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It was fine. Well, honestly it wasn’t but what could he do? It’d been late one night and Seokjin, Namjoon, and Hoseok, were out for the week. They’d gone to this year’s Witches and Wizards Convention (the Double W as they preferred to call it), while Yoongi stayed with the maknaes. It wasn’t the first time he’d be the only experienced wizard looking over the three disastrous students, and even despite the dramatic outcome of the week it certainly won’t be the last time either.
It was his fault, really. When Namjoon used the telepathic connection they had, an ability that had taken years of work and struggle to master and that they generally only used as a party trick, to ask what had happened Yoongi insisted over and over again that it had been his fault. He’d left them unattended, practising a transfiguration spell that he thought would be easy to get the hang of while he cooked dinner. Of course, nothing is ever easy with those three. Jungkook is too powerful of a wizard for his own good. And it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he was a bit less emotional and if Taehyung and Jimin hadn’t made it their life mission to press all of his buttons at any opportunity.
“I told them to do that,” Seokjin had shrugged when Yoongi brought it up one night, and upon seeing the other one’s scandalized face explained it would help Jungkook in the long run. Yoongi doesn’t feel too bad about it anyway, Jungkook also messes with them whenever he feels like it. And Seokjin is right, it’ll help him control his intense emotions and not let them seep into his magic.
But this is still a work in progress. Jungkook is still learning and Yoongi really can’t be mad at him. Or any of them really, they’re all trying their best.
Yoongi heard the commotion all the way in the kitchen. With a sigh, he lowered the heat of the stove and made his way to the study. He couldn’t understand what they were yelling about but Jungkook was laughing so it couldn’t be anything serious.
“Have you guys-?” he’d started to say, pushing the door open without any more warning. The other three yelled and spells fell from their mouths at random. They clearly hadn’t been practising while he was gone.
Yoongi knows it was Jungkook’s spell that hit him because the magic of the youngest has a very specific feel to it. He didn’t panic though, even when everything went dark and an overwhelmingly dizzying sensation took over him.
“Hyung?” It was Taehyung who spoke first, hesitant and scared. Yoongi tried to answer but from his mouth came nothing more than a meow.
That was two weeks ago. And since then it’s been somewhat fine. He gets to nap wherever he wants, fish tastes exceptionally great, and he has the perfect excuse not to worry about getting work done. But he misses his opposable thumbs and he misses magic. His cat instincts can be embarrassingly strong at times and pooping in a box is honestly humiliating. Still, Yoongi gets extra cuddles as a cat, and he has to admit knocking shit off the shelves for the sake of annoying his coven members is particularly amusing.
Two weeks. The rest of the members had returned two days after Yoongi had been turned into a cat. The three maknaes had burst into tears as soon as the door opened, frustrated and scared that they hadn’t been able to find a solution yet. Hoseok had been the first to join the dots, and immediately he was picking Yoongi up and pressing kisses all over his kitty face. Hoseok was warm and he smelt of safety, so Yoongi purred and allowed himself to get pampered. Hobi has always felt like this, Yoongi realizes as his eyes slip shut and the wizard scratches behind his ears. Like many other smells and feelings, it had just intensified into a more notable sensation with his cat instincts.
“He wouldn’t let me pick him up!” Jimin whined to Namjoon, who pulled him into a hug with a chuckle.
“You’re allergic to cats Jiminie, I’m sure he was just looking after you.”
“He scratched me!”
yoongi isn’t mad at the maknaes, but it is ultimately their fault that he’s been catified, so of course, he wasn’t going to let them get as much enjoyment from the situation as they’d like to. At least not those first few days. At this point, if Jimin wants to bury his face in Yoongi’s fur and be red-eyed and sneezing the rest of the day Yoongi isn’t going to stop him.
Yoongi had been confident the hyungs would be able to reverse the spell. Yoongi was wrong. No one was sure of what Jungkook had actually said when he cast it, so fixing it wasn’t easy. The best they had managed to do was invert the colour of his fur from white to black, not like that helped at all. Yoongi still trusts they’ll fix it. Namjoon has a lot of experience, Seokjin is a transfiguration expert, and Hoseok is great with animal magic. They’ll figure it out, they just need time to think. And they can’t think with Yoongi knocking over their coffee cups when he goes to try and have a sip.
There hadn’t been much urgency to fix the spell. Not until tonight. Yoongi hates thunderstorms, they all know this. whenever the sky greys and the first lighting bolt illuminates the sky he is marching straight to his room and disappearing for as long as the storm lasts. Normally all he needed to do was put on his headphones and turn up the volume of the music. Or use the spell for sound muffling. Or both.
Sadly, he is currently a cat. And cats can’t wear headphones, and they can’t do magic.
His entire body flinches violently with the next bolt of lightning illuminating the empty room. And accompanied only by the growling sound of thunder just seconds later he scrambles off the couch and towards the only room with the light on. He’d been afraid the insistent rain outside would turn into a thunderstorm, and had been tense all day as he paced back and forth with worried meows, half-expecting the members to somehow hear him. They’d gone out shopping, Yoongi was usually in charge of that task so it had slipped their minds until Seokjin was complaining there was nothing for him to cook a proper meal with, followed right after by a pouting Jimin whose potion had blown up on him for that same reason.
“We’ll be back soon,” Hoseok had promised, petting the top of Yoongi’s head lightly before marching out of the door after the others. Yoongi hadn’t worried, he was comfortably curled up on the perfect spot on the couch, they could take as long as they wanted. Then the rain had started, just a soft pitter-patter against the windows at first, enough to have him stretching and jumping to the window to watcha s the birds quickly fled to the safety of their nests. But it hadn’t let up, the intensity only increasing as the hours went by.
Lighting illuminates the room once more and Yoongi yowls in distress. Thunder follows and he slips under the bed. But it’s not good enough. He can still see the lighting from here, and the anticipation of anxiously waiting for the rumbling that will soon follow is killing him.
With his body almost pressed to the floor, he leaves the safety of the bed and runs to the closet. Hoseok, he realizes just now. This is Hoseok’s room. Perfect.
Yoongi weasels his way to the furthest corner of the closet and curls up into a tight ball there, on top of some of Hoseok’s carefully folded shirts. He is still shaking, but he can’t see the lighting here and the thunder is somewhat muffled by the clothes. Yoongi stays there, he has no idea how long for, feeling like his heart is about to beat out of his chest. As a human he doesn’t like thunderstorms, they are loud and aggressive and make him feel so small and vulnerable. As a cat he is terrified. All of those things seem to have been multiplied by a thousand, Yoongi has never been so scared in his entire life.
“Yoongi?” a voice startles him and the door to the closet opens. He meows in distress, trying to back up further into the small space. “It’s okay, hey, I’m here now,” Hoseok says, reaching inside to pet Yoongi in an attempt to calm him down.
“I found him!” he yells back towards the hallway and Yoongi can hear multiple responses follow, but he can’t focus on what they are saying, his sensitive ears are too concerned by the dread of more thunder.
“Come on, let’s get you out of there,” Yoongi meows in protest as Hoseok gets both of his hands on him and pulls him out. Yoongi squirms and reaches back towards the closet, nails digging into the fabric of some shirts and pulling them along on his way out. Hoseok chuckles as he brings Yoongi to his chest and holds him there. “It’s okay,” he soothes, scratching under Yoongi’s neck and carrying him to the bed. “The thunderstorm has passed now,” he reassures him. Yoongi’s eyes are wide and frantic as they take in the dark room. The rain is still falling outside, sliding down the windows but lighting doesn’t come.
Hoseok lays down on the bed and under the covers. Yoongi is still tense, still scared the scary lights and sounds will start up once more so he scrambles under the covers too and presses close to Hoseok. The lights are off, Hobi hums for him while petting him gently. Until his movements slow down and they fall asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the ground outside.
Namjoon bursts into the room the next morning. Yoongi hisses, he panics from being startled awake and accidentally scratches all over Hoseok’s chest in an attempt to flee. He is under the covers though, so his attempt to escape fails and he ends up tangling them both in the blanket instead.
“For Merlin’s beard Namjoon, what is wrong with you?” Hoseok asks, with a groan, sitting up on the bed and helping Yoongi out.
“I know how to fix it!” He shouts and follows it up with a foreign-sounding pell and his index finger pointed straight at Yoongi.
It works! In an instant, Yoongi is a human again, and he is sitting right on Hoseok’s lap.
“It worked!” he says with a wide smile, not yet realizing his position. “You’re a genius!” He tells the younger, who blushes and scratches the back of his neck, stuttering some nonsense about how he actually isn’t.
“Awe, I’m going to miss my little kitty, he was such a great cuddle friend,” Hoseok says with a dramatic pout and a laugh. He pulls Yoongi into a tight hug and squeezes even harder. “I’m happy to have you back, Yoongi.” Yoongi’s heart softens at that, he hugs Hoseok back tightly and smiles. “But you should probably go put some clothes on.”
Yoongi runs out of the room butt naked and although Jungkook witnesses the whole thing, he doesn’t dare bring it up to the other two young students in fear experienced wizard Yoongi might cause all of his clothes to be transparent, or all of his hair to fall off, or turn him into a shoe and step on some dog poop, or whatever an experienced wizard like Yoongi could do now that he’s got his magic back.
Yoongi doesn’t think much about that specific night, because of course he can’t forget about the whole cat ordeal, it’s a hilarious anecdote and a great learning experience for the training wizards. But that specific night usually goes unmentioned. Hoseok didn’t tell anyone how scared Yoongi was, Yoongi doesn’t bring up how safe he felt when surrounded by the scent of his friend.
he doesn’t think about it until the next thunderstorm. It comes in the middle of the night. Loud thunder jolts Yoongi awake and he realizes how much he is sweating. Dread is heavy in his heart even when he closes his eyes tight and casts a spell to muffle the noise. It’s still too much, too loud, too scary.
He doesn’t think, too much about it when he shoves the blankets away and gets up. He tiptoes all the way to Hoseok’s room and pushes the door open slowly. Hobi is sleeping soundly on his side and Yoongi hesitates to go inside and risk waking him. Then another bolt of lightning strikes and the rumbling of a long and loud thunder follows and Yoongi stops being rational about it. He walks inside the room and closes the door behind him. He quickly moves to the bed and slips in next to Hoseok, trembling.
“Mmm? Hyung?” Hoseok asks sleepily, barely opening his eyes to see who decided to come into his bed.
“Sorry,” Yoongi apologizes, regretting his decision. But Hoseok smiles and his arm wraps around Yoongi’s waist and he moves closer.
“‘s okay,” he mumbles. “I’m here. You’re safe.” Hoseok’s hand rub’s Yoongi’s back lightly. He doesn’t say anything when Yoongi jumps with the next strike of lightning. He doesn’t complain when Yoongi is pushing even closer, to hide his face in the crook of his neck. He only soothes him with sweet words and the occasional kiss to whatever bit of Yoongi he can reach.
Yoongi feels right at home and he ends up calming down enough to fall asleep without even noticing. He wakes up in the morning still in Hoseok’s arms, with the other one also awake by then and rubbing his back.
“Hobi?” Yoongi asks groggily and he hums.
“Good morning, kitty cat. Did you sleep well?” Yoongi doesn’t want to move, he wants to stay right here in Hoseok’s arms for the rest of their lives.
“Thank you,” Yoongi mumbles. “I don’t know why… don’t know why I was feeling so scared.”
“It’s okay, I didn’t mind,” Hoseok pulls him even closer to kiss his cheek. “I like you being here. Here in my bed I mean.”
He’s smiling so Yoongi can’t help but smile back, wide and giddy.
“I like it too,” he responds, blushing a pretty shade of pink.
“Are you going to bite me if I try to kiss you?” Hoseok teases.
“Hobi!” Yoongi whines embarrassed and moves to get up from the bed. Hoseok doesn’t let him, he brings him right back to lay down with him and kisses him without warning.
Yoongi’s heart is pounding in his chest. Loud like thunder, fast like lightning. The soft rumbling gets louder and Yoongi realizes he’s purring . Hoseok loses his mind and Taehyung is poking his head into the room, curious about what’s so funny. He’s never going to hear the end of this now.