Chapter Text

Can't be touched by no one
I'd like to see 'em try

Jimin woke slowly, like his body didn’t trust waking to be worth the effort.

For a while, he only drifted near it. Light pressing faintly through his eyelids. The low hum of hospital air. Something beeping in a slow, steady rhythm nearby. His mouth dry. His limbs heavy. No sharp pain, but the kind of weakness that made him feel poured into himself instead of properly put together.

Then memory came back.

Not all at once.

A hand in his.

Bright lights.

Hoseok’s voice.

Blood.

Yoongi saying I’m here so many times it had stopped sounding like words and become something else.

Jimin’s eyes opened. The room was dimmer than he expected. Private. Quiet. A recovery room, maybe. There was a chair pulled close to the bed, a blanket folded over the back of it, a plastic cup on the side table, a little paper packet of medication beside it.

… and Yoongi.

He was there, sitting half-turned toward the bed, one arm folded across his middle, head tipped slightly forward like he’d meant to stay awake and failed at it sometime near dawn. He looked terrible. Shirt wrinkled. Hair a mess. Shadows under his eyes dark enough to bruise.

Jimin stared at him for a second too long.

He was still here.

That was the first thought.

Not what happened.

Not am I okay.

Just that. Still here.

As if feeling watched, Yoongi lifted his head. The second their eyes met, he was awake. Not fully. Not all at once. But enough. Enough that the whole room seemed to sharpen around him in the way it always did when his attention landed somewhere and stayed there.

“You’re awake,” he said quietly.

Jimin wanted to answer like himself. Something dry. Something about how observant that was. Something normal enough to make the room feel less fragile. Instead what came out was rough and small.

“Yeah.”

Yoongi stood immediately. No hesitation. No trying to hide how fast he moved. He reached for the water first, poured some into the cup, then came to the bedside and held it out. Jimin took it with both hands because one didn’t feel reliable enough yet. The water tasted stale and metallic and better than anything. He only drank a little. His throat hurt less after.

When he handed the cup back, his fingers brushed Yoongi’s. The touch was light, ordinary, barely there. It still made something in Jimin’s chest tighten. Yoongi set the cup down and looked at him properly now, his face unreadable in that tired, careful way of his.

Jimin swallowed. “What happened?”

Yoongi’s jaw shifted once. The answer didn’t come quickly, which meant he was choosing it with care.

“The bleeding slowed,” he said. “They stopped the immediate danger.”

Immediate danger.

Jimin closed his eyes for a second. Not because the words were bad. Because they weren’t worse.

When he opened them again, his alpha was still standing there, one hand resting lightly on the bedrail like he didn’t trust himself to look less tense unless he anchored it somewhere.

Jimin looked at the sheet over his body. Then back up at him. “And…” He had to stop and start again. “The baby?”

Yoongi’s face changed. Not much. That was the awful thing. The smallest shift in his mouth. Something quieter in his eyes. “Still here,” he said.

Jimin let out a breath so shaky it embarrassed him on instinct. Yoongi didn’t look embarrassed for him. He only sat back down. That was the devastating part. Not the words. The way he stayed after them. As if the answer belonged to both of them in the room and didn’t need to be thrown across distance.

Jimin looked away because he had to.

His whole body felt wrung out. Empty and overfull at the same time. He wanted to cry from relief and sleep for twelve hours and never remember the treatment room again. He wanted to ask Yoongi how long he’d been sitting there. He wanted to ask if he’d slept at all. He wanted to say thank you and I’m sorry and I was so scared and I thought—

He didn’t say any of it.

Yoongi saved him from choosing. “You scared me,” he said. Plain. No flourish. No softening. “You know?”

Jimin looked back at him. There was no accusation in his face. That made it hurt more. “I know,” Jimin said.

Yoongi held his gaze for a second, then nodded once like that was enough for now. And somehow, in the quiet room with the weak morning light and the ugly hospital blanket and the machine still counting his life in soft electronic blips, that simple exchange felt bigger than anything else they might have said.

The nurse – a beta - came in twenty minutes later with meds and a blood pressure cuff and the kind of calm face hospital people wore when they’d already seen too much before breakfast. Jimin let her do what she needed to do without complaining much, which was how weak he actually felt.

Yoongi stayed in the chair beside the bed and handed things over before anyone asked for them. Water. The little packet. The folded blanket when the room suddenly felt too cool. He moved without fuss, without making a show of helping, and that made it worse somehow. More intimate. Less avoidable.

When the nurse left, the room settled again.

Jimin had medicine in him now. His eyelids felt heavier. The pain had dulled to something lower and meaner, more ache than crisis. Still there. Just no longer tearing through him. Yoongi reached for the blanket where it had slipped near Jimin’s knees and pulled it straighter.

Jimin watched him do it. “You don’t have to keep fixing things,” he murmured.

Yoongi didn’t look up. “I’m adjusting a blanket.”

“That sounded pointed.”

“It was.”

Jimin almost smiled.

Yoongi sat back down afterward, close enough that Jimin could see the dried crease in his shirt sleeve where he must have rolled it up and forgotten to roll it back down.  He looked wrecked. Jimin hated that he’d done that to him. Hated more that some part of him was also comforted by the evidence of it. He moved his hand under the blanket, then changed his mind and let it rest on top instead.

A second later, Yoongi’s hand covered it.

No question.

No grandness.

Just warm skin over cold fingers.

Jimin went still. This would have felt too much once. Too obvious. Too loaded. The kind of thing that made him either pull back or say something stupid just to break the intensity. Now he only looked at their hands and let himself breathe. Yoongi’s thumb moved once, very lightly, over his knuckles.

Jimin looked toward the window. “I look awful, don’t I?”

Yoongi’s answer came immediately. “Yeah.”

That got him. A short, weak laugh slipped out before he could stop it, and even that hurt a little in his chest. “You’re a terrible person.”

“You asked.”

Jimin shook his head very slightly against the pillow. They stayed like that for a while after. Hand in hand. No need to make eye contact every second. No need to fill the room with anything stronger than presence.

Yoongi adjusted the pillow when the omega shifted and winced. Jimin took the next round of water without arguing. They breathed in the same slow, tired rhythm until the room started to feel less like aftermath and more like something survivable. No strength in it. No performance. No trying to act less shaken than they were.

Just softness.

The kind that only shows up after everyone is too exhausted to fake anything else.

Hoseok came in an hour later looking like he’d gone home only long enough to change shirts and lose an argument with sleep. He shut the door behind him and stood there for a second, tablet under one arm, gaze moving first to the monitor, then to Jimin, then to the sight of Yoongi still sitting there with one hand over Jimin’s. His mouth twitched faintly.

“Disgusting,” he said.

Jimin let out the smallest breath of a laugh.

Good. That meant Hoseok was trying.

He came closer and checked the chart without speaking for a moment. Pulse. Pressure. Bloodwork updates already loaded in. The lines around his eyes looked deeper than usual. He seemed gentler too, but not because he’d decided to be delicate. More because he looked too tired to waste extra edges.

“How bad?” Jimin asked.

Hoseok looked up. He didn’t pretend not to understand the real question.

“It was bad,” he said honestly. “You don’t need me to lie about that.”

Jimin looked down at the blanket.

Hoseok rested the tablet on the foot of the bed. “But the immediate crisis passed. That matters.”

Yoongi spoke for the first time since he’d come in. “And now?”

Hoseok glanced at him, then back at Jimin. “Now we watch. We go slow. No pretending this didn’t happen.” He exhaled once through his nose. “No one’s calling this safe yet. But it’s better than it was.”

Better than it was.

The words should have felt thin.

They didn’t.

Jimin nodded once. Hoseok came around to the side of the bed and checked his temperature himself instead of relying on the machine. His hand was cool and steady against Jimin’s skin.

“You scared the hell out of everybody,” he said.

Jimin managed, “That seems to be a theme.”

Hoseok gave him a look. “Don’t start.”

That almost made Yoongi smile. Hoseok noticed that too and looked deeply unimpressed by it. “You,” he said to Yoongi, “are going to leave this room long enough to shower and drink something stronger than bad coffee.”

Yoongi didn’t move.

Hoseok folded his arms. “That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“It feels like one.”

“It’s not.”

Jimin looked from one of them to the other and, despite everything, wanted to laugh. He didn’t. He was too tired. But the feeling of wanting to was enough.

Hoseok checked his chart one last time, then looked at Jimin more seriously. “Listen to me. This part matters.” He waited until Jimin was fully looking at him. “You are not okay because you’re out of immediate danger. You’re just no longer in the worst of it.”

That landed cleanly.

Jimin nodded.

Hoseok’s expression softened by a fraction. “That’s still good news.”

He gathered the tablet, then paused at the door with his hand on the frame. “Get some sleep,” he said.

Jimin looked at him. “You first.”

Hoseok snorted quietly. “Absolutely not.”

Then he left. The room felt emptier after him, but less frightening too. As if his honesty had given the fear edges and made it easier to hold.

Jimin looked at Yoongi. “You should go shower.”

Yoongi looked back. “That sounds familiar.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“You look terrible.”

“Also familiar.”

Jimin let his eyes drift shut for a second. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

The mattress shifted slightly. He didn’t let go of Jimin’s hand. That should have annoyed him. Instead it made something in his chest ache again in that quiet, impossible way.

+++

Namjoon found Seokjin in the empty staff kitchen on the fourth floor because Seokjin always ended up in rooms that looked too ordinary for the kind of things he carried through them.

There was a vending machine humming in the corner and a half-dead ficus near the window and a coffee pot on the warmer that had been there long enough to count as chemical warfare. Seokjin was standing by the counter with his tie loosened, one hand wrapped around a paper cup he hadn’t actually drunk from yet.

He looked tired.

That was saying something.

Namjoon shut the door behind him and leaned back against it for a second before saying anything.

Seokjin glanced over. “Well?”

Namjoon let out a breath. “He’s stable for now.”

Seokjin’s shoulders dropped by a degree so small most people wouldn’t have noticed. Namjoon did. He crossed the room and took the place beside him at the counter. For a while neither of them touched the coffee. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was the kind that came after too many decisions made too quickly.

“That was close,” Seokjin said eventually.

Namjoon looked at the sink instead of at him. “Yeah.”

Seokjin exhaled and rubbed his thumb once along the rim of the cup. “I hate hospitals.”

“You hate most buildings.”

“I’m selective.”

Namjoon huffed a quiet laugh. That was enough to break something in the tension.

Seokjin looked at him then, and the expression on his face had lost most of its usual edge. “You look awful.”

Namjoon raised a brow. “That’s your version of concern?”

“It’s a very good one.”

“Disturbing.”

“Thank you.”

Namjoon finally reached for the coffee pot, thought better of it after smelling it, and put it back down. “We lost six hours on the case.”

Seokjin stared into his cup. “We didn’t lose them.”

Namjoon glanced sideways.

Seokjin’s voice was quieter now. “We spent them where they needed to go.”

That sat between them for a second.

Then Namjoon nodded once. “Still. The network didn’t stop moving while we were here.”

“No,” Seokjin said. “But neither did we.”

He set the paper cup down and reached into the folder under his arm, pulling out two forms clipped together. Of course he had brought paperwork into the kitchen.

“Relocation holds went through,” he said. “Protective orders too. I buried the second administrative inquiry under procedural interference language so ugly nobody’s touched it since.”

Namjoon looked at the forms and then at him. “You did all that from a hospital corridor.”

Seokjin’s mouth moved slightly. “I contain stress beautifully.”

Namjoon smiled despite himself. Then the smile faded. Because the truth of it was still there under everything - the close call, the waiting, the room outside the treatment suite, the fact that if they’d been later or slower or just less lucky, the day might have ended in a shape neither of them could have fixed with structure.

Namjoon looked down at his hands. “I thought we were going to lose him.”

The words came out before he could decide whether he wanted them to. Seokjin went still. Not surprised, exactly. More like he’d heard the part of the sentence Namjoon hadn’t said out loud too.

And I didn’t know how to stop it.

For a second the kitchen was very quiet.

Then Seokjin said, without looking at him, “I know.”

Namjoon’s throat tightened unexpectedly. That was the thing about Seokjin. He usually let the alpha keep his dignity until it became actively inefficient. Then he stepped around it without making a show of seeing too much.

Namjoon looked at him at last. The beta still had one hand resting near the untouched coffee cup, fingers long and pale against the paper. He looked tired and sharp and too steady for a man who had spent the last several hours keeping an institution from getting curious at exactly the wrong time.

“You should go home,” Namjoon said.

Seokjin turned his head. “You first.”

Namjoon shook his head once.

Seokjin’s expression softened by something so small it barely counted and still managed to change the room. “Exactly,” he said.

For one second too long, neither of them moved.

Namjoon became aware of how close they were standing. Of the fact that Seokjin no longer seemed interested in pretending not to understand him. Of how easy it would be, in a different life or a quieter story, to put a hand on the counter beside his and leave it there.

He didn’t.

Work first.

Always.

Still, when Seokjin gathered the forms again and their shoulders brushed on the turn toward the door, neither of them stepped away too quickly. That was enough for now.

Outside, the case was still waiting. Upstairs, Jimin was still weak and Yoongi was still with him. Nothing had become simple. But for one tired, honest moment in a bad hospital kitchen, Namjoon let himself admit what it had cost him to stand still through that crisis. And Seokjin, without making him smaller for it, stayed beside him long enough that the exhaustion felt a little less solitary.

+++

Taehyung found Jungkook in the vending machine alcove two floors below recovery.

Not because he’d been looking very hard.

That was the lie he told himself while walking the same corridor twice, while checking his phone even though nobody had messaged, while ending up here anyway because some part of him had already guessed where Jungkook would go when he needed a wall and five minutes of bad coffee and no audience.

The machine hummed softly. The light overhead was too white. There was a plastic chair in the corner and a table nobody used unless they were trying not to be seen.

Jungkook was leaning against the wall with a paper cup in his hand, staring at nothing. He looked up when Taehyung stepped in. Neither of them spoke at first. That still happened too often between them - silence that wasn’t empty, only crowded. Usually one of them ruined it on purpose before it could get too soft.

Tonight, Taehyung didn’t have the energy. “You found coffee?” he asked eventually.

Jungkook glanced at the cup. “Using the word loosely.”

The omega gave a tired little huff and came to stand beside him, not too close, shoulder near the wall, both of them angled toward the hallway like they might still have to move fast if somebody called.

For a minute they just stood there.

The hospital had that strange late-night quiet where every sound seemed farther away than it should. Wheels on tile somewhere down the hall. A door closing. Somebody laughing too softly and then stopping.

Taehyung crossed his arms, then uncrossed them.

The alpha noticed. But he didn’t say anything. That was new enough to register. Usually Jungkook would ask if he was cold or tired or spiraling or all three. Usually Taehyung would bite his head off for noticing. Usually they’d both end up angry for reasons that had very little to do with what they were actually feeling.

Now Jungkook only shifted the paper cup from one hand to the other and said, “He’s okay for now.”

Taehyung nodded once. “Yeah.”

For now.

The omega hated those words. He hated how quickly they had become the best anyone could offer. He looked down at the floor, at the scuffed gray tile, at his own shoes. His body was finally starting to feel the crash after too much adrenaline, too much fear, too many hours spent standing inside a version of panic he couldn’t do anything useful with.

“I feel stupid,” he said.

Jungkook turned his head slightly. “Why?”

Taehyung shrugged one shoulder. “Because he’s alive. He’s stable. Hoseok-hyung said the worst of it passed.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “And I still feel like I can’t breathe properly.”

Jungkook was quiet for a beat. Then he said, “That’s not stupid.”

Taehyung looked at him. Jungkook’s face was tired in a way that made him look younger and older at the same time. There was no sharpness in him right now. No edge. Just the plain truth of somebody who had also been scared out of his mind and was too worn out to disguise it well.

“I know,” Taehyung said, and meant something more like I know you mean it.

Another silence settled. This one didn’t bite. Taehyung became aware, suddenly and almost painfully, of how close Jungkook was standing. Not touching. Just there. Warm enough to register. Steady enough to feel.

He thought about moving away.

Didn’t.

That was new too.

His shoulder brushed Jungkook’s arm when he shifted his weight, just barely. The contact was accidental enough to excuse if he wanted to. He didn’t pull back. Jungkook didn’t react like it was a thing to manage. Didn’t straighten. Didn’t turn it into a question. He just stayed where he was and let the contact exist.

That made Taehyung’s throat tighten unexpectedly. He leaned a little more. Not much. Just enough that some of his weight left his own feet and rested, quietly, against Jungkook’s side. The old version of him would have snapped the second he realized what he was doing. Made a joke. Pulled away. Said something mean just to get control of the moment back. Tonight he only closed his eyes for a second.

Jungkook still didn’t make a thing out of it.

That was the part Taehyung felt all the way down. No hand immediately at his waist. No “you okay?” in that careful voice. No trying to guide him into sitting down or drinking water or naming what this meant. He just shifted slightly so Taehyung had more room and kept standing there like this was ordinary, like Taehyung leaning into him in a bad hospital hallway was not some delicate event that needed handling perfectly. It made it easier to stay.

Taehyung let out a slow breath.

Jungkook said, very quietly, “You should probably sleep at some point.”

Taehyung almost smiled. “That sounded dangerously gentle.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“There you are.”

That got the faintest twitch from Jungkook’s mouth.

Taehyung opened his eyes and looked straight ahead again. “I’m serious, though.”

“About what?”

“This.” He moved his shoulder slightly against Jungkook’s arm, not enough to break contact. “You’re not being weird.”

Jungkook took a second to answer. “I’m trying not to be.”

Taehyung let that sit there. Because it would have been easy, in a different mood, to make fun of him for saying it like that. To point out that Jungkook usually treated care like a tactical operation. To ask if there was a manual somewhere titled How Not to Be Weird When Someone You’re in Love With is Too Tired to Fight You.

He didn’t.

The thought came and stayed and hurt a little and he left it alone.

“Thank you,” he said instead.

Jungkook’s head turned enough that Taehyung could feel the movement more than see it. “For what?”

Taehyung stared at the opposite wall. “For not acting like I’m going to break.”

Jungkook was silent long enough that Taehyung thought maybe he’d said too much.

Then Jungkook said, “I know you won’t.”

That was somehow worse.

Or better.

Taehyung didn’t know anymore. He swallowed and nodded once, tiny movement, mostly for himself. His shoulder stayed where it was. Jungkook stayed still and let him.

Growth, Taehyung thought distantly. This must be what it looked like. Not dramatic. Not clean. Just… this. Not fighting the comfort. Not turning it into a problem. Not needing it to be bigger than it was.

After a minute, Jungkook held out the paper cup. “Do you want some?”

Taehyung looked down at it in disgust. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s terrible.”

“I can smell that from here.”

Jungkook huffed a soft laugh. “Thought so.”

Taehyung’s mouth moved, almost smiling for real this time.

Then somebody passed in the corridor and the spell of privacy thinned a little. Not broken. Just reminded that the world still existed outside this alcove, outside the recovery room, outside the version of the night where Taehyung had let himself lean and Jungkook had been smart enough not to ruin it.

Taehyung pushed gently off the wall. He didn’t step far. Jungkook looked at him but still didn’t crowd.

“We should go back up,” Taehyung said.

“Yeah.”

Neither of them moved right away.

Then Jungkook tipped his head toward the elevator. “After you.”

Taehyung gave him a tired look. “You’re very annoying.”

“You say that like it’s new.”

“It’s constant. That’s worse.”

Jungkook’s mouth twitched again, and this time the look he gave Taehyung was softer than either of them commented on.

They walked back toward the lift side by side, not touching now, but not with the old brittle distance between them either.

Taehyung could still feel the place where he had leaned against him.

And somehow, for once, that didn’t scare him enough to run from it.