaned, “I’m sorry. It isn’t that bad. I still want it. I want you. I know you’d never ever be a serial killer. You’re too nice. Please, Tae, please, please, please.”

Taehyung smiled softly and cupped his dick in both hands. The pounding pleasure rocked through his body again. Jimin moaned quietly above him, feeling it over the empathetic link, and Taehyung smirked.

The third orgasm snuck slowly up on him till he was coming dry, body heaving, sobbing hard. “Tae, off,” he moaned, and the pleasure dissipated all at once, leaving him wrung out, aching, and shivering cold. Jimin cleaned him up and moved him higher up in the truck, dressed him, and cushioned him in layers of blankets and pillows.

Jimin hauled Taehyung up to lie next to him, his eyes half closed and shaking a little. “Water,” Jimin said, tipping a bottle into Taehyung’s mouth. He looked drained and exhausted. Jungkook reached a heavy arm over Taehyung’s chest and tugged him closer.

Taehyung sighed suddenly and dropped his water bottle, and Jungkook pressed his forehead against the side of Taehyung’s and felt his pleasure as Jimin went down on him, his thighs propped up on his shoulders.

Taehyung went so amazingly still when someone was taking care of him. If Jungkook couldn’t hear his every sweet moan, foreheads pressed together with Taehyung tucked safely under his arm, he wouldn’t have thought that Taehyung was even awake. Jungkook felt sleep pulling heavily on him, but couldn’t let himself close his eyes and miss this.

“What about me, huh?” Jimin asked after Taehyung came sighing against Jungkook’s lips. Taehyung opened his mouth obediently and Jungkook rolled out of the way so Jimin could line up over his head and slide in. Jungkook tried to watch, but he fell asleep to the sounds of Jimin’s fucked-out, gravelly moans instead.

 

He woke from a nice nap partway into Taehyung’s first driving shift the next morning with Bubble nested on his shoulder, Brandy on his lap, and Taehyung loudly singing show tunes as he drove. Jimin was cuddled up to his arm, almost obsequiously, encouraging him to sing more with a bright smile on his face.

“I swear to Christ I will end both of you,” he growled. They burst into giggles.

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Jimin said, rubbing his ankle. “There’s another hour and a half before it’s your turn.”

“I can’t sleep,” he groaned. “You’re too loud.”

“How long do you think Jungkook will last before your mom throws him out of the house?” Taehyung said, “some big, strong, non-magical man coming to sweep her darling son off his feet.”

Jimin giggled. “We don’t have to let her know.”

“You gonna tell her that you two are together and just not include me?” Jungkook said with a chuckle.

“You can pretend like you wouldn’t mind that all you want, but we can feel your bitterness all the way from over here,” Taehyung said. “So no, we’re not going to tell her about us either.”

“Are three-way relationships, like, a thing for witches?” Jungkook said. “My parents would never have been okay with this.”

“They’re pretty unusual,” Jimin said.

“They’re much more common than they are for you non-magic people,” Taehyung said. “We have our own ethical dilemmas, you know. We don’t get caught up on the same ones that you people do.”

“Am I one of you or one of Them Non-Magical People?” Jungkook asked.

“As a bonded servant? Neither and both,” Taehyung said.

“Ah.”

“Yeah. Mom’s going to be so much more upset about the non-magical part than the polyamory.”

“…Really,” Jungkook said, lip curling. The boys abruptly stopped teasing. The next couple miles passed in a tense silence.

“Let’s just,” Jimin sighed, “Let’s just see how she responds to you as a bonded servant, and then decide how much we want her to know after that.”

Jimin scooted towards Jungkook, ducking under one of his outstretched legs. “You look tense. Want me to suck you off?”

From Jungkook’s lap, Brandy looked downright offended. Taehyung cackled.

“God no. My dick hurts already. The last thing I need right now is for you to bite it off.”

“Brandy, could you move please? I want to cuddle my boyfriend.”

Brandy flicked an ear but offered no other response. Bubble tumbled off Jungkook’s shoulder and scrambled into Jimin’s arms.

“You’re doing much better,” he cooed, kissing her head. “Getting used to the car, honey? Mama’s gonna be so excited to see you.”

Jungkook closed his eyes and felt the nerves twist his stomach in knots. No one’s parents had ever approved of him, not even his own.

 

It occurred to Jungkook, somewhere south of Boston, that he’d never been this far north. The scenery was amazing, an explosion of fall color that Jungkook hadn’t seen since he was a kid.

“I can’t believe you guys actually live in Salem,” he snorted.

“We don’t live in Salem! We’re pretty sure Salem is cursed, actually. We go around it. But there’s a lot of witch communities all over New England, especially in the earlier colonies. We live in one of the oldest witch towns. Both of our families only settled within the last hundred years. We’re Korean, after all.”

“How does your family know so much about potions then?” Jungkook asked, poking Jimin with his toe.

“I don’t know. Learned it from other people in the community a few generations back maybe? Maybe someone married in who’s been here since the Puritans. We have a bit Asian influence in our techniques from what I can tell from those books Taehyung found.”

The neighborhoods were quiet, full of old trees, brambly yards, and enormous houses. “You both lived here?” Jungkook asked.

“Nah. I’m from the wrong side of the tracks,” Taehyung said.

“He lived in the normal neighborhood right next door,” Jimin said. “We haven’t reached the witch neighborhood yet, and believe me, you’ll be able to tell when we get there.”

Jungkook could tell even before they got there. He could feel it coming like an air pressure change, something that came from layers and layers of spells. He felt it every time he drove past the tree into the swamp, but this was much much stronger, a subtle desire to turn back, to not look, to go away. He wasn’t welcome there. Taehyung stopped at a stop sign and Jungkook opened the door without thinking about it, stumbled out, and was fifteen feet down the sidewalk before he could stop himself, shivering in the brisk fall air.

“Kookie?” Jimin said, running up behind him. Jungkook stared longingly back down the road, feeling sinister danger breathing through the air behind him like the aura of a Lovecraft demon.

“It has to be the protective spells,” Taehyung said.

“I’d gathered, but he’s reacting really strongly to them. Mom’s bonded servant said he’s never noticed them.”

Jungkook took a few deep breaths and let Jimin lead him back to the car. Taehyung drove forward, and half a block away, Jungkook felt a huge wall of magic in the air in front of them. He sucked in a huge breath, scrambling on the seat like it was a real stone wall that the truck was about to crash into, whining in panic. Jimin wrapped his arms around him and pulled his head into his neck. They passed through the wall. The panic vanished.

“Fuck,” he grunted, sagging into Jimin’s arms.

“Yeah. Jeez. You okay?” Jimin said.

“Yeah.”

“Look out the window.”

The houses were still huge, set back on green lawns with stunning trees, but they were grander than the ones in the neighborhood they’d just left, roofs taller, more spires. Someone was walking with a horse down the sidewalk. Two kids played in a nearby yard with mechanical dragons that flew through the air beside them. Little glowing spots hung in the trees like strings of pastel Christmas lights. A man wearing actual Merlin-esque wizard robes flew by on a broom with a dog clinging to his back.

“What the fuck?” Jungkook murmured, “This is like circus of clichés.”

Jimin threw back his head and laughed, chest rocking against Jungkook’s head, and he couldn’t help but smile a little.

Jimin’s house was nothing short of a mansion, completely made of stonework like a castle, big and square with an enormous greenhouse in the backyard. A very small Asian woman wearing a dirty apron and more jewelry than Jimin ran out of the front of the house yelling. Jimin abandoned Jungkook, fell out the door and ran to meet her with open arms. “That’s adorable,” Jungkook said.

“Ah, Mama Park,” Taehyung said. He sounded worried. “Are you okay, by the way?”

“I’m fine,” Jungkook said distractedly. He and Taehyung got out and walked across the lawn to where Jimin was swinging his mother in circles as he hugged her.

“Taehyung, darling!” She yelled, and threw herself at him. They exchanged a very loud hug, and then he unloaded a lot of plant information on her all at once as she squealed with excitement.

“And Jungkook stole moonstone flowers out of a neighbor’s yard for me!” he finished, which brought her attention finally to him, standing with his hands in his pockets.

“Look at you!” She said, which Jungkook did not do. She turned back to Jimin and Taehyung with a look that clearly said, ‘Lucky boys,’ and then turned around, pendants swinging. She had a string of stone beads braided into her short hair, making her look like a rich mom in a hippie costume.

“I’m Mama Park. You can just call me Mom, if you want.”

“I’m Jungkook,” he said, holding a hand out with the pleasantest smile his nerves would allow, “Nice to meet you.”

It seemed like a perfectly fine greeting to him, but she blinked at him like he’d just called her something nasty, and then turned to look at Taehyung and Jimin. Jungkook felt his face heat up. First test: failed.

“Oh!” Jimin said. “You’re supposed to bow.”

“Is this a witch thing or just a bonded servant thing?” he asked.

“Bonded servant thing.”

Jungkook did not bow.

“Well order him to then,” Jimin’s mom said, “go on, I want to see it.”

Jungkook felt a little bad about how much he fervidly he suddenly hated Jimin’s mother. But only just a little.

“Could you bow please?” Jimin asked.

“No.”

Taehyung and Jimin both stared at him in thinly disguised horror, like they couldn’t believe he was going to bring Mama Park into awareness of their strange setup the very minute they got there.

“Not like that,” Mama Park said, batting Jimin’s arm.

“Jungkook, bow,” Jimin said, like a good son who did whatever his mother told him.

Jungkook bowed to her, and then gave Jimin a very expressive hand gesture behind his mother’s back as she bounced up and down excitedly squealing “You did it! My little boy’s all grown up and ready to start a household! I’m so excited.” Jimin giggled and hugged her. Taehyung tried to stop Jungkook, but he pulled out of his grip and stomped away. Taehyung’s empathetic link felt apologetic, but Jimin’s just felt embarrassed.

He went around to the other side of the truck so Jimin and Taehyung couldn’t see him viciously kick the back tire in frustration. Brandy leapt up into his arms and rubbed her head against his nose. He sighed into her fur. “You and I don’t like people controlling us, do we?” He said.

“MMmm.” He shivered a little at her human voice. The rest of the group came around to the back of the truck. Bubble was in Mama Park’s arms now, purring her little heart out. Jimin tried to catch Jungkook’s eyes. Jungkook stared pointedly past his shoulder.

“And here’s Brandy! May I hold her?” Mama Park asked, reaching out. Brandy hopped up into the back of the truck without a second glance.

“She still doesn’t let even Jimin touch her,” Taehyung said.

“But Jungkook was just holding her.”

“Jungkook is the one and only exception, for some reason,” Taehyung said. “I think she’s adopted him as her second human. Bubble too.”

“Where do you want me to carry the boxes, sir?” Jungkook asked softly, and Jimin cringed.

The greenhouse was like the swamp farm, but downsized, full of bizarre, discolored plants with one corner devoted to potions and other ingredients. It was cute and reassuringly warm and planty. Jungkook stood by the door and watched them unpack the boxes. Mama Park’s familiar lay in one of the storage containers, a fat, orange cat that never once opened his eyes while they were there, belly in the air with his smiley face hanging backwards off the shelf.

“Do you remember Eunha from High School?” his mom asked while Taehyung watered and pruned all the plants they’d brought. “She’s back in town too. You should go meet up with her.” She poked him with her elbow to let him know what she really wanted.

“I’m not going to date Eunha, Mom.”

“Why not? She’s lovely! It would be a lovely way to integrate her family into the community. They’re new here, you know.”

“I’m not going to marry Eunha, Mom.”

Taehyung giggled cheerfully from over by his plants. “I don’t know, Jimin. I think you’d look hella cute together.”

“I’ve gotta set you up with someone eventually, Jimin, and it’d be nice if you’ve fallen in love with them first.”

Jungkook expected a laugh. Taehyung and Jimin just looked uncomfortable.

“Are arranged marriages a thing?” Jungkook asked a little while later as he and Taehyung carried their stuff through Jimin’s massive, palace-like house. Taehyung lugged his own beat-up, uncomfortably brown bag up the creaking wooden stairs while Jungkook handled Jimin’s giant trunk. He’d brought all of his own stuff in one backpack.

“Kind of?” Taehyung said. “It’s a pretty small community and people don’t really marry outside of it. Everyone knows everyone. Marriages aren’t formally arranged, but frequently two families will come to an agreement over what would be best for everyone, set the kids up while they’re young-ish, and the kids are usually perfectly happy to go along with it. It’s never forced if they aren’t, but there is some pressure on them to accept it. Jimin was set up with this girl when he was younger, but her family moved to England, so he’s a free man.”

“You weren’t ever set up with anyone, were you?”

Taehyung sighed and looked at Jungkook through his bangs. “My Dad’s an eccentric wanderer and my mom’s a hateful, non-magic bitch. No one wants me.” He pushed Jimin’s bedroom door open, ushered him inside, and closed it again. “Not even Jimin’s family. If she thought I was a suitable match for her son, she would have married us herself the day I turned twenty.”

“Is she going to be okay with you two?”

“She’ll be passingly disappointed, but still very happy for us. Don’t worry about it. I’ll probably apologize for not being from a more respected family over dinner and that’ll be the end of the formalities.”

“I really don’t like that,” Jungkook said.

“I don’t either. I grew up with the same values you did. I’ve just gotten used to this system.”

Jungkook sat down on Jimin’s wide, soft, four-posted, canopy bed. Small jeweled planets drifted around the central chandelier in the ceiling. A huge fireplace took up one wall. Charms and rune stones lay everywhere. An ancient-looking, cracked chess set collected dust on the table. “Wow this place is nice,” he said softly.

“Are you okay?” Taehyung asked.

“If they don’t want you, the definitely won’t want me. I can tell that she’s not satisfied with me even as a bonded servant. I hate to think of what she’ll think of me as a boyfriend.”

“I didn’t think you cared,” Taehyung said quietly.

Jungkook had spent his whole life feeling like nobody wanted him around. He flopped back on the bed and stared at the canopy, dotted with little gold stars that turned on the cloth. “This place is so nice,” he said. “I feel like trash.”

Jimin arrived to find them wrapped around each other on the bed. “Jungkook, I’m sorry,” he said as soon as the door closed. “What was I supposed to say?”

“’I’m sorry, Mom, but we don’t give Jungkook direct orders because they make him very uncomfortable and upset.’ How’s that for easy?”

Jimin climbed into the bed and slid into his free arm. “I’m sorry. I wanted to put it off.”

“It’s fine,” Jungkook said, kissing his hair, “She seems like a force of nature.”

“She is. Speaking of, it’s dinner time,” Jimin said. “I came up here to get you.”

 

“I’m surprised the boys brought you with them,” Mama Park said at dinner, looking reproachfully at Jimin and Taehyung. “Usually when I go on vacation the servants get a vacation too.”

“We wanted you to meet him,” Jimin said. “He’s part of the family now. He’s not…really…a servant.”

“Maybe you can meet my bonded servant tomorrow,” Mama Park said, petting her lazy familiar, fast asleep on her lap. “His name is Charlie. Jimin named his purring fern after him, if you’ve seen it.” Jungkook uncomfortably remembered throwing Charlie through a window. “He’s lovely! He’s been with us for thirteen years now. He can give you some pointers on how to work the system.” She winked.

He figured he should say something.

“Oh! Taehyung! Were you going to contact your mother while you were here.”

Taehyung shook his head. “I was planning on pretending she doesn’t exist.”

“Fair enough. She won’t hear about it from me,” Mama Park said. “I see her around sometimes in town, you know. She asks how you’re doing occasionally. Of course, I usually have to say ‘I don’t know,’ because the only thing I do know about is how your business is going, and she doesn’t want to hear about that.” She shook her head.

Taehyung rolled his eyes. “Conversely, have you heard from Dad?”

“Not for months,” she said.

“Same.”

She patted his hand sympathetically. “You can always come to us if you need anything. It’s hard to have a distant family. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Think of us as yours.”

Taehyung smiled widely, and she ruffled his hair. “Our Taehyung,” she said. “I’m so glad Jimin has you. I think it’s done both of you a lot of good.”

Jungkook ate slowly. The gravy was dotted with what looked like tiny orange snails.

“So Jungkook, Jimin tells you graduated high school recently? What do you do when you’re not with the boys?”

“I take care of hunting cabins in the off season,” he said.

“His accent is so cute,” she said to Jimin and Taehyung, who both nodded cheerfully. Jungkook refrained, with difficulty, from glaring.

“What does that entail?”

“Yard work, fixing stuff, cleaning the houses.”

“Handy man,” she said, again, to the boys, and Jungkook would have been proud of how pleased she seemed to be with him if he didn’t feel like a show horse on display.

“And how about your family?”

How to phrase it delicately. “Uh, I used to live with my parents and one older brother. Haven’t talked to any of them in almost two years.”

“Perfect!” she said, looking at the Jimin and Taehyung. “No conflicts of interest.”

What the hell happened to not wishing a distant family on anyone? It occurred to him that he didn’t count as ‘anyone.’ He was a pet, not a guest. He looked at Jimin and Taehyung, who looked still cheerful, but a little confused, like they could tell something was off in that statement, but hadn’t quite identified what.

“How are you liking magic?” she asked, smiling excitedly. Her cat huffed out a particularly strong purr and nearly rolled of her lap.

“It’s terrifying. Had I been given a choice, I would have left it alone.”

Silence fell around the table. Taehyung and Jimin both looked hurt. “But don’t you like all the magical help the boys give you?” Mama Park said uncertainly, “They spoil you rotten, right? They’re supposed to.”

“Yeah, they do,” Jungkook said, “but they also end up having to give me a lot of apology gifts.”

“We’re a little careless,” Jimin said quietly.

“You’ve nearly killed me like five times.”

“Yes, well, that does happen,” she said, waving a sparkly hand and taking a sip of wine. “What do you mean by ‘if I’d been given a choice’? People don’t usually need one.”

“They got me high and did the ritual while I was out. And that was after I told them I didn’t wanna see them ever again.”

She stared at him evenly, and then turned, yet again, to Jimin and Taehyung. “I thought you said you all get along.”

“Well, we do now,” Jimin said. “We didn’t for about a month before we got used to each other.”

She nodded. “Not unusual. Most people end up being very happy with the arrangement. You’ve got some magic about you too. You’ll learn to love all this stuff.”

“Does he?” Jimin said, sitting forward. “We keep thinking so, but I don’t know how to figure out.”

“Boy, were either of your parents a witch?”

Boy? “N-no.”

“He was just born at an auspicious moment,” she said, waving a hand dismissively, "Like during a solar storm and under a blue moon. Witches react to magic differently, and so do non-magic people. Tae's mother has some resistance too. It's more common than you'd think."

“He can sense magic,” Taehyung said, “You should have seen him at the neighborhood border. He can see through or disregard some spells that he shouldn’t be able to. Brandy is invisible to most people, but not to him.”

She nodded. “An affinity for magic. Interesting. I wonder if that’s what led him to you. I'm not sure if that makes him better as a bonded servant or more risky. I might come in handy. Just make sure to keep him happy. An unhappy servant means poor quality work.”

Jungkook stood up.

“Are you finished?” She asked.

He nodded and carried his dish to the kitchen.

“He’s very quiet,” he heard on his way out the back door, “and a little sullen and rude, but I’m sure he’ll be first rate once you teach him the rules. Don’t be afraid of showing him his place every once and a while. I can already tell you’re too soft on him.”

He paused, waiting for Jimin or Taehyung so speak up and correct her. Neither did. He walked out and curled up in the front seat of his cold truck, his mundane, rusted, dirty, old truck that was entirely his and perfectly normal. It was freezing. He usually depended on Taehyung or Jimin to heat it. Brandy came out and sat with him until he felt less like an unwanted mutt.

 

The first thing Mama Park’s bonded servant told him the next day was to always be deferential, and Jungkook excused himself and went to find Jimin and Taehyung. They were scheduled to entertain clients in the greenhouse all day, and Jimin was talking to someone interested in publishing a textbook on potion making. Jungkook hung back, chewing on the stem of a mini sugar cane plant, a little reminder of home, except that it changed flavors every thirty seconds.

Brandy sat on his shoulder beside him and surveyed the scene. Occasionally a passing witch would do a double-take and stare at her like she had two heads, and then wander away looking alarmed. Every time it happened, Brandy purred and sat up a little straighter. “Taehyung likes scaring normal people and you like scaring witches, huh?” Jungkook asked. Brandy rubbed against his arm. “I’m better than them, right?” Jungkook asked.

“Aaahn,” she said, and purred.

Jungkook smiled and scratched her head.

“Jungkook!” Taehyung yelled, running over and dragging a man wearing a long purple coat and carrying a tall, thin staff. “This is Namjoon. He’s a wizard.”

For such a stately coat, those were some awfully pathetic jeans. And a Metallica t-shirt. Okay. “Like, Gandalf type wizard or Harry Potter type wizard,” he asked.

“Probably more like Gandalf,” Namjoon said. His hair was pink. “Nice to meet you.” He held out a hand for a handshake, and Jungkook nearly cried with appreciation.

A tiger walked out from behind the nearest table. Jungkook yelped and yanked Taehyung in front of him, then tripped over his own boots and fell into a flowerbed.

“Careful. Those daisies bite,” Taehyung said cheerfully, pulling him back out and helping him sit down on his bench.

“Trust me, Kahn isn’t nearly as terrifying as the terrifying beast you have on your shoulder,” said a gravelly voice. Brandy purred happily in Jungkook’s ear. “I wish you were that scary,” said the same voice to the tiger, and Jungkook dragged his eyes away from the fucking gigantic tiger and saw a very small man with blond hair wearing all leather, his big jacket swamping his small shoulders. “She’s my familiar.”

“Ah,” Jungkook said weakly, “You’re Yoongi. Jimin told me about you.”

“I met them through Dad!” Taehyung said excitedly. “They threaten people for money!”

“We’re enforcers,” Namjoon said happily.

“They just do grunt work for our police force,” Taehyung said.

“Yah! Tae! Don’t give us away like that! Let us have a little fun.”

Kahn and Brandy touched noses gently, and then Kahn lay her head right on Jungkook’s knee like a big dog.

“Come on. At least try to be scary,” Yoongi whined. She turned around and snarled at him. Jungkook jumped. “Not at me!” Yoongi snapped.

“How do you become a wizard?” Jungkook asked Namjoon, carefully scratching Kahn’s cheeks.

“Wizards are just witches who are born with different magic,” Namjoon said, and Jungkook sighed with disappointment. “Taehyung is almost a wizard. He has witch-y magic but a wizard-y way of using it, and he got a familiar, so he has to be a witch, but for a long time I thought I’d get him as an apprentice.”

“Can you two just hang out over here with Jungkook for, like, the rest of the afternoon?” Taehyung asked. “Mama Park keeps making him uncomfortable.”

“She doesn’t like us,” Yoongi said, sitting down on the floor. His tiger curled around his back and dwarfed him. He pulled off his jacket and tattooed strings of runes and magic circles sleeved his hands and arms up to his elbows. More elaborate rings circled his neck.

“Taehyung told us everything,” Namjoon said, sitting down next to Jungkook. His staff disappeared with a popping noise, turning into a three-inch pendant. He hung it around his neck and became a lot less intimidating.

“Mama Park being demoralizing and manipulative again?” Yoongi asked.

“He’s non-magical. Of course she is,” Namjoon answered.

“I like you guys,” Jungkook said, smirking.

“Just don’t let Jimin hear you,” Yoongi said, “He’ll get bitchy.”

“Don’t let me hear what?” Jimin said, showing up right behind him and putting Bubble on Kahn’s giant head. The two cats stared at each other. Bubble purred, rolled over, and fell off. Kahn gathered her up in her giant paws and cuddled her like a teddy bear.

“I’m insulting your mother,” Yoongi said.

“Oh haha. You suck.”

“Did your ass get bigger?” Yoongi said, “Bring that thing over here. I’ve missed it.”

“I’m not single anymore,” Jimin whined, letting Yoongi pull him ass-up into his lap, “My mom is around.”

“Since when did that ever stop you?” Namjoon muttered.

“Sorry Jungkook,” Jimin said as Yoongi rhythmically slapped his ass to make it jiggle, “I used to have sex with both these idiots a lot.”

Yoongi’s hand froze. “Oh yeah, are you okay with this, Jungkook? I know Taehyung would think it’s hilarious, but I forgot to ask you.”

“I’m enjoying it,” Jungkook said.

Yoongi went back to lightly slapping and rubbing. Jimin gave Jungkook that flirty side-eye and Jungkook could feel a smirk tugging at his lips.

“Off, off,” Mama Park snapped, pulling Jimin up by the back of his shirt. “You’re a professional with customers around. And you’re not marrying anyone like that. I won’t let you. Don’t even think about it.”

“Why do you always go straight to marriage,” Jimin muttered, blushing.

“You two should leave if you don’t have business with Tae and Jimin, and Jungkook,” she said sternly, “I thought you were with Charlie. He’s much better company. Go back over to him. He’ll have lots of tips for you.”

“Taehyung told me to stay with them.”

“Jimin, tell him to go to Charlie.”

“Mom, I want him to stay with them for now. I was hoping they’d get some time to hang out while we were up here.”

“Oh for goodness sakes, he’s a servant. He’s here to serve you. Let him go get training. You need to discipline him more.”

Jungkook hoped Jimin wasn’t close enough to feel just how much he hated his mother. He was. Jungkook felt him fighting back tears.

“I’m not telling him to go anywhere,” Jimin said, “He’s on vacation too.”

She dragged him away, lecturing.

“I swear she’s nice,” Namjoon said, “She’s very blunt and kind of misguided, but she always treats us like family when we come to visit even though she doesn’t approve of us, for Taehyung and Jimin’s sake.”

“She’d be nice if she treated me like a person and not a dog,” Jungkook grumbled.

 

Jimin’s Dad joined them for dinner. His old pin-striped suit glittered with hidden spells and he had tattoos on his knuckles and poking up from the neck of his shirt, but seemed just like any other dumpy middle-aged man with glasses and thinning hair. His little black cat familiar tossed his coat onto a hook by the door and then carried his bag off to his office for him. “Dad, this is Jungkook.”

Jungkook prepared himself for another forced bow, but instead, Papa Park squeezed his arms, patted his chest, grabbed Jungkook by the chin to look him in the eye, and said, “Yes, that’ll do nicely. Well done boys.”

Jungkook didn’t eat with the family. He ate in the kitchen with Charlie. He could feel Jimin and Taehyung’s unease through the walls, but neither of them insisted on having him at the main table. Jungkook, though bitter, was a little relieved. He could pick the fairy wings off his flatbread in peace without worrying about offending anyone.

“You know, I haven’t known you for very long,” Charlie said, his slightly wrinkled face wrinkling further with a kind smile, “but your masters seem hesitant to give you orders. You can’t have them scared of you, you know. Eventually you have to let go of your dignity and let them boss you around. Otherwise in five years they’ll just let you go and find someone else and you’ll be locked out of this world again. Imagine. No more magic for the rest of your life. Don’t let that happen to you.”

In the large, dim kitchen, filled with odd pots and cauldrons gleaming bronze in the lantern-light, Charlie suddenly looked like a small, scuffling creature, reaching greedily for gold crumbs and considering himself fortunate. And maybe when he went back and compared himself to his regular people, he was, but Jungkook didn’t have any regular people.

“I knew it!” Mama Park yelled from the dining room, “Congratulations, both of you. I’m so proud! I knew you’d both finally come around. Charlie!”

Charlie rushed to the kitchen door. Jungkook saw Mama Park appear, jumping up and down on the other side of it, all her bangles and necklaces jingling. “Taehyung and Jimin are dating! Finally! Go downtown and get a cake.”

“It’s not like we’re getting married, Mom!” Jimin yelped. “Calm down! Seriously!”

Charlie ran out, leaving his dinner half finished on the table. Jungkook sat alone in the kitchen and listened to the celebration, waited for them to say his name, to cut her excitement off. After ten minutes of listening to them avoid bringing him into it, he grabbed his coat and left the house.

Brandy sat on the driveway waiting for him.

“Can you take me to the nearest gas station?” He asked her. She turned down the driveway and led him away, and he followed.

The glowing lights in the trees were fairies. He found a bush full of them on his way down the road, tittering in high voices. He stopped to stare and they all drifted out to meet him, tugging on strands of his hair and trying to fly up his shirt.

Brandy popped up, caught one in her mouth, and ate it.

“Wow, dude. Brutal.”

The gas station was at least a mile away. He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and hopped down the sidewalk to try to warm up. The temperature only dropped outside the wall of magic, and the mundane, average world around them seemed suddenly charming and small, like dollhouses.

At the gas station, he bought a pack of Marlboro Reds and a white lighter because Taehyung had told him they were bad luck. He sat on the curb out of the cashier’s sight with Brandy lying against his leg and smoked one, and then another. His own truck rumbled into a parking spot next to him and Taehyung got out, shivering in his thin coat.

“Found you,” he said. Jungkook lit up his third cigarette, lungs burning, and sucked the smoke in.

“Did you tell her about me?”

“No,” Taehyung said, hair falling in his eyes. Jimin needed to give him another haircut.

“You need to tell her.”

“I know. Jimin’s scared. She’s being worse than we expected.”

“Jimin can suck my dick.”

“Jimin would be happy to suck your dick if it means never having to tell him mom that he’s dating his own bonded servant.”

“Thought you said witches did that sometimes.”

“Witches will sleep with their bonded servants sometimes. Actual relationships? Rare. The power difference is too big.”

“That’s for sure,” Jungkook said. “She doesn’t like me.”

“No, she doesn’t. She’s trying to, but she doesn’t get it.”

“We have to tell her.”

“I’m scared too. Neither of us realized how dismissive she is of non-magic people. That lighter is bad luck, you know.”

“You want one?” Jungkook said, holding the pack out.

“I’ve got my own,” Taehyung said with a sigh and pulled a small wooden box out of his coat pocket. “Do you mind if we smoke in your truck? It’s cold out here.”

Taehyung didn’t drive them back to Jimin’s house. He drove them down a long hill through a quiet neighborhood of old, small houses and stopped across the street from a standard two-story house with white siding and a big, grassy yard. “This is where I grew up,” Taehyung said, “And where mom grew up. She’s lived here her whole life.” It looked painfully standard, the opposite of Taehyung, curtains in the windows and a white Honda in the driveway. The garden was gorgeous, orderly and gushing plants. “About a quarter mile straight back through the woods from here, is Jimin’s backyard. Right next door to that is the house my Dad grew up in. That’s how mom met him, and it’s how I met Jimin.”

Taehyung’s cigarettes smelled like burning cedar and it filled the car. Jungkook felt like an outsider more than ever. “They never married. I think they loved each other, but she hated magic. She had me and loved the crap out of me for years. I started using magic. She sent me off to school, and cut me off from Dad and Jimin. I grew up without training and my magic developed all weird. I’ve become the cautionary tale all over this side of Massachusetts of why you don’t let your kids marry out of the community.”

“Oh.”

“So you see why Jimin’s mom might be a little unhappy with the circumstances. It’s not that Jimin doesn’t want to disappoint her, because he goes out of his way to do that already. We’re scared because we know she can be a manipulative bitch when she thinks she has a reason to be, and we don’t want to hear what she’ll say to try to convince us to ditch you. She may surprise us and be perfectly understanding. She’s surprised us before. It’s just scary.”

“We agreed that I can’t always be the one to make sacrifices for this,” Jungkook said.

“We know. We’re going to tell her. It’s just taking us a while to get brave enough.”

“I’ll tell her. I’m not scared.”

“You should be. She can out-duel Jimin, and that’s really impressive.”

“Can she out-duel you?”

“Jungkook, I fight like a wizard and I’ve got Brandy. No one can out-duel me. Doesn’t mean I want to fight Jimin’s mom.”

“Can I smoke one of those?” Jungkook asked.

Taehyung shook his head. “Jimin can’t cure an addiction to these like he can with cigs. He’s going to be so mad at me. I haven’t smoked one in two years.”

“Hold on, is that still your first one?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s been a half hour!”

“These things are great, but they will drive you slowly insane if you smoke a lot. One every once and while? That’s fine. The rate at which I used to smoke though? Pretty dangerous.”

“I find out more and more about you all the time,” Jungkook murmured. He could see Taehyung’s mother through the window, short black hair and thin shoulders. She sat tall at a desk and sorted through papers, glasses reflecting the light of her desktop.

“She’s a teacher,” Taehyung said softly.

“Does she look like you?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s beautiful.”

Taehyung turned away and pulled Jungkook into his arms. He tasted like wood smoke and warmth.

“Let’s go home,” Taehyung said, “Jimin’s worried and they have cake.”

 

“You’ve done this pretty well,” Mama Park said the next day at lunch, holding the sleeve of Jungkook’s shirt up out of the way and inspecting his seal with a flat, green stone. Jungkook ate his sandwich and said nothing. “You used the chain version with the empathetic link. Can I see it?”

“We don’t really use the chain,” Jimin said quickly. “Jungkook hates it.”

“I hate it,” Jungkook reiterated.

Jimin had a friend over by the stove, teaching him how to make a headache relief potion. He’d introduced himself as Seokjin, and like Namjoon, had offered a handshake instead of expecting him to bow.

In a way, he was the most intimidating witch Jungkook had met so far, broad-shouldered and smiley, but pink light ringed his irises like a reflection. The pattern of spell tattoos up his arms did nothing to change his wholesome beauty, the way he practically glowed with warmth and charm. He wore the weird pants like Jimin’s with gaps all the way up the sides. He smelled like caramel and vanilla, and Jungkook felt like he had when he’d first met Taehyung and Jimin, awkward and ugly.

“You know, sometimes it seems like he doesn’t like this arrangement,” Mama Park said to Jimin. Taehyung was curled around Jungkook’s other arm with his head on his shoulder and his legs thrown over his lap, and still Mama Park seemed to suspect nothing. Seokjin’s fluffy, white dog familiar sat across their legs.

“I don’t,” Jungkook said, “I’ve been enslaved against my will. Why would I like it?”

“Because it’s us?” Taehyung said over Mama Park sputtering.

“Details,” Jungkook scoffed, but nuzzled the top of Taehyung’s head.

“But you have clear skin now,” Mama Park protested, “And a lovely coat, and those nice boots, and all the other wonderful things I’m sure they’ve given you.”

“They’ve been great,” Jungkook said, “Doesn’t mean I like having people control me, even these two.”

“My family had a bonded servant a while back that we basically released from duty,” Seokjin said, turning around from the stove. “We had a unit about this in my non-magical interactions class in college. The suicide rate of bonded servants is alarmingly high. I mean, it’s still fairly low, but it’s higher than normal rates.”

“Why?” Mama Park gasped.

“Most of the witches in my class were shocked too. It’s because we see our magic as a gift to non-magical people, but non-magical people often just feel degraded and endangered or inferior, especially in situations where they’ve been forced into service and are just treated like dogs. Magical help is often not a big enough gift to make up for feeling completely dehumanized.”

Jungkook shook Taehyung off, got up from the table, and gave Seokjin an enthusiastic hug. He giggled and gave Jungkook a motherly back rub.

“My family had one who was perfectly happy with the agreement when we set it up, and she was fine with our family, but just being in this world was an enormous strain on her mental health. The bond is still active, obviously, but she lives far enough away that the empathetic link she has with Mom doesn’t get in the way of her life, and she just doesn’t work for us anymore. The link will expire in a year or so and that’ll be the end of it. It happens more than you’d think.”

“You’re mine now,” Jungkook said to him.

Jimin tugged unhappily at his shirt. “But Jungkookie…”

Mama Park looked confused and contemplative. “No bonded servant I’ve ever known has felt that way.”

Jungkook raised a hand.

She tutted disapprovingly and raised an eyebrow at Jimin and Taehyung. “Treat him better, boys!”

“We treat him fine,” Taehyung snapped, “That’s not the problem.”

“I’m sorry, but you should probably let go of me now,” Seokjin said to Jungkook, “before my magic starts working.”

Jungkook let go of him quickly.

“What’s your magic?”

“Love magic. I can’t really control it.”

“Speaking of,” Jimin said, “You and I need to talk love potions.”

Seokjin nodded. “I get a cut of the profits of anything I help you develop, right?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Love potions,” Mama Park said faintly, “What does that entail?”

“There’s a lot under that umbrella,” Jimin said, “There’s sex stuff, like potions that induce infatuation, arousal, sensitivity, subspace, heal performance issues, that kind of thing. We already do those pretty well (“Oh, goodness,” Mama Park groaned faintly.), but we want to know if we can develop potions that help with actual relationship issues, like increasing overall sex drive, helping with patience and tolerance, make people interested in each other again.”

“I think it’s possible,” Seokjin said, “Not with most magics, but potions might be able to do it.”

“But all the sex ones,” Mama Park said, “how do you even test those?”

Jimin grinned. Mama Park rubbed her hands over her face. “My little boy, all grown up,” she said tiredly. “You crazy kids.”

“Jungkook likes those potions,” Jimin said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I like them when you drink ‘em,’” Jungkook said, settling back into comfortable flirting without caring that Mama Park was still right there. She sighed and left the kitchen.

“Love your mom,” Seokjin said to Jimin.

“Seems like you’re the only one,” Jimin said.

 

“Hey, babe.”

Jungkook looked over his shoulder to see Jimin closing the bedroom door behind himself, looking soft in one of the floppy sweaters Jungkook had missed so much over the hot summer, the softest smile on his face. “Hey,” he croaked, and Jimin smiled wider, earrings twinkling.

“What are you reading?”

Jungkook rolled onto his back. “Saw a book downstairs about magical schools and thought of Hogwarts. Most of them are disappointingly normal looking.”

“It’s really hard to teach magic en masse,” Jimin said, climbing onto the bed and settling over Jungkook’s hips, his hands on his belly, “since it works differently for everyone. The apprentice system works much better. I went to a pretty big school and it was almost a hundred people for about four grades.”

“Did you know,” Jungkook said, putting the book down so he could pat his hands over Jimin’s firm stomach over his sweater, “That I hate reading? Didn’t read a single book between about fourth grade and twelfth grade.”

“What are you talking about?” Jimin giggled, “You read all the time. You never stop reading.”

“The books are on actual magic,” Jungkook said, “Of course I read them. It’s frustrating sometimes because I’m slow and I don’t take it in. Sometimes I have to read the same page five times before I actually get what it says.”

Jimin brushed a hand over his cheek. “Is that why you glare at the books so hard when you read?”

“Yeah, that’s probably why. It’s just really cool, you know? That magic exists. So I want to know more.”

Jimin smiled proudly down at him and laced their fingers together. His heavy net of bracelets clinked against his wrists, rings warm against Jungkook’s hands.

“Jimin, why do you have jewelry instead of tattoos? I thought jewelry was a girl thing for witches and tattoos were a guy thing.”

“Mama wanted a daughter so she could pass down all of her charms,” Jimin said, “Mama didn’t get a daughter, but she realized she didn’t need a daughter to pass on her jewelry. Kids use jewelry too, you know, since people don’t want to tattoo spells onto their children before they’re old enough to make smart decisions about which spells they want. Mom gave me some really cool spells. So I stuck with jewelry because I liked it more. People in school teased me about it, but no one could beat me in a fight and I don’t even have combat magic.”

“Why doesn’t Tae have tattoos?”

Jimin shrugged. “Some people use them to access certain spells. Some use them for safety or to stabilize their magic. Spells don’t work for Tae. He can’t use them. But he can do pretty much anything with raw magic. It’s amazing. It makes for more explosive magic, and less specific, but it’s really strange and cool. And scary. So putting tattoos on him would be useless. I think that’s what draws him to potions so much though. He can create and use potions even with his weird magic while having the intricacy and specificity that spells do.”

“How’d he attach himself to me then, if spells don’t work?”

“That wasn’t a spell,” Jimin said, and the golden chain appeared in his hand, tugging gently on Jungkook’s neck. He swallowed hard. “That was a ritual. Much more powerful.”

“What happens,” Jungkook asked, staring up chain into Jimin’s face, glowing dimly in the chain’s light, “if you don’t give me what I want, or don’t give me equal exchange for my service?”

“We lose control of our magic,” Jimin said. “It starts to choke us. Our health slowly fails until we set things right.”

“Does that happen if I’m just unhappy with the exchange?”

Jimin shook his head, he looked a bit ghastly with the light reflecting off his dark eyes. “If we’re still taking care of you and you’re still doing what we say, the binding doesn’t care how anyone feels.”

Jungkook slid his hands under Jimin’s shirt and over the front of his pants, but Jimin dropped the chain and caught his hands. “Not right now, honey. I just want to talk. And cuddle.”

“Did you just turn down sex?” Jungkook gasped.

“Oh shut up!” Jimin said, throwing his head back.

Jungkook couldn’t speak again. He sighed and waited.

“Oh! Sorry. You can talk.”

“Can you take all your jewelry off?”

Jimin hesitated. “Wh-what?”

“Take it off. For me. I’ve never seen you without it.”

Jimin picked uncertainly at Jungkook’s shirt for a moment, and then sighed and then scooted over to the side of the bed and stood, unclasping his little onyx choker as he went. He opened his wardrobe door and hung it on a hook, then hung a couple of his smaller necklaces beside it, then took the rest of his pendants off with one hand and hung them on the next hook, separating one out and hanging it higher than the others. “There’s a process,” he said, “This wasn’t really what I was planning on doing when I came in here, you know.”

“Be a little powerless for me,” Jungkook said, sitting on the edge of the bed to watch. Jimin pulled the earrings out of his ears and stowed them in a little enameled box shaped like a sailing ship.

“Why is everything witches make so intricate and fancy?”

“I think intricate and fancy is more fun to make,” he said, getting to work on his jingling cuffs of bracelets and the armbands high up on his biceps and right below his elbows. He pulled up his sweater and took the flat circle of silver out of his navel. The moment it came out, his knees buckled.

“You okay?” Jungkook asked.

“I’m fine,” Jimin said, leaning up against the wardrobe. “Just need to get used to it.”

“What was that?”

“Strength rune. Extra boost to my muscles. I spent years working out so I’d have enough muscle mass to wear it without hurting myself.”

“Oh, that makes so much sense,” Jungkook said. “I figured there was magic involved.”

“Naturally, I think you’re stronger than me, Kookie.”

Jungkook beamed. Jimin stood, still graceful even as he sagged like his body couldn’t handle gravity, and stripped off his pants. He took off the giant band around his thigh, a series of anklets, a couple toe rings, and then padded over to the bed and fell into Jungkook’s arms. Jungkook pulled his sweater off so he could really see all the bare skin underneath, and then tucked them both under the covers. Jimin lay against his chest with his head over his heart.

“You seem tense,” Jungkook said, pressing his fingers into Jimin’s shoulders.

“I feel weak.”

“Welcome to my world,” Jungkook said, “Can I see the chain?”

Jimin sat up a little, looking confused, but held out his hand and the chain appeared, heavy on Jungkook’s chest. Jungkook grabbed the end disappearing past Jimin’s hand, and stretched it, more and more links appearing under Jungkook’s hand. He wrapped it around Jimin’s neck. Jimin let go of it and sat up, but it stayed there, clinking against his bare skin.

“Do you like this?” Jungkook asked, tugging him closer with the chain, the collar heavy around his own neck. Jimin whined a little in his throat and resisted, but Jungkook overpowered him. Jungkook could tell he was right on the edge or ordering Jungkook to stop, and stared evenly up, challenging. “Do you like it?”

“No!” Jimin said.

“Imagine living with a this around your neck all the time, and never wearing any of your jewelry, and Taehyung and I could, at any moment, tug you around, or tell you what to do, and you’d have to drop everything and do it.”

Jimin squirmed. “I get it, Jungkook. I know you hate it. Please let me go.”

Jungkook pulled more and Jimin hissed, one hand flying to the chain to try to pull it loose. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice breathless and rough through the chain. “I’m so sorry.”

“What if Taehyung and I took you to Owen’s house to show you off, chained-up and powerless and doing whatever we said, and he treated you like a dog and told us you weren’t good enough and we could do better?”

Jimin’s lips trembled, tears swelling in his eyes. “And I know it’s an unfair metaphor, because you can still use magic, and none of us actually care what Owen thinks the way we all care what your mom thinks, but you get the idea. Taehyung told you, right? About what called the demon of suffering in the woods?”

“I’m sorry,” Jimin squeaked, chest heaving as he breathed through the chain. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jungkook felt it over the empathy link, so much shame and guilt. Just what he’d wanted, but his heart clenched unhappily anyway. He unwound the chain and it disappeared the moment it left Jimin’s skin. Jimin gasped. Bruises began to form around his throat. He panted for a moment and broke down in tears on Jungkook’s chest.

“Thank you,” Jungkook said. He pulled him down into a tight hug and pressed kisses against his forehead as he cried. “I’m sorry about your neck.”

“Hurts,” Jimin choked, “Can’t heal it. Gonna grab my thigh thing,” he tried to get up, but Jungkook held him down.

“You can stand it for another ten minutes. Please stay. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Jimin whined, “I’m the one that put you in this situation. Jesus Christ, I feel terrible. How do you stand to be around us all the time?”

“I love both of you. You’re both fucked up and selfish, but I love you. You’re, like, the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”

Bubble scratched at the door outside, peeping.

“I’m okay, baby,” Jimin said, cuddling deeper into Jungkook’s arms, soft and heavy.

Taehyung opened the door and let her in. “Is Jimin okay?” he asked, “I felt something.”

“I was kinda mean,” Jungkook said, moving the covers aside to show Taehyung the bruises.

“Did you choke him out?” Taehyung yelped.

“Not, like, a lot, but yeah. With my chain.”

“Oh,” Taehyung said quietly, rubbing Jimin’s head where it was buried in Jungkook’s shoulder. “Was it a sex thing, or…?”

“Just saying something I have a hard time expressing over the empathetic link. Want me to show you?”

“You know I already get it, Kookie,” Tae sighed, pulling the covers off so he could put Bubble on Jimin’s back and slide in beside them. “Wait a minute,” He said, sitting up and pushing Jimin over, so he could look down his bare body. Jimin’s hip rolled painfully against Jungkook’s.

“Fuck, Chim. You even took the strength rune out?”

“I’m still stronger than you,” Jimin said, pouting.

“Yeah yeah,” Taehyung said, crushing in on top of the cuddle pile.

“Who’s going to tell mom about this?” Jungkook said.

Taehyung stopped nipping down Jimin’s arm with his teeth and frowned. His hand pressed into Jungkook’s stomach. “Jimin, it should probably be you.”

Jimin groaned. Taehyung bit his ear and pulled his thigh over his leg, hands everywhere. Jungkook, on the bottom of the pile, grunted as Taehyung’s elbow dug into his ribs and his bony hip pressed against his bladder. “I’ll do it,” Jimin said, “Fuck. This is going to be hard and I’m scared.”

“She’s your mother and she loves you,” Taehyung said, “And we’ve freaked out about this enough that it’s not going to be anywhere near as bad as we think it is.”

“You don’t know that,” Jimin said. “I messed around with this one guy in high school. He was a bit too old for me. She caught us back behind the shed, and cast a spell on both of us. I couldn’t get my dick up for two months and she fucked with his memory of me,” Jungkook made a little squeak of fear and shock. Someone accidentally kicked him in the shin and he grunted and jerked. “That’s what finally convinced me to get out of the house, but that’s not the point. What if she tries to do something to Kookie? Tae, what are you doing?”

Taehyung hummed cheerfully around Jimin’s nipple. “Gotta get something in you while you’ve still got all your charms off. S’not going to last very long.” Jungkook’s head spun with the speed they switched from emotions to sex.

“Seriously though,” Jimin moaned, angling his chest a little further upwards so Tae could get to his other nipple, shoulder digging painfully into Jungkook’s ribcage, “what’ll we do if she tries to hurt Kookie?”

“She won’t,” Taehyung said, “That guy in high school was an asshole and I would have fucked him up too. And if she tries anything on Kookie, I’ll fight her myself.”

“I’m not a mattress,” Jungkook wheezed, eyes watering. Taehyung shoved Jimin off of Jungkook and so he could crawl up and kiss Jungkook heavily. The bolt in the door slammed shut. Jungkook jumped.

“Now?” Jimin gasped, “Here? Mom’s still downstairs. I don’t have my bracelet. You know I can’t stay quiet.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Taehyung said, “Jungkook, take you clothes off.”

Jungkook’s shirt was halfway over his head when Taehyung said, “Sorry. Don’t, if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine,” Jungkook said shortly, going for his pants. Taehyung pulled them off his legs and kissed him again. Jimin had taken his boxers off. He lay hot and naked against Jungkook’s side while Taehyung’s shirt brushed over his chest, his jeans rough against the outside of his thighs.

“Not worried about Mama Park walking in?” Taehyung said.

Jungkook kissed him again to stop him from smirking. “I trust you.”

Taehyung stripped leisurely, covered his fingers with lube, and pressed in between Jimin’s legs. Jimin moaned lowly, body rolling as he adjusted to it. Jungkook threw a leg over Jimin’s waist and turned his head to kiss him.

Taehyung ran one long finger around Jungkook’s hole.

“Tae!”

Taehyung giggled and pressed in. Jungkook let out a startled moan. The angle was too tight. Jungkook squirmed over Jimin, trying to stretch out and let him in. Jimin pulled his leg further up his chest. Taehyung pressed and Jungkook relaxed, closed his eyes, and let his body enjoy it. Jimin whimpered softly and Jungkook opened his eyes to see him staring right into Jungkook’s face from a couple inches away. He closed the distance and kissed him again, stroking his bare arm.

Taehyung giggled a little above them, and then Jimin groaned, back arching. Jungkook’s hand dropped to his neck, completely free of chains and strings, only a ring of darkening bruises. Jimin whimpered and bucked against Taehyung’s fingers.

“Careful,” Taehyung murmured. Jungkook moved upwards and pressed against Jimin’s soft lips instead, pinching gently. Jimin opened his mouth and pulled Jungkook’s fingers in, sucking them deeper, his hot tongue running gently between them. Taehyung pushed a second finger into both of them, crooking them deep and twisting, and Jungkook flinched at the stretch while Jimin moaned loudly around his fingers.

“Sorry, Kookie,” Taehyung said. Jungkook couldn’t stop a little whimper and Jimin pulled his fingers out.

“You don’t do this enough, baby,” he said.

“You do this too much,” Jungkook grunted.

“You want me to stop letting you fuck me so much?” Jimin giggled, “Doubt it. You love how much I use my ass.”

Jungkook circled Jimin’s nipple with his wet fingers, watched his eyes flutter shut, squirming under Jungkook’s leg. Taehyung started thrusting hard, grinding in and out of both of them at once. Jungkook shuddered and tensed, grunting at the sting while Jimin pleaded for more.

“Jungkook, relax,” Taehyung growled.

“Jerk me off,” Jimin pleaded.

Jungkook’s hand automatically reached for his dick and stretched awkwardly over his thigh. “I can’t,” Jungkook growled, “My leg’s in the way. Call that order off.”

“You don’t have to,” Jimin said, “I’m sorry.” He flicked his finger over Jungkook’s nipple in apology and he hissed and jumped, tightening painfully down on the fingers inside him. “Chim, hold still!” Taehyung said, “Let him adjust! Christ!”

“Can witches even be Christian?” Jungkook whined, face hidden in Jimin’s shoulder so they couldn’t see the way his face screwed up in pain.

“Don’t think so,” Taehyung said, “But I went to Catholic school.”

“No wonder you’re so damaged,” Jungkook muttered.

“Hey!” He twisted his fingers in deep, probably to punish, but pleasure jolted through him and he moaned loudly in Jimin’s ear.

“Oh fuck, I felt that,” Jimin murmured. Taehyung started thrusting slowly again, twin slick sounds between their bodies, and Jungkook could dimly feel the steady pulse of pleasure if he put his head forehead right against Jimin’s. Their panting lined up.

“Fuck, you two look so good,” Taehyung murmured, “I’m adding a third finger on Jimin.”

“Thanks,” Jimin said.

“Slut,” he murmured. Jimin giggled and kicked him. Jungkook started sucking gently on Jimin’s neck, right on top of a fresh bruise. He squirmed.

“Chim, you’re so loose.”

“Don’t be a bitch! You did this to me!”

“It’s not bad. Makes things easier.”

The slide got easier for Jungkook, slowly beginning to pump pleasure back into his dick. He went still and focused on relaxing as Jimin and Taehyung bickered and flirted between Jimin’s moans. He could feel Taehyung teasing Jimin’s prostate as he giggled and Jimin tried to twist out from under Jungkook without fulling forcing Taehyung out. He managed to move a half inch and it did nothing. He lay there under Jungkook and twitched fretfully as Taehyung teased. Jungkook was finally fully hard again.

Taehyung added another finger and all the pleasure vanished again.

“Fucking hate prep,” he whispered.

“That’s why you top most of the time,” Jimin moaned, patting his arm encouragingly.

“Why aren’t you using magic?” Jungkook whined. He could use that awesome ball of light right about then.

“Tires me out,” Taehyung said, “Makes me unstable. I can’t go to sleep after this. I’ve gotta deal with Mama Park for the rest of the day. She’d know. Jimin is ready. Can you let him up so he can ride you?”

Jungkook snorted doubtfully, but pulled himself off Jimin and rolled slowly onto his back.

“Hey! Why are you soft?”

“Hurts,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Jimin, you’re going to have to wait a minute,” Taehyung sighed, “Jungkook, hands and knees, please?”

Jungkook rolled over and got on his knees, but didn’t bother with the “hands” part, dropping his chest flat to the bed and stretching like a cat. The empathetic link flooded with lust. He smirked.

“Tch.” Taehyung slid three fingers right back into him. Much better from this angle. He sighed and spread his knees apart. Taehyung’s tongue slid around his fingers and Jungkook tightened up again with a gasp, so Taehyung pulled his fingers all the way out and spread his ass apart with his hands so he could get in close and trace circles around his rim.

“Getting somewhere,” Jimin giggled, pinching the tip of Jungkook’s half-hard cock. Taehyung’s tongue poked into him and he tried to swallow his moan and choked a little. “Relax,” Jimin purred as the hot, wet pressure teased against him, light but intense. Jungkook worried his thighs would start shaking.

“I made a bucket list in tenth grade,” he said, voice trembling horribly. “One of the things was ‘a threesome.’”

Jimin giggled and tucked himself up close to Jungkook’s side. “How many times have you checked that one off your list?”

“So many times that it’s stupid now,” Jungkook said. Jimin wrapped a hand around his cock and tugged gently.

“He’s hard now, Tae.”

“Don’t stop,” Jungkook gasped.

“Don’t you want me on your dick, baby?” Jimin murmured. He pushed one leg through Jungkook’s legs and grinded against his thigh, soft balls and wet hole dragging over his skin.

“Ugh, fuck, okay.”

“One minute,” Taehyung said, pushing a fourth finger in and grinding deep, scissoring his fingers outwards. “Is that okay, Kookie?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Taehyung gently smacked to outside of his thigh. “Go get him.”

Jungkook sat up, grabbed Jimin, and rolled onto his back. “Get ridin’, Babydoll,” he growled. Jimin groaned softly. Taehyung smirked and slicked up Jungkook’s dick for him, then helped Jimin guide himself slowly down onto it, abs and thighs clenching tight as he controlled the drop.

He shifted up and sank back down with a grunt. “This is a lot harder than it usually is,” he gasped, “hold on.” He shifted his knees around, jostling himself around Jungkook’s dick, who gripped his hips and braced his feet on the bed to help. “Ready, sweetheart?”

“Your accent is really coming out,” Jimin moaned, head falling back on Taehyung’s shoulder.

“Don’t give a fuck,” Jungkook said, pumping his hips shallowly into Jimin.

“God yes,” Jimin said and started bouncing.

“Breathe,” Taehyung murmured. “You’re going to tire yourself out without the rune.”

Jimin looked so soft and open with only his necklace of bruises, missing the usual glitter across his arms and dangling from his neck. Jungkook grinned as he powered up and down. “You’re not gonna last,” he moaned.

“Shut up,” Jimin said. Taehyung thumbed over his nipples.

“So pretty, Babydoll,” Jungkook murmured. Taehyung ran a hand slowly down his chest and wrapped his long fingers around Jimin’s cock. He latched his lips onto the side of Jimin’s neck opposite Jungkook’s hickey and slurped loudly. Jimin yelped and nearly jolted off Jungkook’s dick.

“God, you feel tight,” Jungkook murmured, back arching as the soft heat squeezing around him, walls fluttering.

“Not gonna last,” Jimin panted. His thighs were already shaking as he worked his hips in circles, everything tense and coiled tight, trying to keep his body working with the same intensity he usually used.

“What did I tell ya?” Jungkook laughed.

Jimin twisted against Taehyung, whining high in his throat. Jungkook glanced nervously towards the door. Bubble sat on the desk cleaning her ears liking nothing was going on. “No one’s going to notice anything,” Taehyung told Jungkook, right before doing something with his hand that had Jimin keening, his head thrown back on Taehyung’s shoulder. Taehyung’s cheek pressed against his jaw. If Jungkook had been up there, he’d be tilting Jimin’s head towards himself, pressing his lips against Jimin’s, sliding his tongue in.

“Do you two ever kiss during sex?” he gasped.

Jimin’s bouncing slowed a little.

“Do we?” Taehyung asked.

“No?” Jimin panted, “Can we?”

Taehyung grabbed him by the hair and forced his head to the side so he could lick obscenely across Jimin’s lips. He could see their tongues between their open mouths, Jimin’s sharp jawline, the way Taehyung didn’t close his eyes, staring hungrily at Jimin’s face as he sped up the hand on his cock and took complete control.

“Oh fuck,” Jungkook said. Jimin whimpered and came hard, dripping down Taehyung’s fingers. Taehyung’s hand cleared.

Jungkook sat up, grabbed him, and rolled over, pumping hard to get in as much as he could before the oversensitivity got to be too much. He worked into him until his high moans turned choked and frantic, and then pulled out. Taehyung grabbed him from behind and pushed in. Jungkook hissed, reflexively trying to pull away. Taehyung and Jimin both caught him by the hips and held him still as Taehyung slowly pressed in.

“Kook?” Taehyung murmured.

“A-ahh.”

“Okay, hold still.”

He shuddered, freezing under the command, waiting for the sting to die down just a little so he could enjoy to pressing weight of being full.

“I’ll make it good, baby,” Taehyung murmured softly, “I promise.”

Jimin teased his nipples with light fingers, jolting pleasure through his sensitive body. He elbows shook. He still couldn’t move. Jimin was still spread wide below them, enjoying the show.

“Go?” Jungkook said. Taehyung pulled out a little and thrust back in. Jungkook gasped, “Stop.”

“You okay?” Taehyung asked.

“Let me move.”

“Did I tell you not to? You can move.”

Jungkook dropped to his elbows over Jimin, resting his forehead on his chest.

“Hold on.”

“Should have made him top, Tae,” Jimin sighed, “You know how this goes.”

“I can do it,” Jungkook whined. Taehyung didn’t get to top them both very often, but he loved it.

“You’re so good for us,” Taehyung said, rubbing his back. Jimin pressed firmly against Jungkook’s tender lower belly with his knuckles, squishing everything a little tighter, and Jungkook could almost feel Taehyung’s dick like a rod deep inside him. His prostate pressed against it, bladder suddenly aching. Jungkook gasped, hips twitching.

“Oh shit,” Jimin said, taking his hand off quickly. “Sorry. Normally I have a spell to help you adjust. I’m not wearing it.”

“Felt good,” Jungkook whispered.

“What did you do?” Taehyung asked curiously. Jimin tentatively pressed up again, rolling his knuckles like a massage. Jungkook could feel himself getting hard again as he squirmed, tensing against the awkward, painful pressure.

“Are you sure that feels good?” Jimin asked, petting his hair.

“What-what’re you doing?” Taehyung asked.

“Can you feel this?” Jimin asked him, and pressed against Jungkook’s belly again, who whimpered. His dick rubbed lightly against Jimin’s wrist.

“I-no? Feel what?”

“I’m, like, pressing on his stomach where your dick would be? I guess? Like, right above his pelvic bone?”

“On his bladder? There’s no way I’d be able to feel that. I know he’s thin, but still.” Taehyung said, “And dude, that’s kinky.”

“Shut up,” Jungkook groaned, “It’s doing something to my prostate.”

“Well, can I move yet?”

“Yeah. Go.”

Taehyung thrust out and in again, just as Jimin smirked a little and pushed up hard. Jungkook yelled. Taehyung squeaked and stopped. “Do you want me to fucking piss on you?” Jungkook gasped. Jimin giggled evilly beneath him.

“Can you just jerk him off or something?” Taehyung whined, “I wanna move.”

“Fine,” Jimin laughed, “Sorry.”

Jungkook rubbed his belly a little, testing. The ache had faded away. “Okay. Go.”

Taehyung finally started thrusting, and Jungkook let himself melt, moaning brokenly and rocking against Jimin’s chest. Jimin’s small fingers teased the head of his cock, smearing cold, sticky pre-come around the slit and in lines down the side.

“Good boy,” Jimin purred, tugging his hair gently. Jungkook tucked his hands under Jimin’s shoulders and hung on tight, using the leverage to push back against Taehyung’s thrusts, get him deeper and harder. “Who’s a pretty baby?” Jimin said again, and Jungkook wished he had enough self-control and wherewithal to glare and pinch him for that. His hands just squeezed uselessly at his shoulders.

“Kookie likes it with someone else in charge, doesn’t he?” Jimin said, cooing, “Pretends he doesn’t, but he likes it with two men holding him down and petting.”

Jungkook flushed harder, arousal aching. “Fuck off,” he gasped, loving the way Jimin’s hand rubbed across his shoulders and squeezed the back of his neck. His warm hand pet calmly up his abs.

“Shh,” Taehyung said suddenly, thrusts turning into fast, quiet jerks that pushed the intensity up, building dangerously. Mama Park walked past in the hallway outside, talking loudly to her familiar, jewelry jingling. Jungkook struggled, moans turning to soundless, strained whispers, chest aching to keep them in. He gripped Jimin’s shoulders harder.

“I think he’s getting close,” Jimin murmured.

Jungkook shook his head. It was maddeningly good, but not enough.

“Jerk him off or something,” Taehyung muttered distractedly, and Jungkook shuddered at how easily they played with him.

Bubble chirped.

“Mom’s in the room next door,” Jimin whispered, “Can I get some lube?”

Taehyung reached around with one dripping, sticky hand and completely drenched his dick.

“Ah, it’s dripping on me!” Jimin whisper-yelled. Taehyung giggled. Jungkook made a small noise of embarrassed defeat.

Taehyung dribbled a ridiculous amount of lube onto his own dick, pumping it inside Jungkook until it dripped out. “You can thank Jimin for this too,” Taehyung giggled as Jungkook cringed and squirmed. “He asked me recently if I’d ever tried producing a lot at once. Turns out I can.”

“Jimin, you fucker,” Jungkook whispered.

Taehyung rubbed the wet hand over his thigh and Jungkook gasped, skin going cold.

“I can’t clean that up right now,” Jimin said, pumping Jungkook’s slick cock absent-mindedly and making him twitch pitifully on his chest. “M’not wearing the cleaning ring.”

“Can you do anything without tools?” Taehyung laughed.

Jimin dragged one wet hand up Jungkook’s chest and massaged circles over his nipple. “Stupid shit like turning off lights and locking doors mostly,” he said, “but I could also knock you out. That’s easy.”

“If you could catch me,” Taehyung said gruffly. The grip he had on Jungkook’s waist was beginning to hurt. The double stimulation between Taehyung’s rough thrusts and Jimin’s lazy hand was frustratingly out of sync, not letting Jungkook close to the edge but keeping him maddeningly wound up. They did it on purpose. They did it all the time to get him writhing and close to tears.

“What would Mama Park see if she walked in right now?” Taehyung giggled, “Her precious son under two men with lube dripping everywhere.”

“Her precious son and his precious boyfriend,” Jungkook spit, “Playing with their pet human. ‘Don’t do that boys. He’s not good enough for you.’”

Jimin and Taehyung both paused and Jungkook whined with frustration.

“We’re going to tell her,” Jimin said, picking up the pace with his fist. “I’ll tell her tonight at dinner. We’ll make her let you sit with the family this time and then we’ll tell her. Chill.”

Taehyung started thrusting again, steady and powerful now, breathing heavily. Jimin fucked his fist down every time Taehyung shoved him forward, and Jungkook finally felt the coiling pleasure take on the pre-orgasm heat.

“Wanna draw this out?” Taehyung asked, and it must have been aimed at Jimin because he heard Jimin start to say something flirty and affirmative beneath him.

“No!” Jungkook said.

Taehyung felt playful. Jimin felt ready to tease. Jungkook felt hopelessly turned on and tired and frustrated. “Just let me come,” he said, maybe a little too loudly.

“Shh!” they both said at once.

“Please,” he said, barely quieter. His thighs shook. Jungkook felt them lock eyes over his head, and have a quick, silent conversation.

“Okay,” Taehyung said, and they picked up at the same pace, quick, gentle, and even. Jimin rubbed his back soothingly and kissed his hair. Taehyung gripped his hips more carefully. Jungkook let himself moan softly.

“Love you,” Jimin murmured. “You’re perfect.” He braced his legs against Jungkook’s knees so he could relax a little. “Breath, baby. You too, Tae.”

“Uh huh,” Taehyung panted.

“You close?” Jimin asked.

“Yeah.”

“K,” Taehyung said, and suddenly every stroke felt like a wave of pure pleasure, magic lighting his nerves up, pulsing and aching in a way the spiked right up his spine and into his teeth, intensity turned up to ten. He felt like bursting. Jimin covered his mouth just in time to catch his wail. He almost didn’t even feel himself come, heavenly one second and painful as fuck the next, but shivers tore through him, wetness hit his chest where it lay on Jimin’s, and then his thighs gave out.

Jimin grunted and tried to lift him and roll him off, thighs shoved uncomfortably wide as Jungkook lay between them. He managed to get Jungkook’s shoulders about a foot off him, and then dropped him back on his chest.

“How are you so heavy?” he groaned.

“You’re so weak!” Jungkook gasped.

“Shut up! I need my rune back!”

Taehyung helped shove him off, then stuck his dick right into Jimin’s waiting ass and started pumping much more roughly than he had with Jungkook. Jimin rocked back against him, moaning softly in encouragement, and Jungkook lay still and watched as he recovered.

“Are you okay?” Jimin asked Jungkook when Taehyung had finally pulled out and lay on the edge of the bed like he’d just run a marathon, panting, sweaty, and dead-looking.

Jungkook nodded. Taehyung wheezed, “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” Jimin ignored him.

“You seemed like you weren’t having any fun there at the end.”

Jungkook shrugged. “It stopped being fun. Not your fault. I’ve been getting randomly unhappy since we got here.”

“I doubt it’s random,” Jimin grumbled, “it happened when mom walked past.”

Jungkook sighed and rolled sluggishly over to sling an arm across him. “I’m sorry I don’t like your mother. She seems lovely. I wish I could. You two seem really close and I get why she would be more important to you than me.”

“No, don’t say that!” Jimin said.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Jungkook said, “I’m jealous. I wish I had that kind of relationship with someone. It’s good that you value it a lot. If she didn’t treat me the way she does I’d think she was great.”

“Can you get your ring or whatever?” Taehyung asked, “I’m covered in jizz and Jungkook is still super wet.”

Jimin sighed pointedly. “Way to ruin a heart-to-heart.” He made them wait while he got all his jewelry and clothes back on, and then came back over to clean them up and brush the sweat out of their hair with an abalone comb.

Mama Park knocked on the door. “Jimin?”

Taehyung and Jungkook both dove under the covers just as the door clicked open. “Is Taehyung in here? There you are! Honey, your dad just walked in!”

Taehyung sat up, nearly baring both himself and Jungkook. “Holy shit. Okay, I’ll be right down.”

She left. Taehyung clambered out of bed and started yanking his clothes on.

“Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad.”

“That’s awesome!” Jimin said. “Jungkook, you’ll get to meet him!”

“Cool!”

“Sorry Kookie,” Taehyung said on his way out the door, “We might have to put off telling Mama Park about you till later.”

“Wait what?” Jungkook croaked. “W-why? No!”

“Get dressed,” Jimin said, “He’s so cool! You’ll love him!” Jimin grinned at him for a few seconds, and then his expression slowly morphed into worry. “Babe, are you okay?”

“Can I just get introduced to one family member as a boyfriend and not a slave?” Jungkook said. “Please?”

“Um.” Jimin looked back towards the door. Taehyung shrieked downstairs. They heard some happy yelling. Jungkook gripped the blankets and frantically swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s just. We don’t. Taehyung hasn’t seen his Dad in three years and I don’t think he wants to start an argument with my mom first thing,” he said quietly.

“I can’t keep taking the falls for this fucking relationship.” Jungkook hissed.

“I know! I know! I’m sorry! Give it a couple hours, please,” Jimin said, already taking slow steps towards the door. The bruises and hickeys had already faded off his neck. Jungkook’s entire body ached. They used to take much better care of him back when they had to fix him after giving orders.

“See you downstairs,” Jimin said and ran out.

 

Taehyung’s dad looked like an absent-minded college professor right down to the glasses and the stained suit, but he had a falcon for a familiar that sat on top of a tall staff made of driftwood. The falcon and Brandy got along immediately, even if Brandy out right ignored Mr. Kim just like she did with everyone else.

And Mr. Kim was fascinated by Brandy. He barely got distracted by giving Jimin a hug when Mama Park squealed about them being boyfriends now.

“They have their own house for now, but I was thinking they could have this house when they get older. It’s big enough. Certainly way too big for just my husband and I. They’d love to have the greenhouse out back. Think of the grandkids!”

“Oh right. The house. I still haven’t come by to see that.”

“No you haven’t,” Taehyung said reproachfully, “Um. This is Jungkook.”

“They got a bonded servant too!” Mama Park squealed. “They’re so grown up!”

“You got a what?” Mr. Kim said, squinting through his glasses. He looked vaguely at Jungkook. “Didn’t think that was quite your style, Tae.”

“He’s. Um. He’s more like a friend than a servant. He’s...uh…”

Bow!” Mama Park hissed at him. “Manners!

Jungkook reluctantly bowed. Mr. Kim bowed back, very formally. “Please take care of Tae and Jimin. They need a lot of help,” he said.

Mama Park tittered nervously, but Jungkook smiled. He went back to trying to get Brandy to look at him.

“Dad, I need to show you everything I can do now. I’ve gotten a lot better at things, especially since Brandy came out.”

“Came out?” He asked, “Interesting phrasing. Most people would say ‘formed.’”

“It’s an interesting situation. How did you even find me?”

“Oh, Namjoon told me you were home. He found me up in Guatemala this morning and I figured I might as well drop by since I was so close. He’s in the kitchen.”

“Guatemala is close?” Jungkook muttered.

“He specializes in travel and teleportation,” Jimin said.

“Namjoon is here,” Mama Park was saying, “So we need six table settings.”

“Seven,” Jimin corrected. “Jungkook is sitting with us.”

She scowled. “Jimin, for the last time, he’s a servant.”

“He’s a guest, mom,” Jimin said tiredly, pushing Jungkook towards the kitchen. “Your hospitality is downright shameful. He’s Southern. He’s used to better.”

Jungkook smirked a little and left them to bickering. Namjoon was waiting in the kitchen with a tall glass of something silver.

“Are you drinking mercury?”

“What? No! Dragon ale.”

“Looks like mercury. Can I try it?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Oh come on,” Yoongi said, smirking, leaning on one elbow on the counter, “let him try it.” Kahn, sitting down, could just barely stretch up over the counter and see them, looking a little crazy with her huge, black-rimmed eyes.

“What does it do?” Jungkook asked.

“For people with magic, it just intensifies our magic for a bit. Feels pretty fun, but don’t ever let Tae drink it. Not safe for anyone involved. You, however, would hallucinate vividly for the next three hours.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Smart. Try some lightning cider instead.”

It did absolutely nothing to him, but it did taste like a summer storm.

“Oh. Yoongi,” Mama Park said when she came into the kitchen. “Eight place settings. Our table is a little small and I’m not sure I’ve made enough food.”

“That’s okay,” Namjoon said, “Yoongi and I are leaving soon. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

Dinner was loud. Taehyung and Mama Park both tried to talk to Mr. Kim. Jimin chatted with Bubble under the table and jumped into the conversation when he could get a word in. Jimin’s Dad chattered about his work to no one. Mr. Kim kept asking questions about potions and Brandy. Jungkook shifted uncomfortably on his increasingly sore ass, lower back aching. The longer he sat on the hard chair, dinner trailing away into wine and talking, the more it hurt. His dinner sat unfinished on his plate as he gripped the arms of his chair and tried to take some of the pressure off.

Brandy hopped up into his lap and the pain immediately eased. She put her front paws on his chest and stretched up to touch their noses together. Jungkook pet her long, sleek back as she searched his eyes for a minute.

“She pays attention to, ah, I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Mr. Kim said.

“Jungkook.”

“She pays attention to Jungkook. Are you saying she doesn’t even pay attention to Jimin?”

“Yeah,” Jimin sighed sadly.

“Odd.”

“I think both she and Bubble have adopted him as their second human,” Jimin said.

“And he’s completely non-magic?”

“Yes, but he has an affinity for magic,” Mama Park said, “He can see Brandy and he’s got interesting reactions to spells. Some things work on him that shouldn’t, and a lot of things don’t work on him that should. Tae says he can feel the magical borders.”

Jungkook bumped foreheads with Brandy and stayed quiet.

“Interesting,” Mr. Kim said, sitting forward. “And how do you feel about magic, Jungkook?”

“It’s cool, but it scares me,” he said.

Mr. Kim sat back with a sigh. “Sensible,” he said.

“I don’t understand it,” Mama Park said, continuing to speak like Jungkook wasn’t there. “Most bonded servants I know are enthralled by it. We could give him all he ever asked for.”

“New parents?” Jungkook muttered. She didn’t hear. Brandy curled up against his arm.

“I mean, we did practically drug and kidnap him,” Jimin said, “It’s not like he asked for this.”

“Boys!” Mr. Kim said, heavily disapproving, “Basic human decency. You both should know better than that.”

Jungkook smiled at their sheepish faces.

“And here’s the real question,” Mama Park said, “If he doesn’t like magic, how do we know he’s going to renew the ritual when it comes up? They treat him like a friend more than a servant, which complicates things if they let him go in four years.”

“I should hope they treat him like a friend more than a servant,” Mr. Kim said. “He’s a person after all.”

“Magic and non-magic friendships are always difficult,” Jimin’s dad said. “It’s good to have a binding set of rules where the expectations are carefully laid out, like a bonded servant relationship.”

“Setting the inequalities in stone and stunting real human interaction,” Mr. Kim said. “Jungkook agrees with me. Look at him smiling.”

“He’s our Jungkookie,” Tae said, “We’re not going to treat him like a servant.”

“And what happens in four years then?” Mama Park said. “Are you going to renew the bond or let him leave your life?”

“Not renewing it,” Jungkook said, “Absolutely not.”

“Yeah, no,” Taehyung said. “I’m really sick of them being in my head all the time.”

“He’ll stay in our lives though, I hope,” Jimin said, “Unless we’ve all really fucked up our relationship by then, which is entirely possible.”

“There will be nothing tying you to him though!” She said. “He’s non-magic! You two will be successful magic business owners starting a family. Where will there be room for him?”

Taehyung and Jungkook both looked at Jimin. Perfectly opportunity to drop the news. Jimin sat up a little and took a deep breath.

“It’ll be nearly impossible,” Mr. Kim said. “The imbalances are all still there—”

“Okay, stop,” Jimin said. “We kind of lied to all of you a little. Well we didn’t. We weren’t even going to tell you about being, like, romantically together now because Jungkook’s involved. It’s all three of us. It’s not just Taehyung and me. That’s why the bond is such an issue.”

All three adults sat frozen, staring at him. The clock ticked in the living room. Brandy yawned. Jungkook could feel Jimin and Taehyung’s rising panic.

“That’s unethical,” Mr. Kim said. Taehyung swallowed hard, staring down at his plate.

“But they don’t take advantage of me,” Jungkook said quickly, “Not like that. That’s not what this is.”

“And if they did, you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself,” Mr. Kim said. “There’s a reason that’s illegal in some countries.”

“It’s not like this is just a sex thing,” Jungkook said, alarmed. At the head of the table, Mama Park recoiled. “This is Jimin and Tae we’re talking about. They’re doing really good. They’d never hurt me on purpose.”

“You do realize they’re witches, right?” Mr. Kim said sarcastically, “If they were feeding you lust potions, you’d never know. None of our courts would defend you. The bonded servant system is full of abuse.”

“We’d never do that,” Jimin said, voice wavering, “What the fuck?”

“He’d know,” Taehyung said. “We told you he can feel magic, right? Love potions wouldn’t work on him. Most of them involve some kind of heart-flower, and those don’t have any effect on him.”

“And how do you know that?” Mr. Kim asked. “Did you try them out on him?”

Taehyung and Jimin gaped, horror radiating between them.

“Not the love potions,” Jungkook said, “but the aphrodisiacs sure don’t do anything.”

“Ah,” Mr. Kim said quietly.

“You know better than this,” Jimin’s Dad said to his son, “You can’t love someone non-magical. We have higher hopes for you. Taehyung’s already borderline.” Taehyung’s hurt rang over the empathy link, overpowering the shared shame and remorse.

“Don’t say that about Tae,” Jungkook said as loudly as he could manage, only slightly above a whisper, “That’s so mean.”

“Taehyung, you of all people should know what problems this will cause,” Mr. Kim said tiredly. “You really shouldn’t be with anyone non-magical. It doesn’t work.”

Taehyung looked surprised. “But you and mom—”

“You’re supposed to learn from my mistakes, Tae. Not repeat them.”

The empathetic link flared suddenly with pain. “Mistakes,” Taehyung repeated quietly, staring evenly into his Dad’s eyes. Jimin gasped beside Jungkook and pushed his chair back from the table, trying to get distance. Jungkook just gripped his chair again, felt Taehyung’s hurt pressing tears into his eyes and swelling in his throat. He remembered his own parents admitting one night over dinner that the only reason they were still together was because of him, and they were miserable.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Mama Park said, “Before anyone else says something they’ll regret, Jimin and Taehyung, I trust both of you. You’re both wonderful people. You’ve always been open and welcoming to everyone and you’ve always been a bit odd. I know you’ll both try your hardest to fix the issues you all have. You two,” she said, pointing her Mr. Kim and her own husband, “Shut your mouths. These are your children you’re talking to, not two random kids.”

She sighed and rubbed her temples. “Okay, this explains a lot, I think. You three are partners now, right? Boyfriends? That’s what’s happening?”

Jungkook nodded. Jimin crept back to the table, looking scared.

“You two are idiots and I don’t like this,” she said. “but Jungkook, I see why they treat you like an equal now. It would be strange if they didn’t. I’m sorry you haven’t been welcomed the way you should be. Jimin, you should have told me.”

Jungkook was having a hard time thinking over Taehyung’s empathetic link.

“We were scared of what you’d say,” he said, “especially to Tae. Jungkook isn’t his mom. He doesn’t act like her. This isn’t the same thing.”

“Taehyung, honey,” Mama Park said, “Are you sure you’re okay with this? You hate non-magic people. Everyone knows that. Are you sure that’s what you want?” She pointed at Jungkook, finger sparking for emphasis. He flinched, heart pounding.

“Don’t fucking scare him,” Taehyung snapped, “And don’t call him ‘that’ like he’s an object.” His voice slowly raised to a yell, deep and powerful in his low voice. He rounded on his father. “He treats me better than either of my parents ever did!”

Mr. Kim leaned back a little, looking annoyed.

“Honey,” Mama Park said carefully, “We’re worried about you, with your history—”

“Don’t fucking talk about that! If you cared about my history you would have helped me when I needed it! He loves me more than you do!” Glassware across the room splintered and Jungkook cringed.

Brandy slid off Jungkook’s lap and the pain whipped back into his lower body, stinging across his back and down his tail bone, aching like a bolt in his ass. His thighs burned. All his energy left his muscles at once and he sagged down towards the table with a whimper, the desperate exhaustion of an adrenaline crash hitting his brain. Across the table, Brandy leapt into Taehyung’s lap and he hugged her tightly. The helpless rage lessened off the empathetic link a little.

Taehyung glanced up at Jimin, and jerked his head a little towards Jungkook. Jimin hurried over muttering, “We fucked up with aftercare again, didn’t we? I’m sorry, Kookie.”

Jungkook sighed in embarrassment. Taehyung knit the wine bottle back together, sucked all the spilled wine back into it, and stalked into the kitchen with it clutched in his hand. A moment later they heard the backdoor slam.

“Oh dear,” Mama Park said, getting up to run after him.

“Let him go,” everyone else said at once.

“Greenhouse,” Jimin said to Jungkook, “Let’s go.”

 

Jungkook watched through the greenhouse wall as Mr. Kim followed Taehyung down into the forest fifteen minutes later.

“Where’d he go?” he asked sleepily.

Jimin walked over carrying a big knife. “Probably to his mom’s house. Or down to the creek. There’s a cool rocky spot down there that we used to go to meet up. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Everything hurts.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Jimin said, wrapping his arms around him from behind.

“I thought I could handle it.”

“You don’t have to,” Jimin murmured into his ear. He rubbed his hands soothingly over Jungkook’s lower belly and the ache eased. “You’re so bad at bottoming,” Jimin murmured.

Jungkook shrugged. “I’m good at other things.”

“Like topping,” Jimin giggled.

“I was thinking ‘like driving tractors,’ or ‘fixing cars.’ Chopping wood. Doing handstands. Knitting. That kind of thing. But sure, topping too.”

“Fucking manly man right here,” Jimin said, sticking his hand up Jungkook’s shirt and rubbing wide circles on his chest. “We can always practice, you know, get you good at bottoming.”

“I like having control,” Jungkook murmured.

Jimin hooked his chin up on Jungkook’s shoulder and blew on his ear. “That’s fine too,” he murmured as Jungkook flinched and growled.

“You do realize that you have the handle of a knife shoved into my gut right now, right?”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Jimin pulled away and went back to his potion. Jungkook waddled after him. “Tae’s going to be okay, right? I’ve never seen him that mad.”

“It used to happen all the time,” Jimin said, “He’s really mellowed out since Brandy came along. I think she took a lot of his pent-up anger out of him. That’s one reason he’s had such a hard time. His magic got suppressed because of his mom, and then it’d burst out and destroy stuff because he was so angry all the time, and he’d get punished for it, by her and by his school.”

“Jeez,” Jungkook said.

“Yeah. That was pretty mild as his temper tantrums go. He’s been dangerous for years.”

Jungkook slid his hands over his narrow waist, pressing gently. “You look so soft, but you’re not,” he murmured.

“Well you look like a cute little bunny,” Jimin said.

Jungkook couldn’t help the giggle. “I love bunnies. I haven’t seen one in years though. Do they live around here?”

“We have bunnies with antlers in here. Jackalopes exist, and there are species that live in northern climates as well as desert climates.”

“That is so fucking cool. Getting all science-y on me. Are you turning into Taehyung?”

“Not going to lie, I think I just quoted that sentence exactly from something he said to me once about jackalopes.”

Jungkook fit his mouth over Jimin’s pulse and sucked hard, licking over the skin as he worked.

Jimin snickered and slowly stirred his potion, head tilted to the side to give Jungkook room.

Jungkook pulled back and watched the new hickey fade quickly as Jimin’s magic healed it, and then snuggled Jimin closer into his arms, body fitting together from their shoulders down to their thighs, and then did it again.

“Do you want to fuck me again?” Jimin asked. “I’m going to need you to if you keep that up.”

“Again? I don’t know,” Jungkook said, but didn’t stop. Jimin took the cauldron off the fire with his bare hands and strained the potion into a jar in the sink, shuffling so Jungkook could come with.

“Bubble is trying to find me,” Jimin said softly, “We should go inside soon.”

“Potion?” Jungkook said, “I feel like my legs are about to give out.”

Jimin ladled some out, blew on it once, and held it up for him.

“That was literally boiling twenty seconds ago.”

“It’s fine. Drink it.”

Just another calm command that Jimin didn’t realize he couldn’t refuse anyway. It was pleasantly bathwater warm. “Oh okay. Yeah, that’s fine.” The pain immediately faded out of his ass, muscles relaxing. “Fuck, that’s so good. How do you get that to work so well? My painkillers are never that effective.”

Jimin tightened the lid on the jar and turned around to kiss him. “A little less water at the beginning, and go heavy on the marshmallow root. I also light the fire magically. Seems to help.”

Jungkook realized he was at a good angle to stick his hands down the back of Jimin’s pants, so he did. Jimin cradled the jar so he wouldn’t drop it, and let his head fall back so Jungkook could see his eyes shut, see his lips part.

“Let’s go to bed,” Jungkook murmured.

Jimin nodded, but didn’t move, leaving it to Jungkook’s self-control to get them moving, but Jimin’s soft, squishy butt in his hands felt way too nice. He hugged him closer and kissed him gently. Jimin stood on his toes to let him get a better angle. Jungkook got under Jimin’s jaw and he moaned, long, gravelly, and soft. Jungkook wanted to get him inside, get his clothes off, get him weak in his own sheets, hugging a pillow and whimpering with something big in his ass and Jungkook’s hands on his pretty waist.

The greenhouse door opened. Jimin yelped. Jungkook jumped and looked over his shoulder.

“Kids,” Mama Park said, “We can see you from inside.”

“Not gonna curse my dick this time?” Jimin said, voice wavering a little.

“This one’s not a twat,” she said back and the door clicked shut. Jungkook carefully took his hands out of Jimin’s pants.

“Fuck. Killed my boner,” Jimin muttered.

“That’s the nicest thing she’s said to me yet,” Jungkook said.

 

Taehyung came back with the sunrise, climbing in the window with Brandy on his shoulder. Jungkook opened his eyes when he fell off the windowsill and knocked over a chair. “Hrmph.”

“Sorry,” Tae said, setting it back upright and tugging his pants off. Jimin snuggled mindlessly close to Jungkook’s side, bracelets digging into his stomach.

“Mmm,” Jungkook said and sucked in a deep, tired breath. He reached out and pulled Taehyung harshly into bed. Bubble peeped and squirmed out of the way.

“Can we go home now?” Taehyung murmured into his chest. “I want to go home.”

“But it’s only been, like, three days,” Jimin whined tiredly. Brandy curled up against Jungkook’s head.

The conversation ended there, everyone too sleepy to continue, but Jungkook dropped uneasily in and out of sleep for the next three hours, uncomfortably hot under both boys and two cats, and thinking longingly of swamp.

Mama Park found them like that on the morning, a pile of bare legs and sweaty t-shirts with the covers thrown off, Jungkook’s shirt pulled up almost to his armpits as he tried to get some air, Taehyung thrown over his right side and Jimin snuggled against his left.

“Good morning boys,” she said, throwing the drapes open with a flick of her finger like a cliché.

“Goodmornmm,” Jungkook grunted, trying to get his arm free to tug his shirt down or at least curl and hide a little.

“Oh good. Tae’s back,” she said with a sigh. They had his legs pinned down. Taehyung hadn’t even twitched yet. Jimin put one hand right on Jungkook’s solar plexus and pushed himself up, forcing all the air out of Jungkook’s lungs. “Jimin, dear, I’m making breakfast. It’ll be ready in fifteen minutes and you’d all better all be downstairs by then or someone else will eat it.” She left.

“Oh fuck,” Jungkook gasped, dragging air back into his chest.

“You look super sexy this morning,” Jimin said, petting the front of his briefs. “Mama definitely just saw more than she needed to.”

Taehyung squinted open one eye and sat up a little, looking curiously up and down Jungkook’s body. He flicked his nipple.

“You two are too much to handle,” Jungkook muttered.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Jimin said and kissed his forehead. “You too, cutie. Where’d you go last night?”

“Mom’s house.”

“What happened?”

Taehyung shrugged. They felt some disappointment, a little bit of anger, some sadness. “It’s whatever. I think Dad stayed there. Brandy woke me up before dawn and I came back. I don’t think I got a lot of sleep though.”

“I didn’t. I’m sweating so hard,” Jungkook groaned. “Why do I ever let you two sleep on me?” They both dove on him, smothering hot and a little damp. Jimin rubbed his face all over Jungkook’s while Taehyung licked a long stripe up his neck and shoved a leg in between his thighs. Jungkook grunted and let them do what they wanted, holding his breath, arms curled gently around their waists.

“You’re so good,” Jimin murmured, “So docile.” He tilted Jungkook’s face up ran a thumb along his cheekbone. “Mama’s wrong, you know. You make an amazing bonded servant.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You make an even better boyfriend,” Jimin said. “She’s gonna love you as a boyfriend.”

By the time they got down the kitchen, a rather embarrassed Jungkook was the only one who had bothered to put on pants and change his shirt. The other two still looked like slobs in their boxers and messy hair.

She handed them all plates of Canadian bacon, biscuits, and eggs. Taehyung immediately stuck his fork through all three of them and started chewing pieces off his breakfast lollipop like a heathen. “At least make a sandwich!” Jimin said, holding his own and glaring. “That’s just sacrilege.”

Tae took another big bite and spilt crumbs all over his plate.

The back door opened and Namjoon walked in with Yoongi and Kahn, and then Seokjin, and then a new guy he’d never seen before.

“Hoseok!” Taehyung and Jimin yelled at once and leapt on him with their boxers and bedheads. Hoseok screamed and disappeared. Bubble climbed happily to the top of the pile and then rolled off.

“Boys, put your clothes on,” Mama Park sighed tiredly, and patted Jungkook’s arm. “You’re my favorite right now.”

He sat up a little. He didn’t quite trust the change.

Hoseok was a performer. After breakfast, he got up and danced on the kitchen counter, magically beatboxing, creating his own show with his moving limbs, distorting the light around him and making Yoongi dance like a puppet on a string with Yoongi yelling angrily the whole time. The rest of them cackled. Mama Park walked in and out, shaking her head.

Hoseok turned his magic on Jungkook, who tensed, waiting. Nothing happened. “Huh,” Hoseok said, pausing. “I know you’re non-magic, but that should still work on you.”

“Hobi does magic tricks,” Jimin told him.

“Our kind of magic tricks,” Taehyung clarified, “Not the cards and bunnies in hats shit.”

“The what?” Jimin said, baffled.

Taehyung’s Dad sauntered into the kitchen, falcon sitting atop his staff, followed by a beautiful woman who looked exactly like Taehyung, arms crossed uncomfortably over herself and flinching defensively at small noises.

“Mom!” Taehyung said, “You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

“You forgot the box of spell books,” she said in Brandy’s voice. Jungkook jumped and looked at Brandy, who gave him an even stare and then started licking her back.

“I can’t do spells, mom. I left those there for a reason.”

“They’ve been sitting in the corner of the dining room for two years. I’ve almost gotten the place cleaned out. You need to take them.”

“I’ll use them!” Jimin said brightly, “We’ll pick them up on the way out.” Yoongi, Namjoon and Hoseok started gambling with Hoseok’s magical dice in the corner as Mama Park scowled around Seokjin’s shoulder. Taehyung’s mother looked a little disapproving too.

“Mom, this is Jungkook, the other boyfriend.”

Jungkook stood up to shake hands. She tentatively reached out, pulling a face. “Wait, you weren’t kidding? You really have two boyfriends?”

“Yeah. This one is completely non-magical.”

“I wouldn’t say completely,” said Mr. Kim. “He’s got a magical resistance like you do. It’s much stronger though.”

Taehyung’s mom let out a deep sigh. “Well, two boyfriends isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever come home with.” She abandoned the handshake and gave Jungkook a hug. “Nice to meet you, Jungkook,” she said kindly, “You’re always welcome at our house. Keep yourself safe, okay?”

“N-nice to meet you too,” Jungkook stammered. “Thanks.”

After all the distance and stories he’d heard about Taehyung’s mom, Jungkook was surprised at how much happiness and love was coming down the empathetic link. Jimin was the one feeling wary. Mama Park narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“Mom, can I plant something by your house?” Taehyung asked.

“What is it?”

“It’s just a flower. Blooms year round. It’s really valuable. Keeps bad stuff away.”

“Tae, you know how I feel about magic around the house,” she said.

“You wouldn’t notice it at all,” Mr. Kim said.

She pursed her lips.

“If anything, it’d repel magic,” Taehyung said. “Please? It’s really useful, and it’s endangered. It does better outside magical territories though, and I’m trying to plant it around. You wouldn’t even have to take care of it. I’d come up once and year and do it.”

“You’d come up once a year?” She asked.

Taehyung swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Please do.”

Taehyung relaxed a little. She fixed his hair. “When did you dye this?”

“I, uh, permanently changed my hair color two years ago.”

“Oh,” Jungkook murmured. He’d been wondering why Taehyung’s hair was light brown and not black.

“Two years ago?” she sighed. “You need to come home more often. I worry about you. What if you died down there in the swamps and I never heard about it?”

“Jimin’s mom would tell you.”

“Do you know what that kind of thing does to a mother?”

Hoseok popped into the conversation. “Mama Park just told us to get out of the kitchen and do something useful with our lives. Does anybody wanna go on an adventure?”

Anything to get them away from the quietly judgmental parents watching Jungkook out of the corners of their eyes. Jungkook was already up out of his seat.

Jimin jumped up. “Jungkook, we can take you out on broomsticks!”

“What? Seriously?”

“You’ll love it,” Jimin said. Jungkook got one last look at Taehyung giving his mom a soft hug before he got tugged out the back door.

“What the fuck?” he muttered as the boys all pulled gnarled, gross-looking broomsticks out a shed. “I thought she abused him.”

“It’s complicated,” Jimin said. “It was only abuse in that she’s terrified of magic, including his, which was pretty traumatizing for a developing kid. Imagine getting in a fight with your mom over bedtime, accidentally turning your hair bright red, and then having to deal with her screaming in terror and telling you to stay away from her while hiding behind the toilet. He was scared enough of what was happening to himself without that shit.”

“Why is she so scared?”

“His Dad used to take her on adventures around the world. Unfortunately, he likes going to risky places. While he can defend himself, she couldn’t. She’s had way too many nasty near death experiences. Now this—” He shoved a sturdy piece of wood with lots of long pine needles carefully tied to the end, “—is a flying broomstick.”

“Uh, okay.”

“I’ve been considering making one for myself down south. They make ‘em out of palm fronds there.” It actually had stirrups like the ones in Harry Potter, and a leather bicycle seat on top.

“The ones you can buy look nicer, but they’re easy to make and they’re free. Taehyung used to make them for fun, which is why we have, like, twenty.”

“Don’t use that one,” Taehyung said running up. “The bike seat is more decorative than functional.” He shrugged his jacket off his shoulders so Brandy could hop up and attach herself to his back, then put it back on and zipped it up. Her head poked out the collar.

“Tae made the brooms and I cast the spells. You won’t be able to ride one, so you’ll be hanging on to me.”

“Oh no,” Jungkook said, backing away.

“I’ll tie us together. Don’t worry.”

Jungkook gaped.

“Not to high guys, okay?” Hoseok said.

“He’s scared of heights,” Taehyung said. “You’re not scared of heights, are you?”

“Not really, but I am kinda scared of falling off a flying broomstick and dying.”

“You’ll be perfectly safe.”

“Where are we going?” Namjoon said, already hovering ten feet off the ground, purple coat draping elegantly down off the broom. And that did actually look kind of fun. He let Jimin wrap a rope around his waist.

“Same ‘ol thing, right?” Seokjin said, rising up beside him, “Find a haunted house?”

“A what?” Jungkook said.

“Not a real one,” Jimin giggled. “We like going to houses that non-magic people think are haunted and laying booby traps.”

“I did that once with some friends and an old plantation house when I was in middle school,” Jungkook said.

“An old plantation house,” Jimin giggled, “That’s so Southern.”

“I’ve heard of a place,” Hoseok said. “Went there last week with some friends but we weren’t there long enough to lay traps.”

Jimin kindly let Jungkook take the bike seat. “Doesn’t that hurt?” Jungkook asked.

“It’s not comfortable, but I can immediately heal any actual damage so I won’t be sore. It might really screw with your junk though.”

Jungkook cringed.

Jimin pushed off the ground and Jungkook leaned against his back and stared at the land shrinking under him. He started giggling. “Told you you’d like it,” Jimin said. Hoseok led the way, flying over the orange and yellow trees. Jungkook choked a little as they picked up speed, but wound his arms tight around Jimin’s waist. His eyes stung in the cold wind. Jimin let them start dropping, giggling maniacally, and they rocketed down into the tree tops, swerving to avoid the tallest branches. Jungkook hung on tight.

Chilly air blew right through his jeans, but the leather jacket kept him warm. Taehyung streaked by overhead doing barrel rolls and hooting, elation flashing over the empathetic link as he flew past like the Doppler effect.

When Hoseok finally brought them down in front of a very old wooden mansion in the woods, Jungkook was a little disappointed.

“How’d you like it?” Yoongi asked when he got his feet back on the ground.

Jungkook grinned, “Fuck the house. Let’s do that for the rest of the day.”

“You should ride with Taehyung too,” Jimin said, “He likes going nuts with it.”

“I never got to ride broomsticks till I was, like, fifteen,” Taehyung said, “The rest of you are used to it, but not me! Let’s check out this house.”

“Looks like we might need to give Namjoon and Seokjin some extra space,” Jimin giggled. They were a little too close to each other on the front steps, Seokjin giggly and smiling.

“I like this place,” Hoseok said, walking in the front door. Past him, Jungkook could see an old, torn up staircase with an elegant curving railing in the front hall. Plaster littered the floor. The black and white tile was cracked and dirty.

“Shall we split up?” Seokjin suggested, and Jimin smirked a little, “All go plant traps around different parts of the house?”

“Okay, Namjoon and Seokjin can take the left side of the first floor,” Jimin said, giggling. “I want Jungkook—” Yoongi whistled lowly. “Tae?” Jimin said, winking, “With us?”

“I was going to go with Hoseok, actually. I want to see what he does.”

“I’ll go with them too,” Yoongi said, “Leave you four lovers alone.” He looked remarkably small without his tiger.

Hoseok nodded. “Namjin to the left, Taegiseok to the right, Jikook upstairs and then we’ll meet you up there?”

They all filed into the house. Jungkook stepped in. Someone had pulled out their magic already. He could feel just a little around them. He shivered. He suspected Hoseok, walking on his tip toes into a wide living room to their right, wiggling his fingers and making weird cackling noises. Jimin scampered up the stairs and Jungkook followed.

“I have a system,” Jimin said. “I’ve always been the best at this, but don’t tell them I said that.” The second floor had lofty ceilings. The wallpaper in what was probably the master bedroom was torn like someone had started stripping it off and then gave up. “Shame this place is so wrecked. It’s nice,” Jimin said. “Maybe we could touch it up and come live here. The first thing I do is draw a rune at a pretty central point, which is probably around here.” He knelt in the corner of the room. “And then I connect all the other spells to this one as a back-up, so even if the others are taken down, they’ll stay there until this one gets destroyed. How am I supposed to draw this? Do you think I could draw with broken plaster? I wish I had a knife.”

“I have a knife,” Jungkook said, and pulled it out of his pocket.

Jimin stared. “Why the fuck do you have a knife?”

“More to the point, why don’t you have a knife?” Jungkook said. “I always have a knife. If I’m wearing clothes, I have a knife.”

He handed it over. Jimin took it with the flirtiest, sleaziest look Jungkook had ever seen on him.

“What!”

“That’s just kind of hot. I don’t know,” Jimin said, blushing a little. “Let me concentrate.”

The slight feeling of magic hung around. He heard Hoseok yelling on the bottom floor and Taehyung laughing wildly. That wasn’t right. They were too far away. He took a deep breath. Just magic. He wasn’t Taehyung’s mom. He wouldn’t freak out. He stared around, looking for something physical and real he could use to set his own trap. The ceiling was streaked with dark water damage that looked like splatters.

Maybe they were stains? He walked to stand under them. There used to be a chandelier hanging there. Instead, a couple roots hung down. The ceiling must have collapsed in the attic to let sunlight in. That was probably pretty.

Red roots. Red roots with black spots. He’d seen that in one of Taehyung’s books. “What’s a magical plant doing growing in here?” he asked.

“Huh?” Jimin said. “I’m almost done with this rune. Just gotta activate it.”

Jungkook squinted at it. Dragon heart? That was supposed to be more purple. Tae would be able to tell. Giggling onions?

“Got it,” Jimin said, “Two seconds.”

Red root with black spots. Jungkook’s heart lurched. Hell weed. Taehyung said it grew down in the hollows of the swamp where the demons hid during the day, sometimes in the castles of dark wizards, in cursed Egyptian tombs. They needed powerful supplies of dark magic to survive. His lungs couldn’t get enough air. The small bit of magic seemed to darken in the air, growing evil. “Jimin!”

“One moment,” Jimin said, and pressed his fingers to the rune.

The light dimmed like a cloud going over the sun, and then got darker. Several people downstairs yelped in surprise. Jungkook glanced at Jimin, who was looking around, alarmed. He glanced towards the window and could see daylight bright outside as if through a screen, darkness rapidly deepening around them.

“What?” Jimin said. “That wasn’t supposed to—” He yelped. Jungkook felt a flash of fear over the empathetic link, and then nothing. He whipped around. The corner was empty, a layer of fresh dust on the floor, no Jimin.

“Jimin?” He gasped. His heart pounded in his chest. He stomped towards the spot where Jimin had just been like he’d suddenly find him if he got closer. Jimin really wasn’t there. Darkness fell completely. Downstairs, someone screamed. It cut off with a choking gurgle.

“Jimin!”

The feeling of magic suddenly swelled to overpowering, pouring into his ears and crushing around him like water pressure. His knees gave. The house creaked long, low, and loud like a tree in a storm. Someone screamed for help on the bottom floor. He heard a loud crash. “Jimin!” he yelled. “Jimin!”

Downstairs, Taehyung emotions swelled with fear and desperation, then hope, then his empathetic link vanished, like a tap being shut off. “Jimin! Tae!” He crawled back to the spot where Jimin had vanished and felt along the wall. It was entirely too cold. Thick, crumbling cracks lay under his fingers. He cringed away, expecting something to reach out of the cracks and grabbed him. He felt the rune, and then the knife on the floor. Loud cracking, squeaking noises sounded from up past the ceiling. Rhythmic pounding shook the house, getting louder, and he crouched on the floor with his hands over his head. The floor seemed to spin, the darkness heavy, thick, and disorienting. The pounding cut off.

“JIMIN!”

The house was silent. No yelling or talking, no spare emotions on the empathetic link. The house was empty and he was alone. The intensity of the magic swelled again and he cowered, sobbing, against the wall, choking on panic, ears ringing.

He grabbed the knife roughly and slashed through the rune with shaky hands. “Jimin!” Nothing happened. The walls scuttled faintly, and let out a low, slow hiss like something huge breathing. “Taehyung! Jimin!”

The chain around his neck pulled. He stood quickly without meaning too, and walked into darkness, trying to dig his heels in, trying to find somewhere to cower, somewhere he could hide. The air moved like water currents. He braced arms in front of his face, waiting for something to reach out of the dark and grab him. His boots stomped too loudly on the loud floor, his breaths tore out of him, the whining edge of whimpers. Something brushed against his arm and he screamed, trying to curl up and protect himself, but couldn’t. The chain tugged him forward. His feet carried him down the staircase easily, swerving to avoid the broken steps. He stomped through terrifying empty space, and then walked right out of a curtain of blackness and onto the front porch. Taehyung stood down in the yard, blood dripping down his face, his hands around the chain.

“Tae!”

“Jungkook! What? You’re okay?”

“I’m fine, what—”

He caught sight of the rest of the guys. Hoseok writhed at the bottom of the steps, mouth foaming, staring blankly into the air. To the right under a broken window, Seokjin murmured incantations over Namjoon where he lay pale and unresponsive, eyes rolled back in his head. His face was screwed up in pain and his leg was twisted so unnaturally that Jungkook yanked his eyes away, stomach lurching. Yoongi was hunched over on the ground a little way behind Taehyung, throwing up red, a deep gash across his forehead.

Jungkook felt his limbs go numb. “Where’s Jimin?”

“He was with you!” Taehyung yelled. Jungkook turned slowly and looked back into the gaping maw of the house, heart pounding. Jimin was still in there.

“He carved a rune in the wall,” Jungkook said. “He activated it and everything went dark and he disappeared. He was scared and then he was gone. Tae, what happened?”

“It’s powerfully cursed,” Taehyung said. “The house. We have to go get him.”

“Tae, don’t,” Seokjin choked.

“If we don’t, all four of you are gonna die,” Taehyung said, stunningly calm. “Jimin’s the only one with healing magic strong enough to help Yoongi and Hoseok. Jungkook, it doesn’t affect you at all. We’re going back in.”

Jungkook struggled to get his mind to focus, to get away from the pounding horror of going back into that black soup of magic. “We? You’ll die!”

“I’ll be fine. Brandy?” Brandy emerged from his coat collar looking bored.

“Tae, you can’t,” Jungkook said, looking at Hoseok and Yoongi on the ground. He couldn’t see Taehyung like that.

“You need my magic.”

Jungkook tried to run back in without him and Taehyung grabbed his chain and yanked. Jungkook choked, falling to his knees. Fucking asshole. Worst fucking time to press the goddamn advantage.

“Calm down,” Taehyung sighed, getting close enough that Jungkook could finally feel the thin mask of desperation holding back Taehyung’s wild fear. The order forced him to ease his panic a little, “You’ve got more important things to worry about right now than a stupid chain around your neck.” He walked right into the blackness and dragged Jungkook behind him. Seokjin’s scream dimmed like they were sinking into water as the darkness closed in behind them.

They stood in a bubble dimly lit by Jungkook’s gold chain. The darkness clawed like smoke at the edge with the faintest whispering. Splatters of bright red blood sparkled on the floor below them and Jungkook felt himself pulling back towards the door, lungs struggling to heave in enough air, magic roiling around them, malicious and heavy. Taehyung held him there. “Yoongi’s blood,” Taehyung told him, “Calm down.” Again, Jungkook’s brain tamped down his fear, forcing him to take deep breathes and try to realign his head.

“Brandy says go up,” Taehyung murmured. He squinted into the black and then pulled Jungkook towards the stairs on his leash. “Are you doing this?” Jungkook asked, looking around at the bubble.

“Brandy is.”

Jungkook looked at her and jumped. Her eyes glowed bright yellow. A deep bass inhale shuddered through the house. Jungkook’s knees gave out a little. He caught himself and grabbed Taehyung’s arm, shaking hard. “I’d hold your hand,” Taehyung said, “but if I let go of your chain I’ll probably die. The bubble only does so much, but whatever resistance you have to magic does a lot.” Brandy growled a little. “She says attic,” Taehyung said.

“I heard something up there,” Jungkook said, remembering the cracking, pounding noises, “Before you pulled me out.” The hell weed. The hell weed had been coming from the attic. “I don’t want to go up there,” he whispered.

“I don’t either,” Taehyung said. His floppy hair stuck in the blood on his face. The stairs creaked under them and Taehyung held out his hands and steadied them. They trembled under their feet.

“It’s trying to collapse the stairs out from under us,” Taehyung said, voice strained. “Must mean we’re going the right way.”

Jungkook heard himself whine. Jimin was in here somewhere. Jimin was alone in the dark in here, but he couldn’t feel anything over the empathetic link, like he wasn’t there at all. What if he was like Yoongi, cut up and bleeding, puking blood up in the dark attic? What if a demon had him already, twisting his mind and swallowing him up? He could feel Taehyung’s fear, so he should be able to feel Jimin’s at this intensity. He felt nothing.

“We’ll find him,” Taehyung said. “He owes us a scare, right? From the woods? Our turn to freak out,” his voice shook. Jungkook saw sweat track down his face. Panic beat rapidly over the empathetic link, the overwhelming need to find Jimin.

They started the second flight of stairs. The walls suddenly scuttled like hundreds of hands were inside them, scratching at the wood, starting down the hallway and skittering towards them. It filled the walls around them and under their feet. Taehyung stomped hard on the floor and it dispersed like a flood of spiders swarming away. Jungkook sobbed tearlessly, hands over his face. He wanted to give up, lie down, and play dead until it went away. He wanted to break free and sprint for the front door. He wanted race through the whole house at top speed until he found Jimin. His neck hurt.

“Do you have to pull so much?” he whispered.

“Sorry,” Taehyung whispered, stopping on the first landing, the one where Jungkook and Jimin had stopped off on a few minutes earlier. “I feel like if I hold it loosely something will grab you, or I’ll forget I’m holding it and let go or something.” His knuckles were white, hand shaking. Jungkook gripped Taehyung’s sides, fists tight in his jacket, staying close. Brandy growled a little. “Higher,” Taehyung said. They started the next flight.

Every few seconds, irregularly, Jungkook heard sharp clacks like someone slamming their teeth together. He jumped. The magic intensified for a moment and he heard pops like cracking wood. A distant sound came from the attic, tiny hollow squeaks like stretching rubber, getting louder as they climbed.

Brandy hissed like a viper and yowled. Jungkook blinked and the wall next to them changed from a gaping hole to torn wallpaper. Taehyung sucked in a breath through his teeth and growled angrily, but Jungkook could feel his terror. He panted and clutched Taehyung’s jacket, waiting for something with glowing eyes and claws to lurch out of the dark, for the floor to swallow them, for the bubble to fail and Taehyung to collapse, puking blood and writhing. They reached the top landing. Both top doorways were boarded up. Taehyung tried to blast away the ones on the left, but nothing happened.

“I can’t,” he said, voice shaking, and tried again. “I think he’s in there? I don’t want to hit him with a giant block of wood.”

“Give me some slack on the chain,” Jungkook said. Taehyung pulled it through his fist till he had a good ten feet of slack, though he still hung on to the sleeve of Jungkook’s coat. Jungkook tested the wood. It was light and rotting. “I’m gonna break it down,” he said. Taehyung pushed on it a little and vines lashed out and grabbed his hand. He screamed. Jungkook tore them away from the wood and the vines flaked away to the floor. They stood for a moment, panting. Taehyung whimpered a little, legs giving out. He hugged Jungkook around the waist, kneeling on the floor and taking deep, shuddering breaths, trying to calm down. Jungkook scratched his scalp soothingly. He finally let go and stood, clutching Jungkook’s chain with both hands, hunched over with gritted teeth.

Jungkook braced himself, jumping up and down and staring at the rotting boards just within their little bubble, darkness beyond. Jimin needed them. Jimin was here. Jimin needed them. Jimin would fucking die if they didn’t find him. Jimin might already be dead. He threw himself into the wood. It splintered loudly and he stumbled forward into the pitch-black room.

And it was just him in the dark again for a moment, standing in blackness like water clogging his throat and heavy in his lungs, alone and terrified. His golden chain disappeared back in the dark towards Taehyung. He shook all over, eyes as wide as he could get them.

Another length of gold chain snapped suddenly away into the dark in front of him, tugging heavily. He jumped. “Jimin?” he yelled. No response. Taehyung and the bubble of safety surrounded him again, a little circle of floor, the black magic whispering at the edges.

“Hell weed,” Taehyung whispered. Little black flowers on red stems poked up between the floorboards, a beautiful, veiny, velvet carpet. “Fuck.” The empathetic connection of terror was so intense that it almost felt numb. Or maybe Jungkook was just going into cardiac arrest. Taehyung felt ready to bolt. The rubber squeaking noises were close. The clacking teeth were in the ceiling.

Taehyung noticed the second length of chain. He gasped, “Jimin!” The new chain pulled Jungkook forward. He almost yanked out of Taehyung’s grip, but grabbed him and stomped forward, and the scuttling, clattering, creaking of the house erupted around them. Taehyung sobbed and fought it, hands glowing with power as he forced it all away.

Jimin’s hand appeared first near the top of their bubble, streaked with glistening red blood, rings winking. Brandy stretched it upwards, pushing the blackness out of the way.

Jimin was pinned upside down on the ceiling, charms glittering dimly, half a dozen lit up wildly as they fought the black magic on his body. His chest down to his legs was cocooned in ceiling plaster that moved like snakes and hands, wood beams cracked open and half closed around him. His pale, lush lips gaped wide and he stared blankly over their heads, big eyes open and vacant, pupils and irises solid white like he was blind. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth down past his eyes and into his soft brown hair, trailing down out of his sleeve, across his hand, and onto the chain.

The squeaking rubber noises were coming from him, choked, short, shallow breaths raking through his throat, loud and harsh, barely there like his lungs couldn’t drag in even that. But he was alive.

“Jungkook, please,” Taehyung sobbed. Jungkook reached up, grabbed his bloody arm, and pulled. The house resisted, shuddering, the scratching started in the walls again, swelling in volume and getting closer. Jimin made another horrible, short, choking wheeze through his open mouth.

Taehyung screamed. Magic pulsed outwards from his body, skin glowing. He raised his hands, one still sending shocks of magic down the chain and rattling Jungkook’s teeth, and pulled them down hard through the air. Pieces of plaster and wood cracked off and fell away. The house shook. It still had him by the hips. Taehyung roared again and the ceiling shuddered hard.

Jungkook got his hands around Jimin’s shoulders and pulled him down, caught him before he hit the floor, and then Taehyung was dragging him by the chain back through the house, practically sprinting down the stairs. Jungkook clutched Jimin close to his chest, pure adrenaline keeping his body from giving out and sending them both crashing down. The stairs collapsed behind them.

They ran out the front door and onto the lawn. Seokjin cried out with relief and collapsed, sobbing over Namjoon’s body. The feeling of magic behind them vanished, and Jungkook whipped around to see a plain house, windows tall and open, the house empty and bright.

Yoongi was twisted up on the ground, no longer throwing up, but no longer obviously alive either. Hoseok’s eyes had rolled back in his head, blood dripping from his face, twitching infrequently. Jungkook lay Jimin on the ground. He was already breathing easier, moaning in panic, the charms on his body crackling with power. Jungkook could see the runes on the thigh band gleaming through his pants.

“Jimin!” Taehyung said. Jimin blinked at him for a moment, and then the blood magically cleared out of his eyes and they darkened back to brown. He moaned lowly, grimacing, body twitching like he was scared to move.

“I know it hurts but you need to help, babe,” Taehyung said, “I think Yoongi’s dying.”

Jimin rolled over, groaning, and starting clawing his way across the ground towards Yoongi, his hand still tight around Jungkook’s chain. Jungkook half picked him up and dragged him over. Jimin put a hand on his chest and grunted in shock, and then put a hand over Yoongi’s mouth. One of his pendants glowed bright purple. A ball of black floated out of his mouth with Jimin’s hand, and dissipated into the air. Jimin picked a leaf up off the ground, stabbed a rune into it with a twig, and shoved it into Yoongi’s mouth.

“Next?” he growled as Yoongi groaned and curled up.

He did the same with Hoseok. Taehyung lay on his back on the ground with Brandy sitting on his chest, staring at the house like she was keeping watch.

“There was hell weed in there,” he groaned, “Seokjin, the attic was fucking filled with hell weed.”

Seokjin threw up in the dirt. Jimin cleaned it up with a wave of his hand as he crawled to Namjoon and pulled the darkness out of his head.

“Eat the leaf,” he grunted as Namjoon blinked back into consciousness, voice a shattered whisper. “Eat it. Be glad I’m not making you swallow it on a rock.”

He turned to Seokjin’s leg, still shaking his head every few seconds like he was trying to get water out of his ears. Jungkook could feel shared shock on both sides of the empathetic link, pounding frantically. His hands shook wildly, teeth chattering.

“Seokjin, what happened to your leg?” Taehyung asked.

“Broke it pulling Namjoon through the window,” Seokjin said, “Didn’t expect the ground to be so far down.”

“That explains his concussion,” Jimin said, voice gravelly, low, and horrible. He touched his chest gently. “Ribs are still healing. What happened?”

“Someone powerful cursed that house,” Taehyung said, “Probably a long time ago. Gets more dangerous with age, you know. Mostly dormant. Needs to be touched with magic to activate. You put a rune in the wall?”

Jimin sat up slowly, horrified, “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“Not your fault. One of us would have. You just got there first. Thank god it was you. Anyone else would have died fast and we wouldn’t have been able to find them.”

“How’d you get out?” Jungkook asked.

“Brandy felt it. Kept it off me. Hoseok and Yoongi both breathed it in though. I had to drag them both out.”

Yoongi was sitting up on his own now, staring at the house, paler than ever. Hoseok slowly chewed his leaf and stared at the ground.

“Jimin, what happened with you?” Taehyung asked.

“Felt something grab me. I don’t remember anything else except pain, like, my body slowly failing piece by piece.”

“I saw the hell weed,” Jungkook said suddenly. “The roots were poking through the ceiling. I saw it and then Jimin activated the rune before I could say anything.”

“Nothing happened to you at all?” Taehyung asked, “When you were in the dark? You felt nothing?”

Jungkook shuddered, “I felt a little bit of magic when we walked in, but I figured it was one of you guys. And then there was just magic everywhere.”

“You can feel magic?” Hoseok slurred from the ground, twisting to look at him, “That’s so cool. Wish I could…” he waved a hand vaguely in the air, “feel magic. Would make some tricks so much easier.”

Seokjin stretched out his freshly uninjured leg. “You’re amazing, Jimin.”

“I feel a little in love with you right now, Seokjin.”

“Sorry. You know I can’t control it. It’ll fade.”

“Hey Taehyung, can you let go of my chain?”

Everyone turned to look now that he’d called attention to it. Taehyung looked down at where he still grasped it, looked back up, and then hauled it hand over hand until he had his fingers in the collar so he could yank Jungkook’s head down and kiss him hard. For once, Jungkook didn’t mind at all. “Thank you,” Taehyung murmured. Jimin grabbed the chain and pulled, too weak to actually get him closer, but Jungkook crawled over anyway and kissed him against the ground. Jimin started bawling, bloody hands on either side of Jungkook’s face and rocking against the ground with sobs, overwhelmed and exhausted.

“I’m sorry I suggested this place guys,” Hoseok said blearily around his leaf. “Kind of a bad choice, all things considered.”

“Let’s get home,” Taehyung said, “You all need potions.”

 

Mr. Kim’s falcon met them halfway back. Apparently, he’d found it curious when all the familiars left at home suddenly panicked at once and keeled over, dying on the kitchen floor.

“Of course that house is cursed,” Mama Park said when they arrived and told her what happened. “The community has known about that for years! It’s killed ten people! There have only ever been two survivors!”

Jungkook started the potions while Taehyung told Mama Park and Mr. Kim what had happened. Jimin curled up on a bench beside the counter, Bubble tucked into his lap, and tiredly helped Jungkook through the complicated recipe, preparing any ingredients he could reach. Yoongi lay on top of Kahn. Hoseok and his Jack Russell played around with a small pile of dice. Seokjin and Namjoon cuddled in the corner, heads pressed together and holding hands.

As the water came to a boil, Mama Park rushed over with tears dripping down her face and gave Jimin a long, tight hug. Jimin buried his face in her shoulder and hung on tight. Jungkook made it through the next three steps in the potion without help until Mama Park wrapped her arms around him too. She was much shorter than Jimin, her head coming up to his chest as she sobbed her thanks into his shirt, too short to even rest his chin on her head when he hugged her back.

“Look at you,” She said, once she’d calmed down a bit, “Making potions. You’re too good for us, honestly. Carrying Jimin back out even though you’re scared of magic. I can’t even tell you.” She wiped her eyes on her apron. “I swear I’ve aged five years today. Don’t worry about the potion. I’ll take care of it.” She patted his cheek and tearfully took over.

Mr. Kim pulled Taehyung to the side for a long, serious conversation, so Jungkook went and hugged Jimin and Bubble, alive and recovering. Bubble flopped over and lay half in Jimin’s lap and half in his, unusually subdued.

The afternoon passed with a doctor coming in, and then a magic news team who had very little to ask Jungkook but spent nearly an hour interviewing Taehyung. The other four boys left with Mr. Kim right after Mama Park fed them, heading home to sleep.

Jungkook watched the interview from the living room couch. His head buzzed from the potion Mama Park had made for him. Jimin sat tucked into his side, snoring lightly with his head on Jungkook’s chest.

Brandy is a monster, the reporters said, and Taehyung agreed nervously, playing it off. But so are you, they said. Jungkook picked his head up a little, blinking sleep away and listening. They were asking about his ability to use raw magic as pure energy. Taehyung struggled for an answer. They wanted to make something of his past, make something of his inability to use structured magic in spells. Taehyung talked about botany, about using potions instead. Good advertising. Jungkook wanted to go tell them to leave, but Taehyung felt calm, a little nervous, but mostly resigned and understanding.

It wasn’t until Taehyung’s energy ran thin and he started having trouble stringing whole thoughts together, until Jungkook felt his exhaustion like a weight at the other end of the empathetic link, that he got out from under Jimin and came over to pull Taehyung into his arms and thank the reporters politely but firmly for their time. When they tried to ask more, Mama Park shoved containers of leftover cooking into their hands and shoved them out the door with motherly smothering.

“You take such good care of them,” she said to Jungkook, rubbing his back. “Make sure they take care of you too, okay?”

“I’ll make some more demands,” he said, and they both smiled at Jimin, holding Bubble to his chest like a teddy bear and rubbing his eyes with one fist, pouting sleepily. Jungkook and Taehyung curled up on either side of him, arms and legs tucked around him. Even Brandy curled up by his feet.

“He could have been dead right now,” Taehyung said as he slept between them. “Actually, we both could be dead right now. I would have gone back in for him with or without you. I would have died too, and a lot faster than him with all those charms keeping him alive. I’m so glad we found you, Kookie. Way to earn your way into the Park family, by the way. They’ll never let you go now.”

Jungkook giggled a little. “I think they’re growing on me.”

“I’m sorry about yanking you around by the chain so much today,” Taehyung said.

“It kept you both alive. I don’t really care. I’ve been sacrificing my freedom for you two since we met anyway.”

Taehyung kissed his fingertips softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jungkook said, “I’ll be happy to get my freedom back in four years, but I think I can handle it until then if you both stay careful.”

“Maybe,” Taehyung said, and then stopped, feeling nervous.

“Yeah?”

Taehyung took a deep breath. “Maybe in four years, we can reestablish a bond, but, like, not this one. Like, what if you had a collar on both of us too? Not, like, a literal collar,” he said quickly before Jungkook could feel to skeptical, “We could probably do without the fucking chain. Like, just because it was life-saving this one time does not justify keeping it, but, like, what if we kept the mental link? Figured out something similar that’s equal on all sides? I don’t know about you, but I’m getting kind of attached to what we have. When it ends, are we just going to feel, like, disconnected?”

“You know we can figure that out in four years, right?” Jungkook said, petting Taehyung’s soft lips with the back of his knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Go to sleep,” Jimin groaned, “Or I’ll strangle both of you.”

 

Thanks to all the extra advertisement, Jimin and Taehyung managed to sell everything they’d come north with, except for one pot of small, white flowers, some of the second generation of moonstone flowers from the plant Jungkook had stolen for Taehyung in January. They pulled up to Taehyung’s Mom’s house at six-thirty a.m. before she went to work. It was still dark, so she came out with a flashlight to help him plant it.

“These are worth, like, two-thousand dollars, mom. Don’t mow over them.”

“Two-thousand?” she asked curiously.

“They’re really useful and rare.”

“And you’re giving them to me?”

“I have a lot,” he said.

While he messed around in the cold dirt, sowing a circle of moonstones deep below where he wanted to plant it, Ms. Kim came to chat with Jungkook where he sat smoking in the back of the truck.

“Cute hat,” she said. He grinned and tugged it lower on his ears. It was Taehyung’s hand-knit beanie, one of the roughest hand-made things Taehyung owned, and apparently, she’d made it.

“Thank you for keeping my son alive,” she said. He couldn’t get over how much like Brandy she sounded. They had the same dry tone.

“My pleasure,” he replied.

“I was serious about you always being welcome in our house,” she said softly, eyes on Jimin and Taehyung poking around in the dirt, “and I’m even more serious now. You might be okay around magic for now, but it just got worse and worse for me when I was in it, and I had no outlet. I don’t want you to feel trapped. It’s hard. So if you ever need to get away, my door is open.”

“Thanks. I hope I never have to take you up on that.” A beat of silence. “Fuck. Not because I don’t ever want to be here. I just hope I never get to that point.” He just swore in front of Taehyung’s mom. He groaned softly and rubbed his face. “I’m tired,” he whined, “I’m sorry.” No wonder he always made such a terrible impression on parents.

“You’re fine,” she said, smiling.

Taehyung and Jimin screwed around in the flower bed, shoving each other and throwing dirt into each other’s hair. Jimin put his foot right down in the middle of a shrub and looked up with the guiltiest, horrified smile. Ms. Kim snorted and sighed. Taehyung just pushed him back onto the walkway and healed the plant with a touch of his hand.

“My little gardener,” Ms. Kim said. “He’s always loved playing in the dirt. Jimin too.”

Jungkook couldn’t quite let go of the idea that she’d fucked Taehyung up pretty badly, but he did relax a little. Nothing is ever as clean and easy as it should be. They’d created the distance they needed.

Jimin carried a giant box of books out of the house, squealing a little as he rushed to get it in the truck. It didn’t look like too big of a deal, but when Jimin dropped it on the bed, the whole truck rocked and Jungkook nearly fell off.

Taehyung and his mom said goodbye. Jimin and Jungkook wrestled the box up towards the cab, in between two boxes from Mama Park, Taehyung’s bag, and Jimin’s trunk, some collapsed empty crates and a few shielded plants. Jimin collapsed, giggling and squirming on top of him, and kissed every inch of his face as Jungkook tried to get his body twisted back the way it should be and defend himself. “I feel like I own two very badly behaved dogs,” he said when Jimin had thoroughly pinned him down and left wet kisses all over his cheeks.

“You like it,” Jimin giggled.

“In front of my mom?” Taehyung said, “Really guys?”

“Not my fault!” Jungkook said, “I had nothing to do with this one!”

“You’re driving first,” Taehyung said and tossed him the keys.

 

Jungkook woke to the sound of two people screaming at each other. He sat up, alarmed, and looked up to see Jimin sitting up slowly, hair a complete mess, bundled up under a mound of blankets and looking soft in the filtered yellow streetlight. “Wuss goin on?” He asked.

Taehyung was sitting up and peering out of the truck bed below the sheet tented over them. “Just some Walmart denizens having a domestic dispute outside their RV,” Taehyung said, grinning. “I think one of them went out to buy food and came back three hours late and wasted.”

Jungkook groaned and rolled onto his back. “I’m so tired.”

“You can sleep in the car tomorrow,” Taehyung said, “Jimin, we have got to teach you to drive.”

A bottle smashed. Taehyung yelped a little. They heard two gunshots. He sat up. “Did someone get shot?”

“Nope. I redirected it,” Taehyung said. “Gun is on the ground now. Jesus Christ, we picked the worst fucking Walmart to camp out in.

Jungkook sighed hollowly and closed his eyes, trying to go back to sleep.

He drifted for a bit, and then the night erupted with sirens and the back of his eyelids flashed blue and red.

“Fuckin’” he sat up a little again, “Can these fuckers just fuck right the fuck off?”

Jimin giggled.

“The police are putting handcuffs on people,” Taehyung said. Jungkook rolled over and groaned loudly. Bubble popped out from under the covers beside Jimin and chirped a little, then flopped over onto her side and pressed the top of her head under Jimin’s chin, asking for belly rubs. “Oh, they’re setting up caution tape. This is turning into a whole operation. This could take hours.”

“I’m gonna die,” Jungkook said.

“Two of them are walking over here,” Taehyung said, “I’m gonna talk to them. Might speed this process along.”

“Have fun,” Jimin said.

“Tell them to leave,” Jungkook said.

Taehyung slipped over the side of the truck.

Brandy crawled up under the covers and settled against Jungkook’s side.

Taehyung stopped close enough to the truck that Jungkook could still feel his wariness, the little twitch of hostile nerves keeping him on edge, even through his excitement. The blue and red lights flashed over the white sheet above them. Jimin rolled Bubble back and forth on the blankets as she tried to chew on his fingers.

“Hey Jimin,” Jungkook said.

“Yeah?”

“C’mere. I have an idea.”

Jimin giggled. “My ring is buzzing,” he murmured playfully.

“Yup,” Jungkook said, pinned him on his back, and started sucking on his neck. Jimin’s hips bucked up against him and he wrapped both arms loosely around Jungkook’s neck. Jungkook shoved his shirt and sweater up to run his hands in wide circles over his chest. Jimin shivered and gripped harder.

“S’fuckin cold, Kook. I can see my breath.”

“Pull the blankets up then.”

Jimin yanked the dinosaur and baby animal patterned blankets up over their heads. Jungkook shifted lower, kissing down his bare chest. He sucked on one nipple and felt Jimin’s arousal spike over the empathetic link. And then felt Taehyung’s vague alarm. He giggled and shuffled carefully lower, undoing Jimin’s jeans and yanking then down to his mid-thighs.

“Fuck, Kookie,” he whispered.

“My hands are cold, right?” Jungkook asked.

“Yeah?” Jimin shivered.

“Damn. Gonna have to do everything with my mouth,” He said, and then licked down Jimin’s dick and sucked on the tip.

Jimin hummed and scratched his hair, and Jungkook got to work trying to get Jimin as desperate as possible as fast as he could. Taehyung started feeling indignant and flustered. Jungkook giggled around Jimin’s dick and wiggled his hands under Jimin’s butt. “E-eat me out,” Jimin moaned.

“Dude, you haven’t showered.”

“Why would that matter? I’m clean,” Jimin said.

Magic. Right. Jungkook sat up so he could roll over and get on his hands and knees, legs pinned together with his jeans. Jungkook smoothed his thumb around the rim and then pulled his cheeks apart, leaned in, and licked heavily over him, pointed his tongue, and drew sluggish circles along the edge. Jimin squirmed and gasped. Taehyung felt impatient and distracted. He moved a little further away and Jungkook worked harder, sucking harshly. Jimin’s high moans came out muffled in a pillow.

Jungkook shoved one hand through the narrow space in Jimin’s thighs, and Jimin struggled to let him through, spreading his knees an inch further. Jungkook spread sticky precome around the head and then started stroking. He bit gently at Jimin’s rim, who squirmed, back bowing, hips twitching forward into Jungkook’s hand. “Like that, Babydoll?” Jungkook rasped. Jimin purred out a moan and pressed back against his face.

A couple cars drove by close enough to hear the crunching gravel under the wheels. Jimin was shaking, skin cooling slowly even under the blankets. He came, gasping and trembling, and Jungkook felt a rush of exasperation and arousal from Taehyung. He came closer. Jungkook crawled out from under the covers. “Let’s get him,” he muttered. Jimin chuckled weakly, already all cleaned off.

Taehyung yanked down the tailgate and jumped in. “What the fuck is wrong with you two—”

Jungkook and Jimin grabbed him and pulled him down onto the blankets between them. Jimin shucked his shirt up and settled over his stomach, pants pulled up but undone. “Your turn, babe,” he said. Jungkook quickly stripped Taehyung’s pants off. Taehyung grunted and shuddered.

“Fuckin cold,” he hissed.

“Thought you liked that,” Jimin said. “Heat it up then.”

The air began to heat up slowly, but Jungkook grabbed his balls and Taehyung thrashed under Jimin’s body, air going cold again.

“Don’t rock the truck,” Jimin said. “Someone will come over here.”

“You’re both too strong,” he whined quietly, “This isn’t fair.”

“I need lube, darlin’,” Jungkook growled, stretching around Jimin. Taehyung wiped slippery, warm liquid all over his hand, sloppy and uncoordinated. Jungkook immediately pressed a finger into him. Jimin had his legs pinned under his arms. Taehyung could do nothing but shake and gasp as Jungkook stretched him, a little too fast to be entirely comfortable.

“Please. Blanket. So cold.”

“You’re rock hard, babe,” Jungkook said, pulling his slick hand up Taehyung’s dick and then watching him writhe as he stuck his fingers back in him and let it cool in the chilly air. Taehyung muffled whimpers in his arm, desperate want pouring down the empathetic link. Jimin was a little kinder, heating the air to something a little more comfortable, and Jungkook knew his fingers were warm now, and Taehyung relaxed a little, lying still and letting them control it, just the edge of disappointment at the sudden warmth.

“Lazy Tae likes it when someone else does all the work. Jungkook, did you know that he never begs when I edge him?”

“Really?” Jungkook asked, shoving another finger in. Taehyung grunted into his arm, body drawing taught under Jimin.

“He begs when I fuck him fast and hard,” Jimin said, “but when I tie him up and tease him for hours? Nothing. He likes it too much.”

“Not doing that tonight,” Jungkook said, “I need to sleep.”

“Yeah. Let’s make him beg,” Jimin said. Taehyung’s needy arousal echoed into their heads, followed by embarrassment, and Jungkook giggled and soothed a warm hand down his leg.

“More lube, please,” Jungkook said.

“You’re so polite,” Taehyung giggled breathlessly and slopped more lube onto his hand. Jungkook lubed himself up, shivering in the cold, and rushed to push in. Taehyung was nice and hot around him. He sighed in relief and rested his forehead on Jimin’s back. “Fuckin go,” Taehyung grunted, voice shaking. “Don’t just sit there.”

“But you’re so warm,” Jungkook said. Jimin giggled and did something to Taehyung’s chest that had him arching and clenching down, head swimming. Jungkook moaned happily. Jimin reached behind himself with icy, blue fingers, and trailed them up Taehyung’s cock.

“Hold still, baby,” he said, “There are still cops around.”

Taehyung whimpered. Jungkook began slow, gentle thrusts. Taehyung’s legs pulled tight around Jimin’s body, goosebumps covering his skin, and Jimin leaned back against Jungkook’s chest so he could rest his head on Jimin’s shoulder and see the view. Taehyung had one arm thrown over his mouth and the other pulling his sweater and coat as far down as he could, face completely blissed out and desperate.

“Pretty Tae,” Jimin murmured, and Jungkook carefully picked up the pace, making sure not to force it too hard.

“I’m stabilizing the truck,” Jimin said, “Fuck him as hard as you want.”

Jungkook growled and picked up speed. Jimin shoved a hand under his shirt, and Jungkook could see the blue glow of his fingers through three layers of fabric. Taehyung jolted and sobbed, trying to twist away, dick throbbing. “Baby boy,” Jimin purred. Jungkook hummed happily, pumping in and out and quickly building up the tension inside him. He’d begun to sweat a little in the cool air, body adjusting. Taehyung flushed beautifully, but his thin fingers shook from cold.

Jimin tilted his head back on Jungkook’s shoulder and twisted around as much as he could, brushing his lips against the corner of Jungkook’s mouth, one hand slipping low between them with icy fingers and Taehyung thrashed again, body drawing tight, moans frantic. He came hard between their bodies and then lay drawn tight and sighing out moans, arm finally falling away from his pretty mouth.

Jungkook kept powering through as Taehyung twitched fitfully. “Sex magic?” he growled.

Taehyung grunted and magic surrounded Jungkook’s dick like a vibrating fleshlight. He jammed his hips as close to Taehyung’s as he could manage it, and sat there moaning into Jimin’s neck until he came hard in Taehyung’s ass.

Get me a fucking blanket,” Taehyung hissed.

Jimin took charge of cleaning them up, getting their layers back on, and then setting them up to sleep. The cats slunk back into warm spots and Taehyung, lying in the middle, made himself into a heater. The noise had faded for the most part, and the red and blue flashing had dimmed. There probably weren’t too many cop cars left. “Brave Tae,” he murmured into the back of Taehyung’s head, “Talking to those scary police officers all by yourself.”

“Oh shut up,” Taehyung said, giggling.

“So proud of you,” Jimin said, reaching for Taehyung’s hand and grabbing Jungkook’s instead. He tugged on it for a minute, realized his mistake, and found the other one. Brandy curled between Taehyung and Jungkook’s legs. He could feel Bubble’s tail where she lay crunched up between Taehyung and Jimin. He lay awake and felt the empathetic link quiet into static on both ends as they fell asleep.

 

“What are curses?” Jungkook asked the next day after lunch. Taehyung was asleep against the opposite window and Jimin sat next to him with his little feet up on the dashboard, reading a spell book.

“Curses?”

“Like the one in the house. What was that?”

“Um. Curses are, like, directed, magically enforced maliciousness, I guess.”

“So they’re not a type of spell?”

Jimin giggled. “Spells are spells, dude. Why would you think curses can be spells?”

Jungkook blinked. “I don’t know. Spells are a pretty generic term for non-magic people, and, like, then there are specifications within that or something? Depends on who you ask, I guess, or the mythology it comes from. So curses, hexes, jinxes, and charms could all be labelled as spells. It’s that way in Harry Potter.”

“Tae mentions that sometimes. I’ve never read it,” Jimin said. “Witches generally don’t.”

“It’s a pretty cool series,” Jungkook said, “Can you tell me about curses, please?”

“Right. Curses. So if a witch or wizard gets angry or hateful enough, or I guess if they just really really don’t like something, they can channel that into really aggressive dark magic and curse something, and it just manifests somehow. You can’t really control curses. Non-magic people get caught up in a lot of them. Egyptian priests used to curse tomb raiders or different artifacts, but the malicious intent was driven towards anyone who might disturb the tomb. Somebody cursed that house. Maybe there was a feud or land dispute or something and the guy was like ‘I curse your property!’ or something like that.”

“And then it just stays there forever?”

“Yup.”

“Is there any way to get rid of a curse?”

Jimin shrugged. “Depends on the curse, I think. There’s no foolproof way to do it, but every curse has a loophole, or a reversal. Figuring out how to do it is what’s hard. They’re not like spells where there’s a logic behind it. Curses are more like Tae’s magic. They’re raw energy. That’s probably why he was able to fight it when the rest of us weren’t.”

“You were impressive too,” Jungkook said. “The other guys were in there for, like, fifteen seconds and nearly died. You stayed alive for, what, five minutes? Ten?”

Jimin leaned on his shoulder. “Fuck. Yeah, I did. And you could have stayed in there forever and you would’ve been fine.”

“Probably would have died of fear, but whatever.”

Jimin leaned his head on Jungkook’s shoulder. “Tae could probably cast some nasty fucking curses if he ever got too mad.”

“Good thing he’s had you his whole life or he might have already.”

“I think he did in high school. He doesn’t talk about it much, but sometimes I check the news and there’s a lot of pretty unfortunate news stories linked to that school. And his teachers. And his classmates.”

“He’s a monster,” Jungkook said grimly.

 

He spent most of the last three hours with his head in Taehyung’s lap and his feet in Jimin’s, fiddling absently with a magical wind-up toy that Jimin’s mom had sent home with them, a little jeweled frog that moved in different ways every time he wound it up.

“Stop that,” Taehyung said, batting his chest when the thing starting clicking again. Jungkook dropped it on his chest and glared. “Sorry. You can—whatever. I take it back.”

Jungkook picked it up again.

“Please stop that?”

“No.”

Taehyung sighed loudly. “One more hour, god damn it. We have got to teach you to drive, Jimin.”

Jimin shook his head. “I’m happy with this. Jungkook, I would love it if you stopped fucking with the annoying toy.”

“Sucks,” Jungkook said, and twisted it again. The toy erupted into a loud series of clicks.

Bubble very deliberately took the toy out of Jungkook’s hands and snuggled her head into his palm. “Fine,” he grumbled and scratched her little folded ears.

As they drove into the swamps, Taehyung rolled down his window and Jungkook sighed happily. “Smells like mud.”

“Okay, dirt boy.”

Jungkook smiled and nuzzled into his tummy. “Who’s the one who spends all day farming and comes in so dirty he clogs the shower drain, huh?”

“We have so many chores to do,” Jimin groaned. “I just want to go to sleep.”

“You haven’t done anything all day!” Taehyung said.

“It’s so warm,” Jungkook said. “S’like, eighty degrees.”

“I’ve been taking care of Bubble. All day. It’s exhausting.”

“You do that every day!”

Jungkook watched the old tree pass by up through Taehyung’s window, blackened branches dark against the blue sky. “Sleeping in the loft or with us tonight?” Taehyung asked him.

“You,” he said, “Unless you fuck up between now and then.”

Jungkook watched his two farm boys get to work through the kitchen window as he made dinner, working their ways down the rows with gardening gloves, throwing weeds at each other. He’d never cooked for himself when he lived alone. Jimin had taught him in the evenings when he came home from work tired and sore and just looking for something to do with his hands. Jungkook had taught him how to not act like an idiot in non-magic grocery stores.

When they finished checking up on all the plants, Jungkook was waiting for them on the porch with food, and they ate out under the sunset with Jimin blasting the mosquitos out of the air and a few alligators floating away on the dark water, yellow eyes turned casually towards them.

“No offense, Jimin,” Jungkook said, “but I don’t think I ever want to move up to your mom’s house. I like it here too much.” He lit a cigarette and lay back on the old wood of the porch. “Or your mom, Tae. She wasn’t what I expected though.”

“She’s…” Taehyung shook his head. “If you ever need to go stay with her, feel free. She’ll get along just fine with you. You two would probably be best friends. She just doesn’t handle Dad and me very well.”

“Don’t go stay with his mom,” Jimin said, “Stay with mine.”

“I think I’d be more comfortable with Tae’s.”

Jimin yanked his cigarette out of his mouth. “Am I going to have to cure you of this again? Jeez. Just because I can doesn’t mean you should.”

“Thought you liked the way it smelled, Babydoll,” Jungkook growled, low and husky. Jimin’s lips widened a little as he took a deep breath, staring, smoldering at Jungkook. He shook his head and went back to his plate. Tae giggled.

“You smell awesome without it too,” Jimin grumbled.

Brandy and Bubble sat unusually close together on the bottom stair, Bubble against Taehyung’s leg and Brandy a couple feet away, staring off in exactly opposite directions. Oddly friendly, all things considered.

“So we’re not going to renew the bond in four years?” Jimin asked.

“No,” said Taehyung and Jungkook at once. Jimin nodded.

“That’ll be good, I think, figuring out how to love you both without being in your heads all the time. Jungkook will get easier to deal with.”

Jungkook laughed and put out his cigarette so he could roll over and wrap his arms around Jimin’s waist.

“When I was in high school, I never thought I was going to get a chance to be this happy.”

Jimin plopped Bubble down into his arms and leaned low over him. “What’s with the emotions, Mr. Stoicism?”

“I’m just happy you’re both alive right now,” Jungkook said. “I’ve been riding that high for a few days now. Jeez. My head still doesn’t feel right.” Jimin kissed him gently, his big, chubby-cheeked smile lighting up his face.

Taehyung lay down on the porch by his head. “Did I ever tell you what your coat is made of?”

“Leather?”

“I got that from a wishing deer,” Taehyung said. “They’re rare. If you can manage to hunt one down, you get one wish. The one I found was already dying out here in the swamp. It was just a mercy kill so I wasn’t sure if I got the wish or not. That was just after high school so I was having a rough time. My wish was just to be happy. At the time, I didn’t think it worked, but shortly after that we moved here. And then I got Brandy. And then we got you. I never thought I’d get to be this happy either, but look where we are now.”

Jungkook stared at the rotting porch roof, sagging in places, new 2x4’s bare in places. Patchwork house, patchwork boys. He loved it. “Thanks for making that wish, I guess,” Jungkook said, reaching back and pushing a hand through Taehyung’s hair, “for both of us.”

“How about you, Jimin,” Taehyung said, “I bet you didn’t think this was where your life was going.”

“I could have been a doctor, I guess,” Jimin said, “Stayed in school. Could’ve married someone rich and been a lazy housewife.”

“I’m so sorry we’ve taken that away from you,” Taehyung sighed, “What a sacrifice. A life of leisure and riches and instead you’re stuck in the swamps of Georgia with two idiots. Tragic.”

Jimin giggled. “I like this better. It’s more fun. Gonna get some textbooks published. Business is booming. I’ll just get rich this way and then you two can be the lazy housewives.”

“Jungkook the housewife,” Taehyung snorted. “No housewife ever had thighs that nice.”

“Work is going to pick up around here,” Jimin said. “Do you think you’re ready to quit working for Owen and help us out here.”

“No way,” Jungkook said, “I’m not leaving Owen on his own like that. I’ll try to help out more here though.” He pulled Jimin closer on top of him, legs sliding together.

“Good enough,” Jimin murmured, and pushed his face to the side so he could kiss him. Taehyung’s empathetic link swelled with pure affection.

“Ew,” he wrinkled his nose. “Too much love. I’m gonna go inside and scare the shit out of myself looking up curses in the library. Someone else needs to wash the dishes.”

Taehyung started poking Jimin and laughing. Jungkook got up and went inside where the warm breeze blew through the plants in the windows and filled the house with clean air and the smell of swamp. His boyfriends wrestled on the porch. Bubble chewed on his shoelace. Spellbooks littered the table, and the little windup frog clicked across the floor on its own.

He had to wake Jimin up that night to make him a sleeping potion after reading about curses for three hours and going to bed with his heart pounding, but lying there in the dark with both boys holding his hands and whispering terrible jokes in his ears made it worth it. His beautiful witch boys in their beautiful evil swamp. He could never have hoped for more.

Notes:

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Chapter 6: Too Many Cats Spoil the Broth

Summary:

Jimin and Taehyung experiment with a chaos potion.

Notes:

Thanks to signifying_nothing and saccharinesuga for beta-ing this chapter!

This chapter has been translated into Russian.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"My hair is back to brown."

Taehyung grabbed his notebook. "You're sure that's your natural color? It's not just taking a day off?"

Jimin ran his fingers through his bangs and pouted at the mirror. "Yeah. The potion wore out."

Taehyung jotted those notes down. Jimin's hair had gone from teal to fiery red, then to pink, bright yellow, deep green, maroon, orange, blond, light brown, and then finally to natural again. "I was expecting something more dramatic. Like, what if you went bald?"

"Yeah," Jungkook glared blearily from behind his extra strong morning coffee, "Like what if the material of your heart tissue changed every day? What if different organs started turning to sand?"

Jimin huffed through his nose like his own mother. "You’re so salty. You can help with the next experiment. And there’s nothing in it that would try to kill me."

"It's an experimental chaos potion!" Jungkook said, "You have no idea what it does. Why does it have to exist? Can't you just experiment with a new type of cold cure potion?"

"Oh sure. Instead of just changing hair colors or speaking sentences backwards, we could have my lungs turning to mush or Taehyung barfing mucus continuously for--"

Frustration and fear flashed hot across the empathetic link. Jimin stopped talking. Jungkook yanked the bill of his ugly camo hat further over his eyes and slumped down in his seat.

He'd been quiet since they started work on the potion, avoiding the kitchen and failing to hide his annoyance whenever they talked about it. Jimin and Taehyung had assumed he'd been throwing another quiet tantrum about not being involved, like he sometimes did when they worked on business and left him alone out in the loft for too long. But instead of getting clingy and pouty, he'd gotten distant and quiet, a little angrier, stiffening up every time they hugged him.

The chaos potion simmered on the stove, currently blue with flashes of orange like goldfish in a still pond. It had been a bubbling brown mud last night, inky black and rippling with illusions the day before, green and purple like poisons, bright pink like a love potion, light yellow and almost solid at one point, and invisible for about two hours the previous Wednesday in the early evening. Jungkook had left the house completely then, and Taehyung had found him sitting on a log at the edge of the swamp as the dark rolled in, throwing pine cones at the sluggish, early spring alligators. He wouldn't come back in the house till the potion reappeared as a shimmery, pearlescent orb hovering off the edges of the pot.

Taehyung suddenly understood the problem.

"Jungkook, we’re idiots. I’m sorry," he sighed. Jungkook curled further into his old, ratty coat, the threadbare one and three sizes too big. The fact that he wasn't wearing his wishing-deer one should have been a clear tip-off to what was wrong.

Taehyung felt an itch down the link, a little brush of shame and embarrassment, and under that, a nervous thrill of fear, like he was a mouse in the same room as a snake. He'd been feeling that way for a while.

"What am I missing?" Jimin muttered.

"He's scared of it," Taehyung said, pointing at the potion.

Jungkook shrugged in a way that was supposed to come off as dismissive, but even without the empathetic link, it just read as ashamed and hurt. Taehyung and Jimin both started forward at once. Jimin bumped into the stove with a yelp and Taehyung tripped over Jimin's feet and fell onto the bench with a loud bang. By the time he got back up, Jimin was already climbing into Jungkook's lap, knocking his dumb hat off his head. Jungkook stretched protectively towards Taehyung.

"I'm fine," Taehyung said, and jammed himself in along Jungkook's side.

"You have to tell us when we scare you," Jimin said. He rubbed his thumbs over Jungkook's cheeks, rings leaving little indents in his soft skin.

"It's stupid. Don't wanna... get in the way," he muttered, but went pliant as Jimin kissed him.

"It's just a little experiment," Jimin said, "We can get rid of it if you want."

Taehyung scowled, but bit back his protests and bit Jungkook’s earlobe.

Jungkook hummed. "Thank you. Kill it."

"Okay," Jimin said, and kissed him softly. Jungkook's arm curled apologetically around their waists.

Bubble scrambled up Jungkook's leg and into their laps. "You little attention whore," Jimin said fondly, bundling her up in one arm. Taehyung kept playing with the studs in Jungkook’s ears, gifts from Jimin with little runes carved into them, small controlled spells that Jungkook didn't mind carrying on him. Jungkook went soft and lazy like he did when he felt pampered and safe. They still had two hours before he had to leave for work, and it might end up the kind of morning where Jungkook gave softly under them both, content with giving up control in a way he rarely was.

"Hey, don't lick that," Jimin said to Bubble. Magic zapped through the room. Bubble climbed smoothly onto the table, walked to the opposite side, and sat with her back to them, licking her paws dismissively.

"Huh? Bubble? What's the problem?" Jimin said.

"Come back here," Jungkook said, trying to tug Taehyung's face towards his.

"Wait, babe," Taehyung said, staring at the oddly familiar, yet totally bizarre cold flick of Bubble's tail.

Brandy leapt up on their laps, purring wildly. "Augghh!" She yelled. They all yelped in return. She bumped sweetly against Jimin's stomach, and then flopped onto her back, demanding belly rubs.

"What the hell?" Jimin said.

"Hun, what's up?" Taehyung said nervously, petting her lean, golden belly and expecting her to turn and strike at any second.

"I...uh," Jimin stared back towards the stove, "I may have spilled some of the chaos potion when I ran into the stove."

"What?" Jungkook said flatly, fear bubbling harshly into the empathetic link. Taehyung didn't know how he'd ever missed it, the terrified repulsion Jungkook had towards the little potion.

"Oh my god," Jimin said, staring down at Brandy's long, golden body, wriggling in their laps like the kitten she'd never been, "They've switched personalities. Bubble!"

"She's never gonna forgive me," Taehyung said, staring at Brandy.

Jungkook reeled in alarm.

"Oh, honey," Jimin breathed apologetically.

Fifteen minutes later, Taehyung sat on the floor and took notes on Brandy and Bubble's behavior. Brandy kept trying to climb over his notebook and into his lap. "This is really interesting. It's a big effect for such a small dose, which means the potion gets more potent the longer it stews. Are you two listening?"

Jimin had Jungkook's shirt shucked up under his armpits and his back pinned to the bench as he sucked on his nipple.

"Yeah, totally listening," Jungkook gasped. Jimin giggled against his chest.

"This gives us a chance to do another cool experiment," Taehyung said, petting Brandy to get her to stop yelling in his mother's voice, which was alarming. She sounded like Tae’s mom nagging for pets instead of for him to clean his room and burn his spell books. "I think we can reverse the effect directly instead of making an antidote. Instead of a chaos reversal, I'm just going to do a reversal for a personality transferral potion. If it works, that's some great data. And it'll only take about three hours."

"That's great," Jungkook gasped. "Th-then you can get r-rid of the potion right-oh!...right after that."

"If it doesn't work, I'll have to construct a reversal based on the chaos potion, and that will take a lot longer. I don't think I can directly reverse chaos. The best we could hope for is to speed up their natural recovery, which might take months on its own if the slow recovery speed for Jimin's light dosage is any indication."

"Fuck, don't stop," Jungkook whispered. Jimin hummed agreeably, voice growly with his mouth full.

"Take it upstairs, assholes," Taehyung said, "I can't concentrate with you around."

"Come join," Jimin said, "Do that later."

"Nope," Taehyung said as Brandy shot eight feet off the ground to snatch a moth out of the air and crash-landed in a box of dried herbs. "I think I'd better do this as soon as possible. I'll get you both back later."

Jimin murmured "If you're sure..." and pulled Jungkook up by the open edges of his crappy coat.

In the quiet after they stumbled up the stairs, Bubble extended a stubby back paw and shoved a cheap glass from Target off the edge of the table. "Oh, come on," Taehyung groaned. "Brandy never does shit like that."

The antidote looked particularly tough, especially since he didn't have an exact recipe, just the recipe for a personality transferal potion, which he had to do, not backwards, but mirrored, replacing ingredients and countering effects the original would have enhanced. Brandy fell out of the tallest cabinet in the kitchen, pulling a string of psychedelic peppers with her.

Jimin and Jungkook must have picked Jungkook's room right over the kitchen, close enough for him to feel everything. He nearly spilled powdered duck bill all over the counter when Jimin sat back on Jungkook's face upstairs and pleasure swamped through Taehyung's brain. As he lowered a tea infuser full of shredded salamander into the pot, Jungkook finally pushed in, and Taehyung's vision swam. He nearly dropped the infuser. At the next available moment, he whacked on the ceiling with a broom handle. "Chill! Switch rooms or something!" Muffled giggling.

He nearly overdosed the pearl extract when Jungkook came. His dick strained hard at the front of his pants. He made sure the potion was steady, checked that he had a few extra minutes, and stomped upstairs.

They’d left the doors wide open. Jimin grinded lazily on Jungkook's lap, humming as he whimpered with overstimulation. Jimin batted his eyelashes angelically at Taehyung as he banged the door against the wall on his way in, twinkling with jewels on his perch. Taehyung yanked his pants down a few inches and pulled Jimin off Jungkook's dick, throwing him down onto his stomach and shoving right in. Jimin's back rolled up against him as he keened. Jungkook scrambled against the covers, panting right along with them, and twitched from the sudden wash of pleasure. Jimin reached out and gripped his arm, thumb digging into the bond mark, the little magic circle that bound him to them, and Taehyung moaned.

"Don't have much time," he growled and snapped a little ball of magic to the tip of his dick. Aching pleasure exploded into them. Jimin wailed and tightened up, coming in a burst onto the sheets. Jungkook's back arched right up off the bed, and Taehyung grit his teeth and chased it till he followed them both over.

"Clean me up," he grunted as he pulled out.

Jimin flicked a lazy hand over his dick, grinning wickedly. "Don't let the antidote spoil, babe."

"You both suck," Taehyung snapped and stomped back downstairs to keep working while they showered.

"I'll be back by dinnertime," Jungkook murmured into his hair a while later. Jimin sat at the table in just a silk robe. "I'll make dinner tonight if you’re okay with waiting till then," Jungkook said. He'd put his deerskin coat back on, and smelled like leather and magic. Taehyung tipped his head back against his shoulder and breathed deep.

"You sure, baby? It's my turn."

"I'm sorry about...you know. Making you destroy it." They looked down at the innocuous little pot, bubbling and steaming like boiling water even though Taehyung had taken it off the heat more than an hour ago. Taehyung sighed sadly. He'd grown pretty fond of the strange and unpredictable little potion.

"I'll get over it. It's probably dangerous to have around, especially if it's getting stronger."

After he left, Jimin threw open all the windows in the house to let in the warm February air, and ran to stop Bubble from marching off into the woods yet again. Taehyung grinned out the window as he watched him come back, clutching Bubble, who sagged like a put-upon teenager in one arm, while also struggling to hold his light blue robe together. "You can't do that," he said when she was safely inside, "You're not powerful enough. I know you feel like Brandy right now, but you're not Brandy."

Bubble glared. She wobbled away with her head high and sat in the corner with her back to the room.

Brandy's head popped over the table, ears flickering. Her eyes following a little fly across the surface. A mini lightning bolt zapped it, and a small flame licked out of the table where the fly had been. Ice crackled across the wood, snuffing out the flame, and Brandy scampered off again.

“I didn’t know she could do that,” Taehyung said softly.

Jimin reached slowly over and plucked the fly's frozen ashes off the table. "Please finish that potion. And hurry."

Bubble sat dramatically in the kitchen window, staring out over the yard. A June beetle flew right past her nose and she didn't give it a glance, even though she'd been obsessively removing June beetles from the house for months now. Brandy dragged a dead imp through the front door, twice her size, bloody and particularly nasty looking. "Please hurry up," Taehyung begged the potion as Jimin rushed to remove it.

The final product must have been disgusting, but Brandy drank it obediently after a little coaxing. They had to roll Bubble up in a towel before they could get her still enough to force the spoonful down her yowling throat. As Taehyung poured it into her mouth, his consciousness started shutting down, eyes fighting closed and fatigue pulling at his arms. Jimin groaned sleepily and nearly let go of her little face. "Fuck, you're such a brat as Brandy," Taehyung slurred, and rubbed her neck to make her swallow. The sleepiness eased off.

"Didn't know she could do that," Jimin said. "I always just though I slept better when she was with me. Have you been putting me to sleep?" he asked. Bubble was too busy shaking her head and pawing at her nose to respond.

The cats slowly stilled, assumed horrified expressions, and stared blankly at each other. Brandy left the house and slunk into the woods without a glance at them. Bubble hid under the table in embarrassment.

Jimin stretched out on his chair, one thick thigh bared to the air, body hardly covered by his embroidered robe. It draped off one shoulder and left the top of his chest in full view. Taehyung gazed easily.

"I can't believe it took Jungkook getting here to get me to fall for you," he murmured.

Jimin blushed and pulled himself coyly together. The robe slipped further off his shoulders and higher up his leg. Taehyung smiled and went back to cleaning up his workspace. He saw the glitter of Jimin's jewelry throwing sunspots on the walls before he felt him snuggle warm against his back.

"Look at this," Taehyung said. The chaos potion had finally cooled completely down to a clear, still liquid. It looked like water but not, like comparing glass and diamonds, both the same, but one somehow just a little more more rich and colorful.

"Do you think that's its final state?" Jimin asked.

Taehyung chuckled softly. "That's weirdly appropriate. The final state looks like water. I wonder if that means the final state of chaos looks like reality. Namjoon would love this. Here's the breakthrough I've been looking for." He sniffed it. It smelled like nothing, but his mind bloomed like he was falling asleep, thoughts spiraling off into nonsense. "Dude," he murmured.

"Tae?" Jimin's voice sounded disembodied and far away.

"I think we could get high off this."

Jimin pulled him back gently, tugging at his hair. His head cleared softly as he blinked and breathed the swampy air, trees swimming in and out of focus in the distance. "He told us to get rid of it," Jimin said.

Taehyung shook his head. "I'm gonna send it to Namjoon. This is amazing. This is major magical theory. We could spend years exploring this."

"As long as you get it out of the house," Jimin said.

Taehyung poured the cats' antidote into the glass Bubble had smashed earlier, reassembled and perfect on the counter, and then spooned a little bit of the chaos potion into it. It moved like mercury, clinging in thick droplets. The antidote rippled gently and then the entire thing turned to clear chaos with its diamond glitter. "Amazing," he whispered.

Jimin pulled a mason jar off the shelf and hovered the whole potion into it while Taehyung flicked a finger at the glass on the counter. "It's changing colors a little," he said, "or not. I can't tell. I can see it moving though, like it’s stirring itself. What if it transforms or absorbs any potion it touches? Or any liquid? What would happen if we poured it in a river?"

"We could have just created something very dangerous," Jimin said, putting a sealing tag on the lid.

"I'm gonna leave this here for twenty-four hours and see what happens," Taehyung said, and pushed the antidote mix in its waterglass back beside the microwave. "Could be a major breakthrough."

Jimin put a "Don't Touch" sign on the glass too, and pulled Taehyung into the living room. "Okay, Mr. Mad Scientist." He lay back on the arm of the couch and pulled Taehyung to rest between his bared legs. “Don’t get too wrapped up. If Jungkook comes home and it’s not gone, that might end badly.”

"Can you believe it’s been almost a year since we got him?" Taehyung murmured. He didn’t call Jimin on the quick, gleeful, possessive pulse out of his head. Sometimes he felt it too, the little, delicious thrill of ownership. "How did we survive before that?" He turned around a little in Jimin's arms to lay his head on his chest. Jimin smiled.

His robe wasn't really on his body anymore, bunched in the crooks of his elbows and hanging half-heartedly onto his middle where he'd tied it across. Taehyung snuggled into his pretty skin. "You've already gotten both our dicks in you this morning. Not enough?"

Jimin laughed. "I just love having your eyes on me."

"So needy," Taehyung said, and sat up to look at him, to reach between his legs and test how loose he was. Jimin tensed with every touch, hands limp by his head, and Taehyung worked him up just like that, watching as he came apart slowly for him, sweat shining on his tight little body and face twisted with pleasure.

Jimin slowly lost the robe for the next five hours as they cleaned the kitchen and packed boxes for shipping, sometimes he pulled it together, just to let it drift slowly off again, teasing Taehyung with his bare skin. Jungkook just smirked at them when he walked in and found them wound around each other on the couch. "Working hard or hardly working?"

“Working—so hard,” Taehyung grunted, rutting slowly up against Jimin’s thigh, oversensitive but too turned on to quit.

"Did you get rid of the potion?" Jungkook asked, stalling at the door to the kitchen.

"Not exactly. It started acting really cool." Jungkook flinched a little like 'acting cool,' was the most threatening thing the potion could possibly do. "We sealed it and sent it to Namjoon."

Jungkook nodded slowly. "Okay. That's a good compromise."

"You're okay with that?" Taehyung asked. Jungkook peered into the kitchen where Taehyung had washed all the equipment they'd been using for days and left it in the drying rack. He took a deep breath, and Taehyung felt the tension drain slowly out of his body, relief strong over the link. Taehyung's throat locked up a little as he felt just how much the potion had been affecting him. He'd probably felt like he was walking in a minefield every time he entered the kitchen all week. No wonder he'd been spending so much time in the loft.

"Sorry," Jungkook said softly. "And thank you. I'm gonna start dinner."

"Yay! Thanks, boo!" Jimin called, picking his head up out of mutilating Taehyung’s neck with hickeys.

Jungkook snorted. Jimin wiggled happily. "I'm gonna go put pants on," he said. "It's getting chillier."

"You’re gonna make me jack off alone on the living room couch?" Taehyung grumbled. Knowing Jimin, he was as likely to come back down in a full face of makeup and lingerie as not.

“You two fuck like rabbits,” Jungkook said from the kitchen.

“So do you,” Taehyung giggled.

“It’s Jimin,” Jungkook said, “All Jimin’s fault.” He banged around and sang to himself. Jimin's light presence flitted around upstairs. Bubble, mostly recovered, tracked a June beetle across the floor.

Taehyung stuck a hand down his pants and groaned softly, calling a memory of Jimin back to mind, Jimin lying back on the couch, his hands tied together with the strip of blue silk from his robe. Maybe after dinner he could lure Jungkook out to the loft with a bottle of muscadine wine and make a night of it. Maybe Jimin could come out and watch, tell them what to do, jerk his pretty little dick to—

Panic flooded his head. He sat straight up. Something smashed upstairs. "Jimin?" he called.

The panic turned to terror, flooding heavily over the link and pounding against the inside of his skull. Something smashed in the kitchen, followed by a terrified choking cry. A crackle of powerful magic snapped through the house. Taehyung jumped over the back of the couch and stumbled to the kitchen door. There, in a pile of clothes and broken glass, was a little black cat, puffed up and arched in terror, stumbling slowly backwards under the table.

"Jungkook?" Taehyung gasped. The cat let out a yowl, and then didn't stop, getting louder and frantic.

The floor bubbled around the smashed glass sprouting daisies, spitting a swarm of mice, turning to chocolate, morphing into wooden faces. The "Don't Touch" sign, soggy beyond legibility from the glasses condensation, lay amongst the flowers. He must have figured it was water.

"Jungkook," Taehyung said, wanting to laugh, but too overwhelmed by panic to do anything but grip the doorframe and gasp, "Jungkook, you drank the chaos potion I put in the cats' antidote."

The terror boiled up to overwhelming, a frantic alarm that grew and grew and grew until Taehyung sobbed and clutched his chest, heart beating wildly against his ribs.

Then fury slammed over the empathetic link. Taehyung collapsed onto the floor, fighting his panic response, a building, uncontrollable surge of his own magic. It felt like a black hole under the kitchen table, like his own mother crouching on the kitchen floor, clutching her bleeding shoulder and screaming at him to get out. His vision blurred.

Then the yowling trailed off into a mournful, growling wail, a little more inhuman than a baby's. Taehyung groaned in shock and sat up. He could just make out the cat's wild yellow eyes in the back corner under the table where piles of unshipped boxes made a dark, sheltering wall. Taehyung crawled towards him, head still fuzzy with panic. He reached under the table. "Jungkook, please calm down. We can fix this. You'll be f--"

Jungkook gashed him, raked his little claws heavily over the side of his wrist. Taehyung gasped and snatched his hand back. Blood swelled to the surface of four parallel scratches, and then spilled over and ran down his hand. A burning sting followed, unbearably sharp. He whimpered and clutched his wrist, gasping. Harsh satisfaction came up from under the table and Taehyung's whole chest hurt, tears welling up in his eyes.

Jimin finally stumbled into the kitchen, still in his robe with a pair of skin-tight leather pants. He cleared the broken glass off the floor almost on instinct, but the magic stuck, daisies curling out of the floor, mice skittering off into the corners.

"Tae! What happened! It felt-- the fucking demon of suffering. What happened?"

"He scratched me," Taehyung whimpered, holding his arm out for Jimin to see.

"Who?" Jimin asked, flopping onto his knees and rubbing a healing thumb over the marks.

"Jungkook," Taehyung said, pointing. "He drank the cats' antidote that I left out."

"Why?" Jimin squeaked, addressing the cat now. They got no response, not even a blip in the desperate panic rolling between their heads. Jungkook's ears lay flat, teeth gleaming white against his black fur as he snarled, earrings dragging his ears sadly down.

"The ink blurred on the sign," Taehyung said, holding it up.

"Fuck, I'm an idiot," Jimin groaned. Jungkook's fear shook through the link.

Taehyung hadn't felt anything like it since their earliest days with him, the night when a troll walked right past the window and Jungkook had fainted in terror. The one evening he'd caught magical food poisoning from a poorly cleaned cauldron, and they'd had to hold him by the chain and force him to drink the antidote through a panic attack, trembling on the bathroom floor with blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

Jungkook the cat responded only by throwing up on the floor, panic reaching blistering levels. After all his careful tiptoeing and building fear, after all his fighting to be more powerful, to match up to the people that chained him in, after all the rules and care he'd laid down to make himself comfortable and safe in his own home, there he was, small and helpless, crouched under the dining room table in a body that wasn't his. Everything he'd ever feared from magic coming carelessly true. Taehyung felt his own magic fighting its way out again, a defensive wall of shame.

"Jimin," he whispered, swallowing it back, "Help. Hurry."

Jimin grabbed a bottle of the shelf and forced it into Taehyung's mouth. The potion’s unnatural calm shut down the swelling boil of magic, leaving only the ringing of Jungkook's frantic terror. As Taehyung's head cleared and sent ripples of calm down the link, Jungkook flinched in alarm like he wasn't used to it again, like he'd forgotten he had other people in his head.

"I'm gonna make an antidote," Taehyung said, and stumbled to his feet.

Brandy trotted into the kitchen and made a beeline for Jungkook. "Mm," she said, in such a perfect impression of Taehyung's mother that he shivered. Jungkook's terror spiked again. It was a blank, unspecific terror, not so much of Brandy, but just a wild feeling of helplessness, his last defenses stripped from him.

"He's in shock," Jimin said, and took a sip of the calming potion. Jungkook hissed again as Jimin's head cleared. "Jungkook, please calm down. We'll fix this. I promise. We'll be okay. I'm so sorry. Please take a deep breath. We can fix this."

An hour later, Taehyung stood over a bubbling potion with a sinking feeling in his chest. "We can't fix this," he whispered. Jungkook's wailing was getting a little scratchy as he lost his voice, but also fewer and further between. The panic faded and left overwhelming misery and desperation, physical horror at the state of his own body, and a terrified repulsion towards the entire house.

"Huh?" Jimin said. He sat on the floor with Bubble in his arms, staring at Jungkook's little form under the table and occasionally making unhappy whimpers at the waves of fear whenever Taehyung used too much magic in the potion and it fizzled with power.

"He drank an antidote. You can't reverse an antidote. We can't fix this without re-working the chaos potion itself, which means we're just speeding up the recovery rather than fixing the problem. It's going to take days to make and weeks to really work."

"You sure that won't work?" Jimin said, nodding at the stove.

"We can try it. I don't think it'll do anything."

They lowered the potion to the floor in a little bowl. Taehyung sat down a few feet away, cradling his hand where he could still feel the ghost of the scratches. Jungkook stayed silently back, guarded, angry, and scared.

"Antidote, Jungkook," Taehyung said, "Maybe. Please try it."

It took another few moments, but Jungkook crawled awkwardly out from under the table, wobbling on his paws, and approached the bowl like it was a blazing fire. Jimin shifted a little and Jungkook ducked back under the table, growling. Jimin held very still and Jungkook approached again. He poked his nose at the bowl, confusion and embarrassment rising with his nerves, the feeling of preparing to jump off a cliff.

Brandy stepped up and crouched carefully a few feet away. She imitated licking water out of a bowl, showing him slowly, tongue flicking out and curling at the end. Jungkook watched cautiously, then steeled himself and carefully repeated after her. After a while, he paused and waited. When nothing happened, he took a few more sips.

"I'm sorry," Taehyung said. "I'll have to make a better one. That one won't work. It might—" he gulped, "It might take a few days to make."

Jungkook's link swooped with despair. He licked some more potion out of the bowl.

"And it might take a few weeks for you to be back to normal."

Jungkook frantically licked the potion, shocked and desperate.

"You shouldn't do that. It might make you sick if you drink too much."

Jungkook kept drinking.

"Kookie, stop," Jimin said, and Jungkook stopped because it was an order, and he couldn't refuse even their laziest, most accidental, careless orders. He sat back with a hollow despondence, and looked up at them blankly.

"I’m sorry," Jimin gasped, "Jungkook, please."

The calming potion wore off slowly, and Taehyung could feel the guilt and despair clawing at his stomach. He hoped, dimly, that Jungkook would be over it when the shock wore off, that he'd wake up the next morning and Jungkook would be back in his normal body, weakly laughing it off. Maybe he'd lay down some new rules about being careful with potions. Then they'd go upstairs and cuddle till they missed lunch.

Jungkook slunk awkwardly back under the table and curled up in the corner, shivering in shock, staring at the floor with his tail wrapped tight to his body. They sat there long after dark, until they both fell asleep on the kitchen floor, and Jungkook watched them with wide, yellow eyes, ears flat, shaking.

 

Sometime well after midnight, Jungkook crawled slowly from under the table. He snuck past Taehyung and Jimin where they'd finally fallen asleep leaning against the kitchen cabinets, and snuck tentatively into the living room. The moonlight glowed over the hard, grassy earth around their house, and magic poured from the swamp. He felt it trembling in his whiskers.

A spinning, purple wheel with a glowing face popped up in the middle of the yard, horrifyingly familiar. Jungkook leapt off the windowsill and thundered into the darkest corner of the living room, in the back corner under a cabinet amidst the dead cockroaches and dust bunnies. He curled up and shivered, trying not to whine, terror rocking his little body.

Taehyung stumbled into the room, shaking the floorboards. Magic poured from him too, a wild, barely contained aura of power like black tendrils. He hissed weakly. "It's okay," Taehyung said, carefully dropped to the floor across from the cabinet, eyes heavy and sleepy. "It can't get through the barriers. You're safe here. I promise you're safe."

Jungkook felt like a mouse in a maze of traps. He felt like there was fire everywhere and he was made of paper. This monster in front of him felt achingly hurt. Jungkook crumpled further into the wall and hoped it didn't get angry enough to hurt him.

"I love you, Kookie. I'm not going to hurt you," Taehyung whined. The monster was inside his head. He'd invaded his head. Nothing was safe. "It's me," Taehyung whispered. "You loved me this morning. Please calm down. We're going to fix this."

Jungkook remembered loving him. "Stupid," he thought. Hurt flooded into his head again. He cringed.

"I'm sorry," Taehyung whispered, pulling himself away from the cabinet. Jungkook trembled.

The clock ticked away over the fireplace. Wind whistled in the roof every little while, just a gentle breeze. Jungkook had never been able to hear it before, but his ears picked up everything, the June beetles scratching across the porch, water dripping through a pipe in the downstairs bathroom, Jimin snoring very faintly in the kitchen, and an ever-present, low, vibrating hum of power all around him.

It got to be too much. He darted out from under the cabinet and ran around the edge of the huge room, searching for a way out.

From the back of the couch, the small, brown monster watched him. "Brandy," he thought, but it didn't mean much. Her form boiled with raw, terrifying magic, more intense than anything else in the house. He hid under a planter full of softly hissing toothed lilies, squishing himself as low to the floor as possible. An owl hooted outside, a normal, reassuring hoot, until it trailed off into a high whistle. He lay down and choked on his pathetic, high meows. He couldn’t make a noise. They'd find him.

When the dawn broke through the kitchen windows, he still hadn't slept, exhausted and still on the floor. He began to think again. This was his living room. That man on the couch was Taehyung. He and Jimin were his...captors? Boyfriends. That wasn't right. Jungkook hollowly tried to call the happiness of loving him back into his head. He felt it like a memory of pain, hard to put clear picture on.

"Jungkook?" Jimin said, leaning against the kitchen door. He looked ethereal in the golden morning light, robe hanging off his shoulders, hair haloing in the sun around his head, but he was armed to the teeth, covered from head to toe in glittering weapons and magic. Jungkook’s tiny, tired heart picked up speed again, and he flinched back against the wall, waiting for magic to slice through the air, for the golden chain to tighten around his neck. Jimin sank to the ground and cried.

 

"He's sick," Owen reiterated, eyebrows raised up at Jimin, who stood uncomfortably in the middle of the muddy road up to his cabin, hands on the edges of his leather coat in case he needed to yank it to safety if any mud splashed up. His boots would already need a cleaning.

"Yes, very sick."

"Can't even use his phone."

"Yeah."

"And that's why he's missed work for half a week without telling me."

Jimin nodded.

"Awfully convenient," Owen muttered.

"No, not really," Jimin said, "It's been really fucking hard on all of us, especially him."

Owen stared him down for a minute.

"You just don't care?" Jimin snapped.

"I care," Owen grumbled. "Can I come see him?"

"Oh." Jimin tightened his arms around his sides and settled his most imperious glare on him. Bubble poked her head out of the travel seat she'd made in the hood of his coat. Owen glanced at her without surprise. "You just don't believe me."

"No, I don't."

Jimin understood a little of Taehyung's never-ending frustration with non-magic people. Jungkook put so much time and effort into this job, never calling days off, never complaining or demanding. If Owen still thought he was trying to sneak a long vacation, well that was despicable. He pursed his lips and sighed through his nose. "He'll probably be better within a month, and I'll have him contact you as soon as he can," Jimin said, and turned to leave, picking carefully across the ground in his alligator-skin boots.

"Hold on just a minute," Owen said, standing on his creaky knees and hobbling after him, beer bottle dangling from his grip. "You ain't done nothin'...unnatural to him, have ya? Nothin'...devilish. Curses and stuff, I don't know, takin' yer pay for all you've given him."

Jimin and Bubble shared a glance. Owen shifted nervously, mud squishing under his boots. Taehyung and Jimin always joked about how dumb, blind Owen wouldn't acknowledge magic if the dragon himself paid him a visit. Jungkook would shake his head and say "I think he knows. He lectures me about demons sometimes, though he might be telling me not to be gay. Can't figure it out."

Maybe Owen was more like Jungkook than any of them realized, terrified of the reality, but willing to put up with it to hold onto the people he cared about. Jungkook, in his case. "So you have noticed," Jimin said.

Owen bristled, clutching his beer tighter. "If I don't hear from him in a month, I'll...bring a party of guys out to check on him myself. Maybe a priest."

Jimin huffed. "I'm sorry, Owen, but if we actually did want to hurt him, there's nothing you'd be able to do about it. It means a lot though, so thank you. I'll tell him you're concerned."

Owen's mouth popped open.

"We didn't do anything unnatural to him," Jimin said, "He kind of did it to himself. Still our fault though. Whatever. We're fixing it. It's just going to take a while."

Owen sputtered and Jimin picked his way back over to him across the mud. Owen stumbled backwards, bottle clutched tightly like he could use it as a weapon. Jimin paused. A lot of things came more sharply into focus: Jungkook's fear, the helpless resentment Taehyung felt for all the non-magic people that had ever pushed him away. Owen desperately wanted a little power in this situation, to protect himself and to protect Jungkook, but he was pathetically outmatched. Jimin felt abruptly, disgustingly powerful.

Tears never seemed to leave his eyes these days. They slipped free and rolled down his face, and he just sighed and wiped them away. Bubble climbed further onto his shoulder and bumped them off his jaw with her folded ears. "Sorry," Jimin said. Owen just eyed him suspiciously. "Jungkook says your knees give you trouble," Jimin said, "I could fix that. For free even, as a thank you for everything you do for him."

"Nah, I'm good," Owen said.

Jimin shook his head. "You people are so stubborn. Let me know if you change your mind."

Maybe it was a little much, but Jimin couldn't resist showing off a little. He called his broom across the ground and swung a leg over. Owen's beer bottle hit the mud and stood straight up in the soft ground with a splat. Jimin gave him a little wave and pushed off the ground. When he looked down, Owen was giving him a startled little wave in return, eyes bugging out of his head.

 

Taehyung and Jimin started sleeping upstairs again. Jungkook peeked out from below the cabinet into the giant room full of monstrous furniture and terrifying plants. He could see perfectly in the dark, the living room dim black and white like a horror game. He crept gently around the edge.

Something moved by the stairs. He froze. Blue eyes glimmered out of the dark. “Prrp?"

Bubble's voice. Jungkook took a few small steps away, and Bubble didn't move. His own tail batted against a flower pot and he jumped away, heart thundering. Bubble started pattering towards him. Her little pop of magic spread from her paws like she was shocking the floor, and he panicked. He shot across the floor, and curled up in the back corner under the couch, staring out at her monstrous approaching figure.

"Calm down," she said, meow pitched above human hearing. He jolted.

"You're not thinking straight," she said curling up half on top of him like a big dog trying to be the size of a puppy. "Your head is all loopy. Take a few deep breaths. You'll wear your heart out before they can cure you."

Jungkook tried to relax, but it was hard with the bright power sparking off her fur.

She started licking all over his face. He held still and trembled. She purred comfortingly as she nosed under his arm and licked his dirty fur down into place. As the purrs relaxed him, he got a moment of clarity. There he was, lying in the top bookshelf with Bubble, Jimin’s familiar, licking his armpit. He groaned and dropped his head back against the cabinet wall.

"There you go," she purred. "I'll take care of you, Jukkie."

 

"Sweetheart?" Taehyung peered under the cabinet, and anxiety rose steadily over the link. "The potion is ready," he said. He put the dish on the floor and went to sit tiredly on the couch. Jungkook came out and found Taehyung waiting there with some mashed-up, rare beef.

"You have to eat more," he said, setting it down. "It's been three days."

Jungkook padded tentatively forward and ate the food first, carefully. The potion sat beside him. He glanced at it furtively as he ate as if it might jump out and bite him.

"It'll probably hurt while you change back," Taehyung said, brushing his unkempt hair out of his eyes. "Like, bad growing pains. You should drink a lot of water and eat as much food as you can, especially protein. Sleep a lot. I can't promise this won't feel awful."

Jungkook approached the potion slowly and drank it until anxious terror throbbed heavily over the link and he flinched back, crouching awkwardly like he felt sick. Taehyung shifted up on his knees. Jungkook skittered away from the bowl, tail puffed up. Taehyung, eyes wide, lay slowly down on the floor. "Sorry," he muttered. "Just shifting. I'm sorry."

Jungkook moved back slowly and drank the rest of the potion. "I miss you," Taehyung said as he finished, eyes big in his boyish face, long limbs, thin chest. He wished Jungkook was normal sized so he could feel him cover his entire body with his own. He’d kiss his hair and press him into the floor, make himself big and loving so Taehyung could feel happy and safe. Taehyung reached for him, and he crawled back under the cabinet to hide.

Though none of Jungkook's features remained in his face, Taehyung recognized that empty stare. It was the unhappy, suspicious, downtrodden look Jungkook had worn before they'd even bonded to him, the lonely face of a boy with no hope or trust.

Only Taehyung could feel it now, the distant ringing down the empathetic link of a betrayed and angry kind of sadness, a passive, genuine hatred for everything that hurt him. Jimin and Taehyung were lumped in there with the rest of their house, with the forest and potions and cats, undistinguished from everything else in Jungkook's life.

A whole year of trust, of late nights and cuddles, of demons, fights, curses, talks, struggles, happiness, tears, love—disappeared into his fear, his betrayed trust. Taehyung’s magic was too terrible, too disgusting. He curled into the floor as the old, familiar self-loathing came back, as yet another person who loved him caved to terror and pushed him away.

 

"What are we gonna do?" Jimin said, barely louder than a whisper.

Taehyung jumped. He'd been watching an ogre stomp past outside, sitting in the chair by the window with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. "About what?"

"He's gonna leave us. What are we gonna do?"

Taehyung put his head back on his arms. "Let him leave."

Jimin rolled over and sat up. "I can't let him go that easily, Taehyung. I can't do it."

"You can't keep him here," Taehyung said, "That'll only make it worse."

"He'll get over it," Jimin said. "I don't believe that he doesn't love us at all anymore."

"I do. Look at how fast my mom ditched me when she'd had enough."

"We see your mom almost every year though," Jimin said, crawling forward. "That's what I'm saying. She wants you to come home more. You're the one keeping that distance."

Taehyung pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. "I keep that distance because if I got closer, it'd only be a matter of time before she freaked out and pushed me away, and I can't handle that again. I don't want that with Jungkook either."

Jimin groaned and flopped onto his back. "I can't do it, Tae. I can't let him go. And stop stewing in self-loathing. I can feel it, you know. It sucks, and it's not true."

Taehyung stared back out the window. The heady undercurrent of fear had vanished for night when Jungkook finally fell asleep, but he'd been feeling it like a painful, un-scratchable itch for the past two hours.

"Why do I hurt everything I love?" he asked.

Jimin stared at the ceiling. "I'm still here," he said. “You never hurt me.”

"Are we gonna last if Jungkook leaves?" Taehyung said. "Don't act like you wouldn't have left me and gone back up north if we hadn’t found Jungkook. I could tell."

Jimin rolled over and stared at him. "I didn't want to leave you, Tae, I wanted to leave this fucking swamp."

"The swamp I brought you to."

"I wouldn't leave you."

"I don't believe that."

Jimin rolled back over onto his back. "You're an idiot, Tae. Don't be so dramatic. It's bad enough that Jungkook's gone off the deep end. He doesn't even see us as people anymore."

"Fair. We have a habit of not treating him like a person. It was only a matter of time."

"Stop feeling so sorry for yourself."

Taehyung sat back a little and pouted at him. "You're such a big baby," Jimin said. "We have to at least try to fix this. I'm not giving up."

"If he wants to go," Taehyung murmured, "You have to let him go."

Jimin sighed and rolled over, stretching comfortably out across the empty bed, but the empathetic link ached, and Taehyung sighed and let Jimin’s sadness wash over him. It felt better than fear.

 

Jungkook woke up feeling like his thin, furry arms were trapped in a vice and a new vertebra was trying to pop into his spine. Ah. Growing pains. Bubble lay curled against his front like a bizarrely giant teddy bear.

"Ow," he meowed at her. "Owww."

She blinked awake and hummed agreeably at him, rubbing her huge, fuzzy head against his chest. Some of the constant stress and fear faded.

"How do you feel?" she asked in her high-pitched voice.

"Oww," he meowed back.

"Jimin can help," she said, and crawled out from under the cabinet.

"No," he tried to say, but couldn't, "I'll suffer alone, thanks."

She didn't turn around. He crawled out from under the cabinet and tried to stretch, but just fell to the ground and groaned. His long tail curled up around his paws, flicking back and forth. Jimin hurried down the stairs, hair messy and face swollen with sleep. "Jungkook? Bubble says you're not okay, can I--"

The sight of all his glinting jewelry was too much, like a cobra with its hood spread. He limped quickly away and launched himself into the highest bookshelf. Soft, mewed whimpers squeaked out of him.

"Can I help? Please?" Jimin said in a small voice, watching him disappear behind the books. "Please come back. You need help."

The monster could come get him if he wanted. He could order him down or knock him off the shelf. He could break the entire wall and freeze him where he crouched. He wouldn't even need to use magic at that point. He could just squash him with his giant hands, now that Jungkook was really as small and pathetic as they sometimes made him feel.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Jungkook," Jimin said. He stayed there for a few hours, sitting on the couch. Jungkook whimpered softly as his bones creaked and his skin stung. His muscles pulled unbearably under his fur. Jimin would be able to feel it, how Jungkook would rather suffer in pain than let Jimin touch him. Around dawn, he found some mental clarity, like a distant spot of blue sky in the middle of terrifying storm-clouds, and he remembered, dimly, what Jimin was supposed to mean to him. There he sat, his beautiful angel, staring up with desperate hope in his face, but he was horrifying now, beauty and love only a mask over the chain he'd put around Jungkook's neck. "I'm sorry," Jungkook thought as he slipped back into terror and the hope faded from Jimin's face, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please leave me alone. Please don't hurt me."

 

"Do you feel okay?" Taehyung asked. "You don't look any different."

Jungkook mewed pathetically and licked up the last scraps of the food in the bowl, then nosed the plate nervously towards Taehyung. "You want more?" Taehyung asked. Jungkook nodded. He flinched when Taehyung reached down to pick it up, and Taehyung apologized quietly, moving slow.

Jimin banged around in a crate by the front door, a stack of order forms and little boxes of herbs beside him. He’d stopped trying to hide the big bags under his eyes with magic and makeup. "How did we ever do this without you?" he murmured. Jungkook walked stiffly closer, eyes warily on Jimin's glittering fingers. He felt wrong in his body, like several jigsaw puzzles jammed back together, every piece stuck wrong, skin strung tight.

But his head felt clearer, the terror easing off. The living room felt more familiar. Jimin was looking off the wrong order form. Jungkook slid the right one over the floor.

Jimin's eyes widened and he stared at the sheet for a moment. "Oh, fuck," he said, "Thanks, Kookie." He moved slowly to pick it up, watching Jungkook shift back uneasily, and then started unpacking the box. Taehyung brought him another plate of food and set it on the back of the couch for him. Jungkook leapt up and dug in, not even caring that Taehyung's arm still hovered near.

"That's a good sign," Taehyugn said. "Your body is doing something, at least."

"I think he's a little bigger than he was yesterday," Jimin said. “He’s flinching less. That’s good.”

"You kinda...smell bad," Taehyung said.

Jungkook licked his own arm cautiously, and shuddered at the feeling of fur against his rough tongue, spitting weakly. He licked the couch to get it off.

"Brandy?" Taehyung said.

Oh shit. Not this again. Brandy flew out of nowhere, pinned him to the couch and started licking his ears. He fought out from under her and retreated under the furniture for privacy. Brandy followed like a mom. Her deadly power felt a little dimmed since the growth pains, making it easier to let her roll him over and clean him with an air of disapproval and rough tongue. Stop trembling, kitten. You smell terrible."

Jungkook could see the way her muscles bunched under her glossy coat, and tentatively flexed his own arm. "Yes, you're stronger than me," she snapped, then pinned him to the shelf and licked his back.

"Being a cat isn't that bad, you know," she said, Taehyung’s mom’s voice still evident in her pitched up tone.

He meowed weakly.

"Use your words," she said.

He grumbled in his upper range for a moment, above human hearing, but couldn't figure out how to form words, and ended in a frustrated hiss.

"Please don't hurt each other," Taehyung called tiredly.

Brandy lay down in the dust next to him and licked her paw lazily. He turned slowly around and faced the wall, pouting shamelessly. "So this is about choice?" she said. "I chose to be a cat, but you've never had any choices in this relationship."

He nodded over his shoulder. She stared him down for a while. "I'd want out too," she said, "It always surprised me, how much shit you'll put up with. Your life must have sucked before this for enslavement to be the better alternative."

Jungkook almost nodded, but that bothered him. No, it hasn't been that bad. I've been happy, mostly.

"How'd you get so good-hearted, kitten? I've always loved your purity, since the tree first chose you."

Jungkook curled up tighter and turned his nose to the wall.

"Brandy, what are you doing to him?" Taehyung said. She ignored him.

"Don't be so touchy," she scoffed. "I call all four of you my kittens, even Jimin and his walking feather duster."

Jungkook realized she meant Bubble and laughed so suddenly he made a squashed, squeaky noise. Brandy smirked, eyes narrowing slightly with her whiskers pushed out.

"And you are pure," Brandy mused. "You love with your whole self. You'd sacrifice anything without questioning it. You've tied yourself down just as much as they have."

Jungkook felt that like a punch to the throat. He crawled quickly out from under the cabinet and skulked away in search of a different piece of furniture to hide under.

As soon as Jungkook settled under the couch, the pain crawled up his hind leg like a set of claws and lodged like a bar in his hips. It shot bolts up his spine and through his guts. His bones ached from the inside. He curled into the smallest ball he could manage, paws tucked into his chest and back feet curled all the way up by his ears. HIs tail wacked ceaselessly against the bottom of the couch.

"Kookie?" Jimin said, and Jungkook realized he was whimpering again, jaws wide open as he panted, producing and awful, infantile whine, high-pitched and loud. He swallowed it down and pulled back into himself.

One giant hand covered in runes and power reached under the couch. Jungkook scrambled back. The hand withdrew. "It's just me," Jimin sobbed. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

Just Jimin. Just Jimin. He could help. He could force magic into his body, could dull his nerves and his mind. He could control how his own body felt. He shuddered in his corner, skin crawling. Pain slammed up into his chest, filling his ribs and squeezing his lungs. He wailed. Jimin curled up in pain, forehead pressed to the floor. "Please, Jungkook," he groaned, "Please let me help."

Jungkook curled up tighter and grit to his teeth to wait it out.

 

Jimin walked downstairs early the next morning to do the chores, and screamed. Jungkook woke with a start. Jimin sat down on the bottom step of the stairs with his hands over his heart, his smashed coffee cup scattered around him. Taehyung thundered down the steps after him. “What happened?”

Jimin pointed. Their little, fluffy black Jungkook had stretched out unnaturally, small and misshapen like a little cat-human-hyena thing. “He scared me,” Jimin muttered. Jungkook huffed from the couch like he thought that was funny. “Jungkook, just don’t look in any mirrors today,” Jimin said.

He’d lost fur in odd patches, bare skin ringing his arms and legs, stretching over his ribs and along his neck. He turned his back.

"Aren't you cold?" Taehyung asked. Jungkook's ears angled slightly back towards them, betraying watchfulness, but other than that, they got no response.

Jimin walked up and Jungkook gathered his paws under himself, prepared to jump away if he needed to. "Chill, babe. I'm just putting a blanket on you." Anxiety swirled up the empathetic link, and Jimin's hands shook as he carefully draped a blanket over his shoulders and let it drop. Jungkook jolted only slightly, a small, tensely vibrating bundle under the blanket. Jimin swallowed down the lump in his throat.

As he walked away, he felt a little flicker of longing from Jungkook. He used to get that flicker when he watched Taehyung sit on the porch in the evening and carve beautiful figurines out of wood with little flicks of magic. He used to get that when he watched Jimin get undressed at night, wiping his makeup slowly away and taking off his jewelry piece by piece. He looked back. Jungkook was staring out of the window towards the road to the dead tree, longing to leave.

Halfway through breakfast, pain lashed down the link as Jungkook resumed transforming on the living room couch. Jimin and Taehyung sat on the far side of the kitchen, trying to get as much distance as possible. Taehyung sat with his head on the counter, sick with guilt. Jimin struggled to keep his own stomach from turning under his influence.

"I don't think I can eat," Taehyung murmured to cover up the small sounds of cat whimpers from the other room.

Jimin put his knife down on the counter and climbed onto Taehyung's lap. Bubble squirmed out from under the table and starting nosing around the stool, bumping into their feet.

"Stop it," Jimin said to Taehyung, wrapping his arms around his shoulder and pulling him upright in his chair. "Stop beating yourself up." He stroked Taehyung's hollow cheeks. "You realize that you're eating less than the cats these days, right? All three of them. You can't keep doing this to yourself."

Taehyung leaned into one of his hands, hands coming to rest comfortably on his hips. "I feel..." Taehyung started, and trailed off, searching past Jimin’s shoulder.

"I know," Jimin said softly. "I feel everything you feel."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I can handle it. I'm used to your self-loathing. You're wrong, by the way. Your magic is wild, not evil. It's not your fault Jungkook’s scared."

"This always happens though," Taehyung murmured. “People get scared and leave me.”

"It's only happened twice!" Jimin said. "There are always going to be problems when witches have to deal with people who don't have magic. Jungkook and your mom are just both in too deep, and they're too smart to be taken in."

"It's happened more than twice," Taehyung said. "I had two friends in Catholic school. I couldn't control my magic well and they helped me hide it." He lay his head back against the wall, eyes still closed.

"And?" Jimin said.

"And then they decided I was too dangerous. They told the nuns." Jimin felt a distant stir of betrayal in Taehyung's head, an unhealed wound. "Then they had to prove it. Forced me to lose control."

It wouldn't have taken much, just cornering him and yelling abuse would have done it. "And after that?" Jimin whispered carefully. Taehyung's emotions churned, fear, hatred, and shame coming up to the surface. And anger.

"Solitary confinement mostly. Lots of praying. Once they hired people with methods that worked. They didn't get any demons out of me or shut down my magic like they wanted to, but I'd get delirious. I’d lose control. That’s when I started firing random bursts of magic when I got overwhelmed."

"And your mom didn't pull you out?" Jimin said.

"She didn't when she found out, but that was months later. I finished senior year at the high school back home while you were off at magic school having fun. It sucked, but it sucked a lot less." Taehyung smiled a little. "Chill, Babydoll. It’s okay. It's over. I'm happier now."

Jimin made a helpless, sad little noise at Jungkook's favorite pet name. Taehyung urged him in closer and gave him one slow, soft kiss. Jimin pressed in harder, hands tangling in Taehyung's hair. "I love you," he murmured, "Please don’t think any of that was your fault."

Taehyung empathy link buzzed with a heady rush of love. Jimin leaned forward with a moan, lips parting.

An empty, confused hurt edged onto the link. They paused, staring with confusion at each other. "You okay?" Jimin asked.

"S'not me," Taehyung said, and nodded towards the living room. Jimin climbed off his lap and rushed into the living room just in time to catch Jungkook’s tail slinking into the bathroom and shoving the door shut with a paw.

"Kookie, are you okay? Are you hungry? Should we get food?"

"Mrr."

"I'll get some food. We still love you."

Annoyance.

"Fine," Jimin choked. Taehyung had his head back on the counter, scowling heavily out the window. "Tae? Why're you mad?"

Taehyung shrugged and got up to help him serve dinner, spreading grey unhappiness over the kitchen like a tall, tan raincloud.

 

Jungkook stretched out on the couch and stared at the skin revealed between his paws and elbows. It itched, dry and scaly, but definitely human. After every bout of pain, he slept, and during every bout of pain, he felt conscious, removed from reality. For about an hour a day, though, in five to fifteen-minute bits of shocking, uncomfortable clarity, he felt alert. A few hours ago, he'd come around to see Jimin packing boxes by the door, working with unsteady hands as he wiped tears off his face. Jungkook had enough time to register that he felt like he should care, but didn't, before he fell fast asleep and woke up dizzy with hunger.

Bugs scratched under the house, the pipes dripped, and the evening breeze pulled at the creaky front door, so familiar and yet surreally dreamlike, huge and menacing, unwelcoming like it had been when he first got there. He sat up to look for his blanket and froze.

Taehyung stared tiredly at him from the chair on the other side of the rug, head tipped onto his hand. Jungkook felt around for his emotions, but couldn't feel anything, too low level at that distance. He looked like a wax statue, gazing evenly over at Jungkook's couch with his aura of power like black tendrils in the air around him. He gulped.

"Mrrow?"

"What?" Taehyung said.

Jungkook awkwardly patted his tummy with a paw.

"Okay," Taehyung said softly, and stood. Jungkook flinched. Taehyung cringed back. The self-loathing buzzed over the empathetic link, stronger than Jungkook had become used to feeling.

It was kind of justified, really.

"Fuck you," Taehyung said tiredly.

Fuck him. He was the one that did this.

Taehyung burned with guilt all the way into the kitchen and back out with his plate of food. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm really sorry. I fucked up. I fuck everything up. I'm a hazard. Happy?"

Jungkook stepped up to the plate and started eating, not caring one way or the other. "You said you loved me," Taehyung said. "What happened? I didn't do anything wrong." His magic picked up energy, whipping around him and filling the room with magic.

Jungkook gathered a big mouthful of food and stepped back cautiously, still chewing.

"I'm not gonna hurt you!" Taehyung said. "You said you'd take care of me. Why do people say they love me and then throw me away, huh? Why you too?"

Jungkook's chest flared up suddenly, heart aching as he stared at Taehyung. He waited for the guilt to spread from his chest and really hit his mind, the realization of what he was doing to this boy he was supposed to love. Taehyung's eyes widened.

Or not. The pain spread outwards to his ribs and started trickling down into his stomach. His left foot lit up. He whined and crouched on the floor. Taehyung groaned and threw his hands up. "Fuck it. You're right. You're more important. I'm a piece of trash and if I'm putting you in danger, throw me away. That's fine. That's..." his voice trailed off. The aura of power wilted around him, losing energy. Jungkook's foot really burned. His mind started hazing over.

"That's fine. I'm sorry," Taehyung said, "That's smart. I don't blame you. I'm sorry."

Jungkook heard, but his other foot had also started hurting, and his nose, his whole face. His jaw felt like it might crumble and fall off.

"I'll put your food in the fridge," Taehyung muttered. Jungkook breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away.

 

"Jimin?"

"Yeah?" Jimin trimmed another spine carefully off a melting cactus. It hardened as it fell off, frozen in a wilt. Other spines bloomed from the top and slowly melted to goo like candle wax as they slid down the side.

"I want to go visit mom."

Jimin nearly speared the cactus with his clippers. He stood up and turned to face him. Taehyung looked guiltily out from his hood, curled up in his chair. He was supposed to be bundling roots together, but they sat mostly untouched on the table. "I'm not doing well," he murmured.

"And you think your mom will help?"

Taehyung shook his head. "It's just somewhere else to go. I can't stay here with him flinching every time I enter the room."

"You're gonna leave me here to deal with it alone?"

"He's scared of your jewelry, Jimin. You walked a foot away from him yesterday without wearing any of it, and he didn't even notice you. He's not scared of you. He's terrified of me. I feel like a monster all the time."

Jimin sat down on the bench in front of him. "What if Jungkook went to see your mom? Like, after he's better. Do you think we could convince him to go stay with her for a while and see if he just needs time away from us? She said she would take him."

"Bet she'd love him more than she loves me," Taehyung said.

Jimin scoffed. "Chill, emo kid." He sat back and gave Taehyung a long look. "you should...probably go see your mom. That's a good idea. I'll call you back if it looks like it's getting better?"

Taehyung shook his head. "I'm not going to leave you that long. I'll just go for a week. That's probably pushing how long I'll be able to stand being around her."

"You love your mother," Jimin said. "You could stay forever if you weren't scared.”

Taehyung buried his face in his arms. "Can I leave today? You'll be okay, right?" Taehyung asked.

"No. Obviously. Don't worry about it. I’ll manage."

Jimin slid forward on the bench and wrapped his arms around Taehyung's waist. Taehyung’s picked his head up and let Jimin kiss him. He was always malleable, thin and light, weak to Jimin's careless rune-enforced strength, but he felt especially frail, terrifyingly light and brittle. Jimin looped a leg over his thighs and pulled him in close, trying to be big enough to shield him like Jungkook always did. Taehyung grabbed handfuls of his shirt and groaned, head falling back to give Jimin a better angle.

Jimin felt that little bug again, the invasive edge of the empathetic link, a little, uncommitted blip of jealousy.

"You're not allowed to do that!" Taehyung yelled. Jimin jumped and fell off the bench as Taehyung stood. "You can't ditch us and then get jealous when we kiss without you!"

Jungkook's emotions faded back to silence.

"Asshole," Taehyung muttered, and stomped out.

In the living room, Jungkook was burrowed under a blanket again. Jimin paused as he rushed past. "Kookie? You okay?"

"Mro."

Jimin guessed that meant "no," which seemed like a given. "Need food?"

"Mro."

Taehyung had his old, battered duffle bag out on the bed. "Don't forget to harvest the snow flowers on Thursday. And plant mandrake in that plot."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"We don't have the strain that kills. It's fine." He tossed clothes in the bag. "The moonstone flowers need replanting. That order up to Tennessee needs to be out within three days."

"Why are you acting like you're the organized one?" Jimin muttered.

"Don't worry about the tubers. I'll get them when I come back. I don't want you going out into the woods alone." He stomped to the bathroom and threw his toiletries right in the top of his bag. "I'll need a blanket and a pillow to sleep in the car," he muttered.

"You should take your mom a gift. Or tell her your coming."

"I'll do it on the way. Do we have two phone chargers?"

Jimin shook his head. "I broke the spare. Sorry."

"I'll buy one on the way out. Please don't let the daisies die. They're useless, but I'm kind of attached to them now."

Jimin caught him as he tried to leave the bathroom and roped him into a tight hug.

"Jimin?"

"Drive safe," he said.

Taehyung sagged into his grip. "Say goodbye to Bubble for me."

"You're so dramatic," Jimin muttered. Taehyung ran his hands over Jimin's waist, then all the way from his shoulders to the tops of his thighs. Jimin's sex sensing ring buzzed around his finger. "Fuck me hard before you go?" Jimin murmured.

"I'm sorry. I don't think we should."

"I haven't gotten anything in me in weeks," Jimin whined.

"Take off your jewelry. I bet Jungkook would hop right in bed with you."

"Oh shut up," Jimin said, pulling away. "He's sick."

Taehyung tugged him back in by the pendants and held on, face pressed into his neck. "Thank you for sticking with me, Jimin." You’re the only one.

Jimin hugged him tight. “I’ll take care of Jungkook.”

“Kick his ass if he gets bigger before I get back.”

 

“Is that real fox fur?”

Jimin looked up from trying to figure out how to insert a credit card into the machine at the Walmart check-out. The young, tired-looking cashier eyed him from behind thin, grey-brown hair hanging loose from her ponytail. “Yeah,” he said.

She said “hm,” lips pursed carefully. Jimin managed to get it in the slot and waited for further instructions. He clicked buttons carefully, as if scared it would explode.

“Is that legal?”

“I promise I did not buy this jacket on the black market,” he muttered. “Am I doing this right?”

“Have you never used a credit card before?”

“No.”

“Fucking caveman,” she muttered. “Just mash that button.”

Jimin poked the button she was pointing to.

“Now sign the pad.”

“With what?”

She sighed through her nose and yanked up a black stick connected to the pad by a wire. He stared at the tip. “There’s no pen point.”

“Put it on the pad and sign your name.”

Jimin drew the tip of the pen across the white part of the pad. A line appeared. He gasped.

“I thought all you fuckers raised in cults in the woods were supposed to be ugly.”

“Surprise,” he muttered, slowly signing his name and watching the black line follow trail after it.

“How did you manage to get a credit card, caveman?”

Jimin glowered, feeling completely useless and out of his depth. “It’s my boyfriend’s,” he said, and she spent the rest of the interaction trying not to touch him or look him in the eye.

It was only mid-afternoon, and he’d already been up for nearly twelve hours fighting his way through all the chores Taehyung could usually finish in under thirty minutes, only to realize they were nearly out of food. He carefully strung the groceries along the handle of his broom and took off, flying low through the tops of the trees and out into the swamp.

It was a long, slow ride, skirting farmland and trailer parks, circumnavigating major roads. Normally he had Bubble to talk to, but he’d left Bubble at home cuddling some of the pain out of a particularly unhappy Jungkook. Eventually, on the long road down to the big tree, he turned a corner and nearly speared a car right through the window. He yanked up hard enough to pinwheel backwards a good few yards. He settled on the ground and started untangling his necklaces from his earrings.

“Fuck, man, you okay?”

“Hi, Owen.”

Owen got out of his car and hobbled over, approaching slowly with his eyes narrowed at the broom. “Sorry bout that. I was tryin to find yer house. Keep endin up goin down the road the same way.”

“If you take me in your car you should get through just fine. You’re headed the wrong way though.”

“I was tryin to go home, but if you wanna ride, I can take ya.”

“Thanks.” Jimin floated into the bed of his truck and left all his bags there, then climbed in the window on the passenger side and settled sleepily against the window.

“Drivin’s hard these days,” Owen said, climbing in. “Knees are acting up. That’s why I’m comin out here. You still up fer fixin em?”

“Of course,” Jimin said, “If you don’t mind me making dinner at the same time. I’m starving.”

“Dinner? Can I get in on that? Forgot to eat lunch.”

“Sure. Don’t be alarmed about Jungkook though. He looks terrible right now.”

“…How terrible?”

“You’d never even recognize him. He’s getting much better though.”

He led Owen right to the kitchen when they got home. Jungkook lay half-asleep and recovering on the couch with the blanket covering his whole body. The bowl of food Jimin had left out for Bubble to take him had been wiped clean.

Owen sat awkwardly at the dinner table and watched as Jimin worked, tentatively petting Bubble as she rubbed against his side and gave him her biggest, loveable eyes. “Wait, am I gonna drink that?” he said as Jimin grated an antler right into the pot.

“Yup. Don’t worry. I don’t think this one tastes too bad. It’s only a sip.” He tossed in the body of a frog and then started on dinner.

“Jimin?” said a small, high voice in the living room. Jimin turned around and found Owen still perched uncomfortably at the kitchen table.

“Bubble?” He called back.

“Since when could Bubble speak?” the small voice asked tiredly.

Jimin rushed out. In a mess of lost fur on the couch, crouched a child with squashed cat ears and a blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders.

“Jungkook?” Jimin said.

“Can you get me some clothes?” Jungkook whined, voice terrifyingly high. “I’m freezing.”

Jimin knelt in front of the couch. Jungkook looked like an odd mix between a toddler and a teenager, big brown eyes and overlong hair, but without much of the baby fat someone of his size should have. “You look like a kid,” he muttered. “But also, like, you don’t.”

Jungkook pulled his blanket tighter. “Clothes.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jimin didn’t move. Jungkook’s ears went flat on the top of his head. “Sorry,” Jimin said. “I’ve missed your eyes. I haven’t seen them in weeks.”

Jungkook didn’t flush and scoff like he usually did, didn’t look down or smile. He looked like he used to when he first showed up, uncomfortable, defensive, and tired. Jimin leaned in very tentatively and touched his cheek. For the first time in two weeks, Jungkook let him. He felt so soft and squishy. “Clothes,” he said.

“Owen, I’m going upstairs. Don’t let the rice boil over.”

Owen made an alarmed noise. Jungkook sat up a bit and stood up to look over the back of the couch, blanket hanging from his thin frame.

Upstairs, Bubble joined Jimin in Jungkook’s room as he dug a t-shirt out of the drawer. “Mrrp?”

“Yeah,” Jimin sighed. Bubble rubbed against his leg until Jimin picked her up and curled her against his chest. He fell sideways onto the carpet and fought the lump out of his throat. “He’s so cold,” Jimin whispered. Bubble lifted the edge of the t-shirt with her mouth. “Not like that,” Jimin said, “but do you think I should get him a sweater too?”

“Prumm.”

“Okay,” Jimin said, curling around her. “I’ll get him a sweater. Just give me a minute.” He lay there on the floor and got his heartache back under control.

Jungkook crawled into the shirt, throwing the top over his head like a tent and wiggling into the sleeves, blush flushing his chubby cheeks. Jimin swallowed down his smile and helped tug his own sweater over Jungkook’s head. He stood and the shirts fell all the way down to his ankles. The sleeves fell over his hands. “Warm?” Jimin asked and carefully rolled the sleeves up to his forearms. Jungkook stared sullenly at his hands and waited. He’d been so gentle from the very beginning. They could do anything, and he’d let them.

Jimin pulled him closer to the edge of the couch and rubbed his forehead against Jungkook’s solid, small chest. “Do you feel better?”

Jungkook grumbled and tightened up, hugging himself, letting Jimin hold him. “Let’s go get dinner,” he said. “You wanna walk on your own?”

Jungkook nodded and climbed off the couch awkwardly in his dresses and toddled across the floor, grabbing onto things. “You okay?”

“Legs don’t work,” Jungkook grunted, and tipped unsteadily over to the cabinet. His tail twitched under the sweater.

“Rice is done,” Owen called, and Jimin came in to finish dinner. The knee potion was boiling purple, almost spoiled, and Jimin rushed to crush the beetles into it.

“Hey Owen,” Jungkook said from the door. Genuine affection and relief flooded into the empathetic link.

Jimin waited for it.

“What…the fuckin’ hell.”

Jungkook laughed. “They turned me into a cat.”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Owen whispered and thumped heavily onto his seat.

“You turned yourself into a cat,” Jimin said. “What do you think you can eat for dinner?”

“Everything,” Jungkook said. Jimin turned to see him struggling to climb up onto the bench opposite Owen, and failing. Jimin lifted him up, and now Owen could see him. His eyes bugged. Sweat dripped down his neck.

“Is this cat a person too?” Owen said, pointing a shaking finger down at Bubble, who was bobbing around and trying to jump down off the bench to run to Jungkook.

“No, she’s better than that,” Jimin said. He offered the bottle of calming potion. “Drink this?”

“Jimin,” Jungkook said warningly.

“He looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. He came here to drink my potions anyway.”

“What is it,” Owen said, words slurred together with fear.

“Tea, basically,” Jungkook said. “It’s safe.”

Owen drank it and calmed down, eyebrows raised. Jungkook could just barely see over the top of the table if he kneeled on the seat. “How’s the workload?” he said.

“Fuckin impossible,” Owen said. “Knees hardly let me do anything. You’re getting a raise when you get back. You make one adorable kid, though. Maybe you should just stay like this a while.”

Jungkook huffed “Shut up,” and Owen laughed.

“Venison, rice, and collards?” Jimin said to Jungkook.

Jungkook scowled. “Don’t like collards.”

“You haven’t eaten vegetables in weeks. Your body needs it.”

He set two plates on the table and went back to tending Owen’s potion as they talked. Two houses needed plumbing work before their owners got back in a few weeks. One shed needed a new roof. Owen’s truck was acting up. Jimin felt a little like a hired cook, disconnected from both the people behind him. His stomach growled. He stared at the Bubbling Slugs on his cutting board and wondered if they’d be edible just plain. One popped and sent a small splatter of pus across the counter. He sighed and swept them all into the pot.

“Where’s the other one?” Owen asked.

“The other one?”

“You know…the other guy that lives here. I thought there were two. That one had a gold cat.”

“Oh yeah. I don’t know. Hey, Jimin, where’s Taehyung?”

Jimin whipped around in surprise to find Owen cutting Jungkook’s meat for him since the knife was half the size of his arm. “Y-you don’t know?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I’ve had other shit to worry about recently.”

“He’s at his mom’s house,” Jimin said, “He left three days ago. You didn’t notice?”

“I noticed. Didn’t care.”

Owen raised his eyebrows and chuckled a little. Jimin tried not to break down crying in the middle of the kitchen.

“You okay?” Owen asked.

“Just tired.”

“Are you gonna eat anything?”

“I only made enough for two people. I’ll make something else.”

“Make more for me too,” Jungkook said, and Jimin nodded.

By the time Owen’s potion was ready, Jungkook had fallen asleep on the bench, bare feet and the tip of his black tail sticking out from under the hem of Jimin’s sweater. Owen stared with wide eyes around the kitchen, from the ingredients hanging from the ceiling to all the pickled creatures in jars along the walls.

“Give it a minute to cool down,” Jimin said, pouring it into a coffee mug. “And you don’t have to drink all of it.” He settled on the bench beside Jungkook and put his chin on his arms. They sat in silence for a long, quiet, awkward moment, Owen peering at him like a zoo exhibit. Jimin’s cheeks prickled with heat. He gathered the dishes up and took them all over to the sink to wash.

“Maybe I shouldn’t ask this,” Owen said, “Because I don’t wanna know the answer, but are you and the other guy, like…sorcerers?”

Jimin chuckled. “Witches.”

Owen took a deep breath and looked under the table to check if Jungkook was still asleep. “Did Jungkook sell his soul to the devil too?” Owen said in a hushed voice.

Jimin threw back his head and laughed. “That’s not how it works,” Jimin said. “We’re born with it. I don’t know if the devil even exists. Jungkook hasn’t sold his soul to anyone.”

“No,” Jungkook grumbled sleepily, “You took it, but I wouldn’t have sold it willingly.”

Jimin’s laughter died fast. “You can drink the potion now,” he said to Owen, voice shaking. “Should be alright.”

“Sorry,” Jungkook said, “It’s true though.”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve apologized for the same goddamn thing, Jungkook. You know we’d let you leave if you asked.”

Jungkook only felt a little guilty, which didn’t help Jimin’s mood at all.

“I’m drinking it,” Owen said.

“Hold your nose. It’s gonna taste terrible,” Jungkook said.

Owen sucked it down like a shot of moonshine and yelped when he set it down. “Gol’ Darn, fuckin’ shit. Worst goddamn thing I ever had.”

Jungkook snickered and stood on the bench to watch.

“Knees better?” Jimin asked.

Owen kicked his feet under the table. “Holy Jesus,” he muttered. He got to his feet and took a couple steps, cautiously bounced up and down on his knees for a moment, and then did a full squat. “Hah! Damn!” He bounced from foot to foot, cackling. Jimin giggled. “Wow,” Owen said, bouncing up and down again and laughing in delight.

Jungkook beamed, puffy little cheeks and tiny dimples showing, looking reassuringly like himself.

“Thank you,” Owen said emphatically. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you for taking care of Jungkook.”

Owen stepped forward and wrapped him in a very unexpected hug. “You’re my son now. I don’t care if you’re a witch.”

Jimin, speechless and flustered, cautiously returned the hug. Bubble hopped uselessly up against Jimin’s leg, trying to wrap her stumpy paws far enough around him to join. Owen bent down and hugged her instead, and that was that. Owen was family.

 

They got ready for bed together again, finally. Jimin used to lean back against Jungkook as they both brushed their teeth, Jungkook’s hand on his waist, tipping his weight back until Jungkook had trouble holding him up. Now he had to pick Jungkook up so he could spit in the sink.

"Can't you, like, shrink down some clothes for me?" Jungkook said. One of his sleeves had unraveled and hung off his hand.

"Tae could," Jimin said. "I don't know how." He waved a wrist full of bracelets. "I don't have the spell. I could probably find something to do, but I don't want to ruin your clothes."

Jungkook pouted at his floppy sleeves. It would have been cute, but Jimin’s stomach twisted up at his cool indifference after a year of warm affection.

He still had all his familiar, lazy manliness as he stretched way up to reach the doorknob. He was about a foot too short. Jimin opened it for him. He lurched from the doorframe to the wall on the other side of the hallway.

"Do you want me to carry you?"

"No."

Jimin swallowed hard and watched him stretch for the doorknob to his room. "Do you want me to stay with you?"

"No."

"Do I still scare you?"

Jungkook gave up on the doorknob for a minute and turned to look at him. "Your jewelry still freaks me out, but you’re not scary."

"Would you stay with me if I took my jewelry off?" Jimin asked cautiously.

"No. I've been sleeping alone for two weeks. I'll be fine."

Jimin determinedly swallowed the lump in his throat. He opened the door for him, and helped him built a makeshift staircase up to his bed out of a chair and a couple boxes.

Later he wrapped himself in blankets and sat against the headboard with Bubble snoring in his arms, wondering if Jungkook was awake. A giant fireball floated above the trees and shot sparks down into a fleeing crowd of imps. Every time it struck, Jimin flinched, imagining the house going up in flames and Jungkook not making it down the stairs fast enough with his short legs. Taehyung would have been able to save him. Jimin didn't have the right spells.

 

Jimin woke in the middle of the night to pain pounding through his temples. He found Jungkook writhing in his bed, panting harshly. He peeled one of his tiny hands out of its grip on the sheets and drained all the pain out of him. It lingered as a little electric buzz in his armband, magic slowly breaking it down. Jungkook jolted at the feeling, and then clutched Jimin’s hand with his little fingers.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

“I could have been doing this the whole time if you’d let me touch you,” Jimin said, sitting up against the headboard to stay awake and dropping a sleepy Bubble onto his lap. Jungkook curled up against his hip and dropped back to sleep.

Moonlight lit up the yard, shining off the barn roof and casting shadows from the forest’s edge. Its reflection flickered on the water, half-visible through the trees. Jimin’s sleepy mind made shapes out of the shadows until they all looked like a mass of grotesque people. He shivered and looked down at Jungkook instead, the little curl of hair over his forehead and how chubby his cheeks looked when he slept, his little pout.

By the tree-line, a long black shadow stretched out of the tree shadows like the shape of something vaguely human, stick-figure thin and hunched. He blinked and looked up at the ceiling, trying to shake his head out of it, and looked back down. Bubble twitched peacefully in her sleep, whiskers flicking.

The shadow had emerged from the trees and stood in the middle of the yard. A shape stood there in the moonlight, the outline of a ten-foot tall, spindly person, the same color as the ground.

Jimin’s heart leapt into his throat. The thing faced him, faceless head turned right up towards the window. It couldn’t see him though. It couldn’t possibly. Monsters couldn’t see the house. They couldn’t touch it. They certainly couldn’t look inside.

It vanished. Jimin jumped, and Jungkook stirred as Jimin’s grip tightened. He loosened his hand slowly, eyes flickering back and forth across the ground he could see from the window.

The figure appeared over the edge of the porch roof, just his head and shoulders, head angled straight up towards them. Jimin muffled his shriek as the figure put his hand on the roof and started to push itself higher. One spindly knee hit the roof with a dull thud, face still turned right towards Jimin’s, staring him straight in the eye.

Jimin grabbed Jungkook and Bubble and sprinted into his room. He yanked the curtains over the windows and crawled into bed, Jungkook and Bubble crushed against his chest. Jungkook stirred a little in his lap, blinking his eyes open and taking in Jimin’s fear. “Huh?”

“Monster,” Jimin hissed, “On the roof. I think it saw me. Barriers didn’t stop it. Fuck, I’m so scared.”

“I can’t feel any magic from outside the house,” Jungkook muttered. “I just feel you. Calm down.”

Jimin hugged him close and waited for a shadow at the window, a knock against the side of the house. Jungkook’s pain finally faded away and still nothing happened. He almost wondered if he’d dreamed it, but the image stuck with him until he dropped off to sleep just before dawn, heart finally slowing enough to let his eyes slip closed.

 

"Can you make breakfast this morning, dear? I have the rest of these quizzes to grade before I leave."

Taehyung put down his heavily caffeinated coffee and got the eggs out of the fridge. "Bacon too?"

"If you'd like. When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow, I think," Taehyung said.

"You sure you don't want to stay?"

Taehyung nodded slowly as he put the pan on the stove and let it heat slowly instead of blasting the underside with a lungful of fire like he usually did to speed things up. "Gotta get back to Jimin. I've never left him alone in the swamp for this long."

"He’s a grown man. Kind of. He’ll be fine."

Taehyung lay a couple long strips of bacon in the pan, hesitating. "He’s alone with Jungkook."

She sighed reproachfully again. "How's he taking it?"

"He was delirious with panic for a whole week.”

"I can't imagine," she murmured. "That poor boy."

Taehyung shrugged. If he'd been turned into a cat, he probably would have laughed for thirty minutes and then whined about it constantly till he healed. Jimin would have loved it, having them take care of him for weeks. "I don't know why it's such a big deal."

"Yes you do," she said.

He turned the bacon over and watched it sizzle. Brandy leapt up on his shoulder and patted his back slowly with her tail. He remembered being backed against a basement wall with a nun gripping both his arms and a stranger chanting spells in front of him, scowling guards standing over them with batons, and magic boiling in his chest, uncontrolled and threatening. "Okay. Yeah I do."

His mom glared sternly at Brandy, peering suspiciously up at her as if worried she might try to jump for the bacon. When he turned around, she went back to grading her papers. "Mom, you love me, right?"

"Of course I do."

"Why?"

"Taehyung, finish the bacon and sit down. I'd rather talk to your face than your back."

"You're avoiding the question."

"I don't want to answer it while you stare dramatically at a frying pan. Finish cooking before you get moody."

"I've been moody for weeks."

"You’ve been moody your whole life," she grumbled. He fried the eggs in moody silence.

He finally set the bacon and eggs down in front of her and picked at his own plate. Brandy stuck her claws in his shoulder and hung on like a parrot. "You love me?" he prompted.

"You are a smart, kind, driven, painfully empathetic young man,” his mother said, “and I'm very proud of you. Don't discount yourself because your boyfriend is mad at you."

"He's not mad, he's scared. That's worse."

“Hm,” she said, "Jungkook almost seems like more trouble than he's worth.”

"He's not. He's perfect," Taehyung whined. "I’d do anything for him."

"Then talk to him. Try to fix things. I always at least tried."

"I'm not going to hold him captive, mom. We do enough of that already”

“I have no other advice for you,” she said. “Clearly, your father and I failed at holding things together. However, neither you nor your boyfriend are a selfish, enigmatic asshole with a flair for drama and a high opinion of himself. I think you’ll manage.”

 

Much later in the day, after his nap, but well before he expected his mom home, he took the snow-shovel out to the front of the house and started digging. It took less than a minute to get down to eight inches above the earth, and then he bent and carefully brushed the snow away with his hands. A small bubble of ice shielded the moonstone flowers where the snow had frozen around its shield. "There you are," he murmured, cracking through. The perfect little flowers stood proudly, the white snow dulled behind them. He shouldn't have worried.

Not that he'd been worried about the weather. He'd been more worried about his own mother coming after it with a shovel or a weed-whacker.

A snowplow blasted away in the distance. Someone shoveled snow off their roof at the closest house on the other side of the street, which was at least four empty plots away. Trees cut up between their house and the only one next to theirs. A wall of dark forest rose directly across from him, surrounding their house on three sides with forest. As a kid, he'd felt like he'd been shoved to the edge of the world out there, quarantined, the last tiny household before endless woods. Then he'd run away into those woods and found Jimin's backyard on the other side.

Jimin wasn't home. The woods behind Taehyung's house may well have been endless. Mama Park would have even less to say about the Jungkook problem than his own mother. "Discipline," she'd say, "You gave him too much freedom. He's yours. Order him to stay."

"Why is magic always bad?" He'd asked his dad the first time he'd met him at age ten after years of scaring his mother, accidentally hurting his classmates, and burning his favorite toys in fits of rage.

"It isn't!" His dad had said, looking appalled that he might think that. His mother had snorted. They'd fought. He didn't see his dad for another three years and it had been his fault for bringing it up.

It wasn't until he'd been friends with Jimin for years that he'd realized that evil was a standard of harm. People with magic didn't consider it evil because they never felt that harm. Their ethical systems had adapted to accept the warped power it gave them. The rest of the world would always get burned. Taehyung sat on the edge of both spheres, trying not to reduce the world he loved to cinders around him.

A small, family car sped down the hill and around the curve where the road swept up through the woods and back through town. Taehyung, staring at the blank white snow, thought dimly that they were going a little too fast for the road.

He didn't see the crash, but he heard it, a heart-crunching, dull smash, the shiver and plop of snow falling of a tree. Silence. Down at the end of the street, the tail of the car stuck up above a snowbank, snow tumbling down over the roof. The car must have skidded on the icy road, must have come to the sharp, downhill turn and kept going, slamming into the tree trunks.

Someone needed to help them, call the ambulance, or whatever regular humans did. The man in the distance kept steady scraping the snow off his roof. A car slowly turned the distant corner and headed up a more well-tended street. A deep stillness settled over the neighborhood as Taehyung leaned forward and gasped.

He was up and sprinting towards the car before he realized he needed to. Up closer, he could hear a man's voice inside, yelling for help. The car hung jammed awkwardly between two trees, tipped a little on its side, and battered from front to back. The front of the hood bent gently around a tree trunk.

He swept all the snow off the car with a wave of his hand and blasted his way through the drift to the side of the car. The man inside, a middle-aged man in a bloody sweater, sprawled across the front seat, stretching towards a gaping hole in the windshield. Blood flooded out of the man's nose and down towards his collar.

"Help her!" he screamed, pointed out the window. Taehyung blasted his way around to the front and found a young girl unconscious and bleeding heavily in the snow. His head spun with shock. "Call 911!" The man in the car screamed, "Help her! Please!"

Taehyung wished he could heal like Jimin, could touch someone's head and knit their injuries back together in a net of golden thread. Jimin was the angel, could turn something as murky as magic into the goodness witches dreamed they brought to the world. Taehyung, with only bottomless will and a very general knowledge of human anatomy, stared at the girl's body and tried to wish a cure into his head. If a doctor had been there beside him, or maybe even Jimin, he probably could have done it.

He took out his phone and called 911.

But in the five minutes before the ambulance arrived, he sat beside her in the snow and held her blood in her body, kept her lungs pumping, felt the life slipping desperately out of her wounds, and forced it to stay. As the ambulance pulled up, her eyes drifted open just a little, and nothing else in the world mattered.

 

"I feel something," Jimin said. "Jungkook, do you feel something?"

Jungkook sat up a little and searched the inside of his mind. He'd felt a tiny bit of oddness, something he'd mistaken for a little unease, something he'd been feeling nearly constantly for the past few weeks. But it felt...different. Like relief and joy, and a little like forgiveness, very dim and far away, and definitely not in his own mind. "Like, on the empathetic link?"

"Yeah..." Jimin looked out the window. "Like, I thought it was you for a second, but it's coming from a different direction."

Jungkook, nearly wiped out climbing off the bench, and walked unsteadily up. He grabbed hold of Jimin's leg. "He's in Massachusetts. He's on the other side of the country."

"When the demon of suffering got to you two," Jimin said, "It felt like you were both standing right with me. It felt like you were both standing inside my body, screaming out of my mouth." Jungkook stared up Jimin's long leg. His quad muscles looked awesome in leather from the low angle. His diminishing cat ears heard a little buzz from Jimin's sex ring. He looked down reproachfully. "Now's not the time, Kookie."

"I didn’t do that on purpose," Jungkook muttered. Jimin grabbed his phone from the charger and started texting.

"It felt positive," Jungkook said. "Are you worried?"

"Jungkook, we felt it from Massachusetts. Something happened. I'm just texting him."

Jungkook considered heading back to this bench, but decided he really didn't want to. It was a long walk and a hard climb back to the top. Jimin's leg felt really nice. He climbed cautiously onto Jimin's little leather shoe and held onto his knee. If he'd done this a few minutes ago, Jimin would have been over the moon, doing anything to keep Jungkook's attention, but worry clouded the empathetic link. Jimin stared at his phone on the counter and waited for a response.

Jungkook felt a little lost. He tugged tentatively at Jimin's pants.

"Yeah?"

Jungkook didn't have anything to say. He flushed. "Pick me up?"

Jimin bent down and gathered him effortlessly into his arms and settled him on his hip. Jungkook shuffled with the overlarge boxers belted to his tiny waist, the smallest pair of Tae's that they could find. "He's not answering," Jimin said.

"If something big just happened to him, I doubt he's answering his texts," Jungkook said. The dim buzz of magic from Jimin's jewelry, not nearly as apparent as it had been when he was a full cat, kept him twitching uneasily against Jimin's side.

"He hasn’t been answering me all day. I texted him about the monster on the roof and he never responded. Maybe I should try calling him," Jimin said. Bubble popped out of a cabinet and meowed insistently at his ankles.

"Brandy's not around so you're having jealousy issues about Jungkook?" Jimin grumbled. "No, I'm not picking you up right now. My hands are full."

Jungkook stared down at the unresponsive phone. "Call him."

"You think?"

He tapped the phone icon and put it to his ear. "Stop squirming," he murmured as the phone rang.

"Sorry. Your jewelry still bothers me a little," Jungkook said. Jimin set his butt on the counter so he could wrap his arm more loosely around his waist and pull the collar of his sweater back up onto his shoulder. Jungkook huffed and pulled it up himself, then tangled his hands in Jimin's shirt and pulled him close again, snuggling against the warmth of his chest and wondering how he’d been managing to survive without it.

The phone continued ringing. "You okay?" Jimin asked.

"Cold."

"We're sorry. This user's mailbox has not been set up yet."

Jimin wordlessly hung up and stared at his phone.

"Can you take off your jewelry?" Jungkook asked quietly.

"Not right now. Not till I know what's up with Tae."

"Later?"

Jimin finally looked Jungkook in the eyes, and Jungkook expected a scolding, expected him to berate him for making this about him, or for distracting him from Tae. He expected Jimin to defend his jewelry, maybe get really excited about Jungkook finally engaging with him willingly.

"Okay," he said, and tugged Jungkook close to his chest, solid against Jungkook's front. He flinched away from the strength rune, and then cautiously leaned closer, wrapping his cold legs and sock-less feet around Jimin's sides, pressing them tight to his warm thighs. Bubble purred down by his feet, trying to spread her love from the floor.

Jungkook’s heart thumped nervously in his chest, body tensing between the comfort and the remaining urge to fight him off and run away. But Taehyung might be in trouble, and Jimin was right here, wrapping him up and kissing the crown of his head. Jungkook remembered, finally, what loving them felt like.

 

Taehyung wondered if the hospital felt anything to him like what the house felt like to Jungkook, full of strange, terrifying machines and sad people. It felt like bad luck. His mom sat beside him, waiting till he felt like he could go home. They'd washed all the blood off his hands, and his mom had brought him a clean change of clothes, but his skin still felt red.

"How are you doing?" she asked for the fifth time in three hours.

"Pretty good. Better than I have been."

"She's in stable condition. Can we go home yet?"

Taehyung stared at his hands, eyes drifting tiredly shut. "Have you talked to Jimin recently?"

Taehyung pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Huh. Twenty-eight missed messages and five phone calls. All from Jimin. Wait. Eight texts from Jungkook. Didn't know he could use paws on touch screens." He considered putting his phone back in his pocket for a minute, and then sideswiped one of the calls instead.

"Tae! Are you okay?"

"Am I--I'm fine. What's wrong?"

"Can we Facetime? I'm gonna hang up and Facetime you."

"Huh? Jimin, that's not--" He took his phone away from his ear and stared at it. "He hung up."

A Facetime call came through.

"Oh shit. Mom, I'm going out in the hallway."

She didn't look up from her book. "Okay, sweetie."

Jimin's face popped up on his screen, a little pixelated, but just as gorgeous as always. "Jimin, I can't talk long. I'm in the hospital right now and their wifi is terrible."

"You're in a what? What's going on? What happened?"

"There was a car wreck. I wasn't in it. I'm fine. It was by the house so I helped them and now they're in the hospital and the guy in the car wanted me to come with for some reason. I don't know. I might go home soon. I was really bloody earlier today and I want to go home now, but I also want to see that they're both okay."

"Wait, who got in the car wreck?" Jimin said, voice garbled.

"Two strangers. Not me. Did mom tell you? How do you know something happened?"

"Jungkook and I felt it. Like, just a little something over the empathetic link and we couldn't tell what it was, but we knew it had to be intense."

"Oh," Taehyung said, trying to figure out when he'd felt a burst of emotion strong enough to be felt in Georgia. "That's...weird. I promise I'm fine. I'm a little shaken. I...I saved her life. She would have died. I--" he looked around to make sure he was alone. "I had to use magic. I'm worried that's what the guy wants me here for. She really should be dead. It should have taken, like, an hour just to dig his car out of the snow. They would have died. I had to."

"Good for you!" Jimin said. "You don't have to justify it!"

"I don't?" Taehyung said. "I haven't told mom yet. You're really dark. Can you turn on a light?"

The dark screen shuffled slightly. "Jungkook, can I borrow Bubble?" More shuffling. The phone scratched against Jimin's leg. A glowing cat filled the screen for a moment and then settled out of shot, throwing Jimin's face into light.

"Wait, how's Jungkook--"

"This is an issue, Taehyung. You shouldn’t feel guilty about saving some girl's life if you had to use magic."

"I don't feel guilty. I feel pretty amazing actually. I'm just worried someone will find out. Is Jungkook there?"

"Jungkook's doing great. Don't worry about people finding out. They'll either use it as evidence for God, no one will believe it, or they'll assume it's a rare case that science hasn't figured it out yet."

Taehyung scowled. "I can see something like this bothering someone for the rest of their life."

"You saved someone's life, Taehyung. Focus on that. Doesn't it feel good?"

Taehyung nodded, a little smile coming onto his face. "Relieving, mostly."

"That's why I became a healer, you know. How's mom?"

"Haven't seen her."

"Not my mom, yours."

"Same as always. The flower is still healthy. She's a snarky asshole. You know how it is."

Jimin rested his face on the back of the couch and took a deep breath. "You have got to check your messages more often. Jungkook and I have been freaking out all day about this. I've been worried sick for hours. Literally nauseous."

"Jungkook was worried?" Taehyung said, voice cracking.

"I think so? You were worried, right?"

"Yeah, really worried," Taehyung heard from a high-pitched, soft, little voice.

"He can talk?" Taehyung croaked.

Jimin turned the camera around, and a face that was definitely Jungkook's, but softer and smaller, poked out the top of a blanket nest that couldn't possibly hold all of him. He clutched the phone close to his face. "Kookie?" he said, not even embarrassed by how ragged his voice had gotten.

"He's the size of a two-year-old," Jimin sighed from behind the camera.

"That sucks," Taehyung said, still staring. Jungkook waved with one small hand. He had his phone propped up on his knees and it filled his grip like a chunky iPad.

Jungkook shrugged. "It's not great, but it's a lot better than being a cat. When are you coming home?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow. Should I come home sooner?"

"Come home when you want. Drive safe. Don't do it all in one day. Just hurry. Don’t stay later than you have to. That thing on the roof scared me. I’m afraid it’ll come back. Do you know what it was?"

Taehyung chewed on his lip nervously. “Yeah, that thing. I’m not sure. I’m thinking about it. You have all my reference books though. I’ll come home soon. Jungkook, I’m so sorry about everything.”

Jungkook scratched his head uncomfortably. His eyes looked huge in his small face, but he hadn’t lost all the sharp edges he had as a grown man. "I know. It's fine. I'm not mad."

"Oh fuck, you look so weird."

Jungkook snickered, huffing the air out through his nose while he smiled gently and looked away. It was so distinctly Jungkook that Taehyung got shivers. "I'll come home soon, okay?"

"Yeah," Jimin said, turning the camera back around. "Please. This swamp is awful without you. I can hardly go out during the day right now. Text me more."

Taehyung nodded. A couple nurses walked past. "I could use your hugs right now," Taehyung said quietly.

"Get one from your mom."

"She's given me lots. I want yours. Both of yours. Even if you wouldn’t want mine, Jungkook. I’m sorry."

"I'd hug you," Jungkook said.

"You would?" Taehyung said, voice cracking again. Jimin's face softened onscreen.

"He's nodding," he said.

Taehyung's mom popped out in the hallway. "The man from the wreck wants to talk to you, sweetie."

"Okay, I'm coming. Gotta go, guys."

"Come home," Jimin whined. "I love you."

"Love you too. See you soon." He hung up and stood there for a few seconds, indulging in powerful homesickness.

The man from the accident sat with his wife in a tiny little white room, propped up in bed with a swollen purple face and some sort of bandage set-up on his nose, bandages wrapped around his arms and hands. "Thank you so much," he said the minute Taehyung entered the room, slurring a little from painkiller.

"I--no problem, I guess. I just called...happy to help," he finished awkwardly.

"Our daughter came out of surgery a little while ago,” his wife said, standing from her seat by his bed to shake his hand, “The doctors keep telling us she should have died. They don't know how she lived long enough--" she stuttered off for a moment, "--f-for you to get to them. How did you do it?"

"All the snow," the man muttered, "he blasted through the snow."

"You didn't," Taehyung's mother murmured quietly.

Taehyung shrugged. "I did what I had to. I'm glad I could help."

"But how did you do it?" she said.

Taehyung looked worriedly back at his mother, who raised her eyebrows.

"Surprised you’re still here," the father said. "Figured you were a guardian angel."

"Yes, yes dear," she said quietly, patting him placatingly on the hand. "I'm sorry. Maybe it's ungrateful to ask how you did it. Just thank you so much. Can we get your Facebook? I'm sure you'll want to know that she's okay."

"Yes! Of course!"

"See," the wife said as she found herself on his Facebook. "He's not an angel. He has a phone."

Taehyung laughed and hoped she didn't turn the phone over and see the abalone sphinx licking her paws on the other side of the case, stone moving lazily inside the wood. That one might be harder to ignore.

"Sorry about that," she said quietly. "We know you're human. Thank you for what you did."

"I've been called worse than a guardian angel," he said. "Thank you."

 

"Guardian angel," his mom mused later as they both sat down in the living room with warm cups of tea and the fireplace roaring. Brandy hopped into his lap the moment his butt hit the seat, curling protectively against him.

"I wish that's what people always thought I was." He pet Brandy gently, feeling her anxiety loosening.

"I'm proud of you," his mom said quietly.

"But I used my magic on normal people."

"I'm not that prejudiced," she said. "If you'd hid your magic just to let that child die, that would be misuse of magic. I kept looking at that calm woman and just imagining how she would have been acting right now if you hadn't been there. You saved more than one life today, I think. I'm proud of you."

Taehyung bet Jimin and Jungkook could feel his happiness all the way down in Georgia again. "I'm going home tomorrow," he said quietly. "I need to get back to Jungkook."

"You only just got here,” she sighed.

"I'm sorry. I'll come back later this year. Late summer or fall again. Gotta check on the moonstone flowers."

"Don't forget about your poor mother. I see your father more often than I see you these days."

"Ugh. Fuck him."

"You love your dad."

"I do. Sometimes. Is the offer you made in the Fall still open?"

"Which offer?" she said.

"Like...if Jungkook wanted to come up here and cool off for a bit with someone who understood what he was going through, would you still take him?"

"After all he put you through this month?"

"After all I put him through, you mean," Taehyung muttered.

"Yeah," she said, smiling at her tea, "I'd do that. It'd be nice to have a son in the house again. Is he easy to live with?"

"Ugh. He makes living easy. I'd have a hard time giving him up even for a few weeks. He's fucking wonderful to live with."

"I'll take him," she said. "He can go over and visit Jimin's family too."

"He wouldn't. He likes you more than them already. They have a bad habit of treating him like a pet."

"Well. I won't tell them he's here.”

“I hope he’s okay by the end of this and he won’t have to come stay with you,” Taehyung said. “I’d rather keep him with us, but I’ll be happy knowing he’s with you.”

“I’m glad you’ve found people that love you,” she said.

“Even though there’s two of them and not one? Even though they’re men? Even though one of them is a little incompatible and we live in an evil swamp?”

“I’ve learned a lot about perspective since I met your father, Tae. As long as you’re happy and not hurting anyone, I really don’t care about the details.”

 

"Will you take off your jewelry now?" Jungkook said, late afternoon after a couple more nights of cringing next to Jimin’s combat jewelry as he sat fearfully awake behind their closed curtains. Jimin stood in the kitchen doorway as sunlight stretched through the house, casting shadows that made the nocturnal plants stir.

Jimin sighed and started tugging the rings off his fingers. Jungkook watched as each bracelet hit the wooden end table, and then his pile of necklaces, then each armband. “Only until evening,” he said. "I need my spells by the time night comes. Do you mind if the thigh band stays on?" Jimin said. "I'm a bit too lazy to get to that right now."

"No. Pants off."

"Fuck you."

"Not right now. That'd probably hurt."

"Oh god, not like that. Fuck. No way. I'm sorry, Jungkook, but you've never been less sexy than you are right now."

Jungkook giggled and flapped his giant sweater paws. Jimin pulled up his shirt and careful pulled the strength rune out. His knees, as usual, nearly gave as his muscles readjusted to their natural strength.

"Shit, I feel heavy."

"You look skinny as ever, hun."

"Oh, you. Am I scary now?"

Jungkook shook his head. "You're never scary. You're a soft little babydoll."

"Please don't flirt with me in that body. It's disturbing."

“Hard not to with you lookin like that.” He held out his arms. In his usual form, that never failed to get Jimin hot and ready for some pretty R-rated cuddling, but the floppy sweater and chubby cheeks brought out every nurturing instinct Jimin didn't know he had. He slid up the couch and nestled his face into Jungkook's floppy sweater, tugging him close to his chest. "Warm enough?"

"My feet are cold. They're always cold these days though." He scratched his little fingers through Jimin's hair and shoved his cold feet under the hem of his sweater. Jimin rolled onto his back with Jungkook on top and pulled the blanket over them both. Jungkook held on like a sleepy octopus.

"You know, I haven't gotten off in three weeks," Jungkook said quietly.

"No."

"Darn."

"You look like a five-year-old!"

"I'm not physically five though. I'm just small."

"Not happening. You're gonna have to wait or do it yourself."

"I’m a grown man with needs, Jimin."

"Don't act like it wouldn't be super weird."

"Fuck, you’re right. Can I borrow your vibrator? Like, the small one?"

Jimin covered his face with his hands and groaned. "Please get bigger. Like, a lot bigger. Please be better really really soon. I hate this."

"When will you be okay with me fucking you again?"

"When you're my height at least," Jimin said, "and even then it depends on how old you look. If you look fifteen, I ain't touching you."

Jungkook picked his head up and brushed his lips against Jimin's chest. "Did you just kiss me?" Jimin asked.

"Uh-huh."

"When did you start liking me again?"

"When I got horny. You finally feel safe," Jungkook said. "Except your left leg. That doesn't feel safe."

Jimin rubbed a warm hand over his back, and Jungkook got the oddest feeling, a memory pulled back to the surface of being a tiny human in his mother’s lap, back when she was happy and loving, the absolute peace of being dwarfed by someone who cared. He gasped softly, gripping at the feeling before it slid away.

Jimin’s hand stilled. “I felt that,” he whispered.

Jungkook squeezed Jimin’s chest with his arms and legs. “Not sure I like that,” he murmured, “You feeling like my mom.”

“Forget that,” Jimin said, “How long has it been since your mom treated you like that?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I don’t think I was in middle school yet by the time she gave up on both of us.”

“Both—you had a brother, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Jimin rubbed his back again, and the feeling came back, the safety, the rosy glow. Jungkook felt like crying. He picked his head up and bit Jimin’s nipple. Jimin’s chest arched up off the couch and nearly threw him off. “Ah-oh! Nng! Kook! Fuck! What was that for?”

“Didn’t like it. Had to shake things up.”

Jimin squirmed. "Not okay," he gasped as Jungkook grabbed his nipple and twisted roughly. It really had been weeks since Jimin got off. "Nooo, you're so small. I'm not okay with this."

Jungkook tried to work his head up closer to Jimin's neck to nip at his skin, and suddenly found himself facing the ceiling, arms crushed tight to his body. "No way," Jimin said, struggling to sit up. Jungkook squirmed, but strength rune or not, Jungkook couldn't even begin to fight him. Jimin held him effortlessly. "So small," Jimin murmured in his ear.

Jungkook forgot he wasn't a cat anymore and tried to hiss. It came out as a strangled scream. Jimin let him go quickly and sat them both up. "I'm sorry! Fuck, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Jungkook said, rubbing his thin, strength-less arms. "I tried to hiss. I can't really do that anymore."

Jimin gathered him more gently back into his arms.

"Don't be such a mom," Jungkook grumbled. "It's weird."

"This is already weird and fucked up, and I don't know how to deal with it. Please don't tease me like that. I feel gross."

"I'm not a kid!" Jungkook said. "I'm your fucking boyfriend!" Jimin just groaned and tipped his head backwards onto the couch cushions. "I'm not a kid, Jimin. I've seen myself in the mirror. I don't look like I did when I was, what, six?"

"You definitely look more like an adult than most people your size do," Jimin groaned, "but not by a lot. I can't just get over that."

"But you look so sexy without jewelry on," Jungkook whined. "I wanna bite you a little." Jimin didn't respond, just blinking up at the ceiling. Jungkook nipped the inside of his arm.

"Kook."

Jungkook groaned in frustration and nuzzled against his warm chest. "Fine. I'm not letting this go though. Stop treating me like a kid."

"You are a kid right now."

"I'm twenty! I've been your boyfriend for a year! I can't count how many times I've fucked you till you couldn't see straight."

"Your voice is so high," Jimin whined.

"So is yours." He crawled up Jimin's body, straddling his chest so he could grab Jimin's soft cheeks in his hands. "Remember that one time when you finished chores early and I fucked you on the porch where Taehyung could see us because he wasn’t done weeding?"

"Ugh. Yes."

"That was me, fucked up body or not. Remember when Taehyung tied us both to the headboard of your bed and fingered us where we could see each other in the mirror?"

Jimin shivered under him. "Yeah," he said weakly.

He scooted closer. "Remember that time you woke up in the middle of the night, crawled into my bed, and sucked my dick till I woke up?"

"Oh god, this is so weird."

"And then I fucked your mouth till you cried."

"Jungkook!"

"And then I rolled you over and stuck you full, and you moaned so loud that Taehyung came in and shoved his dick in too--"

Jimin moaned and covered his face, knocking Jungkook's hands off his face. Jungkook grabbed his wrists instead.

"And you came all over yourself with two dicks in your ass, crying and hanging onto me like you were scared I'd pull out and leave you hanging."

"Jungkook stop," Jimin moaned, hands over his ears, "Please, for the love of all that is bright and beautiful."

"I don't care if you don't want to have sex with me," Jungkook shouted. Jimin took his hands off his ears slightly, looking down at him. "That's fine, really. I get it. Just don't treat me like a kid. I'm not. That's weird. I think about having sex with you, like, twenty times a day. Don’t go all mom on me."

"You're so little," Jimin whined.

"It's okay if you don't want to have sex with me. I'll just jack off or something. But don't freak out when I flirt? Please?"

Jimin's head knocked back against the couch, frustrated. "Yeah, okay. I'll...I'll try to fix that. Sorry. Please don't try to turn me on while you look like that?"

"Hard not to. Everything turns you on."

"Don't bite my nipples!"

Bubble appeared over the edge of the couch and tried to jam herself under Jimin's arm next to Jungkook. He moved to make room and nearly fell off Jimin's side, but Jimin held him close and Jungkook threw an arm over Bubble's fluff. Jimin shuffled the blanket back in place.

"Cuddles are fine, right?" Jimin asked, one hand petting Bubble's back and one petting Jungkook's.

"Yeah," Jungkook said, closing his eyes. "Cuddles are great."

 

The moon must have been bright. Jimin blinked upwards, following the rafters back and forth across the shadowy roof. Leaves rustled faintly in the planters around the edge of the room, and Jungkook breathed softly against his chest. He wondered why he'd woken up. Bubble snored, little high-pitched wheezes that Jimin never would have heard if it wasn't dead silent.

Something scratched along the wall behind his head.

Jungkook stirred when Jimin's arm tightened hard over his shoulders.

"There's... a heard a noise. Against the side of the house."

Jungkook groaned quietly and sighed, rubbing his face against Jimin's chest. Jimin tipped him slowly to the side and turned towards the windows.

The giant, spindly humanoid figure stood right outside. Jimin screamed and jolted off the couch, pulling Bubble and Jungkook with him. They were way heavier than usual without the strength rune, and he fell to the floor. The humanoid figure raised one skeletal hand and scratched a finger down over the glass, screeching over the pane, and Jimin screamed again, crawling towards the table beside the couch.

He felt Jungkook grab onto his leg as he started yanking jewelry back onto his hands, shaking hard enough that he almost dropped everything. Jungkook hung onto his thigh and whimpered in terror.

"Why isn't it working?" Jimin said, "Why aren't the barriers working?"

The scratching noise filled the quiet living room again.

"What is that?" Jungkook whimpered.

"I don't know. I have no idea. Can it see us?"

Bubble growled unthreateningly from between Jimin's knees as Jimin painfully jammed his strength rune back into his stomach. He pulled a handful of pendants over his neck and Jungkook's hands left his thigh. The thing hadn't moved, just the silhouette of a giant head and emaciated shoulders, one long, deathly looking hand against the bright moonlight outside.

Jimin sobbed in panic and finished shoving his earrings back in.

"Jungkook?"

"Huh?"

"Do you have any potions you could use as weapons?"

"No!"

"NO?" Jimin yelled, turning on him. "You spend so much time experimenting with potions in the middle of a death swamp, and you don't make any weapons?"

Jungkook flinched back against the wall, panting in terror, eyes locked on Jimin's body.

"Jungkook! Answer me!"

Jungkook's mind fogged with terror. His growth pains spiraled suddenly up through his chest, twisting his back. His head thumped back against the wall, legs pulled tight to his body.

"Oh come on," Jimin whined, turning to face the monster again, who scratched a finger across the window. Jimin pulled Bubble and Jungkook into his arms, and ran up the stairs.

Fucking Taehyung leaving them out in the middle of an evil swamp without Brandy or anything to protect them. Jimin tossed Jungkook and Bubble onto his bed and yanked open his jewelry cabinet, trading out his cooking rings and housekeeping bracelets for armbands that could rattle the ground, a bracelet that shot bolts of energy when drawn like a bow, and the rest of his small collection of combat spells. "Fucking hell," he muttered. Jungkook sobbed and writhed on the bed.

Jimin locked and enchanted the door, and climbed up the bed, wrapping himself around Jungkook and Bubble and sucking all the pain out of him again.

Jungkook trembled in his arms, tense and terrified.

"Baby, please calm down. It's Jimin. I'm sorry for yelling."

"We're still safe," Jungkook slurred.

"Huh?"

"I can't feel any magic coming through the barrier yet. The only magic I feel is you."

Jimin kissed the back of his head. "Fuck Taehyung for leaving us here," Jimin said.

"We're still safe."

"How the hell are they getting through to us? Are the tags damaged?"

Jungkook stirred uneasily. "I think the forest only lets us live here because it likes Taehyung and Brandy. When I'm out in the woods with Taehyung, it always feels safer than it feels when I'm with you. They haven't been here in days. Maybe the forest just wants to check things out."

"Oh god. I need to call Tae."

"Left my phone downstairs," Jungkook murmured.

"Me too." He looked uneasily out the window. Movement above him made him jerk, but it was only their reflections in the mirror, his form, covered in jewelry he rarely used, the ring that formed a high-powered shield, the belt that turned into a sword that he didn't know how to use.

Jungkook lay with his back against Jimin's chest, eyes shut tight, clinging loosely to Jimin's arm. Jimin sat up against the headboard, listening for movement. At any moment, something would crash through a window, or creak open the front door.

Something roared away in the swamp, and Bubble ducked under his legs.

"Calm down. Your fear is keeping me awake," Jungkook groaned.

"How the hell can you be so calm?"

"I'm with you," Jungkook said, rubbing his forehead against Jimin's shirt. "I'm safe."

"We're gonna die," Jimin squeaked.

"Hm." Jungkook’s breathing leveled out into sleep. Jimin sat awake until the pain eased out of his limbs, and then sat awake longer, holding Jungkook close and staring uneasily into the dark.

 

"Wake up, Babydoll."

"Did your voice get lower?"

Jungkook chuckled, breath ghosting over Jimin's jaw. "Yeah, a little. I got bigger. My tail is gone too."

Jimin tugged him closer and ran a hand over his lower back. No tail. "Good. That's awesome. Real progress. I'm gonna miss that fuzzy little bastard.” Jungkook flopped down on top of Jimin's chest, throwing a leg over and snuggling on top of him. "Wow. You really did get bigger. Did you nap too?"

"Not really," Jungkook leaned down and kissed his forehead. "It’s mid-afternoon. You’ve been asleep for a few hours. Still not enough probably.” He held up his phone. “Taehyung’s nearly home.”

Jimin lay back against the pillows and stretched slowly. "Are you big enough to get on and off the bed by yourself now?"

"Uh-huh. Took some work, but yeah." He leaned down again and kissed Jimin's cheek, lips lingering. Jimin closed his eyes and hummed. If he couldn't see Jungkook in the mirror, and couldn't feel his body against his, nothing felt different than it usually did, Jungkook's gentle, selfless affection trickled comforting and sweet over the link. Jimin rolled them over, covering Jungkook's little body completely. He'd taken off the giant sweater, and his thin t-shirt clung loosely to his body. "You are weirdly muscular."

"I've never heard you complain about my weird muscles before," Jungkook said, smirking, accent coming out lazily. Jimin itched to kiss him, but really, really couldn't.

Jungkook smirked. "I'm looking forward to all the kisses you're gonna give me when you're up for that again."

"So many kisses," Jimin said, and turned towards his slightly chubbier face, his long, soft hair, sweet and cherub-like. "...In, like, a week or two, I guess. Not now. When you’re my height."

Excitement edged into the edge of Jungkook's mind, getting more intense with every second. He tried to sit up, and flopped back onto the cushions with Jimin's dead-weight arm bouncing on top of him.

"Wake up, lazy," he muttered, poking Jimin's cheek. "Tae's home."

"Tae? Tae's home?" Jimin muttered and stirred, pulling Jungkook closer instead of letting him go.

"Air--" Jungkook gasped. "Gotta breathe, dammit!"

Jimin stared off into space for a second as he felt Taehyung’s excitement, and then sighed, pure relief and happiness in his head. "He's so cute."

Taehyung's truck rattled into the clearing. Jungkook jumped out of Jimin's lap and ran to the front door, throwing his entire body weight into pulling it open, and stomped quickly out into the high grass in his bare feet. Taehyung nearly fell out of the truck with a jaw-splitting grin on his face.

"Kookie! Holy shit, you're so cute!"

"Shut up. No I’m not."

Taehyung dropped to his knees in the grass and held his arms out. Jungkook whacked him in the gut and then pressed a kiss to his open mouth when he gasped. Taehyung cradled his cheeks in his hands and giggled happily, kissing like an excited dog, wet, sloppy smooches all over his cheeks and lips. Jungkook kissed back happily, pleasant warmth and tension releasing as someone finally kissed him again. Jimin's shocked horror had Taehyung pulling back in surprise.

"What?"

"He's...He's, like, seven, or something."

"Huh? He's twenty. You're twenty, right?"

"Yeah, I'm twenty."

"He's a kid!"

"He's Jungkook," Taehyung whined, hugging him tightly, "And he's not scared of me anymore. I'm gonna kiss him as much as I can."

Jungkook smugly pulled him in for another wet, open-mouthed kiss.

"Oh god," Jimin said faintly.

"I don't see what the problem is," Taehyung muttered against Jungkook's mouth. He pulled back, face bright and rosy in the late afternoon, golden skin and huge eyes shining and gorgeous.

Jungkook ran his thumbs along his cheekbones. "You need to eat more," he said.

"Who's fault is that," Taehyung grumbled, squeezing Jungkook tighter. "Giving me twenty anxiety attacks a day with your bad fucking attitude." He stood up and hefted Jungkook into the air, and then quickly put him back down. "You're heavier than you look. Jimin, darling?"

Jimin huffed and yanked Taehyung in by the belt loops to get him nice and close, and then snapped through gritted teeth, "Don't you ever fucking dare leave us out here alone again you little shit." He kissed Taehyung before he could respond, body rolling desperately up against his chest. Taehyung's rubbed down his back and went straight to his ass, slipping his hands down the back of his pants. Jimin bounced up on his toes, moaning and scrambling closer.

Jungkook felt awkwardly like a kid watching his parents under the mistletoe. "Guys?"

"Hah--nngg," Jimin moaned. Taehyung kissed heavily down his neck. Jungkook walked quietly back inside to give them some privacy.

Taehyung found him pouting on the couch five minutes later. "Sorry," he said, cheeks bright red and hair mussed.

Jungkook gave him his expressionless face of displeasure. Taehyung knocked him onto the cushions and kissed him hard on the mouth. "I've got you, babe." His thumbs rubbed heavily over Jungkook's nipples, and for one blissful second Jungkook felt arousal light up through his chest.

"Oh yikes. That's weird," Taehyung said, yanking his hands off. "Not doing that again. Sorry. Jimin, I see your problem."

"God fucking damn it don't wind me up like that then," Jungkook gasped.

Taehyung sat up and let Jungkook pull himself back together. "Are those my boxers?"

"Yeah. They're the smallest because you have the flattest ass."

"Jeez. I come home to all this abuse," Taehyung whined. Jungkook slid over and wrapped his arms as far as he could around Taehyung's slim waist. Taehyung pulled him into his lap and held him tightly. "Fuck, you're cute. Holy shit."

"Isn't he?" Jimin murmured.

Jungkook scowled. "Rude."

"You look a little like a kid, but like...manlier? I guess?" Taehyung said. "It's kinda weird but super cute."

"He looks more like a bunny than ever," Jimin said.

"I hate you both," Jungkook muttered.

"You don't though, do you?" Taehyung asked softly.

Jungkook sighed and shook his head. "Just don't treat me like a kid. I hate that."

Taehyung kissed him gently. "I've missed you. So much. I just don't want to feel like a pedophile."

"Ugh, don't just say it," Jungkook said, squirming on Taehyung's lap. "Now I'm uncomfortable. We've been keeping that as subtext."

Jimin pulled Jungkook off Taehyung’s lap and lay back on the couch with his legs tangled with Taehyung’s. “We can still cuddle,” he said, nestling Jungkook down into the crook of his arm and scratching at his hair. “He’s so fun to cuddle, Tae. It’s like having a teddy bear that hugs you back.”

Taehyung just giggled and snuggled further down into the couch with his dirty bare feet all up in the cuddle. Jimin waved the dirt and smell away with his magic bracelets and dug his thumb into the bridge of his foot. Taehyung’s head thumped back on the couch, eyes crossing with pleasure, all three of them together in a pile on the couch again. Brandy had been right when she said Jungkook tied himself down. Small and helpless as he was, this was home.

 

“I see him,” Taehyung said.

Jungkook opened his eyes, blinking sleep away. Jimin snored very gently behind him, sounding a lot like Bubble.

“See who?”

“Slenderman,” Taehyung said. He stared out Jungkook’s window to the woods in front of the house. “He’s standing by the woods.”

Jungkook sat up, adrenaline pushing sleep out of his mind. Jimin’s hand fell away from his chest and he groaned quietly.

“Jimin, he’s here.”

“Who’s here? Owen?”

“Slenderman.”

“Who’s Slenderman?”

Taehyung chuckled despite the ominous presence walking ever so slowly towards their front door.

“I’m gonna go say hi,” Taehyung said and marched out of the room.

“Tae, where are you going? Tae what? Tae, don’t fucking open the front door!

They scrambled out of bed and followed him down, Jungkook rushing to catch up to them both on his short legs. Halfway down the stairs, the front door creaked open and Taehyung yelled, “I’m back, asshole! Stay off my lawn!”

The giant, spindly humanoid figure, lit up by their living room lanterns, crouched in their doorframe, a body of gnarled roots. Taehyung stood his ground, stepping right up to the threshold and staring him in the face. Brandy hopped onto his shoulder.

Jungkook felt it again, the black tendrils of magic seeping into the house, massive and powerful. Jimin pounded up the stairs and wrapped his body around Jungkook, shaking in terror. The monster raised one spindly finger towards Taehyung’s face.

And slowly scratched Brandy under the chin.

It vanished, and Taehyung slammed the door. The whole house trembled as if in a torrential rain.

“There,” Taehyung said, turning towards them. “I told you. Not so evil.”

“I hate this place,” Jungkook whined. “I can’t do this. I feel like I’m in a leaky submarine or something. Let me out.”

Taehyung’s smug expression slid off his face. Jimin cradled him close, feeling uncomfortably like a mom again. Jungkook could feel them looking at each other, trying to figure out something to say.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jungkook murmured, reaching for Taehyung, who came quickly and crowded them both back against the steps with a tight hug. “It’s not like I have any other options.”

 

“What was that thing?” Jimin asked. The morning broke brightly through the windows as they all sat shrouded in blankets on the couch, mugs of tea and books around them since no one had wanted to go back to sleep. The sunlight took away a lot of the dim horror of the house, which felt dungeon-like all night after Taehyung opened the door, like little things had crept in and waited in the planters to jump out and kill them. Sunlight felt safe.

“Looked like Slenderman without the suit,” Jungkook muttered into Jimin’s shirt, “And bigger.”

“What’s Slenderman?” Jimin said.

“Horror game,” Taehyung said dismissively. “Nothing like that actually exists. There’s a type of wraith, but that floats and wears a cloak. Phantomes are like, twenty feet tall, so it’s not that.”

“We definitely saw it though,” Jimin said. “Shapeshifter?”

“Both of you have much more terrifying fears that a Shapeshifter could have taken. I have an idea though.” Taehyung sat forward, eyes glimmering. “So there are spots like this one all over the place, right? There’s a section of the Himalayas that’s a little infamous, there’s a forest in Japan that kills hundreds of people a year. There used to be a so many magically charged spots all over Europe, but they’re drying up because of people crowding in. This one is pretty young. Anyway, most people agree that magic spots like this one are born when a powerful witch dies and gets buried and their power stays in the ground and starts to spread. The witch that lived here with his magic plants before us died here and his body was never found, so it could have been him.

“Anyway, I think the swamp has consciousness. It might take physical form, probably in a single tree or lake, maybe the dead tree at the entrance to the woods. What we saw might just be the form it takes to walk around. The forest is a witch. I think the dragon is his familiar.”

Jimin’s grip had gotten very tight on Jungkook’s shoulders. “Why the hell are you letting us live here, Tae? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“We probably won’t be able to live here forever,” Taehyung sighed. “The swamp is very defensive. Fortunately, it likes Brandy. And me, I guess. But I’m never leaving you two here alone again for more than a night if it’s going to start coming close like that.”

Jungkook clutched Jimin with numb, existential fear spiking adrenaline into his chest, nothing like the panic attack of being turned into a cat, just a rock sinking in his gut and the feeling of discovering that he was down a monster’s throat far too late to climb out.

“And that’s why I never told you,” Taehyung said quietly, nodding at Jungkook’s horrified expression.

Jungkook got an uncomfortable image of Taehyung’s body embedded in the trunk of a tree, his wild, unruly magic spreading through the earth, and knew exactly which kinds of witches created places like this one. The swamp would drag him in, absorb him into the dirt and eat his magic.

Brandy sat with her stern eyes set on Taehyung. Taehyung stared her down. “Cuddle?” he asked. She didn’t twitch. “We never cuddle anymore,” he pouted. No response. “You’re worse than my real mom,” he muttered, and stroked Bubble affectionately. One annoyed ear flick.

His boyfriends huddled on the other side of the couch looking small and scared. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“We can’t really move,” Jimin said, voice wavering. “Our plants aren’t going to grow this well anywhere else. Maybe we can start some other farms later down the line outside the swamp? When we can afford to hire more people?”

Jungkook could tell Taehyung was never going to want to leave.

“We can’t stay here forever,” Jimin said. “What if one day the swamp doesn’t let us leave? Remember the one time it got you both lost in the woods? It could do that again.”

“It could probably open the door and walk right in and kill us all,” Taehyung said. Jungkook whined and gripped Jimin harder.

“You’re scaring him!” Jimin said.

“It’s not going to do that,” Taehyung said. “It doesn’t give a shit about you two. It just likes Brandy and me.”

“Don’t let it eat you,” Jungkook whimpered quietly.

Taehyung’s eyebrows flew up, “Don’t let it—of course not. It’s not gonna—Is that what you’re scared about?”

Jungkook nodded slowly.

Taehyung finally crawled forward and smooshed his cheek into Jimin’s chest, forehead against Jungkook’s and Bubble bundled up under his chin. “I love you,” he said. Jungkook didn’t think that solved any of their problems, but he gripped Taeyung’s long hand with his small one anyway.

Brandy finally hopped off the top of the couch and curled up between them on top of Jimin’s stomach. Jimin gasped and tensed up. “She’s sitting on me,” he gasped.

“She actually likes you,” Jungkook said. “She calls us all her kittens. Even Bubble, who she also calls the feather d—“

Brandy stuck her back paw in his mouth. Bubble crawled frantically up Jimin’s body, peeping, and climbed onto his face, meowing for attention.

“Bubble! Bub—mmph! Hmm!” Jimin dropped Jungkook into the crack of the couch and peeled Bubble away from his face. “Your jealousy issues are gonna kill me someday,” he grumbled, but hugged her close. Bubble tried to kick Brandy in the head with her too-short legs.

“Breakfast time,” Jungkook decided, and walked over all of them to get to the floor.

Halfway through breakfast, Jungkook collapsed into another intense bout of pain and had to spend the rest of dinner pressed up against Jimin's side, quiet and drained.

"It's been in the middle of the night mostly," Jimin told Taehyung over his head. "I'm glad he's doing this when I'm not trying to sleep."

"I think I can feel my spine stretching," Jungkook said softly. Jimin pulled him carefully closer and fed him a forkful of pancakes when he didn't do it himself. Taehyung cooed at him. Jungkook blushed and examined his hands, hoping they'd forget about him. He could tell by the rush of adoring affection down the link that his tactics weren't working.

Jimin reached down and wiped a smear of syrup off his chin with his thumb. Jungkook gave in to crippling embarrassment as both Taehyung and Jimin stared off silently into corners of the room and bit back smiles as gushing, gooey feelings poured over the link. No one said anything.

 

Jungkook’s body grew quickly. Between bouts of pain, he ate enough food to feed a family of four. Taehyung started timing how many hours a day he slept to let his body catch up, curling up in random spots all over the property and cat-napping whenever he could. He started sleeping in the loft during the day and retreating to the house at night, too scared to be alone, even behind magic barriers.

One day afternoon, Jimin caught him on his way out to the loft and pinned him to the couch with one thick thigh over his legs, and a heavy arm over his chest. "Babydoll," Jimin cooed, cuddling him close like a teddy bear. Jungkook squirmed around to get comfy and snuggled close, listening to Jimin’s breath even out. The ceiling change colors with the daylight. Time passed sleepily and slowly, safe and cozy with one of his two favorite people radiating heat across his body.

The crushing fear of the house had gone, but he still stared at the ceiling and felt for a moment that he was a stranger there, a visitor under that roof, his room upstairs only borrowed, the loft only rented. He still had a chain around his neck.

Maybe Jimin felt that way sometimes too though, tamed magic trapped in the wilds of South Georgia, always a thin wall away from monsters. Taehyung blended into the swamp like a wood sprite, magic morphing with the power coming up out of the earth and taking root like his plants. He belonged here.

If Jimin ever needed to leave and go up north to get away, would Taehyung even follow? Would Jungkook stay? For the first time since he’d moved there, the swamp felt cramped and yet empty, dangerous and small.

Bubble scuttled across the carpet after a floating dust mote. A carnivorous tentacle plant reached down off a table and plucked it out of the air, dangling it above her head. Bubble huffed and turned her back, tail held loftily in the air. The tentacle plant dropped it dejectedly and retreated to its pot.

"I hate this place sometimes," he muttered. Bubble licked her paw imperiously.

 

Almost every early morning, Jungkook had to wake Jimin up in the dark to drain the pain out of him again, which meant Taehyung did all the chores in the morning while Jimin slept in, and Jungkook followed him out to the fields in a pair of Taehyung’s summer shorts, belted increasingly loosely as he grew, and a sweater that rose ever higher up his thighs. The spring morning bit at his cheeks and nose.

“Where do alligators go in winter,” Taehyung asked when they were halfway down a row, pulling ripe giggling onions up out of the dirt.

“You don’t know?”

“Should I?” Taehyung said.

“You know everything.”

“I know about everything magical. I don’t know about alligators.”

Jungkook shrugged. “They hibernate, I think. They don’t hibernate so much here, but the gators that live further north will go underwater all winter and come up every few days to breathe. These just…chill, I guess. I haven’t ever really paid attention to them. I just know not to go swimming anywhere around here.”

“They’re not aggressive though,” Taehyung said.

“Nah. It’s weird when they attack people because they don’t really see us as food. Usually we’re too big and they don’t see us as a threat.”

“They might try to eat you right now,” Taehyung said. “You’re still pretty small.”

Jungkook looked worriedly back at the swamp. “I’m not that small. I’m tall enough to wash dishes now.”

“Should only be another week before you’re back to normal,” Taehyung said. “And then we can forget any of this ever happened.”

Jungkook gave him a loaded look. “You two owe me for this, you know. As your bonded servant or whatever.”

Taehyung looked up worriedly. “Something big probably. New car? A whole house?”

Jungkook sat back on his heels and stared at the giggling onions chuckling away in his hands. “Can you guys give me a budget and let me spend a month hiking mountains in the northwest or something? I wanna get out of here for a little while. I haven’t ever travelled much.”

Taehyung sat carefully down in the dirt. “That…that’s fair. I asked my mom if she’d be all right with you staying with her for a little while. She says you’re more than welcome. So if you wanna go up there…”

“It’s not exactly the northwest,” Jungkook said with a small laugh. He ran a hand through his hair and stared around at the gray swamp, shrouded from roots to canopy with tangling Spanish moss and veiled in mist off the black water. “I haven’t ever seen mountains. I’ve never been hiking or camping even though I’ve always wanted to and…I think I saw a demon out the window last night. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll survive till our bond breaks. I want to see the world just in case.” he said with a little laugh that did nothing to soften the blow. “I don’t know. Being terrified all the time is exhausting and I just need a break.”

Taehyung hung his head. “I’ll talk to Jimin.”

He felt like the moody teenager later, pretending to nap on the couch as he listened to Taehyung explain his request to Jimin in the kitchen, felt Jimin’s crushing hurt.

“I just think it’ll be healthy for us, you know?” Jungkook said cautiously when Jimin called a family meeting right after dinner.

Jimin waved him off, business face on. "Since I'm the treasurer of this little outfit, I'm in charge of making a budget for your vacation. Obviously this is a pretty big deal because of the bond. None of us want the bond to kill us because we didn't make it up to you, so we'll do whatever it takes. You want a hiking trip, right? Basically?"

Jungkook admired how business-like Jimin could be if he decided to be. It made talking about fleeing them for maybe multiple months a lot easier. "If you run out of money before you want to come back," Jimin said quietly, "you can go to Taehyung's mom's house and stay as long as you want. Just make sure to call her first."

"Add phone charger to that list," Taehyung said. "I like having two here, but he'll need one."

Jimin jotted it down. "We can make a lot of these things," Jimin said. "Do you want to buy non-magical stuff? Or are you okay with us making most of this?"

"Please make it," Jungkook said. "Any normal stuff will just feel like shit quality after what I'm used to."

"And you're sure?" Jimin said softly. "How long do you think you'll be gone?"

"I'll be gone till I miss you guys enough to come back," Jungkook said quietly. "Could be soon. Could be when you come up to visit your mom in the fall. I'm not sure."

Jimin quietly drew out a budget. “We'll outfit your truck to make it live-in for the most part. You okay with us putting a shell over the back?"

Jungkook nodded again. "Please make it look normal," Jungkook said. "I know you'd love traveling the northwest with dreamcatchers hanging from the windows and carved mahogany furniture with a fully stocked potions cabinet and Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, but I will feel like an idiot if someone wants to see the back of my truck and it looks like a Pinterest fairy attacked it."

Both boys looked utterly disappointed. "It's gotta feel homey," Jimin said.

"I'll help with the design," Jungkook said. "I just don't want you to get carried away."

"You're leaving us and now you're not even gonna let us have any fun," Jimin grumbled. "You're a jerk," he whined, putting his head in his hands, "And I'm gonna miss you so hard I don't think I can handle it."

Jungkook sighed and walked all the way around the table to wrap himself around Jimin's back, just tall enough to hook his chin over his shoulder. "I'll miss you too," he said softly. Jimin leaned their heads together, feeling all the love he couldn’t put into words.

"Next time," Jungkook said gently, "We can take both our trucks and travel all over the country. I'll be back soon."

"Okay," Jimin said, and Jungkook let them pull him onto the bench between them and plan everything out with their arms around him till he fell asleep on Taehyung's shoulder.

 

"She looks real nice," Owen said, peering in the back of Jungkook's truck-turned-camper. Jungkook smiled proudly at the neat set-up, the fold-down bed and miniaturized kitchen, the small chest of potions and the little paper lantern lights hanging from the ceiling, the bookshelf under the window.

"I tried to reign them in. They wouldn't listen," he said.

"It does look a little fruity," Owen said gruffly, "but you prob'ly won't mind that."

"I'll live," Jungkook said. "Sorry about leaving you hanging with work. I'll try to be back before things get too busy so you won't have to deal with Jimin and Taehyung longer than you have to."

"We'll see," Owen said. "I might keep them both on if their fancy magic tricks get the jobs done better'n you do."

"They can be surprisingly useless," Jungkook said, smiling fondly as Taehyung played around using two mandrakes gagged with duct tape as puppets, little ponytail bouncing. Jimin sat on the porch with Bubble lying on her back in his lap, laughing hard enough that Bubble looked a little annoyed to be in his grip.

"Good idea though, travelin'," Owen said, and then leaned in close and muttered darkly, "Get out while ya can."

 

Every night at dinner, he made Jimin stand next to him so he could check if they were the same height yet. They'd hit the mark a few days before, and Jungkook had finally leaned forward and kissed him. They hadn't stopped kissing that entire evening. Taehyung enjoyed towering over them both and taking photos on his phone. "You both just look so happy," he said. "That's hot."

Taehyung took over the cooking and Jungkook held Jimin's waist and kissed him till Taehyung forced them to sit down and eat.

Now Jungkook hadn't had growing pains in three days. Jimin had to stand on his toes to kiss him again, so he was leaving the next day. "Fuck me hard before you go?" Jimin said quietly against Jungkook's chest.

"Sure thing, Babydoll."

For the first time in over a month, Jungkook fucked Jimin so deep and slow he cried, and Taehyung so deep and slow that he couldn't stop giggling.

"I’ll miss you both," he said, balls deep in a giggling Taehyung with Jimin's dick brushing against his cheek. “I’m taking potion books with me. When I come back I’ll try to figure out how to be just as dangerous as both of you so I don’t have to be scared.”

“My apprentice,” Jimin chirped, and pushed the tip of his dick between Jungkook’s lips.

“It sucks that you’re so excited,” Taehyung grumbled and Jungkook giggled against Jimin’s dick. Jimin’s legs shook. “How dare you take this away from me,” Taehyung said, stroking gently over Jungkook’s muscular back.

“You don’t have to come home, you know,” Taehyung said quietly after they’d all come, lying sticky and exhausted over the covers. “If you leave and you like it better. We’ll come see you. You don’t have to come back here.”

Jungkook nosed along Taehyung’s jaw, hand wrapped all the way around his thin side again, and hefted himself up to cage him in like he’d done before the chaos potion. He dragged Jimin in too, folding him between their bodies. “Brandy says I’ve chained myself down as much as you have,” Jungkook said. Jimin gripped his bicep anxiously, fingers tracing over the bond mark and making him shiver. “I’m gonna come home again,” Jungkook said. “I need a break, but I don’t think I’d be able to pull myself out of this even for my own good. I love you both too much.”

Taehyung closed his eyes and snuggled into Jungkook’s heavy weight, protected and small again, Jimin resting easily against their sides. “I’ll be back soon. Text me every day.” Jimin pulled him down heavily on top of them and stroked his hair, and Jungkook lay there, warm and comfortable and blissfully happy, ready to leave, but maybe a little excited to come back again.

 

Three months later, Jungkook drove back over the border to the swamp the moment sunlight hit the tallest tree tops.

Brandy sat on the porch waiting for him, sun just beginning to touch the second story. He paused on the porch to pet her, boards creaking under his feet and the smell of swamp water in the air. He’d seen mountains, bears just climbing down into the woods after sleeping all winter, frigidly cold mornings over glassy lakes, fields of flowers, dreamlike and spectacular as spring opened in the Rockies. He’d spend a month in a real home, making meals and cleaning bathrooms, grocery shopping and fixing Taehyung’s mom’s car, so easy, comfortable, and boring that he’d almost walked back through the woods to find Jimin’s house, and that was when he knew it was time to go home.

Jimin and Taehyung lay together in Jimin’s room, last on the hallway, Bubble flat on her back in the dip between their bodies, paws in the air. She picked her head up when he walked in, and her little pink mouth fell open with a peep, blue eyes bugging. He put a finger to his lips and climbed quietly in bed behind Jimin. Bubble abandoned her spot and nestled under his chin, purring happily. Brandy curled up against his legs.

Taehyung’s alarm rang, and he sat up slowly and grabbed for it, one of Jungkook’s baggy shirts draping across his thin chest. He hit the off button and then collapsed back onto the sheets. Jimin whacked Jungkook’s arm weakly and groaned, “chores. Go.”

“Fuck off,” Taehyung grumbled.

“Go do…” Jimin froze, realizing that the person against his back couldn’t be Taehyung. He sat up and turned around, squinting. Shock and disbelief popped onto the link.

“Huh?” Taehyung said, picking his head up and turning around. His jaw dropped. Bubble purred cheerfully against his throat. His two gorgeous, half-asleep witches filled up with so much love, and Jungkook hadn’t felt so warm in months.

“Welcome home?” he said.

Notes:

Give me feedback! I love that stuff!

Come visit me at tumblr and twitter.

Chapter 7: Bad Guests

Summary:

Jungkook runs into three idiots from high school.

Notes:

Kinda went back to the roots with this one. Its more like the earlier chapters and less like the last two long, angsty ones.

EXTRA WARNINGS for this chapter added later: Severe Homophobia; Attempted Murder; Unsatisfying Ending; Violence; Injury

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Jungkook, what’s the non-magic fixation with growing daisies?” Jimin said, poking at the Walmart flower seed display with his pack of carrot seeds.

“I don’t know,” Jungkook said, a heavy spray-bottle of pesticide in his hand. They’d been spritzing potion pesticide on the suffering the jack-o’-lantern pumpkins, which grew with faces naturally, and it hadn’t killed the mites yet. Maybe some good, old fashioned chemicals would work.

“Put that down. We’ve got better stuff. That’ll just get in the dirt and mess it up. We’ve got some delicate stuff, you know.”

Jungkook’s hand moved to put it down without his direction.

“Shit. Didn’t mean that to be an order. Sorry.”

“No problem,” Jungkook said. Jimin flicked one of his gauged earlobes fondly and knelt down by the shitty flower seed display. Little waves of magic vibrated off the rune-covered gauge and then calmed down again.

“Like, do they do anything?”

“They look pretty, I guess,” Jungkook said. “That’s why normal people grow flowers.”

“Just to look nice?” Jimin scowled at the seed packets. “Why have anything that’s just pretty? It has to be useful too.”

“We only keep you around because you’re pretty.”

“Thanks, boo,” Jimin said.

Jungkook picked up a packet of sweet peas. “Maybe I’ll grow these. They’re pretty and they smell nice. It’d be fun.”

“Your garden is starting to look great, Kook,” Jimin said, sagging out of his squat so he was just plain sitting on the floor in Walmart, grinning up with his puffy cheeks and long eyes. “You sure you don’t want to grow poppies? We can do stuff with poppies.”

Jungkook shrugged and grabbed a packet of those too. Jimin looked ridiculous, of course, wearing the thinnest, loosest, black tank top, handmade moccasins, and soft, leather shorts. But it being Walmart, Jungkook wasn’t too worried about not fitting in. “Can we go grab some Solo cups after you’re done with the seeds?”

“Solo cups? Why?”

“I’m experimenting with soil types and star-warts and Solo cups make cheap flower pots. We used to use them all the time in middle school.”

Jimin laughed. “You don’t have to MacGyver everything, you know. You’re not broke anymore. We can just make you a ton of nice flower pots. Functional and pretty.”

“I like Solo—”

The ring on Jungkook’s finger sent a whirring shock through his hand, Taehyung’s gift, which signaled hostile feelings directed his way. At the end of the aisle stood a trio of familiar blue-eyed farm boys, all in uniform dirty jeans, faded t-shirts, and work-boots. Worn baseball caps sat on their heads. Jungkook looked down at his own outfit and realized he matched too.

“Ha.”

“Jungkook? Hey! It’s been a while.”

“Mason?” Jungkook said, addressing the man in front, broader than Jungkook remembered, but no less movie-star stunning with his shoulders straining the arms of his shirt and his bright eyes standing out against his tan skin.

“Are we on a first name basis?” Mason snorted, coming forward to give Jungkook a less-than-friendly hard pat on the back.

“I don’t remember your last name,” Jungkook lied, “Sorry.”

Jimin’s curiosity wafted into Jungkook’s head. Jungkook wished he’d get up off the floor.

“’S Mason,” Mason growled, eyes narrowing. “You remember Beau and Conner, right?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook said, getting vivid flashes of Conner arriving to school in a tractor every day and Beau bowling rocks at the crowd of girls to get their attention as they waited for the busses to arrive after school.

Conner had a sweat stain down the middle of his shirt and under his arms. They all kept glancing down at Jimin like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“Haven’t seen you in years. Thought you’d moved out when your family left,” Mason said. “Your brother came back through a few months ago. Said he thought you’d have gone by now.”

“The fuck was my brother doing here?” Jungkook asked.

“Visiting my sister,” Mason said scornfully. “Anyway, he told us some interesting shit. Like who burned my backpack sophomore year.”

Jimin, having heard this story, raised his eyebrows at Jungkook. It would have given Jungkook away, except that Jungkook couldn’t stop his abrupt snicker.

“So that was you, huh?” Mason said, looking back at his two friends. Jungkook casually grabbed a packet of daisies too. “Were you the one that filled my locker with noodles?”

“Yeah. That was me.”

“I figured we were cool,” Mason said, sounding quietly hurt, sinister. “What’s the problem?”

“Didn’t like you,” Jungkook said softly. “You called me puppy.”

“Aw, honey, I thought you liked that,” Jimin said, reaching for Jungkook’s arm to help pull himself up.

Jungkook shook his head. The three farm boys glanced at each other. Mason’s sharp jawline had only gotten sharper, his hair more sun-blond, skin a deeper tan. Little freckles dotted his nose and cheekbones. “Who’s that?” Conner said, jerking his chin at Jimin. “Your boyfriend?”

“Yup,” Jungkook answered, and Jimin grinned sweetly, still hanging onto Jungkook’s arm. The hostility vibes off his ring picked up a little as the three boys stood there with their mouths open.

“Okay,” Mason said, nodding. “Somehow,” he laughed, looking at the other guys, “not that surprised.”

They guffawed. “I didn’t know Asians could be gay,” Beau snickered. “Well, uh, Puppy, see you round.”

Jungkook tightened his grip on Jimin, who’d begun to finger his fire pendant, face twisting in distate.

“Yeah, Puppy,” Mason said. “We’ll see you soon.” They sauntered away, still snickering with each other, and Jungkook felt a quick, hot lash of familiar embarrassment and shame.

“Sorry,” he told Jimin.

“’S fine. I get it,” Jimin said. “But why the hell do you like him?”

“I don’t,” Jungkook said, watching their broad backs retreat down the aisle.

“Uh-huh,” Jimin said.

“Mason’s just hot as hell,” Jungkook said. Jimin threw back his head and laughed, hands gripping Jungkook’s bicep tightly.

“You’re gonna make me want to kill him, Kook.”

“Don’t mess with them,” Jungkook said. “I don’t want to deal with it. And it’s not fair. You’ve got a huge advantage.”

“What, magic?” Jimin said. “I don’t care.”

“Don’t hurt the petty mortals,” Jungkook teased tiredly. Jimin kissed the underside of his jaw and then sauntered away, gesturing for Jungkook to come with, and even though it wasn’t a verbal order, Jungkook felt compelled to follow.

 

“Oh fuck, we really don’t need this,” Jungkook said.

“What?” Jimin said, examining his rust-red nails.

“The assholes are tailing us.”

Jimin turned around in his seat. Bubble clambered onto his shoulder to see and fell off. Jimin caught her without looking. “In the blue truck?”

“Do you see any other cars back there?” His tires bumped unevenly over the dirt road. All the windows were down since the air conditioning had finally given up, and Jimin shone with sweat from the muggy heat radiating in from the swamp, dappled sunlight flashing off his collarbones through the trees.

“We’ll lose them at the tree,” Jimin said.

“But then they’ll see the magic. Ugh, we really don’t need this. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Jimin said, shrugging.

Jungkook sighed.

“Can I blow one of their tires?”

“No. Jimin.”

“Can I…mire them in a mud pit?”

“Jimin, please don’t mess with them.”

“You’re too good,” Jimin said, pressing his mouth against Jungkook’s shoulder, right over his mark of ownership. Jungkook slowed down so he wouldn’t accidentally shoulder Jimin in the mouth on the rough road. “Didn’t they bully you in high school?”

“Not exactly,” Jungkook murmured. “They thought I was funny, but not for any reasons that made sense. They knew they could make me the butt of a joke and people would laugh because I was Asian and quiet and didn’t dress well. It wasn’t, like, hostile or anything. Just kids being rude.”

“You just spent an awful lot of words on a bunch of assholes,” Jimin said, leaning back against his window with his thick thighs spread enticingly, view a little ruined by Bubble curled up in his lap and licking his forearm. “Sounds like bullying to me.” Jungkook loved when Jimin wore shorts in the summer, legs corded rough and thick with muscle, surprisingly masculine. In the summer, he waxed all the hair away. It wouldn’t even begin to return for another four months. Jungkook almost missed it.

“They’re okay. They weren’t nice but they kept the real bullies off as long as I put up with it.”

“I don’t like that.”

“You don’t have to, Jimin. I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“I really wish you’d let me blow their tires.”

“No,” Jungkook said. “I’ll pull over at the tree. I’ve got enough potions in here that I could probably beat all three of them.”

“You’ve got an advantage too.”

“It’s three to one. I need an edge. You wouldn’t even have to touch them.”

“I thought you liked being called puppy.”

Jungkook glanced at his face, the coquettish hurt overwritten by more serious worry over the empathetic link.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said quickly. “I mean, I don’t, but…I’ve always picked my battles with you two. Neither of you call me that very often.”

“Why don’t you like it?”

Jungkook huffed and watched the blue truck in the cracked rearview mirror.

“You’re annoyed,” Jimin accused.

“Puppies have owners,” Jungkook muttered. “People play with puppies. They’re helpless. That’s why they called me that,” he, said, jerking is head back. Jimin glanced back. “That’s why you two call me that,” Jungkook said quietly.

Jimin shifted quietly against the window, but Jungkook could feel his shame.

“It’s not quite. It’s partly the cute faces you always make. Can I please pop their tires?”

“I can handle it on my own,” Jungkook said. “They don’t deserve everything you’d do to them.”

At the dead tree, Jungkook stopped the truck and got out, grabbing a tiny two-shot Jack Daniel’s bottle filled with viscous purple liquid. About ten yards back, close enough that Jungkook could almost see the blue of Mason’s eyes, the boys stopped, giggling to each other. Jungkook leaned against the back of his truck, scowling and waiting. The guys in the car seemed to laugh and point a little, and then Mason backed up, almost tipping into the swamp, executed a very awkward six-point turn on the narrow road and retreated back the way he’d come, kicking up clouds of dirt.

“See?” Jungkook said, getting back in the truck. “No problem.”

“If you say so,” Jimin said, watching them go.

 

Brandy ran into the kitchen with her tail down and her ears flat and Taehyung dropped everything to kneel and touch her nose with his. Jungkook looked away to let them have their moment. His star-warts were growing in Solo cups on the windowsill, and it reminded him uncomfortably of the terrible months after high school in his run-down apartment working for Owen.

“Brandy says some non-magics crossed the border in a blue truck. The tree just let them through.”

Jungkook nearly dropped his opal down the sink. “Fuck those assholes.”

“Those your high school friends from Walmart last week?” Taehyung asked.

“Friends,” Jungkook scoffed. “Tae, this potion says I should stir it with a wand here. Is there an alternative I can use?”

Taehyung came up to read the instructions, chin hooked over his shoulder and the heat of his thin chest stifling against Jungkook’s already over-heated back, stove heating the kitchen up even in the summer heat. Jungkook leaned into it anyway. “Stir how many times?”

“Ten times counter-clockwise.”

“That’s pointlessly specific. Um…try putting something from a magical animal in there, something sentient.”

“Unicorn hair or something?”

“We don’t have any of those. Try an ogre tooth.”

“Ugh,” Jungkook said, and started searching the shelves.

“Anyway, the intruders pulled into the woods within sight of our house. They’re probably waiting there.”

When Jungkook went out to his garden, he took a shotgun.

The morning was already too hot to work long outside, especially in jeans, but he’d slept in too late and had to pay the price now. His sweet pea plants had begun to sprout next to their bean poles, poking out of the warm dirt. He’d watered them and started weeding the giggling onions when something slammed into his ribs. A splotch of red stained his shirt. Two ‘wap’s sounded behind him and he spun around to see two more red splotches on the front door.

Paintball gun.

Jungkook stood up and fired his shotgun into the air. “Private property! Get out!”

He heard a single hoot from the forest, and then a revving engine. Something shiny moved quickly through the mossy, low-hanging trees and palmettos. Jungkook rolled his eyes and got back to his plants just as Jimin burst out the door in his work clothes, skin-tight jeans and a loose, black shirt, leather boots up over his knees. He looked more ready to sword fight or seduce a woman on the Scottish moors than harvest elf ferns.

“What hit the door?” He asked, eyes wild.

“Paintball gun. Just ignore it.”

Jimin whipped around and looked righteously offended. He rushed back inside. A couple minutes later, Jungkook had to rush up and steer him back inside, battle jewelry glittering dangerously all over him.

“Ignore it. Seriously. They’re idiots with a paintball gun. You can’t just storm off and do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“I can’t just do nothing!”

“They can’t heal like you can,” Jungkook said, looking worriedly back at the woods. “You’ll fuck them up for the rest of their lives if you’re not careful.”

Jimin grumbled and stomped back inside to switch back to his work jewelry. Tae came back in from the field in his tall boots and worn, denim shorts, thick work jacket, hair in a cute, little top knot. “What was that about?”

“The assholes are attacking us with paintball guns.”

“Oh that’s actually pretty funny,” Taehyung said, poking at the paint drying swiftly into Jungkook’s shirt. “It’s not like Jimin can’t clean it up in a flat second.” He stepped up close, wiggling his eyebrows. “Paint me like one of your Georgia boys. Wait, where are you going?”

“That was an order. I’m going to get paint.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Taehyung yelped. Jungkook snickered and stopped, and then nearly got head-butted as Taehyung rammed into him with an apology hug, gardening gloves rough through Jungkook’s shirt. “I was just trying to be funny,” he whined.

“You’re an idiot,” Jungkook said, but steered his face up so he could kiss the freckle on the tip of his nose.

“But the high school friends,” Taehyung murmured, chasing his lips.

“They’re not friends. Also I think they drove off. And I don’t care anyway.”

 

He cared a little more in the early afternoon when he walked around the far side of the barn to split some firewood the old-fashioned way and found “FAGS” painted in big, white letters across the side of the barn.

Jimin shrugged when he told them. “Doesn’t really mean anything to me. It’s not a thing in my society. I don’t care.”

“It’s fucking rude,” Taehyung said, scowling at the table. Brandy draped across both his shoulders like a feather boa. He pulled his little ponytail dejectedly out of his hair. “Please just clean it up.”

“Okay,” Jimin said. “I should probably wait till tomorrow though, so they don’t see me do it. Jungkook’s kinda adamant about them not knowing about magic.”

“They left a note on the hood of our truck,” Taehyung said with a deep sigh. “It says ‘We are coming for you.’ Are they twelve? Do they think they’re scaring us?”

“I’d be pretty fucking scared if it weren’t, you know, us,” Jungkook said. This had been the stuff of his worst nightmares in high school. He’d developed other fears since then.

“Do they really kill gay people for fun here?” Jimin said.

“Who said anything about killing? It’s not usually that extreme,” Taehyung said. “I think they’re just pissed at Jungkook for pulling pranks on them in high school, and they want to prank him back. They’re just using this as an excuse.”

“Let’s give them what they came for,” Jimin said. “Let’s fuck on the front porch.”

“You filthy exhibitionist you,” Taehyung said fondly, resting his chin on his hand and grinning at Jimin. “You up for that, Jungkook?”

“What? No.”

Both witches deflated a little. “Can we fuck on the couch then?” Jimin asked.

Fifteen minutes later, Jungkook had a whimpering Jimin in his lap, Taehyung’s magic lube sliding down the inside of his thighs, cock already buried deep. Jimin struggled to pull his shirt off over his head, grunting in frustration. “I hate summer sex,” he groaned, rocking back on Jungkook’s dick and Taehyung’s long fingers. “So sweaty.”

“You’ve got cold fingers,” Taehyung said. “Use them.”

Jimin ran his own ice-cold, glowing blue fingers over his smooth torso, chest rolling into it. He panted gorgeously, chest heaving with delicate, breathy moans. One hand traveled up towards his own neck, the other down over his abs towards his slim hips, and Jungkook had to close his eyes.

“Ready baby?” Taehyung murmured.

“Yeah.”

“Too soon,” Jungkook grunted. “Please.”

“Gonna cum too fast, baby?” Jimin said, leaning forward and pinning Jungkook to the back of the couch. His pendants dangled close enough to brush Jungkook’s chest. “Need me to stop a minute?”

Jungkook nodded, head rolling right onto Jimin’s blue fingers. Jimin stilled in his lap. “Love my ass that much?” he cooed. Jimin’s walls squeezed around him and he groaned quietly. Jimin smiled fondly, glittering all over with sweat and strands of silver and gold. Bubble lethargically tailed a beetle across the living room floor, barely sparing them a tired glance.

“Guys, this is sweet and all, but I’m gonna die if I don’t get my dick in something soon,” Taehyung said.

“Such an impatient little boy,” Jimin said, rolling his head back so entice Taehyung forward to mouth at his neck.

“You talk like you want me to fuck you like a nervous virgin. You know I will.”

“God, don’t,” Jungkook said, already trembling from just Jimin around him. He wouldn’t be able to stand another round of Taehyung faking terrible rhythm and bruising over-excitement.

“I’m not God, but easy mistake, I guess,” Taehyung said over Jimin’s shoulder, and winked. His long hands rested gentle and elegant on Jimin’s hips, brushing Jungkook’s hands on the tops of his thighs.

“You’re awful,” Jungkook moaned.

Taehyung pulled Jimin slowly up Jungkook’s shaft and lined up, slick and hot against him, and then urged Jimin slowly, slowly down over both of them. Tight, wonderful heat swallowed Jungkook’s cock again, painfully slowly. Taehyung shuddered. Jimin held his breath, eyes glazed over as he stared blankly upwards. His stomach and thighs shook with strain.

“Can you ride us, Babydoll?” Jungkook groaned.

“Ha-uhhnnn…guh…fug…”

“I’ll do it,” Taehyung gasped, and then started very slowly thrusting, slick along the front of Jungkook’s cock. Deep inside Jimin, the head of his dick brushed along the most sensitive spot of Jungkook’s, right under the head, brushing gently against it and then receding, letting Jimin’s tight, little body squeeze down on him again. Jungkook sobbed.

“That good for you, sweet thing?” Taehyung said, squeezing Jimin’s beautiful, naked body. He was flushed red from his knees to the tips of his ears and all the way down his shoulders. The feeling echoed tantalizingly over the link, the press of being so, so full. Jungkook had felt that only once, the two of them inside him, made completely and utterly helpless and taken apart. It had been so intensely incredible that he’d never let them do it again.

“Tae!”

“Yeah. Who’s fucking you so good?” Taehyung said.

“Ngg-ahh!”

“Yeah,” Taehyung whispered, and thrust deep again, picking up speed. Jimin wailed. Jungkook’s eyes rolled back in his head. He struggled to hold still, hips unconsciously jerking up and away to escape the tail end of Taehyung’s stroke every time. It was too much. But Jimin whimpered, nails gripping into Jungkook’s shoulders every time he did. He relaxed and held still, struggled to keep his hips down whenever Taehyung’s tip bumped under his own.

“You okay?” Jimin hiccupped.

Jungkook’s throat hurt. He was shaking from overstimulation and he hadn’t even come yet. “Fine,” he said, and it came out desperate and overwhelmed.

“We can feel that, you know,” Jimin said, a whine ripping his composed tone to shreds as Taehyung pumped through him a little faster. Jungkook twitched violently and held on. “Feels like it hurts a little.”

“Haaah!”

“Sure I can’t call you Puppy?” Jimin pouted.

Jungkook nuzzled against his hand, sobbing with each slow thrust right into the oversensitive head of his cock.

“That’s not an answer, puppy.”

“No. G-gonna cum,” he said. “Please.”

“Faster, baby,” Taehyung said, and the thrusts against the head of his cock were suddenly quick and relentless, each intense bump not fading before the next, and Jungkook grit his teeth and held as still as he could. He couldn’t hurt Jimin. Couldn’t hurt…felt so good…felt so…

The orgasm hurt, tight through his whole body, waves of sensitivity and relief swamping him and turning immediately to pain.

“Good boy,” Jimin’s voice said, quiet as if from all the way across the room. Jungkook whimpered. Taehyung didn’t stop and Jungkook tried so hard, so hard to keep still, but knew he was jerking, writhing, trying to escape up, wanting to pull out. Jimin bounced on his lap, gasping against his throat.

“Hold still,” Jimin said, and he froze, unable to move and powerfully overstimulated. He wailed.

“—orry. Oh, fuck. Sorry. Fuck. Jungkook, can you hear me?”

Jungkook blinked and couldn’t get his eyes to focus. He couldn’t feel anything but a cool, soft, numbness. “Ch—Chimin.”

“I’m doing the pain relief thing,” Jimin said. “I’m gonna pull off now.”

“No,” Jungkook breathed.

“Huh?”

“You gotta…finish. I don’t feel…anything. Just finish.”

Taehyung tentatively, excitedly, started thrusting again.

“Felt kinda good,” Jungkook muttered, finally focusing on Jimin’s adorable, soft squeaks. His ass jiggled just a little with each other Taehyung’s thrusts, and he reached a hand up and grabbed it gently, then let his eyes drift shut, just feeling the pleasure through the empathetic link, the way Jimin jostled on his lap, and Taehyung’s low moans.

“We’re definitely fags,” he muttered. “They got that right.”

“Don’t make me laugh and cum at the same time!” Jimin said. “We’ve been over thi—ugh.”

He gasped quickly against Jungkook’s ear, and then froze up and jerked. Hot, wet mess hit Jungkook’s stomach. The pain relief spell vanished for a second and Jungkook arched with the sudden overstimulation, the feel of Taehyung jamming right up against his most sensitive spot and gushing hot cum all over him. He choked a little, body twitching.

Taehyung made short work of aftercare, putting Jimin’s hand right in the middle of all the awkward puddles and giggling as Jimin grunted in disgust and cleaned it up. He came back from the kitchen with recovery potions and helped them both upstairs to shower.

“By the way,” he said, “They smashed all the jack-o’-lanterns I had waiting on the porch.”

“Ugh. Fuck that,” Jungkook said blearily as he washed Jimin’s hair, Jimin’s forehead pressed sleepily against his shoulder. “How did we not hear that? That’ll put us behind on orders. I mean, I would too though. Those are creepy.”

“We only just got ‘em clear of the mites too. I hope they don’t wreck anything else in the garden. Some of that stuff would be very expensive to replace.”

“They need to get out of here by sunset,” Jungkook said. “I’d go deal with it now, but I could use a nap.”

“No naps. More potion. You’ll recover,” Taehyung said. He pulled Jimin out of the way so he could come forward with the soap and start scrubbing Jungkook’s front, maneuvering awkwardly in the rounded bathtub. “Also, you have a safeword for a reason. We can feel when you want to use it, but that doesn’t count. You have to use it.”

“Didn’t need it.”

“You did. You screamed, and it meant stop, so we stopped. But it shouldn’t get to that point.”

“Sorry,” Jungkook murmured. Taehyung pulled him in close by the ears and kissed him gently, tangy bathwater catching between them. Jimin snuggled Taehyung’s shoulder, close enough to feel the burst of care and love.

“Don’t apologize,” Taehyung said. “Just…you really shouldn’t feel like you need to keep up with us. We’re used to nuts. You’re a lot less kinky. That’s okay. We shouldn’t push so far, probably, but it’s really okay if you hit your limit and need to stop. You used to have no problem telling us when we pushed too hard.”

Jungkook shrugged, one hand reached around Taehyung to squeeze Jimin’s cute little butt like a stress ball. Taehyung stared at him a little longer, gaze searching. He sighed. “You know what I mean, Kook. You’re trying to…to even to odds between us or whatever, and you’re managing it really well and that’s awesome, but at the end of the day, you’re not magic, and your body can only handle so much—”

“Let’s go figure out what else the assholes have fucked up.”

Jimin dumped anxiousness onto the empathetic link, glancing between them. Taehyung looked away, tiredly pushing his dripping hair off his forehead. Jungkook could see the tightness between his eyebrows. “Okay. Sorry.”

 

“On the door?” Taehyung groaned. “Really?”

Another painted “FAGS” covered up the red paintball splotches. Jimin cleaned it up with a single touch. “Watch them figure that one out,” he said. “Jungkook, we don’t have to hurt them, but can we just scare them off? What if they get ahold of Bubble?”

“Bubble never leaves the house. She’ll be fine. Also she can put people to sleep at will. I wouldn’t worry.”

“Okay,” Jimin said, “If you won’t let me use magic, can I take the shotgun into the forest and—”

“No!”

“What do you want us to do then?” Jimin said. He fiddled with the ring in his belly button. “Sitting here and letting them do this shit isn’t right.”

Jungkook hesitated, looking out at the forest. “Maybe I’ll go after them? I at least need to get them out of the woods before sunset. I doubt they’ll go back on their own.”

“That puts you in danger,” Jimin said.

“I’ll drink potions.”

“That’s unreliable. There are three of them and one of you. They could still overpower you. What if—”

A purple paintball slammed into the door again. They looked at it. Then out at the swamp. Beau threw himself dramatically behind a stand of palmettos.

Jimin gritted his teeth. “I swear to all that is good and holy—” He opened his palm and caught another paintball like a baseball. He shook it off. “I have an idea,” he said. “We could fuck with them from here. Taehyung has a bunch of traps in the woods. We can send Brandy out if we need to. Nothing violent, just…prank for prank.”

Another paintball hit the front door. Jimin wordlessly led them inside.

 

“So, how does this work?”

In the rarely-used ritual room, Jimin set up a giant, circular mirror flat on a table. He stood over it with a spellbook while Taehyung drew a map on top of it in fine, white sand. Jungkook stood hesitantly by the door, unwilling to step on any of the old magic circles burnt into the floor.

“It’s like…divination, I guess, only more interactive,” Jimin said.

“…ah.”

“It’s not seeing the future,” Taehyung clarified, “It’s seeing the present. People use this as live-action battle maps during wars. We can set up a map, and as long as we’re actually inside its borders, we can see what’s going on anywhere. We can send minor spells at things on the map. So we’re just gonna see where the guys are.”

Jungkook stood on his toes to try to see the map better. Taehyung drew the lines impeccably with sand trailing out of his fist, the other hand trailing behind to correct the lines, making them tighter and more accurate with a little wave of magic.

“See this one?” Jimin set, tapping his toe against a dark, black seal on the floor, the harshest lines, spanning across almost the entire space. “This one’s yours. We were in here a while. I was kinda worried you’d burn the house down.”

“Can you make this map, like, anytime?” Jungkook asked, changing the subject, “Anywhere?”

“Yeah mostly. Some places have protective spells up against it. We can’t do it at night here because the more powerful monsters will feel it and come looking. I don’t think the swamp likes us knowing her secrets. Okay, I’m going to start it up. Jungkook, get over here. Those circles are dead. They’re not going to bite you.”

Jungkook stepped cautiously into the mess of old circles and stepped up to the table in the middle just Jimin burnt a piece of oak bark over the candle in the middle and the lines glowed to life. The mirror turned into a bird's-eye view of the swamp, their house close to the northern edge, the dead tree standing upright out of the glass.

“Good ol’ silver,” Taehyung said. “It’s hard to find mirrors like this these days.”

“Maybe hard in your world,” Jimin said. “We’re not idiots. Aluminum mirrors are useless.”

“I mean, you can see yourselves in ‘em just fine,” Jungkook said defensively. “The mirror in the bathroom is aluminum.”

“If that’s all you want to do with them, I guess,” Jimin scoffed.

“That’s really all we can do with mirrors,” Jungkook said.

“Okay, yeah. Fair.”

“Oh! They’re by the big oak trees!” Taehyung said, pointing at a stand not far from their house where the little, blue image of a truck sat glowing on the glass. “Or at least their truck is. There they are, sneaking into the barn.”

Jungkook took one look at the red dots creeping into his barn from the back door, and stomped out. He grabbed the shotgun, and his version of an armor potion, and chugged it right out of a mini, two-shot, Jack Daniels bottle. As he stormed across the yard, the feeling of invincibility crackled over his skin, his own, exhilarating magic.

He could have banged into the barn with bullets blazing, but that would have been too easy. He snuck quietly in the side door, heart hammering excitedly under his impenetrable skin.

“Fucking thing won’t light,” Conner was saying. “I don’t get it. This wood is dry and dead as my grandmother, God rest her soul. It’s like trying to light a damp log.”

“This barn is inflammable,” Jungkook said.

“No it ain’t,” Conner insisted, lighting another bundle of hay and holding it under the wall. “I know good firewood when I see it. Beau, look around n’ see if there’s any juice.”

“Watcha want juice for?” Beau said quietly.

“Lighter fluid, ya dumbass!”

Beau turned around. Jungkook offered him a bottle of lighter fluid off the workbench. Beau howled and scrambled towards the back door.

“Hold your ground, dammit!” Mason yelped as Conner dove after him. Jungkook raised the shotgun to his shoulder. Mason tumbled out the back door after them.

When Jungkook got back inside, Jimin and Taehyung were still laughing.

“You’re incredible,” Jimin whimpered, laughter curling him up against the wall with Bubble peering out from his arms. “We’ve gotta fuck again.”

“Maybe later,” Jungkook said, examining the map. “They’re re-grouping back by their truck. What do we do next?”

“Listen in again,” Jimin said and tapped the end of a small conch shell to the small circle of oak trees on the map.

“God damn it, you fucks can’t just run like that!” Mason said, his voice ringing through the conch shell.

“You ran too,” Beau squealed. Jungkook could imagine him crouched and leaning back against the truck, cheeks splotchy red and brown hair mussed and sweaty out from under his hat. “He had a shotgun!”

“They’re not gonna take us seriously after that!” Mason said. “This needs to be some horror movie shit. They gotta feel like we’re gonna kill ‘em.”

“He did catch us trying to set fire to his barn,” Conner panted, “so he knows we’re serious.”

“Why are they this winded?” Taehyung said. “That’s not a long run.”

“All muscle and no cardio,” Jungkook said.

“Probably skips leg day,” Jimin agreed.

“Nah, they all work on farms,” Jungkook said. “They don’t need leg days. Fuck them though. Horror movie shit? We can give them some fucking horror movie shit. Without hurting them, of course.”

“You’re real into this all of a sudden,” Taehyung said, leaning forward on the table, damp hair shining in the candlelight. “What happened to not using magic on them?”

“They tried to set my barn on fire. I don’t have much armor potion left so I’ve gotta go make more. That stuff only lasts fifteen minutes and I might need it a lot today.”

“I’m gonna start tripping them with tree roots and stuff,” Taehyung said. “Make their days a little worse. Maybe they’ll leave.”

“I’m going to set some traps,” Jimin said.

 

“I’ve made all the tags,” Jimin said mid-afternoon, sun still blazing high in the summer sky. “We’ve got another, what, five hours till sunset?”

“Four and a half,” Jungkook said. “I’d like to get them out a lot sooner though. How’s Taehyung doing?”

“He’s having a lot of fun. What’s going on in here?”

“Sight improvement potion,” Jungkook said. “I can see them right now. They’re hanging out in the brush about ten feet from the clearing. Don’t go outside.”

“But I have to set my tags,” Jimin pouted. He’d never taken off his work jeans. Jungkook couldn’t help but glance back every few seconds. Jimin flipped him off with the finger that had his sex-sensing ring.

“I’ll do it,” Jungkook said, smiling. “Just give me a minute to finish the armor potion and then I’ll drink some and go out.” Bubble ran across the counter with the next ingredient clutched in her mouth. “Thanks, sweetheart,” he said, letting his accent come out in the way Jimin found so irresistible. Bubble sat tall and proud, an unmistakable grin on her fluffy face. He dropped the armadillo tongues in the stew and stirred.

Jimin wrapped himself around Jungkook’s waist and snuggled against his back. “Look at you,” he murmured. “Making yourself into a witch. This stuff comes so easily to you.”

Jungkook smiled down at the bubbling potion, feeling like a little kid on a giant playground. After coming back last spring, he'd picked up potion making tentatively, battling his fear of drinking even the simplest potions that he'd made himself as if learning to jump out of a plane. The day he picked up and threw an old refrigerator with his bare hands was the day he never looked back. Jimin’s rune-reenforced, strong arms squeezed him gently, grounding and comfortable.

“They’ve got some pretty intense binoculars,” Jungkook said as “I think they can see us. Beau just got really uncomfortable.”

“About me snuggling you? I’m not gonna stop.”

“No, I think it was about me staring him right in the binoculars. Maybe it was both, but he’s checking their shelter to make sure I really can’t see them. And please don’t stop.”

“How long till you finish this armor potion?”

“Half hour. Not long at all. Just go in and keep surrounding them with thorn bushes or whatever.”

And so began a cautious stalemate. Just before the sight potion ran out, Jungkook watched Conner try to leave their hideout and practically roll through a new maze of thorn bushes. Ten minutes later he noticed that his car tires had been punctured. Taehyung would be able to fix that in minutes, but it was annoying.

“Gonna go place my tags?” Jimin said, tiredly bundling and boxing fern sprouts. Work waited for no one.

“Waiting for this to cool, then yeah.”

“I love your cute little liquor bottles,” Jimin giggled, motioning to Jungkook’s array of two-shot glass bottles in various iconic shapes.

“Cheaper than vials, more variation, and I get the drinks that come in ‘em,” Jungkook said. He started funneling his armor potion into a long line of empty Jack Daniels bottles.

“How’d you get around the spell in the middle of that potion?” Jimin said.

“Scarabs.”

“Of course,” Jimin said, nodding thoughtfully. “Sounds expensive.”

“It’s a good potion. Everything else is pretty cheap.”

“But to only last fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t get shot at very often,” Jungkook said.

“I could just cast the spell on it.”

“Then it won’t work on me.”

“Ah,” Jimin said. Jungkook took a moment to watch the muscles in his arms tighten as he bound the bundles together, the glitter of his rings on his small hands, that ever-present, cold bite of metal around Jimin’s fluffy exterior.

“I’m gonna go tag some shit,” Jungkook said. “Bottoms up.” He threw one back, flinching at the iron taste, and then downed a ten-minute invisibility spell too.

He could recognize most of the spell tags now. A couple turned the ground to quicksand. He put those in front of the more open entrances to the forest, covering them with a thin layer of dirt and carefully stepping around the perimeter.

The next spell tag rewound the target twenty feet back with no memory of having travelled towards it, trapping them in a loop until someone else got them out or approached it from a different angle. He put that one in front of the back door, which they never used anyway. It was sealed shut, but the boys didn’t know that.

The ankle breakers he strung along the garden, a long strand of tripwire along the outer fence. He could see his hands better now, the invisibility potion fading quickly. As he tied the last piece off at the end of the garden, he heard the front door open and looked up. Taehyung stomped across the yard looking worried, heading for the swamp.

“Taehyung, wait!” Jungkook said, standing up. Taehyung looked around, squinting. “Get back inside!”

“The tubers. I think they messed with the—”

Jungkook heard the gunshot a moment after Taehyung jerked just a little, shoulder pushed back. He ran forward without thinking as Taehyung glanced down at the red blooming from the hole in his shirt, arm limp against his side.

He collapsed. A shock wave, a gleaming, incandescent blast of magic, slammed across the clearing, Taehyung’s panic response, and Jungkook opened his eyes to an up-close view of the grass at the end of a skid mark, no air in his lungs. He rolled over, coughing and blinking to clear his blurry vision. His armor potion had protected him against the impact of the blast. All the windows at the front of the house had shattered. Jimin stumbled out the front door, which hung off its hinges, and ran to Taehyung’s side.

Jungkook stumbled over. Jimin had already drawn the bullet from the wound, was already stitching it together with his glowing golden net. Taehyung blinked groggily up at them, curled weakly up against Jimin’s chest. “I got shot.”

“You sure did,” Jimin said. “That’s a relatively easy wound to heal though. I’m more worried about us getting shot while we wait out here.”

“The shock wave probably scared them a bit,” Jungkook said. Jimin got his arms under Taehyung’s body and picked him up with a noticeable lack of strain.

“It’s just my arm,” Taehyung whined, hanging limply from Jimin’s grip. “I can walk.”

“You’re still in shock,” Jimin said, and carried him inside.

“This fucking sucks,” Jimin said, lying Taehyung down and finishing up his shoulder. “Jungkook, calming potion?”

Thankfully, the kitchen, with all its delicate ingredients and potion storage, was protected against Taehyung’s blasts, and everything lay safely inside. The rest of the house was filled with overturned plants and glass shards. When he returned, Jimin had Taehyung propped up on the table, re-building the map.

“Jungkook, they’re actually trying to shoot us. We need another plan.”

“I know,” Jungkook said, still a little shaky with shock.

“Your shirt is ruined,” Jimin said, moving the cup of calming potion into Taehyung’s hand and stepping forward to peel Jungkook’s dirt-covered, ripped-up shirt off his body. “Aw, I like this one,” he said. “Hugs your pecs really nicely.”

“You can fix it,” Jungkook said.

“Yeah, but it’ll wear out faster now. Fixing things gradually weakens them.”

“We’d better replace all the windows in this house pretty soon then.”

Jimin snorted and handed him his shirt back, clean and smooth like it had just come out of the wash.

“Don’t put it back on just yet though,” Jimin said, running his hand carelessly over Jungkook’s pecs. Jungkook twitched as Jimin’s fingers brushed his nipples.

“No, put it on,” Taehyung said. “I have to concentrate.”

“You okay?” Jungkook said, stuffing one end of the shirt in his pocket and coming up behind Taehyung to wrap his arms around him.

“I’m fine now, yeah. Just surprised me.” He drank his potion, still leaning on the table with his good arm and trembling against Jungkook’s chest. The buzz of shock gave way under the calming potion and left coolly simmering fury. Some old defensiveness, his hatred of non-magic people. Jungkook kissed the back of his neck apologetically and Taehyung relaxed a little. “I’m gonna tear them apart,” he said quietly.

“No, you’re not,” Jungkook said.

“They shot me.”

“You could kill them with one hit. Don’t torture them because they messed with you a little. Please let me do it. They’re out here for me anyway. This has nothing to do with you.”

“They shot me and you’re still on their side?” Taehyung growled.

Jungkook let go.

“Sorry,” Taehyung said. “That was rude. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook pulled his shirt back on. “I’m gonna take some potions and the shotgun and go fuck shit up,” Jungkook said.

On the reconstructed map, the boys appeared to be back by their truck. Jungkook took the long route that Taehyung had taken him on two weeks ago, right past a family of regular old wild boar. He drank a potion that masked his scent, a lot like an invisibility potion. The sow grazed calmly, her striped piglets around her, hundreds of pounds of well-muscled pork and coarse, brown hair. Her white tusks stuck dangerously out the sides of her mouth. Jungkook calmly walked up, unnoticed, and picked up one of the babies.

Mason, Conner, and Beau were eating a picnic dinner on the forest floor, which was pretty cute. Jungkook walked up, paid no mind to them scrambling to their feet, and dropped the piglet into Mason’s arms before rushing up the nearest tree. The boys had enough time to scream, drop the pig, and scramble into the truck before the sow burst into the clearing, squealing like a banshee.

Conner threw himself over the back, shrieking in terror. Beau climbed right up onto the roof. Mason threw himself into the front seat and pulled out in record time, Beau clinging to the roof for dear life as the truck rattled through the forest. Conner stared up at Jungkook, snickering in his tree, a look of awed horror on his face. The sow made sure her baby was fine, and then began rooting through their abandoned sandwiches. Jungkook began to tail the truck.

The swamp was always hard to navigate, deep and dark like it shifted around, but the house seemed to act as a pin, keeping the nearby landmarks consistent. Further and further from the house, they seemed to get more nebulous. So Jungkook found it odd that his shortcut across the swamp led him exactly to where he figured the truck should come out.

The swamp really shouldn’t have let them in in the first place though, almost like it was helping the intruders.

“Can’t be right,” Jungkook muttered, and ducked behind a tree. The blue truck had stopped just around the bend of the back road leading up to the house, which sometimes disappeared completely, and definitely never had such a neat little bend so close to keep the truck hidden. He swallowed another armor potion and a fire potion, and walked straight up to the truck.

“You crazy bastard!” Mason said as he walked up.

“Get out of the swamp. Seriously.”

“You set a wild pig on us!”

“You shot my boyfriend!” Jungkook snapped, and hoped they didn’t notice the little wisp of smoke floating out of his mouth. “You’re gonna get hurt.”

“You’re a fucking fag, Jeon, and we’ve got beef with all the shit you pulled in high school.”

“I’m not trying to threaten you. You just need to leave.”

“Or what? You’ll get down and suck our cocks?”

“Ugh,” Jungkook cringed. “The fuck kinda porn have you been watching?”

“Your boyfriend was the one holding the bomb anyway,” Mason said, cheeks flushing suspiciously. “Not our fault he’s dead.”

“Tae is fine,” Jungkook snorted. “You just hit his shoulder. You really think that was a bomb?”

“Uh, yeah?” Beau said. “You think we’re idiots or something?”

“Let’s go with ‘inbred’,” Jungkook muttered, which probably wasn’t good for the de-escalation he’d been going for.

Mason got aggressively up in his face, those blue eyes and pretty freckles real close and personal. “Listen, you fuckin—

Jungkook puffed a small blast of flame out either side of his mouth like a smoke trick. The three guys froze. Jungkook swallowed his hysterical giggles. “The fuck was that?” Mason said, backing up fast. Jungkook blew a thin stream of flame and watched with wicked satisfaction as the boys fell back in shock.

“You should get out of this swamp,” he said, “I’m keeping Jimin and Taehyung off your asses for now, but they’ll come after you eventually, and you really don’t want to deal with them.”

“We can take three fags on any day,” Conner said, and laughed a little hysterically, “What’r’you gonna do? Snap your fingers at us?”

Jungkook snapped and flames burst around his hand and then died slowly off. They gaped. “Get out of the swamp,” Jungkook said. “If you stay out here past sunset I really won’t be able to save you.”

“Don’t need your fucking help,” Mason laughed. “The fuck do you think you’re doing, weirdo? Got a couple stupid magic tricks and you think you’re scary. Fuck that. We’re gonna wreck you before we leave.”

“Bad choice of words,” Jungkook said.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

“How’s this for payback?” Conner said and yanked the shotgun out of the truck.

“Wait—” Mason gasped. Conner shot Jungkook in the knee. It ripped a hole in the denim and bounced off. Jungkook took a deep, calm breath.

“GO GO GO,” Mason screamed, and just got out of the way of Jungkook’s ten-foot blast of flame, right from between his lips like a dragon. The truck bumped away down the road, a long section of the blue siding melting along the bed.

 

“They’re still here,” Jimin said softly, tapping on the map. “We have an hour till the sun sets and then we have to destroy this map. It looks like they’re trying to camp south of us.”

“I can’t go out there again,” Jungkook groaned from the floor. “All the potions are really taking it out of me.”

He had three more bullet holes in his clothes. The guys had two new burn marks on their trunk and a bullet hole in the roof of their cab. “Revival potion,” Taehyung said, holding out a potion in one of Jungkook’s Solo cups. He looked a little childish, a big, woven blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his long hair hanging in his face.

“You like these?” Jungkook said.

“They’re super useful,” Taehyung said.

“I don’t get it. They’re ugly as fuck,” Jimin said.

Jungkook examined the revival potion carefully, knowing now never to drink anything without careful inspection first, then drank it slowly and felt the exhaustion fade from his mind and body like he was in a video game. “Getting some serious Far Cry vibes today,” he said. Taehyung snickered. Jimin just accepted that he didn’t get it and went back to the map.

“Jungkook, you have to get them off property.”

“I’m almost out of armor potion,” Jungkook said. “I have two. They’re fifteen minutes each and I’ll need them for an hour.”

If they’re still in the forest by nightfall, they’ll die,” Jimin said, “Really scare ‘em. Pull out the big guns. The glowy thing.”

“I’ve been breathing fire on them all afternoon,” Jungkook groaned. “I feel burnt. What the hell else can I do? That was already my trump card.”

“Take Brandy with you,” Taehyung said, “And please come back safely. They’re really not worth you getting hurt. If you haven’t gotten them out by sunset, just come back.”

“People will come looking for them.”

“We can handle it. Go.”

 

The woods were lovely, dark, and deep. Brandy trotted soundlessly on the ground beside him, golden fur a little brighter and more colorful than the graying swamp. Jungkook pulled a tiny Bombay Sapphire bottle out of his belt and drank it down. His body glowed, lighting his way through the forest. Brandy hopped onto his shoulder for a ride. Thirty-five minutes till sunset. He drank the first armor potion.

The guys weren’t too hard to find, banging around their truck and swearing. They saw his glow before he got there, and didn’t seem at all surprised, though Beau took one look at the glowing and walked a little way off into the darkening forest murmuring “What the fuck, what the fuck,” over and over again.

“Please leave?” Jungkook said desperately.

“I don’t know what you are,” Mason breathed, “Some kinda sorcerer or magician or something, but you need to fucking die, and we’re not gonna leave till we kill you and your stupid boyfriends.”

“You can’t,” Jungkook said. “We could kill you, but I won’t let them.”

“Why not?” Mason said. “Got a crush? Super creepy, Jeon.”

“Both my boyfriends are hotter than—never mind. This place is terrifying. They’re evil. The border is a ten-minute drive north. You can still make it. Please get out while you can.”

“No,” Mason said. “You know what? No. You’re soft, and that’s awesome, because someone has to put you three down like rabid dogs. You’re an abomination. Stop fucking bluffing. You can’t get rid of us.”

“Can we just go home?” Conner said very quietly. “It’s just Jeon, man.”

“You made me look like an idiot in high school!” Mason roared. “The noodles in my locker! The backpack you burned had my textbooks in it! We had to pay for those!”

“Really?” Jungkook said weakly, “You’re gonna risk your life just for that?”

“You and your fucking pixie-fag boyfriends are gonna fucking die!” Mason said. A vein bulged grotesquely in his forehead. “You’re disgusting and I wanna be the one to shoot you in the fucking face!”

He whipped out his hunting knife and slashed his own tire. “Look at that! Can’t get out now! Looks like we’re here till we get what we came for! Your fucking corpses!” The tire hissed sadly.

Fifteen minutes till sundown. Jungkook tiredly took his last armor potion out of his belt and drank it.

“The fuck is that? You think you’re cool or something? What’s with the fruity little bottle?”

“No! It’s—I don’t give a shit,” Jungkook grunted. “If we can make it to my car, we can still get out of the woods in time. Oh shit, wait. You slashed my tires.”

“If you think this swamp is so bad, why are you fucking here?” Mason said, nodding like he’d cracked Jungkook’s bluff. “You weren’t fucking special in high school. You still aren’t. You can’t handle the swamp at night because you’re weak as fuck. Think you’re better than us? Think you can tell us what to do?” Mason came at him with the hunting knife, those beautiful blue eyes flashing wickedly. Jungkook didn’t even flinched as the knife skidded off his chest. Beau whimpered in terror. Conner flinched back. Brandy hissed and became briefly enveloped in deep, inky shadow like a void.

“Fuck this,” Mason said, sweat breaking out across his forehead as he stared down at the demonic little cat.

“Guys, seriously. You’re gonna die. Please let me help you.”

“I’m never gonna let you help us,” Mason said. “Not in a million years. Fuck that.”

Beau and Conner were frantically trying to get the spare tire onto the truck. “Mason, I think your spare is flat.”

Brandy tapped Jungkook’s ankle. Ten minutes to run back to the house. Ten minutes till sunset.

“Brandy, can you do anything?” Jungkook said softly. He could see no rays of sunset through the forest, sun low behind the trees. Brandy turned and trotted into the forest. She wouldn’t do anything even if she could. She didn’t care. Jimin and Taehyung would probably laugh when the forest tore these guys apart. He could practically feel his heart rate pick up as the light faded from the trees.

“Mason, can we please just do what he says?” Beau said quietly. “What about all those stories about people disappearing this side of the swamp?”

“You’re terrible people,” Jungkook said softly, “but you don’t deserve to die like this. Please let me help you.”

“It’s not like any of the fucking gators can get us in the truck,” Mason muttered. “We’ll be fine.” They gathered to talk.

Brandy had left him. The natural sounds of the forest slowly shut off, the bug noises and birds fading out completely. Even the alligators quieted down. “Guys…” Jungkook said. “We really don’t have time for this.”

Ten minutes back to the house. Five minutes to sunset. Five minutes left on his armor potion. Jungkook glanced back towards the house impatiently, shifting back as if a few extra steps would help if he had to run for it.

“Why are you helping us?” Mason said.

“I’ve been stuck out here at night before,” Jungkook said. “Without magic the first time. I would have died without help. Really, the dragon would probably kill you and that’s the nicest thing out here.”

“Dr-dragon.”

“Big, long, water dragon. Looks like an alligator. We really have to run now,” Jungkook said. The smothering darkness seemed to reach towards him. I remember you.

“But why the hell are you helping us?” Mason said. “You’re just leading us into a trap, aren’t you?”

“I don’t hate you that much,” Jungkook snapped. “This isn’t fair to you and I don’t want you to die here.”

“We’ve done a vote,” Beau said from behind Mason. “We’re gonna do what he wants.”

“I’m the leader. I get two votes.”

“You ain’t the leader,” Conner grumbled. “We never elected you.”

“And no you don’t,” Beau said.

“In any case, that’s a tie,” Conner said. “I’m the one with the girlfriend so we’re doing what I say. Let’s go.”

“Thank god,” Jungkook sighed. “We’re running.”

“I ain’t runnin’.” Conner said.

“You’ll die if you don’t,” Jungkook said, and took off at the slowest sprint he felt comfortable with. They followed.

For about five minutes, the forest seemed to hold its breath, breeze rustling in the trees like the swamp was laughing softly at them. Every small noise had Jungkook picking up, the guys stumbling after him. They splashed through creeks and tripped over logs, and Jungkook just kept running.

Just as both Jungkook’s glow and the daylight itself faded completely under the treetops, Beau stumbled to a halt. “Can’t…” he panted. “Gotta…Hold on…”

“Fuck. We don’t have time,” Jungkook said, pawing through his belt. He sucked down the super-strength potion as the guys leaned against trees and breathed. “We’ve gotta go.”

“How are you still moving?” Conner gasped.

“What the fuck could possibly get us?”

“Imps,” Jungkook squeaked, and then realized that was a fairly stupid monster to settle on. Where had Brandy gone? “The dragon. Hellhounds. Ogres. Trolls. Bugbears.” He swallowed, staring into the dark. “Demons.”

“Those don’t exist.”

“Can people breath fire, Mason?” Jungkook snapped.

“N-no.”

“Oh really?”

“Fuck off.”

“I will fucking carry you,” Jungkook said, staring into the black forest, not sure he was even heading in the right direction anymore. The trees looked unfamiliar. Every second in the forest had his heart thundering faster in his chest. “Or fuck, I’ll leave you here to die. You have no idea—”

To their right came a soft clatter, like many sharpened knives sliding together. Two glowing eyes slid into view off in the forest. Jungkook whimpered, backing away, desperate terror clutching at him.

Jungkook’s chain lit up suddenly around his neck, chokingly tight, and golden light filled the air around them. The glowing eyes belonged to a lion-sized creature, spiked like a porcupine with razor-sharp metal. Jungkook heard a yelp as one of the boys saw it. With a vicious snarl, it spun across the leaves like a tornado of swords, rushing towards them.

The chain yanked around Jungkook’s neck, and he sprinted into the forest, running headlong in the direction in pulled, a little more to the left than what he’d thought. His chain lit the way. Conner outstripped him on his long legs. Beau whined as he ran behind him, and Mason panted to his right. They splashed right through a muddy, peat-lined creek. Behind them, the sound of knives came closer and closer, and Jungkook could barely hear over his own panic.

They hadn’t used his chain for this long since the haunted house. He hoped they’d destroyed the map.

Mason and Conner were both ahead of him now, pointed in the right direction and going as fast as they could.

The knives got closer still, eerily unnatural in the quiet darkness of the swamp. As they burst into the backyard, Jungkook thought he saw a spinning, purple face sweeping through the woods to his left.

Mason and Conner sprinted towards the front door where Taehyung waited with Jungkook’s golden chain in his hand. They were close enough to make it.

And then Jungkook felt a little pull of magic at the runes in his earlobe, and spun to see Beau reverse twenty feet, caught in the wormhole of the Jimin’s tag, and run forward again. The knife monster twirled into the clearing. Jungkook skidded to a halt, the super-strength potion still racing through his limbs, met Beau almost at the tag, picked him up, and threw him towards the front porch where Taehyung caught him out of the air and settled him gently down.

In the front yard past Taehyung, the spinning, purple face blinked into existence, and then vanished again. Jungkook hesitated for a moment too long, and as he leapt onto the porch, pain ripped like a punch through his back, arms, and legs, burning and wet and everywhere.

Taehyung must have pulled him in the door. He couldn’t breath. He could struggle, so he did. Then he couldn’t struggle, but found he could breathe a little, so he screamed. His could see nothing but shiny red. Blood? Was that blood? Gold lines sparkled in the slick, dark red.

“Relax,” Jimin ordered above him as he sucked in air to scream again. Jungkook’s body went limp and he collapsed in the warm, red puddle.

“Demon,” Jungkook gasped.

“I know. You’re safe,” Jimin said, voice shaking. Jungkook tried to turn and look at him and it pulled with a terrible ache at the muscles close to the top of his spine. “Don’t move,” Jimin said. Jungkook went limp again. His head got light. His body felt numb.

“No, no, no,” Jimin said. “Stay with me. Don’t die.”

“’m tryin,” Jungkook groaned.

“You have to do whatever I say,” Jimin said frantically. “Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.”

“What can I do?” Taehyung said. It echoed into his ears down a long tunnel.

“Hold his spine together,” Jimin said.

Jungkook whimpered.

“With my hands?” Taehyung squeaked.

“You’ve had your hands in worse places,” Jimin snapped.

The lower half of his body flickered back online, pain in screaming lashes all the way down his back and legs, and Jungkook tightened up, yelling again. “Hold still,” Jimin said. “Be quiet.”

Jungkook locked his lips together, body falling lax again, awful, unbearable pain scrambling everything in his head. He screamed silently. He opened his eyes and thought he saw his hand. His fingers were blue. He wished he could faint.

“Blood potion,” Jimin said over his head. Taehyung’s feet came briefly into view and then disappeared into the kitchen. Brandy snuck up into his vision and leaned down to touch his nose.

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE, YOU BITCH,” Jungkook screamed. His voice gurgled horribly. She leapt back.

“Be quiet!” Jimin yelped. Brandy crouched on the floor, looking alarmed. “She came to tell us to do something. We had to destroy the map and we didn’t know what was going on.”

“Sorry,” Jungkook whimpered at Brandy, who slunk off towards the kitchen with her ears down. “Sorry,” he groaned again.

“It’s okay,” Jimin said. Jungkook looked to the side as best as he could without moving and saw the net of golden lines spread across his back.

“Pain…killer,” he sobbed. “Please! Fuck, please.”

“Can’t do both at once, babe,” he said.

“One of you fucks come in here and be useful,” Taehyung said. A pair of work-boots passed his line of sight and walked into the kitchen.

“I think…you’re probably going to live,” Jimin said, voice still shaky. “Taehyung, please hurry with that potion.”

“I can’t find it!” Taehyung yelled back.

“Cabinet over the table,” Jungkook breathed.

“Stop talking,” Jimin begged. “Tae, he says the cabinet over the table.”

“Blue bottle?” Taehyung yelled.

Jungkook nodded and it felt like his head would rip off his shoulders.

“Don’t move!” Jimin squeaked, voice breaking on a sob. “He says yes!”

Jungkook consciousness faded into a haze of light and sparks and pain. Something dribbled into his mouth. “Swallow,” Jimin said. Jungkook’s throat worked against his will, which was good, because he wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise. He could feel his body shutting off, his brain spiraling away, not enough blood in his body to keep anything working.

“It’s sealed up,” Jimin’s voice said, bouncing around in Jungkook’s head like he’d thought the phrase instead of hearing it. “Now the potion just has to take.”

“Jungkook, breathe,” Taehyung said. Jungkook’s lungs filled painfully without his will.

He floated, hazy with heady relief, a confused, lasting sting, shivering cold. He warmed slowly, brain clicking steadily back on. Jimin and Taehyung hovered over him, brains full of fear and desperation like static, love and hope and terror.

“I’m here,” he rasped, and opened his eyes. A pool of his own blood stretched out from his vision and leaked down into the floorboards. Bubble stood on the edge of the puddle, paws lifting tentatively as if wondering if she should wade over.

Jimin sighed deeply. All the blood vanished slowly from around him and then Jimin flopped down on the floor, blinking sleepily at his face. “You’re okay,” he breathed. “You’re gonna be okay.” His grotesquely red hands cleared slowly, leaving only a little brown, sticky residue in the hard to reach places under his fingernails and in his cuticles.

Taehyung rolled him over gently and held a dropper to his mouth, several open vials in his hand. “C’mon. You’re not fixed yet.”

His brain returned more gradually after that, awareness slowly coming in as he lay on the floor. Jimin threw his shirt away with a sigh of regret, and then carried Jungkook easily to the couch as the three guys looked on in awe. “Welcome to our home,” Jimin grumbled wryly, sliding his lap under Jungkook’s head. Taehyung sat on the back of the couch behind both of them, Brandy curled up on his lap. Jungkook stared at his boys above him, both pale and clammy, sagging with exhaustion. Adrenaline pounded through his heart, hot and cold, and still not quite sure if he was safe yet.

“For the last time, what was that?” Mason said, voice small and weak.

Jimin and Jungkook looked at Taehyung. “No idea,” Taehyung said. “Looked like a giant, sword porcupine.”

“Did you see the demon?” Jungkook asked, flinching at how winded and slurred his voice sounded.

Taehyung blanched again. “No.”

“I saw it,” Jimin said, tugging on Taehyung’s hand. “It was following Jungkook.”

“’Cause of the chain, I guess,” Taehyung said.

“What was the chain?” Mason asked.

Jimin and Taehyung glanced down at Jungkook again. “Not your business,” Jungkook grumbled. Jimin and Taehyung looked a little uncomfortable. “Saved our lives though,” Jungkook said. “Thanks.”

“What are you guys?” Mason said.

“Witches,” Jimin said.

“All three of you?”

“Not Jungkook. He’s like you.”

“Oh.”

Bubble hopped onto Jungkook’s chest and snuggled under his chin, purring sweetly. As Jungkook’s head cleared more and more, he began to feel the awkward tension in the room. Their three guests sat in their old armchairs, tired, sweaty, and dirty, and not looking directly at their hosts. Taehyung had his intimidation aura turned on high. Jimin was falling asleep against Taehyung’s leg, soft lips hanging open.

“So we can…leave in the morning?” Mason said.

Jimin picked his head up sleepily. “You can leave when the sun rises,” he said.

“And don’t let them trick you into coming back,” Jungkook grumbled.

“Why so mean tonight?” Jimin said.

“Nearly died.”

“That’s not our fault—”

“—for once.”

“You’re the one that decided to go out and save them.”

“Couldn’t let magic kill them,” Jungkook said. “Not fair.”

Jimin sighed. “You’re a better person than we are.”

“No shit.”

“Your seal got scraped up,” Taehyung said, touching the mark on his shoulder, still stinging with newly healed skin. He brushed over it gently, and Jungkook felt his jumble of anxious concern, affection, and guilt.

“Will that do anything?”

“No,” Taehyung said. “Shouldn’t affect the bond. Just looked like it hurt.” He started to take his hand away, and Jungkook caught his cold fingers and held them there, tingling against the mark, forgetting their guests. Their rush of possessive affection, the warmth of their love so close and intense, helped Jungkook breath, finally calming, fully aware of how alive he was.

“I guess we can set you three up down here,” Jimin sighed, sinking into his gracious, southern-housewife role. “Or someone can sleep in Jungkook and Taehyung’s room and we can share mine.”

“Nope,” Jungkook said.

“Charlie’s in my room,” Taehyung said.

“Charlie’s a fern!”

“Charlie’s been hurt before!”

“Sorry again, Brandy,” Jungkook muttered, trying to pet her cheek. She gave him a long, baleful glare, and then lowered her head, blinked her green eyes slowly, and bumped against his fingers.

Jimin tiredly set up bedding on the two couches downstairs, and one on the floor, and the three guests sat nervously as Taehyung and Jimin carried all the boxes of supplies and the big, silver mirror out of the ritual room.

“Don’t touch anything tonight,” Jungkook said. “Not even the plants. Some of them would try to eat you.” Mason, Conner, and Beau nodded slowly, sweaty and wide-eyed.

“Jungkook, why didn’t you clean up the armor potion materials when you finished with them?” Jimin said.

“There was a lot of stuff going on,” Jungkook muttered. Mason leaned to the side a little to try to peer into the kitchen.

“Now I have to do it,” Jimin whined. “You know how armadillo tongues get when you leave them out.” He held out a little strand of tongues on a string and Mason flinched back, staring forward with wide eyes.

Jimin set up a conch shell inside a planter to act as a baby monitor, and they shut the lights off and retreated like exhausted parents to Jungkook’s room. Brandy disappeared. Bubble curled up between the pillows and the headboard as an extra, little cushion, and loudly licked herself for a whole half hour.

“Sure you’re okay, baby?” Jimin said, running a hand over Jungkook’s uninjured back. They sandwiched him in tight on either side, arms tight around him, powerful relief in both of their heads. “The worst slices scarred a little. Doesn’t hurt at all anymore?”

“Better than being a cat, actually,” Jungkook said, smiling a little at Jimin's scowl. “Nah, it feels fine. Thanks. You’re amazing. That’s some pretty intense magic.”

“Worst injury I’ve ever had to fix,” Jimin whispered. He pressed his face down against Jungkook’s shoulder and squirmed closer.

“Sorry for using your chain,” Taehyung said, jammed in under his arm with his forehead resting against Jungkook’s. “We’ll make it up to you. Do you want anything specific this time?”

“Help me fix up their truck tomorrow morning and bring it back here. I really don’t want them to have any reason to come after you guys because of me.”

“Won’t matter if we fix their truck,” Taehyung grumbled. “People can’t ever leave magic alone once they know it’s there. We’ve got a lot of shit coming our way. I really think we should have killed them.”

“Taehyung…no. What? You’d kill someone? You’re not a murderer.”

“They shot me!”

“It’d be like an MMA fighter going after a five-year-old that hit him with a water gun,” Jungkook said. “It’s just not right. That’s why I wanted to take care of this. I’m better armed, but at least I’m on their level to begin with.”

“They tried to set fire to our—”

“Also, you want a lot of shit coming your way? If you kill them, you’ll have the entire county searching this swamp.”

“They wrote ‘fags’ on our front door.”

“I hate them as much as you do, Jimin, but I see them as people and you see them as pests. They’re like me. I went to school with these guys.”

Taehyung clutched his arm. “They nearly got you killed. Were they really worth losing your life?”

“No. But I would do it again,” Jungkook said. “I don’t wanna be someone who decides if someone else deserves death or not. They’re dumb and malicious, but they didn’t know what they were doing.”

Jimin and Taehyung lay quietly next to him. “Okay,” Taehyung finally said. “I’m glad you saved them. I’m sorry for being uncooperative. But I still hate that we’re just letting them go tomorrow. It’s dangerous. There are far too many Evangelical Christians around here.”

“Would you rather keep them in a cage and fatten them up to eat them?” Jungkook said.

“What?” Jimin squeaked.

“Good way to get pushed into an oven,” Taehyung said.

“Huh?”

“It’s a fairy tale. Don’t worry about it.”

“Which one is Gretel?” Taehyung giggled.

“Mason, of course,” Jungkook said. They fell slowly asleep to the sound of Conner and Beau muttering fearfully on the other end of the conch shell baby monitor.

 

Their guests looked very poorly rested when Jungkook and Taehyung levitated their goo-vandalized, beaten-in, slashed-up truck into the front yard and Taehyung proceeded to patch it up with Jungkook’s help. They came out onto the porch, shifty-eyed and nervous, and watched with awe as the gashes on the side of the truck sealed, and the dented engine floated apart, fixed itself, and then re-assembled.

Jungkook caught Conner poking a toe at a few dried splashes of his blood along the side of the porch.

“Hey, Jungkook,” Mason said uncomfortably. Jimin, making breakfast by the stove next to them in only a giant sweater that hung off his shoulder, leaned a little closer to listen in. “We wanted to, uh, say thank you. And apologize for our behavior.”

Jungkook looked him deep in those beautiful, remorseless, blue eyes. “Do you.”

Mason gulped. “Well you saved our lives and nearly died, so yeah. We’re sorry we were such assholes to y'all yesterday.”

“And you’re not just saying that because you’re fucking scared?”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a different man than you were in high school,” Mason muttered. He hadn’t stopped shaking since he woke up. Jungkook hadn’t felt so powerful since the first time he drank an armor potion.

“Oh, how the tables have turned,” Jimin murmured.

“I gotta ask, man. Were you always gay?” Mason said, eyes flickering down to Jimin’s thighs under the hem of his sweater. Jungkook saw Jimin’s ring buzz just a little.

Jungkook hesitated, fighting the old urge to care what Mason thought of him. “Yup. Always thought you were pretty hot too,” Jungkook said. Taehyung stepped on his toe as he walked past, frowning.

Mason choked. “You liked me?”

“Hell no. You fucking sucked,” Jungkook laughed.

Conner snickered a little, then shut up fast when Jimin slammed a plate down in front of him. Bubble stood up against his leg, trying to find out what Jimin held. “What’s this?” Conner said, voice high and thin.

“Eggs and black beans,” Jimin said. “You’re not allergic, are you?”

“N-no. It’s fine,” he said, poking it with a fork.

“Just eat it. It’s not poisoned and it’s not going to start speaking riddles at you.”

"Can I pet your cat?" he said, reaching for Bubble. She sat straighter, waiting for pets.

"Absolutely not," Jimin said, sweeping her off the floor and dropping her into Jungkook's hands so he could give her the head scritches she wanted.

“I don’t care about the backpack you burned up or nothin anymore,” Mason muttered. “Just don’t hurt anyone, okay? If we hear anything about someone gettin hurt out in the woods, we’re coming back for you, and we’ll be sneakier this time.”

“Okay,” Jungkook snorted, and took his plate from Jimin, putting Bubble on his shoulder and out of the way. “Thanks babe.” Jimin kissed him, holding Bubble on his shoulder as she tried to nose in and get her own kisses. The three guests gave each other disgusted looks. Taehyung cracked Beau’s coffee cup and it splashed, steaming, all over his pants. He shrieked.

“Don’t play with your food,” Jimin chided, cleaning it up with a wave of his hand. Beau jolted. Brandy, who had leapt forward to slurp the coffee off the floor, retreated, pouting.

After breakfast they hopped in the truck with their guests to see them safely out. Jungkook jammed in the front seat between Mason and Conner, Brandy perched regally on his lap. Beau sat in the back with Jimin and Taehyung, crunched up against the cab with his cap pulled low over his face, hugging the shotgun.

“Nice meeting you,” Jimin said cheerfully at the border. “Sorry about the bad bedding. We’re not used to guests.”

“Don’t forget,” Mason said, undeterred by Jimin’s bright smile, “Don’t do anything hostile and we won’t come back out here and—”

Jimin tapped his forehead, one ring flashing brightly, and he trailed off, expression blank. Jungkook swallowed hard, tamping down his fear. Jimin tapped Conner’s head and Conner sank back into his seat, blinking calmly at the forest. Beau tried to run. Jimin grabbed him by the collar with one magically strong arm, and whacked the back of his head, then threw him into the bed of the truck where he lay staring up at the dead branches of the tree. Mason turned the key and they rumbled away.

Jimin watched them go with his hands on his hips, powerful arms sparkling with jewelry, Taehyung grinning beside him in a huge, green t-shirt and leather pants, both looking like wood elves. Jungkook almost felt like he should be in the truck with the other guys, rattling away down the dirt road. Another piece of his old life sailing away again. “How much did you erase?”

“Every trace of us since they saw you in Walmart,” Jimin said, grinning. “Shouldn’t have talked about how they’re gonna come back here and kill us if we try anything. Fucking stupid. As if we’d give them the option.”

Jungkook gulped, letting the old, odd burn of fear back into his chest. “How powerful can that spell be?”

“Pretty powerful. Why?”

“How much memory can it erase?”

“Up to a year.”

“Ah,” Jungkook said, trying to hold back his relief.

“We’d never do that to you anyway,” Jimin said quickly, eyebrows shooting up. “People never wipe bonded servants. It’s against the contract. We’d probably be punished for that.”

“But when I’m not a bonded servant anymore?”

“Still,” Jimin said. “You’ve had the contract. You’ve done your time and now you’re a part of this forever.”

“Good,” Jungkook said softly.

“Good?” Taehyung said, wrapping his arms around his waist. “Thought you’d want a way out.” He nuzzled against his chest bringing Jungkook back to his normal self, the man with a witch on either arm, runes in his ears, an emergency healing potion in his back pocket.

“Magic’s okay,” Jungkook said. “I can kinda use it now, so…”

Taehyung and Jimin grinned at each other, pride and smug happiness on the empathetic link. Jimin laced his fingers through Jungkook’s. “Let’s go smoke up and have sex now that the kids are out of the house,” he said.

“Dibs on top,” Taehyung said.

“Dibs on Jimin’s ass.”

“Whatever you want, baby,” Taehyung said, kissing the back of his hand. “Anything for you.”

Notes:

Okay. I'm not going to say that's the last one because I have no idea at this point. I've come back to this one too many times to say definitively that it's over or not. There may be more eventually. I may never touch it again. Thanks for all the lovely support I've gotten along the way.

This one makes people angry. Trust me, I really get it. But I cannot imagine these characters making different decisions than the ones they do.

Give me feedback! I love that stuff!

Come visit me at tumblr and twitter.

Chapter 8: Woodwork

Summary:

As the bond begins to fade, Taehyung and Jimin grow claws.

Notes:

This one is fairly dark, but as always, it ends well.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“I think the bond is starting to fade,” Jimin said. He’d forgotten to brush his bed-head that morning and it lay in a messy, flat mess over his soft face, red brown in the summer evening. Jungkook tossed a chopped bundle of dried slime-weed stems into the pot.

“It is.”

Jimin picked at his shirt, or Jungkook’s shirt, it looked like, and Taehyung’s sweatpants. “We’ve still got six months. I can’t feel you clearly when you’re out in the barn anymore.”

Jungkook had spent the previous night out in the barn, up late working on a spell. They came slowly. He had few ways to test them besides finding a way to draw them on paper and waiting for Jimin, or occasionally Bubble, to activate them. “Maybe that’s why it feels so peaceful out there,” he said.

Jimin grumbled behind him. Tae had disappeared into the woods again to check a boggy patch deep past the tree-line, and had been gone much longer than expected. Jimin had slid into the kitchen and onto the bench with the best view of the window like he usually did when happened. Jungkook thought there might be a dip in the bench that there didn’t used to be, a lighter patch of wood, rubbed down by Jimin as he waited for his man to come back from work.

“Did you sleep well?” Jungkook asked.

“No,” Jimin grunted. “Tae slept on his own too. Had to sleep alone.”

Bubble popped up from Jimin’s lap, attempting Brandy’s stern gaze.

“What’s been up with him?” Jungkook muttered. He’d been in the woods more than usual, going to bed alone and early, up at dawn to poke for monster claws stuck in the trunks of tree, smoking in the sunlight.

“It’s a cycle. Ignore it. Sometimes he just…cares about fucking potions and plants more than anything else. It hasn’t happened in years but…it’s whatever. I think it’ll pass. What’s up with you?”

“Me?” Jungkook said.

“Yeah, you. You’re, like, snappier than you used to be.”

“I’m braver than I used to be,” Jungkook said. He shuffled up against Jimin’s side. “And you? You’re not showing a lot of skin these days.”

Jimin shrugged. Jungkook ran a hand under his shirt and dragged a finger slowly up his abs.

“Don’t feel like it,” Jimin said, dragging Jungkook hand out and pulling it around his waist instead, firm under his worn t-shirt. Don’t feel like it? In the middle of the summer? Jungkook had spent most of the last heat wave without a shirt just for his health and safety. Just one smooth hand stroking up Jimin’s chest and against his throat would rile him up anyway. Jimin sagged against Jungkook’s chest with a sigh. “We don’t hang out a lot. If you’re not working on something, you’re fucking me, and I just wanna chill. It’s hot.”

Jungkook snorted and drew his hand playfully up Jimin’s chest. “We did that ridiculous black-out poetry thing with a shitty muscle-growth potion recipe just last night. What are you talking about?”

Jimin grabbed Jungkook’s hand and pinned it to his lap. Bubble stuck her head up Jimin’s shirt. “I’m tired.”

Jungkook tried to pull his hand out of Jimin’s grip. He tightened down, holding him there with his magical strength. “You didn’t sleep well?” Jungkook asked, instead, letting it go and resting his chin on Jimin’s shoulder instead.

“I haven’t slept well in weeks,” Jimin said. “I literally have not slept more than four hours straight in a month, since the bond started wearing off, actually, and you and Tae never fucking help.”

Jungkook usually let Taehyung coddle and praise Jimin when he was in his needier moods. He could cajole Jimin back into good humor, and sat as far away as possible, trying to wipe all worry and bitterness from his mind to not interrupt. But Tae was still out in the evening woods, sun still a couple hours from setting. He wrapped his arms around Jimin’s shoulders and tried to flood the link with love, hoping it would be enough.

“I’ve been having dreams,” Jimin murmured, “every single night, where Tae walks into the swamp and drowns, and you hold me back so I can’t save him.”

Jungkook felt it over the line, a dark, murky fear, otherworldly and rank. He held on silently.

“Jungkook,” Jimin whispered, “I’ve got to get out of this forest.”

“Get out?” he asked. “Like take another trip north?”

“Go home for good. I feel like I’m in prison. I never see anyone. I can’t…” he turned his head into Jungkook’s shoulder. “Sometimes I want to slap Taehyung for bringing me here. I wanna go back to Massachusetts.”

He must have felt Jungkook’s repulsion. “You don’t know,” he said. “You and Tae don’t know what it’s like to miss family. If you knew, you wouldn’t do this to me.”

Jungkook struggled for a constructive response besides confused offense. “I’ve hardly ever been outside South Georgia. Remember what happened last time I stayed with your family—”

“Almost four years ago!” Jimin snapped. “I haven’t seen my family in nearly four years, and Taehyung doesn’t care. You’ve been to my home more recently than I have. I miss my friends! I feel like I’m losing years off my life!”

Jungkook pulled away. “Sorry.”

“Ugh, don’t give me that,” Jimin said, head flopping onto his arms on the table. Jungkook gently moved an order of dried herbs carefully out of the way. Back when he first arrived, Jimin and Taehyung were always finished working by early afternoon. Now, even with Jungkook’s help, they often worked till midnight. “You two both have so many problems that whenever I’m unhappy I have to suck it up and deal with yours.”

Jungkook swallowed, chest tight.

“Do you realize when you do that?” Jimin said. “Every time I try to bring up one of my problems, either you or Taehyung is like ‘oh, but listen to my soul-crushing angst. You don’t even know,’ and then I have to hold your hand and tell you you’re perfect while I get emotionally blue-balled. Fuck both of you.”

Jungkook very nearly opened his mouth to snap something about ‘You’re the one who forced me into this relationship,’ before realizing that was exactly what Jimin was talking about. He felt a little hot, a little sick. How long had he been doing that? How much had it hurt? Where was Taehyung when he needed him? Should he apologize?

In the long, stiff silence, Jimin’s link suddenly shifted to shame and guilt. “I’m sorry,” Jimin croaked. He shuffled against Jungkook’s chest. “You’re too good for me. I’m so sorry. I feel so angry all the time. I don’t mean to take it out on you. “

Less than a year before, Jimin had published his first potions book, a quiet affair where the manuscript went out, a check came back, and the profit began streaming quietly, constantly in, along with scores and score of orders, Jimin hired a small warehouse in Savannah to package and ship out products. They no longer had any orders to fill, just an ever-higher quota of potion ingredients sent out every few days.

Jungkook had noticed, every once and a while, invitations to Jimin from conventions and organizations, letters from random witches, little notes from the publishing company, and Jimin quietly wrote a response to every letter at the kitchen table and sent it out again. Like a worried child, Jungkook sat on the stairs out of view of the kitchen and listened in to hushed conversations between Taehyung and Jimin, Tae murmuring “You can go. It’s just a couple days. This is amazing! Don’t miss out!” and Jimin responding, “You’ll fall so behind. It’s fine. I’ll go next year,” knowing the whole time that these were narrow windows to the dreams Jimin had held since before Jungkook met him.

Getting out of the forest. That might mean more magic, but it might mean less danger. It might mean more witches treating him like his boyfriends’ cute pet. Would it be better once the bond broke? It might mean more business and a better future.

“So, if we left,” Jungkook said softly, “Would you…would I…like…” Making everything in the relationship about him again. “Would we be able to find a place to grow things? I thought you two were out here because potion ingredients grew unusually well out here, and like, the creatures. Toads and alligator claws and all that.”

Jimin sat up, eyes wide, “W-well, it would be a loss, but people used to grow potion ingredients everywhere. We’d have to set up much more land, but there are places we could do it. You can get the animal stuff from other businesses. We make the bulk of our profit out of farmable plant-life. Are you serious? You’d consider leaving?”

Jungkook snorted. “Since when did I like this swamp at all?”

 

Taehyung returned just as the sunlight faded from the front porch, hair full of leaves and blissful peace on his face. Brandy trotted right at his ankles like a golden moon in orbit.

“Welcome home,” Jimin said with a relieved smile. “I left your dinner simmering on the stove.”

“You’ve been gone for nine hours,” Jungkook said.

“The summer greens are gone now,” Taehyung said, drifting into the kitchen, voice chipper but soft. “And I didn’t see many flowers, but you should see the amount of growth on the palmettos. Inches a day, I swear. And the tubers will be ready to harvest tomorrow, so I’ll be heading back out.”

“Need me to go with?” Jungkook asked.

“No, no,” Taehyung said. “I’ll just make the nutrient potion tonight and head out first thing tomorrow so I can help pack stuff in the afternoon. You two can handle the steaming toadstools, right?”

“And the giggling onions. There’s a batch due for harvest,” Jimin said.

“Again? Those things are voracious. Damn. I hate missing those.”

He flopped down on the couch with his bowl, dirty and tired, but grinning like a kid. Brandy popped up next to him, eyes aglitter, and settled half on his lap with her nose to the room. Bubble sat up suddenly on Jimin’s lap and began furiously preening. “I found a bugbear hideout today,” Taehyung said. “They were all fast asleep. It was hilarious. They’re kinda cute when their creepy eyes aren’t open, but I strung some sticky palmetto strings across the front of their lair to confuse the hell out of them when they wake up tonight.”

“Is that why you were so late getting home?” Jungkook asked.

Taehyung didn’t pick up on the disapproval. “Partly. I saw a florescent orange alligator with a third eye in the middle of its head! Followed it for about a mile. I think it’s been eat those psychedelic grapes I just planted over by the barn, so note, don’t eat those.”

“Ugh. Fuck,” Jungkook said faintly.

“Jungkook and I were talking business today,” Jimin said, which made Taehyung stick his head up, because Jungkook’s quick excuses to get out of any and all business talk were a pretty common joke. Jungkook didn’t like the way they giggled when they set math or logistics problems out and he blanched. “About…limitations of our present location,” Jimin continued.

“Yeah!” Taehyung said. He nudged Jimin with a dirty, bare foot. Jimin wrinkled his nose and cleaned it with a wave of his hand. The smell didn’t go away. “The warehouse has me thinking that we could hire some people to set up a second farm somewhere else, maybe closer to distributions centers. I bet Louisiana has some fertile ground. Florida too. That’s not much closer though. Maybe Virginia?”

“We weren’t quite talking about that,” Jimin said with a tired sigh, and how did Jungkook not notice how worn down he looked, collapsed against the couch like he didn’t have the energy to sit up, eyes narrowed by swollen, dark bags. He still hadn’t brushed his hair. Was that the band of Jungkook’s boxers? When was the last time he’d seen Jimin wearing his own clothes? “It’s difficult for me to network from here. We have no free time. I haven’t seen any of my family or friends in years. We never have any free days anymore. I know you don’t care because you get to spend most of your days out in the woods doing what you love most, but it’s starting to wear me down.”

“If we moved a lot of production to a different location, we could choose how much to do here,” Taehyung said. “Get our free time back.”

Jimin shifted, his little hands trapped between his legs. Taehyung caught Jungkook’s eye questioningly. “I’m…yeah, yeah. That’s true, of course. Yeah, that’s true. I’m, um…there are some other problems. That we should talk about.”

Taehyung pouted a little, which was enough to let Jungkook know that he wasn’t taking the conversation seriously yet. “Yeah?”

“I’m talking about moving all production elsewhere, Taehyung, not just some.” The temperature in the room dropped abruptly. Even after four and a half years, Jungkook’s pulse picked up. “This forest is great for the plants,” Jimin said, “but we can do everything we do here elsewhere with more land. We have the money for it now, a shit ton of money that we’re not spending.”

“Move all production…” Taehyung said slowly, he sat up stiffly, jostling Brandy on his lap. “I…this is the best spot in the country to do this. We’re not going to get the same results anywhere else. And this is our home. Like, our place. We’re super lucky to be able to live here.”

“I know, I know,” Jimin said.

“You should totally be able to network,” Taehyung said. “I’ve been saying that for months, but there are better ways to do that. Getting another area of production is a great idea. It’d give us the leeway to let you go for a few days when you need to. We don’t have to, like, completely uproot—”

“You’re the only person who likes it here,” Jimin said. Taehyung’s face went abruptly blank. The room’s temperature dropped another few degrees. “I keep having nightmares—Tae, please don’t do that,” Jimin said, voice suddenly high and strained. Taehyung cleared the strangely harsh sneer off his face. Jungkook’s heart jerked in his chest at Jimin’s hurt and Taehyung’s cold anger. “Please listen. I keep dreaming that the swamp in luring you in and—and…Tae!”

“Like your dreams about me tying you to a log and setting it on fire,” Taehyung said. “From back when we first moved here. Yeah, I remember those.”

“No!”

“The bond is going to break soon,” Jungkook said.

“In six months,” Taehyung agreed. Jimin turned away from both of them, the couch afghan pulled around his shoulders. Bubble peeked out to keep watching back and forth between them. “What about it?”

“We’ve been depending on that bond to keep each other safe,” Jungkook said. “We’re already not safe. Remember the swamp figure that showed up when you went away?”

“I told you, the forest likes us,” Taehyung said. “It’s not going to hurt us.”

“The forest likes you, you fucking freak!” Jimin snapped. “Think about someone besides yourself for once in your fucking life!”

“Fine,” Taehyung said easily. “You two can move out if you want. I’m not stopping you. Take most of the production wherever you want. Just don’t come back here and bother me.” He got up and sauntered to the kitchen with Brandy at his heels as Jimin curled up in his blanket and cried.

 

Jungkook pulled up a giggling onion. The magic tickled his cheeks, trying to squirm in his eyes and ears and pull the funk out of his head. It didn’t get very far. Jimin worked down the row in front of him with a dead-eyed scowl that wilted the onions’ perky leaves. Bubble had fallen asleep in the soft dirt at the front of the row and lay there in a little white mound.

Taehyung strolled briskly out of the edge of the trees with a bucket of tubers in hand and Brandy leading the way. Jimin yanked off his gloves, tossed them to the dirt, and stomped after him with his brown hair bouncing and dirt crumbling off his knees. Belatedly, Jungkook realized that Jimin was wearing his clothes again.

In high school, Jungkook spent many nights pretending to sleep as his parents shrieked, cried, and threw unpaid bills at each other on the other side of the wall. He sat back in the dirt and stared down at the giggling onions, all huddled together in the basket. From the house, he felt a strong lash of anger, just reaching to the edge of his mind. He matched it weakly. Taehyung wanted to choose a murderous forest over the men who loved him, over Jimin’s future and Jungkook’s safety. Fucker.

He gripped the stem of another onion and pulled. What would happen if they left? Would a life around witches be any safer than a life here in the forest? Would Taehyung and Jungkook both find it more dangerous there than here?

A unicorn stepped out of the woods. Jungkook dropped the giggling onion. It blinked slowly at him, pure white against the grey forest, eyes flatly silver, light and magic jumping from it like solar flares. The horn stood forward like a piece of driftwood, a little elegantly misshapen and three times as long as Jungkook would have expected, but glistening in the sunlight. He stumbled up. It turned slowly and disappeared into a stand of palmettos with a flick of its silky tail.

“Wait!” Jungkook gasped, and ran forward. Heedless of snakes, of sharp edges or spider webs, he beat his way right to the center of the palmettos, head buzzing.

Unicorns were…he struggled to remember any books on them. They granted…wishes? Did they help people? Did they fix things? Something related to—love, right? He needed…the unicorn could give him…Had it disappeared? “No!” he gasped, turning in circles with an acute, nearly unbearable stab of longing and loss. Some deep instinct told him he’d just lost something, that the unicorn had given him a once-in-a-lifetime call and he’d missed it by a moment.

“…ooo. Brooo! Mmreeoow!”

Sound trickled back into his ears like they’d been filled with water. He looked down. Bubble stood with two feet on his boot, her meowing steadily more audible.

“Did you scare it off?” he snapped.

Her ears flattened. She stepped off his shoe with a tiny meep.

“No, no. Sorry. Sorry.” He picked her up as gently as he could and kissed the top of her fluffy head. “Don’t know why I…sorry. It’s fine.”

He turned in a circle. “Which way…is the house?” There had been a palmetto stand. He’d beaten his way through a palmetto stand just a moment ago. Had it walked off? That couldn’t possibly be it over there, was it? Getting further away. The palmetto stand drifted almost out of his line of vision, the forest floor stretching out in front of him. He made a strangled yell in his throat and took off towards it at a dead sprint.

And immediately tore through it and into the yard on the other side. He stopped dead, Bubble clutched in his hands, and gaped at the yard around him, right where he left it, not half a mile away across a warping swamp. No unicorns either. Sweat dripped off his face in the late summer sun and he sat down hard. His arms burned with little papercut lines from the palmettos.

Just inside the front door, Taehyung had his full weight pressing Jimin to the wall, and Jimin had Taehyung by the ears, both panting into each other’s mouths. They yelped and stumbled away when Jungkook slammed open the door and smacked it into both of them. “S-sorry,” he gasped, and stumbled past them into the kitchen, Bubble still clutched to his chest.

“Kook?” Jimin said, following him in.

“I think I have heat stroke,” Jungkook gasped, filling a glass of water.

“Heat—what? You’ve never…it’s not that hot out,” Jimin said. “It’s only, like, ninety-two today. You’re wearing a hat. Here.” He pressed an ice-cold hand to Jungkook’s forehead.

“I just ha—hallucinated a—are there unicorns in this swamp?”

Jimin laughed sharply. “Hell no. You find them in white-magic grounds around really old centers of learning or monasteries, sometimes around old castles or in forests where really great people lived. Places with a powerfully good aura.”

Taehyung pulled some ingredients off their medicine self, worry clouding down the line.

“You feel perfectly healthy to me,” Jimin said, with a touch to his forehead. He tugged the squirming Bubble out of Jungkook’s tight grip. “Maybe you’d better lie down for the afternoon.”

“Gotta help. We’ll get behind.”

“You can stay in the kitchen and package stuff. Taehyung and I can brew you something. Sorry about...stressing you out.”

Taehyung kissed the crown of his hair on the way past and tossed a bundle of semi-dried leaves that looked like spinach and smelled like steaming, slow-cooked chicken onto the cutting board. Jimin held a small, green rock between his eyes till it snapped with light. Jungkook blinked hard. Jimin tossed it carelessly onto the table.

“Feel better?”

“Maybe a little?”

Jimin sat down to look him carefully in the eyes, scowling. Brandy hopped up on Jungkook’s knees, stood, and pressed her forehead to Jungkook’s. His whole body seemed to clear suddenly, like a presence sweeping from his head to his feet and washing him clean. “Oh,” he murmured, and then sagged into Jimin’s arms. “Oh, that’s better. I’m okay now.”

“Tch,” Jimin said, “you can heal now too? I’m gonna be completely useless in this house soon.”

“Don’t take this out on Brandy,” Taehyung said.

“Why not?” Jimin’s harsh voice rattled against Jungkook’s ear. “She doesn’t act like I even exist. She treats me like I’m nothing and I’m not allowed to be pissed about that?”

“Please stop,” Jungkook groaned. Brandy settled in Jungkook’s lap, her back to Jimin.

Jungkook tried to feel Taehyung’s reaction from less than ten feet away and felt nothing. The bond shouldn’t have started wearing away so early. Maybe his resistance was finally having some effect. The mark itself had begun to fade. Sometimes like this, with Taehyung just too far away to feel, smile out of view and coolly closed off, he seemed to bring the swamp itself inside the house.

 

Jungkook stayed up late in the library, pawing through books. He’d had a book of household protective spells open to the protective barriers, but slapped a book of magical creatures down right on top of it to read up on unicorns. Beautiful and benevolent, they favored the exceptionally virtuous, granting unselfish favors with their intensely powerful magic. They could break any curse or cast any spell. They had a list of under twenty confirmed instances of unicorns influencing normal humans in all of history, including Shakespeare, and George Washington, and Confucius. They usually only helped highly exceptional witches and wizards.

Couldn’t have been a unicorn. Not for Jungkook.

But if it was a unicorn. What if he could catch it and convince it to…to what? Favor him? Make Jimin and Taehyung more willing to compromise with each other?

He slammed the book shut and stumbled to Jimin’s room. Fucking unicorns. How had he gotten to the point where this shit didn’t even surprise him. Jimin woke as Jungkook crawled in beside him. “There you are,” he sighed, and threw his leg over Jungkook’s waist. His small cock squished up against Jungkook’s belly. Jungkook shuffled and squeezed him closer. “Sleeping okay?”

“Yeah. So far,” Jimin said, slowly shifting and letting his weight settle over the side of Jungkook’s body, cool rings and bracelets dragging over their skin. Jimin hadn’t even taken off his thigh band tonight. Jungkook reached down and lightly jostled his butt, just because he could. Jimin sighed happily against his shoulder. “I almost got my toys out this evening, Jungkook. My fucking toys. I haven’t needed those in years.”

“Wanna fuck?” Jungkook said.

“Yeah.”

Without Taehyung, they needed Jimin’s lube potion, and sensitivity potion on top of that, but Jimin slid down onto Jungkook’s dick and rocked quick and fast with his jewelry gleaming in the low light, un-combed hair bouncing. Jungkook gave him a fist to thrust into, and they rocked lovingly together in the warm room.

“Babydoll,” Jungkook murmured fondly, and Jimin shuffled his arms closer around Jungkook’s shoulder and squeezed with a little whine. His hole fluttered warmly around Jungkook’s cock.

Not long ago, something like this would have brought Taehyung stomping in, barely awake and scowling, to shove his way into the proceedings in any way they would let him, all three of them giggling and trading kisses back and forth. Taehyung was either asleep, too far away for the link to reach in the next room, or he didn’t feel like joining, so they finished quietly, cleaned up, and lay together with the well-used candles flickering away in their wax caverns.

 

In the middle of the night, a jerk and a groan woke Jungkook. The depth of the night always reminded him now of waking with growing pains, laboring in dark to strain back into his fully human self with Jimin leeching the pain from him. Sometimes it reminded him of the spindly, dark figure, the witch of the woods just beyond their walls.

Jimin twitched against him, twisting back and forth with little whispering whimpers. Jungkook felt it again, the otherworldly fear emanating from Jimin, frantic and dark. In the dim light, his chest rose and fell, shining dully.

“Jimin?”

Something rushed through his head, a disorienting wave of fear, something else in his body other than him, sweeping through his consciousness like a weight and a wind.

Jimin woke suddenly and sat up, barely a shadow in the moonlight. “Taehyung?”

“I’m Jungkook,” Jungkook said blearily, head spinning between fear and waning sleepiness.

Jimin leapt out of bed and flung the hallway door open, naked body silhouetted in the dim light coming from the bathroom down the hall. Jungkook hesitated a moment, swaying, and then followed. As Jimin disappeared into Taehyung’s room, Jungkook caught a flash of white out the hallway window and dashed to press his face against it. Just the pasty skin of a passing ogre, stumpy and ugly with his club dragging on the ground, a caricature of a monster.

Back in the bedroom, Taehyung had Jimin already wrapped in his arms, murmuring lovingly in his ear. Jungkook paused at the door, unsure of his place in this, but Taehyung glanced him there and he felt a gentle brush of happiness down the link. He padded softly in and climbed in beside them.

“I’m here,” Taehyung whispered to Jimin. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you. I love you so much.”

Jungkook slid up alongside Taehyung and cuddled close to hear them whisper and feel their comfort and affection, heavy and warm like a blanket. The fighting and tension could return with the dawn, but Taehyung held them close and loved them now.

 

Jungkook stopped still in the middle of Walmart and stared at the shelf of newly arrived DVD’s. In high school, he’d taken pride in knowing every movie in the theaters. He’d mowed lawns and cleaned pools on the weekends to save money to see them all. It was his one social currency. Now he didn’t recognize a single film. Thor three? There had been a Thor two? Both on the discount shelf? He’d been nineteen when the swamp found him. He was twenty-three now. These days, he’d walk into Walmart for a new length of hose and a package of Swedish fish and end up holding an electric kettle and staring at it for a solid five minutes. The girl from high school had stopped asking what the fuck he was doing and just shook her head whenever she saw him.

On this day in Walmart, as he stood staring at the DVD rack with his head spinning like a disk as he wondered how the hell they even worked, a familiar figure stepped out of the aisle to his left in an old nylon coat and oversized glasses, lines in her face, a discount phone charger in her hand.

“Mom?”

She turned a jumped a solid couple inches in the air. “Oh! Jungkook! I’ve been asking all over town for you!”

He shifted uneasily. Should they hug? She didn’t seem to be inclined to, so he hung back, gaping like he didn’t believe it, like he’d sooner expect the unicorn. “You needed to see me?”

“No, no. I remarried and we’re in a bigger house now. I was back in town to collect some furniture from an old friend. I just thought I’d check in on you.” She hadn’t gotten her vision checked, same old glasses and same squint.

“Wanna go get lunch?” he asked.

He hadn’t set foot in a Subway in years. It still smelled the same. The décor hadn’t changed at all, right down to the extra, unused napkins on a couple empty tables. The customers shifted around, dead-faced, hardened, confident in their ignorance. His mother was the same, sneering at the earrings on the server and raising her eyebrows at a passing pair of hot pink shoes.

“So, you worked for that cabin grounds keeper for a while?” she said. He nodded. “And where are you working now?”

“I um…found a couple guys my age that run a greenhouse for unusual southern plants that they send up north. I’m working with them now as kind of a general handyman.”

“Good,” she said, and picked an onion out of her sandwich. “Steady work?”

“Yeah. Good pay. Where’s dad now?”

“Probably drunk in a homeless shelter somewhere,” she said dismissively. “Doubt he functioned a month after I finally got him out. Fucking freeloader.”

Jungkook felt a little like someone else controlling a video game character. See the prompt, recite the lines, feel nothing for these people who used to be his entire world. “Where’s Junghyun?”

“Oh! I do know that. He got a girl pregnant and moved in with her. They live in West Virginia.”

“Sounds like him.”

“You got a girl?”

He broke the script. “I’m gay.”

She chewed and swallowed a bite of her sandwich. “No, you’re not. I’ve been watching the way you look at women your whole life, Kook. I don’t know what you—”

“I’ve been fucking two guys every night for four and a half years now. If I wasn’t gay, I think I would have figured it out by now.”

She dropped her sandwich onto her napkin. It fell sadly apart. Even though he’d dismissed her from his future years ago, watched her walk out of his life without saying a fond word to see her off, had decided a long time ago that he was completely alone in the world, he stiffened when she took a deep, deep sigh. “That’s a sin,” she warned, self-righteous and preachy as she’d always been.

“You cheated on your last husband, like, five times,” he protested. “You stole money from the church. You stole stuff from every store in this town, actually. You hit your children. Isn’t there a whole freakin commandment about not being jealous of people’s stuff?”

She changed tactics. “This isn’t going to make you happy.”

“I wasn’t going to be happy anyway.”

That gave her pause. He foolishly tried to feel her emotions and then sat back in frustration. He’d gotten even worse at real communication it seemed, not able to interpret the reaction of a woman he’d known as his life. How difficult it was to communicate without an automatic channel.

“Whatever, Jungkook. You’re a big boy. You can handle yourself. Can I meet the boys you’re fucking?”

“No.”

“Walk me to my car then?”

And just like that, she stepped out of his life again, leaving him out on the edge of the earth with a feeling of reeling through the same vague unreality he used to feel every day alongside his witches. His mother walking right into him in the middle of Walmart. What were the odds? Not so unbelievable as an evil forest, he supposed.

On the drive home, halfway down the road past the dead tree, a unicorn calmly walked across the road in the distance.

He punched the gas. In ten seconds, when he’d reached the spot it had left the road, it was already a few hundred yards across the pine needles, plodding slowly along. It stopped and glanced back towards Jungkook as he sprinted towards it, horn glittering and long, a sculpted, smooth, lance of ivory. The unicorn took a single step and shrunk deeper into the forest, further and further in Jungkook’s perspective. His thighs strained, air whistling past. Need slammed through his limbs, pounding his feet against the forest floor and strangling his senses. Everything faded to a buzz of want, and sparkling white light filtered through his vision.

It came closer and closer, watching him approach, no longer shuffling away a hundred feet at a time. Those silver eyes glittered. The perfect tail flicked invitingly. It shifted to take a step towards Jungkook.

Jungkook tripped and slammed face-first into the pine straw.

He sat up, slowly, stunned, leaning forward onto his hands. The swamp lay mundane and muddy around him, not a sparkle or a gleam of white in sight. “No!” he gasped. He stood to sharp, shooting pain in his knee and ankle. He put a hand to his face and felt wet, hot blood running down from his nose, but felt nothing. His mind, the disorientation from his mother’s presence, the worry for Taehyung came throbbing back to his head like whiplash and he sat down again, dripping blood onto his hands and staring hopelessly around the grey forest.

The pain sank in halfway back to the car, almost half a mile away through a forest that grew slowly louder as sound came back to his ears and his vision sharpened. He drove slowly, carefully wiping tears out of his eyes until he’d safely parked the car. Taehyung yelled loudly from inside the house, voice carrying easily out the windows. Bubble popped up off the porch as soon as he got out of the car and ran towards him, bobbing in the high grass and peeping.

“This is the only place in the world I’ve ever felt safe!” Taehyung screamed inside. “You want me to leave it? I came here to escape!”

Jimin said something, gentle and soft with saintly patience, but his frustration and fury streamed down the line, carrying all his volume. He’d never yell at Taehyung, not out loud.

“I’m staying here forever where no one makes me feel disgusting for existing! I’ll live here without you or Jungkook if you don’t care enough!”

“I care! If you’re staying, I won’t leave, but I don’t want to stay!” Jimin cried miserably. Jungkook stepped cautiously around the kitchen door, vision fogging again with tears. Taehyung stood in front of the cutting board, ingredients half prepared and left unattended. Jimin sat at his usual spot at the table, hunched in and leaning against the wall, staring desperately out of baggy, bloodshot eyes. They both jolted when he came in and turned with a gasp.

Jimin fixed his nose, ankle, and knee with a touch that hurt like he’d been smacked with a book, but then the pain vanished entirely with only a cold, smarting ache in its place. He cleaned off Jungkook’s face with another touch and then with a wet rag. Jungkook sat anxiously waiting for them to ask what happened, not sure what he was going to tell them.

“I’ll wash the blood out of this shirt later,” Jimin said. “Go change.” Jungkook followed the order, giving him a wordless opportunity to notice and rescind it, but he didn’t, and Jungkook retreated up the stairs with a hollow ache in his chest.

He sat in his room above the kitchen, a new shirt in his hands, and listened to Taehyung and Jimin bickering back and forth downstairs, the kinds of things they never said with Jungkook in the room, Jimin’s “Don’t fucking lie. You didn’t bring me here because you thought I’d like it. You brought me here so no one else could have me.” Taehyung’s “You really want to condemn me and Jungkook to seeing your fucking family every year? I’d rather never see you again.” Jimin fell silent, and then vanished from Jungkook’s range of feeling. He heard feet pounding on the stairs, heard Jimin sobbing as he passed his room.

When had Taehyung become so cruel? What was he so scared of? Downstairs, Taehyung felt abruptly shocked and bewildered, a little terrified, urgent, unhappy, and then dead anger nullified it again. They needed that unicorn.

“I’d do anything for him!” Jimin sobbed when Jungkook went in and sat on the bed. “I gave up my future for some dumb farming plan he dreamed up in high school! I’m giving up my happiness! He won’t even listen! He hates me!”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Jungkook said softly, because he’d felt it so many times, all the love and happiness Taehyung felt when he saw Jimin. Jimin had covered the mirror into his mother’s home with a sheet. Charlie the plant sat wilting in a shell on the window, wizened and browning like an untended bonsai. At the end of the bed, Bubble chewed nervously on the carcass of a June bug. “Remember a couple years ago when you turned me into a cat?”

“Oh no, not this,” Jimin begged.

“No, I’m not…I just want to say that there was a time that I actually didn’t think that I loved you, and I was wrong about that. Tae’s just panicking right now.”

“He needs to get out of here too. He’s been so weird since the bond started fading. He would never have said any of that to me a month ago.”

Jungkook had his own little theory about that, something about the stress of losing possession, of Jimin and Taehyung having to rework the power dynamic solidly in their favor for the time being. He unconsciously scratched the mark on his shoulder.

Jimin sat up suddenly and pushed his sleeve back. He pulled the flat green stone pendant out of his shirt and held it carefully over the mark. Jungkook swallowed nervously. Jimin and Taehyung rarely ever touched or acknowledged the mark, but he held still and let Jimin examine him. Jimin dropped the stone and pressed his lips gently to the mark.

“I’m sorry I love this so much,” Jimin whispered.

Jungkook leaned his head against Jimin’s so he could feel that Jungkook didn’t mind so much, not with Taehyung downstairs, furious at both of them.

“I…saw my mom today.”

Jimin mouthed at the mark a little. “Wait, what did you say?”

Jungkook had to urge himself to speak. “I said I saw my mom today. In Walmart.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Had to make sure,” Jimin said, lips moving against the mark. “You saw your mom? How? She was just there? How long as it been since you’ve seen her?”

“A little over five years,” Jungkook said. “She was just there. We ate lunch together. It was surprisingly okay. She’s gone again though.”

“Did you get her number?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but…if she calls I probably won’t pick up. I don’t think she will.”

“Weird,” Jimin murmured. “What did you talk about?”

He shrugged. The front door slammed downstairs. Taehyung’s presence faded.

“I wish I could have met her,” Jimin said softly. Jungkook shook his head. “Why not?”

“Because I’ve met both your mothers.”

Jimin sat up, detaching himself from Jungkook’s arm. “What’s that supposed to mean? My mother is lovely. Don’t lump her in with Tae’s asshole of a mother.”

“I wish I had Tae’s mom,” Jungkook murmured. “I like her. What they have is better than—I just don’t want you two to see…” he tried to say it, to explain that he hoped they never saw how little his own mother loved him, how undesirable his own family found him. He couldn’t get it out, still terrified, deep down, that Jimin might see something she did and turn up his nose too.

Jimin, feeling all these things but not knowing any of them, silently placed Bubble on his lap. As usual, his heart turned to fluff immediately.

“Sorry,” he murmured, lying down with Bubble clutched to his chest like a teddy bear. “I’m making this about me again.”

“No,” Jimin whispered. “You saw your mom today. You came home with a broken nose. It’s okay. Tae and I are just rehashing old arguments.”

“That wasn’t an argument I’ve ever heard before.”

Jimin rolled tiredly onto his back. “There was a period before Brandy arrived that we don’t talk about.” He rubbed both hands over his squishy face. “I’m not sure either of us has ever told you about this. Before Brandy came out, Tae was a lot like he is now: harsh and volatile and possessive. I was scared he was going to go crazy. I was scared to leave, but I really wanted to. He could tell, and he resented me for it, and I resented him for keeping me here. I almost left him.

“But I’ve always loved him,” Jimin said suddenly, rolling over, “as a best friend and almost as a brother before you came. I could have left, but I was afraid he’d die out here and I’d lose him forever, so I stayed. He knows that. He feels so much guilt sometimes for dragging me down here with him, so I don’t know why he’s being like this now. It’s like he doesn’t give a shit about me at all anymore. It’s not like him, Jungkook. I don’t know what’s gone wrong.”

“I wish that unicorn would help,” Jungkook said without thinking, and then flushed when Jimin snickered fondly. But that was a smile, Jimin’s angelic, puffy-cheeked eye-smile. Jungkook’s embarrassment faded immediately.

“You’re so pure,” Jimin said. “You deserve a unicorn.”

“Thank you,” Jungkook stammered, and then felt all sorts of condescendingly gooey, affectionate feelings in Jimin’s head.

“You’re pouting,” Jimin giggled.

Jungkook turned over and faced the other way.

“Okay, sorry,” Jimin said, and snuggled up behind him with a leg over his waist, “but you’re precious and I love you.”

“What happens to my freedom if we leave?” Jungkook murmured.

“What?”

“I-if we do move out and we have to deal with witches all the time. We won’t have the bond so I won’t be a pet, but, like, how will everyone treat me?”

Jimin felt an abrupt shock of guilt and fear.

“So, like shit then,” Jungkook murmured back. Jimin said nothing, suddenly frantic and scared, like he thought Jungkook might actually change his mind. “Nothing new,” Jungkook said. “That’s fine.”

They lay quietly, waiting, both of them, for the front door to open and Taehyung to walk back inside. “I’m sorry, Jungkook,” Jimin murmured.

“Don’t apologize. I really wouldn’t be any better off without all this,” Jungkook said. “At least I’m happy, right?”

“You’re not happy right now.”

“No, not right now, but I have been, and when we fix this, I will be.”

“What if we don’t fix this?”

“We will,” Jungkook said, only because he couldn’t bring himself to imagine an alternative.

“Okay,” Jimin whispered and squeezed him. Bubble purred and licked Jimin’s hand. “I’m not handling him alone this time. We’ll manage.”

 

After dinner, Jungkook flipped slowly through some old, musty books that looked hand-bound with handmade paper and very bad labelling and indexes. He’d looked through three that might have had information on unicorns, and hadn’t found anything. On the opposite couch, Jimin woke with a heaving gasp as if pulling up from underwater. He took a couple deep breaths and then flopped back down with his eyes closed. The red sunset cut across his sleepy face, gleaming like fire on his earrings.

“Is he back yet?” Jimin whispered into the silent room.

“No.”

Jimin sat up, scowling heavily with sleepiness, hair sinking slowly back into place. “The sun is nearly gone.”

Jungkook turned around and looked out the window. “He has fifteen more minutes. He won’t stay out. Do you think there are any shapeshifters in this forest that would turn into a unicorn?”

“Evil shape shifters don’t turn into unicorns,” Jimin muttered, glaring at the front door with one eye open. “It was probably a hallucination. Taehyung would be a better person to ask about unicorns though.”

But it had happened twice. Jungkook swallowed and stared at his book. Could it really have been a unicorn? Would a unicorn really be interested in Jungkook? He’d never been evil, but he’d never been particularly good either.

You love with your whole heart, Brandy had told him once. What about his weird resistance to magic? He’d attracted a Wishing Deer. Would he be able to attract a unicorn?

“We should go look for him,” Jimin said, practically falling off the couch. Bubble emerged from the blankets behind him, just as exhausted and rumpled with her fur in disarray and one ear turned inside out.

Jungkook looked out the window. The sun touched the treetops. His stomach twisted a little. “But there’s no time. There’s no point in us all being stuck out there at night if that’s what happens. He’ll be fine. Maybe he’s just in the barn.”

He wasn’t in the barn. He wasn’t in the woods anywhere around the house. Jungkook and Jimin searched the tree-line, screaming his name. As the last sunrays disappeared from the tallest pines in the swamp, Jungkook retreated to the porch, heart pounding, thinking every shadow might grow claws and leap at him. Jimin popped out of the forest. “We should go looking!”

“We’ll die!” Jungkook gasped. “Please Jimin, please please please don’t go out there looking for him. He has Brandy. He’s really strong and he knows how to hide. Please come inside. I can’t lose both of you. Please, Jimin, please don’t—”

Jimin rushed to him, holding his face in his hands. “I’m here, Jungkook. Breath. I’m not leaving.” He pulled Jungkook inside and shut the door. Outside, the night faded to black.

“He’s not back,” Jimin whispered. He leaned over the sink. Sometime earlier in the year, they’d replaced the metal sink with stone, a hard, smooth grey that turned darker when wet and reacted less to potion corrosion. Jimin cleaned it lovingly every day. They’d put so much into this house. “He’s not back. He’s out there alone.” Jimin turned around, face pale. “I never wanted to do this again, Jungkook.” Tears slid down his puffy cheeks. Jungkook’s stomach rolled steadily, breath coming in deep, intentional breaths or not at all. Jimin kept staring out the window.

“He’s got Brandy,” Jungkook murmured, “he’s powerful, the forest likes him. He knows what to do if he gets stuck out there.”

Jimin leaned heavily on the sink, crying weakly. “I’m so tired. Why do we live out here? I hate this.” He sank onto the ground and dragged Bubble onto his lap. She flopped tiredly over his arm and licked his shirt. “What if he like…tripped and hit his head and he’s just unconscious? What if the forest led him right to a monster lair? He could run into those bugbears he tangled up.”

Jungkook groaned and put his head down on the table. “Can we do that map thing again?”

“The mirror is in the barn,” Jimin groaned. “We can’t go get it.”

“That’s—ugh we’re so stupid.”

Jimin paced from the living room to the kitchen and back again, while Jungkook couldn’t move from his seat, nausea heavy in his stomach.

“I’m gonna keep looking,” Jimin said, popping back into the kitchen with a manic wideness to his puffy eyes. “I can’t just leave him out there again.”

Jungkook felt ice flood his whole body. “What? No! Jimin!”

“I have to go,” he sobbed. “I can’t just not do anything.”

“He’ll climb a tree. He can survive till morning. He’ll be fine. Please, Jimin, don’t go. I can’t go with you.”

Jimin, thin shoulders and uncoordinated, sleepy feet, stumbled towards the front door with Bubble still hanging uselessly over his arm. He didn’t turn, didn’t give any indication of caring. Jungkook nearly tripped over the bench racing for him. He wrapped both arms around Jimin’s waist and held on. “Please don’t go. I can’t stay here alone.”

“This is exactly like my dreams,” Jimin said, finally turning towards Jungkook with the coldest glare. “He’s in danger and you’re holding me back.”

“No!” Jungkook gasped, chest tight with fear. “Jimin please.”

Jimin took another step towards the door. “Don’t you care?” he yelled. Jungkook threw his whole weight into anchoring him down. Jimin pulled forward like Jungkook was no bigger than he’d been in cat form, small and useless. The strength rune rippled through his limbs.

“Jimin, please! Not both of you!”

“Let go!”

Jungkook’s arms flew off of their own accord, and he sprawled onto the floor. Jimin stumbled forward a step, inattentive and single-minded as if he were under a spell. “Jimin!”

“Stay,” Jimin said, and Jungkook stayed glued to the floor, watching Jimin step towards the front door.

“Put your combat spells on or something!” Jungkook yelled, “Please don’t leave me!”

The front door opened with an ominous gust of swampy air, and Taehyung stepped in. He gazed wide-eyed at the scene, Jimin right in front of him with Bubble in his arm, Jungkook sprawled on the floor behind him, mid-yell and terrified. “What—”

Jimin rammed him into the wall with a tackling hug. Still glued to the floor, Jungkook gasped so hard he nearly choked and then broke down suddenly in furious tears. “I was so worried!” Jimin said, nothing but joy in his head. “I was about to come find you! What happened? Where were you?”

“Just wandering around,” Taehyung chirped. “I was just out of range of home when night fell, so I was rushing back, but then all the monsters came out and nothing bothered me! Well, this one bugbear bothered me but I blasted his head off. I can go outside at night now! It was so cool! What on earth is going on here?”

“Why the fuck would you do that to us!?” Jungkook screamed. Taehyung’s knees buckled. A shudder rippled through the cabin with Taehyung’s wave of fear, and Jungkook choked down everything he wanted to shout.

Jimin lowered Taehyung to the floor, murmuring soothingly and dotting little kisses all over his face. Bubble climbed into Taehyung’s lap. Hot tears built in Jungkook’s throat as they ignored him and held each other. Brandy slunk over and curled up on Jungkook’s lap, a gentle comfort. “Jimin, can I move now?” Jungkook asked softly.

“No.”

“What the fuck?” Taehyung said. “Jungkook, you can move. It’s okay. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook staggered up with Brandy clutched to his chest and walked slowly over, mindful of the hard set to Jimin’s jaw, the manic wideness of Taehyung’s eyes.

When he walked within range of the link, Jimin’s head snapped around, mouth popping open. “Jungkook, oh my god,” Jimin said, echoing distress and guilt back over the link, “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” How would they all solve arguments when the witches could no longer feel Jungkook’s every emotion? How would he tell them what hurt him? He’d never had to say anything before. They’d never listened without it.

For now, it didn’t matter. He sank to the floor to wrap an arm around both safe, uninjured boyfriends. Taehyung seemed to shudder in his hold.

“You’re not mad?” Jimin said.

“You’re safe,” Jungkook croaked. “It’s fine.”

“You didn’t try to come out after me, did you?” Taehyung asked. His breath brushed over Jungkook’s face smelling almost mossy. Jungkook hoped he hadn’t been eating plants right off the trees again.

“I couldn’t sit through another night like that,” Jimin said. “Not again. Not after the first time.”

Taehyung’s link felt a little annoyed, a little worried, still a little lost with a rush of power, but mostly grateful and apologetic. He gave Jimin a gentle kiss around Jungkook’s head, then squeezed Jungkook’s shoulders when he felt a little brush of jealousy.

“Sorry for yelling,” Jungkook murmured, to indignation from Jimin.

“It’s okay,” Taehyung sighed, “Sometimes I deserve it.”

 

“He’s totally a witch. Look at him,” Taehyung cooed. Jungkook snorted and handed the spell to Jimin to activate it. Jimin smacked it on a flower pot and watched the pot’s fern tendrils begin to unfurl, a blue jewel sparkling in the air at the end of every frond. “Perfect. Well done, Kookie.”

“He’s not a witch. He’d have to be something in between,” Jimin said. He’d perched on Taehyung’s lap, smashing him, the lightest and most delicate of their trio, into the wall. Taehyung didn’t seem to mind beyond sounding a little breathless when he talked. He’d walked through the woods at night. The swamp recognized him as a monster now. Jungkook tamped down his nerves.

“Magician?” Jungkook asked.

Jimin and Taehyung both snorted. “That’s derogatory.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Like, its derogatory towards normal humans who think they can use magic when they can’t so they just fake it like idiots. You use magic really well, so it wouldn’t apply to you.”

“Am I a sorcerer?”

“That’s like a specific type of wizard.”

Jungkook shrugged. He sat awkwardly on the end of their bench. “I don’t have to be anything.” Under the table, Brandy climbed onto his boot and sat there with perfect balance. She brushed her nose against his leg and he jolted.

“You’ve been quiet recently, Kookie,” Taehyung said. His sharp eyes holding all the same intimidating perfection that made Jungkook feel like a toad when he first came. He’d seen Taehyung angry more often over the last few days than he’d seem him in in the four and a half years they’d known each other. “Do you want to move out?”

Jimin’s jaw twitched. Jungkook shrugged. “It’s going to be even more dangerous to live here without the link. I’m a little worried about moving around more witches but…can’t be more dangerous than here, right?”

Taehyung nodded slowly. “I’d rather stay with you than move out,” Jungkook continued, “but think about us too, please.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung whispered, and pressed his nose to Jimin’s neck. “I’m sorry. I don’t know—” He paused and squeezed Jimin’s narrow waist with his long arms. His overlong bangs through his face in shadow behind Jimin’s head, leaving only the glitter of his eyes. “I’m sorry for yelling. I don’t know why I’m yelling so much. You’re right, of course. We can’t live here forever. I’d like to, like, live here most of the time though.”

Jimin fiddled with one of his pendants, twisting it through the air and breathing on it lazily. Just night in the kitchen as usual. Taehyung’s hand slid under the hem of Jimin’s soft t-shirt. Neither made a move to take it further, but Jimin tossed his pretty head back against Taehyung’s shoulder, long neck soft and bare to the air, a clean slate for Taehyung’s soft lips.

“That’s not the problem,” Jimin murmured suddenly. “I nearly just left Jungkook here alone and ran into the swamp at night. I don’t know why I did that. That was stupid.” He picked his head up. “And I ordered you to stay, Jungkook. That was awful. I’m so tired these days. Tae, you’re always so on edge.” He took a deep, careful breath, “I’m pretty sure the swamp is fucking with our heads.”

Violent annoyance suddenly flooded the link, all power and fury. Jimin stiffened. “Please, Tae. Just think about this for a minute.”

“Fucking with our heads. We’ve been here nearly seven years, and it’s just started fucking with our heads now? We’ve put seven years of work into this and you want to dump it and go.”

“I’m so serious,” Jimin whispered.

Jungkook’s throat squeezed. “Tae, please.”

Taehyung scooted Jimin off his lap and swung his legs off the bench. The air seemed to pulse with magic.

“What is wrong with you?” Jimin breathed, right on the edge of tears again. “Is the fucking swamp more important than Jungkook and me?”

“This swamp gave me everything!” Taehyung roared suddenly. Jungkook jumped. The weird fear came back, the heavy, otherworldly echo of terror, a sudden wash of energy that didn’t belong there. Taehyung’s wide shoulders and long legs made him look like a cypress rooted in murk. “This swamp is mine!” Green scum spread around his feet and under his hand on the counter. The stench of decay flooded the room. Jungkook gasped and jumped back, crawling into Jimin’s arms. Taehyung’s irises turned bright green.

Moths unfolded from the dirt under Taehyung’s fingernails. Cockroaches climbed out of the floorboards. “You can’t take me out!” Taehyung shouted. Brandy hopped onto his shoulder like a totem, and Taehyung’s eyes matched hers exactly. His hair slowly lightened to exactly match her golden fur, the color of faded pine straw in the sun.

“Tae! Oh fuck! Taehyung,” Jimin yelled. Jungkook, skin crawling, lungs aching with gasps, climbed onto the table and crunched himself against the wall.

“Love me or leave me, Jimin!” Taehyung laughed. “This is what you get!” Giant, spindly orb weavers crawled from his clothes. A cottonmouth slithered around his neck with a low hiss. The slimy, swampy murk around his feet spread and sprouted, lichens and moss becoming creepers and weeds.

Jimin clutched Bubble and screamed.

Black flowers sprouted, velvety and cloying, from the vines at Taehyung’s hands. The potion ingredients on the counter behind him shriveled and rotted before their eyes. Jungkook bolted off the table and ran for the door.

The metal collar yanked hard against Jungkook’s neck, clotheslining him onto the floor. Jimin shrieked. Taehyung pulled Jungkook back in by the throat with a burning, choking pain. He dragged him into the murk and to his feet. Jungkook hung on, helpless and terrified as a mouse on a string. “Running from me Jungkook?” Taehyung breathed, eyes glowing like sunlight through murky water. Brandy stared blankly from his shoulder. His empathetic link gave back no signal, as void as if Taehyung were asleep.

Jungkook’s throat struggled to open. His lungs screamed. His brain spiraled. The muck slipped under his feet and his legs couldn’t quite hold him up. Taehyung stood there, smirking as light bled from his eyes, rot rolled away from his feet and bugs crawled from his hair. Slowly, the hand on Jungkook’s collar began to burn white hot.

Jungkook punched him hard across the face. The cotton mouth snapped and buried its fangs in Jungkook’s forearm. His vision blurred, swooning out of consciousness for the long second it took to reach the floor when Taehyung dropped him.

He came awake lying fully in the murk, bugs crawling over him. Taehyung stumbled out the doorway, green spreading from every footprint till he reached the door and stumbled out. Jungkook tried to sit up, scared to touch his throat. Each tiny, wheezing breath felt like a punch to the larynx. He felt crumpled. The holes in his arm burned like a fire catching under his skin as the snake’s venom spread, and Jimin was nowhere to be seen. He felt a sting on his side a swatted weakly. A spider crumpled against his skin. The bite began to burn with venom. All around him, their homey kitchen scuttled and stank.

He sank to the floor again, too weak to even whimper, brain fogging with lack of oxygen, eyes watering with pain.

The kitchen flashed in and out of his awareness, a sudden brightness, his throat popping open like a blow-up bed with nerve endings, venom fading from his body with a raw, stinging relief. He opened his eyes to white fluff and a glowing map of golden lines. Over the empathetic link, he felt pure, ringing shock and terror, the incoming ache of grief, a wild fear.

“Sit,” Jimin said, and his body forced itself straight on a chair. “Stay upright.” His muscles trembled with the force of staying up. “Drink.” His sore throat swallowed weakly. A calming potion. Panic dissolved out of his head, shock lingering narrowly. His body protested the healing, still struggling to function. His vision tunneled again.

He woke to the uncomfortable feeling of numb shock still on the empathetic link. Jimin curled up on a bench, shaking like a leaf in the warm air with his head on the table, still grimy and black with the remains of rotting earth. He looked up at Jungkook and handed him a trembling mug of filmy, yellow liquid.

“Tae is…Am I supposed to drink this?” Jungkook croaked.

“Follow up to anti-venom.”

Jungkook choked it down. Jimin had cleared the kitchen, and the ashy smell of incineration and the heavy, damp rot still hung on the air. “We’re packing up tonight and leaving tomorrow morning,” Jimin said.

“But Taehyung,” Jungkook said, voice breaking.

“I can’t…” Jimin said, stiffening, rocking back and forth. “Can’t do this. Can’t…he’s—Jungkook what happened? The swamp has—we should have moved years ago. Oh fuck. The swamp got Taehyung. I can’t stay here another night. I can’t. Tae. Oh fuck. Fuck. Tae,” his voice broke into squeaky sobs. “Taehyung, oh no. No, no, no. Please no. I’m dreaming. Right? This isn’t real?”

Jungkook stood up slowly and felt resistance from Jimin, a small “don’t touch me” in his wariness. Jungkook shuffled to the shelf to find the last of the calming potion.

“We’ll find him and fix him tomorrow,” Jungkook said. His throat still ached like it was lined with sandpaper. “He’s possessed. We’re gonna find…” The unicorn. He set the calming potion in Jimin’s hand and watched him drink.

“I can’t believe,” Jimin whispered, “We’ve been here so long and...” With the calm, his grief finally flooded in, a depth of shock, his disbelief. “So many people told me to stay away from him,” he whispered, “They said he’d be a monster.”

“He’s not,” Jungkook said. “It’s the swamp. We can…we can get him.” They’d comb the woods, reel him in, knock him out, and strap him down in the ritual room to do whatever it took to free him.

“I can’t do this,” Jimin whispered, head down on the table. He shivered. “I’m gonna…start packing up. I can’t stay in this goddamn swamp another goddamn night. I just wanna go home.”

“Taehyung?” Jungkook said.

“I’ve had enough,” Jimin whispered.

Jungkook stood frozen by the sink, brain cycling that over and over again to try to figure out what he meant. “You want to leave him out here alone?” Jungkook said. “He’ll die.”

“He’ll kill us,” Jimin said. “The swamp has him. He’ll kill us.”

Jungkook’s fear tried to overtake the calming potion, sluggish in his heart. Jimin had family to return to. Jungkook had two dysfunctional witches and an evil swamp, and that was it. “The swamp’s in your head too, Jimin. You’d never just leave him.”

“Yes, I will,” Jimin said.

True to his word, Jimin started banging around upstairs, stumbling into walls and stacking packed boxes by the front door. He tried to hastily pack with a wave of his wand and everything fell jumbled and messy into boxes, so, growling, he did everything by hand. Jungkook holed up in the library and poured over spell theory. He pulled book after musty book off the high shelves and scoured for anything that might help. Some counter-spells took too long to construct, and the rest were too basic.

Non-living, non-human possession, two books unanimously agreed, couldn’t be undone with the power of witches alone.

The unicorn. It showed itself to Jungkook for a reason. Couldn’t be a coincidence. The swamp had Jimin’s sense in its grip, and Taehyung’s whole being. He couldn’t get Taehyung free without help, but he might be able to get Jimin. He flipped the page, searching for the theory to draw the spell.

Jimin leaned in the door. “Jungkook, help me pack.”

“Take the order back,” Jungkook said, already standing and leaving the book there. “I’ve just found—”

“No,” Jimin said, harsh and sudden in a way that stabbed Jungkook right in the chest. “We’re leaving as soon as we can tomorrow. Go pack up your room.”

Throughout the black night, Jungkook snuck back to the library and scribbled on his parchment. Would a knot design work better? Did he need to use a stabilizing rune? He felt like he was sitting for a standardized test again. Analyze the chart and diagram a solution, except none of it was written in English. Muck crawling across the library floor and runes tickled up his skin. The sun rose and set in a second. He jerked awake, blinking hard. Still night. Still a dark library and an unfinished spell.

“Jungkook, come pack up the kitchen with me.”

Heart pounding sluggishly and brain numb with panic, Jungkook spent an hour loading cauldrons, boilers, measuring cups, and big, wooden chests of stones and glass jars into carrying crates. Jimin worked beside him, link fading hour by hour to a dead void close to Taehyung’s empty head. In the black stillness before dawn, Jungkook realized he was trapped, once again, alone in a cursed house, on his own with no protection in a magical wilderness. The swamp walked beside him, cruel and cold in Jimin’s glaring eyes.

Dawn came. Jimin put on his combat jewelry and began loading the trucks. Jungkook filled a tool belt with little two-shot liquor bottles filled with potions. “I’m like Batman,” he joked weakly when Jimin came in, looking for any sign of personality in Jimin’s dead expression. “Magic belt full of weird stuff.”

“You’re like who?”

“Never mind.”

“Load the truck then start gathering plants.”

Jungkook’s feet dragged him towards the truck. “Jimin, please don’t.”

“You do what I say.”

“You’re possessed too.”

“Shut up.”

Jungkook, mouth sealed shut, sank back into his head and watched his body load the truck. Jimin moved like a zombie, working on no sleep to pack the cabin together. Jungkook tried to stretch his own link over to Jimin to let him know how tired he was, to beg him to stop. Jimin wordlessly slid a big box in next to Jungkook’s shaking arms, mind stifled. Jungkook tugged on his sleeve with shaking hands and motioned to his mouth.

“I’ve got some more boxes of books upstairs. Go get them.”

Jungkook’s resources and spells lay untouched on the desk. Only Jimin’s favorite books had been loaded up. Without a strength spell, or even a strength potion, Jungkook’s arms seared with pain. His legs wobbled down the stairs. Jimin passed right by him and did nothing.

Surprisingly, Jimin collapsed first, crumpling right to the living room floor beside his boxes. Jungkook made sure he was comfortable and uninjured, and walked back upstairs to work on his spell.

Noon passed. Jimin continued to snore on the living room floor. Jungkook scrambled through another book and found no more help. His design looked like a mandala under attack from a whole class of kindergarteners armed with sharpies. He stopped to breath, sorting through symbols in his head. Would a possession ritual even work? Did his knot need that stabilizer?

With Jimin’s packing, the skeleton of the protective framework that kept the house impervious to the magic of the swamp lay bare in carvings along the wall, little tags sealed in place. What beautiful skill, a shell more powerful than even the forest, expertly woven to keep them utterly untouched.

Magician. Derogatory. A non-magical person attempting to use magic. Jeon Jungkook. Perpetually second best, always playing at being good but never good enough. Why did the whole world want him to be lonely? He tossed his pen down on the desk and stared at the window to get his eyes off the scrawl on the desk. He’d never even been good at smart stuff that was open to him, much less magic smart stuff.

The tag at the bottom left of the window had a jagged line right down the center.

All other thoughts petered out. He checked the other tags. All pristine. One jagged line in one corner of one window in a seldom-used room, usually hidden by a stack of books. He touched it. Magic sparked from it, a little invisible shock like an exposed wire. He leapt back. How long had that hole been there? He whipped out a new sheet of parchment, and with shaking hands, began to copy the correct design.

A flash of white caught his eye out the window. The unicorn, tall of gorgeous, wove through the trees, radiating comfort. It looked right up into the window and Jungkook’s head cleared. There it was.

He was down the stairs and out the front door in seconds. The unicorn walked into the woods, each step stretching the distance. Jungkook sprinted towards it, needing it. Nothing else would help. Sound faded out. The unicorn, at a shambling pace, gained ground into the woods. Jungkook fumbled with his tool belt, pulling out his speed potion and swallowing it. He shot forward, and the unicorn sped up to match him, turning to lead him further. Would it take him to Taehyung?

Sound faded from his ears again. Light and shining beauty turned his vision into a blur of white. Any moment the unicorn would show him what he needed, would help him fix things. Trees whipped past, barely in view. The chase continued, the unicorn always just out of reach turning to check that he was still coming, and then trotting a little further, then waiting. Swamp passed past him, pond after pond. More than once, he felt peat sinking under his feet, grabbing at his heels, but raced over it before he had time to sink. He may have run over the backs of alligators. The entire world felt cool and soft, a soft, cool silkiness in nearly unbearable brightness.

The unicorn winked out of existence like a hallucination like a hard cut on a movie screen. Jungkook’s legs folded under him and he skidded in the damp dirt. He lay there for a moment, cold and stunned, as the buzz faded from his ears, the bliss from his limbs, the light from his vision.

At the edge of the clearing, Brandy stepped into the trees with her tail high, and vanished.

“Bran—” He bent forward and threw up in the dirt.

There was no telling how deep in the forest he’d come. He sat there on trembling legs. Little lines began to burn on his exposed arms and face where branches and vines had smacked him as he ran past. He had a skid burn on his arm from hitting the dirt. “Brandy!” he yelled. He began stumbling back in the opposite direction, looking for footprints in the dirt.

Way back four and a half years ago, after Jungkook had joined his witches here but before he loved them, he’d spent a few weeks brooding over his death. He found he didn’t care that much that he’d probably die in this swamp, caught up in some magic trick. He suspected that the push and pull between Taehyung and Jimin, each holding the end of his chain, would, at some point, carelessly snap his neck. Then he suspected that he’d walk into a magical trap one day and not be able to defend himself. Having survived both of those, he supposed that he might one day kill himself with his own magical accidents. Not once in that entire time did he wonder if leaving Taehyung and Jimin would save him. After the cat accident, he had left, but always understood that he’d always happily come back while they were still there to take him.

Wandering back through the woods, he watched the sun get lower and lower. In a forest this flat, even climbing the tallest pine tree would only give him a view of a wall of pine and cypress, but if he went straight in the same direction he’d been going, he might get to the edge of the forest, not by nightfall, but a little after, maybe soon enough to escape. Taehyung might find him out here and kill him. Jimin might work him to collapse back at the house, might order him to drive out and leave Taehyung behind.

When the golden chain lit up in the evening, leading away through the woods and tugging hard on his sore neck, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The speed potion had long worn off. Jungkook stumbled back on his own power, legs protesting the whole way. He barely made it by sunset.

Jimin waited on the porch with glowing green eyes. “Get inside and draw me one hundred trap spells,” he said.

“Please, if you love me at all, let me sleep,” Jungkook croaked. “Or water. Please, let me get water.”

“Shut up,” Jimin said again. Bubble lay limply on the living room floor, staring sightlessly overhead with her mouth hanging open and tail twitching slowly.

Jungkook could barely hold a pen steady, could barely keep his vision focused long enough to use a compass or see a spellbook. Jimin had unpacked one of their boxes on the counter and slowly traced designs on a ring of metal.

“Can I have water?”

“No.”

Jungkook squeezed his eyes shut and took a few deep breaths, trying not to cry. He needed to slow them down. “What’s that?” Jungkook croaked.

“Bracelet.”

“You’re etching a spell into it.”

“I am etching,” Jimin said, “a burn spell, so I can kill him with his own tricks.”

Icy, painful shock snapped through Jungkook’s whole body. The trap spells. Jimin planned to hunt him.

“We’re not going to leave?”

“What would be the fun in that?” Jimin said hollowly. “He ruined my life. I’m going to kill him.”

“Jimin, you can’t beat him in a fight. He’s fucking powerful. You can’t—”

“Shut up, servant.”

Jungkook, reeling with hurt, turned back to his spells. The spells to trap Taehyung. To kill him.

The tag on the window upstairs. Jungkook opened his mouth and couldn’t say anything. His sobs came out bit back and choked, wailing sobs muted to hissing, harsh whines.

“Stop crying.”

He found he could speak again. “Y-you have to compensate f-for your orders,” Jungkook whispered, “And make it up to me.”

“Later,” Jimin said. “After I kill our little freak.”

The tag upstairs. Jungkook couldn’t make himself leave the table. Jimin wouldn’t care.

With his body trying to drag him into the floor, he finished the one hundredth tag. Jimin, sweet, deceptively puffy cheeks and pouting lips, continued etching his bracelet. The kitchen, stripped of plants and packed materials, seemed ready to fall in around them, still scummy with the remains of Taehyung’s decay.

Jungkook’s ink pot was made of copper. Nice and heavy. Jimin wasn’t paying attention.

I’m sorry, he thought at Jimin, and then bashed his boyfriend over the head. Jimin fell forward with a little groan, and then immediately began to rise, blinking slowly, a bracelet on his wrist sparking to life.

Jungkook yanked it off his wrist and then bashed his head into the counter again. Jimin wilted and fell off his stool, completely unconscious. Jungkook caught him and lowered him down, then stripped all his jewelry off with shaking hands. Jimin breathed softly, face swelling a little. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, fuck, Jimin, I’m so sorry,” Jungkook whispered. He carefully piled all the jewelry on a table and gathered Jimin’s body in his arms. “Oh fuck, your head,” he whimpered, as if he hadn’t done that himself. Jimin’s mouth lolled open, limp and defenseless.

His body felt so familiar. Jungkook had held him on countless nights, exactly like this, Jimin always giggling and fond. He clutched Jimin to his chest with his lips to his forehead. “Okay. Okay, Jungkook. You gotta…gotta do…stuff.”

Before anything else, he grabbed an empty glass off the counter, checked it for suspicious substances, as always, and filled it at the sink. He drank two whole glasses so quickly he almost choked on it, water more important than air. He tied Jimin up, head to toe in their strongest binding twine, and lay him in the ritual room. “Take care of him,” he said to Bubble, laying her near him. “The tag,” he murmured, hurrying to the stairs. “Gotta…fix the tag.” New plan. He should escape the woods at first light and call Namjoon, get Namjoon to call Taehyung’s dad, get all his friends and family down here to quietly clean things up. He didn’t trust his own spells.

Halfway to the stairs, he caught sight of a flash of white out the window.

“Oh no,” he murmured, and then sprinted right out the front door, right out into the night, into the demon-invested swamp that had sat with the promise and terror of a thousand-foot cliff below every window every night for four and a half years. One step to pain, terror, and death.

“No, no, no,” he gasped, but there was the unicorn, glowing white in front of him, leading him like a school of magic fish into the watching, fanged blackness.

The unicorn could help. The unicorn would—fuck it. The unicorn dragged him against his will as easily as the chain, pulling him as fast as he could go deep past the windows of the cabin with no tool-belt and no way back.

A silky breeze wrapped around his arms, fresh air in his lungs and peace spreading like a drug into his head. His ears filled with a buzzing, joyful hum. If a knife monster came slicing out of the woods, he wouldn’t hear it. The brilliant light filling his eyes would have blinded him to even a spinning purple face. He raced for the unicorn, and it watched him with silvery eyes as it led him away like a fly towards a web.

But he knew enough not to be surprised when it turned its dreadfully sharp, gleaming, horn right towards him, calling him forward still, to gore himself on it. Of course, it would end this way, deep in the forest, alone, chasing something beautiful through the depths of hell.

A figure burst out of the woods in front of him and snapped the unicorn’s horn off.

The unicorn warped, blackened, faded, became a solid black mass in the dark with a mane gleaming with slime and reflective eyes that glowed flatly in the dark. Jungkook skittered to a halt fast enough to slip and land on his ass.

Light exploded through the clearing as the creature howled and grew, twisted and clattering like a tornado of twigs till it crouched on the ground a giant, spindly humanoid figure of black branches, the same one that peered in the cabin windows over a year before. Taehyung stood between them holding a sword of pure light in each hand. Before the creature could stand, Taehyung stepped forward and sliced it to pieces.

Jungkook burst into tears.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung whispered, suddenly right in front of him, foreheads pressed together. Taehyung’s empathetic link peeled slowly back open, letting his fear and guilt pour out. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Jimin. It has Jimin! We have to go! There’s a tag! He’s unconscious! The unicorn—I thought it was gonna help me! Are you okay? What was that?”

“The witch of the swamp won’t stay down long,” Taehyung murmured. “I’m only gonna be the most powerful thing for a little while. Where’s Jimin?”

“At the cabin,” Jungkook whimpered. “I knocked him out with an inkwell.”

Taehyung yanked him back through the dark woods, passing slithering and cracking noises as if he didn’t hear them. Jungkook straggled blindly behind him, less sure of the way and wobbling, sometimes knocking into trees or stumbling on roots. Taehyung led them confidently right through a group of shrieking imps.

“I don’t remember everything,” Taehyung said.

“Shh,” Jungkook squeaked, glancing around.

“It’s fine. The monsters are scared of me,” Taehyung said. His eyes glowed green in the dark, standing out in two pale circles when he turned around, but his link was genuine, pure worry and guilt. “I’ve been kinda out of control for a while. There are a bunch of memories, but they don’t fit together. Did I really stab Jimin with a kitchen knife?”

“Huh? N-no?”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Taehyung gasped, slowing for a moment. Relief blasted over the link. “I didn’t maul him? Or drown him?”

“You didn’t do anything to Jimin,” Jungkook said. “You never touched him.”

“Good. Ugh. I thought I’d…” he dragged Jungkook around a big, rustling, chittering stand of bushes that had Jungkook’s skin crawling and breath coming faster.

“But you. Did I…I didn’t…I have so many memories. What did I do to you?”

“You—can we do this later?”

Taehyung stopped right up against a tree, letting Jungkook lean on it for support, and wrapped both arms around him. “Please tell me.”

Just behind him, something huge stomped the ground and growled, giant eyes glowing red in the lightless forest. Jungkook didn’t have the air in his lungs to even scream. Taehyung turned, and a biting, ripping sound tore through the clearing, then and a long, pained wail, the pattering sound of blood dripping onto dirt. Taehyung dragged Jungkook further towards the cabin. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Jungkook panted, eyes still trained on the space of blackness with the sounds of cavernous, dying gasps. His own breaths sounded squeaky high in comparison, lungs too small, heart burning with effort. “Oh. Ahh…Just dragged me around by the chain which kinda…collapsed my throat and then you used the burn trick a little and I got bit by a snake. And a spider.”

Taehyung sucked in a deep breath through his nose. He squeezed Jungkook’s hand.

“The swamp is controlling Jimin too,” Jungkook said between gasps. “He wanted to hunt you.”

“And I would have killed him. That’s what the swamp wanted,” Taehyung said. “I hate to rush you, but can you run any faster?”

“No. Followed the unicorn earlier today. And yesterday. Didn’t sleep last night. Haven’t rested since healing.”

Taehyung stopped them again and leaned Jungkook against a tree, foreheads together to channel his inexpressible apology in a rush over the link. Jungkook, lungs shuddering, hung on with both rubber arms.

“Why haven’t you slept?” Taehyung whispered.

“Jimin’s ke—ah…” he struggled to swallow, “kept me working…orders all night.”

“Oh no,” Taehyung groaned, guilt doubling.

“It’s okay,” Jungkook gasped. “I’ve been…more worried ‘bout you two.”

Taehyung kissed Jungkook’s cheek with a rush of affection and love, respecting that he didn’t have the breath to return it. “We’ll go slower. Sorry. We just have to hurry before the swamp recovers.”

They made it back to the dim clearing just as the ground began to beat softly beneath their feet like a pounding heart. Brandy waited for them at the door, padding back and forth with her tail swiping the boards. “In, in, in,” Taehyung said. “Go draw that tag.” He stayed behind at the front door, jamming the bolt in place. In the ritual room, Jimin wailed.

Green murk dripped from the broken tag. Jungkook picked up where he left off, line for line. “Taehyung, I can’t activate it!” he yelled.

“Neither can I!” he yelled from downstairs. The pounding picked up again, louder and louder, deep in the earth. The lamp on the table rattled. Green muck pulsed from the broken tag in the wall. Downstairs, Jimin screamed.

“Fuck,” Jungkook gasped. Little light dots swam in his vision. He put his hand on the tag and focused. If he had any magic, any at all, any little blip in his body, that little bit that could resist it, any little bit of witchiness at all, he needed to pull it forward now. He imagined all the little imprints of magic left in his body, all the residual stuff left over from potions and spells, coming together to spark the spell awake.

A little white paw touched the corner of the tag and it hummed to life. Bubble stood on the chair between his arms, staring knowingly up at him. For a moment, he felt burning, crushing shame. Jungkook ripped the messy tag off the wall and slapped the new one in place. The pounding continued. The house still trembled, but Jimin’s wail cut off suddenly with a confused noise.

“Tae?” Jungkook yelled. “Gotta seal this on. Bring the glue?”

 

“Calming potion?” Taehyung asked.

“Gimme…spells…” Jimin whispered.

“Not till we’re sure you’re not still possessed.”

“All our potions and supplies are already packed in the trucks,” Jungkook said.

“Even the calming potion?”

“Even the calming potion. We’re gonna have to go about the whole recovery thing my way.”

Jimin and Taehyung’s eyes were both back to black, but their hair stayed the golden brown of Brandy’s fur. The ground continued to pound at a pace just shy of frantic, and low, threatening pulse under the house.

Brandy had calmed them down somewhat, able to draw the swamp’s energy out of them like snake’s poison with a touch of her head, but Jimin shook on the bench, eyes squeezed shut in pain. “My head. Taehyung, give me my bracelet now.”

“Okay,” Taehyung said, fumbling in the pile of silver. “Yeah, okay. Here you go.”

Jimin shoved it on his own wrist and heaved a sigh, melting onto the table. The bracelet glowed gently around his wrist.

“What now?” Taehyung asked.

“Shower and then sleep,” Jungkook said.

“In this noise?” Taehyung said weakly.

“Yeah,” Jungkook said with a sigh. “I’m gonna drop dead if I don’t.”

They carried Jimin into the shower and propped him up between them. “Please don’t step on my foot,” Taehyung said.

“Sorry,” Jimin slurred. “No…space.”

“What happened to him?” Jungkook asked.

“Swamp wanted to use him, but had no outlet without his spells on him. You were smart to take those off. Just got trapped instead and he could barely handle it.”

“Make him drink more water,” Jungkook said.

“Can…drink m’own wa’er.”

Jungkook scrubbed sweat and little flecks of lichen and mold off his body, sweated out of his pores. He watched Taehyung’s skin change color as the layer of red, Georgia dirt and black swamp soil washed off, green-grey smudges becoming smooth tan again.

The earth continued to pound as they curled up in Jimin’s bed. “I can’t sleep with this,” Jimin groaned. He’d put Jungkook’s boxers and Taehyung’s shirt right back on, and sprawled on top of both of them like a big dog.

Jungkook’s heart seemed to be trying to double the swamp’s pace. “I can’t either.”

“I can’t wait till dawn,” Jimin groaned.

“At dawn, we’re driving into town and renting a cabin from Owen,” Jungkook said. “We can’t spend another night here. We can sleep tomorrow night.”

Jimin grunted. Taehyung’s link registered reluctance, and Jimin felt exasperated. Jungkook snuggled warmly into it, the sweet understanding between the three of them, his two men inside his head where they should be.

“We’re moving, Tae,” Jimin said. “I’m sorry. I promise we’ll find somewhere else you can love.”

Taehyung gave him a reassuring pat. “Last night I just gave into the magic and ran wild. During the day, when I tried to think about returning to you guys, I could only remember hurting you. When I felt Jungkook running around at night though, I just snapped out of it," Taehyung said. “I could feel the entire swamp like a map in my head, and I figured out some things. Brandy is made from this swamp’s magic. I’ve known that for a while, but I found out that a lot of my magic comes from the swamp too. It's in you too, Jimin. It’s been building since we’ve been here, every time we walk into the woods or eat a plant that we've grown here. Hopefully that power will stay mine when we leave. I've always been powerful, so it'll be fine if I eventually lose some of it, but Brandy might fade away."

Brandy lay calmly on the pillow over his head, serenely listening.

"Oh no," Jimin murmured, and reached out to pet her. Brandy obligingly tipped her head into Jimin's hand. "Ohmygod," Jimin hissed, very gently patting. Taehyung smiled proudly.

"So we need to keep this property," Taehyung said, "just in case Brandy and I need to come back here once a year or so to replenish her magic."

"Love you," Jimin cooed with his hand buried in Brandy's fur. Bubble sat straight up on his back, ears cocked forward and eyes narrowed.

"Mreep?"

Jungkook pulled her into his hand and kissed the top of her head to distract her. She gave a confused purr and wiggled, trying to watch Jimin cuddle with Brandy, but Jungkook got in one good belly rub and she happily gave up.

"The swamp has been gaining power from us too though, from all the plants we're cultivating, from the energy our presence has given the monsters. I felt Jimin's magic feeding the earth out of the house and the garden. It's getting incredibly powerful. We have about three days before the swamp can engage us during the daytime, so we have to get all the plants we can manage out by then."

"There's a cabin with a greenhouse that should be empty," Jungkook said. "No one's lived in it for years and its breaking down, but we could probably convince Owen to let us rent it until we find a new place."

"A greenhouse? Really?" Taehyung sat up. "Like, a nice one?"

Jungkook snorted. "It's tiny with half the windows broken or missing, and that was over a year ago. It's probably worse now."

"Ugh," Taehyung rubbed his hands over his face. "Okay." The swamp pounded away in the silence. "Fine."

They cuddled for a little while, sharing in the puddle of mush that was the empathetic link, and trying to ignore the incessant pounding. "So, you've been chasing that unicorn every time you saw it for two days?"

"Three," Jungkook said. "I guess the swamp knew it couldn't make me turn on you and started trying other methods."

"You're so good," Taehyung breathed.

"Hm," Jimin said. Brandy had gotten up to lie on top of Jimin's and Taehyung's heads while Jimin held her paw, the portrait of patience.

"I'm sorry for strangling you," Taehyung said, "and yelling at you, and scaring you, making a snake bite you, and...slamming you through a table? Did I do that?"

"Like in wrestling?" Jungkook said, giggling. "No. Sounds fun though."

"Sounds fun?" Jimin squawked. "Wrestling?"

"You don't know the magic of the WWE," Jungkook said, and Taehyung just laughed.

Jimin kicked Jungkook, probably as an affectionate gesture, but he caught him right in the shin. "I don’t know what that is, but sorry for everything," Jimin said. "We need to get you out of here before we kill you on accident. Probably should have done that years ago."

"You could have killed me on accident anywhere," Jungkook said. "It's fine."

Dawn came within only a couple hours, and they went sleeplessly back to work, solemnly packing their life into the trucks.

 

Owen asked no questions, just grew pale and squeaky as he gazed off into the forest. "Don't know if I can let you into that...might not be entirely legal."

"Oh pssh," Jimin scoffed. "If you get in any legal trouble down the line, just call us and we'll fix that for you. Easy enough. Please let us into the cabin. We'll repair the whole place for you."

So, Owen let them uneasily into the very cabin that Jungkook had snuck into years before to steal a silvery flower from the front yard. The remaining flowers had long since shriveled and died, but Taehyung lined the kitchen windows with little pots full of them.

The pounding continued through the day with each trip they took back, each plant dug out of the dirt seemed to enrage it further, till cracks formed in the living room windows and Jungkook nearly wrecked the truck against a tree with delirious stress. Taehyung bought a kiddie pool from Walmart and filled it with the tuberous plants from his ponds. Some of their crops wilted and died soon after they came out of the earth. Jimin spent that day running back and forth between the garden and their chest of stored seeds, making sure none would be entirely lost. The last giggling onions came up snarling and rotten, soured by the evil in their dirt.

At sunset, Taehyung and Jimin sat safely under the dining room table as Jimin waved his wand and unpacked. Potion ingredients flowed from the beat-up, damp, dirty boxes and into the cabinets. Pots and pans flew into drawers and glass piping clinked into clinked onto place against the back wall, settling in between all of Taehyung's carefully arranged plant life. He went from room to room doing the same, arranging all their furniture as close as he could get it to the cabin and ushering the rest into the basement.

"Ah yeah," Jimin said, a hand on his cocked hip. He blew on the tip of his wand and glittering smoke puffed off. "I'm useful again."

"Best house witch," Taehyung murmured and kissed the back of his neck, Jungkook’s two golden-headed witches.

"Momma's boy," Jimin purred. "Let's go to bed."

 

By the day after, the pounding had faded away. They packed load after load in both trucks, quietly and without magic. Jimin spent most of the morning back at the new house in contact with their warehouse manager in Savannah. "Need to hire a secretary or something," Jimin sighed. "We’re going to have to pay him a heavy bonus for finding us a greenhouse, and I'm going to have to hire the staff for it myself. I haven't even started alerting people to stalled orders and we already have eighteen more requests and two people asking where their orders are."

In the afternoon, Jungkook began to take apart the couch bed in his barn loft, and sat down on the floor with his legs out in front of him. Streaky shadows came through the blue curtains Taehyung had embroidered for him into his little space, his own crappy lantern and kid's target bed, the furniture Taehyung and Jimin had made for him, his little collection of magical knick-knacks they'd given him as gifts. He'd spent so many hours here on his own.

A month ago, he’d been able to faintly feel strong emotions as far away as the kitchen, Taehyung's bedroom, and half the ritual room. Taehyung dug up the little psychedelic grape sprouts lined up carefully in the shade right under Jungkook's window, and he felt nothing. His heart reached for it.

Taehyung climbed up a few minutes later to find Jungkook curled up on the couch and no furniture moved an inch from its spot.

"Kook? You okay?"

"You and Jimin have a lot of makin'-up to do for all the orders this past week," Jungkook said. "And the overuse of the chain. Yeah. Gotta...give me lots of stuff. Like...a whole week of doing whatever I want and cuddles for six hours a day."

"What's gotten into you?" Taehyung snickered, and sat back against Jungkook's chest. “Mr. strong and silent wants six hours of cuddles a day?"

Jungkook tucked his legs up closer to Taehyung's side. "Where are we gonna put this couch bed?"

"This?" Taehyung said, squinting at the already cracked and peeling slats right over his head, wood slowly warping in the swamp's humidity since Jungkook left the windows open almost every day. "I was thinking we could throw this away. It was a half-assed gift to begin with."

Jungkook felt a very odd squeezing in his throat.

"I wanted to get you a new one," Taehyung said. "King sized loft. Lounge area on the bottom. You know, something better."

Jungkook had his own money now, could buy a bed as nice as he liked whenever he felt like it. As all the crappy target furniture had been slowly replaced over the years by nicer and nicer handmade furniture, this bed had stayed. "Let's just leave it here," Jungkook murmured. "I'd rather just leave it than take it out to throw it away."

Taehyung tipped his head back against the couch with a sigh, and Jungkook got an eyeful of the underside of his jaw, his pretty cheek, two little, pink lips, his soft boy back again. "I'm scared," Taehyung whispered. "Trees don't stare at me. Witches do. There's no way people won't hear about this."

Jungkook tugged his golden-brown hair gently. His head rolled into Jungkook's hand. "You too, huh?" Taehyung murmured. Jungkook pulled him down, chest to chest, twisted up and tangled together with their lips sliding easily together and arms squished awkwardly between them. The comforting, wonderful feeling of Taehyung's love flowed into his head. How would he ever live without this?

"You sure you don't want to renew the bond?" Taehyung asked.

"I...yeah. I'm sure."

He felt Taehyung call that bluff with a mix of smugness and worry. "Okay," he agreed. "We won't."

 

They pulled up their last roots by walking around the house and replacing all the protective tags off the walls, windows, and pipes. Jimin chipped runes into the corners of every room and scraped them off the spots where they were too grimy and blurred. It was an investment and assurance that this house would be left safe if they came back, or if anyone else found themselves trapped too close to sunset. However, Jimin pulled up the cooling and heating spells, the ones that kept dust out and the air fresh, for fear of giving the swamp too much magic. Jungkook insisted that they protect the barn too, hating the possibility that he might come back to find that imps had ripped all the stuffing out of his couch bed.

Jungkook carefully replaced the tags in the library, holding Bubble up to each one to activate them. They left the one Bubble had activated for him a few days earlier right where it was, but shoved all his shameful notes on the anti-possession ritual in a trash bag. Magician through and through, powerful in his own way, but always dependent. This wasn’t his to use, no matter how hard he tried or how much he learned. Bubble the powerless familiar and Jungkook the not-quite witch could do enough together.

He pretended not to see Taehyung sneaking from room to room to visit every cracked tile and smudged board, all the little imperfections that made the house theirs, the black stain on the kitchen wall where Taehyung's experimental alligator voice potion had exploded and the burns in the ritual room floor from the bonding ceremony.

"Imagine non-magic teenagers finding this place in a year and exploring," Jungkook said from the door as Taehyung stood in the middle of the circle where they'd set up their map, where Jimin communicated with friends from home through his divining bowl and Taehyung's desert flood flowers had sat for twelve days in the middle of a magical net until they bloomed. They still sat on the dock where they dumped a perpetual stream of clean water into the swamp. They'd be too much of a hassle to take along. He'd have to start over after the move.

"Imagine those guys that tried to harass us last year coming in here and finding runes carved into the walls and a spell circle burnt into the floor," Taehyung snorted. "Imagine Owen's face when he has to pretend he doesn't know what's going on. I'm gonna miss Owen."

"We won't see Owen? Wait. How far away are we intending to move? I thought we were just heading for Savannah."

Taehyung sighed. "It's going to be hard to find land magical enough to hold our farm. We could end up anywhere east of the Mississippi."

Jungkook fidgeted. "We couldn't go out west? There were some really nice spots out there with tons of magic."

"Most magic spots out west still belong to Native Americans. We'd have a hard time finding an open spot with magic we're familiar with. Everything to the east is either new or corrupted, and therefore usable. Besides," he sighed and collapsed slowly onto the floor, "this is supposed to bring us closer to family, you know?"

"I wouldn't say no to being closer to your mom," Jungkook said. Taehyung sighed and shook his head. "Oh, I told Jimin this, but you were being weird, so I didn't tell you. My mom was in town the other day out of nowhere. We found each other on accident in Walmart."

Taehyung stuck his head up, eyes wide. "You didn't bring her over for dinner?"

"She and I love each other less than you and your parents. I didn't want her to meet you."

Taehyung dropped his head back onto the floor. "Okay, fair enough. Still want to meet her and see how similar you are."

"Maybe another time," Jungkook muttered. "You were kinda crazy and I was chasing unicorns, so not an ideal family introduction."

Taehyung laughed and rolled slowly around on the floor. "Ow. Splinter."

Jungkook snuggled down next to him, splinters or not, right on the floor where they'd first tied him to them. Without Jimin's spells, the summer heat had begun to sneak back into the house with sweaty, muggy, swamp air, but they'd lived in it for years and cuddled closer in the smothering heat, kisses damp and lethargic until Jimin found them there and insisted on getting right on the middle, and then two furry cats, which was really too much.

They drove out with the last of the trash bags and sprouts in an egg carton in Jimin's lap. As the dead tree disappeared from view around the bend, every one of them looked back to watch it go. And then it was gone, cutting from them their fourth, and leaving them not quite alone.

Notes:

There will be one more chapter, I think, and it'll be both happier and longer than this one.

Come visit me on tumblr and twitter.

Chapter 9: Out of the Swamp Part 1

Summary:

Jimin gets a new job as a professor in a witch university. The bond is close to breaking.

Notes:

This chapter ended up being so long that I broke it into three part. It'll be coming out regularly.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Need a hand-warmer?” Jimin asked with a giggle. He slid into range of the empathetic link, just a foot and a half away, and filled Jungkook’s head with his with smug joy. Jungkook slowly took his numb fingers out of his pockets and felt Bubble drop into them.

In front of them stood a gorgeous yellow house, three stories that looked shorter under the steeply sloping roof and the towering, bare trees. Intricate Victorian trim in dark brown lined the spacious porch. Virginia Creeper crawled up their trellises, already sprouting with life from the warming spells on the house that made it feel like spring. Even the attic dormers had window boxes. “Welcome home,” Jimin said, only a little anxiety poking past his pride. “Do you like it?”

Jungkook clutched the wiggling Bubble to his chest. “It’s huge. Beautiful. How much did this cost?”

“Oh, not too much,” Jimin murmured. “It’s in our budget.”

Taehyung watered the planters on the porch, all the big, jungly things that wouldn’t fit in the house and wouldn’t like the greenhouse. He’d set them up like a tropical forest against the railings in the old boxes they’d had in the living room back in Georgia. That porch would be an even eighty-degrees year-round. The witches had seen the house when they toured it, when they bought it, when they returned for inspections and measuring the space. Jimin came two weeks before to set up the spells, and eight days ago, Taehyung moved in the plants. Meanwhile, Jungkook, unable to use their magical transporter, happily stayed home in Georgia’s warm winter to mind the plants. He’d never seen this place past half-interested glances at what looked like a gingerbread house on Jimin’s phone.

“You don’t have nearly enough furniture,” Seokjin said, sweaty even in the light winter chill since he’d been helping Taehyung move plants while Jimin and Jungkook drove the truck and moving van up. Now Jimin’s mother had arrived and he’d run off again to help her get his old furniture off her moving van. Jungkook stood stock still in the middle of the gravel driveway and let Bubble bump the bottom of his chin and peep at Seokjin. “Yes, I’m a little shocked too,” Seokjin said to Bubble.

“Mrrrpeep! Brrip.”

“We don’t have much furniture at all,” Jungkook said. “The whole moving van could fit in the living room.”

“Help me move the bookshelves?” Seokjin said. He led the way into the low foyer with his spaniel familiar Shortcake following at his heel. Jungkook put Bubble on Shortcake’s back and watched him ferry her happily off to Jimin again.

A long wooded driveway ran up through their property and to the house, lined with little lamps and shadowed with bare trees. It let out into a pleasant suburb of big houses and wide lawns. Past this, Jungkook had glimpsed Woodsville, the trendy village a short drive outside of Roanoke, Virginia that was now their address. Down a few streets of brunch places, cafes and bookstores, so he’d been told, was an archway that only part of the town could see, and through that, another trendy street of spell-book stores, apothecaries, and Seokjin’s new bakery. Jimin kept gushing about an old library that marked the end of the village and the start of Wickham University’s campus, the country’s second-most prestigious college of magic, where Jimin had been invited to take up residency this spring after the success of his first book on potions and a popular lecture series there in the fall.

The witches had the move-in covered. Jimin’s parents, Namjoon, and Seokjin had all turned out to wave their arms and float couches through narrow doorways, though they’d removed the back window to get the couch in, just briefly. Jungkook carried boxes and lifted furniture when no one was paying attention, sometimes standing for whole minutes at the entrance to yet another room he hadn’t known about.

“I feel useless,” Namjoon whined, leaning on his staff and gazing morosely down at Seokjin with his wand and Jimin carrying a giant box of books in each arm like they were made of styrofoam.

“Join the club,” Jungkook muttered, legs aching from hiking up and down the carpeted staircase all day.

When he got sick of Jimin’s mother levitating furniture out of his grip and nearly getting run down by flying dishware, Jungkook wandered from room to room over the hardwood floors and under the beamed ceilings, examining the stained glass windows tucked into unassuming places and watching books float like a line of ants onto the shelves in the library. They didn’t have nearly enough books to fill them all.

There was a spacious kitchen, dining room, and living room downstairs, a library on the second floor, a potions lab and ritual room in the basement, and a reading room in the cozy attic. They’d sorted out the house with a blueprint beforehand, trying to stick to a familiar pattern. On the second floor, Jungkook and Taehyung got the bedrooms at the end of the hall right across from each other, while Jimin got the master suite at the other end. In exchange, Taehyung claimed the office downstairs across from the kitchen and adjacent to the closet that had been turned into a transporter portal down to the greenhouses in Georgia. Jungkook got the guest suite attached by a breezeway to the side of the house past Taehyung’s office.

The suite had a second bedroom, sitting room, and his own bathroom, all low, quiet, and filled with windows. “I’m never going to need all this space,” he murmured to Jimin as he stared at his empty sitting room, the worn fireplace and empty shelves under the windows. The suite was bigger than his whole first apartment. He missed the ladder into the loft, the cobwebs in the rafters and the little basket elevator he’d made for Bubble. “We have furniture for six rooms, not, what, twelve?”

“Thirteen if you don’t include the bathrooms, basement, or foyer,” Jimin said soothingly. His own smug joy calmed Jungkook’s oddly bittersweet shock. “We’re gonna buy new stuff!”

Jungkook gulped. “That costs money.”

“We have money.”

The last time Jungkook checked, they were living in a barely-standing cabin held together by magic in the badlands of Georgia with two trucks that barely worked. “That much money?”

Jimin kissed his cheek. “We have one of the trendiest businesses in the community right now, so yes, that much money.” He had his grandmother’s wand tucked behind his ear. His eyes twinkled as he studied Jungkook, lip between his teeth and hair shining as if even that was threaded through with jeweled spells. “You like the house, right?”

Jungkook nodded slowly. He had so many plans for those wide windowsills already, so many flowers in old tea tins and glass jars. He just felt like he hadn’t been paying enough attention, had never imagined that their second house wouldn’t be as cozy as the cabin had been, that he wouldn’t have broken staircases to fix and faulty plumbing to adjust, roofing to replace.

“You don’t seem happy,” Jimin said.

Jungkook motioned him closer so he could press his forehead against Jimin’s and feed his head into the link, his doubt and alarm, his guilt for being caught off guard even when they’d been doing their best to show him what he was in for, the awe that made him feel a little small.

“It’ll be just the three of us soon,” Jimin said with a sigh. “No more Park parents. You’re going to love this place.”

Jungkook wondered which of his emotions had given Jimin the idea that it was his parents throwing him off. “It’s not that,” he said, “I’m just overwhelmed.”

Jimin’s eyebrows furrowed. “By what?”

“Jimin, it’s not your family, or just being in a new place. This might be the biggest house I’ve ever been in besides your parents’ place and I didn’t expect the, like…” He sighed in frustration. “I don’t know how to act in a house like this. We’re going to have to, like, dust stuff.”

Jimin giggled. “I got that covered, babe. ‘Dust stuff.’ Are you seriously worrying about keeping it clean? You’re not our maid.”

“I feel like I’m not allowed to sit on the furniture.”

“Kook!” Jimin laughed, squeezing him close to his chest.

Mama Park blasted through the door with a chair she’d brought from home for Jungkook. “With a matching footstool!” she announced excitedly. Jungkook couldn’t remember using a footstool at any point in his life and hadn’t thought they existed outside of his classmates’ grandmothers’ houses when he was little. “I’ll put them here in front of the fireplace. What else is going in this room?”

“We haven’t bought anything for it so far,” Jimin said. “I was gonna buy a set of chairs and a desk for this room. He’s got my old bed from the cabin.”

Mama Park grumbled. “I have a chair that matches this one in the living room up north. I’ll bring it down, but I might want it back someday.”

“For me?” Jungkook said, sinking into the new high-backed chair, something generically creamy beige with birds embroidered all over it. It rocked slightly. “I don’t want to take your furniture.”

“It takes up too much space anyway. It’ll fit better here. That’s what all my furniture is for, after all, to be passed on to my boys.” She patted him on the cheek with a big smile, cheeks red, stone charms tinkling in her hair. “You’ll need an end table, a floor lamp, and maybe a couple other lamps or it’ll get really dark in here at night, don’t you think?”

Jimin took out a notepad and propped it on the mantle to start scribbling on it while Jungkook stared dazedly at his ass in those tight jeans. Mama Park started dictating all the other furniture she thought they needed as Jimin muttered. “Uh huh. I know.”

He closed his eyes, tried to feel Taehyung elsewhere in the house and couldn’t, tried to feel Jimin just a few feet away and felt the dimmest flicker of exasperation that might not have been his own. He reached for Jimin’s waist.

For the rest of the afternoon, Jungkook stuck close, trailing from Jimin as he wrote orders for curtains to his mom’s favorite place up in Boston, to Taehyung as he diagrammed a furniture plan in the warm attic. “I met a designer and craftsman down in Georgia that has this great spectral sculpture technique that he uses to carve furniture. Usually adds some cool spells for barely anything extra. He might sell us some paintings for the living room too.”

“When did you get this rich?” Jungkook murmured, bumping against Taehyung’s back.

“About a year and a half ago when we got a partnership with Witchery Ltd. and that magazine did a special on Jimin’s book, but it’s been building for a while. And it’s ‘we.’ When did we get this rich.”

“I have five-thousand dollars in the bank and I thought that was a lot. Tell me again why I keep paying for groceries?”

Taehyung smiled at him like he was adorable, so Jungkook stepped close enough for Taehyung to feel how small he felt and Taehyung’s smile faded. “You’re not the bread-winner in this family. You know that. Does it bother you?”

There was a certain amount of hurt pride, of course, a little bit of shock at the discovery that he was considerably wealthy, a little bit of embarrassment at his cluelessness. He felt a little like he’d stolen something. “I should have known.”

Taehyung had a half-smile cautiously on his face. “We don’t exactly hide it from you. We talk about finances around you all the time. We leave bank statements right on the kitchen table. Do you just tune out when you hear numbers?”

Jungkook nodded. Taehyung cooed and patted his cheek so Jungkook shoved himself close yet again so Taehng could feel his discomfort. “You’re the stay-at-home boyfriend and we love you,” Taehyung murmured with lips right against Jungkook’s jaw. “There’s no shame in that.”

Something about that sat poorly with him all the way through dinner on Jimin’s new inherited China set. Namjoon and Seokjin cuddled in the corner. Jimin’s family carried huge pots from the kitchen to the card tables set out in the dining room. Taehyung made martinis in plastic cups since they hadn’t sorted out the glassware yet.

In a moment of the evening loud with the Park family bickering over everyone, Seokjin sat next to Jungkook, two martinis in and cheeks flaming red, the soothing scent of vanilla and a breath like a warm breeze drifting around him. “You seem down,” he said. Jungkook had been watching Namjoon and Taehyung taking bets on the winner of the Park family argument across the room.

“I expected a house about the size of the cabin,” Jungkook said, and it came out sounding defeated.

“Are you unhappy about this?” Seokjin said. “I live in a house the size of your old cabin now and it sucks. I mean, half of it’s the bakery so it’s really a lot smaller, but you have no idea what I would give for a house like this.”

“No, no. This house is incredible,” Jungkook said, and Seokjin looked somewhat mollified. His bakery on University Street was supposedly doing very well, but Namjoon reported back that he was always tired and a little short-tempered these days. Seokjin had graduated from Wickham University and had plenty of enthusiastic customers the moment he arrived, but off-seasons were always difficult with no students on campus and professors sticking to their own little village at the top of the hill. It had been Seokjin who suggested that Jimin apply for the residency that landed them here, and Jungkook suspected he’d been lonely.

“I didn’t know we were looking for houses this big,” Jungkook said softly.

“It’s not that big,” Seokjin said. “Do you not like big houses?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t been in a lot of big houses.”

“You’re not bothered that Tae and Jimin are a lot richer than you, right?”

“Never said that,” Jungkook said, snorting, though it was a little true.

“I’d fucking love to have even one rich boyfriend, and you’ve got two,” Seokjin said, and drained the rest of his martini. “Namjoon needs to man up and get a better job so he can stop living in that cave of an apartment. It’s really appalling. Want me to make you a drink?”

Jungkook declined. Half the bar was magically enforced and off-limits to him. Better not risk Seokjin’s wild taste in drinks and drunken lack of care. He stared into his plain jack and coke and tried to figure out why he felt so off-center.

 

After everyone went home, Jimin drew a giant bubble bath in the expansive tub in the master bedroom. Jungkook spent the whole bath fighting bubbles off his face and blocking Bubble from trying to walk across the suds, so he got out early to shower it off. On his way to the master bedroom, he stopped to quickly jack Jimin off under the hot water, then left him hanging for Taehyung to deal with while he dried off and sprawled on the giant bed.

Jimin’s voice echoed from the bathroom. “You’re going to get water all over the floor.”

“Who gives a shit,” Taehyung said, followed by shrieking giggles and a lot of splashing. Jungkook was almost happy the empathetic link didn’t reach anymore so he wasn’t a little rain cloud over the evening.

The problem, he finally figured, to the sounds of Jimin’s moans and gasps, was dependency, how they still completely supported him though he no longer had any obligations in return. Taehyung had hired a small crew of staff to keep production working in their Savannah greenhouses and packaging, and here he was up in Virginia, no longer a part of the company and no longer helping.

As a bonded servant, their support made sense. They were obligated to meet his needs as he was obligated to put up with them. That would change any day now. “Stay-at-home boyfriend” was the perfect position for a deadbeat with no skills outside of a farm they didn’t use anymore.

“Maybe I should get a job,” he said as Jimin stomped over, angry and frustrated with his dick still hard, just a few glittering rings and bracelets on his body and the strength rune in his belly-button.

“A job? What?” Jumin slid right up Jungkook’s body and into range of the link. He paused, suddenly worried. “Are you okay?”

“Worn-out. Sorry.”

“You don’t need a job,” Jimin said. “You have us.”

“My masters? I don’t want to wait around at home like a dog or a butler.”

Jimin frowned, the day’s happy buzz fading. One earring dangled down with a hypnotizing little bauble above his face. Those beautiful pink lips pouted powerfully. Taehyung climbed cautiously up next to him, excitement fading to confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook said. He pulled Jimin down to kiss his forehead. “I can’t clean as well as you can and there’s nothing to fix. I think I need something to do when you’re away, so I want a job.” He also wanted his own spending money. Asking his boyfriends to pay for everything in his life when they were no longer obligated to seemed like an uncomfortable waste of his freedom.

“If that’s what you want,” Jimin said. His hips rocked hesitantly against Jungkook’s thigh.

Here they were in their new house, the fruit of their hard work for the past eight years, standing at the beginning of a new piece of their lives, and Jungkook had spent the whole day moping over money. He rolled Jimin over, suddenly embarrassed.

“Happy thoughts, Kook,” Taehyung said, tugging lightly on his hair.

“Wish my fucking family could see me now,” Jungkook said.

“There you go.” Taehyung reached between their legs, fingers already wet and dripping. Jungkook forgot the house.

Halfway through foreplay, Taehyung pulled a ridiculous crystal decanter off the side-table and took a swig. Jimin, grinding on Jungkook’s face, shoved his dick deep into Jungkook’s mouth as he froze and took a swig, and Jungkook came up a little fuzzy. “Drink?” Taehyung asked. Jungkook knew enough now to recognize a sensitivity potion, darkly intense. He may have made that one himself.

“Oh fuck,” he murmured, and took a sip.

Most of their sensitivity potions never worked on Jungkook because of his immunity to heart flowers, so he’d gotten around that problem with a variation of aphrodisiac seaweed from the Caribbean, one that affected him particularly but left the witches nearly alone. Five minutes later, he was panting on his hands and knees, unable to focus on fingering Jimin as wild tremors tore up his spine with every touch.

“Move your fingers,” Jimin groaned.

Jungkook’s voice cracked on a grunt, fingers wiggling weakly against his will. Drool dripped from his lips onto Jimin’s waist and every pass of Taehyung’s hand along his cock had his back tightening and his own moans shuddering against his eardrums. Taehyung leaned closer and signed happily as the sensation mixed in the link. “Jimin, he’s not going to be able to fuck anyone for longer than a few seconds before he blows.” He let go of Jungkook’s cock, leaving him rocking into air, bereft and dazed. “You cool with bottoming tonight, baby?”

“Aw, I wanted his dick.”

“Sure. Fuck me up,” Jungkook slurred, and then clutched Jimin’s thighs as he felt fingers slide gently over his ass.

A long haze of pleasure later, Jungkook managed to open his eyes to Jimin leaning over him. “You with me?” he said, smiling warmly, those little cheeks soft and round with his smile.

Jungkook nodded. His whole face felt hot and wet like he’d been crying. Ghost trails of touch ached wonderfully over his body. Jimin’s dick prodded at his ass and he threw his head back, so close already.

“Don’t touch his cock,” he heard Taehyung warning, and then Jimin sank in. Jungkook’s eyes snapped open, blinking the blurriness out of his vision as Jimin stuffed him full. Jimin pulled back and thrust again in one short pulse. A ragged wail tore out of Jungkook’s throat. Above him he saw the intricate wooden headboard of Jimin’s bed from his mother’s house, then textured wallpaper of grapevines and birds, then the intricate beamwork of the ceiling. His vision swam. This was his now, all his, from the wooden beams to the man in his ass, properly his. Worth the five years of service? Would he trade his life now for freedom?

Jimin got fifteen thrusts in before Jungkook’s eyes rolled back and he choked on his orgasm, neck straining. Jimin mercifully held still, just filling him up and rubbing his thighs as he trembled through more and more delicious aftershocks. Jimin pulled out and left him lying there, dizzy and still so oversensitive that even the feeling of sheets on his back kept him shivering.

Jimin and Taehyung flopped down beside him, still fucking like rabbits. Their single-minded and heavy pleasure rolled over the link and filled Jungkook’s head with tingling, his overworked body struggling to place it. Jimin found his hand. He held on.

 

On their first day as a domestic unit in the new house, Jimin dressed up in a cute little brown suit and glasses, hair combed, leather shoes shined, and left the house at eight-thirty to walk to work. Taehyung stepped into the teleporter in the hallway closet and vanished off to the greenhouses. He came back around noon to find Jungkook organizing the last of the kitchen’s dishes.

“You did all the work in the greenhouse this morning,” Jungkook said. “That’s my job.”

Taehyung shrugged. “I had time. I woke up with Jimin and he spends, like, an hour getting ready. I like doing it anyway. Those are all my favorite plants.”

He left again, and by the time he came home, Jungkook had finished setting up their potions lab in the basement, as well as drawing up and placing Jimin’s last set of protection and containment spells in case a potion went wrong. He was waiting by the closet when Taehyung opened the door.

“Jungkook, I’m ho--oh hello. Here you are.”

Jungkook wrapped him up in a hug and stood there with his face in Taehyung’s shoulder, the smell of clean soil and warm plants filling him with a familiar ache.

“You okay?”

“This house is huge.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah, just huge.”

“It’s not really. Most of the houses in Jimin’s old neighborhood are a lot bigger. This house is family sized.”

“Maybe it’s not huge for a family but it’s huge for us.”

Jungkook had already started dinner. When Jimin got back in his unusually academic suit and glasses, he attached himself immediately to Jungkook’s side. Bubble clung to the thick material on his shoulder and peeped. “I’m never wearing this outfit again. That was terrible. I was the best-dressed person at the faculty meeting by a mile. Their dress code is so lax. People kept looking at me and asking which staff department I worked in. I’m faculty! I promise I’m a professor! I thought I was a big deal and that they’d know, but they don’t.” He rubbed his forehead against Jungkook shoulder.

“You do look weird,” Jungkook said, looking at his ratty work jeans and t-shirt against the front of Jimin’s white shirt and his silk tie. Even Bubble had a little bow on the back of her neck.

“I’m gonna wear jeans and big sweaters every day.”

“Mm, please,” Jungkook said.

“You’ll keep the glasses right?” Taehyung said, already halfway through his plate of curry as the other two chatted.

“These things? Absolutely. They make people who aren’t paying attention look purple so I can call them out in class.” He giggled. “I’m only teaching one class this semester, but I’m sure they’ll be helpful.”

Cuter than any teacher Jungkook had ever met. “Can I come see the school?” Jungkook asked. Jimin and Taehyung both fell silent and stared at him. Jimin’s empathetic link betrayed a little alarm.

“Or not, if you don’t want that.” He pulled away.

“I’d love that,” Jimin said, hands still wrapped up in Jungkook’s t-shirt and not letting him go. Bubble tried to walk down his arm and Jungkook stopped pulling away to catch her and hug her close so she wouldn’t fall. “It’s just a lot of witches that you might not want to be around, and I’m not sure I can get you in yet. There’s a whole bunch of spells warding off non-magic people. You might need a special charm to even find it.”

“Right,” Jungkook sighed.

“We’ll figure it out. Seokjin wants you to see the bakery too. You’re not scared? It’s another giant community of witches. You didn’t handle the last one very well.”

Jungkook blushed, and Bubble reached one tiny paw way, way up towards his face. He lifted her so she could pat his cheek. “I wanna see you work,” he said. “I can stand being a little nervous for a bit.”

Jimin’s gratefulness and affection felt warm on the inside of his head, so he closed his eyes and enjoyed it until Jimin stepped out of range around the edge of the island to eat his curry. Still, his eyes curved up and his cheeks stayed round with his smile. Jungkook ate slowly, leaning against his hand and taking in the sight, his proud, professional boyfriends eating dinner in their new kitchen, as pleased and satisfied as he’d ever seen them. He didn’t need to link to let their bubbly joy get into his head.

 

That night, Jungkook tried sleeping in his suite. Other than the standard house spells, he’d banned all magic except Jimin’s jewelry, but the dark, silent bedroom seemed chillier than the rest of the house. Outside the window, the winter trees stuck up like a fence of bones against clouds that glowed with distant, sickly city light.

When Brandy hopped up onto the windowsill, he nearly screamed.

“Mm.”

“God, Brandy, don’t do that.”

She tapped on the glass with a paw.

He could open the windows here. No monsters lumbered through the woods. Nothing malicious waited to seep in the cracks. Still, it took him a long moment to pop the latch and let her in.

“Haven’t seen you in days,” he said. “Thought you were still down south.” She bumped against his chest. “Are you having trouble getting used to this place?”

Brandy huffed and hopped onto his bed, so he went back to it to give her a warm spot to sit on. “I don’t know why I’m down here,” he muttered. “I bet Tae and Jimin are cuddling right now.” Brandy made unpleasant little slurping sounds as she licked her fur, just a shadow on top of covers so fluffy he felt swallowed by them. “I can’t feel them,” he said. He lay awake, fear pumping his heart, fear of the barren trees, of the big house, of his boys cuddling without him, of the bond ending and leaving him stranded in his own head forever. He swallowed and held an arm out. Like always, Brandy came right to him.

“Can you take me to the university if I want to go?” he asked. She nodded. He fell asleep an hour or so later, thinking about hot days on the cabin porch, Jimin sharing fresh peaches from the farmers stand with him, and Taehyung carving alligators into the railings.

 

“I don’t like it when he’s alone down there,” Jimin whined.

“As always, not the point,” Taehyung grumbled sleepily beside him. Jimin could still feel the wisp of magic from the Samsara Peonies he’d finally cultivated curling off his body.

“He seems lonely these days. He doesn’t act like he likes this house. I want him to be up here with us where we can tell him we love him.”

“We can tell him we love him more by giving him space when he needs it.”

Jimin pouted at the shadowy beams. “I know that, jackass.” Taehyung’s head flickered with annoyance. They lay in silence for a few minutes, Taehyung ignoring his mood. “We don’t have many days with the bond left. It was late January when we got him, right? Well it’s nearly February. I want to feel him here as long as I can. I want him to like this place and I can’t help him with that if I don’t know what he’s feeling.”

Taehyung sighed. “You should have seen the way he hugged me when I got back from work today. He felt so anxious.”

“What if we found a way to establish just the empathetic link after the bond ends?” Jimin rolled onto his side, “Jungkook asked me about that a couple months ago.”

Bubble nosed along Taehyung’s head. He rolled slowly onto his side and lifted her onto his chest. “I don’t want that,” he blurted, a little loudly.

Jimin sat up on his elbow and stared down at the dark shadows filling in his face. “Why not?”

“You know I don’t always like having you two in my head. I scare you sometimes and that doesn’t feel good. I want this thing over with so we can figure out how to actually get along like normal people instead of probing the inside of each other’s minds at every opportunity.”

Jimin lay back down, staring back at a ceiling so dark he had a hard time picking out the squares made by the beams with certainty. “You’ll be the only one happy then,” he said, “because it looks pretty impossible to me.”

He lay silently for a minute, letting Taehyung’s curiosity work it’s magic until he finally said. “Why’s it impossible? Seems like it could be a thing, if Jungkook really wanted it, of course.”

“It’s really difficult magic,” Jimin said. “And completely outside our range of expertise. The empathetic link in the servant bond is part of a really, really ancient ritual. People have broken the empathetic link out of it before to stand on its own, but it ends up so intense that it makes manipulation impossible to avoid, people controlling each other’s emotions by making their own really strong. That’s not what we want. There are emotional marriage bonds, which generally only allow for two people and are still really intense. People don’t use them very often and they’re considered unhealthy.”

Taehyung rolled towards him, Bubble clutched in one hand and an arm under his head, attention undivided.

“We might be able to find a specialist to make a ritual for us, but that’s expensive, might take a long time, and might not ever have a chance of working on non-magic people anyway, even on the off-chance the specialist is willing to work with that complication, and on the off-chance that Jungkook’s magic resistance won’t reject it and yours is compatible with it. There’s something specific in the bonding ritual for non-magic people but it’s linked to control and would be hard to pair with actual emotional stuff.”

“When did you become such an expert on rituals? I thought we both hated those.”

Jimin sighed. “Like Jungkook, I’ve enjoyed the emotional link, and I’ve been researching this a lot in the last six months. I think you’re right. It’ll be easier if we just get used to it.”

Taehyung shuffled closer, a now very annoyed Bubble squished between them. “Sorry,” he murmured, and kissed Jimin’s cheek, then his lips as Jimin turned his head. Bubble popped up like a cork and stomped across Jimin’s chest, disappearing into the sheets on the other side. “I’m gonna be even more hopeless about this than you are.”

“We’ll get through it,” Jimin said before rolling on top of him and smothering him into the sheets.

 

Day two as the house-boyfriend started with finding out that Taehyung had yet again taken care of the greenhouse. The personal and experimental plants and their products in development had already been weeded, watered, trimmed, and measured. This would have taken Jungkook all morning, but probably took Taehyung fifteen minutes.

Jungkook took stock of the empty work shed, wrote down some tools they needed, a grand total of five small things, and went downstairs to play with potions.

They’d put all their projects on hold for the move, so he had nothing to do. He started up an invisibility potion just for kicks and counted his empty two-shot liquor bottles. He had a new spell resistance potion waiting in a big wine bottle on the shelf and needed to find a new type of bottle to put it in, maybe something even smaller than a two-shot bottle. He threw the wandering thistles in to simmer for twenty minutes, then tried to engage himself in yet another book of magical theory.

He made it five pages before taking his phone out of his pocket. Three hours till lunch. He dropped the book back on the table and stared at Jimin and Taehyung’s little kitchens. Jimin’s was almost laughably stereotypical: a big cauldron over a fire pit and shelves of dangling herbs, a mortar and pestle, jars of powder. Taehyung was filled with bulbous glassware like the lab of a mad scientist.

They’d walled one corner of the basement off. That would be the ritual room. They hadn’t asked Jungkook to go in there when they set it up.

He stepped in. As of yet, the floor of the ritual space was blank and clear. Thin shelves in the corner held familiar burnt-down candles, jars of salt and sand, crystals, and a couple books. He stood at the very center and stared down at the floor. He took his sweater off one arm and pulled it up to see the mark on his shoulder, fading now like an old marker drawing. An eerie, lonely feeling filled up the room like it was drifting in the dust motes. He lay down on the floor and stared at the ceiling, heart in his throat and stomach squirming as he imagined Taehyung and Jimin chanting, binding them to him again, but he didn’t move.

When he eventually rolled over to go check the potion, Brandy stood in the doorway watching.

“Don’t tell Tae,” he said.

She blinked slowly.

 

By lunch, Jungkook had swept every floor in the house and come up with almost no dirt at all. By dinner he was halfway through sorting the library. He finished that by lunch the next day, inspired by Jimin’s glowing descriptions of the majestic university library with its tall shelves and quiet students. Then he spent the rest of the day on Reddit.

“I’ve got to get used to this,” he told Brandy that night in his private suit as she stood on his chest and whipped her tail back and forth reproachfully. “Soon I won’t have them in my head even if I’m lying right next to them. I’ve got to be happy with my independence in this house.”

She stood there still, staring with her yellow eyes. Choosing the shed over the cabin had always been an all night commitment, the space impassable after dark. All that stood between him and his boys was a breezeway full of sleepy Balzac creeper plants and a bunch of dark hallways.

“You’re right. Fuck it.”

Bubble greeted him first as he crawled into bed with his boys, heart pumping with relief. She popped above the blankets with a “mreep!” and toddled towards him.

“Move over, fuzz ball,” he said, and plopped right on top of Jimin and Taehyung, his head between theirs. How had he spent the whole day away from both of them and still thought it was a good idea to sleep by himself?

“Kook, what’s wrong?” Jimin said. Taehyung woke with a start next to him and a huge wash of fear turning to relief. “Tae, what’s wrong with you?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jungkook said.

“Bad dream,” Taehyung groaned. “Swamp had me again and I’d just set fire to the cabin. Kook, why are you so scared?”

Jungkook hadn’t realized he was scared. He puzzled over that for a moment. “Big house,” he finally said. “The trees outside look weird.”

“Just draw the curtains,” Taehyung sighed, but pulled Jungkook against his chest.

“Don’t have curtains yet. Can I see the chain?”

His boys felt surprised, a little concerned. No on moved for a few moments. “You’re sure?” Jimin said, sitting up. Jungkook swallowed and nodded, already rolling into Jimin’s vacated warm spot.

“Yeah, please.”

Taehyung resisted. Jimin put a hand out and the room lit up golden, the chain shining weakly out from Jungkook’s neck. Jungkook didn’t know what he wanted out of this except to see it. They hadn’t used it in so long.

“You feel safe,” Taehyung said, alarm rising. “You feel okay with this. Kook?”

“I still don’t like it,” Jungkook said, not sure who he was reassuring. “I don’t like that this feels…” Familiar? Comforting? Safe was close.

Jimin wrapped the chain around his hand twice and lay close enough to feel the confliction. “I think I get it. It’s part of our relationship that we don’t know how to function without. It’s kept you safe. We’re going through a big change right now.” He tugged lightly. “This is stability.”

It seemed simpler than that to Jungkook, that maybe piece of him had gotten attached to being chained. His stomach swooped unhappily, disgusted with himself. Jimin let go of the chain and they fell into darkness.

“Kook?” Taehyung asked quietly.

“I’m okay,” he said, tugging their arms over himself. “It’s fine.”

Taehyung’s heavy leg slammed over his hips as he scrambled awkwardly on top of Jungkook’s body, bumping Jimin off so he could nose up Jungkook’s face and kiss the corner of his mouth.

“You like the house right?” Jimin asked softly.

Jungkook huffed. “I love the house. How many times are you going to make me say that?”

“Really? We’ve been, um,” he took a deep breath as Taehyung’s wariness itched onto the link, “worried you don’t like it and you’re unhappy.”

Jungkook squeezed him close, hoping they felt how sorry he was. “Jimin, I love the house.”

Jimin’s lips curled up against his shoulder in the dark. The room smelled like old wood and clean laundry, but now it felt like the swamp, too hot and sweet between his boys. Jungkook finally relaxed and fell asleep.

 

The handle of Jungkook’s coffee mug molded to his fingers every time he picked it up, one of Taehyung’s creations with Jimin’s spells, a tall clay piece with a carving in the side that moved. He leaned back against the counter and compared the bird on the mug to the bird inspecting the toothed lilies in the window box outside. One snapped. It escaped with a little puff of feathers and flew towards the forest. Jungkook couldn’t wait for spring to see the bare trees fluffy with green and shading the house comfortably from all sides.

Taehyung had taken care of the greenhouse again. Jungkook got through another five pages of his theory book while trying out the solitary chair in attic reading room, and then started sorting through their closets for some clothes that made him look more hirable and less like a hick. He ended up in his nicest pair of jeans, one of Taehyung’s shirts, and the deerskin coat. He left a note on the counter for Taehyung when he came back for lunch, and then left the house for the first time in four days and headed into Woodsville.

Brandy met him halfway down the driveway and fell into a trot beside him, tail up, whiskers forward. “Why are you never with Taehyung these days?” he asked, and got no answer.

The walk into town took longer than expected, all through trim neighborhoods with kids’ toys on the lawn. One house hadn’t taken down all their Christmas lights yet, even though they were coming up on February.

Main street was an unfamiliar kind of small town, families instead of farmers, thrift stores instead of curio shops with confederate flags out on the lawn, a bookstore where he’d expected a broken down five and dime and cafes where there should have been farm supplies. Shoppers strolled around and trickled in and out of restaurants. Jungkook doubted he’d be any good at being a waiter, and why get a job that would make him miserable when he didn’t even technically need one?

He wandered into the bookstore instead. The woman at the front desk greeted him as he came in and looked back down at her computer. Brandy had disappeared, but he felt the brush of a tail against his hand as he passed the table just inside the door. To prevent rudeness, he bought a book with gardening stuff on the front before asking if they were hiring.

“Not actively, but we’ll take your resume. Just send it here.” She handed him a business card. His heart sank at ‘resume.’ Twenty-four years old and he hadn’t worked in the non-magic world in years, had no experience in service since that awful gas station job in high school.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said softly, and left the store feeling anxious.

The gourmet coffee, loose-leaf tea, and health foods store wasn’t hiring at all, nor was the Appalachian gift shop. The outdoor sports place looked promising. “You live around here?” the manager asked after a long conversation about what made a quality canoe.

“Yeah, just moved up here from Georgia.”

“Georgia, ah. Explains the accent.”

“You’re not from around here then?” Jungkook asked, now more a local than the mustachioed manager. They hadn’t quite escaped Jungkook’s south yet.

“Michigan,” the man said proudly. Jungkook wasn’t sure where Michigan was. He accepted another business card and walked out.

Was he really planning to work retail while Jimin was on track to become a professor and Taehyung had declared himself CEO of one of the fastest growing magical businesses in the country? Not the breadwinner of the family. No shame in that, except that there was. He sighed and shoved the business cards in his back pocket. Having boyfriends that were way out of your league was embarrassing with magic or without it.

At the very end of the street was “Le Fey’s Healing and Spiritual Wellness Shoppe” with stones and herbs in the window, statues of fairies, and all sorts of books on chakras and third eyes and whatnot. He walked in. He always liked to see how much Wicca got right. Quartz most certainly did not clear out negative energies, but Jimin frequently soaked a big chunk of it in potions that were supposed to improve mood. Amethyst had no healing properties at all, and was barely magical except as a common spell stabilizer, but they’d gotten lavender exactly right, even if they couldn’t possibly get the full effects from it.

There was no one in the shop but him and a middle-aged woman with graying hair and a wildly patterned dress sitting behind the counter. She reminded him of the hippy literature teacher from high school that everyone made fun of and never paid any attention to. He felt the odd need to be on his best behavior. “Does this actually work?” he asked the lady, holding up a glass jar with loose-leaf tea in it that was supposed to help people sleep.

She looked up in surprise. “Oh that infusion? Um...not really. It just tastes good. That’s why it’s on clearance and not on my shelves.”

He examined it, turning it over and watching the dried herbs tumble inside. “Too much chamomile and not enough valerian,” he said, “and passionflower doesn’t actually help with sleep.”

She raised her eyebrow at him. “Then the taste would be weird.”

He blushed. This wasn’t any way to get hired. “That’s what the mint is for, right? If it’s clearance, I’ll buy it anyway. Do you have moonstones?”

The moonstones were either complete crap or terribly overpriced. He pursed his lips and put them back on the shelf. A small disapproving sigh came from behind the counter. “What are you looking for, dear?” She asked, sweet and polite to rush things along.

“A job, actually. Are you hiring?”

She made a face at him like she couldn’t believe he had the gall to ask. “You want to work here?”

“I kind of know this stuff, so yeah. My, um…” he hesitated. She raised her eyebrows. “My boyfriends are witches so I’ve gotten into it.”

She blinked at him like he was crazy, and he felt for a moment that he’d misjudged things terribly before she seemed to decide that no normal person could tell a lie that bold and became suddenly much sweeter. “Well, tell them hey from me and they’re always welcome to stop by and chat,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of interesting local energies in here. Send in your resume and if we have an opening in the near future, we’ll get in touch.”

He bought the tea with a last cringe of a smile and a glance around at the shelves of stones found in the local mountains and the soaps and carvings from local artisans. Even if he couldn’t work here, he might be able to sell things.

Outside, Brandy stood on the corner, staring across the street at a length of woods hemmed in by a fence, the town border. “Should we go home? We might still catch Tae for lunch.”

She glanced over her shoulder and then trotted across the road.

Jungkook looked tiredly back down the curving street at all the cute cafes and restaurants he’d been hoping to check out in about two minutes, and then followed her across.

On the opposite sidewalk, he began to feel the pulse of magic barriers and flinched back, pushed by the urge to go home, to look away and leave, but Brandy trotted away in front of him, clearing a path through the magic. Just around the bed, Brandy stopped and tapped the iron fence, which blinked into an archway and a road cutting through ten yards of trees. Beyond that was a street lined with Victorian houses, the signs of businesses out front.

“Oh. Here it is.”

As Brandy led him into the archway into Wickham University, Jungkook wondered what he would have felt without any knowledge of magic. Maybe he would have just gone home. Maybe he would have distinctly disliked this road without knowing why. Maybe he would have walked right past without looking or feeling anything, never believing buildings could possibly exist right on the other side of the fence.

Seokjin was reading a book by the register when Jungkook stepped into his bakery. They both gasped in surprise, Seokjin at seeing a customer and Jungkook at the tables and chairs floating without support, the displays of moving, sculptural pastries. Above the lunch menu and the list of teas, “Welcome Jungkook and Brandy” scrawled itself out in blue chalk. Shortcake put his long paws on the counter to see them and then ran out for pets, floppy ears perked.

“Shortcake, be polite,” Seokjin called as he came out from behind the counter for a hug, the very picture of a romantic heartthrob with flour all down his apron and a rosy glow on his cheeks. Jungkook felt a little short of breath.

“It’s empty in here,” he said, looking around.

“You’re just short of lunch hour, but it’s always empty over break. The students will be back next week and then it’ll be a zoo. Want lunch?”

He didn’t have a chance to order. Seokjin brought him a bowl of soup and the most delicious open-faced sandwich he’d ever eaten, fried egg, fresh avocado, a bed of greens, and everything else he would never think to put on his own sandwiches but couldn’t resist when someone put it in front of him. Who knew “a bed of greens” could actually taste good.

Seokjin came over to drink a cup of tea and sit with him, which was reassuring when two older women who looked like professors walked in and furrowed their eyebrows hard at the oddly non-magical Jungkook and monstrous Brandy. Seokjin got up to serve them and brought Jungkook a cupcake for dessert with an icing flower on the top, complete with a sugar bee walking across the petals. “It’s buttercream icing with honey, so I thought the bee was appropriate,” Seokjin said, grinning happily. “On the house. I’ve been waiting for you to stop by.”

Jungkook blushed, always a little flustered by Seokjin’s entrancing presence.

“Are you here to see Jimin?”

“Job-hunting.”

Seokjin wrinkled his nose. “You’re serious about that? I’d never work if I didn't have to. I’d just bake all day and give it away for free. You look like nice though. I’ve never seen you out of dirty jeans and a t-shirt.”

Jungkook touched his hair shyly, unused to being out without his ratty camo hat. “Yeah, this is my formal. I don’t have a lot of hope. They all want a resume and that’ll make it look like I’ve been unemployed for, like, four years.”

The glowing pink rings in Seokjin’s eyes kept catching him off guard, the way the peach light from his glass lamps lit up the highlights in his black hair. In the mirror behind the counter he could see both professors glancing Seokjin’s way. “You can’t put your work for Kim and Park Botanicals down?”

“That company technically doesn’t exist to the real world.”

“The real world,” Seokjin mused with a smile.

“Are you hiring?”

“I hire from the university’s culinary program. It’s a partnership. I’m sorry. I’d love to have you.”

“I can’t do anything you’d need me to do, can I?”

Seokjin shook his head sadly. “You really want a job? Are you sure? You have an opportunity to just sit around the house and experiment with potions all day. That sounds like a blast.”

“The bond breaks any day now,” Jungkook said.

Seokjin sat forward a little, voice lowering. “Really? Congratulations!”

“That’s why I want a job.”

Seokjin squinted like he couldn’t see why that mattered. “You want to keep yourself tied down?”

“You need a vacation,” Jungkook snorted. “I don’t want to be dependent. If the curse breaks but I’m still dependent on them, what’s the point?” He sat back and muttered, “and I don’t want to be the weak link. CEO, professor, and deadbeat is not where I want this going. If they’re still powerful and I’m still, like, struggling, nothing’s changed.”

Seokjin hummed, nodding at the tablecloth. “Try the library. I heard they were having trouble finding someone to do manual labor and they might be interested in hiring you, since you can still do magic to some extent, which is really fucking impressive, by the way.”

If the library was filled with people that stared like the professors, that might not be ideal, but he nodded. “Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

Seokjin gathered up Jungkook’s plates and held them in the air. They lifted off his fingers and drifted above head height towards the kitchen. “Well, I’ve gotta go deal with the dishwasher.”

“Magical dishwasher?”

“Nope. Completely non-magical machine. About as efficient as it gets. You’ll want to go see Jimin.” Seokjin strolled over to check on the other table while Jungkook signed the bill, tipping high.

Seokjin gave him a quick hug before he left, just long enough to give him a little twinge of longing and desire. “Don’t undervalue yourself,” Seokjin said softly after he’d pulled away. “I’ve known Jimin and Taehyung for a long time, and they’ve softened since they met you. They love you a lot. You don’t have to have a title as prestigious as theirs or be as impressive as they are on the surface to be an enormous credit to them. None of us think less of you next to them. You’re seriously just as impressive as they are.”

Jungkook couldn’t hide his scoff.

“No really. Those two are walking disasters. It’s amazing how you put up with them and force them to behave. They would never have gotten where they are on their own.” He leaned closer, eyes wide. “Never.”

“Okay,” Jungkook laughed.

“We were worried we’d have to visit them in prison one day. We took bets on whose basements they’d live in and now they’re more successful than any of us.”

“Geez,” Jungkook muttered.

“Sorry, sorry,” Seokjin said, looking a little bitter. “I’m glad they’ve mellowed out. Everyone’s a terror in high school I guess.” He waved Jungkook away down the street with a goofy grin that still managed to be the vision of beauty and grace.

Colleges had always filled Jungkook with a little awe. There had been a small one not far from his little town down in Georgia, and he’d seen UGA up in Athens once, huge lawns flanked by giant buildings and populated by every smart overachiever that had never gone to his high school. Where did those kids come from? The thought of willingly walking around a college campus had never crossed his mind.

Brandy led him down past what looked like a church, which seemed terribly ironic in a school of witchcraft. Wickham campus was probably beautiful in the summer, all stony towers and tall windows under trees thick like dinosaur legs. Evergreens and little garden plots peppered life into the bleak quad. Downhill was a low road lined with stone buildings, a creek cutting through a sloping lawn. At the very end of the row before a steep drop to what were evidently the oldest, grimmest, and most undesirable dormitories, was a long building built half into the hill with a dirty, grown-over greenhouse roof over the long far end.

Brandy unlocked the door with a tap of her paw and they strolled into a dim, quiet space. The wood floors creaked. Glass lanterns gleamed on the uneven wood floors.

A few months ago, Jungkook would have been close enough now to follow Jimin’s presence, but he couldn’t feel it. Brandy led him down a staircase and into a suite of offices. Jimin’s was front and center, an airy square of empty shelves and a spotless desk, and Jimin in big leather chair that was clearly a size or two too big for him.

“Kook!” Jimin leapt up and tripped over the leg of his enormous chair, excitement affecting Jungkook even without the help of the link. “Brandy got you in? That’s awesome!” He squished himself against Jungkook’s front, tinkling with jewels. “Let me give you a tour.”

“Hold on,” Jungkook murmured, face in Jimin’s hair and arms wrapped around his shoulders. He stood there chest to chest with their knees bumping and heads squished together until Jimin’s head started to register impatience and he let go.

Jimin wasn’t supposed to have a big, beautiful office yet, but since the botany and potions building had been closed for decades, they’d long since converted the place to a club meeting building and didn’t condemn much of the faculty and staff to those noisy offices at the edge of campus. “But since this is my subject now, I’ve got the nicest office here. It’s a little lonely, but it’ll get busier. I have fifteen students for a class with a lecture and a lab, so I’ll be seeing a lot of them, and they’ll probably give me more next fall.”

He grinned proudly as he led Jungkook through an airlock into the empty greenhouse. He’d set up planter tables in the front fourth of the greenhouse with an irrigation system, but the rest was empty space and there wasn’t a plant in sight.

Jungkook snorted.

Jimin whacked him. “Shut up! The plants come tomorrow. I ordered them from Taehyung with my professor budget.”

“That’s sleazy,” Jungkook said, grinning.

“We have a monopoly on the market right now. Didn’t have much of a choice.”

“This place is going to be great when you fill the whole thing.”

Jimin groaned. “I’m battling with the Student Activities Committee. Events Management and the provost and everyone else says this whole space is for academic use now, but they still want to use it for their stuff so they’re demanding that I clear the space when they want it. I don’t know how many polite emails I can write about how greenhouses aren’t mobile until I start getting nasty.”

“Oh you’ll win,” Jungkook said. The university had awarded Jimin an honorary degree just to get him qualified to teach there, and he’d be pursuing further degrees while he was here, just because it was free for faculty and would improve his already good chances of promotion. Even under Jimin’s exasperation, Jungkook could feel the elated little bubble that Jimin carried around himself as all of his wildest dreams popped into being around him. “I’m going to found a potions program,” he murmured. His eyes crinkled up, hands tightening his soft green sweater to his slim waist.

“My ring is buzzing, baby,” Jimin said, leaning back against a table, a lazy come get me.

“You’re hot when you’re proud.”

“Not here,” Jimin said softly, but pulled Jungkook in between his legs, head tilted up like he wanted something. “I’m at work. I’ll get you when we get home.”

Jungkook stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, reading through Jimin’s syllabus and lesson plans, the assigned textbooks, including Jimin’s book and every essay he had ever published plus texts he copying from his old family notebook and some ridiculously old and foreign manuscripts.

“This is a lot.”

“It’s a survey course. I get to be more specific next semester. Want to see some potential future classes and the major’s requirements I have outlined?”

Those were interesting, but Jungkook preferred to watch Jimin work, the way his smile never totally left his face. Bubble snored in a filing cabinet between them, and Jungkook realized he’d rarely really seen Jimin out of housewitch mode, had spent more time watching him cook, clean, and wait for his boyfriend to get home from the swamp than he’d seen him writing or researching potions. This was clearly more his place, behind a desk, planning to pass on his passion, learning to work his way through the social system that was university life. Bubble definitely preferred housewitch work over a university office, so Jungkook picked her up and let her curl against his shoulder, purring away.

Around five, Jimin shut everything down and leaned way back in his seat, sweater pulling over the soft skin below his strength rune. “Ready to go?”

“Can we stop at the library on the way out?”

“Of course. It’s a beautiful building.” Jimin wrapped their fingers together and nearly skipped through the chilly campus, kicking dead leaves and grinning. Bubble poked her head out of his bag.

“Just wait till you meet the head librarian,” Jimin said, and led him into the church.

Every inch of Wickham Library was filled with bookshelves, from the narthex to the choir loft, bookshelves to the underside of the balcony, bookshelves towering to the impossibly tall ceilings like giant stacked dominoes. They framed the stained glass windows and lined the center aisle like pews. The altar area and transepts had been converted to study spaces with couches and desks. Jungkook got a sense of vertigo looking up the narrow shelves and wondering what stopped them from tumbling down.

“A witch library in a church,” Jungkook murmured. “This has to be blasphemous.”

“Oh I’m sure there’s a Bible in here somewhere. What religion is this? Catholicism?”

“Something close in a building this nice, but yeah, Christian.”

Jimin shrugged. “I don’t know how it works. I asked Taehyung once and he started listing, like, twenty ‘versions’ of Christianity. How are there different versions of a religion? And Catholicism is a broad term for several of them?”

“No, not exactly. Well, I don’t think so.”

“I suppose this is something I should know about my boyfriend of five years, but are you Christian?”

“No, but I was raised Methodist.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Jiminie, you brought your boyfriend?” said a soft voice above them.

“This is Taemin,” Jimin said, swinging them around and motioning up at the balcony. Above them, a slender figure leaned on the railing, backlit by evening light through the stained glass that gleamed like a halo in his blonde hair, eyes sharp and piercing even from a distance. Another Korean-American witch. A cat sat on the railing next to him, spotted like a jaguar, but much smaller. The man disappeared into the loft and reappeared a moment later descending down a spiral staircase tucked in beside the aisle, more graceful even than Jimin, and more willowy than Taehyung.

“This is Jungkook,” Jimin said, leaning into their clasped hands and rubbing his face on Jungkook’s shoulder.

Taemin raised a perfect eyebrow and gave him an up-and-down. “You’re a collector with taste, Jimin,” he said with a gentle voice. “You didn’t tell me one was non-magical.”

“I didn’t?”

“No,” Taemin said, smile cool. “Welcome to the weirdness, Jungkook.”

“I’m, um, I’m used to it.”

Taemin made a small motion behind himself, turtleneck and wool sweater cutting sharp lines of matte black in the golden light. “You like the library?”

“It’s so beautiful,” Jungkook murmured, staring up again. Floating catwalks traveled like boats up and down the towering shelves.

“Come by any time you like,” Taemin said. He glittered when he shifted like he’d hid diamonds under his clothes. The cat familiar lounged above them. After all the lithe, graceful movement of the first few seconds, Taemin’s stillness seemed charged with powerful potential, all comfortable poise. “How long have you been together?” Taemin asked Jimin.

“Five years now,” Jimin said, still snuggled up to Jungkook’s arm like a cat. Jungkook felt the rough, wet rub of Bubble’s tongue on his hand.

Taemin’s eyes narrowed. “Five years. Interesting.”

Jungkook said, “Seokjin said you were having trouble finding someone to work here who could do, like, heavy lifting and stuff.”

“You’re looking for work?” Taemin said.

“Here?” Jimin said with a flash of concern.

“I wanna see if I can do it,” Jungkook said.

Taemin stepped forward, squeezed Jungkook’s bicep with a hand that didn’t wrap even halfway around his arm, and nodded thoughtfully. Jungkook only tensed a little.

Jungkook felt a little reckless, heart pounding a bit. “I don’t know about being a librarian, but I’ve been the handy-man on their farm for years and I’ve read a ton of books on just about everything magical, so I could be useful.”

“Were you ever a bonded servant?” Taemin asked suddenly.

Jungkook flushed. Jimin nudged him. His decision to lie or not.

“Still am.”

Taemin’s eyes flickered to Jimin with a little bit of a scandalized tilt.

“It’s ending any day now,” Jungkook blurted.

“We’re not renewing it,” Jimin said.

“Do you know anything about plumbing?” Taemin asked, nice and easy like he wasn’t still wearing a scandalized expression.

“I know a lot about plumbing.”

“You’re hired,” Taemin said. “Full time. Would you like to start Monday?” Jungkook nodded. “Come in at nine and bring your valid forms of ID so I can get you in the system officially and start paying you.”

“How much?” Jimin said.

“Start at twelve an hour. I’ll have to look up the benefits again. And make sure you’re here at nine. I’ve got to train a batch of student librarians at eleven-thirty and we have a lot to go over.”

Jimin ushered them out quickly after that, anticipating dinner, and Taemin stood in the doorway to watch them go, slight and more visibly witchy than any other witch Jungkook had ever met.

His head spun as they left campus. The sun had already sunk below the hills and Seokjin’s shop was closed. On Monday, Jungkook would start work surrounded by witches. Was that any less dangerous than the swamp? He’d have to bring an arsenal of potions every day. Jimin walked quietly in his whirlwind of anxiety, pride, excitement, and terror, arm and arm with silent support and more than a little pride.

“I’m not sure that was a good idea,” Jimin finally said.

“If I’m going to live in your community,” Jungkook said, “I want to know I can be there on my own and not as a servant.”

“You should be scared.”

“I am. When have I not been?”

“You’d gotten very comfortable in the swamp,” Jimin said. He’d taken his arm back now that they were walking through the crowded town, and looked almost uncharacteristically put-together next to Jungkook in stylish jeans and a long brown coat. “I’d hate to see you lose that and go back to being terrified. The swamp was evil but it could be controlled and kept out for the most part. Witches have more agency if they decide to be evil. There’s much less Taehyung and I can do about it. You’re going to go work in a shark tank.”

“I know. I like this though,” Jungkook said. “I’m scared, but if I can do it, that might make me a lot more confident around magic, especially when the bond breaks. And I don’t think I can live around people who don’t know about magic anymore. It would feel like a step back, and I might end up just as lonely there.”

Jimin nodded thoughtfully. “Taehyung has said something similar to me before. He can’t ever go back home because he can’t think of himself as not a witch anymore. You can’t think of yourself as not a…”

“Bonded servant?”

“Jungkook.”

“I can’t. You’re right. I’ve got to know that I can live with magic without that.”

Jimin finally relaxed, smiling softly. “My brave Kookie. You’ve grown a lot.”

“So have you,” he said.

Jungkook only felt the slightest regret as they passed the healing shoppe.

“Magicians,” Jimin scoffed.

Jungkook gripped the package of tea in his pocket and said nothing. Jimin didn’t seem to notice.

 

Over the course of five years, Jungkook had begun to value distance, time alone out in the loft, sometimes overnight where his boyfriends heads were too far away to hear. They all used to seek out independence every once in a while. Jungkook went into town to do chores just to have his head to himself. Taehyung wandered into the swamp. Jimin kicked them out of the cabin for an afternoon.

In the last few months, independence had become bitterly familiar and hard to avoid. Jimin and Taehyung went about life relieved and relaxed, talking in eyebrow-raises from across the kitchen. Jungkook tried to be subtle about the way he pulled their heads together at the end of the day. Still, he’d convinced himself he’d gotten used to the idea of never feeling them in his head at all. He’d be comfortable in his own brain. He’d be free.

Jungkook was asleep in his suite and dreaming of a vast river of alligators when the bond vanished, and he flew awake as the subtle presence of Jimin and Taehyung in his awareness shut off. The world slammed in over his head like a fishbowl, nothing extended outside himself. Brandy stood in the doorway, a stranger.

Jimin and Taehyung were sitting up with the lights on when he slammed the door open, looking at each other curiously.

“Jungkook, you’re a free man,” Jimin said. “How do you-”

Jungkook tackled Jimin back onto his pillows, temples pressed together, his breath raking through his tightening throat. Between their heads was a complete absence, not even a void, not even a wall. Jimin’s sweet mental flavor just wasn’t there.

“You’re okay, Kook,” Jimin murmured, sounding calm. But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was exasperated or scared. Jungkook rocked back and forth, frantic sobs building up in his throat.

“I’ll get the calming potion,” Taehyung muttered. Jungkook grabbed for him, but he slid out of bed with a kiss to the inside of Jungkook’s wrist and disappeared into the hallway.

“We’re still here,” Jimin murmured, petting his hair. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.” His soft lips touched Jungkook’s neck, bracelets hard on the back of his head. He’d calmed down a bit even before Taehyung returned with his calming potion, which he forced Jungkook to drink with what looked like indifference, but was probably just sleepiness. As soon as Jungkook put the glass down, Taehyung flopped down on the bed with his head in Jungkook’s lap.

The calming potion shut down the panic, leaving only the odd, empty feeling of mental quiet. “I feel like I’ve gone deaf or something,” he muttered.

“It’ll be weird for a few days,” Taehyung said. “I feel weird.”

Jungkook grunted weakly. Under the abrupt aloneness, he felt a little stronger, a little more himself than he’d been in years, a little lighter and freer. His neck felt floaty like it had been holding just a little weight for a very long time. “It should feel good,” he muttered. “Really different. I wish I could show you. I feel really different.”

“I hardly feel anything,” Jimin said.

“Me either.”

“Bubble is really confused,” Jimin said, “Look at her.”

Bubble stood on Jimin’s knees with her head cocked to the side, folded ears trained on Jungkook. “Brrp?” She seemed a little unfamiliar too, a little less real. He remembered her dropping June bugs at his feet, picking them up before he could grab them, and dropping them outside.

“This is the weirdest time to want the swamp back,” he said.

“You want stability,” Jimin murmured, one hand stroking his chest.

“I wanna go home,” Jungkook said, and tears broke weakly through the calming potion, just a half-hearted lurch of his chest, something hollow and dry. Taehyung and Jimin stared up at him with faces of worry so familiar but so distant, a one-dimensional version of what he was used to. He didn’t bother to hide himself like he usually would and just let himself ugly cry in front of them.

Taehyung pulled up the sleeve of Jungkook’s t-shirt and kissed the blank skin where his bond mark used to be. “We figured out a difficult situation once before and we can do it again,” he said.

“A difficult situation?”

“You hated us at the beginning,” Taehyung said.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, I did.” Back when he’d fallen right from a miserable, solitary life into the cruel service of people who treated him like a pet. Thank god they’d worked that out, that they could feel Jungkook’s hurt and respond with the love he’d needed. Here they were in a new, beautiful house, with his head empty and his boyfriends busy, and Jungkook was back to feeling out of place. “I feel so lonely again.”

They sat very quietly, both squishing closer. “We’re not renewing the mark,” Taehyung said.

“I know. I don’t want to.”

“Scared?” Jimin guessed.

Was that fear he felt? He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t think so.”

Taehyung hummed and gazed sleepily up at him. “You’re safe. You’ll feel better soon.” His brown hair drifted over Jungkook’s thigh, eyes thin and soft with sleep. It might have been a long time since Jungkook fully appreciated how beautiful Taehyung was without all the background noise, their connection all physical now. He touched Taehyung’s cheek gently, ran a thumb over his lips. Taehyung gave him that familiar soft smile that meant a thousand things, yet Jungkook knew exactly where it came from, pure fluffy adoration, an affectionate, protective love.

“We should get some sleep,” Jimin said. “You’ll feel better with sleep.”

“And we’ve got a ton of furniture to bring up from Savannah tomorrow through the freakin closet,” Taehyung said. He rolled to the side and kissed Jungkook’s leg. “Be my pillow, baby.”

As Jimin and Taehyung dropped off to sleep, hot and sweaty against Jungkook’s sides, he stewed in emptiness, an odd, distressed squeeze in his throat, already terribly singular without two threads of closeness right in his brain. But Bubble sat down on his chest and began to purr. His eyes drifted shut.

 

Yoongi and Namjoon burst out of the teleportation closet and rolled across the floor, followed by a tiger and an antique loveseat. Khan stood up on her hind legs and caught it in her paws long enough for Taehyung to shove it loose from behind. “That goes in the library,” he gasped, and collapsed on the hallway floor.

“I ain’t moving,” Yoongi grunted. Jungkook took the loveseat from Khan and set it gently down.

“Jimin! Delivery!”

Jimin’s voice came from a couple rooms away. “Darling, can we move your Dad’s ugly couch into the reading room so I can put my Queen Anne living room set in the fucking living room?”

Taehyung rolled his eyes. “Honey, we already decided to put that couch on the curb.”

“But I like that couch,” Jungkook said.

Jimin pounded into the hallway. “No sir. We’ve fucked on that perfectly comfortable couch way too many times to throw it out. It’s earned its place here.”

Namjoon made a soft, disturbed noise.

“Fine, fine. Reading room it is. I didn’t like the couch you wanted for that spot anyway. Didn’t match the rugs. Kahn, could you get Bubble out of the way please.”

“You guys are too young to be arguing about fucking furniture sets,” Namjoon grumbled. Kahn passed him with Bubble held delicately by the scruff. Namjoon nudged her with a knee as she passed. He pat down his big purple coat and pushed a mangled notecard into Jungkook’s hand. “Good to see you. That’s your mother’s new contact information.”

“I have her contact information.”

Namjoon shook his head. “She ran over her phone with a car last month and got a new one. I know things are wild right now, but you should call her soon. She wants to know how you’re doing.”

“I don’t care. And how the fuck do you know my mom?”

“Oh, I just found her,” he said, real casual. “Wizard shit.”

“Like Gandalf. Right.”

“By the way, congratulations on being a free man.”

“Thanks. Wait, how did you know?”

“Just the wizard sense,” Namjoon said with a wise smile that poked his dimple deep into a suntanned cheek, tapping his head. “I can feel it.”

“Taehyung told us,” Yoongi said, back from the kitchen with a glass of water. He’d cut his hair really short and wore a black shirt that was threadbare enough to be see-through. Runes and spells littered his chest. “Tae seemed a little shaken about it. How are you doing?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I’ll get used to it.”

“And you’re working at the school. Kook, do me a favor and don’t ever go on that campus without your potions.”

“Already ahead of you on that one,” Jungkook said. He’d spend the whole of the previous evening outfitting a backpack to safely and discreetly carry a lot of those little two-shot bottles.

“Witches can be fucked up,” Yoongi said like he wasn’t one, eyebrows raised up into his hairline. Namjoon hummed emphatically.

“Let’s get Jungkook’s desk,” Taehyung said, stomping back into the teleportation closet. The other two grumbled and followed him in. Jimin and Jungkook carried the loveseat to the library.

“Think we can fuck on this before they get back?” Jimin said, all twinkling jewelry and shining a little with sweat, a little twinkle to his eye. He might have been a little nervous.

Jungkook backed him into the wall, one hand up the front of his shirt and the other along his jaw. “Babydoll,” he breathed, and flicked the strength rune. Jimin’s pendants stabbed between their chests. “We got some better options than the damn loveseat.”

They couldn’t even manage to stop kissing before they heard more banging downstairs. Taehyung used to be able to feel them fooling around. He probably would have already been pounding up the stairs to join them, but he couldn’t now, so they went to meet him, red-faced and panting.

“You two seriously can’t wait ten minutes for me to get back,” Taehyung growled. “Look at you horny little bastards.”

“Oh my god we’re right here,” Yoongi said, straining to maneuver the back end of the desk out of the closet.

Hoseok showed up after most of the furniture had been moved up, but he brought a bottle of champagne he’d stolen from the bachelorette party he’d performed at, and Seokjin arrived for dinner with a cake. Jungkook sat at the kitchen counter with Bubble watching champagne fly through the air with Hoseok’s terrier familiar chasing it. Shortcake stood on a stool and cut the cake by pointing his paw. Jimin stood against the kitchen cabinets with his glass, evidently worn out from the way he propped himself up and listened more than talked, but glowing with satisfaction. Taehyung sat happily beside Jungkook, lazy in Jungkook’s old high school t-shirt and bumping their knees together. Still here, still happy, still in love with him.

“Jungkook, pass me the cake,” Taehyung said.

Jungkook’s hand didn’t move on its own. He felt a rush of power. “No.”

Taehyung blinked at him.

“Ask nicely?”

“Please pass the cake?”

Jungkook just snickered.

Seokjin passed it himself as Jungkook sat there with his hands on the island and cheerfully became very unhelpful.

“Brat,” Taehyung muttered with a fond smile.

Everyone got drunk enough to stay the night, Seokjin and Namjoon in Taehyung’s room, Hobi in Jungkook’s, and Yoongi and Khan happily down in the suite miles away from everyone.

Jimin sprawled naked across his own bed and refused to move until someone had properly groped his ass. Jungkook yanked Taehyung down next to him to get both of them wet and ready at once.

“Taking charge, baby?” Taehyung said, wrestling bracelets off of Jimin’s wrist.

Jungkook slapped his thigh. Taehyung lay on his side, leg throw over Jimin’s back. The numb silence in his head was a little hard to work with. He couldn’t tell if Taehyung face meant pain or pleasure, but assumed the best and kept working.

“Lube?”

Taehyung sloshed it onto his hand so hard it splashed across Jimin’s side. He squealed and giggled. Jungkook took a moment to rub it across his smooth skin and admire the pretty shine. “Up my ass,” Jimin whined.

Jungkook fingered them and watched them pant against each other’s skin. As always, they didn’t kiss much, but Taehyung pinched Jimin’s nipples, batted at the head of his cock, and tugged at his strength rune as Jimin squirmed and whimpered.

“You’re so rude,” Jimin giggled, tugging Taehyung’s head back by the hair. “What the fuck. Stop pinching.”

“Hng--fugg…”

Jimin leaned in and sucked at Taehyung’s neck. Taehyung shuddered between Jimin’s mouth and Jungkook’s fingers deep in him, rubbing softly at his sweet spot. Jungkook wished he could feel it, the fuzzy burn of pleasure in Taehyung’s head, or the satisfaction behind Jimin’s grin. He felt isolated, like he was watching this on a screen.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Jimin murmured to Taehyung. Taehyung shook his head, loving the tease as always. Jimin bit him to watch him squirm. He barely responded to Jungkook’s fingers, focusing hard on flicking his thumbs over Taehyung’s nipples till he whined. “How’s that feel? Jungkook’s filling you up so good. I can’t feel it. You have to tell me.” Taehyung pouted and buried his face in the pillow. Jimin cooed. “Baby.”

“Shut up,” Taehyung muttered, muffled. “You’re the baby.”

“Kook, can I top?”

“Huh?” Jungkook said, freezing. Taehyung grunted and wiggled down against his fingers.

Jimin’s eyes looked hooded in the dim light, staring up coyly from beside Taehyung’s desperate pout. He reached up and wrapped Jungkook’s hair around his fingers, tugging gently. The room tilted a little and Jungkook crawled forward till Jimin’s lips crashed wet and plush against his, the hand still tugging insistently. “Wanna watch you fuck him,” Jimin said.

Jungkook hesitated, glancing at Taehyung’s flushed face. The hand in his hair tightened suddenly with a pleasant sting. “Please? I never get to top,” Jimin murmured, voice as low and husky as it ever got. “Let me fuck you.”

“You never want to top.”

“That’s beside the point!”

“I’m just saying,” Jungkook grumbled, “You can’t use that to convince me because its not like we’re ever stopping you. What if I want to top?”

Taehyung blinked lazily at them, flush abating. “Somebody get your fingers up my butt. I don’t care who.”

“Let me top!” Jimin said, pushing his hard-on uselessly against Jungkook’s leg. Taehyung snorted.

 

Ten minutes later had Jungkook settled between Taehyung’s long legs, pushing his thighs back as far as they could go as Taehyung scowled at him. “Burns.”

“Don’t you like that?”

Taehyung shrugged. His hole glistened with wet in the dark, dick sitting fat and semi-hard against his stomach. Jungkook played with it a little, squeezing and holding it in his palm. Taehyung snickered, but his eyelashes fluttered shut and his body twitched upwards asking for more. “Tae likes being played with,” Jimin murmured, stretched around Jungkook’s side to watch.

“So do you,” Taehyung said.

“So does your mom,” Jungkook said, then jerked forward with a hiss as Jimin’s little fingers stabbed into his prostate.

“Sensitive already?”

Jungkook grunted at him.

“I’m really asking,” Jimin giggled. “I can’t tell.”

Jungkook felt an embarrassed lump in his throat. “Um, yeah.”

“Sorry,” Jimin murmured. Jungkook glanced down at his devious little smile and felt his discomfort melt. There was no staying mad at those round cheeks. He relaxed again, and Jimin pet deep, gently this time, not nearly as far as Taehyung could, or even Jungkook when he fingered himself.

“In?” Taehyung said, “Please? I’m bored.”

Jungkook shuffled forward, pulling Taehyung’s hips into his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung said, sitting up and falling back out of Jungkook’s lap. Jungkook looked up in surprise to see Taehyung’s worried face just a foot away. “Was that rude? I’m just teasing--I’m not actually bored.”

Jungkook stammered for a moment, the whole room stock still suddenly. “I--I know. You’re fine.”

Taehyung furrowed his eyebrows like he didn’t believe it. “You seemed offended.”

If the link was still around, they would have felt his annoyance. “I wasn’t.”

Taehyung lay back down. “Okay. Sorry. Carry on.”

“Hold on. I’m kinda soft now.”

Taehyung groaned and put his hands over his face.

It took another five minutes of Jimin’s fingers inside him and his cold rings leaving trails of sensitivity along his dick before he finally pushed in. Taehyung’s little lips fell open, his eyes rolling back and falling closed. A small sigh dropped from his open mouth. Jungkook nearly had to stop and laugh. It was the same reaction as always, but without the accompanying rush of satisfaction and relief on the link, he looked a little ridiculous.

“What?” Taehyung said as Jungkook tensed and huffed, keeping the worst of the giggles in.

“You’re so pretty,” Jungkook said, face flushing.

Taehyung’s eyebrows rose. “I am?”

Jimin, ignorant of the mood, chose that moment to push in. Jungkook groaned and rocked forward.

“What was that reaction?” Taehyung asked.

“J-Jimin’s dick.”

“Huh? OH.” Taehyung burst into giggles. “Sorry.”

“You’re pretty.”

“You’ve never called me pretty before,” Taehyung said.

“What are you guys even talking about?” Jimin said, trying to see around Jungkook’s shoulder.

“He called me pretty.”

“I heard that. He’s right. Please start moving.”

Jimin set the pace with quick, hard thrusts the rocked Jungkook into Taehyung, hands gripping Jungkook’s hips. Jungkook bit his lip and leaned forward, feeling Jimin work his small cock in wonderful ways. “Been so long since I’ve had sex like this,” Jimin said. “You have to tell me if it feels good.”

“Good for me,” Taehyung said. “Kook, harder please.”

“I--yeah.”

It felt powerfully isolating, to be in his own head, private and sheltered in ways he was used to being open. He could hide his pleasure if he wanted to, could mute the reactions they would usually tease him for. He thrust a little harder and considered the way Taehyung tensed and whimpered. Jimin picked up the pace and Jungkook fell forward over Taehyung’s chest, suddenly deep and close. Everything felt hot and tight and full. He started to chase the hot sour ache, feeling it build slowly.

“Oh, too hard,” Taehyung gasped. “Slower.”

Jungkook pulled back, guilty. “Sorry.”

“No saying sorry,” Taehyung said, petting his hair with shaky hands. “You can’t feel it now. Gotta talk. Just making up for the link.”

Jungkook picked back up, choosing a careful middle between the fast and slow paces and hoping he’d judged it right. Taehyung’s eyebrows twitched and he felt a little lost.

Behind him, Jimin growled and thrust faster, hard across his prostate. “There you go. Take it, babe.”

The perfect pleasure of it had faded a little. Jungkook tilted his hips and tried to feel it better.

“Hold on,” Taehyung grunted, and pushed Jungkook back. Jungkook shifted back too fast and Jimin squeaked behind him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jungkook said. “Sorry.”

“Just turning over,” Taehyung said.

“Fuck you!”

Taehyung laughed. “Oh hush, Jimin. You’re always demanding.” He stretched out, round ass up in the air, gazing back over his shoulder. “Kook, c’mon.”

He buried himself in deep again, letting Jimin get in position to thrust forward before moving. This angle had a hot, sweet slide, perfectly smooth and deep, and Jimin had a wonderful angle behind him, sometimes hitting his prostate head on, sometimes sliding tantalizingly close, enough to make his breath catch and his hips twitch.

All the same, the build seemed to plateau there and sit, never crossing the line to really wonderful, even as Taehyung groaned deep in his chest below him and Jimin’s thrust got harder and faster, nearly painful. He couldn’t feel them, just two bodies sandwiching him between them, familiar touch, smells, gross wetness dripping onto their sheets and Taehyung’s soft noises drowned out by Jimin’s moans, but mentally an utter stillness that bordered on cold and disinterested if he focused on it too hard.

“Gonna cum,” Jimin gasped, which Jungkook would not have predicted. He made a tiny whine of disappointment. “You too, Kook?”

The answer stuck in his mouth. “C-can we stop? I wanna…” Jimin’s thrusts stuttered, and then slowed to a stop. Taehyung picked up his head, eyebrows furrowed together. “Keep going without me.” He slid out from between them and rolled onto his side. He felt instantly better, still and calm and able to see his boyfriends, but then worse since they both looked alarmed and his dick was still achingly hard, his stomach slightly off.

Taehyung sprawled out on the pillows and looking a little miserable, ass still up like he wanted someone to dive back in. “Just tell us if it doesn’t feel good,” he mumbled. “We can fix it.”

“I’m good. Just not feeling it.” Jungkook’s eyes drifted closed of their own accord.

“No sleep yet,” Jimin said, jostling him by the arm. “I’ve gotta clean you up. Tae, you too.”

“I haven’t cum yet.”

“Oh, honestly,” Jimin sighed.

Some slick, wet sounds filled the room and Jungkook forced his eyes open to see Jimin’s mouth over Taehyung’s dick and his fingers down between his legs. Taehyung made that dumb face again, and Jungkook blinked at them feeling oddly out-of-body, dick still hot and awkwardly damp, head still fuzzy, getting none of the pleasure he’d usually feel sitting right next to Taehyung and Jimin as they fucked.

“I feel weird,” he murmured, which seemed to ruin the mood a little. Jimin picked his head up and Taehyung scowled. “Sorry. I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

In the mirror, he glanced Jimin sitting up and watching after him as Taehyung tiredly wrapped a glowing hand around his own dick, then he closed the door and climbed into the shower.

When Jimin and Taehyung came cautiously in ten minutes later, Jimin gave him a questioning look before he turned the water on warm. “Are you okay?”

“Since when were we so bad at sex?”

“Since we weren’t cheating at it, I guess,” Jimin said. “Have you washed?”

He shook his head. Taehyung grabbed the soap and handed it to Jimin, neither of them having to even glance at each other. Jimin grabbed the ridiculous fluffy loofa he’d found in a Bed Bath and Beyond, his new favorite non-magical store, and started to lather it up. “Jungkook, can you explain what happened?”

“You sound like a mom.”

“Did we hurt you?”

“No. It just felt weird.”

“Weird how? ‘Weird’ doesn’t help.”

“Don’t interrogate him,” Taehyung said, one wet hand on Jungkook’s waist from behind him. “The link is gone and we can’t feel sex like we used to. It’s weird. You know it’s weird.”

Jungkook tentatively wrapped his arms around Jimin’s neck and snuggled close, bodies wet, dicks awkward and in the way. Taehyung shuffled them sideways to get under the water and rinse and Jungkook’s chest felt tight. “Can we sleep?”

“Okay,” Jimin said. Taehyung remained strangely silent.

They all crawled into bed together in a hot heap, wearing each other’s clothes, then lay awake together for a while.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook said after a half hour of pretending to sleep.

“Why?” Taehyung said.

“For not saying anything.”

A long dark silence followed, telling Jungkook that they hadn’t forgiven him yet. He swallowed. An arm plopped across his middle, and he jumped. The arm squeezed weakly. Must be Taehyung. “You know we’re still going to take care of you, right? You’re still at a disadvantage here. We still want to keep the odds even.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

Taehyung shuffled and leaned on him, and then lips landed at the corner of his eye. “Love you,” Taehyung murmured. “You called me pretty.”

“You are.”

“You’ve never said so before.”

“I’ll try to say it more.”

“Tell me more about it.”

Jimin chuckled softly in the dark. Jungkook could already feel his face reddening. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Please?”

Jungkook took a deep breath and closed his eyes, imagining Taehyung’s face in front of him, the way he looked when he lay across Jungkook’s lap. “Would you rather be pretty or handsome?”

“I wanna be whatever you think I am,” Taehyung said, voice so soft and low in his ear. “You call me hot all the time, but pretty is more specific, and I want to know what changed.”

“I’ve always thought you’re pretty.”

“How is he pretty?” Jimin said, nuzzling against Jungkook’s arm. His earrings stabbed gently.

“Um. Face.”

“Yeah?” Taehyung laughed.

“Your eyes are really, um, long.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead as Taehyung laughed. “And I’ve always loved how soft your hair is. Cute little freckles. And your skin is pretty.”

“Didn’t even need my potion for that,” Jimin said proudly. “Bastard.”

“I love your lips,” Jungkook said. Taehyung pressed a kiss to his jaw, warm and slow. “You’re just good to look at. Can I stop?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung said, a smile in his voice. “Thank you.”

“Am I pretty?” Jimin asked.

“Yeah, so pretty,” Jungkook said.

“You know you’re prettier than me,” Taehyung laughed. “Let me have this.”

“Okay, okay,” Jimin said, shuffling closer, his smile against Jungkook’s skin. He squeezed them both close and let the dark do its usual job of lulling him to sleep, content with his place there between them.

“I’ve always thought you were prettier than me,” Jimin whispered. Taehyung whole body tightened up, face pressed against Jungkook’s chest, body pulling tight. He slid a hand over to Jimin’s arm and squeezed. It felt almost like it used to in the dark cabin, safe and sound at night next to each other, a hive mind with the dangerous world locked outside.

 

“This toilet is why I hired you,” Taemin said with a flourish far too elegant to refer to the toilet in question, a filthy lump of porcelain in a large, wood-paneled room, smelling dimly of stale water and sewage. Toilet paper littered the floor. “Sorry you had to see this before the janitor got to it. We’ve had a lot of students already and this is the most accessible toilet in the building. The others are in the creepy basement. This gets a lot of use and doesn’t handle anything well. Please help.”

“What’s the problem?”

“As of right now?” Taemin laughed weakly, running a hand through his blond hair. “Well it doesn’t flush properly. Like, you have to hold down the handle the whole time. And it smells.”

Jungkook nodded.

“And the pipes leak.”

“Hm.”

“Last year it flooded the narthex twelve times.”

“I’ll figure it out. Should I get started?”

“I was going to show around and let you know what your other duties will be first.”

Taemin seemed considerably more stressed on this, the first day of the spring semester. Outside, the mountain had fogged heavily overnight, and then the temperature had dropped below freezing. The fog slowly coated every tree, grass blade, and road sign in a layer of ice. Jungkook had arrived at work in a minor state of shock at the icy wonderland that set everything to tinkling and numbed every exposed inch of skin.

It had been a tense morning. Before any of their night guests had had time to leave, Jimin discovered two hand-shaped bruises on Jungkook’s hips that he must have put there and eaten all of Yoongi’s breakfast in a moody, apologetic slump that hadn’t abated even on the walk with Seokjin through the freezing cold, though he’d healed the bruises in seconds. Jungkook suspected it was the first-day-of-school nerves.

“The rare books room,” Taemin said, gesturing to a dark doorway in the basement hall. “Careful around those. Always read the warning labels.”

Jungkook shuddered and backed away from the open door. Taemin studied him for a moment before leading him silently on. “The heavy lifting part of your job is moving boxes of books around and, like, fixing shelves. They break down every once and awhile. This is an old building. The stairs too. We’re missing a stair to the basement right now, so you’ll need to fix that.”

“This place is falling apart.”

Taemin shrugged. “Witches are good at holding things together, but not fixing them. It’s a historic church, you know. We don’t know how it’s put together.”

Chairs wobbled. A table had a broken, hastily mended leg that threatened at any moment to snap. Every hinge in the building squealed like a dying hog.

“Don’t you have staff to fix this stuff?”

“A lot of these repairs fall under the repertoire of house witches, most of whom would rather be homemakers than janitors at a university notorious for underpaying its staff.” Taemin said. “A few years ago, someone proposed bringing on some bonded servants, but there were, um, a series of ethical debates.”

Jungkook nodded. “And they decided bonded servants were unethical?”

Taemin smiled grimly. “Actually, that side barely had a foot in the debate at all. We weren’t sure how to properly pay them, and a vast majority of staff and faculty, as well as students, expressed a preference for keeping non-magical people off campus.”

A sinister, creeping fear seemed to rise up out of the floorboards whenever Jungkook let himself stand still and think about where he was. Already, a small background of people just a little younger than him filtered in and out of the shelves, glancing their way with curiosity or confusion. One guy turned the corner, openly snorted, and then walked the other way. Taemin didn’t help. Every time conversation stalled for two long, Jungkook turned and caught him staring with his head cocked to the side like he was waiting for Jungkook to do something interesting.

“What are my hours?”

“Interesting question,” Taemin said.

“Yeah?”

Taemin had a stack of five spell books in his hands and seemed very interested in making them perfectly straight. Jungkook had noticed he barely made eye contact, something he’d chalked up to aloofness but wondered if it was really shyness. “We could use your help literally all he time and we’re open seven to one a.m. every single day. Well, Saturdays have shorter hours. You’re getting paid for forty hours a week. For the most part, you can set your own schedule as long as you’re here for forty hours between five days or more and we’ll get along without you.”

Jungkook gaped. “Are you sure?”

“Just make sure you’re here on Sundays from ten a.m. till six please, and we’ll be working you overtime near midterms and finals. We’d prefer that you be here in the evenings especially, but I understand if you’d rather get home to your family. That’s the end of the tour, so…” he began to shuffle away, “your toilet awaits.”

“Best job ever.”

“Let me know if you need anything,” Taemin said, and disappeared down the nearest aisle. Jungkook headed diligently for the supply closet.

 

“First lecture was weird.”

Jungkook grunted through his sandwich. Seokjin bumped their table as he rushed past with Shortcake on his heels. Jimin had his chin down on his arms, food barely touched. Bubble sat up in his lap, wide-awake and staring down his untouched sandwich, her own small plate of chicken scraps only half-eaten.

“Are we going to eat at three every day?”

“I hope not,” Jimin said, “but this is when Seokjin’s isn’t packed to the ceiling. Now about the lecture.”

“Yeah, the lecture. What was weird?”

Jimin leaned back in his seat with a sigh. He had a smear of dirt down his green sweater, brown hair mussed like he’d been pulling his sweaty hands through it. “I wish I’d gone to college. I don’t know how to deal with these kids.”

“Are they rude?”

“They’re silent! And I think most of them are serious underachievers. I felt like I had nothing to say. We just went over the syllabus and stuff and then I planned to have a discussion on what we expected out of the class because I wanted to get a read on things, and they were so quiet. I guess I have a read on things but its not helpful and I don’t know if they want to be there.”

Jungkook took another huge bite of sandwich and tried to look concerned with his mouth stuffed. Jimin sighed. “Long day for you?”

“I--umph...un minid.” He chewed faster. “There’s a lot to do. That place is a wreck. Everyone looks at me weird. It’s been on my feet all day. I’m really hungry.”

“Well we knew that was going to happen. Are you sure you want to work there?”

Jungkook shook his head.

“Do you want to quit?”

“I’ll give it two weeks and then we’ll see.”

“Good idea. You know, I just thought that lecture series I did last year would attract more interested students. I hope it’s just that they’re just as nervous as I am.”

Two students at the table next to them giggled into their food, stealing looks at Jimin and Jungkook. Jungkook kept looking over too, because there was nothing quite so distracting as witch fashion, two girls dressed up for school in shirts with enormous floaty white sleeves and tiny shorts that laced up the side to their waists. It was the little blue penguin sat on the left-most girl’s bag that kept snatching Jungkook’s attention as it ate out of a plastic bag of small fish. The other girl’s familiar must have been the giant monarch butterfly perched in her hair like a bow. Jimin hadn’t seemed to notice either of them at all, though halfway through the meal he took off the ring that sensed sexual thoughts and put them in his pocket, giving Jungkook a reproachful look.

“It’s not me.”

“Oh sure.”

“It’s not.”

Jimin glanced around the room, but the girls were suddenly very much engaged with their salads and his gaze skimmed right over them.

“You should wear your glasses more often. They make you look more like a professor.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Very.”

Jimin finally picked up his sandwich and took another bite. Jungkook could see fairy wings poking out the sides, crinkly and iridescent. “Seokjin makes the best stuff.”

“You should try his cupcakes. Get this. I can make my own schedule for work. As long as I’m there forty hours a week across at least five days, Taemin says they don’t have a specific schedule for me.”

Jimin chewed thoughtfully. “That’s probably good.”

“Probably?”

“It might mean he can drag you into work at really ridiculous hours if he thinks he needs you, so try to be strict about the hours you set for yourself and keep them fairly consistent.”

“Oh.”

Ice clung to the corners of the windows. He could see it frosting the bushes outside. Someone had left a trail of dinner-plate sized snowflakes along the road to warn people of icy patches. “Why not just clear the ice?”

“That’s a specific spell,” Jimin said, “which apparently no one has.”

“Tae could do it.”

“It would take him a while. They should just hire the right people and fucking pay them enough.”

“Excuse me.”

Jimin and Jungkook both turned to find the girls with their plates cleared off the table and lipstick freshly applied, grinning widely at them.

“Yes?” Jimin asked.

“Hi! I’m Jiwoo and that’s Chaewon,” said the girl on the left, hair unnaturally and beautiful auburn and a smile like pure sugar. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Jimin. Nice to meet you. This is Jungkook.”

Jiwoo grinned brightly and Chaewon curled in nervously with a gentle smile, tugging at the end of her blond braid. They were both Korean. Just how many Korean witches had come to the United States? What kind of community was this?

“We’re both freshman,” Jiwoo said, “but we’ve transferred in from a small school in Rhode Island called Coventry University and we’re both trying to get our feet on solid ground here and figured we should just start up some conversations, so, um, what year are you two in?”

Jimin took a deep breath, and then let out a short giggle, running his hand through his hair again. Chaewon glanced at Jiwoo with rising panic. “Well, I’m really sorry to disappoint you, but we’re new here too. I’m a new professor of potions and botany--” Here Jiwoo and Chaewon’s eyes widened, shock flashing across their faces, “--and Jungkook just started work at the library.”

“Oh!” Jiwoo said softly. “Well, excuse us then. Um.” She and Chaewon looked at each other, looking like they either wanted to laugh or flee. “Potions?”

“It’s a new program.”

“I’d heard that was coming back,” Chaewon said hesitantly. “Wasn’t there a book recently? Potions for Contemporary Magic or something?”

Jimin nodded proudly.

“Mom read that,” Jiwoo said. “She’s gotten kind of obsessed actually, but it’s nice. That stuff really works. Maybe I’ll take a class.” Her sugary grin pasted itself back on her face. “My schedule hasn’t been finalized yet.”

“That’d be excellent,” Jimin said, still sounding a little brittle, probably at being mistaken for a student, maybe because interacting with students had so far been fraught with anxiety, maybe because the girls hadn’t realized he’d written the book yet. “There’s certainly space and it’s a 100 level. It’s a really fascinating subject. I’m looking forward to teaching it.”

“Have you read the book?” Jiwoo said, turning to Jungkook. “You’re a librarian, right?”

“I-I’ve read it,” Jungkook said, taken off-guard. “It’s really good. I’ve been, um, making lots of potions.”

Jimin flashed him a grin. “What are you both majoring in?” he asked.

“Evocation,” Jiwoo said.

“Medicine,” Chaewon said, and looked quickly at Jungkook.

“Oh, those are tough,” Jimin said. “Well, not to shamelessly advertise, but medicine is one of the primary function of potions, and its infinitely flexible. Medicine is my other specialty.”

Chaewon sat up, mouth popping open. “Maybe I should--should I?”

Jimin shrugged. “Even if the class doesn’t work towards your major, it’ll give you an interesting extra field and it fills a core curriculum requirement. Just saying.”

Chaewon and Jiwoo met each other’s eyes with a calculating look.

“Is evocation related to potion-making?”

“Absolutely,” Jungkook said. “That’s the manipulation of magical energy, right? That’s what I use potions for mostly.”

“Isn’t evocation mostly combative?” Jimin asked.

“Yup!”

“I see.”

Seokjin swept down on their table and lifted their dirty dishes into the air with a forceful smile. “You’ve been in here a full hour now.”

“Are you telling us to leave?” Jimin said.

“You’re hogging table space! Come over to my house sometime if you want to sit around and eat for hours!”

“Oh should we go?” Jiwoo said, already gathering her bag up.

“No no, girls. Stay as long as you want. Customers are fine. It’s the old friends I don’t want loitering.”

“No tip then,” Jimin muttered.

“Jimin, I will feed you to Shortcake.”

The girls put on their coats anyway and left shortly after Jimin and Jungkook, their soft, tinkling voices following at a distance behind them. “Those were the girls eyeing you up, by the way.”

“Fuck that ring. It was going off all throughout class until I took it off and I’m so uncomfortable.”

“Don’t wear it to school.”

“I completely forgot about it. Sorry about blaming you.”

“It’s usually my fault.”

Jimin laughed and shoved him. They walked carefully apart. Students walked past them. Some glanced at Jungkook with eyebrows raised, but most didn’t. Jiwoo and Chaewon hadn’t seemed to question him at all. Maybe not everyone could tell he was non-magical. Maybe the magic from the potions in his bag and the blanket of magic over the whole school kept him disguised. He relaxed a little.

“I’ll see you for the walk home?” Jimin asked, stopping by the back door to the library with him. He seemed hesitant to leave, arms around himself like he wanted a hug. The absence of that mental connection sat between them like a glass wall, but Jungkook had stopped noticing so much. This felt familiar enough, just him and Jimin together. He reached out and brushed Jimin’s cheek.

“See you then.”

Jimin’s eyes fluttered shut. “Work hard.”

“Yes sir.”

 

Later in the week, Jungkook fixed a particularly nasty clog in the downstairs toilet with the offending student standing right behind him. “Wait, you’re doing that with a rubber cup on a stick? Like, by hand?”

“That’s how most people fix toilets.”

The students laughed nervously. “I’ve never seen anyone fix it that way.”

“Yeah?”

“Just use a wand. That’s not going to work.”

Jungkook pulled the plunger away from the drain with a pop and watched all the brown sludge swirl down with a deep gurgle. “Physics.”

He turned around to see the student staring at the plunger with deep suspicion. “What do you do with it now?”

“Throw it back in the closet.”

He wrinkled his nose.

“Hey, it’s your shit.”

“You didn’t think to, like, bring a few cleaning spells or something?” the student said. He was wearing a stupid leather jumpsuit, brown hair coiffed up with a careful curl right at the tip, runes tattooed in strips like a bookshelf on his arms. His Doberman gulped water out of the toilet one stall over.

“I’m not a witch,” Jungkook said. “You can’t tell?”

He scowled like this was a sore spot. “No. I can’t really feel stuff like that. I was just wondering where your familiar was. No offense, but how did you even get on campus?”

It almost felt nice for someone to say it out loud, rather than hearing people whisper as he rewired a light fixture by hand. He took a deep breath and swung the plunger into the closet. The guy flinched. “They pay me to be here, so apparently I’m useful.”

The guy followed him out of the bathroom, fidgeting uncomfortably. “I thought they decided not to hire bonded servants.”

“I’m not one.”

The student blinked and stared off into space like that just didn’t add up, still right on Jungkook’s heel through the low basement past a single student working the perfectly non-magical copying machine. “I guess I understand wanting a non-witch around to do the mechanical stuff, but why would anyone pay someone they can just bond?”

Jungkook had to stop and take a breath, relax his jaw, and close his eyes so the student couldn’t see him rolling them.

“I’m Clayton, by the way.” He had an open, curious face when Jungkook turned to look up at him. He’d extended a hand. Jungkook shook it half-heartedly. “Can I ask you some stuff? My parents told me not to associate non-magic people growing up so I’ve never talked to someone like you.”

Jungkook could feel his face darkening and Clayton’s eager look faltered. Jungkook unclenched his teeth. “Another time, maybe. I’m gonna be gone for the rest of the day.”

“Really? It’s eleven in the morning.”

On the freezing walk home, Jungkook considered that his quick exit may have been a mistake. Not only would he have to make up six hours on another day and possibly forgo walking home with Jimin every other day this week, but interacting with some of these kids might make him feel less out-of-place and lonely here. He felt like a mouse working in a cat shelter. He should probably befriend some cats.

He wished he’d put more effort into convincing Jimin to take the truck to work that morning. Jimin had said it wasn’t too late in the season for snow, but his excitement for it had caused his shivering for the past two weeks and snow sounded like another weight on his back. The sky grew steadily darker as he walked and the uncomfortable stinging at his skin told him it was certainly cold enough. Jimin and Taehyung had kept saying how surprised they were that it hadn’t snowed already.

At home, Taehyung was standing on the porch in short sleeves with a baby palmetto in his arms. “You’re home!” he said, eyes wide and smile a little guilty.

“I had to leave work early. Shouldn’t you be at work too? What’s that?”

“Oh shit. I was gonna…” he lifted the palmetto. “This was going to be a surprise. Happy, um, freedom day. I brought you a palmetto.”

“What does it do?” Jungkook said. He climbed the porch to touch the little fans just beginning to spread into full-sized fronds.

“Nothing. It’s not special. It’s just a palmetto. I know you like useless plants and I thought you might…” he shrugged and leaned forward, pressing the pot against Jungkook’s chest. “I thought you might miss seeing them around the swamp. So I brought one home for you. They’re pretty. We can put it on the porch, or in the foyer, or you can keep it back in your room but it’ll need to be someplace warm.”

Jungkook leaned over the palmetto, the spiky leaves sticking at the bottom of his chin, and kissed Taehyung’s unprepared mouth. “Thank you,” he murmured, and took the pot. “I’ll put it on my windowsill.”

Taehyung hovered there with his hands out like he wanted to help Jungkook carry it, a bashful smile on his face. “I bought it yesterday at this really cute roadside gardening store near the greenhouses. They were right by the fence as I drove past, as well as, like, full-sized palms, but I didn’t think I could transport those and I don’t know where we’d keep them.”

Jungkook hugged the pot. “Thank you. I needed this. I love her. She’s my daughter now.”

Taehyung grinned, eyebrows raised. “Her? What’s her name?”

“Palmela.”

They found a nice spot for Palmela in the corner of Jungkook’s bedroom next to the window. She had her own little table.

Taehyung wrapped both his arms around Jungkook’s waist from behind and rested his head on his shoulder. “I noticed you’ve been missing the swamp.”

“I’m not, really.”

Taehyung snorted. His arms tightened around Jungkook’s waist. “You spend a lot of time on the porch with the warm air and all the tropical plants. You’ve seemed a little worn thin since we moved up north.”

“It’s cold. I’ll get used to it.”

“You listen to country music more than ever now.”

“Hardly at all.”

“It used to be only when you were in a bad mood. Now its whenever you’re bored.”

Jungkook turned himself around to hold Taehyung a foot or so away and look into his face. Taehyung squeezed as close as he could, bodies still brushing.

“Whenever you look out the window, you look away like you don’t want to think about it.”

“I don’t like winter. It’s ugly.”

Taehyung sighed and leaned forward for a tiny peck on the lips, and then leaned back with a blissful look. “You’re hard to read, baby,” he murmured. Jungkook felt thirsty for soft lips. He’d gotten used to Taehyung as brownie, a trickster forest spirit. Again, he realized just how ethereally beautiful Taehyung looked without the background noise. His smooth cheeks. That little freckle under his eye.

“You’ve always been hard to read,” Taehyung said, low voice breathy and careful like he might just be talking to himself. Sunlight lit up the room behind him and gleamed softly in his shadowed hair. “And we always had to tell you how you felt. You feel homesick.”

Jungkook swallowed. “I didn’t mean it when I called the swamp home.”

“Yes you did.”

While the link was active, Jungkook always listened when they said he felt something. They would know. They were always right. He resisted a little now that his head was his and they weren’t allowed in, but he let that go and considered homesickness. There it was, right on the surface, a longing for dark red water and moss-drowned cypresses, for heat that shriveled the grass and the murky, sepia gray of the forest, for cicadas in the trees and Taehyung humming old folk tunes while the evening was still bright and breathless.

“Okay.”

Taehyung pulled him to the bed and pushed him down on the mattress. He straddled Jungkook’s thighs and lay on his chest, mouths moving together, hands in his hair.

“Do you miss the swamp?” Jungkook asked Taehyung, “We all thought you’d miss it most.”

“Every night I dream about it eating me alive.”

“You don’t miss it at all?”

Taehyung shook his head. He wasn’t lying. Taehyung was hard to read too, but Jungkook could tell. “Sometimes I think about how long we stayed there and I want to throw up.” He shook his head and ground back on Jungkook’s cock, still soft in his work jeans.

They didn’t have the patience. Taehyung got Jungkook hard in his mouth and then wasted less than a minute kissing him before he slicked up Jungkook’s cock and sat on it. “We should do this more often,” he murmured, and Jungkook said nothing because it was redundant to agree to the obvious. He had hands all over Taehyung’s slim thighs, solid from years of farm work but still long and lithe.

“Pretty,” he said.

“So you’ve said.”

“Do you think you’re pretty?”

“I do.”

Jungkook sat up and kissed him till he sat still and hot around Jungkook’s cock. They shuffled backwards so Taehyung could still ride but Jungkook could lean back against the headboard and reach everything, kiss his neck, and meet his eyes from up close. The mental silence felt strangely disinterested.

“You don’t act pretty.”

“Ha. yeah.”

Jungkook kissed him again.

Taehyung didn’t go back to work. They fucked on the bed until the cozy, romantic kind of quiet made them both self-conscious of their own reactions. The other couldn’t feel what they felt, could only watch. They ended up in the kitchen. Taehyung took a turn fucking Jungkook against the door to the pantry, testing the flexibility of his back and hips and gripping his cock till he mewled and tried to get away. After they’d made a pretty thorough mess, both of the pantry door and of the counter where they made sandwiches, they moved to the living room. Jungkook, somewhat recovered but dick still tingly and numb, bent Taehyung over the back of the couch and trapped his cock between the cushions where no one could easily touch it. He kept his strokes long, sweet, and easy.

As usual, Taehyung didn’t complain, not even when Jungkook came in his ass as he squirmed and whimpered, no closer to coming from the constant gentle stimulation. The quiet made things feel a little oddly like masturbating, having only his own pleasure to go off, unsure of whether or not Taehyung was really enjoying himself.

It took Taehyung choking Jungkook to come, fucking his throat like a cocksleeve until Jungkook’s hands shook where they gripped Taehyung’s thighs, an uncomfortable end with as much stoic allowance on Jungkook’s part as pleasure, a commitment to figuring it out. If everyone else in the world had sex like this, within their own heads and gauging their partner’s reaction, that’s what they’d learn to do. Jungkook felt a little lost, though, fighting the notion of being unwanted in the silence, worried about doing things right. Afterward, they lay on the couch with the wrong clothes on and two big cus of tea. “We should do this more,” Taehyung said again. “It’s been awhile.”

Jungkook pursed his lips. Sex he could deal with, but the sudden confusion and anxiety he could live without. “You’ve been busy.”

“I’ve been missing this. I needed…” he shifted his hips and Jungkook knew he wanted it again. They used magic this time, Jungkook’s fingers and a little glow off Taehyung’s hand that had him panting like he was dying with his thick eyebrows screwed up and sweat sticking his perfect, straight hair to his forehead. It took more time than usual, more moans that sounded like pain and enough force on his swollen prostate that it had to hurt. Jungkook understood though. The itch unsatisfied. Some days you went back to the well too many times. Sometimes no amount of water fixes a kind of thirst that isn’t thirst.

At dinnertime, Jimin came home to find them half-dressed, exhausted, and peacefully quiet. “Had a good day?” he said, eyes twinkling. They nodded. “Good. You both needed it.” He asked for nothing though, and spent the evening reading while Taehyung curled up in Jungkook’s lap and fell asleep. Jungkook pet his hair, felt the limbo of his sore muscles, and wished he could know if they felt as lost as he was.

 

At ten a.m. the winter morning hadn’t released the greenhouse windows from frost yet. A short snow frosted the ground outside, hairy with glass blades and twigs, which Jungkook had gotten considerably excited about when he and Jimin left the house together that morning. During the first lecture everyone had picked seats out of the second through fourth rows of the tiny classroom. Though there was no seating chart, the second lecture was exactly the same. Here they were, Thursday, and the fifteen students again sat clustered in similar spots at the lab tables in the greenhouse.

But at the front middle table sat Jiwoo, Chaewon, and a girl the registrar’s email had identified as Heejin, all with bright smiles and bright clothes, sitting up straight. Students didn’t always bring their familiars to class, but all the ones that did come had already fallen asleep under their witches’ chairs. Jiwoo’s stood with her pencils in its flippers in case she needed them, and Chaewon’s butterfly sat on the end of her pen. Heejin had a bunny that had disappeared into the greenhouse to explore.

“Hey ladies,” Jimin said, feeling a little uncomfortable. His sex ring kept twitching just a little on his finger, and he couldn’t forget the way it had rattled in Seokjin’s shop. It didn’t seem any more intense than the last class though, so maybe they’d settled down. “Welcome to class.”

They beamed, Jiwoo especially. Bubble chirped and Jiwoo waved at her too. Bubble preened proudly.

“I’m going to make the assumption that you’ve all done the reading this time and we’ll see what happens,” Jimin said to the class at large. The glum crowd at the back scowled.

They weren’t all hopeless. Jimin’s glasses showed that most of them at least paid attention for most of the class. One girl in the back took relentless notes but never said a word. Another guy contributed to discussion at every opportunity but never said anything worth hearing. About five people seemed properly engaged and interested even if they didn’t speak up, raising their eyebrows at surprising points in the lecture or nodding when he reached a conclusion. Two guys in the back had slept through both classes. Some professors told Jimin that this was normal. Others seemed astounded. Jimin had rather morosely begun using this as a gauge on the professor’s ability. By this standard, he ranked rather low.

“New ladies, we went over the basic history of early potion making this week and some basic theory.”

“We’ve done the readings,” Jiwoo said. “But we’re coming by office hour later with questions.”

“Oh good! Nice. Um. I’ll be there. Yeah.” His cheeks were probably getting redder.

Jiwoo smiled. In the back of the class, two girls in hoodies with messy hair glanced at each other with hostile smirks. Jimin wasn’t sure whom that was directed at.

“Today is the lab, so we’re making one of the earliest potions on record, a pain reliever. Currently, a lot of witches fix this by short-lasting spells or non-magical pills, so part of this lab will be describing the differences.”

“I didn’t bring my wand,” said one of the sleepier guys in the back, not even waiting for Jimin to call on him. “Can I go home?” His friend laughed.

Jimin’s eye twitched. “You won’t need a wand for this one.”

The guy’s smirk faded into disbelief. “But I’ve never done this before.”

Most witches didn’t like to use wands. They chose their spells, branding themselves with certain skills, and sticking to them. Wands were for more free-form magic like Taehyung’s, experimental, raw, prone to backfiring. All students were required to carry one here since most practical classes required a means for students to practice spells they didn’t possess. All unknown magic outside rituals and potions required a wand.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have slept through the last two classes, Jared.”

“You think I’m supposed to try new magic without a wand?” the guy said, tone gaining hostility.

“I want you to make a potion. This is a lab for a reason, and I am grading it.”

Jiwoo and Chaewon both looked really confused, glancing back at the guy behind them as they examined their notes that probably stated early on that many potions required no magical input from the maker, a fact that had stirred the class to their only lengthy discussion last class. They hadn’t gotten nearly far enough, had stuck to how potions made a person’s magical repertoire more flexible and how it was interesting that so many ingredients could work magic on their own. Some people talked about chemistry and how potion-making’s own self-sufficiency was what killed its popularity. No glory in potions if they worked the magic themselves. They took too long. Witches were too lazy to do the safety tests at the end and got hurt. No one even considered the option that non-magical people could do it.

Jimin hadn’t brought it up. They might get there later in the semester but he wasn’t worried if they didn’t. No reason to make people more protective of their powers and suspicious of Jungkook.

The potion was about as simple as potions got. This would take Jimin ten minutes to make at home, and he wouldn’t, because there were much better, more powerful potions that did the same thing and were only a little harder. He worked through every step slowly. Half the class didn’t know how to dice fairy root, which was more cooking inexperience than potions inexperience. The other half of the class wouldn’t touch the dried Richter frogs. Heejin, Chaewon, and Jiwoo all had their ingredients prepared ten seconds after Jimin demonstrated the instructions and stood patiently, staring around. The girl in the back who took notes and the guy who talked too much were similarly quick, though messier. The rest of the class was a loud, unapologetic disaster. Someone’s snake slithered into the plants and the class had to be stopped till it’s witch got it back out so it didn’t get tangled in the roots of the grasping reeds.

At the instruction “Crush the Whizzsnap seeds to withdraw the magic,” the note-taker girl called him over. “I think I need help with this step,” she muttered, very quietly, eyes darting from side to side.

“Okay, um…Wendy?”

“Wheein.”

“Sorry. Wheein. What’s the issue?”

“I don’t think I can withdraw the magic,” she whispered, so quietly that he almost couldn’t hear. She couldn’t have been too much younger than he was, but she curled up like she was ashamed.

He blinked, baffled. “Why not?”

She pursed her lips. “I can’t do stuff like that. I’m like…really bad at sensing and manipulation. I can’t feel magic at all most of the time.”

Jimin blinked. That was unusual. In the same way that some non-magical people were sensitive to it, a few witches were just bad at magic. They usually led lives somewhat separated from the community. How had she ended up in one of the most prestigious magical universities?

“You don’t have to do anything to the seeds. Just crush them physically, and that’s what releases the magic. You drop them in the potion and they do their thing.”

She blinked slowly at the potion, then quickly, and with a few glances his way to make sure she was doing it right, crushed them with her pestle and poured them in. The potion fizzed and sparkled like a carbonated beverage, set up a line of steam, and immediately began to boil down.

“Perfect,” Jimin said. Wheein’s mouth hung open. On the other side of her desk, Jared and his friend had started pelting seeds at each other.

At the end of class, the painkiller had been reduced to a mason jar of tea that could be drunk for immediate, permanent relief. They’d quickly done the safety tests on a skin leaf to assure that the potion they’d made was the potion they wanted. Those who hadn’t made a viable potion, and there were two, though not the ones that slept through class, had been given a replacement to do the second part of the assignment. Bubble sat tensely by his elbow, sensing his exasperation. “Your homework is to make a lab report. Note that part of the requirement in the syllabus is to test the product and report the differences between the potion and more familiar methods that tackle the same problem. I’ll see you next week.”

Jiwoo, Chaewon, and Heejin packed slowly, probably to walk with Jimin to his office, but it was Wheein that caught him on the way out the door.

“You think it’ll work?” she said, showing him the jar.

“Looks perfect,” he said. “That’s a good amount too. You did really well.”

She nodded and walked out, hiding a brilliant proud smile.

 

“I think those girls are sweet,” Jimin said over dinner.

“Which girls?” Jungkook said, head buried in a dusty old book with two-hundred-year-old potion theory, some of the last published before the modern drought in potion making.

“The girls that tried to flirt with us at Seokjin’s.”

“What?” Taehyung giggled. He had his lengthening hair in a ponytail to eat, just like he used to on work mornings in the swamp.

“They found out we weren’t students and got a little nervous. Anyway, they’re in my class now, and there’s a third. They’re like, far and away the best students I have and it’s only their first day. They’ve done all the readings to catch up and they’ve all read the book already. They had me sign it.” He burst into giggles, one hand over his face and eyes curving into half moons. Jungkook’s heart turned into mush as usual. “And I was wearing the ring the whole time. Only one buzz, and that was when I bent over to reach a book on the floor. The rest of the class is full of perverts. And Bubble trusts them. I think they’re okay.”

“You need to stop wearing that ring to school,” Taehyung said. “That’s just uncomfortable.”

“I’ll wear it,” Jungkook said, and had the ring on his finger the next minute.

“I’m thinking sexy thoughts at you,” Jimin said. The ring did nothing. Jungkook blinked. His finger got slightly itchy.

“Meh.”

“Not working?”

“Like, a little. I can kinda feel it after a few seconds, but not really.” He kept it on anyway. Every once in a while, he’d feel a slight itch, and that meant he knew something about the other boys’ thoughts, if only for a second. Taehyung kept smirking and raising his eyebrows to lackluster response from the ring. Jungkook shrugged.

“I’m thinking about your cute butt.”

“Aren’t you always?”

“I’m thinking about sticking my fingers up it and wiggling them around.”

Jungkook snorted, head down and cheeks turning red. Once again, he was relieved they couldn’t feel the twinge of desire in his gut.

“I’m thinking about sucking on your cute nipples,” Jimin said.

“The ring is really buzzing now.”

“I’m thinking about—” Jimin sucked a deep breath in right by Jungkook’s ear and wrapped a hand around his waist, “keeping your cock warm. Just sitting with my mouth on your dick with you telling me I’m pretty. And then Taehyung comes up and fucks me till I’m gagging.”

“And how do you feel?” Jungkook said, a little low, a little breathless.

“Kinda desperate, baby.”

But they didn’t make it to sex. Taehyung got a call from their greenhouse operator about an irrigation leak and left. Meanwhile, Jungkook took too long sitting in the bathroom and trying to get his head in the right zone. By the time he came out, Jimin had fallen asleep in their bed, naked and waiting. It had been a long day. Jungkook let him sleep.

 

He forgot about the ring until the next day in the library. His finger kept itching distractingly until he scratched it and found the ring there. He looked around. A table of girls by the window were staring at him, not even bothering to look down as he made eye contact, but they wore small, confused scowls like they didn’t know what to make of him. In the balcony, Taemin had his nose buried in a book. The more likely suspect was Jiwoo again, sitting across the room with a book out and her chin her in her hand, eyes flicking his way every so often.

“I need a light bulb replaced in the confessionals,” Taemin said, leaning over the balcony with his blonde hair hanging in his face.

“What are those used for?” he asked.

“Crying rooms.”

Jungkook blinked blankly up at him. “Crying rooms?”

Taemin’s cat slept on one of the moving catwalks nearby, drifting overhead. “Like for finals. People get stressed and need somewhere private.”

To Jungkook’s distress, there was someone in the crying room, some girl with a hoody over her wavy hair and dark cycles under her eyes. She tried to cover up her tears with an embarrassed smile and a pop of dimples as she scurried out past him. He noticed a wand clutched in her hand but felt only the slightest trace of active magic in the room when he went inside.

“This early in the year, Wheein?” he heard Taemin say softly. She only whined.

When Jungkook emerged from the confessional, Wheein was still talking quietly with Taemin, hunched at the shoulders and gripping her wand so hard it shook. She darted past him and fumbled for the door.

“Remember you’re limited to fifteen minutes in there,” Taemin said. He turned to Jungkook. “I doubt it matters. She’s the only person who uses them more than two weeks before midterms.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Taemin smiled thinly. “She’s abysmally bad at magic. I have no idea why she’s even here.”

That sounded startlingly cold coming from a helpful librarian. The look in Taemin’s eyes was closer to quiet amusement than pity.

“Can witches be bad at magic?”

Taemin gave him a long, sideways look, rocking backwards on one heel. “I suppose that’s a fair question from someone who’s only ever been around Jimin and his friends. You’ve fallen in with the elites. Just because a person has the genetic capacity to use magic doesn’t mean they’re good at it. Would you mind re-shelving some of the books in the rare section?”

Jungkook took a deep breath. “Okay.”

It must have been an old sitting room or lounge. Maybe it had been the church’s own library, because the bookshelves looked original. The room was tucked into a corner of the basement as quiet as any room he’d ever been in. He could have heard a fly walking along the ceiling. And the whole room had a tingling chill like the ritual room, the promise of many spells and many dangers lurking in the pages.

“Do Not Open The Books Without Reading Their Instructions,” said a sign on a music stand by the door. He picked up the first book to be re-shelved, a blue and silver one the size of a cookbook that looked fairly modern. Spells for a Self-Protecting House. A laminated sheet of instructions was bound to the front. “DO NOT use spells on this book. DO NOT read the introduction. DO NOT wear red while opening.”

Jungkook got it on the shelf as fast as possible.

No students passed over the next ten minutes, though he left the door open. The tingling feeling of standing in the cave of a monster got greater with every book. A Night Owl’s Guide to Staying Awake. Should the Worst Happen. The Harnessing of Bees and Other Creatures. Superiority and Domination. The Ethics of Revenge. The last one went between two other books by the same author, Eldigard Finch, a name Jungkook recognized from one of Jimin’s history books. Entrapment and the Care of the Imprisoned, and My Defense. On the cover, the laminated sheet said only “This book may contain an unidentified curse. Handle at your own risk.”

Jungkook put it back on the shelf with shaking hands and rushed out into the clean air of the hallway.

“Eep!” Jiwoo said, jumping back and dropping five books.

“Fu—mm,” Jungkook shouted back, remembering at the last second not to swear at work.

“I—I have permission,” Jiwoo squeaked, holding out a slip of paper. Jungkook identified Taemin’s inky fountain-pen signature.

“Oh,” Jungkook clutched his chest and leaned over. Jiwoo kept holding out her slip like she actually thought Jungkook had been trying to keep her out. He waved her away and gestured into the room. “I ain’t stopping you. Just—sorry. Didn’t know you were out here. Got freaked out.”

Jiwoo’s permission slip drooped. Her penguin familiar peeked out from behind her leg where it had been hiding. She looked uncertain. Jungkook bent down and started collecting her books. She pressed down her short skirt uneasily and stepped back. He felt suddenly embarrassed.

When he handed the books back, Jiwoo gave him a cheery smile that retained all it’s normal luster, and slipped past Jungkook into the room. He steeled himself, and on the power of dignity alone, walked back into the room to continue shelving.

Jiwoo changed a bit amongst the books. A bracelet appeared on her wrist where it hadn’t been before. Her ears glittered. Runes appeared like a white tattoo around her wrist and over her hand. Maybe they were protective spells responding to the hostile books around her. She ignored them and began perusing a bookshelf, seemingly oblivious of Jungkook’s presence.

Jungkook went back to re-shelving. Spells of the Inquisition. The Casting of Curses. Manipulation of the Weaker. Jungkook wasn’t so much worried about the existence of the books than the fact that they had recently been checked out. His animal fear of the power around him built behind his ears. He’d left his backpack of potions upstairs. Jiwoo shuffled politely away with a nervous smile when he reached almost over her head to put a book away.

Sitting innocuously at the end of the cart was a little red book with no title on the spine. Jungkook made it a few feet towards the correct shelf with it when he suddenly felt dunked into a dream, head woozy. The world turned weird and silent, drunkenly tilted. He stared in confusion at the little red book that seemed to grow in his vision till all he could see was red. The bookshelves swayed. A girl’s voice called his name over and over. Around him, the library melted into the black of a swamp night with a breath of rot off the water. Or was he in an old house? Hell weed grew at his feet. A figure of twigs and branches rose up out of the ground on spindly arms and reached for him. Jungkook felt nothing but curious, watching as if this was all a series of photos passing by.

Jiwoo snatched the book out of Jungkook’s hand. He was breathing fast and shallow, ears wringing as if with shock, brain a filmy mess of sour fear.

He was suddenly in the hallway, which felt clearer, no danger present. His legs gave a few steps down the hallway and he leaned on the wall. A cold sweat grew tacky on his skin.

“Are you non-magical?” Jiwoo asked, standing in the hallway right behind him, voice ringing and pounding in his rattled skull. She held the book.

Jungkook turned slowly, still feeling half-drunk. They faced each other for a long moment in the silent hallway, Jiwoo suddenly bright-eyed and forward again. “It says in the instruction sheet,” she said, and held the laminated page in front of her to read, “DO NOT let non-magical people handle this book. Is that you?”

Jungkook’s heart pounded like a cornered rabbit’s. There was no shelter here. No potions. No Taehyung or Jimin. Just a long hallway with a witch standing in front of him and a room of evil books behind her. There were other witches around, other spellbooks, other artifacts. Jiwoo seemed suddenly brave. Jungkook’s heartbeat sent shockwaves through his body.

Jiwoo, impatient, stepped forward with her hand out towards Jungkook’s head. He stepped back, throat beginning to ache with gasps. His head fogged with screeching numbness like feedback over a microphone and he realized he was sitting on the floor. Jiwoo’s little shoes clicked quickly past him and up the stairs. Jungkook’s heart felt about to burst, stomach rolling and lungs aching.

Potions in the bag upstairs. A lurching hallway under legs that felt like clay. The stairs spun like a funhouse room. He had to close his eyes to make it up them. From the top of the stairs it was a quick stumble to the broom closet where he stored his backpack.

The calming potion drained all the fight out of him and left him blinking blankly at the back wall of the closet. He’d had panic attacks often enough in the early months of living with witches, but hadn’t had any for a while, not since they’d turned him into a cat. He steadied his breathing and coolly let the fright replace itself with shaking exhaustion.

“Jungkook?” He turned and saw Taemin in the doorway, Jiwoo peering around his shoulder. “What’s up?”

Jungkook didn’t know what to say.

“What are you holding?” Taemin asked.

He held up the empty two-shot bottle. Taemin’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re drinking?”

Jungkook shook his head. “They’re, um, potion bottles. I had a panic attack.” His voice sounded funny in his ears, a far-away dullness that told him his head wasn’t right yet. “The red book,” he said.

“What?”

Jiwoo handed Taemin the book, and his mouth popped into an understanding “oh.” He glanced at Jiwoo and pursed his lips. “How long did he hold this?”

“Thirty seconds or so.”

Taemin raised his eyebrows. “He should be having seizures by this point.”

“I have resistance.”

“Ah,” Taemin said. The witches seemed far away, standing in the doorway to the closet as if at the end of a tunnel.

“I think I need to go home.”

Taemin groaned. “Jimin’s going to kill me. I had no idea this book had been checked out.”

Jungkook hefted his backpack onto his back and swayed hard. “Gotta go.”

Taemin handed Jiwoo the book and stepped forward. “No no. I’m not letting you walk home on your own. You’ve forgotten your sweater and coat. Is that your scarf?”

Jungkook blinked blankly at the collection of clothing on the floor and leaned down to pick it up. He fumbled awkwardly into his clothes as Taemin stood too close. Without the calming potion, Jungkook would be cowering against the shelves of toilet paper and cleaning products. The little itch on his finger around the ring was back, just a little shaking. He ignored it.

“Jiwoo, would you walk him to Jimin’s office in the potions building please?” Taemin said, taking the book from her. “And Jungkook, don’t come to work tomorrow. I’ll come by and explain to Jimin later. This is my fault.”

The walk across campus felt too cold. His head was still damp with sweat. Jiwoo had none of the nervousness she’d displayed when she’d been alone with him before, just a steady curiousness that came in searching glances. Sometimes she’d reach out and steady his arm. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m dreaming.”

“What did you drink?”

“Calming potion. Just numbs any panic or adrenaline responses, but also heightened emotions.”

“That’s useful.”

“Can be dangerous too.”

“I suppose,” she said. “You don’t look calm though.”

Jungkook’s eyes stung. He probably had them open as wide as he could get them, but couldn’t manage to close them or relax. His jaw kept locking with tension. “What do I look like?”

“You look like you’re sleepwalking. Or terrified.”

He looked at her. Soft auburn hair and a knitted hat. Her penguin rode in the hood of her coat. She looked too far away. “I don’t know how old you are. Have you ever been really drunk before? Like so drunk you thought you were going to black out?”

She nodded.

“Yeah. Like that.”

Jimin wasn’t in his office, so Jiwoo settled him in Jimin’s chair and left him there to go check the greenhouse. Jungkook sat stiffly in Jimin’s seat and stared at all the papers in front of him, eyes drifting from sheet to sheet and never picking up more than one or two words.

There was a flat green rock in front of his eyes before he realized they’d returned. “Jiwoo could you go get Taemin?” Jimin said.

“He sent me. He says he’s working.”

“Tell him Kook just nearly died in his library and that I will murder him if he doesn’t come here.”

Jungkook must have fallen asleep. He woke to Jimin and Taemin talking over him. “An original copy of A Mastered Humanity? Are you insane?”

“I didn’t know it was in that cart.”

“Did it have the full curse?”

“We think it’s worn off a little over time. He should be fine in a few days. It’s supposed to kill, so there’s no need for prolonged after-effects.”

“He’s not waking up, Taemin. Look.”

Jungkook felt a heavy jostle and forced his eyes open a fraction. His vision blurred and wavered and turned to black again as he sagged lower in the seat.

“I’ll go find the records of the last accidents,” Taemin said. Jungkook blinked long enough to see Taemin leave the room and a net of golden light covering his body.

“Are you healing him?” said Jiwoo’s voice.

“There’s nothing to heal,” Jimin groaned.

Jungkook woke again in the light of sunset as Jimin hefted him into the front seat of the truck and climbed in behind him. Taehyung nestled him close and let Jungkook’s head drop onto his shoulder. Jiwoo and Taemin had disappeared, but Brandy wrapped herself around Jungkook’s neck in a warm boa, and Bubble curled up on his lap.

Notes:

Next part coming soon!

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Chapter 10: Out of the Swamp Part 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Swamp sunlight had just begun to stream through the cabin in long orange rays. Jungkook descended stairs that were wider than he remembered and met Brandy sitting on the couch, human-sized and wearing a skin-tight, padded suit like a NASCAR racer. Lots of work to do today, she said.

“Where are Taehyung and Jimin?”

Already in the field. We’re all waiting for you.

He went through the motions of making coffee in fast forward, Brandy’s presence at his back. Out the front window, the whole swamp looked like it was made of curtains, a stage set that extended into the hazy distance. Leaves floated back and forth through the air as if attached to a tulle curtain. There were imps tilling the garden. The dragon lounged along the edge of the swamp. Away in the field, their plants bobbed gently. The sweetest warm breeze blew steadily through the clearing, trees towering taller and darker than he remembered.

Good morning sweetheart, said Bubble, five feet tall and dressed in a pretty blue sundress.

“Good morning.” He offered her the coffee. She wrinkled her little nose.

The bugbears are having trouble in the shed.

“I’ll take care of it.”

Jimin was already dealing with the bugbears. None of them could figure out how to replace a blade in the manual lawn-mower, a ridiculous rusted thing that Jungkook had never seen anyone use, but the bugbears seemed intent on it, flexing their beefy, furry arms and scowling down at it.

“Can you even replace the blades?” Jimin said, turning. His eyes glowed green. His head filled with love as he saw Jungkook approach, and Jungkook felt it in a pleased shiver right into the center of his chest. Dirt fell from Jimin’s hair. His shirt hung half off his body. And suddenly Jungkook noticed his own clothes felt stale and brittle, almost sticking to his skin. His hands looked grimy.

“I don’t know,” Jungkook said. “I never used it.”

In the back of the shed, a big, twiggy shape moved as if shifting in bed. Jungkook saw the spindly, humanoid form of the swamp before a growling bugbear pulled his attention back to the mower.

“Just use the gas mower,” Jungkook said. The bugbear huffed and waved him off.

Jimin’s hand felt so light in his. He’d removed most of his jewelry, leaving only the commonly used essentials twinkling on a few of his fingers and cuffing the outside of his ears. Jimin pulled Jungkook down leafy, dark rows of maize and vines until they reached Taehyung lying in the dirt, eyes closed rapturously as magic flowed out of him and through the earth, into the roots of their plants and down deep underground. Dirt built up around his sides like he’d been there a long time. His shirt looked similarly stained and faded, pine-straw hair so long and skin so dark with sun.

“Good morning,” he said lowly, and opened sparkling emerald green eyes. “Sleep well?”

“I don’t remember.”

Taehyung closed his eyes. “Come here,” he murmured. Jungkook lay against his side, and felt himself sinking into the dirt. Light and dark flashed in front of him like a long series of slow blinks, and then he opened his eyes to a summer night with endless stars overhead and the rustling of an ogre treating one of the nearby vines with pesticide. He felt heavy as if waking from a particularly satisfying nap. Dirt had completely covered the leg pressed against Taehyung’s and pressed in against his back as if he had sunk inches down into the earth. On Taehyung’s other shoulder, Jimin slept soundly.

“I can feel the forest growing,” Taehyung murmured. Jungkook smiled and snuggled closer. “This whole swamp is our garden.”

“How long have we been lying here?”

“Months,” Taehyung breathed, eyes drifting closed again. “Can you imagine anything better?”

The sweet warmth of happy satisfaction was enough to take Jungkook’s breath away completely. Taehyung groaned softly like a boat creaking on a calm sea. Jungkook kissed the underside of his jaw and they both reveled in the link, the passing of love from one head to another, the sharing of peaceful joy. They needed nothing more.

 

Taehyung and Jimin had put Jungkook in his suite bedroom off the side of the house. Taehyung sat leaning against a pillow on the mattress beside him with a book in his lap. He lay very still and watched the sun glow on the ceiling as it reflected off the smooth floor and white bedspread, thinking of being sunk into the earth. Palmela glowed in the sunlight in the next room, already a little bigger.

“You’re awake?” Taehyung said.

“M-hm.”

Taehyung stretched out beside him and rested the book half-open on Jungkook’s leg. “How do you feel?”

Dark bags hung under Taehyung’s eyes. He wore pajamas even though it must be after noon. He looked so startlingly old and warn down after dream Taehyung glowing with joy in their farm’s dirt, magic leaching out of him.

“Kinda groggy. You know when you have a weird dream and you wake up and everything feels different?”

Taehyung nodded slowly.

“Yeah.”

“You were cursed.”

Jungkook thought about it a bit. The red book, the laminated warning sheets, Jiwoo and Taemin hovering with threat. He must have scared them. There had been a panic attack, a few minutes of potion-induced clarity in the broom closet and during the walk across campus to Jimin’s office, and then just little photo-quick impressions of waking and sleeping. Then the dream. “How long have I been asleep?”

“About twenty-four hours.”

“Are you skipping work?”

“Yes.”

“Tae.”

“I’m my own boss. I can do that.” He pouted as he said so. He shuffled down the bed and slid one hand over Jungkook’s waist. Jungkook leaned their foreheads together. “What are you feeling?” Taehyung whispered.

He thought about it. “Groggy.”

Taehyung chuckled. “I mean emotionally.”

“Tired? Is that an emotion?”

“Jungkook.”

“I’m serious. I feel…” He pursed his lips and tried to sort through his sluggish brain for a label. “Sad, but relieved. Or not relieved. I miss the cabin.”

“Nostalgic?”

“I don’t think I actually know what that means.”

Taehyung sighed.

“I’m scared. I feel hopeless. I feel…do I feel hopeless?”

Taehyung waited patiently.

“No, I was hopeless when I was in high school. I guess I’m just worried.”

“And how do you feel, like, mentally.”

Jungkook wondered how that was any different. “What?”

“Jiwoo said you felt drunk.”

“Oh! No. Not drunk anymore. Just sleepy. I feel okay.”

Taehyung sat up and stared intently into his eyes. “God, I wish I could still read your head,” he murmured. “You seem really out of it.”

Jungkook sat up and rolled them smoothly over to pin Taehyung down. “I’m okay. I’m kinda happy actually.”

“You just said you were worried and scared.”

“The weird dream felt happy. I’m still feeling it.”

“What was it?”

Taehyung’s eyebrows were knit together, the collar of his pajamas wide over his chest, mouth almost in a pout. He’d been dreaming about the swamp too, apparently often, waking before Jimin and Jungkook and walking down to the greenhouse to sulk. Jungkook decided not to tell him about the dream. Taehyung nodded like he got it.

“Did you water Palmela?” Jungkook asked instead.

“Not today.”

“Where’s Brandy?”

“I don’t know. She’s never around now.”

That candy pout looked too kissable, so Jungkook pressed their lips together so slowly and sweetly. The stillness that used to be the link felt like a coldness, even as Taehyung moaned and pressed up. He lay down again, pressed up against Taehyung’s side with a leg thrown over his thighs and his head on his shoulder, just like he’d been in the dream. He closed his eyes. Nothing felt right.

 

“If you quit, I won’t blame you,” Taemin said. He had his arms squeezed nervously around his slim waist, the most contrite look on his delicate face. “I wasn’t careful enough. I’d forgotten about that curse and must not have been on duty when it got checked out. I won’t make you do that again, but I understand if that doesn’t change your comfort here.”

Jungkook already had a plunger in one hand and Jimin’s potion version of Drano in the other, fully intending to get right to work on yet another blocked pipe. Jimin and Taehyung had tried to convince him to quit the night before. “Worse has happened,” he said. “I wanna keep going.”

“You don’t have to prove that you’re part of the community!” Jimin had said. “Keep yourself safe!”

“If I was prioritizing my safety I would have left the night the bond broke,” Jungkook had muttered, and that was the last word in the conversation.

Taemin seemed to expect the worst.

“I was planning on staying on. I figured I had a lot of hours to make up this week,” Jungkook said.

“No no,” Taemin said quickly. “I’ve already signed a full forty hours paycheck for last week. I’m not doing to dock you for my mistake. I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

Taemin looked embarrassingly human with that guilty face, the slightly mussed hair that was usually perfect. He wore a blue knitted sweater today, a lot like the ones Jimin usually wore, and much more casual than what he usually came to work in.

“Thanks. I’m gonna, um, fix this drain.”

Taemin nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”

The guilt was really cute. “I could use some coffee,” he joked.

Taemin laughed softly behind him. “Ask the student librarians. They’re practically interns.”

A few minutes later, when Jungkook had turned off the water into the bathroom and was impatiently unscrewing all the pipes under one of the sinks, Taemin leaned his head in the door. “I’m actually going on a run down to Buttercup Limited right now if you still wanted coffee.”

“That’s the coffee shop down the street? Um. Cappuccino, please.”

Taemin disappeared. Barely a minute after Jungkook finished snaking out the clog and putting the sink back together, Taemin had paper coffee cup with his name on it that could sense the exact temperature he liked. For the rest of the day, Taemin kept popping in to make sure he hadn’t died, and Jungkook found himself happier than ever to be working there.

 

Taehyung stepped out of greenhouse twelve in the evening and stiffened at a breath of air off the forest. They weren’t anywhere close to the old swamp, but a river sat just a quarter mile through the trees, far enough from the coast to be freshwater, its lakes filled with cypress and water lilies just like the swamp had been. Pine straw and live oak were enough to make him cautious, but this smell took him right back to the rush of power he used to get as they passed the dead tree into the woods, the intoxication.

“See you bright and early tomorrow,” Mack, one of the greenhouse assistants said as he walked out, stripping the scaly gardening gloves from his arms.

“Yeah. Bright and early.” He walked towards the office with the transporter, ready to go home. The breeze came again, rustling his hair sleepily over his forehead and he turned and stared.

Mack stalled in the parking lot ahead of him, looking curiously over his shoulder. “Whatcha see?”

“I smell swamp.”

Mack didn’t know much about the swamp. He’d been hired after they already left. He’d helped magically reinforce the soil to mimic the swamp’s, and it was all he and Taehyung could do to force that magic back into the greenhouse grounds every week. He’d stopped asking questions when Taehyung stopped giving answers. As far as Taehyung knew, Mack believed they’d fled a curse, and that their magical growing land had stopped blessing them with good crops. Even witches as easy-going as Mack sometimes feared living magic, wild lands and witches who drew power from the ground. Taehyung’s magic was made from the cursed earth. Mack might stop mingling their magics if he knew.

“How are the guys?” Mack said.

“Hard to say. I can’t tell anymore.”

Mack gave a slow, ambiguous nod of a response like he didn’t know what to say. “Well, the wife’s waiting. See ya later.”

When the dirt kicked up from Mack’s truck cleared, Taehyung saw Brandy standing at the edge of the parking lot, looking at him.

“Have you been here all weekend?” Taehyung yelped. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Why aren’t you at home!” He strode across the parking lot towards her and she walked tiredly to meet him. He sat down right in the gravel and scratched her cheeks. “I’ve missed you. How did you get here? You were there when we picked up Jungkook and then you were gone. You’re not using the transporter by yourself, are you?”

She only blinked at him, feeling as distant as Jungkook or Jimin did nowadays. “You’re a jerk,” he said. “Do you know how many other witches I know whose familiars go missing for days at a time? Like one, and that’s Dad. I feel like I’m not magical sometimes because you’re never there.”

She visibly sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t mind if people stare at you like you’re terrifying. I know you don’t care. I’d rather have you around.”

Her tail flicked. She looked back towards the woods. “So you miss the swamp,” he said hollowly. “Brandy.”

She stretched her back, and for a moment he felt the swamp wind intensify, with all the mystique of both sleeping nature and watching evil he’d gotten used to. He shuddered.

“Just come home. Hang out with Jungkook. He always makes you better.”

She slowly and reluctantly followed him into the transporter closet and stood tiredly as the walls of the room spun in a fast circle, coming to rest with a new doorway, and Taehyung stepped into his home.

Jungkook was waiting in a chair in the hallway. He stood as soon as Taehyung opened the door and caught Brandy as she jumped into his arms and crawled onto his shoulder.

Taehyung wrapped his arms around Jungkook’s waist just as Jungkook wrapped his around Taehyung’s, big and safe. He must have had a good day, grip nothing but protective. “I feel small,” Taehyung said. Jungkook’s breath caught a couple times like he’d wanted to say something but didn’t know if it was the right thing. He tightened his arms and kissed Taehyung’s ear and that finished the conversation.

“Is Jimin home yet?” Taehyung asked.

“No. He’s been put on a committee or something. He had a meeting.”

“I don’t see him enough.”

“I don’t see you enough.”

“You see me plenty.”

Had it become so unusual for Jungkook to look happy that it was this noticeable without the bond? Was it just because he could feel Jungkook’s thoughts that he looked so sullen all the time? Was he actually usually unhappy? Taehyung bumped his head into Brandy’s over Jungkook’s shoulder. “Let’s make dinner.”

“Okay.”

 

“Have you met Heejin yet?”

Jungkook paused on the way past Jiwoo’s table. She’d caught his arm with a casual grip, like they were close friends. He paused, cautious. “You know Chaewon,” Jiwoo said. Chaewon’s butterfly sat in her hair like a bow again. She smiled warmly, and much more bravely than when they met in the bakery.

“I’m Heejin!” said the third girl. “Hey! You’re friends with Professor Jimin, right?”

“Ah, yeah. That’s me.”

“Cool, cool,” Heejin said, nodding. Jiwoo and Chaewon giggled uncontrollably. “He’s great.”

“Shh!”

Jungkook crossed his arms tightly, just as a matter of nerves, and all three sets of eyes flashed to his chest and arms. His ring buzzed hard. He bit back a laugh.

“Um. I’m a student of magical law enforcement,” Heejin said, eyes taking a minute to leave his chest. “I was just—guys, stop giggling this is serious.” The other girls giggled harder. Heejin motioned for him to sit down. Jungkook didn’t have a lot to do. He’d been here seven hours already and had almost run out of chores. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. “Jiwoo told me you got cursed by a rare book a week ago.”

He nodded. “And you’re definitely non-magic,” she said, then turned to Jiwoo. “He’s one-hundred percent non-magic. He’s got a lot on him, but it’s not his. I can really feel it.”

“I can’t feel stuff like that so I wasn’t sure,” Jiwoo said. Chaewon quietly murmured that she thought he might be. Jiwoo’s penguin wandered across the table and dropped into Jungkook’s lap. “That’s Chuu, by the way. She’s a little blue penguin.”

“I can see that.”

“No, that’s the real name of the species.”

“You’re kidding.”

Heejin burst into the conversation. “I just thought I’d warn you because this is something my dad deals with a lot as one of the school’s lawyers. If you do get hurt by magic on this campus, you have very little protecting you.”

Jungkook swallowed, suddenly wary, unsure of what to say. The penguin flapped around and Jungkook picked it up to tuck it against his chest. None of the girls were giggling anymore. “Like, legally?”

“Yeah,” Heejin said. Her good-natured and cheerful face looked suddenly stern. “Ever since they ruled that bonded servants weren’t going to be used on campus, the legal procedures surrounding issues involving non-magical people has taken the tone that you shouldn’t be here. If you get hurt by something that only affects non-magical people, they’ll just say you shouldn’t have been here and no one will get in trouble. People don’t have to make sure those things are well labeled either.”

Jungkook leaned back in his chair, petting the penguin. Heejin’s bunny looked like it wanted to come up too. The three girls all looked serious now, but worried. They cared.

“But how many things like that are around campus?” Jungkook said. “Is that common?”

Heejin glanced at the other girls. “Well, no. I guess not. You never know. I think we have very few true supremacists on campus and objects like that would be really rare even there. You’re pretty well disguised.”

“We’re not saying you’re not safe here,” Jiwoo said, “But—”

“—That’s exactly what we’re saying, actually,” Heejin said. “There’s a reason non-magical people in magical communities are expected to have bonded protection. You’re not safe.”

“I know I’m not safe,” Jungkook said, reaching down to pick up Heejin’s bunny. “I wasn’t safe when I was living with just two witches.”

They all seemed to startle a little, eyes wide and mouths open.

“Oh, sorry. We weren’t—” “It’s not that we think you’re, like—” “We get you know there are risks.” “—have we overstepped our bounds?” “We’re just worried you’d been thrown in without knowing what you’re getting into.”

“I’m terrified of magic,” he said.

“You flinched when I tried to touch you last week,” Jiwoo said. “I feel really bad about that by the way. You were panicking and I wanted to check if you were okay but you seemed terrified when I reached for you.” The other two girls nodded like they’d discussed this fact. “If you’re so scared, and you know things are dangerous, why are you here?”

“You’re actually a bonded servant, right?” Chaewon said.

“I’m not,” he said, with a little smile. The bunny tucked her head under Jungkook’s chin. “I was, but I’m not anymore. I’m not leaving. All my friends are witches. Like, all of them. All two of them.”

“You’re not being bound against your will?”

“Not at all.”

“Hm.” Heejin glanced at the other girls, who gave her strangely blank looks back that seemed to have meaning. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Because there are spells that could, like…”

“I have a lot of resistance.”

“Oh you’re one of those,” she murmured. The other girls nodded like they suddenly understood a lot more. Heejin sat back and gave him a thorough up and down like she was trying to read him and his two new familiars. “And Jiwoo tells me you take potions. You’re trying to be part of the community aren’t you?” And even these sweet girls couldn’t hide their lofty disapproval.

“I’m trying to stay safe,” he muttered. “I know I’m not a witch but I’d rather do what I can to not leave myself vulnerable.”

“That makes sense,” Jiwoo said, nodding. “Yeah, I think that’s a good thing.”

Heejin nodded. “That’s fair. You’re no magician, eh?”

“Technically I probably fit the definition,” he grumbled. He put Chuu the penguin back on the table and handed Heejin’s bunny back to her. “I appreciate the concern but I need to get back to work.”

Jiwoo and Chaewon looked abashed. “Hey, hey,” Heejin said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “Look, if you ever do get hurt, my dad defends stuff like this sometimes. Let me know and I’ll put you in touch. He’s really passionate about protecting non-magical people. My mom’s a former bonded servant for his family and they’ve been happily married for decades now. He’ll get it.”

“Thanks,” he said, actually smiling now. “I will. Thank you.”

He wondered how Heejin and Taehyung would get along. Both the children of a magic to non-magic marriage, but one an abused anomaly and one an apparently respected student at a top university. Taehyung’s mom had never been a bonded servant though. She’d never been awarded protection for her interaction with magic.

As Jungkook waited for Jimin by the front door of the library, Taemin passed him, hard to recognize under his bundled-up furs. He waved and smiled, eyes crinkling up adorably behind his scarf. The ring on Jungkook’s finger gave a little itch. It really wasn’t that bad working here if he ignored the stares and constant risk. Evidently, people cared.

 

The second potions lab revealed a startlingly more cooperative class. The lectures of the week had gone on without a hitch, everyone paying attention and taking notes, though Jimin had attributed that to the sudden presence of three very attentive students in the front row. However, their lab reports from the week before had all registered some amazement at the swiftness and effectiveness of the simple potion, and the second lab opened with a slightly harder recipe and every student excited to get their tools out.

“You will need a wand for this recipe,” Jimin said, and didn’t miss the way Wheein at the back of the class pursed her lips.

He’d gotten a little tired of forcing the professor aura already, and had let go of some of the stiffness. The students had begun to call him “Jimin” instead of “Professor Jimin” and he didn’t call them on it.

“We’re making a calming potion today, which is one of my favorites, and should come out as a tea. We’ll be sampling it in class unless anyone has sports or other physical activities within the next hour.”

“Is this what Jungkook drank the other day to cure his panic attack?” Jiwoo chirped from the front row without raising her hand.

“It is!”

“So you make this a lot?”

Jimin shook his head. “I don’t. Jungkook and, um, Taehyung does, the other owner of Kim and Park Botanicals. There’s always some around the house.”

No one else would have noticed anything odd about that statement, but Jiwoo knew that Jungkook was non-magical, and so did her friends, and all their eyebrows went up. As Jimin went back to explaining the details of the potion, he heard Heejin whisper “but doesn’t this call for a wand?”

As they began, the two guys that usually slept at the back of the class were among the most attentive in the group, focusing hard on crushing the dried herbs into the right consistency for steeping and carefully layering the bottom of the pot with quartz. It was another simple recipe, just quartz in the pot, steeping the herbs, and a few stirs with a wand while focusing on calming. The class worked quickly and quietly in the humid warmth of the greenhouse, exactly the type of class Jimin imagined when taking this job.

A few minutes after the calming stirs of the wand portion of the recipe, Wheein raised her hand just a little. He came over. “Is it doing it?” he asked, pointing at the wand.

She shook her head, biting her lip. “I keep trying. It won’t change color.”

“Try again?” he asked, already pulling his phone out of his pocket to text Jungkook. Wheein very slowly, very carefully stirred her potion with a crease in her forehead. “Are you focusing on calm? You probably don’t need to focus so hard on magic.”

“The wand won’t respond to me at all,” she murmured. “It does this some days. It’s not all the time.”

“Hey, Jimin, you’re not supposed to have your phone out in class,” the obnoxious guy from the class before said, but it was a friendly type of sarcastic this time, not so much challenging.

“Those rules are for you, not me.”

What’s the replacement to the wand step in the calming potion?

Jungkook typed for a moment, then replied dip a moonstone 3 times. Blow on the water.

Jimin showed the text to Wheein, who squished her eyebrows together and pouted, but pulled a moonstone out of her box of ingredients and dipped it with a spoon. The rest of the class had finished the step and was now distractedly watching them. She looked embarrassed as she bent to blow on it. From her breath, the surface rippled and changed color slowly from red to brown, down to the bottom.

“Perfect,” he said.

“That’s not cheating?” she said softly.

“Of course not.” He looked up at the rest of the class. “Everyone, pay attention here. Potion making is not like spell casting or magic circles or rituals. It’s more like cooking, just like there’s a surefire way to make a chocolate cake, but you can tweak things a little and still have a chocolate cake. In fact, you can tweak things a lot and still have a chocolate cake. The cakes may taste a little different, but that’s still what it is.” Beside Jimin, Wheein nodded slowly.

“Potions are similar,” Jimin continued. “There’s a recipe, but there are usually ways to get around different steps unless it’s really precise and specific. You can’t make this potion at all without moonflower leaves just like you can’t make a chocolate cake without chocolate, but every other step can be adjusted. You just have to know what that step does for the whole potion and what other ingredients or methods have similar effects, which is what my next book is going to be about.” He saw Jiwoo’s jaw drop in excitement, which was supremely gratifying. He felt a little like Taehyung when he used to excitedly explain magic to Jungkook.

“The simplest way to make this potion is with a wand, but if you ever don’t have a wand, or if your wand isn’t working, which happens, you can do the dipping a moonstone three times, which substitutes the magic effect of the wand, and then blow on it, which substitutes the calm. Some people find that easier.”

Wheein still didn’t seem satisfied. Her potion was distinctly darker than anyone else’s, but they looked just like Jungkook’s, so he gave her the okay, and then tested their potions in a small solution of rainwater and robin feathers. Everyone but the athletes did a shot.

“Whoa,” Wheein said, raising her eyebrows and staring down into the cup. “That’s…amazing.”

“I don’t feel anything,” Heejin said.

“Well, if you’re already calm, it won’t change much, but it’s the fastest cure for fear, sadness, hysterics, panic, anger, or other strong emotions.”

One of the athletes nodded and dumped it into a mason jar, sealing it tightly. “I’ll drink it later,” she said. “I can see that being very dangerous in a game where adrenaline and focus are really important.”

Jimin nodded. “If you’re actually in danger and need your panic responses, that potion could mean your death, but I figured you were fairly safe here in the classroom. This will be really good for all of you during finals season.”

“Fuckin rad,” one of the kids in the back of the class muttered. Jimin finished the day finally feeling like a real teacher.

 

Jungkook spent all weekend reading a book on bond rituals, a subject he’d avoided like the plague for years. If the dog-eared page with a very familiar symbol told him anything, this was the book that Jimin and Taehyung used to bond him. He locked himself in his room to read, and it was as if Taehyung and Jimin, out in the greenhouses and down in the potions basement respectively, had completely disappeared.

In a chapter entitled “The Weakening of Secondary Bonds,” the writer discussed the debate on whether or not a servant bond actually taxed the subject’s relationships with others. It certainly had no effect on the witches, but many instances of non-magical people inexplicably drifting apart from their loved ones had been recorded. “This is the natural reaction to a person keeping a big secret. Further evidence is required to support this hypothesis. However, whether the weakening of the subject’s relationships is the fault of magic or natural human social processes, it has led some entities to further demonize the practice with regards to its ethics.”

Jungkook put down the book on the bed and sighed. The bond had cost him no relationships because he didn’t have any.

Taehyung passed in the yard. The February day was chilly, but warm enough that he wore one of Jungkook’s hoodies instead of a coat. He dragged some dead branches behind him, yard work that was supposed to be Jungkook’s job. Bubble trotted along after the branches, chasing the dead leaves. Jimin must have kicked her out of the basement for getting in the way again. Palmela was growing unnaturally quickly. Taehyung must have put magical fertilizer in her pot.

It wasn’t as if Jimin and Taehyung had been particularly good at keeping up with their secondary relationships either.

With a sigh, Jungkook got up and grabbed his mother’s new phone number off the mantelpiece.

 

Taemin leaned out the side door to where Jungkook was tightening the lid on the sewage outlet that had unscrewed itself and dribbled shit all over the snowy lawn a day or two ago. He’d fixed the clog down the pipe and was now covered in grossness and anxious to get to the staff bathrooms one building over to take a shower. “Hey Jungkook, let me know when you’re ready for lunch. I’m taking you out to eat because I’m about to make you stay late today.”

Jungkook sighed at the snow, but gave him a thumbs-up. Students changing classes gave him a wide berth. Jungkook trudged inside for a change of clothes.

Taemin had reserved a table at Seokjin’s, which only faculty were allowed to do. They got in comfortably ahead of the line down the block. Five servers flitted around and they hadn’t seen Seokjin besides glimpses through the kitchen door, though Shortcake had come out to say hi. Jungkook felt a constant blush on his cheeks, sitting across from this man in a public space, trying not to look like a bum in comparison. “How do you like the university?” Taemin asked.

“Overwhelming sometimes, but really pretty.”

Taemin smiled like that had been a compliment to himself. He’d dyed his hair a rich brown, which softened his sharp features, but did nothing to lessen his intimidating coldness. “And the library?”

“It’s a great job.”

“Mhm. I love it there.”

Taemin had barely ordered anything, just a bagel and a coffee. Jungkook had one of Seokjin’s superior cappuccinos and asked Shortcake to bring him something that Seokjin wanted him to try. He’d gotten a pink-breaded panini, which turned out to be some sort of tomato basil bread. He also got a large soup. Taemin watched him eat with a strange expression of satisfaction.

Taemin was different outside of the depths of the library. He always looked like a vampire in his palace there. Here in the sunlight, he looked distinctly smaller, but postured himself like a king. Not even Jimin was so graceful. Taemin rarely made eye contact, but when he did, Jungkook felt short of breath. It was possible that he had innate magic like Seokjin’s, that came through just with contact or interaction, but he hadn’t said anything, and Jimin had said he didn’t think so.

“You’re staying late tonight,” Taemin said, “because an inspector came through two days ago and said the bathroom pipes were unfit to use.”

“I could have told you that.”

“It wouldn’t have done anything,” Taemin said, sounding regretful. “The school paid for new pipes because of this inspection, which, unfortunately, they would not have done for you. Installing them will require turning off the water for the whole building for a good amount of time, so it must be done at night when there are relatively few students.”

Jimin had planned on making shepherd’s pie that evening. Jungkook sighed. “Can’t be done tomorrow?”

“The plumber they hired is coming today.”

“If you have a plumber coming, why am I needed?”

Taemin smiled a little, picking the seeds off his bagel one by one with a delicate little finger that reminded him of Jimin’s little hands. “I trust you with my pipes. You know them better.”

Jungkook felt his face heating up again. “Do I get overtime?”

He shook his head. “It’s still part of your forty hours. I’m sorry.”

They met eyes again, Taemin so casual and cautious, but Jungkook sat frozen as if in the beam of a searchlight. “Tell me,” Taemin said, chin on his hand, “because I’ve been wondering. Did you fall in love with your men before they bonded you, or after?”

Jungkook’s whole body went hot, heart in his throat. He felt suddenly aware of the crowd around him, the witches passing back and forth from the counters to the tables, all with familiars underfoot or on their shoulders. Oddly enough, Taemin’s cat had stayed in the library. Jungkook glanced into the shop, worried that someone might hear. “Do you always ask employees personal questions like that?”

“I have a bit of a reputation for making people uncomfortable,” Taemin sighed, dropping his gaze and looking small again. “I don’t mean to.”

“I’m not special then?”

Taemin raised his eyebrows and said nothing, still staring down at his bagel. Jungkook’s ring may have buzzed a little. He didn’t mind either way. He’d been mentally connected to Jimin long enough to know the surge of pleasure that came from being wanted by random people in public. It was natural. Jimin had felt it from Owen once, countless times from a couple cashiers in the grocery store. Nothing wrong with finding someone attractive. A blip of mental sexual response didn’t usually mean much.

“It was after,” Jungkook said, and then clamped his mouth shut, startled at himself.

Taemin’s sharp gaze flickered up for a moment. “Have you ever suspected them for using love potions?”

“The crucial ingredient of love potions doesn’t work on me.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Christ, what are you accusing them of,” Jungkook said weakly. “I thought you were friends.”

“Haven’t been since my books nearly cursed you,” Taemin said, tone a little hard. “Did you know how nasty your boyfriend can be?” Jungkook considered that for a moment, that Jimin had cut off his friendship with Jungkook’s boss after the incident and yet had been acting like he’d completely gotten over it at home.

“We found out because I didn’t react to sensitivity potions.”

Taemin stopped picking at his bagel, a little smirk on his face. “Ooh, what’s that?”

Jungkook had to laugh and Taemin blushed abruptly, staring at his bagel with a sheepish grin. “That’s not in Jimin’s book, is it?” Jungkook said. Taemin shook his head. “It’s, um… Like, physical sensitivity. For sex.”

Definitely a buzz from the ring that time.

“What about a love enchantment?” Taemin said.

“Like a love spell?”

“M-hm.”

Jungkook shook his head. “Not really their style, and I know enough about their magic to know if they’d be able to do. I fell in love by my own free will.”

“Cute,” Taemin said dryly and Jungkook squirmed uncomfortably. That was why he hated opening up. The response. What about Taemin made it so easy to talk? It was nice for a witch to be so concerned about his treatment though. “I’ll be at the library until the plumbing thing is done,” Taemin said. “I don’t trust the junior librarians with this and I’m usually there late anyway.”

“How much time do you spend there?” Jungkook asked, since Taemin had always been in the library every single day Jungkook had been there, even when he came late at night or early in the morning.

“Twelve hours a day easily,” Taemin said. “Often more.”

“Do you live in the faculty village at the top of the mountain?”

Taemin nodded. “I’ve got a nice apartment. I have another possibly uncomfortable question,” Taemin said, “just for my own curiosity, so please feel free to not answer.”

Jungkook took a deep breath. “Shoot.”

Taemin blinked for a moment, a confused tilt to his eyebrows, then seemed to decide that Jungkook probably meant that as a “go ahead,” and said “You fell in love after you were bonded. How long after?”

“Months after.”

“Hm.” Jungkook’s ring buzzed just before Taemin asked, “When did you start fucking?”

Jungkook gasped and glanced around, strangely flattered at being asked. “Sh!”

Taemin smirked a little. “Sorry.”

“Jeezus. Um…” He rubbed his hands over his face, feeling his ears start burning and hoping none of Jimin’s students or anyone that recognized him was nearby, not that any student knew they were dating. He couldn’t stop his smile though, the little thrill that went through him at actually being asked. “Like, immediately. Like, a few days after the ritual. I think I’d known them a week.”

Taemin’s lips parted around a quick inhale and a slow breath out. His head tilted back like he was imagining it. The ring itched harshly on his finger. “Desperate,” Taemin said.

“I…yeah.”

“You’ve known each other five years. You’ve been bonded five years.”

Jungkook nodded.

“And if I’m correct, that broke recently, or Jimin would have been able to feel it when the book got you.”

Jungkook couldn’t help but glance around for Seokjin. He’d never had a boss before besides Owen, who had been unconventional at best. As fun as it was to answer questions no one would ever ask him, was this normal? “Yeah, it broke since I met you.”

“How’s that going?”

Jungkook finally managed to keep his mouth shut. “Fine. Perfect.”

“Mm-hm.”

They sat in awkward silence. Someone’s lizard strolled under his chair, stopping to put a curious paw on his ankle. Jungkook wondered how he’d never considered what an absolute zoo public magic spaces must be. His cheeks felt permanently red. Taemin sat stoically across from him and watched him fret.

“You’re a exceptional person,” Taemin murmured. “I’m sure it’ll work out.”

His heart clenched a little at that. “Exceptional?”

Taemin shrugged. “I’ve seen your potions backpack. You make those? That’s very impressive.”

He waited patiently while Jungkook managed to choke down the rest of his food. The tomato basil bread was not a success.

“Personal question for you,” Jungkook said. “Why do you hang out in a library all day?”

“Oh. My, um. My family passed away when I was here in college. This has been my home ever since. I was a mess for a long time, so I’m not close with many people.”

“Oh shit. Sorry.”

“I asked you a lot of personal stuff. It’s only fair to answer.”

Taemin paid for both of them. He and Seokjin seemed pretty close, smiling at each other and speaking in murmurs. Seokjin gave Jungkook a pat on the head as he went past, and then disappeared back into the kitchen. Witches all seemed to baby him, whether they meant him well or not.

The line had only grown longer as they sat there, so they gave up their table and walked slowly back. Jimin passed them on his own way down the street to Seokjin’s, and now Jungkook could pick up on the way Jimin didn’t look at Taemin, how he brushed swiftly by with only a light bump to Jungkook’s shoulder. Taemin sighed beside him.

“Sorry about that,” Jungkook murmured since he had nothing else to say.

“I don’t blame him.”

Jungkook didn’t either, but it seemed rude to say so.

For the rest of the afternoon, he more or less shadowed Taemin from chore to chore, learning where each section of books was and helping students find references for certain subjects. “You can have librarian duties too now,” Taemin said. “They’re far more pleasant.” They then spent thirty minutes copying pages out of an encyclopedia and Jungkook decided he’d rather be plumbing.

In the quiet of the library, nobody talked much. Taemin seemed more like a monk than an odd twenty-something with the walk of a super-model and the social skills of someone’s nosy great aunt. He stepped too close when they talked, close enough to be heard at nearly a whisper, head tilted a little up to meet Jungkook’s eyes. Jungkook didn’t blame Jimin for not liking him, not at all, but it did seem like a waste.

The magical plumber was an old man with a little gray beard and a silk shirt. “You’re a plumber?” Jungkook asked, stunned.

The man blinked at him a minute. “Yes,” he said, turning to look at Taemin.

“He’s confused about your nice shirt,” Taemin laughed.

“Well, I’m not about to get my hands dirty,” the plumber scoffed. “I’m not one of those filthy non-magic plumbers.”

Behind the plumber, Taemin put a hand over his mouth and shook with laughter. Jungkook smirked.

Fifteen minutes later, they’d reach some sort of unsolvable complication with the pipes where some unidentified muck wouldn’t vacuum magically out of a particularly difficult bend. “I’ll be back tomorrow with spells that target this kind of thing,” the plumber sighed. “I did not expect such a prestigious university to have such old and disgusting pipes. Must be an unusual magical mold.”

“Watch this,” Jungkook said, and began to detach the whole bend over a bucket.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the plumber yelled. “That’s so sloppy! Leave it to the professional!”

“I’m just being one of those filthy non-magic plumbers,” Jungkook said lightly as the bend plopped into the bucket and immediately splurted sludge. He wiped his hand off on his pants. The plumber made a displeased noise behind him.

To be fair, Jungkook could not have done most of the work. He watched the pipes fly out of the ground one after the other and stack themselves neatly on the ground outside as a steady stream of shiny new pipes, all a completely different size than the first ones, magically wormed their way into the building and set themselves up as if the remaining tunnels were the perfect size.

“Wow,” he muttered. The whole process was finished in an hour and a half, and Jungkook had told Taehyung and Jimin not to expect him before nine.

“I’ll walk you off campus,” Taemin said as he shouldered his bag of potions.

“I take this walk alone all the time,” Jungkook said.

“You never take it after dark.”

“What could be that dangerous?”

“Frat boys.”

“Ah.”

The campus was startlingly alive after dark, packs of students walking on both sides of the street and cars passing steadily down the main street. Most of the building still had their lights on. Someone was yelling down the hill. Taemin’s shoes clicked lightly on the concrete.

“Never went to college?” Taemin asked.

“Of course not.”

“You could always try.”

Jungkook just laughed.

“If Wheein can do it, you can.”

“Oh, poor Wheein.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried. She got in here with some of the highest test scores the university has ever seen. Except for the practical exam. A chip on your shoulder will do that for some people. She’s impressive in her way. You’re impressive in yours.”

After a long, comfortable walk in silence inside Taemin’s warmth spell, they reached the archway through the trees leading out of Wickham campus, the darkness that opened up into Jungkook’s world. Taemin stopped and faced him with a soft smile as if he could go no further. “Have a nice walk home,” he said, voice still soft in a way that was more appropriate for a library than under the rustle and scrape of bare trees in the wind.

“You’re more witch-like than any witch I’ve met before,” Jungkook blurted.

Taemin laughed fondly, a little adorably shy. “It’s the black clothes, isn’t it?”

Jungkook tugged his hat lower on his head. “Sorry.”

“Why? Wasn’t that a compliment?” He leaned lower to see Jungkook’s face.

“I don’t know.”

Taemin chuckled lightly and pulled Jungkook’s scarf more tightly around his neck. “Goodnight. See you tomorrow.”

Jungkook murmured his goodnight and watched Taemin stride back up the road with his hands in his pockets, imposing even in his slightness.

“Fuck,” Jungkook murmured as he walked towards home, dizzy in a way he couldn’t remember being in years. Maybe in the way Seokjin made him feel sometimes. Had he been flirting at lunch today? Had he been flirting all day? Was he making a friend?

He actually stopped at that one. He hadn’t made a friend without Jimin and Taehyung’s help in five years and maybe longer. He’d forgotten what it felt like. “Don’t do that to yourself,” he muttered, suddenly strangely anxious and ashamed.

The walk seemed longer than normal, peacefully silent but ugly with the pale, sickly shine of melting snow. All the big houses in their neighborhood stood well back from the road with lights glowing warmly from every window, but his home sat invisible down a dark tunnel of trees. He liked that, though. That felt right.

At home, dirty dishes sat in the sink, so he heated up a dish and ate it on his way up the stairs, climbing slowly and carefully so he could eat and listen for voices.

He heard it at the door to Taehyung’s room: Jimin’s bubbling laughter and soft moans, Taehyung low, teasing lilt. The door stood open a crack and he looked in, dinner still in hand, coats bundled up in the other. On the bed, Jimin was on his elbows and knees. Taehyung lay on top of him thrashing frantically like a desperate dog as Jimin laughed and kicked him. “Am I doing it right?” Taehyung gasped over the slick noises of skin and skin and too much lube.

“Fuck off!” Jimin yelled, but suddenly stiffened up and groaned, gripping Taehyung’s arm and gasping into the bed.

“There you go,” Taehyung purred, and then his voice dipped lower, becoming inaudible except to the blessed-out, beautiful man between his arms. His strokes elongated, and Jimin melted into the bed with a sigh.

“Love you,” he breathed. “Tae, oh shit. Tae, please.”

Jungkook considered, very briefly, jumping in like Taehyung always did, snuggling up and letting them kiss and care for him. But it was late. They looked like they’d been going for a while. Jungkook wasn’t sure he wouldn’t ruin it with his current funk.

And there was no reason to be upset as he sat alone in the chair of his private suite, curled around his microwaved dinner. The three of them had always done this, had taken regular opportunity for two-somes. It had never been an act of exclusion. They set that up years ago. It had probably been ages, maybe months, since Taehyung and Jimin had been home alone without Jungkook. He’d heard and seen them having sex and refrained from joining so many times before.

They’d been having so much fun. They had no trouble without the link. They’d been close before, they’d be close now. They knew how to have sex with each other. Hell, they knew how to have sex. Jungkook didn’t know how to read people without help, and they couldn’t read him. Nothing ever felt as good as it had been.

He put his dinner in the fridge half-eaten, and sat with his head on the kitchen counter for a long time, too tired to get ready for bed, too lonely to be alone, too anxious to get in the way. Around eight, he heard the bath stop running, and then the distant sounds of low voices, gentle sounds of water splashing.

Again, he made it all the way to the door before stopping, feeling like a creep now just on the other side of the wall. He’d been there for hours and they had no idea, couldn’t feel him. Was he supposed to announce his presence now that they couldn’t feel it? Should he have told them he was home? They didn’t expect him back for another hour. He had an awfully bad habit of ruining anyone’s good mood these days.

Jimin woke him out of his sleep on the living room couch, giving him a very weird look under his fluffy bed head. “What are you reading?”

Jungkook looked down at his book on bonding, trying to shake his vivid nap dream of Jimin and Taemin viciously fighting over him out of his mind. “O-one of your books. The, um, bonding. There’s some interesting stuff in here. Did you know that,” he dropped the book out of his sleepy hand and watched the chapters flop past till the book shut. “um…that bonding can ruin the subjects relationships with other people in their lives?”

Jimin’s jaw clenched, eyes hard. “You didn’t have any relationships to ruin.”

“I know. You don’t gotta…” Jungkook tried to shake the sleep out of his bleary head. All the glinting jewels over Jimin’s body came into sharper focus, little lines of light gleaming around his neck and wrists. His blue silk robe hung open over his chest and he wore a hard scowl. “Are you mad at me?”

“How long have you been home?” Jimin said, a little hysterically. “We were worried! You haven’t been answering your phone!”

“I got home at seven,” Jungkook said softly. “You were busy. I ate dinner and fell asleep.”

“It’s ten!”

Jungkook swallowed a lump in his throat, felt a rare prickling at the back of his eyes. “Sorry. It’s not like I was hiding.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and swallowed hard.

“You didn’t think to poke your head in? You didn’t even make any noise! You didn’t send a single text! I’ve been worried that Taemin fucking kidnapped you or something! I can’t fucking feel when you’re around anymore and you’ve taken a job that puts you constantly in danger. You can’t be a drama queen and hunker down here like we’ve locked you out in the cold. It’s not fair. Kook? Can I get a response?”

Jungkook managed to drag his head upright. “Sorry,” he murmured, barely making eye contact. Jimin stared at him like he was an alien.

He hesitated. “What…what are you feeling right now?”

For once, Jungkook had an answer ready. “Stupid.”

“No. Kook. Come on.”

He was still rubbing at his eyes. Jimin walked around the couch with heavy thuds on his heels and sat next to Jungkook, turning him so they could face each other. “Seriously. Give me some words.”

Jungkook sat up straight and stared at the ceiling, blinking down his tears. “Tired.”

“You and me both, buddy,” Jimin sighed, obviously frustrated.

Jungkook choked it out from deep in his chest. “Unlovable.”

Jimin huffed angrily. “Jungkook!”

“I’m serious!” Jungkook said, “That took a lot to say!” A sob ripped out of his throat in a choked wail. Jimin’s shocked face blurred in front of his eyes and he buried his face in his hands again, trying to force it down.

“I don’t know why I feel so shitty. My day wasn’t that bad. I’m just tired. I’m sorry.”

“No no no,” Jimin breathed, high and squeaky with panic. “No no. I’m so sorry. Kook, I’m so, so sorry.” His little arms wrapped around Jungkook’s shoulders, pulling him in as tight as he could, Jungkook’s face pressed into his shoulder. “I had no idea. Fuck, you seemed fine. I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. That’s all on me. Oh, Jungkook. Since when were things this bad?”

Jungkook curled up, embarrassed and ashamed, sobbing into Jimin’s shoulder and trying to hold it back.

“Let it out,” Jimin whispered, but he couldn’t.

Taehyung appeared on his other side before long, hands patting frantically. “What’s wrong?” he whispered over Jungkook’s head. He didn’t hear Jimin’s response, but Taehyung wrapped his arms around him from the other side and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Says he’s tired,” Jimin whispered over his head.

Jungkook sobbed harder.

“Um. And un-unlovable.”

“No no,” Taehyung murmured. “No, no no.”

They pulled him up the stairs to bed as he held his breath to try to tone it down, gulped the sobs down his throat, tried to breathe long, shuddering breaths, but it came and came. “Oh no,” Taehyung whimpered, hands clasped around his own upper arms and looking hopelessly at him. “I don’t know what to do.”

They walked him through brushing his teeth, though he fought and tried to hide his ugly, crumpled, red face, then found his pajamas. He calmed down over the ridiculousness of it all, the fretting, the way they were very seriously taking care of him like a toddler like it was the only thing they could think of to do. They seemed cautiously relieved when he rolled over into the bed and sniffled softly into the cool pillow.

“We got you,” Jimin said, brushing his hair back. Taehyung pressed up along his back and shakily sang a little lullaby in his ear. Jungkook choked quietly on another building sob and Taehyung’s voice trembled and trailed off, so he grit his teeth and forced it down. Taehyung continued softly and slowly until it was the only thing in his awareness, and then he drifted off to sleep.

 

They got rain that weekend, and not snow. March would come up in a couple weeks, which technically meant spring, and Jungkook had been staring out the window as if watching for flowers to pop out of the dead earth. Jimin had told him not to hope too hard. The students told him that spring came in early April here. It would have been spring for weeks now back in the swamp.

“Have you ever seen a daffodil, Jungkook?” Jimin asked, leaning on his shoulder.

He snorted. “Couple times. They’re not that rare in southern Georgia. They’re really pretty.”

Jungkook turned around, chest solid against Jimin’s, just a couple inches taller. His gaze was as surprisingly innocent and soft as always. Jimin ran his hands over Jungkook’s waist and sighed happily. Bubble stepped awkwardly over their feet, trying to stand and hug their legs.

“One minute, dear,” Jimin groaned, too happy with his face tucked into Jungkook’s neck to move.

“I’m texting my mom,” Jungkook said. Jimin leaned back to look him in the face. His eyes flicked to the side nervously. “Namjoon gave me her number. She’s gotten worse since high school, like, as a person.”

Once again, Jimin was glad Jungkook couldn’t feel his mind, how his first reaction was defensiveness, that he felt he and Taehyung should be good enough. Hadn’t Jungkook said something recently about other relationships? Why would he be worried about this? First Taemin, now his mother. Why would Jungkook try to reach out to objectively shitty people?

Don’t be jealous.

“You can’t tell her about magic though.”

Jungkook nodded. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Jimin finally picked up Bubble and tucked her between their chests. She purred and tried to scramble up to bump their chins. “Can I ask why?” Jimin said, nuzzling Bubble’s head. “This is very sudden.”

“I feel like I have to. I keep getting the urge to take pictures of everything around me and gloat, and then I just feel bad about it.”

“I think you should show off your big, beautiful house,” Jimin murmured. He pressed closer and Bubble scrambled higher between them, still purring.

“They used to treat me like a hopeless disappointment that was just weighing them down. I’ve gotten really lucky.” He scratched Bubble’s head, tone soft and matter-of-fact. He rarely gave details like this, but the narrow portrait Jimin and Taehyung had of Jungkook’s life before meeting them was always filled with bitterness and anger. No wonder he’d given in to practical captivity so easily as long as they treated him kindly. The thought always made Jimin feel a little dirty. “It’s probably rude to shove it in her face then refuse to help her, and it might cause problems. I’m pretty anxious.”

“Are you?” Jimin said.

Jungkook paused long enough for a cloud shadow to pass over the house and darken the kitchen for a few chilly seconds. “I don’t want to bring her back into my life,” he said finally. “That family sucked. They said horrible things. But she’s my mom.”

“What did they used to say about you?”

Jungkook sighed uncomfortably, one callused hand wrapped around Bubble’s side. “They said they could always come to that stupid little town in Georgia and I’d still be there because I was too dumb to leave.” He scowled. “And then I asked them if they’d visit and they just laughed. I’m pretty sure my brother never wanted to see me again.”

Jimin hugged tighter, giving enough breathing room in case Jungkook was trying to figure out how to say something. It could take him a while to figure it out. “Dad always blamed me when Mom got mad at him. Mom wouldn’t defend me though. I was the family punching bag.” He squeezed Jimin tighter. “I want to shove it in their faces.”

Jungkook had become much harder to read, but Jimin figured he couldn’t be imagining how sullen and withdrawn he’d become. It could be anything, just work, the winter, shyness around so many new people, or being in danger all the time. Bad family could make it worse, but Jimin treaded lightly. If this was something Jungkook wanted—and it was his family after all—he and Taehyung would be overstepping bounds to suggest he stop. He’d been keeping his mouth shut about Taemin’s character for the same reason. No reason to be policing Jungkook’s friends.

Jimin leaned forward and bumped their foreheads together. Bubble tried to shove her face between their chins. “You’re both so similar,” Jungkook murmured. He tugged Bubble’s face out from between them and leaned in with a soft, slow kiss to Jimin’s lips.

“Wanna go upstairs?” Jimin said.

Jungkook might have hesitated a little, though it was hard to tell. “Where’s Taehyung?”

“Exploring the woods out back,” Jimin said. “He can join when he comes back, but I’m not waiting for him.”

That was definitely hesitation. Jungkook stared contemplatively down at Bubble as if he was actually weighing the pros and cons of sex. He’d always been even more willing than Taehyung to dive right into things at a moments notice. “Jungkook?”

Jungkook put Bubble on his shoulder and held out his arm like a gentleman.

Jimin clung to Jungkook’s arm and let him lead the way upstairs to Jimin’s bedroom, as always.

“Strip for me,” Jimin said, laying back against the cushions and watched Jungkook begin to pull off his hoody.

Jungkook hesitated again, eyes drifting, and Jimin suddenly wished he knew what was going through his head. “Do you want to keep talking?” he asked. Jungkook shook his head, looking a little surprised, and pulled off his hoody, then struggled out of his pants. “Make it sexy,” Jimin laughed, sitting up. Bubble had already perched herself on the chair in the corner, bathing and getting ready for a nap. Jungkook smirked and crawled onto the bed in a t-shirt, briefs, and socks.

“Got the best outfit for this,” he said.

“Yeah. Hot.”

Jungkook lay on his back and slowly, slowly extended a long, thick leg over his head with remarkable flexibility. He tugged his sock off. “Jungkook!” Jimin’s cheeks were getting red, giggling too hard to find this any kind of sexy. Jungkook rolled onto his stomach, pushed up with his hands and tried to touch his feet to the back of his head. “What are you doing?”

“Gotta—eurgh, fuck,” Jungkook gasped, reaching blindly behind his head till he grabbed the other foot and yanked that sock off too. “Ow,” he gasped, collapsing onto the bed.

Jimin covered his face with his hands and giggled as Jungkook, without music or any kind of beat, wiggled on the bed like a stripper, all awkward gasps and pleased laughter at how hard Jimin cringed. He ground his hips down while Jimin made gurgling noises in his throat, nearly fell off the bed while rolling over, and then did body rolls while pulling his t-shirt slowly up his chest. “Oh my god, Jungkook!” Jimin yelped, staring through his fingers at those lean, rippling abs and the thin swell at the bottom of both pecks. One dark nipple peaked through.

Jungkook stuffed the t-shirt in his mouth and stroked down his chest to rub the front of his briefs. He threw his head back with a moan and Jimin moaned in response. He pulled his own jeans off, one foot catching in the holes on the way up and struggling unsexily. Jungkook ripped his shirt off and crawled up Jimin’s body, dragging his shirt up on the way.

“God, Kook,” Jimin whined, already ripping his boxers off.

“Don’t say the Lord’s name in vain, honey,” Jungkook said in his heaviest southern accent. Jimin shrieked.

“Get the lube,” he yelped. “Fuck, right now.”

It wasn’t until Jimin had Jungkook’s hands guiding his hips as he rocked on top of him that he noticed some distance in Jungkook’s attention. He rocked faster, head thrown back, groaning hard, but Jungkook’s hands didn’t squeeze his hips, didn’t run down his thighs or thumb playfully at his strength rune. They stayed passively where they were. Jimin felt a little like a desperate chump trying to get himself off with a partner that didn’t care.

“Kook?”

“Hnng,” Jungkook sighed, hips held easily off the bed to rock up into Jimin’s body with Jimin’s movements. Jimin sat down hard and pinned him down, watched his back arch.

“Are you into this? Should I switch it up?”

Jungkook blinked his eyes open in surprise. “This is perfect. I’m…this is fine. Do you want to switch it up?”

Jimin had the perfect angle here, and loved to work his thighs like this, but he usually loved it because Jungkook and Taehyung could never keep their hands from wandering, could always anticipate when Jimin needed more tough, more roughness. They’d never needed to ask if he was getting tired or if he wanted more of a challenge. Even without the link, Taehyung had no problem knowing exactly what he wanted. “I like this, you’re just not…”

Jungkook blinked owlishly up at him. “Not…”

Jimin bounced in embarrassed frustration and Jungkook’s eyes squeezed shut. “You’re not, like…I don’t want to be needy or demanding. Just, if you’re not feeling it, you can just say so.”

Jungkook pouted. “It was perfect,” he whined. “Why’d you stop?”

“You’re not, like, responding.”

“Responding to what?”

Jimin bit his lower lip. His hands curled against Jungkook’s stomach. “Like, respond when I, like, do things?”

Jungkook’s dick was definitely getting soft. Jimin anxiously rolled his hips a few more times. Jungkook stiffened up immediately, sighing and relaxing back into the blankets like all was right with the world. Jimin sped up. Jungkook sped up to match him, but didn’t get rougher, didn’t grips tighter, didn’t growl and touch. Jungkook was getting what he wanted whether Jimin felt good or not.

Jimin pulled off. “Could we try with you topping?”

“Am I doing something wrong?” Jungkook scrambled up against the headboard. “Please tell me in plain English what you’re annoyed about because I have no idea.”

Jimin sat awkwardly on his calves, not wanting to drip too much on the bed, uncomfortable. “You’re not, like, doing what we always do. You and Tae both have all these little tricks when I’m getting desperate, and I’m getting desperate now and you’re not doing anything and I can’t tell if you’re paying attention or not.”

Jungkook had the kicked-puppy pout back. “I can’t…I can’t feel that anymore,” he said. “I wasn’t picking that up at all. I don’t think you’re giving off all the signals you think you’re giving.”

“Taehyung still picks them up just fine.”

Jungkook stammered. He’d tugged a sheet over himself, maybe without realizing it, knees pulled up to his chest. “Taehyung knew how to fuck you before he had the link. He’s got a head start on me.”

“You can’t tell me that in five years you never picked up on the non-mental cues I put off.”

Jungkook shuffled uncomfortably, and Jimin tried to still his building frustration.

“I’m bad at sex,” Jungkook muttered.

Jimin almost laughed at him. “You’re really not.”

Jungkook scowled. “I am! I had, like, no experience before I had the link as a crutch. I never know if I’m doing anything right now. No, I never picked up non-mental cues.”

“Okay, yeah,” Jimin said, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Just…get back out here and I’ll try to give you more cues.”

Jungkook shook his head and climbed out of the bed, searching around for his clothes.

“You’re not gonna…Jungkook, wait. Hold on. I’m really sorry.” He crawled to the edge of the bed and watched Jungkook yank his pants on. “I’m confused too, Jungkook! Please don’t act like this! I don’t know what I’m doing either! Why are you mad?”

Jungkook’s lower lip was trembling. “Sorry,” he muttered, voice wobbly.

Jimin started yanking his own underwear on. “Can we just cuddle? I wasn’t trying to criticize. I’m sorry. Can we not even talk about it?”

Jungkook’s cheeks were burning bright red, not meeting his eyes, a little crunched in on himself and looked horribly ashamed. “Please don’t cry,” Jimin said weakly. Jungkook snorted one horrible, watery laugh and stumbled out of the room, probably to go hide down in his suite and mope like always. Jimin sat on the bed in just his underwear, half-hard but flagging, hot with guilt but growing cold in the chilly room.

 

On Monday, a cold, sleety drizzle brought winter back into the household. Taehyung and Jimin were unusually quiet. Jimin had probably told Taehyung about Jungkook storming out of the bedroom in a huff, and had probably also told him how much he sucked at sex now. Neither had approached him since then with anything more than what was easy to talk about: keeping the bathrooms clean, making breakfast, whether or not he needed laundry done, if Jungkook minded walking to work alone since Jimin needed to go check on the greenhouses with Taehyung in the morning and Jungkook couldn’t use the transporter.

“See you at lunch?” Jimin said, coming up and winding his hands through Jungkook’s. Bubble bobbed on the counter behind him like she wanted to jump onto Jimin’s shoulders a good five feet away.

“I’m having lunch with Taemin today, actually,” Jungkook said.

Jimin made a face. Behind him, Bubble jumped and arced sadly downward. She must have latched her claws into Jimin’s calf at top speed because he flinched suddenly and held still while she scrambled the rest of the way up his clothes.

“I know you don’t like him, but it’s not his fault I got cursed.”

“He’s sleazy.”

Jungkook paused, unsure if he’d heard him right. Sweet, shy Taemin that cared for his library like a child and knew every student in the school by name. “Sleazy.”

“He’s got this, like, persona going,” Jimin shifted uncomfortably and looked at Taehyung, who shrugged. Bubble put a cautious paw down and started feeling her way down Jimin’s arm.

“I’ve never met him,” Taehyung said at the table. Jungkook guessed what Bubble wanted and brought her over to his shoulder where she began licking behind his ear.

“Bubble, what? Um…Jungkook, you know how you meet some people and you can immediately place them as a type of person that isn’t great?”

Taehyung spoke up. “Like what judgments would you make about a person who wore a fedora and Monster t-shirt and tried to very calmly debate the flaws in women’s rights with you.”

“If you’re comparing Taemin to someone like that, it’s kind of hilarious. Bubble, that tickles.”

“No, like, um…Taehyung help.”

“Taemin is more like our equivalent to the subset of prep school white guys that wear Vineyard Vines and have a lot to say about what wine pairs with fifty dollar steak and what their grandfather did for a living.”

“Just…people align themselves with certain groups based on how they dress and how they speak and how they act,” Jimin said, “and you wouldn’t know some of the ones that are specific to the magic community—”

“Jimin fits one really precisely, for example,” Taehyung said.

“I do not!”

“The trophy kitchen witch.”

“Oh shut up,” Jimin sighed, looking nervous. “Bubble, stop trying to eat Jungkook.” Bubble huffed in Jungkook’s ear and started trying to climb back. She fell just a few inches past Jungkook’s shoulder and Jimin caught her easily and hooked her back over his own shoulder. “Taemin acts a little like witches with entitlement issues. I don’t know him that well, so I don’t know for sure and he’s not that close to it. Like, maybe at first glance but he seemed fine once I started talking to him. It’s just the black clothes and the tragically mysterious shtick he puts on, like trying to be the most stereotypical powerful witch. I would have ignored it but it’s a weird coincidence when you nearly died while handling a book about witch superiority while under his care.”

Jungkook gritted his teeth. “He’s unusually concerned about my safety for a witch. You don’t exactly have a clean record either.”

“I don’t want to tell you how to judge people,” Jimin said, closing his eyes and looking like every word was causing him some pain. Bubble watched the conversation bounce back and forth with uncharacteristic silence and stillness. “You can make your own choices. But please listen to us. We just want you to be safe.”

Jungkook took a deep breath. The anger was probably irrational. “Thanks,” he grunted, not managing to sound sincere. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Jimin swallowed hard and glanced at Taehyung, looking hurt. He backed off and waved Jungkook out.

The walk to work was long, wet, and miserable. He should have taken the truck, but campus parking was still a nerve-inducing mystery for him.

On the way to work, he glanced down the street behind him as if Taehyung and Jimin might actually be following him, and walked into the spiritual healing shop.

“Oh hey!” the woman behind the counter said. She’d dyed her hair and wore a giant rainbow shawl. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah. Um. I’ve improved the tea.” He put a little brown box that he’d stolen from Kim and Park Botanicals down on the counter, the tag lazily ripped off. “If you want to try it out, it works much better.”

The tea was actually a watered down sleeping potion that closely resembled sleep-inducing tea sold in non-magical stores, but with more magically active breeds of chamomile and valerian.

“Thanks, I will,” she said. “I have weird insomnia sometimes and nothing works.”

“That will,” he said.

She opened it, smelled it, and sighed. “Nice. If it’s good enough, bring me more and I’ll sell it.”

He nodded, smiling proudly.

“When are your witch boyfriends coming to visit me?”

He winced. “They’re, um…I doubt they will. They’re annoyingly elitist sometimes.”

“Hm. What happened to sending me a resume?”

“I got a different job at a library,” he said, shifting awkwardly. “Sorry.”

She shrugged, smiling. “No worries. Congratulations.”

He left the store feeling a little guilty, like he’d just spent his grandmother’s birthday present money on drugs.

Taemin greeted him by the broom closet with a cappuccino and a rare cheerful grin. “Good day to be inside,” he said, and dried Jungkook’s whole body with a touch to the chest.

“What are today’s problems?” he said.

“The new plumbing is working perfectly,” Taemin said, sipping his own coffee and leaning on the doorway, “but I’ve just had to fire an assistant librarian for smoking in the basement, so you’re taking over his shifts.”

“What do I do?”

Taemin shrugged. “Sit at the desk and look pretty.”

Checking books back in caused a ten-person back-up until Jungkook found Taemin to teach him how the computer worked. “Oh sorry. It’s a spell,” Taemin said, putting a little silver token on a black tile under the moniter. The screen blinked to life. Jungkook gave him a pointed look as Taemin tried to look composed. His hair stood up at odd ends. He wore, over his turtleneck, what looked like a lingerie robe, all mesh and wide pajama pockets.

It was Taemin’s cat who taught him how to operate the stamp for printing the return date. He had to politely tell it what date it was and then thank it after using it. The long, elegant jungle cat could hold pens in its hand-like flexible paws and write messages. Jungkook thought he saw it wearing glasses and reading a book under a desk, but worried it would be rude to stare.

During a quiet period in the late morning, a second assistant librarian came in to start her shift and relegated him to background duty. He made himself useful by fixing a rickety chair.

“Can I borrow your maintenance man?” he heard in a low woman’s voice. Heejin was standing at the desk, posture commanding and hair up in a high ponytail, her little brown rabbit under her arm. The other assistant library jumped in her seat and squeaked.

Jungkook came out from behind the desk. Taemin passed with a big stack of books and did a quick double-take at Heejin. He disappeared behind the shelves under the balcony with a backwards look. “Can you help me find something?” Heejin asked.

“Yes miss.”

Her lips quirked up a little at his southern politeness. “Are there any potions books in this library?”

There were, just a small, dusty section near the top level. He took her up on a levitating catwalk, a little rectangle of carpet with railing on all sides. Up here, spells clustered along the edge of the wood, holding the shelves aloft, keeping the books safe, warding off termites.

“Okay,” Heejin said, and gazed at all the titles. Her bunny kept trying to reach over her shoulder to Jungkook. “You know a lot about potions, right?”

“M-hm,” Jungkook said. He always loved looking over the edge in these things and rarely went up so high. He could see Jiwoo and Chaewon sitting at the most coveted table in the building, a four-person with a lamp in the middle right at the end of a transept with stained glass windows on all sides. “What’s your familiar’s name?”

“This is Viv,” she said, and handed her to him. “She likes you. I’m a law enforcement major, but more on the detective side and I might be going into law school. My focus is magical bonds, which you might know a little something about.”

He looked up from petting Viv, who had pasted herself to his shoulder. “Like servant bonds?”

“That’s only one thing,” she said. “There’s also manipulative enchantments, other types of interpersonal bonding, either voluntary or involuntary, consensual or non-consensual. I’ve been taking this potions class just for an elective, but I’ve been thinking. There’s very little legislation in place for potions right now. Like, practically nothing. No one uses them. That’s going to change in the next few years and I might want to get ahead of the curve.”

Jungkook was still running through his head that he’d just found someone that specialized in bonds. “Wait, so bonds?”

“I’m gonna start easy,” she said, “and look at potions that involve bonding, like love potions and stuff. Then I’ll start working outside my specialty and see what happens. Do you know if any of these books will help me?”

Jimin tore his eyes away from her profile and looked at the books, most pretty faded. He’d read some of them in better-preserved editions. “Um. Jimin might be a better person to ask. He and Seokjin made some stuff but I’ve never made one and they don’t work on me anyway.”

“I’m going to him next.”

“This is a pretty good book on theory,” he said pulling one off the shelf, supporting Viv with one hand. “This one is about ethics.”

“That looks good,” she said, opening up to the introduction. “Let me just see if this is what I want…”

“Hey I have a question.”

“Hm?” she said, not looking up.

“Well, maybe not.”

She finally looked at him. He took a deep breath and stared off into the shelves, trying to figure out how to phrase it. “So I was a bonded servant for a long time,” he said.

“Five years or ten?” she asked.

“Five. We never renewed it.”

“What type?”

“I don’t know. There was a ritual and a mark on my arm. We had an empathetic link.”

“Ah that one,” she said.

“Not the point.”

“No?”

He was staring at his shoes now. And he thought he was shitty at talking to Jimin and Taehyung. This was impossible. “So I was a bonded servant. And that ended really recently. I had two m-masters. I still live with them.”

“Professor Jimin and Taehyung Kim,” she murmured. “You’re kidding.”

“And we’re also, like, dating,” he said in a quiet croak.

Her mouth fell open. She very forcefully pulled it back into a neutral expression. Viv pushed off his chest to look at his face.

“Oh shit I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Jungkook said, and covered his face with his free hand. “Don’t tell anyone please. Not Jiwoo or Chaewon or anyone else.”

She sucked a harsh breath in through her teeth and then nodded, sounding strained. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I can do that.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t ask you this,” he said.

“What do you want to know about the bond?” she asked, stepping closer and getting quieter. “Did they do anything? Do you feel forced? Is there anything you want help with?”

“Nothing like that,” he said, “they’ve been great. But thank you. I guess. Um. We’ve been trying not to use the bond at all and just ignore it till it ends, which happened. We did that. And it’s nice to not be, like, enslaved, but making this work without the empathetic link is really hard. I don’t think it's going well.”

She narrowed her eyes for a second. “Oh you mean the relationship. You’ve been depending on the empathetic link for your relationship.”

“Not depending,” he whined. “I just have a huge disadvantage without it. Tae and Jimin are doing fine and I feel cut off.”

“So you want an empathetic link without the servant bond?” she said. “That’s a very specific enchantment, you know. You can’t really isolate that bit.”

“We’ve talked about it. Jimin’s talked about hiring a professional to tailor something for us, but it would have to be the exact same balance as the bond’s link, and it would have to still include me, the non-magic person with my resistance to magic. And it’d probably be on jewelry so we could take it off sometimes.”

Heejin thought about it, staring off over the edge of the railing at nothing. “That sounds impossible,” she said. “Like, maybe not literally impossible, but really hard.”

“Do you think you could do it?” he asked.

Viv shook her little head and went back to trying to nap against his shoulder, but Heejin tilted her head to the side and took another few seconds to think. “Well honestly, no. I’ve got school to worry about, and I’m not nearly that skilled yet.”

“I’d pay you.”

“Jungkook,” she said, annoyed now.

“Sorry.”

“That’s like, way bigger than even a full senior project,” she said. “That’d be a huge accomplishment for a professional. I’m a sophomore.”

“Shouldn’t have asked you,” Jungkook said, wishing they weren’t fifty feet in the air on a tiny floating platform and he could just hand the bunny back and walk away. “Sorry.”

“You love them a lot?”

He nodded. Heejin set her hands on her hips and tipped her head back and forth a minute, thinking. “I can’t promise a single thing,” she said, “but I’ll try to poke around, and then even if I can’t do anything, you might get some more information to take to a real professional.”

“You don’t have to. I’m sorry.”

“I know. This is the kind of thing I care a lot about, because of Mom. I won’t do anything more than I’m happy to do. You just sound really desperate.”

Jungkook wondered how long he’d been used to feeling pathetic. Had it developed sometime in the last five years or was it in his nature before that?

Heejin pulled a few more books off the shelf and skimmed through the first pages before putting them back or stacking them in her pile. Eventually she grabbed the railing and began steering them back to the docking platform on the balcony. Jungkook stood uncomfortably at the other end, embarrassed and silent, stroking Viv between the ears and she nosed at his neck.

After they stepped off, Heejin gave him a quick, one-armed hug, completely unaccompanied by any sort of buzz or itch from the sex ring. “I hope I can help,” she said.

“Me too.” He cringed. “I mean thanks. I’m sorry.”

“I care about this,” she said. “Honestly, I’m happy to help.” She took Viv back with a smile, though she went unwillingly, little paws stretched out towards him. “How often do your boyfriends tell you you’re cute?”

A lot in the past. Less now. It sounded a little condescending coming from someone so much younger than him, but it often sounded condescending coming from Taehyung and Jimin. “Sometimes. Thanks.”

By the time lunch rolled around, Jungkook was so distracted that he didn’t think to question it when Taemin led them in the opposite direction from University Street and up the winding road past the quad and the student center, then through another little wooded drive, all the way up to a pleasant neighborhood of postcard houses right at the top of the mountain.

“This is the faculty neighborhood?”

“Mhm,” Taemin said. He’d taken his coat off during the laborious walk uphill, the fur draped over his arms, though Jungkook didn’t see a drop of sweat and he wasn’t out of breath, still perfectly composed on his leather shoes. He led Jungkook through the perfect garden of a tiny cottage house right at the back of the neighborhood, past the wide lawns and multi-floored estates of what must be professors with larger families. Magic hung heavily in the air like the smell of sulfur, coating every house.

“This is cute,” Jungkook said as Taemin unlocked the door.

“Thanks. It’s just me, and I eat lunch either here or at the library most days. Seokjin’s is nice, but it’s crowded. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Jungkook said, still fighting his boots off before he stepped onto the green, patterned carpet.

The house suited Taemin, all sleek, dark wood and petite furniture, no clutter on the surfaces. A staircase at the back of the living room led upstairs, but the whole place was tiny, just a kitchen, dining room, and living room on the first floor, probably a bathroom under those stairs and maybe something out back. There couldn’t have been room for much more than a single bedroom overhead.

Plants sat on the counter. Bookshelves had been built into every available piece of furniture: the side of the armchair, the space under the staircase, the flanks of the fireplace, and the underside of the coffee table all contained shelves of books. Taemin’s cat had stayed in the library, but his presence was everywhere too. The bottom poles on the staircase were both scratching posts. A big cat bed sat in the bay window and on top of the refrigerator.

“What’s your familiar’s name?”

“Kibum.”

“Cute.”

“Mhm. I have no idea what we’re eating for lunch,” Taemin said. He opened his refrigerator with a flourish and made a low whimper of panic. Jungkook snickered.

“Sandwiches it is,” Taemin said. “You like grilled cheese?”

“Hell yes.”

“You like them with oregano and tomatoes on them?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I’ve never tried it, but sure.”

“Cheddar and Monterey jack sounds good?”

“Fuck yes. I’ll butter the bread if you cut the cheese.”

Taemin gave him a full, eye-crinkling smile and handed him an actual loaf of bread out of a wooden container on the counter. “Bread knife is against the wall over there,” he said. “Butter’s in that dish.” They both went to work in comfortable silence. The itch on Jungkook’s finger might have been imaginary. He felt his perpetual stormy mood dissipate right out of his head.

“Where’d you work before you worked for your men?” Taemin asked when they’d gotten to the point of waiting for four sandwiches to brown in the skillet.

“’Worked for my men.’ Yikes. Um…worked as a handyman for a guy that took care of people’s hunting cabins right near the forest where Taehyung and Jimin lived.”

“That’s how they found you?” Taemin said.

“They didn’t find me, actually. That swamp forced me to find them.”

“Jimin told me a little about your swamp,” Taemin said, he tipped his head back, still looking at Jungkook quizzically from across the kitchen, eye contact as intense as ever. “Sounds incredible.”

“It was terrifying.”

“Incredible things usually are,” he said, and Jungkook found his heart speeding up without knowing why.

Taemin glanced at the sandwiches, which flipped themselves in the skillet. “You seem tense today. Rough weekend?”

“Turns out I suck at sex. Who knew?”

Taemin laughed his sweet, tinkling laugh. Jungkook’s finger itched just a little. “Yeah? There’s a story. What happened?”

Jungkook grinned, even as he stared awkwardly at the floor. “Apparently I’m no good at reading cues without the empathetic link we used to have with the bond.”

“Oh man. And how did your dear boyfriends break this to you? Did they sit you down and hold an intervention?”

“No, Jimin just stopped me right in the middle of sex and complained.”

Taemin looked delighted. “That’s awful!”

“Yeah.”

The sandwiches levitated themselves out of the pan and onto two plates. “I forgot tomato soup,” Taemin said suddenly.

“That’s fine.”

The living room window framed a perfect view of the garden outside, currently brown and dead, filled with bundles of sticks shooting up from the ground. The neighbor’s yard across the street was similarly full of dull lines, though Jungkook figured those low trees must completely hide the house when they were in leaf. He’d be excited to see that. What a pretty neighborhood. It would have been terrifying to live here, of course, too much active magic.

Taemin curled up around his plate on one end of the couch and primly ate one sandwich. He offered his other one to Jungkook when he was halfway through his second. Jungkook took it. “You were talking to Heejin earlier. Do you know who she is?”

Jungkook took a moment to swallow the enormous bite of grilled cheese. “She said something about her dad being one of the school’s lawyers.”

Taemin nodded, apparently impressed. “He is. But more than that, she’s one of the brightest students on campus. She’s president of the sophomore class, I believe, and a member of the activities committee and the debate team. I believe she’s also a residential assistant.”

“Wow.”

“And the girls she’s friends with just transferred this year because their school wasn’t rigorous enough. They’re proving to be powerhouses too.”

Jungkook wondered if Taemin collected students like he collected books. He smiled as if he was talking about his own close friends.

“I’m on several faculty committees and I always ask for gossip,” he said when Jungkook asked how he knew everything. “And some professors ask me to give certain students special privileges in the library.”

“That seems underhanded.”

“How so?”

Damn witch morality. “Never mind.”

Outside, sleet began spattering the ground again. “So Heejin,” Taemin said. “I hear her mom is non-magical. It’s a little shocking.”

“Shocking? Ha. How so?”

“Well you wouldn’t expect spectacular ability to come out of a single genetic line. And marrying outside the community usually ends very poorly.”

“Taehyung’s mom is non-magical.”

“Does that kind of romance run in the family?” he said, looking a little scandalized.

“You’re saying you’d never date someone non-magical?”

“No,” Taemin said, eyes suddenly locking intensely with Jungkook’s. “No, I wouldn’t say that. I’m not so traditional. It’s just unusual.” He grinned. “And a little exciting.”

This didn’t feel like a lunch with a colleague. This didn’t feel like his boss. This felt more like making friends with someone fast and hard, diving in deep with commitment to bring it to life as fast as possible, and Taemin eyed him in a way that made Jungkook feel like he should be taking his clothes off. The ring buzzed. “You’ve dated before, right?” Jungkook asked.

“I have.”

“You know enough about me. Let's hear some about you.”

The sharp gaze cut off quickly, Taemin suddenly bashful. “Well, I—hm. He was…” He leaned back against the arm of the couch in a graceful arc and looked at the ceiling. His chest filled out the front of his thin shirt, lean and long. “His name was Minho.”

“Another Korean witch, huh.”

Taemin giggled. “There’s a lot of us. His name was Minho and he specialized in evocations, like your friend Jiwoo. We went to school here together but he was two years ahead of me. After I graduated, we both worked here together, he as a master’s student and me as a librarian. We both lived on campus. He had big, dark eyes and a beautiful smile. Spent all his time in the gym. Big dick.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook said, laughing.

“He fucked me in the library once.” Taemin had closed his eyes, thin chest rising and falling against the couch. He lounged. Even as he talked about Minho, the ring kept up a steady on and off buzz on Jungkook’s finger. “In one of the study rooms in the basement. He was strong enough to hold me up against the wall. I might have gotten fired, but we did stuff like that all the time. I think he wanted to show off and I didn’t care.”

He tipped his head back down and made eye contact with Jungkook again. “You don’t mind hearing about this, do you?”

“I asked.”

Taemin blinked slowly under his lashes, the edge of a smile on the corner of his mouth. “What’s the craziest place anyone’s fucked you?”

“Walmart parking lot.”

“Wow.”

Jungkook chuckled. “What happened with you and Minho?”

“You mean how’d it end?”

“Mhm.”

Taemin shrugged. “He graduated. I stayed here and…lost my family. Got angry. The relationship wasn’t helping either of us so we cut it off.”

“What happened to your family?” Jungkook asked.

For a moment, it looked like he was ready to tell the whole story, but his face clouded, and he started gathering up the lunch dishes. “I don’t mind you asking but I don’t think I can talk about that today,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine.”

He made them tea and sat down right next to Jungkook on the couch. “Tell me about the swamp,” he said. Jungkook talked slowly about what it looked like, with cypress trees and palmettos, with dense underbrush over the peat islands that sank if you stood on them too long, of wide carpets of pine straw on higher ground. Taemin kept his soft, captivating gaze right on Jungkook’s eyes, nodding slowly as he listened as he tried to imagine it.

Jungkook talked about the monsters. There’d been the dragon, of course. Taemin sat forward with a gasp at that, shuffling closer. There had been the swamp itself. Taemin’s eyes grew so wide when he talked about the spindly creature made of twigs, though Jungkook stopped himself before he talked about the swamp’s possession of Taehyung and Jimin, of how it lured him into the forest to his death.

When Jungkook finally talked about the demon of suffering, Taemin’s hand whipped out and wrapped around his upper arm. His eyes finally fell off Jungkook’s face. “How did it feel?” he asked.

Jungkook hesitated. He’d heard Taehyung try to describe it to Jimin so many times, always starting with “worse than they say,” and ending with “I don’t know. I feel like I can’t remember properly.”

“Like being put through a blender, I guess,” Jungkook said, “but my brain too.”

Taemin tilted his head to the side and stared off into space, confused. That wasn’t something anyone would be able to understand.

“I can’t describe it,” Jungkook said. “I’m sure I don’t remember it right.”

“You can’t remember pain,” Taemin said. “Your brain doesn’t let you. It’s not possible. You can remember being in pain and how you felt about it, but humans are incapable of remembering exactly how bad the feeling was. You can’t imitate something like that.”

Jungkook felt a little lump in his throat. “Then I guess I don’t remember.”

“I’ve always thought that was a bit of a dangerous self-protection mechanism,” Taemin said so, so softly, almost right against Jungkook’s shoulder where he’d crunched himself up. Jungkook felt like they were chatting in the dark in front of a campfire, tense and very much alone. “If you don’t remember how bad something hurt, what’s stopping you from going back and feeling it again?”

Jungkook shivered. “Is that why people get super drunk even after they’ve said they’ll never do it again when they’re hungover?”

Taemin snorted abruptly and leaned away, mood broken. “Yeah, I guess. If you can’t remember exactly how much being hungover sucks, the incentive not to drink isn’t there anymore. Is that why you’ve stayed with Taehyung and Jimin so long, despite everything?”

Jungkook felt something solidify in his heart, something hard and painful, pressing hard against him. How many ways had Jimin and Taehyung tied him to them? For how long had every piece of his life filtered through their hands? He swallowed. “Is it time to go back to work?”

Taemin heaved a heavy breath and brushed a hand gently over Jungkook’s head. “Yeah, it’s time.”

Taemin kept the sleet off with a spell on the walk back down to the library, an umbrella of warm air covering them in an early spring as they walked through the dreary neighborhood. He pointed out each professor’s house and every one of their scandals, the one with a child who blew things up, the one who had been arrested by non-magical police under suspect of being involved in the illegal pet trading, but it was just that he had a snow-leopard as a familiar. “That’s the president’s mansion,” he said, pointing at the giant white behemoth of a manor tucked into the forest right before the road back to campus. “He loves to hold ridiculously lavish events. If Jimin ever invites you as his plus one, you need to go. Might meet Heejin’s dad.”

“He’s more likely to invite Taehyung than me,” he said. “I wouldn’t be safe. And I’m not ideal arm candy, you know? I’d get all the wrong kinds of attention.”

“But that’s the most fun,” Taemin said. “I’ll take you if he won’t.”

Heejin was still in the library, wandering the shelves and chatting with every other student that walked past. She got a curious, distrustful look on her face when she saw them walk back in, but turned her attention back to her friend like she hadn’t seen them. Jungkook got a lump in his throat, wishing he’d never told her anything.

 

Jungkook woke in the middle of the night not to Brandy, but Jimin weighing down his chest. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to do this when you want to be alone,” Jimin said.

“Huh?” Jungkook grunted, and struggled to get his arms out from under the covers.

“I was just—what are you doing?”

“Get…” Jungkook muttered, trying to shove the covers out of the way. “Get in.”

Jimin scrambled his bare legs under the blankets and Jungkook relaxed, heavy and sleepy with his arms around Jimin’s back and his face crushed against his hair. “Jungkook, I wanted to talk.”

“Hmm.”

“I know it’s a bad time.”

Jungkook took a deep, heavy breath and forced himself to stir, to get up on his elbows and press Jimin down into the bed the way he liked it. “I can talk. Do the…it. Go do it.”

“You’re barely awake,” Jimin giggled. Jungkook went limp on his body. “Maybe we should do this in the morning.”

“Morning,” Jungkook agreed, and rolled off to the side, arms still jammed heavily against Jimin’s body. “Juss…stay here.”

Jimin took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed closer. A little, warm ball of fluff settled against the back of Jungkook’s neck and purred. “Love you. Goodnight,” Jungkook said, and drifted off.

Bubble woke them with a paw to the nose early in the morning, sticky with sweat and crushed awkwardly against each other. One leg ached like it was trapped under a cinderblock. Jimin had to peel his cheek of Jungkook’s arm. “Gotta git,” Jungkook mumbled and threw the covers off to a blast of cold air. Jimin scrunched his eyes shut and burrowed into the pillow, hair everywhere, reaching blindly out to find Bubble and tug her close.

“Mornin’,” Jungkook said, and leaned down to kiss his puffy lips. Jimin grumbled and attempted to go back to sleep. “No you don’t, babe,” Jungkook said, pulling him towards the edge. “I bet Taehyung’s already up. What did you want to talk about?”

“Huh? I don’ wanna talk.”

“Breakfast first?”

Jimin rolled over, cheek squishing against the pillow. His loose shirt dragged off one shoulder, the few remaining necklaces and pendants he kept on when he slept all slung over his back. Bubble lay against his neck. “Fug Bregfast.”

Jungkook dragged Jimin and Bubble into his lap, hands squeezing at Jimin’s sleep-sticky skin and squishy lax muscles. “Didn’t sleep enough last night?” He flicked a finger across Jimin’s nipple and watched his eyelashes flutter in surprise. Jimin squirmed sluggishly, bare legs shoving at the sheets to turn his body protectively against Jungkook, and then lay limply. “C’mon babydoll,” Jungkook said. He fastened his arms around Jimin’s compact little body and rocked slowly back and forth till Jimin’s breath came slow and steady through the side of his t-shirt. “I’ll carry you,” Jungkook said. Jimin stirred like it took everything he had, but sat up and let Jungkook pull him onto his back for the walk to the kitchen, Bubble riding on Jimin’s shoulder.

Taehyung didn’t look much better, hair sticking up on end as he fried eggs in his pajamas. Brandy lounged unresponsively behind the corner in the hallway. “Jimin, did you spend the night out with Jungkook?” Taehyung said.

Jimin opened one eye and peered around the kitchen, absently scratching at the hem of his tiny shorts. “Mm-hm,” he said.

Taehyung looked at Jungkook to make sure he was okay with that, and Jungkook gave him a nod. He scooted her chair closer to Jimin’s and propped his chin on his shoulder. “You awake yet?”

“No.”

Bubble rolled onto her back and licked her little lips, blue eyes barely blinking open.

“What did you want to talk about last night that made you invade my safe space?”

Jimin sat up at that, checking Jungkook’s face to make sure he wasn’t serious. He seemed reassured by whatever face Jungkook was wearing, something soft no doubt. “Sorry about busting in on you.”

“I didn’t mind. I don’t need much of an escape anymore. When you need me, don’t stay away. Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“I had nothing specific,” he said. “I just wanted to talk. We haven’t talked in a week. I couldn’t sleep. I hope you didn’t mind me busting in you.”

They hadn’t had a conversation about much at all since Jimin told him he thought Taemin was some kind of stereotypical supremacist. He was a kinder, more interesting witch than most. That was probably a stupid reason to give your own boyfriend the silent treatment for a whole week though.

“Sorry I’ve been so distant, I just…I like Taemin. He’s the first friend I’ve made without help since high school. He’s really fun to be around. I guess I’m mad you don’t get along because of me.”

Jimin squished his lips together and looked anxious, but let out a deep sigh. “I know. Do what you want. I’d just be a bad boyfriend if I didn’t let you know what my reservations were.”

Jungkook refrained from the ‘Fuck your reservations,’ since, which seemed harsh and unnecessary, but only barely. “And I’m sorry I suck at sex.”

“Oh I’m not worried about that,” Taehyung said. “Just takes practice.” He looked up with one eyebrow raised. “Lots and lots of practice.”

Lots and lots of practice proceeded upstairs in a sleepy haze, Jungkook with Jimin bundled sleepily under his arms with his legs spread and Taehyung behind him with hands firm on his hips. “See the way he’s whining?” Taehyung murmured, hips pumping in quick and hard in a way that made Jungkook want do close his eyes and cling to whatever he could. “Keeps throwing his head back and moving around like that?”

“Uh huh?”

“That means harder. If he wants it slower he’ll grit his teeth and hold still.”

“I do?” Jimin gasped, and then laughed. “Yeah, I do.”

Jungkook sped up.

“And use some muscle,” Taehyung muttered into his back. “Doesn’t matter where. Push his legs back further or something.”

Jungkook could barely stay hard now. This felt too much like a class, too much like his first time fucking them when they had to tell him what the other liked. He knew what Jimin liked.

But he followed orders. He’d forgotten the varying stimulation part. Just thrusting did nothing for Jimin, but thrusting combined with rubbing his sides and leaving bite marks on his arms. What did Taehyung respond to in this situation again? Jungkook tried his best to arch his back more, to moan harder, to make Taehyung manhandle him more.

“There you go,” Taehyung murmured. “That’s it.”

Jimin’s silver thigh band winked in the sunlight through their bedroom window. Jungkook had told Heejin who he was dating. How would Jimin feel if he knew Jungkook had told students about his private life? He would never have gotten away with guilt during sex before this.

I can have secrets, Jungkook thought.

Taehyung and Jimin kept up their embarrassingly quiet and frantic moaning fest, on either side of him. They could have secrets too. They had no idea he wasn’t focusing on them now. What if they were all stewing in guilt over new secrets? They’d never be forced to confront anything if they didn’t want to.

“Kook, you okay?” Taehyung said.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and kept going.

After he’d cum, last, and with a lot of help, he went to the bathroom and leaned on the sink in front of the mirror, naked, let his face show everything he was feeling. He looked angry. Was he angry? Would Jimin and Taehyung see nerves and guilt? Confusion? Distance?

“How’s the sex ring working out for you?” Taehyung asked that evening. Jungkook opened his eyes and blinked straight up at his face, head in his lap and legs on Jimin’s.

“I feel it sometimes in public, but…” secrets, secrets. Don’t tell them that with Taemin it rattles all the time, “Can’t get much from it, not even from the girls.”

“They know when to back off,” Jimin said. “Bless them.”

“Chaewon definitely gives me signals sometimes.”

“Oh hush!” Jimin laughed, slapping him across the chest. “I know you’re not a teacher and you can probably ethically do whatever, but no! Forbidden! You can’t fuck people I see as students.”

Jungkook lifted his head up, squinting. “Jimin, I’m not single.”

Jimin opened his mouth, found he had nothing to say to that, and burst into giggles.

“And gay.”

Jimin buried his face in his arm and curled up.

“I’ve been thinking about fucking Jimin’s mom,” Taehyung said. “How do we all feel about that?”

“Stop it!” Jimin squealed.

Jungkook turned his head into Taehyung side and laughed, feeling Jimin shaking against his legs and Taehyung’s stomach moving as he chuckled.

“Three is more than enough,” Jimin finally said. “We’re not introducing anyone else to this equation.”

“Too many moving parts already,” Jungkook agreed.

“That’s what she said,” Taehyung said.

“Ew, what?”

More giggles. Jungkook kept his eyes closed, feeling warm and comfortable.

They slept all on Jimin’s bed that night, which Jungkook had come to associate with the happy nights in this house, the nights where they agreed without talking and acted without thinking, where the bed was big enough for everyone and then some, and Bubble had her own staircase by the bedside table and didn’t need help getting down.

But his brain churned and churned, and sleep didn’t find him till long after the others had been snoring for hours, not till Bubble woke up to go pad around the hallways like a worried nurse and sat on his chest just long enough to put him to sleep.

 

Jungkook got into work late the next morning, and Heejin met him at the door. “There you are. Taemin said you got in around nine.”

“Most days yeah.”

She handed him Viv, who was trying to scramble towards him. The bunny became calm in his hands, face pressed against his chest. “I did some research this weekend. Want to come see?”

“Let me get my chore list first,” Jungkook said. Chaewon and Jiwoo were there again, all at the favorite table. Jungkook wondered if that was one of the secret library privileges and if they knew they were getting them. “I have a job to do after all.”

The pipes were badly clogged in the basement bathroom. “There are some problems new pipes won’t fix,” Jungkook sighed, dragging his cart in.

“Like students?” Taemin said.

“And a low-pressure outflow. This building sucks.”

“Don’t insult it,” Taemin said with a pout, petting the stone wall. “My child.”

Jungkook bent to inspect approach the pipes with a wrench and felt a little itch from the ring. When he dared to turn a few seconds later, Taemin had already disappeared.

Jiwoo found him down working on the pipes, humming to music off his phone as he worked. “This one’s closed, huh?” she said. She had Chuu the penguin sitting in the crook of her arm, tapping at her phone with his flippers.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to use the crowded one upstairs.”

“I like this one better,” she pouted.

“Really?” he said, looking around at the stained mirrors, cracked floor, and dingy walls. Sometimes he thought he saw mysterious stains out of the corners of his eyes.

“It’s an adventure!” she said. “I get some practice with evocation whenever I’m in here. There’s just so much going on, like, in the walls.”

Jungkook, kneeling over the toilet, glanced around. “I’ll just be a minute,” he muttered, getting swiftly back to work.

“Can you hold it, Chuu?” Jiwoo said, sliding out the door. “We’ve just got to go upstairs.”

“Chirp.”

The door closed, leaving Jungkook in sudden heavy fear of his surroundings.

“You finished that fast!” Taemin said when he found him washing off a few minutes later in the bathroom upstairs.

“When you said you needed a full-time plumber I thought that might be a little ridiculous, but that toilet is a piece of work.”

“You smell,” Taemin giggled. Jungkook gave him a tired look. Taemin handed him a little charm and the scent of woody, gentle perfume washed over him in a blast, almost like a breeze of oaky swamp air. As Jungkook took deep breaths to try breath easily again, Taemin leaned forward and sniffed his shoulder. Jungkook’s ring lit up with a buzz. “That’s an interesting scent on you. Smells different for everyone.”

“What does it smell like on you?”

Taemin took the charm back from him and the air around them filled with something clean, dark, and strongly familiar, Taemin’s usual scent dialed up strong.

“Oh, I like that.”

“It’s nice, but it’s pretty typical. Yours is very unique.”

“So is the bathroom downstairs, like, cursed?”

Taemin pushed the charm back into his pocket with a dangerous grin. “Only a little. Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

An hour or so later, he managed to find a lull in which to find Heejin as she finished with a meeting. “You’re always here,” he said. “Isn’t there anywhere else you go to study?”

“I can’t study in my room,” she said, “and everywhere else is too loud.” Without even checking, she reached under her chair and pulled Viv out of the nest she’d made in Heejin’s coat, and handed the bunny to Jungkook. “She really, really likes you,” Heejin said. “It’s almost weird.”

“I think I have that effect on familiars.”

Chaewon sat down across the table with a light sigh. “How was class?” Heejin asked. Chaewon raised her eyebrows and gave an exaggerated shrug. “Bad discussion?”

“They’re all freshman. What do you expect?” Chaewon said. Her butterfly lifted off her ponytail and came to settle on Jungkook’s arm. Both girls gaped at him.

“She doesn’t usually move very much,” Chaewon said.

Heejin was pulling out a notebook and flipping through it. “So I didn’t actually get very far when I researched this weekend,” Heejin said. “It still looks impossible, but I found some newspaper clippings from, like, forty years ago that talks about someone keeping an emotional link with their bonded servant after the bond ended. Everyone was real scandalized, but apparently it's been done.”

Jungkook glanced uneasily at Chaewon. By her uninterested look, it seemed like Heejin had told them everything, even though Jungkook had asked her not to. Oh well. It only made him a lot more anxious, but he was asking a lot of her and it had been very gracious of her to help at all. “Okay,” he said.

Heejin patted her notebook happily, reading through a few lines, and then looked up. “That’s about all I have.”

“Well, it's something.”

“Maybe I’ll figure out how to contact this guy,” she mused. “He’s probably dead though.”

“Jimin’s coming,” Chaewon whispered, and Jungkook jumped, turning quickly.

“Hello ladies, and Mr. Librarian,” Jimin said sweetly, and set three newly Dewey-Decimal-labeled copies of his published potions book down on the table, Bubble riding on top. Jungkook’s ring itched suddenly. “These are a gift from the school store. Could you please show me where to shelve these?”

Jungkook had trouble operating the catwalks on his own. Most students just floated them through, but he had to use the jumpy manual controls. The catwalk began to move as soon as Jimin came aboard, and he didn’t seem to need any guidance to get to the potions section. Bubble jammed her head through the railing and almost got stuck. “Hun, please keep all limbs inside the car at all times,” Jungkook said.

“It’s so far out of the way,” Jimin sighed, looking up at the potions section as he got on his knees and slid Bubble’s head out of the bars. “I don’t know how to go about getting them to move this section down closer to the front.” He had a button-down tucked into dark-wash jeans today, though the shirt kept riding up his slim waist and threatening to slip out.

No other catwalks moved about as high as they were. Barely anyone studied on the main floor. Jungkook slid his hand over Jimin’s stomach and flicked the strength rune.

“I’ve missed you,” Jimin murmured, still focused on the shelves. He cast a soft glance over to Jungkook to make sure he knew Jimin meant what he said, and then plopped the books on the empty space at the end of the shelves, the only even passably recent books on the whole shelf. Everything else had become gray and cracked with age and disuse.

“I love those glasses on you,” Jungkook murmured.

“You smell good.”

“Taemin gave me a weird perfume charm after I worked on some toilets.”

Jimin pursed his lips and leaned closer into Jungkook’s arm to smell him. His ring itched again. Bubble stretched out from his grip to smell him too. “I remember,” Jungkook murmured, “when I first met you, wearing sweaters without shirts, touching me every chance you got. I would never have guessed you’d end up a professor.”

Jimin giggled, nose nearly against Jungkook’s shoulder. Jungkook couldn’t see anyone looking from their angle, but he watched out over Jimin.

“I bet my manuscript is going to get picked up any day now,” Jimin said.

“You think?”

“Of course. They loved my last book. You smell like…swamp almost.”

“Kinda makes sense.”

“If you say so.”

“You should come to the library more often.”

“I should.” Jimin rested his head on Jungkook’s shoulder, jewelry tinkling. He glanced self-consciously around, and then quickly, quickly pecked a kiss to Jungkook’s lips and backed off. The catwalk began to descend. “Want to get lunch?” Jimin said hopefully.

He thought for a moment. Taemin hadn’t invited him anywhere yet. He’d been looking forward to doing the inviting for once, but Jimin looked too hopeful. “Of course,” he said.

On the way out the door, he slipped past Taemin and caught of whiff of that dark, clean scent. For a second, he wished he’d said he already had plans to eat at Taemin’s house.

 

“So next week,” Jimin said over his salad, “I’m teaching them how to make a shield potion. Thought we’d have some fun punching each other or something. Maybe I’ll let them throw flowerpots at me. I don’t know. The interactive part of class is always the best.”

Bubble sat on the table with a mini plate of fish taco with cheese, munching happily and getting it in her whiskers. “Shield potion. My favorite.”

“Only I have this girl in my class—I’ve told you about Wheein, right?”

“Uh-huh. I know Wheein.”

“I don’t think she can do this potion without help. She just barely managed this week’s potion without special help, but half the time she can’t figure out magic at all.”

“Well, there’s my recipe.”

“That’s the thing,” Jimin said. He put down his fork and leaned forward. “Your version is a lot more complicated and very different. There’s like, three loopholes that add five extra steps and a complete re-ordering. I don’t think I can take the time in class to teach her that. I was thinking maybe you could come in and teach it to her yourself, just the two of you, while I do the rest of the class.”

It took several seconds for Jungkook to realize he had a sandwich halfway in his mouth. Jimin had begun to start smothering laughter. He took the bite and pulled it out, chewing fast. “Me? Teach?”

“Kind of.” Jimin’s eyes curled up into precious half-moons. “You’d only be instructing one person. Bubble, here’s a napkin.” Bubble smushed her little face into the napkin in Jimin’s outstretched hand.

“How would your other students respond to me in the class doing magic better than they’re doing it?”

Jimin cleared his throat, glancing worriedly around all the other students filling the bakery. “They all seem cool. It’ll open up an interesting area of discussion in the class. I’ll make sure to tell people you’re special and they don’t need to learn about all non-magic people learning potions.”

“It’s a bit risky. What if Wheein doesn’t like it?”

Jimin sighed. “I really doubt she’ll care. She’s pretty open about her limitations. It’s the only way to teach this potion. Otherwise I’ll have to find a different recipe, and this one is completely perfect for what we’re talking about in the lecture right now, so—oh hey, Seokjin.”

“Namjoon disappeared from my apartment before dawn again this morning,” Seokjin said. He had dark circles under his eyes. His apron and chef shirt were both coated in flour.

“Was Namjoon in town?” Jimin said.

“He’s in town a lot. Like every week.”

“The bastard! We haven’t seen him since the end of January!”

“He keeps leaving before dawn when I’m still asleep,” Seokjin said. “Hi Bubble.” Bubble rubbed sweetly against the front of his apron as he leaned against the table. “I can’t put up with this forever, Jimin.”

“No, of course not.”

Seokjin took a deep, slow breath, but pulled two homemade cookies out of his apron pocket and set them on the table. “Thanks for coming in so often, both of you.”

“It’s the best food in the school!” Jimin said. “We wouldn’t support anyone else!”

“Thanks, thanks, just…can you come by after classes? I want to talk to someone. Just Jimin, if you don’t mind,” he said to Jungkook. “I’d love to have you over too, of course, but Jimin’s known Namjoon longer and I want to blow up in front of as few people as possible.”

“Yeah sure,” Jungkook said. “No worries.”

Shortcake trotted out from the back and touched his leg with a paw. “Okay. Things are busy. I’ll see you both later.” He followed his dog back into the kitchen, shoulders slumped.

“Namjoon, you idiot,” Jimin murmured, staring at Seokjin’s back. Bubble fell off the table and into his lap. He didn’t respond.

“Should we head back?”

“Have you noticed how distant Taehyung is these days?”

Jungkook blinked, feeling a little trapped. “He is? He seemed like he was getting better.”

“He’s better than he has been,” Jimin said, “but he was almost a zombie in the swamp and he’s been stressed and guilty ever since. ‘Better than he has been,’ doesn’t mean he’s nearly back to his normal self, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is his normal self now, if he’s changed that much in the past couple years. Maybe we’ll never get him back as he was.”

Bubble’s head peaked quietly above the table. She’d been so quiet for the past year or so, always tired. Jungkook leaned back in his seat and stared out onto the dismal muddy street. Why had they moved into real winter? The table and chairs suspended in midair seemed tilted on a different plane than the rest of the café. “It’s been a hard year for all of us,” Jungkook said.

Jimin nodded slowly. “This was supposed to be a fun lunch. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

After they left their dishes and wandered up the cold street to the dark church amongst the skeleton trees, Jimin left Jungkook by the side door with one last squeeze to his hand. Bubble meowed from her cramped spot inside Jimin’s overlarge coat pocket.

“Had a nice lunch?” Taemin said, eyes bright like a ray of sunshine.

“It was pretty nice, yeah. Started good. Ended…good.”

“I ate here. How’s Jimin?”

“Tired, I think. He hides it really well, but Bubble doesn’t.”

Taemin had on a bit of a Jimin-y outfit today again, another wide-collared black sweater that draped down his thighs and thick-soled leather shoes on his feet. He seemed perfectly at peace behind an enormous stack of returned books. “Jessica, this is overdue, isn’t it?” he murmured to a young woman coming in. She blushed and nodded. “It happens to the best of us,” he said gently. “You’ll be surprised by how cheap the fees are.”

Jungkook started stacking the checked-in returns in a cart to go float them back to their shelves. To his surprise, Taemin came with him. “Why not?” he said. “Slow day.”

Taemin knew every book on the cart, so he just sat back and watched as Taemin drifted the catwalk slowly from shelf to shelf. “Heejin and friends treating you nicely?”

“They’re very sweet.”

“Good, good. Haven’t run into any trouble with the students on campus?”

“Not once.”

“You do tend to disguise yourself pretty well,” Taemin said. “You could almost be one of us.”

“I’m a magician,” Jungkook sighed.

“Oh don’t say that,” Taemin said, suddenly worried. “Did you get turned into a cat for like, a month once?”

“By an experimental chaos potion,” Jungkook sighed. “Jimin told you?”

“Before our falling out,” Taemin grumbled. “You’ve learned how to make potions. I heard you rescued Seokjin and all your other friends from a horribly cursed house once.”

“Brandy and Taehyung did most of it,” he said.

Taemin stopped the catwalk at the next bookshelf and took a minute to put two books away. “It seems to me like you’ve earned some magic,” Taemin said. “You’ve certainly earned what you built yourself. And magicians fake their magic. Do you fake yours?”

“I guess not.”

“Don’t call yourself a magician. It’s not a name you want in this community and you don’t deserve to be called that. I’m sure anyone with a brain would agree.” Taemin’s cat Kibum leapt from the balcony into their catwalk as he passed and rubbed around Taemin’s legs. A set of books floated out of Taemin’s arms and into the shelf above them.

“Are these all spellbooks?” Jungkook asked.

“No, some are history books. Some are theory books. There’s a lot of magical and non-magical philosophy on just about everything. Thinking about reading them?”

“Philosophy? No way.”

Taemin gave him a little side smile and handed him a book about the ethical place of mice in charms. “We have a lot of similarities, you know.”

Down on the first floor, Heejin leaned back in her desk and stared at them as they drifted through the open center area, headed for the shelves in the chancel, her eyes set in almost a glare. Chaewon and Jiwoo glanced up too, similarly reproachful, or maybe just impassive. They had no reason for hostility. Maybe he’d just gotten used to expecting it.

He lingered a little before leaving, letting Taemin speak low and quickly about a new book coming out that he was very excited to read. He kept stalling and stopping like he wasn’t sure he should be talking about it and didn’t think Jungkook cared. He kept brushing his hair back and glancing up to meet Jungkook’s eyes, and every time Jungkook couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Taemin could turn from as slinky and intimidating as his cat to an adorable little mouse at a moment’s notice.

Jimin waved distractedly out of Seokjin’s upper window as he passed on the street, and Jungkook waved back. He took the opportunity to stop in the spiritual healing shop on the way home.

“Your tea works!” she said the moment she saw him. She stood up out of her seat. “Wow! I haven’t slept that well in months!”

He grinned, only feeling a little like he’d cheated with the magical plants and not caring a bit. “Do you want more?”

“Of course! I want to sell it!”

He hesitated. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “I don’t have stuff ready right now, but…” He’d have to talk to Jimin and Taehyung about it, not to ask for permission exactly, but to know exactly how many rules he’d be breaking. He’d have to tell them he’d been coming here. They probably wouldn’t care. Jungkook couldn’t forget the way Jimin scoffed and said ‘magicians’ as they passed once, and still sometimes caught him raising a scornful eyebrow at it on the way home. He probably shouldn’t sell any of this, actually. “We’ll see,” he finished, but walked home still thinking about it.

 

Jungkook got to Jimin’s class a little early, in time to give him a kiss behind the ear and his ass a little squeeze that no one would see. Jimin bumped their hips together as he sorted freshwater pearls into little bowls. “I’m gifting them with the expensive potions today. Do you have what you and Wheein will need?”

Jungkook set two crumpled plastic bags down next to the gleaming pottery.

“That won’t do,” Jimin said, and set about sorting those too. “Could you go get all their cauldrons started boiling? The first step is the same for both of us, right?”

Jungkook settled himself behind the desk Jimin said Wheein usually sat at, the alternative ingredients and a simmering cauldron in front of him with Bubble in his lap. The rest of the class filtered in and took their spots, Wheein with some confusion as to why there was a new student sitting next to her, and why that new student had the teacher’s familiar nosing inquisitively into the big front pocket of his hoody. The ring itched lightly every once and a while as students filed in. Jimin leaned comfortably on the desk up front, sorting through papers.

A chilly wind rattled the glass windows fastened tight around the ballroom-sized greenhouse, but the students all pulled their coats and scarves off, leaving them on the racks by the door. Jiwoo, Chaewon, and Heejin took seats at the front of the class. Chuu began pulling pencils and pens out of her pencil case. They all turned and gave Jungkook a wave.

Jimin called roll, strangely assertive and stern at the front of the class. The only time Jungkook saw him like this at home was when the chores had been left undone and he had some scolding to do. “I have an assistant here today,” Jimin said. “Jungkook works at the library so you may have seen him around.” He flashed a smile at Jungkook. “He knows some stuff I don’t, so he’s here to help out.” Several students glanced curiously at Jungkook as if reevaluating him. “You’ve all read the recipe but I have some details to go over before we start.”

Wheein raised her hand. “Yes?” Jimin said.

“I read the recipe and I can’t do it,” she said.

“I can help with the magical steps,” said one of the guys sitting nearby.

“That’s a great offer, Xavier,” Jimin said, “but you won’t need to because we’re doing a bit of an experiment. There are two completely different ways to make this potion. Jungkook knows one way and I know the other. We’re going to make both and try them out. He’ll be working with Wheein.”

Jungkook rather sheepishly dug a crumpled piece of notebook paper out of his pocket and unfolded it on the desk, trying not to wince at the nearly illegible writing. “Did you make this recipe yourself?” she muttered, looking at all the crossed-out lines and eraser smudges.

“Yeah. I should probably re-write it.”

She turned it over in her hand. At the front of the class, Jimin was loudly going over the whole process before they began preparing of the first ingredients. “I can’t figure out what goes after what,” Wheein said, following an arrow to an extra instruction smudged in the margins.

“I’ll just…I have it memorized. I’ll just talk you through it,” he said, taking it back with a blush. Bubble scrambled down his leg and trotted off to the front to lord over the proceedings with Jimin.

They began, like the others, with freshwater pearls. Then, as the other got to infusing berries with shield magic, Jungkook and Wheein tossed in a scarab beetle each and started digging the fibers out of a succulent-thick rubbery leaf of a fireproof weed that grew only in the wildfire pine forests of southern Georgia, now a critically endangered species that Taehyung had cultivated to astonishing numbers in swamp soil. He explained what everything was to Wheein as they pushed the outer skins of the leaves into the potion to boil whole and burned the fibers in the fires under them, filling the room with the smell of smoke.

“Sorry,” Jungkook said during a lull as everyone kept turning to see what they were doing. “It’ll go away soon.” Wheein looked like she was blushing, but she stoked the little flame with a curious smile.

The main group moved onto slowly stirring their potions with wands. “What do we do to replicate that?” Wheein asked.

“We’re making completely different potions,” Jungkook said quietly. “I’m not sure how we’d replicate that.”

They put some tubers from Jordan’s Pitchers in as a stabilizer and thickener and watched them dissolve right into the water. The rest of the class murmured a spell and watched half of their potions vaporize into thin air.

“That’s why this potion is better,” Jungkook said softly to Wheein. “We’re getting twice what they do at the end.”

“Bet it doesn’t take as long.”

“You’re right about that. Hand me the fairy root?”

Sure enough, the class finished within the next few minutes and got into a discussion of the components of the potion while Wheein and Jungkook worked further and further into the complicated recipe. At one point, they did three steps to deliberately circumnavigate an obvious place to use a wand, and Wheein put her knife down with her head tilted to the side, brain working.

“You okay?”

“You invented this potion, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are…are you a witch?”

Jungkook glanced around to make sure the class was focused on something else. “No.”

Wheein blinked down at her potion for a few seconds, tongue stuck in her cheek and eyebrows furrowed. “What’s the next step?” she asked.

“Ask it nicely not to boil over, I guess,” he said, and put the lid on top.

“Is it nearly done?” Jimin asked from the front of the classroom.

“Ten minutes to boil down and then another scarab,” Jungkook said. Wheein put the lid on hers too and sat down.

Ten minutes later, the class was already drinking their potions and setting up a dodge ball game with rocks inside shield walls at the back of the greenhouse.

“Should we test it?” Wheein said as she and Jungkook funneled their potions into little vials.

“It looks completely correct and I know we did everything right,” Jungkook said. Wheein pursed her lips. “Yeah, we should test it,” Jungkook sighed. “It’s easy on this one. If you drop it on something and it slides off like it's waterproof, you’ve made it right. It’s still a bit too hot.”

Wheein reached over and touched his vials of potions, and a little bauble on one of her bracelets lit up red. “Sucks the heat out of things,” she said. “I mostly use it on coffee and soup.”

“Oh man I want that.”

“Wouldn’t work for you,” she said, sounding a little bitter.

“I know. I still want it.” He drained one of the vials. “This potion only works for fifteen minutes. Better get started throwing rocks.”

“How long have you been making potions?” she asked after she drank hers and they were making their way through tables of greenery to the back of the greenhouse.

“Five years.”

“Hm.”

Their potion worked just as well as the others of course, if not better. Rocks bounced off them like styrofoam while they still made a bit of an impact on the others.

At the end of the class, everyone collapsed on the floor, sweaty and undignified, some with cleaning spells and some without. Jiwoo and Chaewon looked flawless, though Heejin was a damp mess on the floor beside them. Jimin had that just-woke-up wind-swept look about him that Jungkook recognized as his after-sex look, all the sweat magicked off but hair as messy and cheeks as pink as they were supposed to be.

“So what do you think the differences between the potions were?” Jimin asked.

After a minute of hesitation, Xavier raised his hand. “Theirs works better.”

“Yeah, Jungkook’s works better,” Jimin said, looking a little begrudging.

“Takes longer,” someone chirped.

“Probably more expensive,” Xavier said. “They were using scarab beetles and rare plants where we just used magic, but I think it produces more.”

“That’s all correct,” Jimin said. “What else?”

Heejin stated the obvious. “You don’t use any magic to make it.”

Wheein pursed her lips and nodded as the class shifted like they weren’t supposed to acknowledge it.

After a moment of silence, one of the girls at the edge of the class raised her hand. “Could a non-magic person make it?”

“If they had the knowledge and access to the right resources, yeah.”

The class broke off into half-hearted murmuring, none of it entirely hostile, some downright impressed. Neither Wheein nor any of the girls said anything.

After class, Wheein hung back as the other students put their things away, collected their familiars if they had them, and left. Jungkook began to clear his station and pack his normal potions equipment away to go home. The girls lingered a little, but skittered out when they noticed Wheein standing at Jimin’s desk with a stormy look on her face. Chaewon closed the door behind her.

“I don’t appreciate being compared to a non-magical person,” Wheein spit immediately. Jungkook froze, chest suddenly hot. “I am a witch. I am proud. I do not need to stoop—

“That’s not what I was doing,” Jimin said, quiet but firm. “I’m trying to show you that you are in no way at a disadvantage in this class. Magical ability is by no means a limiting factor in potion making.”

An angry huff from Wheein, breath a little shaky. Jungkook sat slowly down on the seat and tried to keep cleaning as quietly as possible, not looking up at them. Bubble trotted into his line of sight and sat on his foot. He bent to pick her fluffy little self up.

“I’ve heard you’re good at designing spells,” Jimin said. “It’s not so different.”

“Why did you even teach him to make potions?” Wheein said, getting a little hysterical.

“I didn’t. I gave him a recipes and Taehyung taught him theory.”

“Bonded servant?” she said, disdainful, and he could hear her voice change as she turned to look at him, but didn’t look up.

“Boyfriend actually,” Jimin said.

There was a long silence. Bubble looked up with a tiny “Mrr?” He hugged her close.

“He’s a better witch than I am,” Wheein said, tone shaking.

“He’s certainly better at making potions,” Jimin said, “but you’re just beginning.”

Jungkook heard another shaky sigh, then Wheein walking out the door and leaving. Jimin came around his desk and Jungkook finally managed to look up. He looked worried, suddenly unrecognizable in his slacks with his glasses on. He knelt but Jungkook’s legs. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Not your fault.”

Jimin gulped anxiously, eyebrows screwed together. His fingers shook a little. “I should have expected that.”

“These people don’t see me as a person,” Jungkook said. Jimin frowned up at him and didn’t disagree. He’d gotten to used to Taemin and the girls and had forgotten most witches might be tempted to burn him at the stake for using what was theirs. “I don’t think I can help with your class again.”

“W-what if she comes around?”

“What if the rest of the class finds out?” Jungkook said. “What if rumors spread? It’s bad enough that some people can tell sometimes.”

“What if rumors spread that we’re dating,” Jimin said suddenly, looking alarmed.

Jungkook started cleaning up his space again. “Oh horror.”

“Kook, it’s serious. I just started working here. People can’t know me for rumors before they know me for my teaching.”

There was a lump in Jungkook throat yet again. Bubble played with his hoody strings and he let her, feeling like an idiot cleaning up his own potions set like a toddler with a toy kitchen. “Can we go home now?”

“Kook, I’m—It’s not the end of the day yet.”

“That was your last class. It’s nearly four. You don’t have office hours.”

“You have work.”

“It’s flexible.”

Jimin sighed. “I shouldn’t.”

“I’m going home,” Jungkook said. “I’ll see you there.”

In the time it took Jungkook to put his things away, Jimin had cleaned the whole room with the wide sweep of one arm. The cauldrons swished in the self-cleaning sink. When Jungkook left the building, Jimin walked beside him, Bubble on his shoulder.

Jimin fidgeted and fussed beside him, but they didn’t talk until they passed the Spiritual Healing shop and Jimin huffed out a sudden sigh as a person left carrying two big paper bags, one with a bundle of sage sticking out the top.

“What’s wrong with this place?” Jungkook snapped.

Jimin looked back at the shop warily. “It’s a bunch of lies and fake magic for profit.”

“Maybe they’re not talking about your kind of magic,” Jungkook said. “It doesn’t actually exist for them, so they can define it any way they want. And they’ve figured some of the little things out, you know. Like lavender.”

“Jungkook, its stupid.”

“Why can’t regular people use magic when they find it, even if they don’t understand it?”

Jimin turned up his nose. “It’s not theirs.”

“And how is it yours?”

Bubble peeped with shock. Jimin’s mouth worked for a minute. “Kook, what is your problem?”

People passing on the street were staring now, and Jungkook tried to lower his tone. “The shop is cute and the lady that runs it is really nice.”

“You’ve been there?” Jimin squeaked, looking worried.

Jungkook curled in a little. “Yeah, I was looking for work.”

“You can’t do that,” Jimin said, lowering his voice and looking around. “You can’t mix our magic with people that might actually believe in magic when they see it. This shit has to stay hidden. That’s so careless!”

“I know. I wouldn’t—”

“Don’t be reckless. So you sympathize with them. Whatever. You know mixing normal people and witches causes a lot of violence. Do. Not. Threaten our place in this town. We have serious laws against compromising secrecy around here. You know way too much to be rubbing shoulders with magicians.”

“What if I want to?” Jungkook said. “What if I’m lonely?”

Jimin’s mouth popped open in a furious gape, a wild look on his face. “Don’t fucking gaslight—I swear, Jungkook if you don’t—” He stood stock still in the middle of the sidewalk for a moment, staring wildly at the ground with his teeth grinding together and his fists clenched. He looked halfway between tears and screaming. “You’ve been doing this for fucking weeks. You’re a selfish fucking—” Jimin bit it down again, and glanced around at the crowds. He tugged Bubble out of Jungkook’s startled hands, jaw locked, and stomped off a little faster. Jungkook trailed behind with his mouth shut and his heart pounding.

As they approached the house, Jungkook began to fall back with a familiar sick feeling. Jimin stormed on ahead of him. He stomped up onto the front porch and inside the house without looking back, the door slamming behind him. Jungkook stood in the driveway taking deep breaths and trying to convince himself to go inside.

They often fought without Jungkook getting hurt, over whose turn it was to do dishes, whose fault it was that a plant died. They’d fought over Jungkook not telling anyone he was home for hours just the other day and it had been fine. Sometimes they fought over Jungkook using too much of an expensive potions ingredient, or Taehyung pulling an all-nighter out in the greenhouse over a new potion on trial.

But the fight to leave the forest where Taehyung nearly killed both of them, the argument over the rednecks where Jungkook nearly died, the chaos potion where Jungkook turned into a cat, the day he made them make him a loft that ended in a concussion, their very first argument over not going out into the woods on the day he met them where they brained him against a table. Jimin had never felt truly angry. Jungkook couldn’t tell, really, how Jimin felt now, if it was a petulant, passing anger or genuine fury.

“He’d never hurt me,” Jungkook muttered to himself, but Wheein’s disdain stood out freshly in his head, Jimin’s matching shock and anger that he’d jeopardize them because he was lonely, that he’d ever blame them for making him feel inferior. Why should he be lonely?

When Jimin came sheepishly out of the house to apologize and tell Jungkook that he’d gotten a publication deal for his new book, Jungkook had vanished from the driveway.

Notes:

Last part coming soon! I promise a happy ending.

Chapter 11: Out of the Swamp Part 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“I was just going to have wine for dinner,” Taemin said, “but I think I have some stuff frozen.”

“You don’t have to feed me,” Jungkook said. “I’ll be leaving soon.”

“You’re eating my food before you leave this house,” Taemin said softly, brushing his fingers over Jungkook’s hair.

Jungkook sat with his head down on the counter and Kibum snuggled against his arm. Taemin had dressed down out of his normal librarian outfits, now in leggings and white knit sweater that clung heavily to his shoulders and draped to his hips. His hair was fluffy and damp from a shower, drying down on his forehead. Without his normal flair, he looked a bit clueless, almost ditzy. His hands trailed over Jungkook’s back with the softest touch, leaving a spell of calm behind them.

“Shouldn’t you tell them where you are?” Taemin said.

Jungkook shook his head. “I’ll be going back in an hour. They can put up with not knowing where I am till then. I’m not a little kid. They don’t control me.”

Taemin pursed his lips. “You are vulnerable though, to all the people around here who know about you. You’ve got a unique set of dangers hanging around that don’t apply to most people.”

“I’ve got my potions.”

Taemin quirked up an eyebrow but didn’t argue.

As Taemin heated up a block of frozen soup he’d dug out of the fridge, Jungkook explained the afternoon with Wheein.

“Stupid,” Taemin muttered when Jungkook explained Jimin’s plan. “He’s been camped out in the wilderness for too long. Wheein’s clearly elitist.”

“Why?” Jungkook asked. Out of all the witches he’d met, he related to her the most.

“When someone feels disadvantaged within their supposedly superior demographic, they will do everything they can to keep their advantages over those supposedly beneath them.”

Jungkook sighed. “Is that why rednecks are so racist?”

Taemin shrugged. “I don’t know about that. It’s almost ironic. It is the witches with the least magic that cling to the idea of magical superiority the hardest.” He spread his hands over the pot on the stove and Jungkook heard a sizzling noise. Wonderful smells of chicken broth and noodles filled the room. Taemin sprinkled some fresh spices in and turned down the stove’s heat. “Wheein’s a sweetheart though. I’d trust her more than most to let go of prejudices and be kind.”

“And now Jimin’s mad at me. And Taehyung too, probably.”

“No! Why?”

“You know the little spiritual healing shop in town?”

Taemin chuckled softly. “That cute thing? People around here treat it like a joke.”

Jungkook groaned. “But the lady that runs it is so nice. That’s so sad.”

“Well,” Taemin said, “imagine it from our perspective.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“It’s cute.”

“I looked for a job there,” Jungkook admitted. “And they had the lamest sleep tea. I made her one that would actually work with more powerfully magical strains of valerian and chamomile. She wants me to sell it there now.”

Taemin looked thoughtful, eyebrows furrowed. “That’s sweet,” he said finally.

“I want to,” he said. “I don’t want to sell actual magical shit, not that they could tell. I just want to take stuff they already know about and make it work.”

Taemin nodded. “If you’re only using ingredients they’re familiar with, that wouldn’t be breaking any of our rules. There aren’t actually any laws against witches using magic to profit off non-magical people because so many people do it.”

“Right?” Jungkook sat up. “It’s a lot less sleazy than the snake-oil shit I hear about sometimes, like selling magic kettles with tiny spells on them to make water boil faster at, like, three times the price, or mass-producing handmade clothes with spells and selling them under a bunch of different designer brands. I think Jimin’s just scared of looking bad in his new job.”

Taemin nodded thoughtfully. “Potion-making still has a lot of prejudice against it. If it gets out that it’s being shared with non-magic people, that could cripple the business.”

“Oh,” Jungkook said. He put his head back down on the counter.

“But just teas?” Taemin said, and set a big bowl of soup in front of Jungkook. “I can’t imagine that’ll get anyone’s attention. And it could be that Jimin’s more worried about people coming after you than he is about the business. Again, you’re vulnerable here. If you get hurt on campus, the school will just say you weren’t supposed to be here and nothing will happen.”

“I’ve heard.”

“And you’re still here,” Taemin said, sitting down with his own bowl. He brushed Jungkook’s hair back from his forehead with a slow, gentle touch. Jungkook found himself wanting it again as if he never got this at home. He wasn’t sure he did anymore, or if he’d just gotten used to it. “So brave,” Taemin murmured. Jungkook’s heart thumped.

They ate quietly together. Taemin did the dishes with some more magical hand-waving as Jungkook settled on the couch with Kibum on his lap and tried to work up the nerve to go home.

“They’ve never hurt me on purpose,” he told Taemin.

“Of course not.”

“I just don’t see Jimin that angry that often.”

“It’ll pass.”

“I don’t want to go home. I hate that I don’t want to go home.”

Taemin walked to the back of the couch and wrapped both arms around Jungkook’s chest, head pressed against Jungkook’s neck, so warm and sweet. The sex ring gave just the softest fading buzz, and Jungkook relaxed slowly. “Let’s think about something else for a while,” Taemin said softly right under his ear, and Jungkook shuddered a little, trembly and soft. More than ever, he just wanted to stay and let Taemin make him feel better.

“Yeah, okay.”

“What was…the best day of your life?”

He’d had a particularly good day at the beach once, back when he was little, didn’t worry about anything, and his family’s problems hadn’t seemed like they mattered yet. One birthday of marathon sex with Jimin and Taehyung had been pretty good. There were several days in his trip out to the Rockies that he thought about sometimes, but that got him thinking about something else that overshadowed all of that. “Jimin and Taehyung let me go for three months, but the best day was the day I got back and snuck into their bed before they woke up.”

Taemin squeezed him in encouragement.

“I don’t think we had sex at all that day. We just had a normal day, but I was back and they were so happy about it. I’ve never felt so loved. What about yours?”

“Minho took me on an all-day date once,” Taemin said. “There was a lot of sex. I think I loved it for the same reason.”

He finally let go and came to sit beside Jungkook with his legs tucked up on the couch. “Favorite food?”

“Pulled pork barbeque.”

“Hah. Of course it is.”

“What’s that mean?”

“So southern.”

“Oh, shuddup.”

“Cutie,” Taemin said with a soft giggle. He poked Jungkook’s leg with a toe, and Jungkook grabbed his foot. The ring itched. Jungkook pulled gently on his foot, too weakly to get him closer, but the intention was there. “What’s…” Taemin couldn’t stop giggling long enough to ask his question. He pillowed his head in his hands. “Best sex you’ve ever had. Go.”

Jungkook smirked. “Taehyung has sex magic.”

“Oh man I’ve been looking to buy some spells like that for years,” Taemin said, head flopping back against the couch. “I’ve got this one lame masturbation ring and it’s gotten so old.”

“Best sex you’ve ever had?”

Taemin giggled again and looked embarrassed about it. “Um. Minho fucked me on the roof of one of the academic buildings once. It was a super nice night and he was really keyed up. It was really fun.”

“I fucked Jimin on the porch of our cabin a few times,” Jungkook said. “Usually when Taehyung could see us but had chores to do.”

More ring buzzing. Jungkook slipped it off surreptitiously and shoved it in his pocket.

“I want to meet your Taehyung,” Taemin sighed. “He sounds fun.”

“I like to think he’d like you, but it’s hard to tell.”

Taemin had his cold feet in Jungkook’s lap now. Jungkook hooked his hoody over them to keep them warm and Taemin groaned a little, pressing them against his stomach. “Thanks.”

“Um. What’s your favorite food?”

“Grilled cheese, probably.” Taemin looked down at him from where his head was tilted against the armrest. He turned his head to the side and those eyes shot little arrows through Jungkook’s chest again. In another timeline, Jungkook would have liked to fall for someone like this, through quiet moments and meaningless conversation, making an effort to hang out, committing to putting up with each other. What had he lost when he’d been forced into a contract and loved out of necessity?

“Are you okay?” Taemin asked softly. Jungkook shook his head. Again, Taemin came close and wrapped his arms around Jungkook’s neck. Again, the warmth and gratefulness covered him like a blanket. He tipped his head against Taemin’s, wrapped an arm around his slim waist, and pulled him close until he had to throw his legs across Jungkook’s lap and crush up against his chest. He felt so small there, but warm and steady.

“Thanks,” Jungkook said, voice crackling and quiet. “You don’t mind?”

“I’m a little touch-starved,” Taemin said softly. “I don’t mind at all.”

 

Just past eleven, someone knocked on the door. Jungkook shook himself out of his half-sleep and peeled his forehead off the front of Taemin’s shirt. Taemin’s fingers slipped from his hair, leaving his scalp wonderfully tingly and all his limbs uselessly weak.

Jimin stood in the door with his coat on, eyes swollen and red. At the curb outside, Jungkook’s truck rumbled, the shadow of Taehyung’s profile lit up in the driver’s seat. Jungkook felt guilty but still a little fuzzy on why.

“Thanks for texting,” Jimin said. “We were getting worried.”

“He’s here,” Taemin said. “We just had dinner and talked. Sorry to worry you.”

Jungkook tilted his head back towards the ceiling, blinking slowly and trying to get his head back on straight. When he looked back down, Jimin was standing in front of him, still in full winter gear even in the warm apartment, hands stiffly in his pocket and a deep frown on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Jungkook said.

Jimin sniffled and blinked a few times. “I’m sorry to chase you down, but—” he grit his teeth and looked at the ceiling, blinking fast. “It’s late and we were worried. Just wanted to know where you were. I’m sorry. You don’t have to come home.”

“I’ll come home,” Jungkook said, forcing himself to stand. He wrapped his arms around Jimin’s waist and felt Jimin’s hands latch into the front of his shirt. His face pressed wetly against Jungkook’s neck. “I didn’t realize it was this late.”

Taemin was already gathering his coat and scarf. He looked a bit embarrassed to be there, but gave Jungkook a long hug before they left. Jungkook tried not to feel uncomfortable hugging Taemin right in front of his boyfriends. He had nothing to feel guilty about, right? It’s not like they could feel that Taemin’s hugs made him feel better than theirs did these days.

Jungkook sat sleepily in the middle seat of the cab beside a silent Taehyung as Jimin curled up against the window beside him and stared out into the lights of passing neighborhoods through the fog of his breath on the window.

At home, Bubble greeted them at the door, paws padding back and forth on the threshold. “We’re back,” Jimin said softly, picking her up. “He’s fine.” She reached her paws for Jungkook and Jimin handed her over without meeting his eyes. He took off his boots and trudged upstairs.

“Mrroo,” Bubble said, sounding tired. Jungkook kissed her fluffy head. “Brrp.”

“Sorry,” he said again.

“We need to talk,” Taehyung said, watching the stairs where Jimin had vanished.

“Yeah?”

Taehyung walked to the kitchen, expecting him to follow. Jungkook waited patiently as Taehyung started boiling hot water and setting out mugs, including a little espresso-shot mug for Bubble. He leaned against the counter, scowling and biting his lip. “I get it,” he started. “Like, I’m pretty sure I know what the problems are here. Jimin and I are fine without knowing each other’s feelings but that was what protected you before, so now you’re scared and the odd one out. I get it. I’m sorry. We’re trying. Please believe we’re trying. There’s a lot going on right now and we’re so busy and confused and prioritizing stuff is difficult.” He rubbed his hands over his face and through his straight hair. “Like I haven’t had more than a couple hours at a time to spend with you two in weeks and I’m too tired to talk so I haven’t said anything but things feel wrong. You have to feel that.”

Jungkook nodded.

Taehyung pulled his head out of his hands and looked at Jungkook with little purple bags under his eyes. Jungkook hadn’t even noticed that he was wearing an old t-shirt from Jungkook’s high school. “Jimin told me about you visiting the stupid little shop in town.”

“Yeah.”

“You do know it’s a sham, right?”

Jungkook bristled. “They’re selling their version of magic to people who see it as legit. It’s not about you guys. It’s not like they’re trying to pull one over on actual witches, or witches trying to pull one over on normal people. They get what they want out of it.”

Taehyung rubbed his hands over his face again. So tired. Those bags under his eyes had become part of his appearance. He looked suddenly thinner than he used to, hair scragglier. “We considered living in the faculty village, you know. We didn’t want to do that because it’d be like the swamp, surrounded by magic all the time. But they also refused our application because they didn’t want non-magical people living there, and that’s when Jimin got scared. This is everything Jimin wants in life, all the ambition I’ve been keeping from him, but we have to tiptoe around because a lot of the community here doesn’t take him seriously. Both because they don’t take potions seriously, and because there are rumors going around that he’s fucking his bonded servant.”

Jungkook buried his head in his arms. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I would appreciate it,” Taehyung said, voice barely louder than a whisper, “if you’d stop bringing that up. We know its true. We’ve felt guilty about it for five fucking years. We’ve done so much to make it up to you and sacrifice as much as we can to make you happy, and you still throw it at us constantly. We’d like to be able to talk to you about this without feeling like you’re going to lash out with blame every single time. You can’t keep using it to deny yourself any responsibility.”

Jungkook couldn’t look up, grateful again that Taehyung couldn’t feel his passive anger over that. Bubble glanced back and forth between both of them with her ears tilting every which way. Jungkook tried to calm her down with scritches.

“Jimin’s agent called this evening right before he got home,” Taehyung said. “He has a big publishing deal for his next book, even better than what we expected.”

“Oh.”

“He feels terrible about what Wheein said about you.”

“It’s not his fault.”

Taehyung raised his eyebrows. “You don’t blame him? Something about yelling at him on the way home and then disappearing before you got here made him think otherwise.” He took a long moment to pour boiling water into their mugs. “Not yet, Bubble. It’s still too hot.”

She settled back into Jungkook’s hands with a sigh.

“He feels really confused about why you’re suddenly trying to find people that aren’t him to spend your time with, both Taemin and the sham shop and something about you reaching out to your family.”

“Just because I want other relationships besides you two doesn’t mean I’m betraying him.”

“He knows that. He’s trying to let you find what you need. If your finding new people didn’t directly correlate to the way you don’t seem to want to be around us anymore, which I’ve been feeling pretty hard too, by the way, he wouldn’t have minded at all.”

Jungkook swallowed. “What makes you think—”

“You won’t talk,” Taehyung said, sharp voice beginning to warble now. “You get home late. You spend all your time in your room. You barely work on potions. You hardly look us in the eyes. We haven’t fucked in, like, two weeks,” Taehyung sucked in a fast breath and kept going, face turning red. “You’ve stopped interacting with the cats as much as you used to. You never smile. Was the damn bond the only thing keeping you here? We used to be able to figure things out and now its like you don’t even want to. We’re bending over backwards to help and you act like we’re ignoring you!”

Bubble scrambled out of Jungkook’s arms and ran across the table. She popped off the edge and right into Taehyung’s hands, who caught her and squatted down on the floor, choking back tears. Jungkook’s vision blurred.

“Brandy’s ignoring me too,” Taehyung croaked. If they’d still had the empathetic link, Jungkook knew he’d be able to feel Taehyung’s old, familiar self-loathing, his fear that he would eventually drive everyone he loved away. Jungkook felt irrationally angry. Of course they were upset, but Jungkook tried too, and always ended up more lost and hurt than before.

“I’m so angry all the time, Taehyung. I feel powerless and unwanted.”

“You’re not!”

“I don’t know if I’m angry at all the witches at the university, or my life, or myself, or you two.”

Bubble reached one fuzzy paw up and patted Taehyung’s cheek, mewing steadily. Jungkook realized he didn’t care if he hurt Taehyung, and the thought almost scared him.

“I don’t know what I want,” Jungkook continued. “I don’t blame either of you. I love you both and you’ve done a lot.”

Taehyung looked up, eyes squished nearly shut with anguish.

“I’m not sure that’s enough to make up for feeling so unsafe and out of place all the time.”

Taehyung let out a whining sob and slid all the way down to the floor. Bubble clung with her claws. Jungkook sat there uncomfortably with a knot in his throat and a pitching guilt in his heart until Taehyung lurched off the floor and took the steeping tea bags out of the tea. “We’re going to fix this,” he muttered, almost trancelike, eyelids low with sleepiness. It had already gotten so late.

It seemed a distant and impossible thing, too much of a risk. Jungkook was reminded of being a cat, waiting in misery for weeks while Taehyung and Jimin went about their ‘fixing things.’

 

That night, Jungkook took the sex ring out of his pocket and put it on the dresser in his suite. He moved more of his clothes from his room upstairs to the room off to the side of the house when no one was watching. He tried sleeping in his normal room in the main house that night and felt like he was right back in the swamp, an uncomfortable outsider in a dangerous place. They’d never hurt him. He knew that. They’d never hurt him on purpose. They’d spent five years within a few feet of each other, mixing themselves together till they were a unit more than three individuals. They’d never hurt him. Why was he trying to tear himself out?

But each day passed in an anxious haze to get away. Jimin and Taehyung became obstacles between the suite and the front door, everyone avoiding each other’s gazes and stuttering out what sounded like rehearsed conversation around the dinner table. Sometimes Jimin and Taehyung would speak and he wouldn’t notice, would be too busy thinking about how fast he could get out and walk to Taemin’s, or what he could say as an excuse to escape back to his room to sit in silence with Palmela. Was it guilt? Just discomfort?

Later in the week, as Jungkook slept alone in his suite for the fourth night in a row, he woke to a body forcing its way into bed with him. “Who?”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung whispered, hesitating right on the edge of the bed. “I can’t…I need—” he took a deep, shaky breath, hugging himself in the dark, backlit by the moonlight through the windows. “Sorry, can I share with you tonight? I’m not…I miss you. I’m not doing okay.”

Jungkook robotically held his arms open and let Taehyung curl into them. “I love you,” Taehyung said. “I really love you. I’m so sorry. Please don’t…” Jungkook sleepily felt him shake with tears and tightened his arms. He really had gotten thinner.

“You’re okay,” Jungkook said, and kissed his head, feeling disconnected. In the dark with Taehyung’s slimmer form, it almost felt like Taemin’s slender body. His half-awake brain kept twisting the image into Taemin in bed with him.

“…haven’t talked to either of us in days. We keep trying. Have you even noticed? You just don’t listen sometimes. We’ll stop talking and you don’t even look…Jungkook?”

“I…huh? I haven’t…what?”

Taehyung rubbed his face against Jungkook’s arm. “Sorry. It’s late. I shouldn’t bring this up now. Jimin’s just…really hurt. And midterms are coming up. Please talk to him. Please. Even if you don’t want to. We don’t know what to do.”

“Okay,” Jungkook murmured, just wanting to go back to sleep. He turned Taehyung around and squeezed him tightly against his front, lips pressed to the back of his neck. “I’ll talk to Jimin. We’ll figure this out. You can sleep. I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Taehyung, anything for you,” Jungkook said. “I’m sorry. I’ll try harder to…I don’t know. Figure things out.”

“Thanks,” Taehyung said, finally relaxing weakly. Jungkook squeezed tighter to reassure him and the impression of Taemin’s thin form flashed back. He didn’t fight it.

 

It was another day before he worked up the courage to sit down near Jimin in the reading room in the attic after dinner. Jimin looked up warily. “Good day at work?” Jimin asked.

He and Taemin had raced to dust all the shelves, magical vs non-magical, which meant that Taemin did most of the work and Jungkook got to run in the library with socks on his hands. “It’s been nice, yeah. You?”

Jimin smiled warmly and relaxed. “It was okay! We had the lab. Um. Heejin is doing really well. She says you showed her some good potion books in the library. Everyone’s progressing. Except Wheein, who is, uh, falling behind.”

Jungkook grunted.

“Karma?” Jimin guessed, but looked uncomfortable.

“Congratulations on the publication deal,” Jungkook said.

Jimin’s mouth wagged open in surprise. He looked oddly stiff. “Thank you. It’s just…It’s been a whole week.”

Jungkook shifted uncomfortably. He’d been aware of every day that passed. “I wanted to apologize,” he said. He strongly considered getting up and fleeing. His eyes wouldn’t leave the carpet. “I really hope you don’t think that I’m blaming you for what Wheein said. I was happy to help and it sucks that she lashed out. I’ve been the one putting myself in with these people so I should be able to handle it, um…”

“That’s all fine,” Jimin said. “Thank you for apologizing. I was worried. And I’m sorry for…lashing out about the shop. I get anxious about…my position. I want to be able to figure this out with the three of us but we—Christ, Jungkook, we need to talk about things before we do them.”

“I’m sorry about being an ass and making you worried on the day of your publication—n”

“That’s not necessarily the problem—”

“I shouldn’t have made you worry. I’m sorry I have problems communicating. I’m sorry I’m so inconvenient. I’m sorry I’m making your dream job harder. I’m sorry I’m reaching out to make friends with people that aren’t you.”

Jimin looked like he wanted to put his hands over his ears, but he sat there with his lips pursed and held it in. There was a long, uncomfortable silence in which Jungkook realized his apology may not have been sincere.

“I’m trying,” Jimin finally said with a crackling voice. “I’m really doing my best.”

Jungkook took a deep, heavy sigh. “I’ll try harder. I’m sorry. Taehyung says I’m not trying hard enough.”

“You’re not,” Jimin said, face screwed up in something that was either anger or sadness. “I know it’s hard for you too. I’ll try…fuck, Jungkook, I’m trying.”

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook mumbled.

“Thank you. It’s okay.”

They sat quietly in their chairs, both pretending to read. Jimin gripped his book hard, face turning redder and redder, eyebrows tightening down and jaw locking in increments till he set his book down with shaking hands and left the room. Jungkook saw him out the window, stomping down the driveway with hopefully the last real cold front of winter rippling his hair. March was beginning, and still the trees slept. He sat silently in the reading room for a while, trying to figure out Jimin’s anger. Should he be guilty? Should he be even angrier?

What remained was a blank apathy, a little frustration followed by a discomfort and confusion. He wished it was still early enough to show up at Taemin’s unannounced.

Every day, Taemin greeted him at the library broom closet with a cappuccino and a hug, and asked him very cautiously how the previous evening had gone. Sometimes Jungkook told him and sometimes he didn’t, and Taemin would nod or flinch, and give him one of those warm hugs and a word of support.

“Do you know what’s wrong with Professor Jimin?” Jiwoo asked later in the day as he passed the girls’ table in the library. “He doesn’t look like he’s getting any sleep.”

“Um, family matters,” he said. Across the table, Heejin was pretending she wasn’t paying attention, but her lips screwed together, probably thinking about the bond.

He pulled her aside later. “Look, about the bond thing…”

“I talked to the guy who did it before,” she said quickly. “The one who established a bond with a non-magical woman. He, um, wouldn’t give me very much information because the woman died in a magical accident a few years ago and he has some new opinions on whether or not it’s a good idea, but I got some stuff, and though I have no idea how to apply the theory I got to three people instead of two, its probably a good new lead.”

“I think you could, like, put it off if you want to,” Jungkook said. “Like…” he ran a hand through his hair and groaned a little. “I’m not sure re-establishing the bond will fix things. Might…make them worse. So it’s okay if you don’t work on it for now.”

She stared at him. Viv came hopping around the edge of the shelf and popped right into Jungkook’s arms. “You want me to stop.”

“Um. Yeah. I’d rather not waste your time.”

Heejin rubbed Viv’s head, frowning hard. Jungkook hoped she hadn’t already gotten so far that she’d wasted a lot of time. “That’s…Well, keep me updated,” she sighed. “If you change your mind, I have a lead.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“And think hard about this, okay?” Heejin said, sudden and urgent but a bit unsure of herself. “I know being non-magical in this world is hard, but my mom is very happy. They’ve had some rough spots, but you can make it work if you all commit to it.”

Or he could take his chance and run.

“Yeah. Thank you, Heejin.”

She smiled. “No problem. Just let me know.”

He handed Viv back and went back to his chore of repairing a broken shelf. Students passed, staring as always. The prickling on his neck and his uncomfortable desire to flinch and hide never went away.

 

“I’m going to visit the swamp,” Taehyung said. “With Brandy.”

Jimin looked up from the labs he was grading with a tired sigh. “When?”

“Today. She’s been refusing to leave the greenhouses all week.”

Jungkook didn’t look up from cooking eggs. He’d been planning to walk to Taemin’s house to hide again. He’d done so the day before on Saturday and it had been cowardly and stupid, but they’d played board games and talked about Taemin’s favorite books, and he’d felt so reassuringly happy.

“I’ll go with you,” Jimin said.

“Can I go?” Jungkook asked without thinking.

“We’ve got to go quickly so we’re using the transporter,” Taehyung said. “You’d have to drive down, and that’s seven hours.”

Jungkook swallowed and nodded, feeling dumb. “Okay.”

After breakfast, Jimin and Taehyung stepped into the closet holding hands and left the house empty. Jungkook stood in the hallway like he always did when he was waiting for them to come home, just like a puppy, staring at the door.

Fuck the swamp. Fuck the witches. Jungkook threw his coat on and trudged out into the mountain cold. He got in the truck and drove off.

Taemin greeted him with a little worry. “Are you running away again?”

“They’re not home today,” Jungkook said. “I just wanted to come by.”

Taemin let him in. He’d gotten used to seeing Taemin in casual wear, comfortable but shy. The difference in his face, Jungkook realized, was makeup. Jimin used to wear makeup pretty frequently, but he hadn’t in the past couple years, and Jungkook had forgotten the difference it made, how soft even the most powerful witch could look with splotchy cheeks and swollen eyes.

Taemin had commented on Jungkook’s clear skin recently, running his thumb under Jungkook’s cheekbone. “It’s a potion,” he’d said. “I used to have the worst acne.”

“No wonder Jimin’s so pretty,” Taemin sighed. “I need that potion.”

“He’s planning to put it in a book, I think.”

“No wonder you’re so pretty,” Taemin said, murmuring like he was talking to himself. “Jimin treats his pretty things well.”

Taemin, in loose silk pants that almost matched his green carpet and a clinging black shirt, settled with his legs in Jungkook’s lap again, and Jungkook rested his own book on Taemin’s ankles over his small feet.

At some point, Jungkook fell asleep there. At some point he woke up again and Taemin was just setting lunch on the coffee table in front of him. He groaned, stiff and groggy, and Taemin stuffed the edge of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into his mouth.

“Gug. Oof.”

Taemin giggled and waited for Jungkook to grab the sandwich. “Your hair is kind of crazy,” he said, and ran his hands through the back. Jungkook nearly dropped his sandwich and passed out again. He finished eating with the post-nap confusion fading, and picked up his book again. Taemin’s feet settled back into his lap. Jungkook thoughtlessly wrapped a hand around them.

“Your feet have so many calluses. Like Taehyung’s.”

“Why must you compare me to Taehyung?” Taemin teased. “Enjoy my feet for what they are.”

“Really gross.”

“Oh stop,” Taemin laughed.

Jungkook tossed his book aside and wrapped his hands around Taemin’s rough feet. He squeezed them, dragging his palms over the soft bridges to the tough balls of his feet and then to the rough little toes. Taemin sighed and leaned his head back.

“I wear really stupid shoes,” he said.

“The leather things? I’ve seen them. And you’re on your feet all day.”

“I need to find something better. I’ve put softening spells and support spells in them, but they don’t fix everything.”

“Just fly everywhere on a broomstick.”

Taemin giggled, wiggling his toes in Jungkook’s hand. “Broomsticks are banned on campus except on the sports fields.”

“Seems silly.”

“We had some serious accidents.”

“Oh man. Broom accidents.”

“You have no. idea,” Taemin said, grinning. “This one kid went right through a dining hall window in the middle of mealtime because some frat hazing event was to fly around blindfolded. Glass everywhere. Tons of people in the medical building. Another time, some people started pelting the campus with water balloons from one-hundred-and fifty-feet. It was like the world was fucking ending. You have no idea.” He laughed. “And then there was the incident with all the silly putty in the big quad oak. That was the final straw.”

“Magical pranksters must be the worst.”

“Some of the things that have banned on this campus,” Taemin said, and shook his head. “Ridiculous. Whoopi cushions, electric toothbrushes, Pokemon Go, cactuses.”

“Cactuses?”

“Don’t ask.”

The wind howled outside. He imagined Jimin and Taehyung down in the swamp in a cold, howling wind. But it was March. Jimin and Taehyung were probably down to jeans and t-shirts, wandering around in the warm sun with the sounds of alligators and the smell of oak and pine straw. Daytime. No reason to be worried. Without having a steady in-flow of power for so long, the swamp would be back to slumbering during the day. Brandy would be having the time of her life.

Maybe they were in the house now. Maybe they were out in the old garden. Maybe they’d pulled the canoe out and were paddling around the lake in front of their house, in and out of cypress roots, looking for ospreys.

“Things aren’t getting better with the guys?” Taemin asked.

“I feel more and more like I should take my chances and get out of there.”

Taemin pouted, nudged his stomach with a foot. “You love them.”

“I loved them because it made things easier. Brandy once told me that I was tying myself down as much as they were because of how much I loved them. I keep thinking I should just run now that I can.”

“You’d miss them.”

Jungkook’s throat locked up a little. He nodded. “Something is actually going to kill me one of these days. I’ve come so close so many times.”

“That’s true.”

“I can’t stand how much it would hurt them if I left. I can’t do it.”

Taemin shuffled his feet lightly in Jungkook’s lap.

“I’m doing fine,” Jungkook said. “I like it here, I think. Running away would just give me way more problems. I’d have nowhere to go, no one to take me in, no way to get a job, not much money.”

“Hm.”

“Why do all my options suck?”

“I’d miss you,” Taemin said, “if you ran away.”

Jungkook nodded, squeezing his feet again. “I’d be giving up a lot.”

“Magic and a good job and everything.”

“I think I can’t run away. I don’t think I want to.”

Taemin sat up and pulled Jungkook down to rest his head on Taemin’s chest. “Fuck, I wish I had a choice,” Jungkook said. Taemin hummed and burrowed his hands into Jungkook’s hair again. Jungkook shuffled around and got comfortable on Taemin’s slender body, jammed between his legs. “How did it feel when you left Minho?”

Taemin tugged his hair silently for a moment. “I was so lonely. It was mostly my fault. I felt like I’d destroyed something I needed.”

“I don’t want that,” Jungkook said.

“And I was only with him for a year or so. You’ve been with yours for five.”

There had been those long weeks with Taehyung’s mom up in Massachusetts, sleeping in Taehyung’s old room and cleaning the house during the day, cooking dinner and making grocery runs, organizing the basement and scraping snow off the driveway. He could do that again, could hope it mended him to start really loving them again. Still, the thought of living amongst normal people again, after having this for so long, repulsed him a little. Maybe he’d gotten a little addicted to magic the way bonded servants were supposed to.

“We thought about…reestablishing the empathetic link without the bond,” Jungkook said.

“I doubt its possible with you in the mix.”

Jungkook rubbed his face against the front of Taemin’s shirt. “I know.”

Sometimes he wondered if Taehyung and Jimin would have been happier without him.

At three, Taemin got dressed for a shift at the library. Jungkook gave him a long hug by the doorway, Taemin hanging on closely. “Be good to your boys,” Taemin said, giving him a stern look that had Jungkook grinning fondly. “As good as you can, at least. You’ve made enough sacrifices.”

“Thanks, mom.”

Taemin leaned in quickly and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Jungkook drove home feeling relaxed and fluffy. This could be a lot worse. He could be going through this without Taemin’s help, feeling so unsure while the only people who cared about him were the people he wanted to run from. He had another person now.

Down in the swamp, the day would be heading for the golden hour. Jungkook lazily made himself an early dinner and crossed the magically warmed breezeway into his room, imagining how this barren place might look and feel when spring came, filled with leaves. It was hard to imagine.

The book he’d been reading at Taemin’s seemed a lot less interesting without another body there beside him with its own book shoved in its face. Palmela had grown in the magical warmth over the house and with Taehyung’s fertilizer. She nearly filled a whole window with leafy fronds that felt achingly homey. The whole room smelled like palmetto when the sun came in just right and set her glowing.

It had been a long day, a long week. Jungkook lay on his back and thought about the high school days when he’d fill the time watching porn on his cracked phone screen. Simpler times.

They’d stopped “practicing.” Jungkook had been unwilling to participate since the day he’d fought with Jimin on the way home. He flopped around uncomfortably. He rolled over and took his pants off just for fun.

But he felt almost guilty when he pulled his soft cock out of his boxers and ran a loose fist over it, dry and hot from sitting inside his clothes, sensitive from being untouched for however many days it had been. He’d been out of the habit of jerking it for years, used to having someone there to do it for him.

Forget the boys. Guilt made him soft. What had he watched in high school? Muscular men fucking each other hard and fast in unconventional places, sometimes, but mostly the unsatisfying but safer videos of a man and a woman, both dumb bad actors with almost-perfect bodies and bad hairstyles, too much makeup, too much body hair.

No response from his cock. He sighed and tried one man, big stocky body, blue eyes. This one looked a little like Mason from high school, but older, kinder, hairless, and with a softer jaw. He’d thought about this one a lot. In his fantasy, fake Mason sat on the other end of the bed from Jungkook, perfect white teeth showing as he smiled and wrapped a bold hand around his own dick. Fake Mason told him to watch.

They matched strokes, Jungkook with his eyes shut tight, working his hand slowly up and down till he had to ditch the fantasy and go hunting around in the bathroom for some real, non-magical lube. He flopped back down on the bed and closed his eyes again. Fake Mason’s hair was black now, body a little slighter. Jungkook accepted these changes. They were closer to what he was used to wanting,

Fake Mason had his lip between his teeth, eyebrows screwed together, and he thrust up into his moving hand in little, desperate jerks. Was that another man behind him? Someone smaller and slighter with one hand around Fake Mason’s neck, light but threatening. Jungkook let a little sigh out into the air as Fake Mason’s hand was replaced with someone else’s, a more slender, paler hand, someone small but controlling. Jungkook knew that feeling. Jimin rarely topped, but he could get so wonderfully mean when he did.

Jungkook looked around himself in the real world, bright with daylight. Every curtain in the room was open to the wilderness, except for the one blocked by Palmela. He’d lived in total privacy for years, had fucked and jerked off and sucked cock in full view of an open window more times than he could count. Neighbors were closer here. He had no reason to believe anyone would be wandering in their property, but the open windows had him moaning anyway. He rubbed a thumb sticky with lube under the head, squeezing and working himself slowly.

Fake Mason had disappeared. Only the slight man remained, a faceless, small figure thumbing his cock in amusement as he told Jungkook to go faster, to be good for him.

Who was he kidding? That was Taemin. Jungkook forced it back, forced Taehyung into that lanky spot, legs spread. Finger yourself for me, the figure said. Jungkook gasped and stabbed a finger into himself. He slopped lube onto his fingers and tried to imagine Taehyung’s face as he gave the order, got only thin, slanted eyes and a beautiful sharp smile, Taemin’s slight figure there with his legs elegantly splayed, dick in his hand.

He froze and squeezed his eyes shut. Taehyung. Taehyung sitting on the bed, mischievous smile on his face. Not Taemin.

Stretch yourself for me, the figure said, and it was Taemin’s voice. Jungkook pushed in and whined, dissatisfied at how his fingers wouldn’t reach very far, how his cock pulsed hard at the thought of Taemin’s soft voice giving him orders.

Did he give in so easily for any man who gave him attention? He loved two men already and it seemed like a lot. Now three?

Fuck yourself for me, Jungkook’s brain said in Taemin’s voice. Let me see how you like it.

Jungkook was gasping now, fingers shaking in his own ass, dick aching for touch even as his brain resisted. His fantasies usually made him out to be pathetically desperate. Porn was so much better. Maybe he should get his phone.

But imaginary Taemin looked so good at the end of the bed, smiling at Jungkook like he had that afternoon, all soft and loving. Good boy. Look so good. So good for me. They don’t appreciate you like I would. Anyone would love you better than they do.

Jungkook threw a hand over his mouth to cut off the whimper, angry and hurt, a little shocked at the shivering aches up his spine. He worked another finger in with lube dripping onto his sheets like a shameful little boy. He’d have to ask Jimin to clean it for him later, clean the mess he made while dreaming about another man.

Something was weird about the way his dick jerked in his hand. That didn’t seem like the thing to turn him on, but he gasped, arched up, and dragged his fingers hard over his walls until he found a spot that gave and pulsed with sour sensation. He stayed there, rubbing frantically, legs trembling. Taemin’s eyes stayed on him, watching his ass fucking take it like the disgusting, cheating slut that he was.

A sob burst out of his throat. His dick still ached. He couldn’t stop his hand from moving, from jerking as hard and fast as he could. His mind wiped blank the fantasy to focus on the burn of pleasure bending his spine, the fierce, delightful pain bursting from inside him. Every muscle in his body tensed as he came like a shot all the way up his chest, over his hoody, thick and white.

Taemin would—he would lick it clean. He would—Jungkook shook his head, trying to ignore the image of Taemin’s tongue on his chest, of Taemin shoving his own dirty fingers into Jungkook’s mouth.

He’d never gotten off on being treated like a toy. He hated being demeaned during sex. Where was this coming from? He rolled over and slid off the bed on legs that wobbled. His head spun.

He had his sheets and hoody in the washing machine before the buzz fully faded. He sat on the floor, leaning against the machine with his vision blurry and sound muted like his ears were full of water till his brain got back on track with what had just happened.

Not a big deal, right? People jacked off sometimes. People jacked off about things they’d never do in real life all the time. Wives could masturbate thinking about celebrities and husbands could jerk off to porn. Taehyung had once gotten Jungkook off by telling him a story about a Namjoon and a hooker that he’d witnessed when they were just out of high school. Not so bad.

He got in the shower, mindlessly scrubbing until he realized that the cum he could still feel on himself was just a remnant of guilt and not actually there at all.

 

Taehyung stopped the truck and put it in park right in front of the dead tree. Brandy sat up from where she’d been sitting on the back of the seats for the past two hours, slid the back window open with a paw, and climbed out into the bed. They heard her paws on the roof.

“Ugh,” Taehyung said, and put his hands over his face.

“Bubble, come out from under the seat, please,” Jimin sighed. “Don’t you want to see the old cabin?”

Brandy’s impatient face appeared at the top of the windshield.

“Okay,” Taehyung sighed, and drove around the tree.

The way was terribly, bitter-sweetly familiar, every stump recognizable. Fresh leaves burst over every bush, and grass had grown over the road to their cabin, just like it had been when he first forged his way down this old road.

The old farm field had begun to grow, familiar plants sprouting up and competing with growing weeds. The lawn had run wild, still fairly tame with the cool winter, but flooding the edge of the house and taking over the parking area. The door to the barn stood wide open.

As soon as they stopped, Brandy jumped off the roof and loped away into the forest.

Taehyung stepped out of the truck. As his foot landed in the dirt, swamp magic rushed up into his body in a tide, settling in the strained pieces of him that had begun to run on just the restless magic his body generated.

“I’ve nearly got her,” Jimin said behind him, oblivious. Taehyung wished Jimin could feel this, the wild sweep of power settling into him like a cool glass of water into a dehydrated body. He took a deep, slow breath and felt it begin to pool and settle in him, felt the tiny drain open in the back of his mind where the swamp got in and began to pull him out. How had he missed it?

Jimin walked around the side of the truck with Bubble in his arms, dripping in silver and staring distrustfully at the cabin just like the first time they’d ever come here.

“Everything’s growing really well,” Jimin said, nodding at the garden. Taehyung sighed and nodded. He’d dreamed it would be, growing wild and beautiful over the whole clearing. He’d dreamed, a couple times, of lying out there in the dirt himself, planted there by the swamp to lie in the sun and feed the earth while monsters tended the plants around him. Sometimes he had his boys with him. Sometimes he was alone. Both dreams were equally horrifying.

“What a waste,” he murmured.

“It wasn’t. You wouldn’t have Brandy. I wouldn’t have written a book.”

Taehyung closed his eyes and enjoyed the breeze, the sun, the smell of dirt in the yard.

“I’m going to go check out the house.” Jimin went up the steps and disappeared into the unlocked front door. Taehyung thought he saw Jimin bend and put Bubble on the floor to run around on her own power. Taehyung headed for the open door of the barn.

Inside, most of their abandoned farm tools had gathered significant dust. Leaves covered the floor. Evidently the wind had blown open the door at some point, and most of the lighter objects leaned away as if blasted. The ladder had fallen over and broken. Taehyung swept it upright with a hand and knitted it together with magic to climb into the loft where Jungkook’s couch bed sat gathering mildew against the window. The spring breeze came through the window with the smell of grass and leaves. It was one of the most cruelly beautiful days where the swamp begged him to love it.

He rested against the window and stared out at the cypress swamp, the lakes of gators and lily pads disappearing into the forest in the direction of the main channel. He could tell which trees had grown, could locate the distant osprey nest at a glance, knew the exact direction of his old pool of Jordan’s Pitchers. How odd to return to a loved place with fear, and missing an important member of the family.

Was it his fault Jungkook had become so distant? He’d been spending all his working hours in the Georgia greenhouses, often came home too tired to talk, spent hours every weekend sorting through business in his office. He’d have more time when things settled down. He’d assumed Jungkook knew they weren’t forgetting him. He thought Jungkook would trust them to be trying their hardest. Was their hardest not good enough?

Jungkook would never have let the lawn get to this state. He would never have left any of the tools downstairs alone long enough to get dusty. The whole barn seemed symbolic of where they were headed, unkempt and lonely in a magic swamp with the best pieces gone. If Jungkook left, everything they’d built would weather and gather dust.

Jimin had thrown every window open and air swept through the creaking house. All of Jungkook’s repairs had begun to wear down like the rest of the boards. Grass grew up through the porch. Taehyung stood in the kitchen and ran his hands over the stone basin. The old table looked just as they’d left it, benches slightly askew.

He found Jimin in the ritual room, curled up on the floor right in the middle on the burns where Jungkook had laid when they bonded him to them. He turned over when Taehyung came in. Something shifted in Taehyung’s brain, the memory of Jimin on the first day here as they unpacked, boyish and strong, wearing barely any clothes and using every opportunity to show off the strength rune. His hair had gotten longer since then, his face slimmer. His body had let go of some of its sculptured firmness to the give of good eating. He never dressed in those see-through tank tops and booty shorts anymore.

“Look at you,” Taehyung murmured. Jimin tilted towards Taehyung as he lay down and leaned over him, pressed their lips softly together. “It’s been seven years at least since we showed up here.”

“I didn’t love you then,” Jimin said.

Taehyung kissed a trail down his sharp jaw and his neck, skipping over the necklaces.

“What are we gonna do?” Jimin whispered.

“Keep living.”

“It’s like when he was a cat. I can’t feel it, but I can see it in his face. He’s so distant. He’s so scared. He looks so defeated all the time.”

“It’s been less than two months. It’s a tough change. We’ve all been distracted. Maybe we just need a vacation.”

“He’s going to leave us.”

Taehyung nestled his face into Jimin’s chest so he couldn’t see his face twist up. He could play strong now without anyone in his head. He’d feared this all along, that the bond would break and Jungkook would discover he hated them after all. “We don’t know that yet.”

“It’s my fault,” Jimin said.

He’d been saying this since the incident with Wheein, or at least since that night when they picked him up from Taemin’s, looking innocently soft and caring with Jungkook sleeping on his couch. Taehyung had seen Taemin’s texts to Jimin sometimes, little updates on what Jungkook was doing that didn’t receive a response. Taemin always updated them when Jungkook came to his house now, always told them when he was feeling particularly uneasy. It hurt to have to hear it from someone else, but they leaned on those messages for everything.

“Is he at Taemin’s now?”

“Yeah. Taemin says he’s talking about running away but that he’s nowhere near going through with it.”

Poor Jungkook, desperate to gain an advantage, trapped in a community that hurt him constantly, knowing he’d never belong. “I kind of don’t blame him.”

“Why do we always hurt him?”

“I’m starting to think it’s in our nature.”

In the first year, they’d watched Jungkook pull the curtains on his windows as the sun set every night, watched him turn white and sweat when noises came from outside the house. They’d thought it was cute. They’d smiled and hugged him when he sat up in bed in the middle of the night with fear dumping down the empathetic link. How many times in the past five years had they watched him nearly die? They’d added another one just this a month ago. Was it only a matter of time?

“I thought the move would help,” Taehyung said, “but he was happier here. He shouldn’t have jumped right back into the magic community.”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “He wanted to. Kind of defeats the point of buying a house off campus. Maybe he should go live with your mom again.”

“I think he’s too magical for her now.”

“He can’t have both. Leaving us means giving up magic. I’m not sure he’s willing to do that.”

“Oh he might be.”

Jimin’s face twisted again. Taehyung flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling to give him privacy. There was one circle up there. It had a matching mark on the floor under them, a ritual for growing plants. Jimin heaved a deep sigh.

“What happens to us if he leaves?” Taehyung asked.

Dust motes floated in the sun. Jimin sounded like he was holding his breath. The dust stirred as he puffed it out into the air. “You just said. I keep teaching. You keep growing the business.”

“To us, Jimin.”

“I love you,” Jimin said. “I’m not going to stop.”

“Yeah, me too. I think. I might…”

Jimin nodded. “You might feel too betrayed and toxic to return it for a while. I know. I’m prepared for that.”

Jimin had come a long way from the boy who would sacrifice any amount of dignity for the attention of random strangers when they were young. His mother would be proud to see him now. The swamp had done a lot to each of them. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that. If he leaves, I think I’ll hate him for doing that to us.”

The house had never felt so much like a shell, a glass bottle in the mud, full of moss and sand, its labels stripped away and contents washed out, no seals blocking the world from coming in. “I hope Brandy comes back soon,” Jimin said. “I want to leave.”

“You always wanted to leave.”

“I never loved this place like you and Jungkook did.”

“He still does.”

“He introduced me to Palmela. That’s so cute. Happiest I’ve seen him in weeks.”

They lingered in silence, waiting for the sun to set. Eventually they shuffled quietly around the house, checking out the scuffs in the living room from when Jimin and Jungkook wrestled the furniture out at top speed, the holes in the kitchen floor where Jungkook dropped the chaos potion mix, the rotted spot in the table that Taehyung left when the swamp took over. Upstairs was Jungkook’s room, and then Taehyung’s and Jimin’s, all with little scraps of paper, coins, and bits of useless things that they hadn’t bothered to throw away. The library had been emptied completely. Jungkook’s heavy script was so obvious on some of the spell cards.

“He’s part of the magical dynamic of this family,” Jimin said. “There’s no getting rid of that.” He shook his head. “We have to do something. Everything will change. We can’t let this happen.”

Taehyung swallowed and shut his eyes. Jimin turned, waiting for the usual argument.

“We have to let him go if he wants to go.”

“I know,” Jimin whispered. “I know.”

 

Sometime well after nightfall, the transporter door clicked open and Jungkook jumped off the kitchen stool to meet his witches in the hallway. They’d had to drive back northeast after the sun went down and he’d been waiting in the kitchen for hours, antsy and bored. Brandy sat on Taehyung’s shoulder as cheerful as she ever was, but Jimin and Taehyung looked like they’d been slogging through the mud all day, eyes hooded with exhaustion and feet dragging on the floor.

“I got worried,” Jungkook said.

“Sorry. We should have texted,” Jimin said.

Jungkook’s greeting felt suddenly forced. He’d planned to suggest sex immediately, but didn’t know how to say it, didn’t know how to approach, felt uncomfortable with the thought of just stepping up and kissing one of them with the other watching. It had never been a problem before. That was stupid.

“Is there food?” Taehyung asked, so easily bumping their heads together.

“It’s on the stove.”

Taehyung kissed his forehead and murmured a thank you.

Jimin was leaning around the staircase. “Bubble, don’t run off. You still have to eat.”

She was inching her way up the stairs by scrabbling her claws in the carpet. “Mrrm,” she said, and kept climbing.

“I’ll bring it to you,” Jimin sighed. “Kook? Um. How are you feeling?”

“Nervous.”

“Nervous why?”

Jungkook riffled through his brain and tried to force it to tell him, but ended up shaking his head with a sigh. “I don’t know. Antsy maybe? Can we…”

Jimin frowned and stepped cautiously into his space, kissing his cheek. “Can we what?”

“Um. Eat, I guess.” He’d been about to say fuck. The fantasy of Taemin giving him orders hadn’t left his head still. He had to know if he could shake it out, or if this was just a new thing he’d be dealing with. Some sort of resentment pushed him away from the idea of sex with these two, like it wasn’t them who deserved it.

Jimin and Taehyung ate tiredly and quietly, eyes continuously flickering to Jungkook with maybe worry, maybe curiosity, maybe frustration.

“Jungkook, do you still have my sex ring?” Jimin said suddenly.

“It’s on my dresser. I got tired of my finger itching all the time.”

Jimin smirked a little. “You’re just too hot, aren’t you?”

“How do you deal with it?” Jungkook said.

“I lived in the middle of a swamp with two boyfriends. I just had them fuck me all the time,” Jimin said.

Jungkook chuckled. Now that he thought about it, the ring had mostly buzzed around Taemin. Nothing against Taemin, of course. Jungkook would have been sending the same signals his way. He didn’t say anything, his exasperation only growing.

“I haven’t had it on in a while. Can you…”

Jimin and Taehyung waited patiently. He felt his face turning red as the words dom me, got stuck behind his teeth. He never asked for that. He’d never liked that much. “It’s been a while since we fucked,” he finally said.

“You want to?” Taehyung said cautiously.

No. I just need to know. “Uh huh.”

Taehyung and Jimin looked across the kitchen table at each other, eyes wide and surprised, passing some sort of thought back and forth. “You wanna try?” Jimin said cautiously. Jungkook nodded. Jimin nodded. They finished eating quickly and quietly, and walked upstairs with hopeful smiles and a plate of dinner for Bubble. Jimin was already taking his shirt off.

Jungkook’s head felt all twisted up, like there was something distinctly wrong with this. Taehyung and Jimin didn’t look the way they used to, somehow strange and alien. All the familiar desire had slipped away. His chest burned anxiously. He’d loved that desire. How had Taehyung and Jimin gotten to look so bland so fast? Just a month ago he’d thought Taehyung was the prettiest person in the world.

“Kook, you wanna top?” Taehyung asked, fingers dripping before he’d even gotten his pants all the way off.

“I—no, actually. Well…I’ll take middle.” He felt weirdly bare without a shirt on. Initiating any action seemed impossible. Jimin unbuckled his pants, small, familiar hands, and Jungkook relaxed a little, relaxed enough to climb onto the bed and pin Jimin’s beautiful body to his blankets. That felt better. Jimin got his thumbs against Jungkook’s nipples, Taehyung’s hands on his butt. His dick began to swell.

“You okay?” Taehyung asked. Jungkook felt hair brush his shoulder, and then a kiss to the back of his neck.

“Weird day,” Jungkook said. “I need…like…a distraction I guess. Something normal.”

Jimin spread his legs and waited patiently while Taehyung got around to lubing him up, weirdly clinical. He was hard yet, and looked like he didn’t care. “Hard and fast?” Taehyung asked. “Soft and slow?”

Just get it over with. “Whichever,” Jungkook said. “Take charge.”

Jimin turned over on his stomach with his ass up in the air, and Taehyung put two fingers to his hole. He stretched open so easily, so comfortably, that Jungkook slid into him to the hilt before Taehyung got around to working a finger into his ass.

“Relax,” Taehyung murmured against his back. “You can do this. There you go.”

Jungkook gasped. He fumbled to reach around Jimin and tug him to hardness, fitting his whole little cock in a palm. Jimin moaned happily and wiggled back.

“Nggah!”

“You okay, baby?”

“I’m—ah!”

Taehyung drew his fingers out a little. “Kook.”

“I’m okay!” Taehyung pushed back into him, heat around and heat inside. It really had been awhile. The oversensitivity from earlier in the day came back with a force and Jungkook bucked without meaning to. Jimin giggled softly.

“Been missing this?”

“Uh huh.”

“Needy boy,” Taehyung murmured. Jungkook had never been into that before, being gently mocked and played with, but it struck just right. He felt a little drunk.

“Now. Do it,” he said.

Taehyung teased, lining up slowly and just pressing the tip of his dick against his hole for a few seconds. Jungkook whined and jerked back. Jimin chuckled underneath him. Taehyung sunk in and Jungkook rocked forward with him, filling Jimin back up. They’d gotten to be masters at the position, stacking just right so everyone got a good angle. Even if Jungkook couldn’t read them, this was muscle memory.

The image of Taemin under him popped into Jungkook’s mind. He forced his eyes open, saw that the back of Jimin’s head looked a little like Taemin’s if he let his vision go soft. He blinked it away, flushing, so grateful that they couldn’t feel his head now. Taehyung was whispering something sweet and soft, thrusting gently in, and now Jungkook was imagining Taemin there too, behind him with his hands on his hips, giving orders and telling him how easy he was.

“Oh!” he gasped. Had his brain gotten so used to being open to more than one lover that he wanted another? He shook his head. Where was this coming from? Jimin’s beautiful little shoulders lay directly under him, the flat angles of his back and waist. Taehyung’s big hands pulled him back by the hips. Something about the image of Taemin had his dick trembling.

“Oh fuck, it’s been awhile,” Jimin said.

“Harder,” Jungkook hissed.

“Our baby,” Taehyung murmured, and Jungkook knew he was talking about him, not Jimin. It rankled a little, but not enough to open his mouth and say something with a dick building up speed inside him, jamming against his walls.

He could imagine Taemin holding him there exactly like this, bent over with his lips at his back, murmuring something about how he loved it. “Tae—” he said, and stopped himself. Taehyung didn’t falter at all. Jungkook grit his teeth.

Below him, Jimin squirmed against Jungkook’s limp hand, rubbing his sticky precome all over his fingers. Jungkook tightened them suddenly and Jimin’s whole body stiffened. His passage squeezed wonderfully, and Jungkook forced forward.

What about Taemin under him? Would he make noise? Would he tease? Would he blush? Jimin arched his back with a sigh and turned his head back for a kiss and guilt pored through Jungkook so hard that he fumbled and kissed the side of Jimin’s nose. Jimin laughed it off. Jungkook flinched. His arousal felt like it had been turned off at the source. He closed his eyes.

There was Taemin again in his mind’s eye, so soft and graceful, so elegant. “More, Jungkook,” Taemin gasped in his mind’s eye, and Jungkook picked up to a pace that had Jimin squirming and whimpering out little noises with every push.

“Gonna—” Jimin said.

“Already?”

“Tae, shut up, it’s been so long. Kook’s been on my dick this whole ti—nnh.”

Jungkook fucked down harder and felt Jimin shudder a couple times, a deep, labored tensing. He sped up his hand, focusing on the head, and Jimin pulsed enthusiastically across his skin with a breathy moan.

Taehyung yanked him upright, one hand on his chest and the other pressing against his stomach till he sat fully down on Taehyung’s length, so full and hot, so weak to it. Taehyung started him bouncing and he bore down on it, struggling to keep strong and steady. Fingers pinched his nipples, probably Jimin’s, turned over and watching them, but Taehyung’s hand stopped him from stretching into them. He could only gasp and twitch.

He couldn’t stop Taemin from coming to mind again, Taemin behind him, small and slight but strong. Taemin would order him to work for it and he would. He’d do anything, and it would be his choice, not his curse.

“Kook, you look so angry,” Jimin’s giggled, cutting through the fantasy. Jungkook whined.

“He’s getting it too good,” Taehyung said right in his ear.

“T-touch.”

Taehyung’s hand wrapped lightly around his cock, holding steady for Jungkook to fuck into as he worked on Taehyung’s cock, nothing but abs working his whole body up and down.

“Fuck you,” he spit. Taehyung chuckled. “Fuck you!” he repeated, and this time he meant it, but Taehyung only pumped Jungkook’s dick long and hard, in rhythm with the cock inside him.

Jungkook saw stars, saw sudden darkness as his eyes squeezed shut with the last dregs of oxygen leaving his lungs in a punch. He hung on the edge suddenly, thighs shaking hard.

And he imagined that it was Taemin’s hand squeezing his dick, Taemin’s hand on his shoulder. He melted over the edge with delicious painful lurches, dribbling cum over Taehyung’s fingers, pulsing more and more as Taehyung continued to thrust, until Jungkook thrashed and yelled.

He was shoved off to the side in the sheets, just at the right place to have an eyeful of Jimin’s fat lips as Taehyung pushed his dick past them. Lube slid down his cheeks. Jungkook shivered at the sight of it.

And then the aftershocks ended. His dick softened slowly, even as moaning and sighing still filled the room. He lay, suddenly hollowly calm, as they finished and flopped down next to him, as they waved the mess away, as they snuggled in blissed-out silence. He felt suddenly dumb, suddenly sure of only one course of action.

“Gonna go to sleep,” Taehyung said. Jimin got up to brush his teeth.

Jungkook faked it, brain spinning, a little guilty and a little shocked. Taehyung got back and lay down in bed. Even without the link, he knew when they were both dead asleep, knew their breath and their stillness. He slipped out of bed and walked downstairs to his own bedroom.

He got dressed in the dark and drank a night-vision potion. Brandy was nowhere to be seen, so he slipped out the window and ran into the woods.

The night felt oddly warm, almost warmer than it had been during the day, a promised front coming in, maybe, spring just a week or two away. He navigated the back way around town, through an alley full of garbage cans and dim streetlights. His head rang like someone had slammed him into a brick wall. Jimin and Taehyung, his wonderful witches, his five-year boyfriends, his keepers and protectors, his captors, his tormentors. Had he caught Stockholm Syndrome? Where had all his affection gone, evaporated right out of their relationship in a matter of weeks?

He had to stop in the dark a couple times and calm his pounding heart. He swung the backpack off his bag and dug a calming potion out of one panel. His head abruptly cleared and the emotions began to sort themselves out in a calm, polite way. There was anger, there was fear. There was desperate sadness. He had loved loving them. It felt bright and safe in a way nothing else ever had. He didn’t want to let it go. But he also felt a compulsion to keep walking away.

Wickham campus let him in easily now. Either he carried enough magic on his person to be allowed in, or it had come to recognize him. He passed around the back of the shops in the darker edges. Students milled around on the streets. They milled around in the dark too, but he could see them there, and know to sneak around the edges of groups smoking blunts, and freshman blundering around just chatting in the middle of the night.

The faculty village was much better lit. He knew better than to sneak through a witch’s backyard. He trusted that there were no cameras and chose a side road.

It took a couple minutes for Taemin to answer the door, clearly just awake, and a light rain had begun to fall. His figure had Jungkook’s stomach turning, but he couldn’t stop his returning smile when Taemin looked so happy to see him. “It’s so late,” Taemin said, but invited him in. “Did you have a fight?”

“No,” Jungkook said. “We just…we were having a good time, actually, and I just, I wasn’t into it.”

“Not into a good time?” Taemin chuckled, eyes cutting with their usual startling power to Jungkook’s. “Doesn’t sound like you. I’ll put on some tea if you want to talk about it.”

Jungkook followed him into the kitchen. “We finally managed to fuck again but I couldn’t stop thinking about…”

Taemin turned slyly to him as if he knew, or expected, a smile quirking at the edge of his lips. “That’s dirty, baby. What were you thinking about?”

Baby. And Jungkook had him backed up against the fridge, sliding the magnets around. His whole head felt far away. “Have you been…did you do something to me?” he asked. Taemin’s head tilted back, eyes so wide. Jungkook’s whole being pushed back against that question. Taemin had done nothing. Taemin was perfect to him.

“But Jimin,” Taemin murmured, “Taehyung. You shouldn’t.”

“My masters?” Jungkook scoffed.

Taemin’s hands were on his chest, squeezing his shirt. His mouth was open, chin tilted up. “Kook,” he said, so soft, features so soft and perfect, eyes so fond. Jungkook leaned in to kiss him.

So strange to kiss new lips after so long, while sweat and touch still lingered on his body. Jungkook’s heart lit up with a desire he’d never felt in five years.

They broke apart, hands still clinging. Taemin had a look of wild joy in his eyes. His hand flattened against Jungkook’s chest in a sudden, abrupt moment. There was a flash of light, and Jungkook fainted.

 

Jungkook was freezing. Sunlight stabbed through his closed eyelids. He tried to lift his head and his neck lit up with pain. His throat was stretched out, head leaned way back against a hard surface. With a cough and a groan, he tipped forward. The sensation of dry mouth and stiff limbs woke him slowly. He opened his eyes.

The sun came through an attic dormer window. Plastic boxes and Christmas decorations lay around him. He had one wrist hand-cuffed to the frame of the bed he was sitting upright in, winter coat still on. His back felt spotted with bruises.

“Before you ask anything stupid, like ‘Why are you doing this,’” Taemin’s voice said softly from the corner, and there he was in his soft pajamas, curled around a cup of coffee in an old, threadbare chair, gorgeously perfect. “My family died when our non-magical servant drove the family car into a tree.” Those sharp eyes had never looked so cat-like, like a tiger watching its prey. “He was very devoted, but I never particularly liked him. We didn’t have a servant bond with him. My family has other ways. I never knew how he felt, but my parents kept complaining that he asked for too much magic. In the end, he killed them, and I’ll never know why.”

He set his coffee down on the side table with a delicate hand. Sadness had begun to pulse through Jungkook’s chest alongside brilliant, happy love. This was a man he wanted to see when he woke up in the morning. Perfect. But how horrible. How wonderful that Taemin trusted him enough to tell him. “I’m so sorry,” Jungkook said.

“I don’t like non-magical people very much,” Taemin said, “but you’re a bit of an anomaly. I like you a lot. I’m having fun. You’re so charming.” He giggled, so precious. Jungkook clung to it.

“You too.”

“Pathetic.”

Jungkook flinched.

Here they were, finally. Taemin should be on the bed, right now, fucking the life out of him. Maybe that’s where this was headed.

“I know what Jimin thinks, but I really didn’t set that cursed book on you,” Taemin said. “That was an accident.”

Of course it had been. Jungkook nodded hard. Taemin would never have hurt him on purpose.

“That book just floats around. I’d forgotten to worry about it,” Taemin said, and leaned back against the seat with his eyes closed, reverent, “but seeing you struggling and panicking, seeing you fast asleep in Jimin’s desk chair, not waking up, so helpless…” His sentence became a soft moan. “I wanted you. I decided I had to have you. You look so perfect here.”

“I—me too,” Jungkook said, brain struggling to put words together. “I want—Taemin, so much more than the other two.”

“Do you know Seokjin’s special magic?” Taemin said, every bit as soft and lovely as normal, looking like he might pull a book out and start reading, might produce a hand full of candy and feed them to him one by one. “How people fall in love with him the more they interact with him? It usually fades. That’s a natural enchantment. They’re very rare. I have one that my family has had for hundreds of years. I create thralls.”

Jungkook had no idea what that meant. He squinted.

“It’s not exactly love,” Taemin said. “It’s obsessive admiration, which I force upon you through eye contact. My family has been banned from using it on witches for centuries, but conveniently developed the servant bond just to mimic what we can do naturally.” He leveled his eyes at Jungkook and Jungkook could feel himself falling harder, spiraling faster. “So they don’t care if I use it on non-magic people. That would be hypocritical. The community has mostly forgotten about our power. It’s been centuries since they’ve seen it used.”

Jungkook could barely think through the words. Something about a servant bond? This wasn’t the servant bond. This must be better. This was love.

“I promise I’m getting somewhere with this,” Taemin said with an embarrassed little smile. “Sorry about my rambling. What this means for you, is that you don’t have to do anything I say. I don’t force you. You will do what I say because you want to. Tell me you love me.”

“I love you,” Jungkook gasped, just glad to be given the opportunity. His head spun.

“Of course you do. Now you’ll sit up here and you won’t move off that bed till I give you permission. You can be patient, right?”

Jungkook nodded quickly. Of course he could be patient for Taemin. He could hide up here and Taemin would bring him food and play games with him and read with him like he always did. He could wait.

“I’m going to get ready for work.” Taemin stood up and sauntered down the stairs, his little figure moving so beautifully. Jungkook’s eyes followed him as far as they could. He felt freer than he had ever felt. Jimin and Taehyung were far away. He’d chosen to come here.

The sun burned in his eyes. He shivered hard in the cold of the attic. Frost coated the window outside. He squished himself as tightly together as he could on the bed and laughed.

 

He stayed there till lunch, growing steadily more and more uncomfortable. The attic grew warm and he couldn’t get his coat all the way off the arm with the cuffs. He needed to pee so badly he thought he would burst.

“Have you been good?” Taemin said, eyes just poking above the attic floor.

“Yes,” Jungkook gasped. “I gotta get to a toilet right the fuck now.”

Taemin chuckled. “So cute. Hold still. I have the key.”

He unlocked Jungkook and led him to the bathroom in the master bedroom. Jungkook sat on the toilet getting everything out and feeling a little punch-drunk.

“Listen to this,” Taemin said, opening the door as soon as he heard the sink running. “I got a text from Jimin this morning. It says ‘Have you seen Jungkook? He’s not around the house.’ And I sent back, ‘I haven’t seen him. I’ll check the library.’” He looked up to smirk at Jungkook’s blank face. “And then I didn’t.” Jungkook figured he should be finding this funny.

“So they’re looking for me?”

“They think you’ve run away, because I told them yesterday you were talking about it. Jimin’s been asking me about everything you tell me. Isn’t that nosy?”

“Fuck him,” Jungkook spit.

“Oh I’d like to,” Taemin said, and Jungkook felt a roiling surge of jealousy rip through him. “Let’s get you back upstairs.”

He buckled Jungkook back into the cuffs, which Jungkook found rather fun, squirming on the bed and hoping Taemin would get on there with him. “Isn’t it Monday?” he said. “Shouldn’t we be at the library? Shouldn’t Jimin be at work?”

“Jimin is at work,” Taemin said. “I’m on my lunch break. You’re taking advantage of your flexible hours to run away from home.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook said. “Yeah I am. Will you kiss me again?”

Taemin smiled fondly. “Look at those gorgeous eyes. You’re so cute. I think I’ve said this before, but Jimin’s a collector with taste.”

“Won’t you get in trouble for having me here?” Jungkook said.

Taemin grinned. “No. I won’t.”

 

Heejin stopped by Jimin’s desk after lecture and said quietly, “Is Jungkook okay? He’s not at work today.”

Jimin had to hide his face behind a folder for a minute, sure he was being completely obvious. “He’s fine. Just staying home,” he said, dragging a smile onto his face. His chest ached like someone had cracked his chest. A broken heart. It hadn’t stopped throbbing since he and Taehyung realized that Jungkook had really vanished from the house and hadn’t gone to Taemin’s, since Brandy hadn’t been able to track him further than the stream a hundred meters off in the forest after the rain washed everything away. He hadn’t turned up for work. He hadn’t left a note. No one in town had seen him.

“I see. Well, good to hear,” Heejin said, something odd and fake about her lilting tone. She seemed on the verge of saying something, maybe to pry further. Jimin hoped she wouldn’t. “Give him my best.”

“Of course,” Jimin said, voice barely above a shaking whisper. Taehyung had skipped work to scour the town in case he had just gotten up early to get coffee, but they both knew he wasn’t. Taehyung kept muttering that they’d missed something. Jimin had watched Taehyung go pale, watched all the strength fade from his thin face. He’d been shaking with panic for hours now. Jimin could hear it every time Taehyung called him with nothing to update, just wanting to hear Jimin’s voice on the line.

Jungkook had been so weird the night before, squeezing his eyes shut in bed, shaking, not meeting anyone’s eyes, hugging himself in the kitchen, hesitating every time they talked to him. He’d faked sleep after they fucked. They’d been too worried to talk. Taemin had warned them too. They’d just let him go.

The month after Jungkook finally got the freedom they’d been waiting five years for, after they’d finally moved him out of the swamp and to a non-magical neighborhood to protect him, after structuring their futures and careers around him, after they’d worked to change themselves and adjust their world for him for five fucking years, he’d spent weeks waffling and avoiding and brushing them off. He’d just given up, and damned the men who loved him.

Jungkook didn’t trust them without the empathetic link. He’d thrown everything away. A cold fury had begun to rise in Jimin’s head, and it was the only thing keeping him from shutting down completely.

 

Taemin had been gone too long. Jungkook could hear him downstairs. Something sick and horrible was turning over and over at the edge of Jungkook’s head and he couldn’t figure out what it was. He strained against the chain. It had begun to get cold again.

Taemin finally appeared at the top of the stairs with grilled cheese sandwiches just as Jungkook pulled the coat back on, not able to get one of his arms in the sleeves this time. “If I take the cuffs off, will you stay right where you are unless I say differently?” Taemin said so sweetly.

“Yeah, of course,” Jungkook said. “Are those for me?”

“They are.”

“Your favorite food.”

“How sweet of you to remember,” Taemin said, and brushed a hand over his cheek as he handed them over. “I ran into Jimin today. He’s not really holding it together. I’d be so embarrassed if I was him. I bet he broke down in front of his class.” A brief flash of discomfort and worry snapped into Jungkook’s head, but drifted away as Taemin giggled happily. “How has your day been?”

“Long. I missed you.”

Taemin smiled. “I’ve never gotten this far with the enchantment,” he mused. “They always pushed me away before I’ve really set the hook. You just so badly want to be loved by people that you never questioned it once.” He sat on the bed, watching Jungkook gulp down his food with a proud smile on his face. “Didn’t you find it weird that you’d abruptly and irrationally fallen out of love with the other two?”

Jungkook shook his head. “The bond broke. There’s nothing tying me down and nothing is working.”

“Just fortunate timing then,” Taemin said. “You just didn’t notice. Lucky me. You must be an idiot.”

“Please kiss me again.”

Taemin shook his head. “That’s not what you’re here for.” Jungkook heart sunk. Taemin laughed at loud. “You should see your face,” he said. Jungkook felt a smile trying to return. “Poor Jungkook,” Taemin sighed. “You’re a bit less interesting like this. I can’t decide if I want to bond you to me or watch you weaken and die. You’re so pretty, Jungkook. Maybe I’ll do both.” He smiled his pretty, innocent smile, and something in Jungkook’s head clanged with wrongness and terror, but he was so pretty, so perfect. Jungkook’s Taemin, who protected him and needed him. They were meant to be together. This was perfect.

Taemin turned and left the attic again with one last piercing gaze as he walked down the stairs, pinning Jungkook’s heart to the inside of his ribs and leaving him shivering and alone.

 

Jungkook lay awake freezing until just after dawn, then fell into a restless, stiff sleep as the room finally warmed a few degrees. He woke in the afternoon with a pounding headache and a full bladder again, stomach growling, throat dry. A bedspring had left a new bruise on his ribs.

By the time Taemin arrived, he was steadily squirming. “Toilet,” he strained out.

“Good boy for holding it,” Taemin said and unlocked the cuffs. Jungkook stumbled down the stairs. He leaned on the cabinet as his vision spun and he tried not to splash everywhere. “You’re so good,” Taemin said when he came out feeling dizzy and heavy. Taemin pet his hair and he nearly fell over. “Just use it whenever you want from now on. I’ll take the cuffs off.”

“Thank you,” Jungkook groaned. Back upstairs, Taemin pushed him down on the bed and straddled his chest. Jungkook struggled to get in enough air. “I met your Taehyung today,” Taemin said. “Came snooping around the library. He’s a pretty one.”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t say much about his personality though,” Taemin said. “Couldn’t look me in the eye and kept flinching at loud noises. He started crying a couple times. I think he’s really worried you left him for good, baby.”

“I did.”

“Good for you. You gotta do what you think is best,” Taemin said, grinning mockingly. “If they’re not good for you, you leave. Now hold still while I make dinner.”

A few minutes later, he set a bowl of soup at the top of the stairs and went back to the living room to read. Jungkook sat at the top of the stairs with his empty bowl and waited impatiently for him to come back till it got so cold his lungs hurt and he retreated back to the bed.

He didn’t get any sleep that night either. Sometime in the early, early morning, black and ever colder outside, the sick, horrible feeling rose right to the surface, a standing wave of guilt, terror, and longing. He missed something more than a warm bed and a body next to him, and couldn’t figure out what. He missed Taemin, right? He needed Taemin. Taemin hadn’t kissed him again yet.

He remembered the empathetic link. How lucky he was that it was gone. Taehyung and Jimin would have found him by now if he’d still had it. Maybe Taemin would never have thought he had a chance if they were still bonded. He might never be here, living in Taemin’s house under Taemin’s care, being praised and feeling him so close.

Jungkook nearly threw up his soup and still had no idea why.

 

Taemin didn’t come check on Jungkook the next morning, but he’d started coughing. His chest wouldn’t stop shaking. He could no longer breathe through his nose. He felt damp and freezing and gross. Taemin hadn’t let him shower. Taemin hadn’t brought him breakfast. He doubled over with another hacking cough and curled into the deerskin coat. He wished he had a bigger one. When would Taemin come back? When could he go back to work? When was the last time he felt warm?

He paced the attic. On one pass by the street-facing window, he saw Brandy down on the road, looking the other way. He threw himself on the floor under the bed, crunched up in the dust bunnies. After a minute or two, he heard a questioning “Guuk?” right at the window, then some light padding over the roof, then “Guuk?” again at the other window. Then nothing. It was a long hour before he climbed back out, sorer than ever and trembling with exertion and sure that if Brandy had seen him, Taehyung would be here by now. His stomach gurgled.

In mid-afternoon, he heard the front door open suddenly. It hung open for a minute, then closed. He sat up straight, waiting for Taemin. There was some shuffling of feet on the first floor. Some cabinets tapped open and closed. Sound seemed to be coming from a couple different rooms.

He rolled under the bed again, pressing himself against the back wall. A break in? Jimin and Taehyung coming to drag him away? He needed to tell Taemin. Where had his phone gone?

The door opened. Someone pattered up the stairs. He saw little leather shoes and white socks pass under the foot of the bed, jarringly familiar and completely out of place. The person dropped to their knees. Jiwoo’s face and auburn hair appeared under the foot of the bed. They locked eyes. “Found him!” she yelled.

“No!” Jungkook yelled.

Two other pairs of feet hammered up the stairs just as Jiwoo levitated the bed off of him. He popped to his feet and ran towards the window. A desk jumped into the air in front of him.

“Taemin!” he screamed. Ice sealed around his feet. He overbalanced and sat down with a yelp. Heejin, eyes blazing, climbed over his body and pinned him to the floor, both hands on his face. He grabbed her tiny wrists. “Get off!”

“Ow!” She yelled. “Hold still! Chaewon!”

Golden webbing whipped out and wrapped around his body, pinning it to the floor. Chaewon stood with her hands raised like a puppet master. The ice crept from his feet up to his back, sealing him to the floor with a bitingly cold paste. He screamed.

Heejin was chanting over him, hands burning on his face.

“Jungkook!” He heard from downstairs, Taemin’s thin voice stretched into a yell. “Who the fuck is in my house?”

From between Heejin’s hands, Jungkook saw Jiwoo thrust her arm out. The door slammed. The crackling, squeaking sound of ice followed. “Kibum!” Jiwoo shrieked.

“Yes!” Jungkook yelled as the cat burst into his sight with his fangs bared and eyes glowing red.

Chaewon’s butterfly flapped out of her hair and a burst of colorful light flashed out like a solar flare. Kibum flopped onto the floor.

“Whoever you are, I can get you expelled for this!” Taemin yelled.

“Help!” Jungkook screamed

Viv hopped up by Jungkook’s forehead and put her paws in his hair. A burning, stretching feeling began to spread slowly from the inside of his brain to his skull. He could hardly hear over his own screaming.

“What are you doing to him! Let him go!”

The burning gained speed, whipping outwards and down through his body. Something black and glowing rose straight out of his forehead and shattered in the air.

There was abrupt silence except for Taemin shrieking threats and pounding on the door. Jungkook blinked at the ceiling as he fully processed where he was and why. He was at Taemin’s house. He’d been a prisoner for three days. Jimin and Taehyung had been looking for him. Jimin and Taehyung. Jimin and Taehyung. His wonderful witches.

The three girls leaned over him expectantly. He panted like he was coming up from underwater, feeling his brain snap back into place like an overstretched rubber band, all his affection for weird, intrusive, mysterious, terrifying little Taemin vanishing in a flash. “Holy fuck,” he croaked.

“We gotta get out of here without Taemin seeing us,” Heejin muttered.

“Let me up,” Jungkook gasped. “Let me at him.”

So the girls crouched out of view while Jungkook pounded down the stairs, yanked the door open, and punched Taemin right in the face.

 

The girls managed to get Jungkook a quarter mile into the woods before setting him on the ground and letting Chaewon go to work with the same golden webbing Jimin used to fix injuries. Jungkook fumbled in his backpack for a cold-relief potion of his own. “Jimin and Taehyung. Jimin’s in his office, right?”

“He hasn’t been there all day,” Heejin said. “I kept trying to find him and tell him what I thought was going on, but I don’t know where he lives and he’s not answering his email.”

“Home then,” Jungkook said. He wasn’t sure what there was to fix besides a few bruises, but Chaewon stayed at it a long time. Eventually she pulled back and nearly collapsed into the leaf litter of the forest. The other girls pulled her to her feet. Chuu pushed her by the ankle. They helped Jungkook too.

“You’re dangerously dehydrated,” she said. “I’ve got you working for now. We just need to get you to water soon, and I don’t think we should walk very far.”

“To the student lot!” Jiwoo said, charging off into the woods in the wrong direction. Chuu chattered at her. “Oh, sorry,” she said, turning and rushing after the penguin. Jungkook stumbled along next to them.

“Holy shit, Jimin and Taehyung. They must be…fuck. Taehyung’s probably beating himself up really bad. Jimin’s been blaming himself for weeks. Oh my god what have I done to them.”

“They can’t have given up on you that fast,” Jiwoo said.

“I’ve been treating them like I hate them for a month,” Jungkook said, hysterics creeping into his voice. “They have every reason to think I just ran off.”

Every inch of love had come right back. His attachment to them hung in his heart as surely as it had when they’d been bonded together, right there and as strong as ever. A murk had been removed, all the distrust and discomfort vanished like it had never been there. Had he really been cold-shouldering them for more than a month? He’d been forcing them away as fast as he had when he’d been a cat. And right when the most important periods of their careers picked up. Why had he ever wanted to re-enter the magical world?

“Gotta get home.”

“I have a car,” Jiwoo said. “We’re fine.”

Jiwoo’s car was the nicest car Jungkook had ever been in, sleek and silver with pristine leather seats and a glide like a hovercraft. Heejin and Chaewon piled in the back, all of them looking like superspies in their pea-coats and serious expressions. As soon as the car doors closed, he realized how bad he smelled after being locked up sick in an attic for three days. The girls gave no indication they noticed, only chattered about the legal possibility that Taemin could actually bring them to court or have them expelled.

“With my dad being who he is?” Heejin laughed. “Hell no. Not a chance.”

“Can’t you just say you were rescuing a kidnapped person?” Jungkook said.

“They won’t care,” Heejin said. “You’re non-magical.”

Jungkook stared tiredly out the front windshield. “Right. No! Keep going straight! Sorry.”

Viv hopped up into his lap and nosed along his shirt, he lifted her and gave her a small kiss. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“Happy to be of service!” Jiwoo chirped from the driver’s seat, not looking and not aware that he wasn’t talking to her. He let her have it. He’d need to give them all a more serious thank you later anyway, sometime when he smelled better.

They drove up to the yellow house in the woods and piled out of the car all at once. They made it all the way to the door before Jimin whipped it open, looking like an absolute mess in Jungkook’s favorite t-shirt and boxers. “YOU LITTLE SHIT!” he screamed, and his eyes had never been so swollen. “HOW DARE YOU FUCKING DO THAT TO US!”

Jungkook stomped right into his arms and kissed him hard on the mouth, only missing a little. Jimin struggled. Jungkook’s knees gave.

“He got kidnapped!” Jiwoo squeaked, catching him under the arms and falling with him. Her face was bright red, eyes flicking in astonishment to Jimin’s underwear. Jungkook struggled to stand without knocking her over again.

“Dehydrated,” Chaewon said, trying to haul him up.

Jimin swooped him up bridal style and carried him to the kitchen as Jungkook tried to wrap his arms as tightly as possible around his shoulders. “Holy fuck I love you,” he mumbled into Jimin’s shoulder. “I have to tell Taehyung.”

“Sh, sh,” Jimin said. Jungkook’s butt hit one of the kitchen stools. Bubble meeped and nudged his arm. “Water, water, water. Bubble, get me some super mint. Taehyung!”

Taehyung appeared at the door, hair uncombed and clothes smudged with mud. He rushed across the kitchen, banging carelessly against the island, and nearly knocked Jungkook off the stool. His breath swept hot and heavy against the top of Jungkook’s head and he shook all over.

“It was Taemin,” Jungkook said. “I should have listened to you about him.”

“He’s got a natural enchantment magic,” Heejin said, already leaning against the counter like she lived there. “A really dangerous kind. There was a whole legal drama when the school signed him on six years ago but everyone’s forgotten about it.”

“Natural enchantment,” Jimin said. “Like Seokjin?”

Heejin’s eyes popped. “Seokjin has natural enchantment?”

“Love magic,” Jiwoo gasped. “No wonder!”

“Forget I said anything.”

“Taemin can slowly bend a person’s will to his through eye contact,” Heejin said. “’Enthralling,’ them, if you will.”

“He said he creates thralls,” Jungkook said with a mouthful of Taehyung’s shirt. “I thought that was, like, a medieval thing.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Taehyung said, crushing Jungkook’s face closer to his chest.

“You can’t. You can’t touch him. I can talk to my dad, but I doubt he’ll be able to do anything with the clause excluding non-magicals from the rules. It’s supposed to be less intrusive than a servant bond anyway.”

“How did you know where he was?” Jimin asked.

Jungkook leaned out from behind Taehyung to hear the answer. Jimin had a potion in his hand immediately, something hot and restorative, probably for exhaustion or dehydration. Bubble nudged it towards his mouth with her head.

“I’ve been suspicious of him since I started going here,” Heejin said. “I mean, have you seen what he wears? He dresses like a supremacist.”

“I fuckin told you!” Jimin squealed, turning a finger on Jungkook. The dark circles and puffy eyelids made him look a little maniacal. He also hadn’t shaved in a couple days, stubble darkening his face unnaturally. Taehyung never grew facial hair anyway. Jungkook didn’t want to think about the way he looked.

“And then dad told me about his magic a few weeks ago,” Heejin said. “I figured he’d already been using his powers on Jungkook, but it seems to be the type of enchantment that gets stronger the more you’re aware that it’s happening. Jungkook just got confused and delirious and stopped being able to think critically about it.”

“I liked him more and more the more you warned me not to,” Jungkook said.

“That would be why,” Heejin said.

“Every time I felt like something was off I just wanted him more. Fuck I feel like shit. I’ve felt like shit for weeks. I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”

“You have the world’s worst self-awareness,” Jimin groaned.

Jimin’s potion tasted like the most delicious peppermint tea and he melted back into a puddle. “It’s fine now. I’m home. It’s fine.”

Heejin nodded. “I got really worried when Jungkook told me to stop, uh…”

Jungkook drew one quick hand across his throat to cut her off from talking about re-establishing the empathetic link. She hesitated.

“Told you to what?” Jimin asked.

“When…he said he wasn’t sure how he felt about you anymore,” Heejin said. “Which was just a few days ago. As soon as you started acting like…well, like your boyfriend had left you, I, um…I figured. I wanted to tell you, but…I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want you busting into Taemin’s house for nothing.”

Jimin made a small, pained groan. Taehyung squeezed Jungkook tighter.

“How did you even know we were dating?” Jimin said.

“I told her,” Jungkook said. “Sorry.”

“You’re also not subtle,” Heejin said.

Taehyung kissed Jungkook on the top of the head.

“We had a better chance of getting away with breaking, entering, and getting him out without getting caught than you two do,” Heejin said, “and my consequences would be less severe. Especially if it turned out he actually wasn’t there.”

“Getting expelled would be pretty severe,” Jimin said softly. “Possibly charged with some major criminal offense. Thank you all so much. I can’t believe how much you just risked for us.”

Screw smelling like shit. Jungkook stood up with a small wobble and teetered forward to give Heejin a hug. “Thank you,” he whispered. She wrapped her arms around his neck. They barely knew each other. She’d saved his life anyway.

“I’m sorry you got thrown into this,” she said.

“I was the one who wanted a job on campus,” Jungkook croaked. “Like an idiot. I’m sorry I dragged you in.”

“Sometimes non-magic people need witches to stand up for them,” she said. “You’re up against a lot here.”

Jungkook moved down the line, getting an enthusiastic hug from Jiwoo, and then to Chaewon, who looked a little overwhelmed, either from the smell or from getting to hug him, and turned a little red when he pulled away. “You should get a lot of rest,” she said. “You had a terrible cold when I found you, and you don’t look like you’ve been sleeping.”

Jungkook shook his head. “There’s no heating in that attic. He fed me once a day. I got no water.”

“Oh my god,” Jimin said. He leaned heavily against the counter.

“He said he wanted to either bond me or watch me die,” Jungkook croaked. “God, what have I been doing. I didn’t even care.”

Taehyung laughed a little and it sounded like a sob. “You’re back,” he croaked. “You’re here. I’ve been so scared.” He dissolved into quiet tears again, his Taehyung who deserved every ounce of his love and then some. He tugged Taehyung into his arms again and felt Jimin snuggle up against his back with a tired little sigh.

Over Jimin’s shoulder, Jungkook saw Jiwoo make a “Let’s go,” motion with her head, and they began gathering their stuff. “We’ll see you in class tomorrow,” Heejin said to Jimin. They vacated the house with last sunny waves from three girls and three familiars.

Jimin piled them into the massive bathtub in his room, two in the tub and Taehyung on the edge, washing Jungkook’s hair for him and scrubbing his skin clean. Bubble stood off to the side and patted at the bath bubbles with her tiny paws. “Don’t fall in there,” Taehyung said. “You’d blend right in. We’d never be able to find you.” Jungkook sat back against Jimin’s firm chest and let euphoric satisfaction and the basic joy of living reintroduce themselves to his mind. This felt right. This felt so much better.

They piled into Jimin’s bed with a giant tray of Chinese take-out. Brandy stood guard at the foot of the bed and Bubble stood guard over the food. Jungkook had stopped admiring the wooden ceilings and elegant furniture weeks ago. He’d spent the first two months in a wonderful new place getting forced further and further away from enjoying it the way he should have. Halfway through the first eggroll, tears started rolling down his cheeks.

“Too hot?” Taehyung deadpanned.

“I actually wanted to be in that attic,” Jungkook said. “I thought I loved him. I fucking liked that attic more than you two for three fucking days. What the hell? That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever felt and I didn’t care!”

“You do love us, right?”

“Yes!”

Taehyung flopped down on the mattress with an empty chuckle. He squished himself against Jungkook’s leg and sniffled.

“It’s been a month,” Jungkook said weakly. “I’ve been falling for him for over a month. He nearly ended my fucking life.”

“Shh,” Jimin said. “You’re back now.”

Jungkook kept crying. “I thought you two were being cold! I kept wondering if I’d only loved you because that made the bond easier.”

Jimin sniffed beside him and buried his face in the pillow.

“And none of that’s true! I’m so happy here! I’m so happy wherever you are! And it took your potions students to fix things. What were we doing? How did we not figure that out? Why are we so critically bad at fucking talking?”

“Shh,” Jimin said again. He wrapped an arm around his waist. “You’re back now. You’re back. We’re going to make this work.”

“It works already,” Jungkook said, a little garbled around his egg roll. Bubble hopped onto his lap to catch crumbs and he broke off a little piece for her. “Really. Nothing is wrong with this relationship now. Nothing.”

“I don’t know,” Taehyung said. “Bubble sometimes spits her food up on the kitchen floor and doesn’t tell anyone.”

“She’s a nervous eater,” Jimin said, sitting up and swatting him.

“And Jimin hits me,” Taehyung said, nodding contemplatively. “Look at that.”

“And we still don’t take great care of you.”

“Room for improvement,” Jungkook said. “I love you both. Oh god, what if he comes back?”

He couldn’t fall asleep for a while that night, laying in the dark with Jimin and Taehyung both also sleepless beside him. Every once in a while they’d started murmuring to each other, sweet little words of happiness or worry, just reveling in the wonderful fact that, against all odds, here they were again, alive and together.

“We’re not going to be involved in whatever happens to Taemin,” Jimin said finally. “Taehyung and I really weren’t involved and Jungkook isn’t relevant to our courts of law. It’s all on the girls.”

“I feel bad for doing that to them,” Jungkook said.

“People want you alive, Kook,” Taehyung said. “Suck it up and deal with it.”

“I’m a cute non-magical human. Everyone’s pet.” There was a tense pause. “That was a downer. Sorry guys.”

“The cutest pet,” Taehyung said. Jungkook snorted.

Eventually Jimin insisted on letting Jungkook sleep, and Bubble took over, purring steadily until each of them had drifted off. There’d be plenty to stress about when the sun came up.

 

Jimin decided, after much thought, not to give the girls automatic perfect grades in his course since that would be academic dishonesty. He did, however, invite them to the second housewarming party with their friends to celebrate the fact that Jungkook was still alive and mentally back in the game. The three hosts, the three girls, Namjoon and Seokjin, Yoongi, and Hoseok all gathered around the kitchen island as Jimin impressed his students with his abilities as a chef and Jungkook stood awkwardly in the way, not sure how to interact with the girls he still knew very little but owed very much. Viv hopped into his hands and Chuu kept dipping her beak into his water while their witches smiled indulgently and Chaewon glanced nervously at her inactive butterfly. Kahn stood up to nearly seven feet in height and gave him a very furry, very intimidating hug.

“Do you still have library privileges?” Jungkook asked the girls. They all grinned and shook their heads.

“We don’t go there unless we have to,” Chaewon said. “We’ve made a new study space in the greenhouse.”

“Unfortunately,” Jiwoo said, “We have to go there a lot. It’s the library after all.”

“You should have seen Taemin’s face last week!” Chaewon said. “He’s got no potion bruise cream. His whole eye was so purple. You hit hard.”

Jungkook blushed. He so rarely got to punch things.

“He can’t prove it’s us,” Heejin said. “Unfortunately, that means we can’t even attempt to prosecute him, but Dad’s thinking it through. We’ll get back to you on that soon. Taemin is, however, leveling all the power he does have against us through gossiping with our professors about what little shits we are.”

“And none of them believe him!” Jiwoo said. “It’s excellent.” She took a sassy sip of her sparkling grape juice.

“I don’t serve him in my bakery anymore,” Seokjin said, looking very pleased with himself. “I got to show him the door a couple days ago. He looked really pissed.”

“I was there,” Namjoon said. “Can confirm.”

Jimin spoke over them to the girls. “You guys are welcome to check our library for anything you need before you try the school’s library. It’s tiny, but we have a lot of stuff on medical magic and potions.”

All three girls looked wholly delighted. Taehyung led them up the stairs to see it and Jungkook watched them staring around as they went, picking out the protective spells hiding in the corners and the rare magical plants set out on side tables.

Jungkook had found himself flinching around witches again, growing quiet in big gatherings like this. “Don’t worry about me,” he told Jimin during a quiet moment as Jimin rested his chin on his shoulder and squeezed bracingly. “I’ll get over it again soon.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

Across the room, Hoseok pulled an actual giant spider out of Seokjin’s back pocket and scared the crap out of him. “Really wouldn’t blame you,” Jimin said.

Dinner was some kind of ridiculous witch dish that involved puff pastry and curry shrimp frozen in unlikely fantastic shapes. The girls giggled and bounced in their seats, laughing at inside jokes and serving each other. Jiwoo dumped a whole plate of food on Chaewon and cleaned it off with an expert poof, and then all three of them turned bright red and hid laughter behind their hair for the next ten minutes. Viv stole food. Chuu put her flippers on her hips and looked disapproving.

Heejin pulled him aside before the end of the evening. “I’ve been doing some research on you empathetic link spell.”

“You have?” Jungkook said. “You don’t have to, you know. You’ve already done a lot.”

She breezed right over that. “I found some friends to help out. We’re coming at it from a completely different angle but we’ve reached a sticking point. I need an eyelash from all three of you.”

Taehyung was drunk and didn’t even twitch when Jungkook tugged lightly at his eyelashes. Jimin was a little confused, but Jungkook brushed it off by saying he had some fluff there. He delivered all three to Heejin where she had a set of contact cases waited for him. “Perfect,” she muttered. “No idea if this will work. I’ll get back to you.”

The party ended shortly after Kahn and Yoongi started singing a duet. Taehyung drove the girls back to their dorm. Jungkook leaned on Jimin’s shoulder and softly tried to send warmth over the empathetic link that didn’t exist anymore. Jimin smiled like he got it.

 

After Jungkook’s first small shipment of tea to the spiritual healing shop sold out in a few days, he began to design a new line of Kim and Park Botanicals that could be sold as teas. He didn’t expect it to get very big. This would entail a whole mess of paperwork and taxes to the normal person government, especially if it got big. He hoped it didn’t, but what the hell. He was stuck at home again. He could make tea for days.

After cleaning up the recipe for the sleep tea and planting enough little baby plants out in the greenhouse to make up for the new demand, he found a recipe in one of Jimin’s mother’s books for a menstrual pain potion that could be made with magical berries that were almost cranberries. A cranberry tea. Taehyung bought him a machine to package it.

“Here’s one for constipation,” he’d said when he presented his rough business plan to Taehyung as the company owner, putting recipes down on the desk. “Here’s one for upset stomach with that magical ginger. Here’s one for hay fever. This one is for menopause. Most of these are nearly identical to stuff that’s already on the shelves, except I’ll be using strains with small magical concentrations, so they’ll just work a little better than what non-magical people are used to. I had Heejin look over the legal stuff and she says it’s foolproof.”

Taehyung tilted his lens-less glasses down with a stern expression. “Perfect. Where do I sign?”

As Jungkook cleaned up the scattering of papers that had been his presentation, Taehyung said, “We may want to go for a rebrand. KJP Botanicals sounds cooler than ‘Kim and Park,’ you know? Put that ‘Jeon’ in the middle.”

And just like that, Jungkook had a job.

 

The trees had just come into leaf, budding green in the warming air. Jungkook spent long afternoons alone at home, out doing yardwork like he used to with Owen and stomping through the greenhouse with baby plants and a watering can. Spring came gently here, azaleas springing up at the edge of the woods. Jungkook walked into town, bought a bunch of flower seeds, and started planting them all over the yard with a sprinkling of magical fertilizer.

One afternoon, Jimin poked his head out of the back of the house to find Jungkook aggressively nailing a garden box together. “Honey, I brought a guest home for you.”

Wheein stood in their living room, arms crossed tightly in front of her chest. “Sorry,” she said first thing, not really looking at him. “Thanks for helping me with, ya know. Um. Sorry.”

He absently rubbed the sweat off his face with a t-shirt while he tried to figure out an answer.

“Kook!” Jimin barked. “Shirt!”

Jungkook glanced down at how far up his stomach his shirt had ridden and dropped it. “Sorry,” he muttered, flushing.

“No need to apologize,” Wheein said, bobbing around awkwardly with her eyebrows raised. “More than fine.”

“I’ll say,” Jimin said, and then got on with it before things got any more uncomfortable. “Wheein would like it if you taught her more of your potion tricks. She’s one of the best students in the class and she’s lagging behind.”

“Tutoring?” Jungkook said. “I can do that.”

Wheein took a deep, uncertain breath like she didn’t know how to respond to a yes and couldn’t believe he’d still willingly associate with her. “Okay, thanks. Yeah. Um.”

“Wanna start now since you came all the way down here?”

“Sure!”

“I’ll go finish the planter box,” Jimin said.

The first afternoon in the basement was uncomfortable, sticky with sweat as he was and as nervous as Wheein seemed. He had no idea how to teach, so they made potions, he explained the steps as best as he could, and she took notes. “I hope that helps,” he said.

“Better than nothing,” she said, looking like she could not imagine her scribbled pages of confused notes ever amounting to anything. “Jimin says the next book he puts out will help.”

Jungkook sent her off with the theory books he’d learned from and went out to find Jimin burning magic circles into the sides of the garden box. “Good lesson?” he asked.

“Think so. That’s gonna be…yeah. I guess I’ll have fun with that.”

Jimin sat back with a deep sigh and a small smile. He handed the hammer back to Jungkook but stayed there kneeling in the dirt, already a little sweaty. “I haven’t stopped feeling bad about that,” he said, “and you can’t come back on campus to see her, so good. That’s good. Let’s go have dinner.” Jungkook watched the always beautiful process of Jimin sweeping the sweat from his body, drying off his skin and hair and leaving it fluffy and soft, cheeks red.

The evening sun glinted through the spring trees and filtered through the kitchen window a little greener than it had all winter, lighting up the countertop and dishware. Taehyung had dinner half prepared already, something simple all thrown in a pot together and smelling strongly of rosemary. Brandy slept across his shoulders like a boa. “You’re sending your first shipment of tea out to the healing shop tomorrow, right?” Taehyung said.

Jungkook nodded. It took a minute for Taehyung to remember he couldn’t feel the affirmative in his head and turned to check. “Cool. I’ve just hired a new manager to deal with orders so I don’t have to,” he flashed them a smile. “I’m free! Kind of.”

“We can actually talk to you on weekends now? That’s wonderful, honey,” Jimin said. He was trying to fit Bubble in an extra-large mug, phone in hand for photos. She peeped up at him expectantly. Taehyung giggled. “That’s job enough for you then?” Jimin asked.

It took a minute for Jungkook to remember where the conversation had begun. “Yeah, I think that’ll keep me busy.”

“You won’t mind staying in the house?” Taehyung asked. “You can have more involvement in the magical side of the business too, if you want. I can probably give you a position now that we have two incomes.”

“I think I shouldn’t.”

Taehyung turned around from the stove and pouted at him, long eyelashes catching in the light. The food in the pot stirred itself.

“I think I’m done trying to work with magic.” He’d tried his best to forge a place in the community alongside his men. As bitterly as he’d wanted it, that had to stop. “No more swamp for me.”

“You’ll be fine staying home all day?” Taehyung asked.

“Uh huh. Maybe I’ll look for a part-time job again.”

Jimin’s arms snaked around him from behind. “I’m gonna miss you at work, baby.”

“I miss you at work already,” Taehyung said. “But, you know, we’ve all wanted alone time for years. We’ve got it now.”

Jimin’s presence at his back still felt strangely cut off without the intensifying pressure of the link, but it had begun to get a little lost in the normal feeling of his warmth, the press of pendants against Jungkook’s back and the smell of Jimin’s hair as he rested his head on Jungkook’s shoulder. “I love you, babydoll, but I’m never going back on that campus again.”

 

All the same, Heejin met Jungkook at the archway onto Wickham campus at ten in the morning a few days later and led him in, making sure he had his sunglasses and hood. She drew something on his forehead with an eyeliner pencil and stood back, squinting. “You’re the spitting image of my younger cousin now,” she said. “It’s weird.”

“I’ll take it,” Jungkook said. The air blurred a little at the edge of his vision like he was looking through a one-way veil.

“Don’t turn your head too fast. I’m bad at illusion spells.” She pointed them down a path right around the center of campus, but gave the library a wide berth. All the magnificent trees bloomed with pink flowers and vivid green leaves. Bright grass poked through the dead, brown stuff across the quad. Students walked around in lace-up jeans and crop tops instead of heavy coats and high socks. Familiars chased each other across the quad and fluttered through the trees. Jungkook almost regretted that he wouldn’t be going there again.

There was a forge on campus. The big, low room opened right up into the air where students pounded away at anvils with hammers that winked with jewels like an elven fantasy workshop. He walked around the back way behind Heejin, around the abnormally large witches with tattoos spiraling around their bare forearms, handling red-hot metal with their bare hands.

They didn’t stop, striding right through the door into a rather large building, up a set of marble stairs carved with scenes of witches at work on various crafts, and into a large studio with arched windows, low, flat tables and many bright desk lights. Jewelry lay across every surface. Two blond girls with more sparkling silver on their bodies than Jimin ever did looked up from where one was linking together a charm bracelet. Heejin shut the door behind them.

“Heejin, is that—he looks just like your cousin,” the nearest girl said, and dropped the bracelet. A delicately carved magic circle tinkled on every link. Her owl familiar startled from the back of her seat and flapped onto a nearby shelf.

“Illusion spell,” Heejin said. “Hold on.” She started scrubbing at Jungkook’s forehead with a tissue. “Crap, I think this is the smudge-proof brand. Hold on.” She dug around in her bag and came up with a little spray bottle make of glass and gold and squirted it right onto his head. “Sorry,” she said when he flinched. “Just makeup remover. Jimin taught us a recipe.”

When he opened his eyes, the girls’ mouths hung open as they stared at his face. “Well okay,” the taller one muttered. A small beta fish floated through the air by her head, mouth also gaping at him. “Damn, professor Jimin. Nice. Um.”

Heejin handed Viv to Jungkook. “She missed you.”

“Miss you too,” Jungkook said, holding the familiar little rabbit close to his face to snuggle into her fur. Walking around campus without Jimin or Taemin at his side had felt unnatural and dangerous, even though he was looking over his shoulder for both of them. The bunny soothed him.

“This is Jungeun and Jinsoul has the fish, jewelry majors. They’ve been helping me with the craft portion of this.”

“More Koreans, huh?”

“There are quite a lot, aren’t there?” Heejin said. “Gotta band together I guess. We finished the project a couple days ago, but we still weren’t sure if you should be coming onto campus or not. Oh here’s Haseul.”

The lock clicked open and a shorter girl with a beautiful face came in, a little white bird fluttering in with her. “Hello. How’s, um. Hi.” She got a good look at Jungkook’s face and ground to a halt on the floor. Jungkook didn’t need a sex ring to know how she felt. “Uh.”

“She’s a half breed too,” Heejin said. “Her dad was a bonded servant. She knows a lot about bonding magic, so I got her to help.”

“You brought in a lot of people,” Jungkook said.

“Yeah, well.”

“Thank you, I mean. Um. I don’t mind. Thank you for doing this.”

“It was fun!” Haseul said, regaining her initiative. “I learned a lot of cool magic! It helped me out on a test yesterday!”

“Not me,” Jungeun groaned. “I’m so behind and these were so hard to finesse the spells into.” She saw Jungkook’s face fall. “Fun though! Definitely the coolest project I’ve worked on in a while. And the most relevant to everyday life. God, the spells they make me create in class. They have literally no reason to exist except to make me mad.”

Jinsoul giggled and wacked her arm.

“Sorry. Should I get the box?”

At Heejin’s nod, Jungeun slid a drawer under her desk open and pulled out a small blue velvet box. She lifted the lid and set it on the table. Inside were three small golden rings, each etched with the tiny, tiny lines of a three-dimensional magic circle. Runes sat at four points on the inside. At the very top, each ring had an emerald, all cut in sparkling ovals.

“The eyelashes are set at the base of each stone,” Jinsoul said, voice too loud in the quiet room as Jungkook stared at the beautiful jewels. “Emeralds are the stones of intuition. They open the mind. The eyelashes have had plenty of magic put in them by Haseul, and Heejin designed the circles and runes.”

“When you put them on,” Heejin said, her deep voice cutting through powerfully, “you will have an effect pretty close to the empathetic link of the servant bond, though it might be a little weaker and colored with the influence of the emeralds. When any person takes their ring off, they’re removed from the link till they put it back on.”

“And it’s only temporary,” Heejin said. “It relies on the eyelashes lasting, and while they’re pretty safe in there, they will degrade over time.”

“That’s fine,” Jungkook said. “It’s a crutch for now. Eventually we won’t need it.” He picked up the box gently and stared at the three rings there in the cushion. All lined up perfectly. “It doesn’t matter which ones we put on?”

“The initials are under the stone,” Jungeun said.

Jungkook tilted the box up and saw JJ, TK, and JP under each of the emeralds. “Wow,” he murmured. “How much did these cost you to make?”

“We used student supplies,” Jungeun said, shrugging. “Don’t tell anyone.”

He slipped his out of the box and slid it onto his left ring finger. It adjusted size to his finger with a little glow, and then settled. A little mark vanished from the gold on the outside and he knew it wouldn’t readjust again.

“That’s the marriage finger,” Jungeun said with a little snicker.

“Is it?” he said, still staring at the little emerald and wanted to get the other two rings home right now to feel someone inside his mind again. The girls giggled and nudged each other in his peripherals. Viv, still clinging awkwardly to his shoulder, gave his ear a little nibble to ask for more pets.

“Did Jimin tell you what’s been going on?” Heejin said.

Jungkook finally looked up. “What? About…Wheein?”

“What about Wheein?” she said, frowning. “She’s not giving you a hard time again, is she?”

“No, no. I’m tutoring her now,” Jungkook said.

“Oh. No, not that. Word got out about what Taemin did to you. Not to the students, but the professors know that Taemin took Professor Jimin’s pet human and played with him. Not my phrasing by the way.”

Jungkook swallowed hard. “And?”

She shrugged. “Nothing of course. Some professors thought it was funny. Some were disgusted. I figured Jimin wouldn’t tell you because he probably has to deal with a lot of flack from coworkers, but I think you need to know. I insisted on disguising you for a reason. My dad is trying to get Taemin put through a hearing, but…” she shook her head. “There’s no solid evidence except the testimony of me, Jiwoo, and Chaewon, and that’d get us kicked out of school. Even so, he’s not sure he’d win. The only thing it can hurt is his reputation.”

Jungkook fiddled with the ring on his finger. The girls all stood around looking solemn. “My parents wrote the school an angry letter,” Haseul said softly. “They say that man shouldn’t be allowed to work with students after showing he’ll use clearly evil magic on someone our age, but you’re not a student or a witch. I hope it’ll at least show them it’s making the school look bad.”

Jungkook took of his ring and put it back in the box, then stood there holding it and staring down at it till his vision unfocussed. He had a pitching feeling from the fact that his life meant nothing to many of the people on campus, and that someone who almost killed him would face no punishment. He could imagine Taemin in his library now, pacing around with smug satisfaction as all his favorite students sat around him, knowing he was untouchable.

This could hurt Jimin’s reputation as much as Taemin’s. Jimin was so cheerful at home and hadn’t told Jungkook. Clearly he didn’t think they needed to care. Jimin had put all his hopes in this job though. “Thanks for telling me,” Jungkook said. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“It’s mostly a warning to never feel like you can come onto campus unprotected,” Heejin said. “It sucks, but that’s the reality.”

“I’m right back in the swamp,” he said, which didn’t make any sense to the girls, who agreed hesitantly, giving each other tiny shrugs. “I guess that’s fine. I don’t really want to come back. I don’t really want to be here.”

“Sorry,” Heejin grunted.

“This is worth it,” Jungkook said, clutching the rings. “I feel like I’m about to go home and propose.”

Lots of happy giggling. Viv poked her little nose under his chin, sniffing.

As Heejin led him back across campus, eyeliner circle on his forehead again, Jungkook caught sight of a slight, blond figure walking out of the restaurant in distinctive draped black. He felt a little chill down his spine, a blank emptiness of feeling where there used to be admiration and affection, the certainty of friendship. Kibum trotted beside him on one side, and that student from way back, Clayton, walked on the other. Jungkook figured he probably should have talked to that kid while he had the chance.

Kibum stopped and turned suddenly, sniffing the air.

“Go go go,” Jungkook hissed, speed-walking down the street towards the archway.

“Huh?” Heejin said, looking behind. “Oh. He can’t recognize you now.”

“Kibum,” Jungkook hissed, getting close to running. Heejin hurried to keep up, lagging a little behind.

“They’re both walking away right now. He’s not going to come after you. Really, you don’t have to worry.”

“He totally will,” Jungkook said.

“He totally won’t. He’s so freaking scared of Jimin. He’s not going to go near you again.”

Jungkook slowed a little. Taemin had gone out of his way multiple times to say how powerful Jimin was. “What makes you think so?”

Heejin smirked. “Dad says he’s seem them in faculty meetings. Jimin stares at him and Taemin gets so white and fidgety. Jimin makes a point of disagreeing with everything he says and Taemin can’t even argue with him.”

“Good,” Jungkook said, and headed for the gate feeling a little vindicated.

 

“Down to the swamp?” Jungkook asked, peeling his head off the pillow. Taehyung had a glass of water in hand, hair still in his face and sweat still shining on his shoulders, walking with a little bit of a limp from how hard Jungkook had just fucked him. Taehyung had kept asking for more, verbally, even though that seemed to make him uncomfortable, so Jungkook had kept going harder. Now Jimin was laughing at both of them as Taehyung limped and Jungkook lay on the bed in a sweaty heap and tried to catch his breath. Jimin could have fixed it in a moment if he chose to, but they didn’t mind feeling it a bit afterwards. He could heal it later when it felt annoying instead of satisfying.

Jungkook still hadn’t cum. Even going at full speed, it hadn’t been enough without feeling two other inputs of pleasure. Jimin hadn’t either. He’d kept pushing Taehyung away and giggling when he made his dumb sex faces. Taehyung said he needed a break though, and even though they whined, he’d stopped everything and gotten a glass of water.

“Not just the swamp. It’ll be spring break,” Taehyung said. “I know you miss it, so I thought we could go. You know. You can visit the greenhouses and pick up some plants. We’ll go to the beach in Savannah. And we can drive down to the swamp one day if you want to.”

Jungkook sat up slowly, arms protesting. Palmela’s gentle woodsy smells had been making him homesick. “That sounds great. Yeah. I can do that. Jimin?”

Jimin groaned. “Swamp again?”

“Greenhouse,” Taehyung said.

“Beach. Owen.”

“Okay,” Jimin said rolling dramatically onto his back. “It’s not the worst vacation idea ever I guess.” His body curved in little mounds and plateaus down to the rune in his flat belly, the V that arched to his hips, his plump, spread thighs. Jungkook grabbed him by the leg and pulled him roughly closer.

“You two just finish that up,” Taehyung said, lying on the end of the bed. “And let me know if you need help.”

“Probably will,” Jungkook said. Jimin climbed on top and sat on his cock with an easy jerk that had Jungkook’s back arching up and his breath short.

“Sen-sensitive.”

“Oh are you?” Jimin crooned. His small hand trailed slowly up the center of his stomach and chest, the nearly continuously line through all his muscles to his collar. “Wonder why? How’s this feel?” He rolled his hips slowly forward and back and Jungkook sighed. Jimin’s little cock bobbed against the smooth plane between his hips, balls squishy in Jungkook’s pubic hair.

The rocking started another steady pleasure that must have been way too light for Jimin but was just enough of Jungkook’s overworked cock to pull him to the edge within a few minutes, just Jimin’s rolling hips and soft moans, Taehyung with his fingers in himself at the end of the bed. Jungkook felt a little out of his head. Eventually Jungkook came wetly into Jimin’s ass and felt the slippery mess drip out and down his skin. Jimin pulled off slowly and it motioned Taehyung closer.

Jungkook jolted as Taehyung’s hair suddenly jammed right into his ass as he shoved it between Jimin’s legs. He backed up quickly and watched Taehyung pull Jimin’s dripping butt down onto his open mouth. A little light hovered in the air above Jimin’s cock. As it sank in, Jungkook’s breath caught, shivering with oversensitivity. Jimin seized up, pulling away from Taehyung’s mouth in reflex till Taehyung wrapped firmer hands around his thighs and held him still.

Jimin swayed, one hand in Taehyung’s hair and the other searching for a support. Jungkook could almost tell where the ball was in Jimin’s cock from the way it jerked when it passed the sensitive spot right under the head. Precum dribbled steadily out.

Taehyung had managed to shove one long finger into Jimin beside his tongue, searching steadily along the walls, and Jungkook’s body flushed hot again. He reached forward and caught Jimin’s support arm as it slid down his sweaty thigh, letting him hold on. “ahh…ahh Tae, oh—

The ball finally found Jimin’s prostate from the inside, just the lightest stimulation on a secret spot that could barely handle it. He lurched forward, breath hard and loud in his throat. Jungkook caught him by the shoulder and held him up so he could watch, see Jimin’s head tip back when he arched, every tendon between his ass and neck stretched in pleasure. In the instant that Jimin’s breath stopped coming and his eyebrows screwed tight in bliss, Jungkook ducked down and sucked Jimin’s cock into his mouth.

Jimin yelled. Cum burst over Jungkook’s tongue. Jimin’s little cock thrust forward with a choking force that Jungkook could barely hold onto, and then he ripped away just fast enough to catch Jimin as he collapsed.

“Nearly smothered me,” Taehyung grumbled. Jungkook struggled to lie Jimin down slowly and accidentally spit a trail of cum onto his own chin. Taehyung giggled at him.

Since Jimin was barely verbal, Taehyung and Jungkook cleaned up the old fashioned way, dragging a cold wet cloth over their faces and crotches. Taehyung threw Jimin’s legs open and started fishing Jungkook’s jizz out of his ass.

“There’s, um, cum and lube in your hair,” Jungkook said to Taehyung.

“Neck too,” he said. “Fuck. Gonna have to shower.”

They pulled up a full bath and Jungkook carried Jimin too it, even as his armband sparked and glimmered, no doubt fixing all his sore spots before they happened. Jimin was already back to giggling and kicking.

“We can do sex,” Taehyung said happily as they climbed in.

“It was fucking hard though,” Jungkook said. “Took me so long and I couldn’t help either of you.”

Taehyung pointed to himself with another adorable pout. “You got m—mph.” Jungkook smothered those pretty lips with a kiss, and stayed there, running his fingers through Taehyung’s gross hair. Taehyung’s dark eyes widened almost shyly. “You, um…you got me,” he said.

“You only came because you were fucking Jimin.”

“I mean, true, but give yourself some credit here.”

Jungkook shrugged. He was getting better. That didn’t mean he was good yet, or would be any time soon. And they’d spent a lot of the evening struggling to stay hard as they giggled at each other’s weird sounds and faces.

“We need to fuck in the cabin when we get down there,” Taehyung said. “The couch bed is still there.”

“We are not messing up my couch bed,” Jungkook said. “No way.”

“It’s already super moldy.”

“Don’t…slander…”

“We can fuck on the porch for all I care,” Jimin said. “We can fuck in the ritual room. We can fuck out on the collapsed dock with the alligators. I’m sure they won’t care.”

“Bring Owen out with us,” Taehyung said, and then snickered when both his boyfriends tried to kick him.

Jungkook sat back with his arms on the back of the tub and watched Jimin and Taehyung bicker about travel plans over his chest. Those rings sat in his potions backpack, waiting for him to find the right time. He’d been planning to present them after sex when everyone was in the best of all possible moods, but this was a new opportunity.

Jimin’s fingers traced slowly round and around his pecs, sometimes flicking his nipples to feel the way he tensed every time. Taehyung just tucked his head against Jungkook’s neck and hung onto his waist. This made him feel stronger than anything he managed to prove in the magic community. Two people loved him. He made two people happy, magic or not, and they made him happy in return. Who knows where his life would have been without them.

 

“You look like a dog,” Jimin said. “Don’t lean your head out the window.”

Jungkook had his window rolled down to smell the pine and palmetto woods, breathing in the woody spice of the air with wind whipping his hair into knots and a big grin on his face.

“Love this smell,” he said. “Missed it.”

“The woods smell?” Jimin rolled down his window too, and really did lean his head out. Bubble’s loud meeping could barely be heard over the air blowing past at fifty-five miles and hour. “Nice and familiar. I smell cypresses too.”

Soon they could smell the watery steeped-tea smells of peat and red trees, plant decay and mossy growth sitting stagnant under a sparse canopy. They’d spent the previous evening with Owen at his place in town. He’d retired just in time. Most of the cottages had fallen into disrepair suddenly over the summer with evidence of animal attacks and the presence of swamp water and grime eating away at even the tallest houses high off the ground and away from floodwaters. Owen’s successors had trouble fixing the damages before hunting season arrived.

“What in tarnation happened down at yer place? Everythins all fine and dandy now, but for a while there, it was like the fores’ was tryin to git in.”

“Don’t ever go into that property,” Jungkook said. “It probably won’t let you anyway, but don’t. Especially not at night.”

“Did sump’m chase ya’ll out?” Owen said, leaning forward in his seat.

They all nodded, probably mysteriously since that wasn’t exactly what happened but they all unanimously decided it was close enough, and Owen sat back with a hand over his beard and an alarmed look under his Stetson.

And here they were, the very next morning, turning down the road towards the dead tree, branches more blackened than ever, runes reaching further down the trunk than Jungkook remembered.

Of course it let them in. Taehyung stuck his head through the window where he’d been laying in the trunk. “We’re here.”

“Hm,” said Brandy, head squeezing in beside his so her face stretched back and made her eyes unusually wide. Jungkook snickered at their faces in the rearview mirror.

The grass in the clearing had grown way too long. Jungkook had an urge to go find that hand-push lawn mower and get to work. But the garden had grown into a beautiful mess of plants all competing for sun, a miniature jungle of magical herbs.

For a while, they didn’t go inside. The porch had begun to cave in on one side, but the rocking chairs remained, and Taehyung took his usual spot on the steps. They’d spent more time on the porch than they had in the living room when they lived here, warding off the bugs with burning herbs and enjoying the roasting heat and the shade. Bubble ran in and out through the front door carrying June bugs, and Brandy hunted slowly through the long grass around the edge of the cabin. His dreams had made this place a shadowy glen under towering trees with wind breathing through the trunks and the air sparkling and alive. He’d almost forgotten what it was really like, stumpy and short, too bright, too hot, smelling like earth, all gray moss and screaming cicadas.

“It’s funny how much I love this place,” Jungkook said, “you know, as much as I hated it.”

“Just familiarity?” Jimin asked. He lay on his back with his shirt riding up over his little tummy, watching Bubble wander in and out.

Jungkook shrugged. “I think…this is the first place I was happy. And it was scary but it was also kind of like living in a movie.”

Taehyung chuckled and nodded, and Jungkook wished he knew what he was feeling, either empathy or that little edge of bitterness he got sometimes when people brought up the non-magical world.

But the house had shrunk. Not literally, but Jungkook had gotten a little more accustomed to a bigger space, a shadier yard, the smells of emerging spring and trimmed lawn instead of the murk of swamp. He’d begun to feel what it was like for a home to be a place to relax and not a fortress. “I like the new place better,” he said.

“You mean that?” Jimin asked.

He nodded. “It’s safe.”

Taehyung and Jimin both let out audible little sighs of happiness, relieved smiles on their faces.

“I wanna say sorry,” Jungkook said suddenly, and the words came so much more easily than they had a month ago. Jimin and Taehyung looked up in confusion. “About how I acted with Taemin. I know I wasn’t thinking right, but you two were busy with your careers and trying to make things work with me. Even before Taemin had me, I think I wasn’t helping. So I’m sorry.”

Jimin sat up. “We got it at first, you know? The bond broke and we all needed to figure out our own heads, and then someone caught you and messed you up and we were too overwhelmed to know what to do. We both prioritized work, of course, because we had to, but I still feel like an idiot for not protecting you more. You might still have that job and be fine if I’d gone in there and figured things out. Or you could have had a job with the shop in town if we’d been more supportive. Honestly, Kook, I feel like shit. You don’t need to be sorry.”

“We really should have put our feet down after Taemin set the book on you,” Taehyung said. “Or forced conversation. I think all of us have forgotten how to talk about things. I keep thinking we could have helped you integrate with the community better but we just let you go and someone hurt you.”

“Taemin didn’t set the book on me,” Jungkook said.

They both stared blankly at him. “Kook, I kinda think he must have,” Jimin said.

“He said he didn’t,” Jungkook said, “like while I was captured he said he didn’t. That thing was just accidentally there, and he hadn’t cared much about me before, but I guess he got, like, a power trip seeing me struggle with it and that’s why he started targeting me.”

Jimin’s mouth dropped slowly open. Taehyung’s whole face screwed up in disgust.

“And that stuff is everywhere. If it wasn’t Taemin it would have been someone else. I can’t pretend I can be safe around witches anymore,” Jungkook said. “I should never have tried and I’m not going to try again. The more magic I get close to the more likely it is to kill me.”

Silence and reluctant nodding from his boyfriends. Taehyung scowled.

“But you’re right that we’ve forgotten how to talk. We had a relationship of forced honesty, but I think we’ve gone too far in the other direction. Honesty is what kept us together.” Jungkook took a deep breath. “For instance, Jimin, I know people at the university know what happened with me and Taemin and that you’re getting shit for it now.”

Jimin looked ready to deny it.

“Heejin told me.”

Jimin slumped and pouted. “You didn’t have to know,” he whined. “I didn’t want you to know people were just blowing it off.”

“It’s not exactly unexpected,” Jungkook said. “She wanted to make sure I knew not to come back. And you have a bad habit of keeping things to yourself so we don’t have to deal with them. Jimin, don’t let us get away with that. Tell us what you’re dealing with and make us help.”

Jimin gave him a wry smile. “Haven’t you become quite the relationship counselor.”

“I’m the worst at this,” Jungkook said, “And I’m not going to better very fast. I want to be involved again instead of waiting for you two to fix everything. So…” He pulled the velvet box out of his pocket and popped it open. “I got us something.” He leaned forward and pulled his own ring out, then passed the box to Taehyung and Jimin. They leaned forward to grab it.

“Kook,” Jimin said, urgently, “Is this…are you proposing, because that’s…um, I’m not sure we can do that. Polygamy is still illegal most places, and I’m not sure we’re ready for another change.”

“What? No. Um. No, I’m not that clueless,” he said, feeling a rush of embarrassed heat. “Just put them on. And what would even change except for taxes?”

He watched Jimin and Taehyung slowly, slowly put the rings on, and a sudden, delicate breath of Jimin entered his head, a whole wave of uncertainty and excitement, Taehyung’s ever-present curiosity. They whipped their heads up and stared at each other. Taehyung’s curiosity turned to shock and fear. He ripped the ring off. Jimin’s link turned to worry as Taehyung’s presence vanished. For a long, uneasy moment, Taehyung stared at the ring, then Jungkook, then the floorboards, before sliding his ring on again, this time pushing relief and interest into their heads. Jungkook felt his throat tighten.

“We can take the link off,” he said. “How…I thought this was impossible.”

“Magical bonds are Heejin’s specialty and she’s friends with some other skilled girls,” Jungkook said, keeping most of the wobble out of his voice. Jimin looked up, expression accompanied by so much love and happiness. “It’s just a crutch,” Jungkook said. “They’ll stop working eventually, but lets be honest, we need the help. I feel safer with this, and a bigger part of the relationship with this, and I just…I wanted to hear you both again, so…”

Jimin and Taehyung hit him at once, knocking the rocking chair back against the house with a bang. As Taehyung flopped into his lap with the smothering feeling of his affection right against Jungkook’s head. Jimin climbed over them both to kiss Jungkook’s forehead with a big wet smack. The chair felt like it might tip over at any moment, but Jungkook held still and giggled happily.

It wasn’t like the old link, thinner and weaker, filled with a different presence as if filtered through water, but he could feel the love right inside his mind again. He’d almost lost this.

Bubble clawed her way up Jungkook’s jeans, mewing excitedly for cuddles. Over Taehyung’s shoulder, Jungkook could see Brandy sitting on the railing and staring over the swamp as if guarding them. They would go home soon, and it would be perfect again, Jungkook and his beautiful witches in a magical house together.

“Thank you both,” Jungkook said quietly. “You’ve kind of made my life. Things were never going to be this good for me.” Neither seemed to know what do say, both smothering hot on top of him and clinging desperately, but he could feel their fondness and happiness in his head. “I know we’ve got problems,” he said, “but that’s fine. We can fix it or live with it.”

Cicadas kept on chirping. The loud splash of an alligator diving into the water sounded from across the clearing. Bubble purred against his chest. This felt more like his dreams, minds endlessly connected as they snuggled in the heat and haze. Crammed into a rocking chair with two men on top of him, one glittering with jewels and the other leaking wild magic into the air, felt closer to perfect than he’d ever believed he’d have. Magic runes with protection spells sat in his ears. He had a backpack full of potions and two arms full of powerful witches who loved him.

“Wanna go fuck on the couch bed?” Taehyung asked, and Jimin’s mind switched from affection to lust in a moment.

“Mrrrm,” Bubble sighed.

As Jungkook pinned Jimin to the floor of the loft and Taehyung tugged the futon off the couch to throw it on the floor, Jungkook saw Brandy and Bubble sitting together by the door, one sleek, tan lady and a little ball of fluff with their sides nearly touching, both staring out at the swamp together with a friendly calm and tails crossed over each other. And he thought the family might just be okay.

Notes:

That is, I think, the final end. Thank you for sticking with this thing till the finish.

Notes:

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