Chapter Text
It's deep into winter when the first one makes his appearance.
Yule has only recently been and gone, and now the world outside of Yoongi's house is holding its breath. Waiting for spring. Yoongi enjoys this time of year though. He enjoys the drawn-out nights by the fire and cosy, warm clothes. He enjoys bedecking the rooms of his home with winter’s jewel tones of deep emerald evergreens and shining ruby berries.
The morning of the sudden arrival begins normally enough. A sweet rumbling rouses Yoongi from sleep. He has the vaguest intuition that he might have been having a dream of some significance, but it slips away from him like water as he wakes. He feels a small, wet nose nudge its way along his cheekbone and his mouth twitches up in a drowsy smile. When he opens his own eyes to peek, a pair of large, bright yellow eyes stare back at him.
"Good morning." He greets the black cat, voice amused and still rough with sleep. The cat makes a hopeful sounding noise and Yoongi nods in answer, yawning widely; he throws back the thick winter quilt, dislodging the cat who jumps lightly to the floor and disappears through the bedroom door. As quickly as possible, Yoongi slides his feet from the chill of the morning air and into a pair of delightfully twee plaid slippers – his pyjama bottoms (which are a just few inches longer than strictly necessary) bunch across the tops of them. He stretches and shuffles across the room to peek outside, pulling back a heavy, velvet curtain that hangs across the bay window.
On the other side of the pane, the pale and cold morning sunlight is just beginning to break through the dense shadow of the trees. In another hour it will have burned off the gossamer mist that hangs softly over the forest. The ghostliest of images from his dream tugs at the edge of Yoongi's mind, but he keeps losing hold of it; he makes a mental note to place some celestite beside his bed tonight – it should help with recalling his dreams more clearly.
Wrapping a well-worn robe tightly around himself, he pads downstairs to the kitchen where the cat awaits him, his tail swishing patiently from side to side; he chirps and mews as he winds himself around the sturdy legs of the wooden table that runs the length of the room. With a groan, Yoongi bends down to scoop up the broom from where it has fallen on the floor and leans it back up against the wall beside the back door. The back door leads from the kitchen into the conservatory and it is always open, the moss-green paint of the frame charmingly cracked and peeling. Yoongi lights the stove and places a kettle of water on it to boil.
The kitchen is full to bursting with ingredients: fragrant dried herbs and flowers hang from the wooden beams of the ceiling and are pinned in neat bunches to the wide beam of the hearth; bottles of varying sizes sit lined up upon the mantlepiece, in neat lines on the shelves and glistening on the windowsills; there are larger jars here and there all labelled with the same spidery handwriting. The kitchen is not particularly bright at this time of the morning during the winter, but by midday is usually sunlit and warm – a favourite haunt of the many cats that like to frequent Yoongi's house. The wooden table is also cluttered with all manner of items - candles, dishes, vials, several pestles and mortars, and a rainbow of herb detritus – it's lovely surface barely visible beneath everything. Yoongi doesn't consider the room tidy by any means, but he knows he could find any item with ease despite the apparent disorder – and without the help of a locating charm, thank you very much.
"And what would you like this morning, hm?" Yoongi asks the cat over his shoulder, as he prepares the hearth to be lit. The cat, who has placed himself in a small circle of space atop the table, mews in suggestion and Yoongi nods. Of all the feline visitors Yoongi has, Hollyhock is the only one who has become permanent and is therefore eligible for a bit of special treatment, including but not limited to: sharing Yoongi's meals; sleeping on Yoongi's bed; excessive cuddling and a charmed collar with Yoongi's seal on it for protection.
Once the fire is lit and stoked, he fetches some sardines and some milk which he sets down in front of the cat who tucks in immediately. With his companion seen to, Yoongi goes about making himself a simple breakfast of bread (which he had baked the previous afternoon), bramble jam and black tea. As there is no room to actually sit at the table (and with most of the chairs having been dispersed throughout the house to hold piles of books or the odd lamp) he devours the hunk of bread and jam whilst leaning against the edge of it and gazes at the birds flitting about in the thorny vines of the climbing rose that hugs the kitchen window.
The house sits in a clearing in the woods. It had once been the lodge at the very edge of the large estate that owned a sizeable portion of the woodland. The manor house had long ago fallen into disrepair and now stands in ruins to the west of Yoongi's much more humble dwellings. Yoongi has lived in the house for several years, ever since the day that he had left home and with it his coven. Yoongi's decision to leave the coven behind hadn't been without its complications; he had just always known that he would leave someday. Yoongi had seen the path laid out before him and it led away from the coven; he had simply followed it.
Yoongi sighs heavily and continues to watch the birds flit from branch to branch. Hollyhock tiptoes amongst the chaos to stand beside Yoongi on the table, butting his head determinedly into the man's hip and purring loudly.
Milky ribbons of steam drift upwards from the still-hot tea resting on the table beside a messily scrawled to-do list, a silver teaspoon tinkles against the mug stirring it, seemingly by itself. Yoongi adds ‘Find celestite for bedside’ and then scratches out ‘Post Winter Flower tea order’. A light morning shower patters against the kitchen window. Hollyhock stretches luxuriously in the warmth of the flames at full roar in the fireplace. The witch taps a pencil absentmindedly against his chin and reaches for the tea.
Only seconds pass and everything changes. The shattered pieces of the mug lay scattered across the flagstone floor. Yoongi’s nerves are also in pieces, frightened witless by the crashing sound of splintered wood that had echoed through the garden. Hollyhock stands on the arm of the fireside armchair peering with intense alarm out of the window, back arched and fur on end.
“It’s alright,” Yoongi says quietly, “it can’t be anything too dangerous if it’s gotten through my barrier spells.” The cat glances at him, decidedly unsure. “Do you want to go and check?” Holly turns back to the window. “Mm. I suppose I’ll go then."
Hollyhock watches from one of the conservatory windows as Yoongi ventures out into the garden, equally disgruntled and concerned; neither witch nor cat at all appreciate the disturbance to their morning routine. Yoongi had swapped his slippers for his boots and his robe for the padded jacket that he keeps hanging by the backdoor during winter, but the chill of the morning air settles like a web across his face.
The pallid, filmy sun sits on top of the horizon of treetops, the sky a watercolour of pink and lavender. There are snowdrops in bloom beneath the fence that marks the edge of Yoongi's land. Punctuating the long white fence is the garden shed, its rough wooden walls hugged by hellebore and winter-blooming jasmine. Intuition tells Yoongi to make his way towards the shed; there is an odd aura hanging over that part of the garden that he has never seen before and it makes him cautious. He shuffles along the paved path, fuelling himself with reassurances of the protection spells he has placed on the garden.
In a blind panic, he had crashed through the back panel of the little wooden shed at the edge of Yoongi’s garden, and that’s where Yoongi finds him that morning. With the winter light threatening to pierce through the thick forest branches, he hides crouched amongst plant pots and garden tools.
Yoongi has never seen a vampire in real life before, but he knows instantly that that is exactly what he is looking at.
He’s breath-taking.
In quite a literal sense; when his lungs can resist no longer, Yoongi takes a deep, shuddering breath. And when the air finally leaves his lips, it does so in a rather confused huff. He can only stand there, at a loss, trying to work out how on earth a vampire has ended up in his garden shed.
“Hello,” The vampire says with every effort to sound cordial, “nice to meet you, my name is Seokjin. I’m sorry about your shed.” Yoongi glances down at the shards of wood on the floor and then back at Seokjin, still processing the sight in front of him. Seokjin makes Yoongi think of a piece of antique jewellery, something carefully crafted. Exquisite. But melancholy for having become dulled with dust and laden with history. “I don’t suppose you would mind inviting me in? I’m a little worried about the sunlight. I mean, I’m not about to burst into flames or anything like that, but it can make me very weak and I’m in a pretty bad state as it is.”
Yoongi can only stand there unmoving, transfixed, “Uhhhh…” Inviting a vampire into one’s house is, in general, risky business. It should not be done lightly. Of course, Yoongi knows that, unlike your average person, he would be able to banish the vampire should he develop an unfortunate taste for the witch. There are other things to consider though. How long would the vampire stay once invited in? Would he be expecting any visitors? Where would he sleep? Does he need to sleep? What would he eat? What would the cats think?
“Look, I’m trying to do this courteously. I haven’t even turned the charm on you. And I could have! But I didn’t want to do this dishonestly. I mean, I’ve already broken your shed, I didn’t want to go addling your brain on top of that. I was just hoping you’d know not to worry, being a witch. I thought you’d know there’s no reason to fear me and perhaps you’d be generous enough to help me. I’ve really been through it lately, running from these awful vampire hunters and I -”
“You can come in.” Yoongi cuts him off quietly. Seokjin seems ready to continue his polite tirade, but then checks himself when he realises what Yoongi has said.
“Oh. Well. Good.” He nods curtly, “Help me up?” Yoongi hoists Seokjin to his feet where he brushes himself down. The vampire stands a little taller than him and Yoongi’s eyes slide quickly down his long neck and over broad, broad shoulders. Seokjin pretends not to notice, more than accustomed to people’s admiring gazes. He grabs a piece of tarpaulin (that Yoongi usually uses to cover the strawberries if there’s going to be a frost) and the witch raises an enquiring eyebrow, “For the sun. Just in case.” Yoongi’s mouth opens slightly and he nods slowly in understanding before opening the shed door and heading back out into the garden.
*