Chapter Text
“You're a strange child, Miss Jane, a little roving, solitary thing.”
Charlotte Brontë
Jungkook pulls away to look at him better. "Make it cherry," he whispers.
They are still so close together that Yoongi can feel the warmth of his breath against his lips. It's the stuff that makes men mad. Maybe he’d be able to taste him in the air if he opened his mouth. His brain is so fuzzy, he thinks about making his breath taste like cherries.
Maybe his lips, too.
"I mean my hair," Jungkook smiles when he fails to answer. He's even closer now, doing it on purpose, no doubt.
It's probably Yoongi's fault he's out of control, too. His head is a fucking mess at the moment. Being so close like this is always dangerous. "Why?" He asks uselessly.
Jungkook grins, flushed but not flustered. He looks crazed, colorful like everything around them. Poisonous smoke lined with psychedelic edges. Their hearts beat hard against their ribcages, their ribcages almost bruise against each other.
Yoongi imagines he can see it: a purple wound spreading under Jungkook's white shirt.
It's a terrible image, a cruel one. But he's so fucking gone today—
"Isn't it your favorite?" Jungkook touches his hand softly. Yoongi is almost numb to the sting right now, but he can see the lightning adorning their skin. He can see everything, even though he can barely make sense of it. "Isn't my cherry hair your favorite?"
"You are my favorite," Yoongi says the words almost directly into his mouth. He wishes he could pour them right into him.
I love you in whichever way you come. I love you even when I'm awake and you are no more.
He moves the arm resting under Jungkook's head to sink his fingers between the soft strands. "Brown hair, black hair, cherry hair. Even no hair—"
"No," Jungkook snorts. He tries to cover his head defensively, but even in this movement they grow closer. Impossibly so. "Leave my hair there."
"Aw, Baby, you don't wanna try the egg look?"
"I hate you," he giggles. "No egg look, hyung."
Yoongi gets a little lost staring at him, nevermind that he's had years of doing just this. He'll never get tired of it. "You don't, though," he says quietly. He runs his fingertips over the arm Jungkook has over his chest until he gets to his waist. He wants to grab it, to slip his fingers under his shirt to feel his warmth. He doesn't.
He shouldn't.
Is there ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ here?
"I don't what?"
"Hate me," Yoongi explains.
You love me. Say it again.
It feels so urgent now, he doesn't know why. His heart is this rowdy thing; scary, if only he would pay attention. He should.
Jungkook smirks instead of replying; frustrating as ever. For a dream, he has the awful habit of seldom doing what he’s supposed to do. "Only sometimes."
"When?" Yoongi presses, but his voice is barely anything. He knows Jungkook is joking, but it still makes him sad. It still makes him wish for things that are insane.
Sleeping is always tethering at the edge of insanity for him. It's been like this for so long.
He tightens his grip around Jungkook's waist. "When do you hate me?"
His touch over Yoongi’s cheek is warm and electric, it turns him on in more than one way. The current flows through them. Every alarm should be blaring inside his head now; the strain on his body is too much. But he thinks he can drag it out, just to keep them close like this for a little longer.
Nothing in waking life feels like this and he’s so tired. He’s so happy but also so miserable.
"When you're not with me."
Yoongi wants to kiss him, to plunge his tongue into his mouth, even if it burns him to a crisp. Even if it makes him lose his mind and a pint of blood in waking life.
He doesn't. He can’t.
But he aches for it. And he hurts. Wasn't that the reason why he got high in the first place? The celebration was just an excuse. There's a part of him that is always fucking miserable. He smiles, anyway. As well as he can. Yeah, that sounds like them.
"I hate when I'm not with you, too."
"Yeah?" Jungkook asks. It all feels serious, but he still has a small grin adorning his pretty lips. He doesn't look sad at all.
Does he know? Yoongi always asks himself, but never fucking says anything. What difference would it make? He should know, because Yoongi wants him to. Because he wants him to be real.
Yoongi wants him to wake up. He also wants to stop wanting that, because this is the stuff of his personal madness.
"Yeah, Baby," he whispers anyway.
"Let's stop leaving, then," Jungkook says, watching him with a curious look. Accessing. He fits one leg between Yoongi’s knees, then brushes their noses together. "Just stay."
They really, really shouldn't.
Yoongi chuckles; it feels like a sob.
This evening started nice, he vaguely remembers now. He really shouldn’t have taken all that shit. But he doesn't pull away from Jungkook; he was never really good at it. "I can't." He holds him even tighter, groping his leg and pulling over his hip, locking them together. "I have to leave sometimes."
Jungkook makes a noise, pouting. Spoiled.
"I do," Yoongi insists.
How can he not know?
I made you, Yoongi should say. You're the product of my imagination, you're the weirdest and most marvelous thing I have ever come up with—
"But, fuck, I do wish, Baby—" Yoongi gasps as Jungkook climbs on top of him. There's too much intent in his movements. It makes their hearts jump faster.
Yoongi finally slips his fingers under his shirt to touch his skin. It hurts.
Is there a place for ‘wrong’ in dreams? He knows there is; it’s lost inside his head now, but he does.
Jungkook feels as real as anything in his life. He feels more real, even. He's the only thing that matters this much. "You wish…," he prompts, brushing their noses together.
"I wish you could come with me," Yoongi says. He moves his lips against Jungkook's mouth so he can swallow their imaginary words and make them true. "I wish, I wish, I wish." He squeezes his eyes shut and opens his mouth wider when he feels Jungkook's teeth against his skin.
It's not a kiss and it doesn't taste like cherries. It's more than that. It's a shout in the dark, a plea. It tastes metallic.
Come with me.
"I wish you would wake up with me."
Yoongi feels the tingle in his tongue and everywhere in his body. Worse than ever before because he should know better than to do this. He feels like a TV without a signal, buzzing from inside out. His skin is burning, his blood is boiling.
When Jungkook moans into his mouth, even his saliva feels real.
Yoongi opens his eyes.
He's been here before. Elation turning into dread turning into tragedy. Dream into reality into nothingness.
There's someone right beside him. No—
No, it can't be.
"Jungkook—"
Everything happens so fast, too fast for Yoongi's sleepy eyes, even though his brain is alive and bursting. Jungkook is right beside him in his bed, eyes round and terrified. His scream pierces right through the night and it goes on and on and on—
The lights flicker; the air sparkles blinding gold around them. The fabric of the world stretches and stretches until it snaps. The lightbulb blast into shards; the air grows cold, dead.
Jungkook disappears.
"No!" Yoongi screams.
This ache is like nothing he’s ever felt before. It was never like this, this was not supposed to happen. He feels like he's been torn apart.
And he knows he was. A part of him is just gone.
"Jungkook!" He wails.
It's his voice in the waking world. He's awake and he's screaming but he doesn't care.
"Jungkook!"
His grandfather runs into his bedroom as fast as he can without his cane. He sits on the bed and tries to hold Yoongi as his body convulses and his nose bleeds.
"Oh, little dreamer, what have you done now?"