(im sorry if yall need to double back a couple of chapters to refresh your memory on what's happening because i jump right in OTL i'll do better next time i promise)

The labs in the Seoul base are a wonder.

Youngjae instantly dissociates from the group in wide-eyed awe to wander around the cavernous room, rediscovering the place he’d so reluctantly left all those years ago, drooling over various pieces of tech as Yerin directs the rest of them to Toxicology. Fluorescent lamps cast a soft blue-white glow over white and steel, and people in gray outfits drift importantly from one bench to another, typing out messages on light panels and muttering indistinct messages into headsets, holographs floating on top of the tables.

The glass floor ripples in little white circles under their feet, and Jaebum almost trips as Yerin pulls up a light display panel from the floor that follows them as they walk, tapping in various commands.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Bambam discreetly attempt to do the same, and almost flip a tray of microbots into oblivion. A scientist gives him the stink-eye.

People greet Yerin as she walks by, and Jaebum spots Youngjae already having some sort of group nerdgasm at the back with a couple of people he doesn’t recognise, but the rest of them are mostly avoided or at the very best, given curious stares.

It reminds Jaebum of a time he walked a long, quiet aisle by himself, the black bead stare of hundreds of eyes on him, while he stood in a stiff shirt and collar, jaw set and clamping down on the fear threatening to back up in his throat, six new burdens on his deceptively steady shoulders. Going without saying, not a very nice feeling.

They’re directed them into a room, sectioned off by glassy display screens, and someone looks up, about to say something.

“Hey unnie, I found the irregularity you were talking…about…” Chaeyoung blinks, staring over as the rest of Unit 7 trails uncomfortably in behind Yerin, sans Youngjae. “Uhm,” she taps the pipette holder nervously against the glass cylinder. “Is this another test?”

“Leave the venom reports, let’s work on this now,” Yerin puts the bag on what seems to be some sort of roller cart, except it spews light and numbers and diagnostics once the gun touches the white surface. Chaeyoung’s eyes widen as Yerin turns to the rest of Unit 7. “This is Son Chaeyoung- she’s understudying me for the time being. She’s under-…”

“Jihyo, right?” Jaebum frowns a little, a bell ringing in his head. “Tzuyu’s at the Daegu base, understudying the medics there too.”

It reminds him, he hasn’t called Jinyoung to check on Jackson’s status in a while. He makes a mental note to do it after the proceedings with the gun are done.

“Yeah, Momo, Mina and Sana are having field training at the Osaka base,” Chaeyoung pipes up, pulling on a pair of gloves of her own and watching warily as Yerin takes the gun out of the bag, taking it apart effortlessly. “Dahyun’s with Tzuyu, and the rest of us are here.”

The next female unit’s Formalisation would be coming up soon, it occurs to Jaebum. They would be known as Unit 9 officially then, taking Unit 7’s place as JYP’s rookies, and while the thought of sharing the burden of ty assignments with another team is relieving, the feeling of being seniors to another group isn’t.

“You said the poison was found on the bullet, right?” Yerin presses a couple of buttons on the side of another machine, before a funnel of light pours out, and she places one of the bullets she’d taken from the gun in the light. “What happened, exactly?”

Jaebum wearily condenses the past two days’ events, deliberately glossing over the previous night, because trust Yerin and Chaeyoung as they may, it would probably raise too many questions he does not have the time and the energy to answer right now.

“So you’re saying the poison was introduced at the site itself,” Yerin’s correcting words that are transcribing themselves into her notes, frowning a little as she highlights something. “And it started taking effect about a day later? You need to fill up a report, by the way, especially if another agent was involved in this- legal department’s going to be all up on this.”

“Yeah,” Jaebum’s thinking about something, now, frowning as he glances distractedly to the multi-purpose printer Yerin had pointed to. “Yeah, okay.”

“Oppa, you said-…” Chaeyoung pipes up suddenly, then falters, as everyone in the room turns to look at her. Waves of defensive, cool fearlessness are rolling off her skin, like it does when she feels threatened, and Jaebum forces himself to school his expression into something kinder- not having both Jinyoung and Jackson around is taking a bigger toll on him than he’d thought. Maybe he should’ve asked Jinyoung to come along, he thinks feverishly. “You said a day, right? Isn’t it-…I don’t know, isn’t it weird that the poison would take a day to take effect, especially if it was issued by the company for a guard job? They’d want a quick temporary paralysis toxin, so they can catch the trespasser before they get away, right?”

“Yeah,” Jaebum inhales, eyes squeezing shut for a moment- had they missed something? “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. It doesn’t add up- plus,” he hesitates, thinking about the desperation he’d heard in Chanyeol’s voice when he said he didn’t know anything about a poison. That guy wasn’t the brightest bulb, but he definitely wasn’t dumb enough to accept bullets without doing his own quick analysis of them first. “The agent denied knowledge about the poison, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like he honestly didn’t know, and it doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t.”

Yerin opens , about to say something, when the machine haloing the bullet in blue light beeps softly, a green light blinking. She frowns, picking up the bullet with gloved fingers.

“Green,” she says contemplatively. “Means it’s clean.”

Jaebum hears Mark sigh in frustration from behind him, and knows why- it means they’re back to square one, no leads on the poison, meaning no leads on the antidote. But still, he thinks, something’s amiss, something lying right before their eyes that none of them have noticed.

“You have samples of Jackson’s blood? The low concentration will make the poison difficult to trace, but it’s worth a try,” Yerin says, taking out a fresh baggie to put the gun in.

“Yeah, Bam, give her the samples we brought over,” Jaebum’s facing the wall, now, thinking hard about the mission. “Where’s Jae?”

“Here! Sorry, was looking at some new hardware,” Youngjae walks in, already donning some sort of weird glowing glasses- Jaebum feels a slight pang, seeing how happy the younger boy is here, like a fish back in water, but something’s been nagging at the back of his head ever since their guess about the bullet had been confirmed.

“Could you pull up Jackson’s mission brief for me?” he says, arms folded across his chest, brow furrowed in thought. “What did they ask him to get?”

“Hyung…the stuff the client requests,” Youngjae hesitates. “They usually don’t make sense, right? They usually just exhaust the checklist to make sure they get the most of us,” he’s barely looking as he pulls up a holographic display panel the same way Yerin had, pressing various buttons until he literally pulls a document from an encrypted folder, scrolling quickly through it and flipping it so the rest of them can see.

“Yeah,” Jaebum’s not really listening, scanning the list- confirming his suspicions, the list is shorter, like the client knew what they were looking for, what they wanted.

It’s Chaeyoung who spots it first. “Biological and chemical warfare,” she lists, right next to sabotage and human trafficking, voice trailing off slightly as Mark frowns.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “What does this have to do with Jackson?”

Jaebum’s mouth is dry, and it gets worse as someone hurries in, barely noticing the rest of them.

“Sorry Yerin, Chaeng, I need you to get me a line to Dahyun…” Nayeon trails off after she’s taken her first few steps in. “Jaebum oppa? What are you guys doing here?”

“What’s happening,” Jaebum says, voice surprisingly steady. “What’s up with Dahyun?”

“Uh, I don’t know, all I know is that the Daegu med facility just went into lockdown, and I haven’t been able to contact Tzuyu,” Nayeon trails off slightly, voice going lower, eyes narrowing. “Why are you all here instead of there?”

Jaebum’s finding it increasingly difficult to breathe- he’s got his phone out, tapping in a number, fingers shaking, and it’s only when Youngjae says his name for the third time that he looks over, recognising the soft pulsation of the comm line being established.

It’s the owner of that number on the holographic screen that flashes from Youngjae’s display panel, and while the cool blue hue of the graphics mask the paleness of his face well enough, it can’t hide the sunken look in his eyes, or the chapped lips.

“Jae?”

“Jinyoung hyung?” Youngjae’s eyes are wide with worry, the tremor in his voice barely betraying the shock. “Hyung what-…are you okay?”

“What’s up with the lockdown?” Nayeon’s rounded the rest of them to look at the screen too, trying to hide the anxiety in her voice. “Is Tzuyu okay?”

“The poison tests won’t work,” Jinyoung says, then, and even over the crystal audio quality, his voice is rough and hoarse. “With the blood or the bullets. Because it’s not a poison.”

Jaebum’s heart sinks to his stomach, worst fears confirmed. He doesn’t have to look at the bright red QUARANTINE sign in the background as Jinyoung shifts on the screen, laboured breathing rustling through the mic, or outline of a girl, apparently sleeping, on a bed at the back, to finish that sentence.

“It’s a virus,” he half-whispers, taking an involuntary step closer.

Jinyoung coughs once, twice, raising something white but obviously speckled with red hastily to hastily wipe his lips and nose.

The room is silent- it seems like everyone knows the gravity to that statement, and it hangs over them like a ticking time bomb, about to go off at any moment.

“No, no that doesn’t make sense,” Yugyeom’s shaking his head, coming over to the screen as well, eyes wide as he stares at Jinyoung. “Wouldn’t we all have been infected, then? We all were with you in the med bay that time.”

“Only for a while,” Jinyoung rasps, taking a breath with some difficulty, and Jaebum’s chest clenches painfully. “The virus is airborne but was weakened, deliberately, I think, in a laboratory setting, to damage its potency. It couldn’t affect anyone without prolonged exposure, but once it sticks- Jackson’s body can’t cope because his immune system’s never seen something like this before. The antigenic shift they were experimenting with must’ve been something.”

“The bullet wound,” Bambam’s eyes widen. “Jackson must’ve accidentally brushed against something when he was running around in the dark, which means he probably broke into one of their labs without knowing it when he was running away.”

“This is research that hasn’t been officially declared,” Youngjae’s pulling up a company profile, flashing it beside Jinyoung’s screen. “This is a medical research facility- they have no place doing research on biological warfare.”

“That’s what the client was sending Jackson after,” Yugyeom says. “Illegal research. Something like this could sink the entire company.”

“If the virus is there,” Youngjae says urgently, turning to look at the rest of them. “There’s a high chance the antivirus will be too.”

“Well, then we need to go, don’t we?” Chaeyoung says anxiously, already turning around, lifting her radio, probably about to call Jihyo.

“Wait, you’re not going,” Mark interrupts.

“I don’t think that’s for you to decide,” Nayeon replies icily.

“Guys,” Yerin cuts in, distracting them all with the clean click of the gun being reassembled in her hands, expression dismissive.

The glass door slides close with a clean, calm whir, as everyone looks to the empty space behind the now empty holographic screen.

“Someone might want to go get him,” Yerin says, voice steely. “And then we might actually want to start discussing something that’ll work.”

*

“When?”

There’s a long pause over the phone- even the ragged breaths stop for a while.

“When did you know?” Jaebum repeats dully. The air-conditioning of the training room sends weak, cold breezes down his neck, that smell of cheap air freshener and rubber floor mats.

“...a couple of hours ago.”

“That’s not true,” He has to tell himself not to shout, because it doesn’t solve anything, it won’t help the situation right now. “You put the med bay in lockdown. You would’ve recognised the symptoms ages ago if they’re this serious now, and even earlier for Tzuyu. When did you know.”

There’s a couple of coughs, and another silence. “Last night.”

Jaebum lowers the phone, takes a deep breath, blinking once, twice, before letting out a slow, controlled exhale. Breathing’s always helped, it’s something- , it’s something Jinyoung had taught him, back when they were kids, before the Academy even meant anything to them.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” it comes out a little harsher than Jaebum would’ve liked, but the amount of restraint he’s already having to exercise is cutting into him. “Why didn’t you tell any of us.”

“It would’ve meant a couple more hours without the med bay going into quarantine, and without Tzuyu’s condition being stabilised. That could be any number of people getting infected,” Jinyoung replies evenly.

“, Jinyoung,” Jaebum finally snaps, voice cracking like a whip- he knows Jinyoung won’t even flinch, though, he’s too used to it. “You should’ve told us, we could’ve done something-…”

“There wasn’t anything you could’ve done,” the other man’s voice is patient, disturbingly reassuring for someone who knows they might be dying within the week. “What we need to do now is focus on getting the-…”

“You could die!” Jaebum barks down, running his hand through a fistful of his hair roughly. “You could be gone ing tomorrow morning, Jinyoung, how the am-…am I supposed to-…”

“Hey. Hey,” Jinyoung’s voice, weak and halting as it is, is like a salve, the way his presence is, like cool water over tender bruises. “I’m not going to die, hyung. Are you listening?”

There’s blood pounding through Jaebum’s head, roaring in his ears, and with the next breath that leaves his lungs he realises he’s crouched on the cracked vinyl floor, head in his hands, eyes wide. For a moment it’s like he’s eighteen again, waiting alone in a musty room with cracked windows at four in the morning, hunched in front of a paraffin stove to keep his hands warm while his mind freezes over with fear.

There’s nothing that he can do about this- nothing he can do stuck hundreds of kilometres away, and despite the wide expanse of the training room, he feels suffocated.

“Hyung?”

Jaebum inhales, exhales, breaths trembling in his lungs. “Yeah.”

“I’m not going to die.”

Jinyoung lets that hang between them for a moment- Jaebum leans over, phone held slack in his hand.

“None of us are going to die- Jackson, or Tzuyu either,” Jinyoung says firmly, stifling a cough. “You guys are going to get the antivirus, we’re going to finish the assignment, and by next week this will all be behind us.”

Jaebum rubs the heel of his palm against his eyes, takes a deep breath, blinking rapidly, trying to gather himself. “Okay. Okay.”

There’s a pause, a moment of quiet as Jaebum tries and fails to block out the sound of Jinyoung muffling his coughs into a tissue.

“Hey,” the breathlessness drags down the scaffolding of the makeshift support Jinyoung’s built in the structure of Jaebum’s mind. “Remember the shophouse?”

That quietens him. Jaebum closes his eyes, crumples against the cold white wall of the training room. “Yeah. What?”

What about it, about the days they’d survived together, about the jobs they always tried to persuade each other not to take though they were starving and freezing, about the wide-eyed nights Jaebum had spent waiting for Jinyoung’s stakeouts to be over, about the slash wounds on Jaebum’s back that Jinyoung’d cried over when he was trying to patch up.

What about having to give all that freedom and all that pain up in exchange for what they have now.

“Remember how I used to be afraid of the dark,” the other man musters the energy to laugh. “I was sixteen- you wouldn’t stop laughing at me.”

Jaebum lets out a mirthless, tired chuckle. “Yeah.”

“What is it you used to tell me? The nights you went out on your own- when I said I was scared you’d never come back?”

His throat is dry, tongue heavy as something echoes in the back of his head. It doesn’t take him long to remember. “You have to go to sleep,” Jaebum clears his throat. “Because I’ll only be back when you wake up, and you’ll see-…” his voice catches in his throat for a moment. “You’ll see everything turned out okay.”

“Yeah,” Jinyoung says, voice on the cusp of wistfulness, clinging to the edge of lucidity. “Yeah.”

There’s a what if you never wake up bursting from the tip of his tongue, what if it doesn’t turn out okay, but this is now, this is them, and Jaebum needs to be the one telling Jinyoung it’ll be okay, just like the way it was.

“Okay,” the leader swallows hard, stands unsteadily, skin prickling in the artificial cold. “Okay. I’m heading down now. We’re going to-…going to plan the infiltration. We’re going to get the antivirus, we’ll be back for you, Jackson- we’ll get Dahyun to hold the fort at Daegu too. Just-…just hang on.”

“Yeah?” Jinyoung says, a hint of pride in the breathy rasp of his voice. “I thought so.”

a/n:
/crawls in wheezing

this isn't dead guys

same might not apply for my body rn :"") school is a bane and going overseas is possibly more so

(comments and kudos will revitalise said body and push it to write more fic :D) also i've never done this before haha but uhm hmu with fic recs if yall want to? ;A; or you can tweet them hehe @goldengyeom, hoping to find some good fic gems! :")

ily guys /huggles/ stay healthy and eat corn. it's good for digestion c: