Chapter Text
The dawn is often more harrowing than the day. Or at least, that’s how Jimin’s begun to feel, in the past few months.
Maybe that should be surprising. It’s day 413 since everything went to shit, and Jimin’s only just recently begun to feel the crushing weight of it all - the dread of waking up to the same dull monotony. By any account it should have happened sooner, probably even day one. But Jimin’s never really been like that.
He’s calm, collected. He doesn’t tend to let things get to him. Jungkook used to call him unshakable. And so even just a few months ago, he was still in good spirits - still a source of necessary optimism in an altogether shitty situation.
But it’s hard to provide that sort of energy when things are as bad as they are. It’s harder, still, to wake up and have to remember that it’s happening at all.
And Jimin wakes, on the 413th day since the world ended, to a rash along his forearm. A rash that’s growing, if his cursory inspection is any indication - though oftentimes he avoids looking at it altogether. The marking spans from the crook of his elbow to his wrist - about ten centimeters long. It’s really not that severe just looking at it, doesn’t itch much or anything, but it’s visibly longer today than it had been yesterday.
A sure sign that things are bad - that day 413 will be bad.
But perhaps the same could have been said for day 378, when he’d first begun to notice a change in the ferocity of the spreading scorn. Maybe day 352, when the reddish tinge on what he’d hoped to be a benign threat had deepened. Or, simply even on day 316, when he’d first begun to notice the row of bumps at all. When he’d done all he could to convince himself they were nothing more than a skin reaction, an allergen. And then, when he ultimately couldn’t, when he’d pulled his sleeve down and left it there.
Maybe it’s safer to say that all the days have been bad.
But it’s hard to get yourself out of bed with that kind of mindset, and Jimin - unrelenting rash or not - needs to get out of bed. The world doesn’t stop just because it’s ended.
It would be a whole hell of a lot easier if it did.
And so Jimin begins day 413 at the Center for Thermo-Genetic Technology - ThermoGen - in much the same way he has for the however-many number of days they’ve resided here. He could probably give an exact number if he cared enough, but he doesn’t. That kind of thing doesn’t really matter anymore.
His routine starts, as it always does, before dawn.
Jimin wakes earlier than Yoongi - his roommate - and crawls out of bed to the dark and bitter cold of morning. It doesn’t seem to matter what the weather is outside nowadays, it’s always shit-cold before the sun rises. The insulation of the bedroll is a godsend by design, but it can’t quell the damp cold that leaches through even the thickest part of his socks from the moment his feet hit the floor.
It’s a horrible way to start the morning. It is also the only way to start the morning.
Because the reason Jimin wakes to begin with is to jumpstart the generator - the only source of heat in the building at all. The consequences of not starting it far outweigh the inconvenience of waking before the sun has risen, to the cold and pressing emptiness of the world outside.
The generator shuts off nightly at ten, restarts each morning at five - runs smoothly in the hours in between.
They don’t run it overnight.
And the task of operation has been left solidly in Jimin’s hands - his to start, his to end. Each day, without fail.
Which makes sense, considering he’d been frontline on its design, back when this place had been a science research hospital. When they’d needed an additional energy supply to support the equipment - a supply that wouldn’t collapse in light of a national power grid failure.
Nobody had ever considered it might be necessary for survival. But then again, nobody anticipated the end of the world as they knew it.
There’s no one here anymore - at the facility or otherwise - who knows how it works quite as well as Jimin. That doesn’t make the job of activating it suck any less.
So on day 413, Jimin rolls off his bedroll into the darkness as quietly as he can - begins his preparations for the day, just as he always does. The room marked for Jimin and Yoongi is small - their cots only about a meter apart. It’s just enough room to maneuver around one another, and not good for much else. The beds are old - loud. Jimin’s learned to avoid the springs that creak the loudest, and Yoongi sleeps on without incident. Jimin dresses quickly. He heads out into the darkness of the lab center without wasting unnecessary time.
The winding hallways here are tight and poorly ventilated - few windows and fewer doors. You might think it less desirable for living well, but from a heating and energetic standpoint, it’s quite ideal. The less access points for heat to seep out, the better. And with the way the weather has shifted since it all went down, they aren’t in any position to be wasteful.
The sealed-off quadrant of the facility that they’ve claimed for their base location consists of seven rooms on the first floor, snug to an inner wall facing what used to be the courtyard of the ThermoGen Research Hub. The location was chosen for a whole host of reasons, but a main one had been its proximity to a guarded exit. The generator sits parked dead center in the courtyard, with relatively easy access and little risk of outside observation.
It’s not in anyone’s best interest to have a regulated power supply these days. Well - it is, but it’s not in anyone’s best interest to make that public knowledge. Not many people remain on the grid, and publicizing yourself as someone with energy to spare is a great way to get yourself ambushed. Being stripped bare of their reserves isn’t something Jimin is all that interested in dealing with. Keeping the generator hidden had been top priority.
Today, Jimin gets the switch booted up with just one try. Not always the case, a pleasant surprise. He’s back within the lab center in just under fifteen minutes, maybe a record.
His fingertips remain blackened from the process, but what’s new. ThermoGen technology has always had its problems.
Back inside after the jumpstart, the laboratory hallway has come alive. The main generator supplies just enough power to keep operations viable, and the electricity hums at a low level throughout the day, which Jimin honestly prefers over the impending silence of the night. It annoys Jungkook, keeps his brain feeling wired up and buzzy in a way he hates, but there’s really no way to adjust it. Jimin doesn’t possess a lot of sympathy for that complaint. He’s of the belief they should be grateful for power at all.
He winds his way past the main lab section - still darkened, machines only just booting up from the jumpstart - and towards the galley kitchen pressed up alongside the dormitory space. He ignores the room partitioned across in the other direction, the clean room. The lights inside are off, so Namjoon might still be asleep for once. It would be a miracle if he is. Namjoon tends to wake early, roused by Jimin’s routine no matter how hard he works to stay quiet. Jimin can only hope he’s getting some rest for once.
God knows he needs it.
Jimin flips on the coffee machine for Yoongi on the countertop, and sets the tea kettle for Jungkook. Namjoon will have what he always has, and the rest of them will scrounge. Neither Yoongi nor Jimin are particularly partial to eating this early in the day, and if Jungkook wants to make his breakfast he can plug in his own damn toaster.
There’s rustling from within the room across his own, where Jungkook resides. He’ll probably be out shortly to start up the internal systems.
Yoongi remains dead to the world, but soon he’ll join too, and then the dawn will end and the day will begin.
Jimin seats himself at the counter and waits. He pulls his notebook closer - listens for the hum of the machinery to commence. After a moment it does, just as it always does, with an arrhythmic thrum of the gears and a buzz of surging power, and day 413 begins, finally, for the last living members of the ThermoGen T-Sub-06 operational project.
Just as it has everyday, since the 107th day after T-Sub-06 launched.
The day Kim Namjoon didn’t die.
-----
“Left arm,” Jimin prompts, reaching out blindly through the window, waiting for the feeling of a wrist situated in his grasp. He tears at the wrapping of the syringe with his teeth, unfolding the plastic to make a clear access point for the needle as he turns back to look through the glass. “You might feel a pinch.”
It’s an understatement, but Namjoon doesn’t reply. He simply shrugs his shoulders as he tilts his wrist towards the light for Jimin to get a better angle. The markings on his arm are numerous, a trail that reaches from the juncture of his hand up toward the crook of his elbow. Jimin has to be careful, nowadays, not to hit the same place twice. The bleeding doesn’t stem as poorly here as in other places, but it’s not often worth the risk.
Namjoon acts like he doesn’t mind one way or another, but Jimin knows it isn’t pleasant. Nothing is. The pattern of puncture wounds makes him sick to his stomach.
Namjoon lets out a small hiss as the needle pokes through, the blood pooling quickly at the tip as Jimin injects trial #57, base shot four. This one’s more potent than the last, a bit less diluted in the hopes of something actually sticking for once.
Jimin removes the tip after ten seconds of wait time between addition and retraction. Namjoon has admitted that it’s not comfortable to leave the needle in his skin, but they’ve learned over the past year that it’s best not to remove it too quickly. Any additional time to allow Namjoon’s blood cells a fighting chance is worth it.
He presses a cloth quickly to the wound, wraps the gauze tight, and then redresses the whole of the arm with a new bandage coated in coagulant, just enough to keep the other puncture wounds closed.
Namjoon retracts his arm once Jimin is done, pressing lightly to the bandage himself to ensure its security, and then moves backwards towards his bed to lean up against the frame. Jimin returns to his logbook. It’s important to keep a thorough record of everything, and Namjoon’s well-versed in Jimin’s idiosyncrasies. He knows well enough not to bother him until the log is completed.
Today’s dose is 15 ccs of an ammonium-based detoxicant. It’s Jungkook’s design, a carbon neutralizer found in algae that he’s been playing around with. It’s number 57, take a wild fucking guess how 1 to 56 went.
“This one smells,” Namjoon complains as he rests against the mattress, his arm held out to the side as far as he can place it.
He’s careful to lean his weight against the right leg. The splint on his left is taut, but Jimin wonders if it’ll need to be replaced soon. It gets worn down and pliable the more Namjoon moves, and it’s best to keep the fracture rigid. Honestly, it would be best if Namjoon didn’t move at all, but it would be horrible to ask that of him, when he’s already so contained as is.
“It’s the nitrogen,” Jimin sighs, closing his notebook and shelving it amongst the others. He sits behind the partition of the clean room, beside the sliding window that allows for sterile access into the space. Or as sterile as they can get it, given the limited options. Anything that enters the room goes through the window, ethanol-coated and sanitized. Namjoon can’t risk any unnecessary exposure. “Kookie’s been working with a bacterial colony from algae. He thinks it might help to neutralize the particulate buildup.”
He could go into more detail, but Namjoon probably doesn’t care. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that he can’t bring himself to at this point. He’d certainly be more invested if he was still on the other side of the glass, but it’s hard to worry about the science behind it all, when your body is failing.
And Namjoon’s body is failing in the worst sense imaginable. The splint behind his knee that holds together the fracture in his fibula proves it. The clean straight stitches at his jaw. The butterfly suture to the left of his navel. The patchwork of bandages across his neck that never stop tinging red.
You’d think his body would run out of blood to lose, but it hasn’t.
By all accounts Namjoon should be dead, but he isn’t.
Jimin fiddles with the dials at the machine to his left. He checks vitals, begins to watch for any change in heart rate and blood oxygen content. He pretends not to do anything but look at Namjoon himself. He feels off today - unsettled.
“Do you have any new books for me?” Namjoon asks, instead of acknowledging Jimin’s unsolicited explanation. Jimin can see him shuffling from the corner of his eye, making his way towards the head of his cot, peeling the covers forward just for something to do. “I finished Dune.”
“Did you like it?”
“It was riveting. Great worm, loved the pacing. Could do with a new book, though.”
Jimin snorts, rolling his eyes at the quip. It’s the third time Namjoon has finished Dune. There are no new books. It doesn’t stop him from asking.
“I’ll take a lap through the eastern wing later, maybe. I can see if a patient left a dirty mag for you.”
Namjoon makes a noise of distaste, and Jimin laughs. They both know he’s joking. If there were any dirty mags to be found, they’ve already nabbed them, just like they’ve pilfered just about everything the research center has to offer leftover from before the crash.
Jimin hates exploring the rest of the base. There are still bodies around, even now. You run out of space eventually. When ninety-five percent of the world dies you run out of space fairly quickly.
That’s a loose estimate, but it would be Jimin’s best guess, if he had to hypothesize. Seven point five billion - dead in a day. You run out of room.
When they’d taken over the place they’d done a cursory sweep, taking what they could from the supply centers and creating a stockpile in their own wing. Food, toiletries, equipment. You name it, they’ve got it. For four people, it’s enough to last a lifetime, or at least Jimin hopes. Once they were done, they moved the bodies they found as far from base as possible - most to what used to be the morgue.
It was disgusting - haunting - and Jimin hates thinking about it. At least now they’re partitioned away, blocked off. But every once in a while they’ll do a sweep and find another they missed, and it’s over a year later now, and the bodies don’t move as easily when they’re as rotten as they are. So Jimin and Yoongi don’t sweep the place anymore.
They work with what they’ve got. Namjoon knows it.
Jimin switches on the machinery to his left, a little box that they gerryrigged from an old blood-oxygen monitor. It connects down through the wall and into the clean room, clips at Namjoon’s fingertip. It was actually a pretty smart set-up - one of Yoongi’s ideas. It runs a simple diagnostic of the particulate matter buildup in the bloodstream based on wavelength, and doesn't require a blood sample at all. Yoongi had designed it when they’d first started understanding the extent of Namjoon’s injuries. You can’t poke him, the way you can everyone else.
They all do it - all four of them - once a day. A base measurement. Jungkook and Yoongi have low levels, Jimin a tick higher, Namjoon astronomical.
“Alright,” Jimin calls out, switching on the machine to boot up the system, and hooking up the reader to the port. It only takes a second before it’s all up and ready. “You know the drill by now, Joonie.”
Namjoon does. It’s always the same. Lie back, relax, let it run. Test takes about an hour; it’ll measure the after-effects of today’s trial and compare it to yesterdays. If it works, his numbers will be lower - a good sign. If it doesn’t, well, it normally doesn’t. Namjoon’s numbers haven’t stopped climbing for months. Life continues on.
That’s kind of part of the problem, actually.
Namjoon throws a thumbs-up towards the window before attaching the alligator clip to his index finger. Jimin watches as he lies back along his mattress, stares dead-eyed towards the ceiling. The test itself doesn’t really hurt, Jimin knows, his own finger buzzes just slightly as the laser takes the reading, but for Namjoon everything hurts. It never stops hurting, never gets better.
Yoongi and Jungkook take the test in the analysis and chemical wings of the lab, respectively. They don’t like watching anymore. Jungkook can’t stand to see the number tick up.
Jimin’s never been able to stop watching. He stays the entire duration; takes notes and markings as it runs. Maybe he’s still an optimist, or maybe he’s just stupid, but he wants to be there if it changes. Someone should be around if it does. So far he’s only had the luck of being there when it doesn’t.
It had been a car crash that did it, if you wouldn’t believe it - back before they’d migrated full-time to the lab. Before then, things had still been a bit more spread out. Jungkook and Jimin lived together in the compound where their old shared flat used to be. It was just easier that way. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to collect rent anymore, so staying had seemed a no-brainer.
It was a short walk to the lab back then, anyway. Easy enough, even with the power down. No reason to shift everything for ten minutes of their time. Plus, honestly, it had been kind of nice to separate work from home - even just a small break of normalcy. Not that it really did much, given the circumstance.
Namjoon and Yoongi had been further out, less lucky, depending on how you view it. They lived in a residential center about eight kilometers out, towards the city itself. Subsidized housing from ThermoGen - the kind of units people used to fight over. Coveted. Individual, with a yard. Prime real estate. It was just far enough out that you couldn’t walk, and so, when things shut down, Namjoon and Yoongi had snagged a car off the highway for the trek.
Gas was still easy enough to come by; public transit was long over and done with. The car was shit, but that didn’t matter. Namjoon didn’t even have a license, so what was it worth if the gas mileage was good or the gears didn’t rust. It wasn’t like there was anyone around anymore to judge them for it - certainly nobody there to fix it.
They’d been on their way early morning, Yoongi had recounted, when they’d hit the barrier - just about half a mile out from the compound itself. It might have been a sinkhole in the highway - there were plenty of those around nowadays - or, just as easily, some issue with the brake system of the cruiser. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t any way to tell, the car was totaled.
Jimin had seen it, when they’d found them.
It was maybe a miracle that Jungkook and Jimin had known where to look, but after an hour of waiting around they’d gone out searching. It wasn’t like anyone to be late. There were no set hours, but Yoongi and Joon were consistent. They showed up at six, rain or shine.
When they’d come across the car it was halfway smashed into the concrete guardrail of the highway - still smoking. The front end was compressed fully, the tires shot, window shards and snapped metal everywhere.
It looked like a nightmare - even ten meters away.
But the worst part was the scrap metal, broken off and slammed through the front driver’s side window. Razorsharp. Slit Namjoon’s throat clean, Yoongi had said. Yoongi was stuck smashed in behind the airbag and the dashboard, but he’d seen it. Before he’d passed out from the shock, he’d watched.
He’d seen the metal slice his throat. He’d watched him die.
Except, that was the thing. When Jimin and Jungkook had finally pulled Namjoon from the wreck - extracted Yoongi as well - he hadn’t been dead. Broken, sure. Bloody - you bet. But breathing nonetheless. His heartbeat was normal, steady. In some ways, he looked better off than Yoongi did, whose breathing was slow, labored.
Jimin had been too disgusted by the sheer quantity of blood to stomach it - had to look away from the wounds to stop himself from vomiting. Jungkook had had to carry them both back to the base.
A fucking car crash, in the end of the world.
And that was day 107, and now it’s 413 - almost a year later - and Namjoon is in the clean room, and he’s still bleeding. He’s bleeding at his navel, where a stray shard of glass pierced deep. He’s bleeding internally, where the bone sits fractured still - refusing to fuse no matter what they do. He’s bleeding from his neck, despite the stitches that hold his skin as tightly together as possible. The gash still gapes when they change the bandage.
Yoongi healed - his wounds closed, his scars faded - and Namjoon just didn’t.
He looks just the same now as he did when they’d pulled him from the wreck. They pressed him with gauze, they wrapped him up, did everything they were supposed to do - everything they’d been trained to do - and the blood slowed, but it didn’t cease. Nothing clotted. It was like his body couldn’t fight it. His immune system; just shot - gone.
You weren’t supposed to live through that. A slice through the carotid artery - fully severed. No blood oxygen supply to the brain - a heart pumping to nowhere, dragging a rotten body along with it.
Namjoon was supposed to be dead. Or, at the very least, comatose. Not walking around, smiling, reading fucking Dune.
And yet.
“First metric’s finished. Any change?” Namjoon calls out, dragging Jimin’s attention from the number’s ticking up along the emission trace. Higher numbers than last time, for Namjoon.
And yet, here they are.
“Moderate uptick, so far,” replies Jimin, reaching up to retrieve his notebook to log today’s preliminaries.
There’s no sense in lying to Namjoon about the whole thing, though Jimin supposes he could. It’s not like Namjoon can come out here and read the data himself. He could fudge the numbers, give him some good news for once. Hell, they could lie to themselves all they wanted if they thought it would make anyone feel any better - make any difference.
But Namjoon is smart. He’s known Jimin forever, knows the science just as well as anyone else here. Probably better, when it comes to Yoongi and Jimin. He knows when he’s being fed garbage. There would be no point, it wouldn’t change the facts.
“Sounds like shit to me,” he notes. Jimin can see him blink hard at the ceiling through the glass, his fingers fidgeting at the corner of the mattress. It’s reminiscent of how he used to tap at the edge of the lab bench in the imaging room when the machine skipped and the pictures came out grainy - not how he wanted.
“It is shit,” Jimin agrees, not bothering to elaborate.
The numbers on the reader are higher than yesterday’s. That’s all that matters, really. Higher concentration of matter in his bloodstream. Lowered O2 levels. Blood pressure stable, but way too high. Numbers of a body in disarray - fucked beyond belief.
The reconfigured pulse-oximeter takes another twenty five minutes to complete, and Jimin and Namjoon spend that time in relatively comfortable silence. He takes log in his notebook - adjusts the settings on the machines that pump fresh air into the clean room to keep it cycling. Everything’s running as it should - the internal battery that keeps it chugging overnight is lit up and charging.
Jimin finds things to keep himself busy until the oximeter beeps to signal completion, and the final chart prints out onto the screen of the receiver - pushed immediately towards the computer in the other room, where Yoongi will take over the analysis.
Jimin leans back in his seat, stretches up to crack his back and lets Namjoon know he’ll be back in a few hours to change the bandage again, assess the blood clotting. Namjoon waves to signal he’s heard, and that’s that. All they can do, until one of them will need to come through with food and water, and testing will start up again in the afternoon.
Jimin unclips the scanner from his own index and shuts down the machines for the introductory diagnostics - grabs his keys off the benchtop and heads out.
Everyday is the same.
—
Dinner today is something sour. Squid, maybe? Sour. It’s burnt at the edges and rubbery in the middle.
Yoongi can probably tell Jimin doesn’t like it. He piles more onto the plate before he can shove his chopsticks in the way to signal he’s not interested. Typical.
“You look thinner,” Yoongi says, sitting down across the table in the spot he always takes. His own plate is full, the pan in the sink scraped clean. He digs in like the taste doesn’t bother him, and Jimin wrinkles his nose before begrudgingly doing the same. Yoongi’s right about looking thinner. He’s down a kilo since last month. He should eat more.
He won’t say that out loud though. Yoongi’s a bitch when he’s right.
“Kook told me in the afternoon that today’s dose was a bust. Seemed mad,” Yoongi says between bites, after Jimin ignores the extended window to answer. He says it like it means nothing - like they’re discussing the weather, or a book. Like it’s not the huge let down that it is.
Jimin hardens his expression.
The fact that the latest dose didn’t work isn’t a surprise, but the levity with which Yoongi discusses it irks him in a way it doesn’t normally. He watches from the corner of his eye as Yoongi takes a gulp of water from his mug, scrapes more rice from the edge of his plate towards the pile at the center. Yoongi continues after a beat, another mouthful, when Jimin’s silence draws on too long.
“He says he’s been looking into a new mutation with the algae strain that might hold better. Says it looks promising.” He pauses in his rundown to shoot Jimin an assessing look. “You tell him yet?”
Jimin shrugs one shoulder, cracks his neck, and Yoongi squints, knocking the end of his chopsticks down hard on the plate at the non-answer.
“You not talking now?” he asks bluntly.
He snaps his fingers in Jimin’s face when he tries again to dodge the eye contact, and Jimin reels his head back at the sound. He grumbles a noise to get Yoongi back out of his space, but it only results in Yoongi leaning closer.
“What’s there to say?” he finally replies, when Yoongi won’t stop looking at him. He pushes a lump of something charred to the side. Yoongi wasn’t ever the best cook of them, but Jungkook hasn’t been cooperative lately, and Jimin’s worse.
“A lot you could say,” Yoongi answers, pulling his hand back and resuming the scrape of his chopstick against the plate. “Could talk about Joon.”
“Don’t want to talk about Joon.”
Yoongi nods side to side, purses his lips in concentration as a grain of rice evades his grasp. Jimin wishes he’d just use his fingers with the way he just trails it in an infinite loop around the plate.
“Could talk about Kook, and all that fucking junk he keeps dragging around with him.”
Jimin shrugs again, furrows his brow - tries to ignore Yoongi’s actions. His arm itches. He resists the urge to scratch.
“What’s it to me what Jungkook messes with.”
Yoongi huffs a laugh without any humor to it. Shakes his head.
“Christ. You’re in a mood today.”
Jimin hazards a glance up from where he’s been facing down the wood of the table before him. Yoongi’s expression lacks the bitterness of his tone - there’s concern there, if anything. Jimin tries not to let that grate on him. It isn’t Yoongi’s fault that Jimin’s mood is sour.
He sighs, trying to curb some of the mental funk that’s been building since the morning - lowers his shoulders, un-scrunches his brow. It gets like this, sometimes, on the bad days - becomes incrementally more difficult to act as though things are normal when they aren’t. It’s nobody else’s problem but his own.
“Sorry, hyung,” he mumbles, sagging back against the seat. He scrubs a hand down over his face, tries to will himself to ignore the burning sensation at his wrist. “Kook came in earlier, after I did the metric. He chewed me out for the puncture. It’s bled more than usual.”
Yoongi frowns - leans back in his own chair as he takes in that information.
“He say why?”
It’s not like Jungkook’s the only biologist on the team, but he’s close to it. The only trained one, at the least. Jimin remembers being proud as hell when Jungkook graduated with honors, their parents threw a party and everything. Jungkook’s always been smart. It isn’t like Jimin and Yoongi aren’t, but they didn’t study this shit. Everyday feels like a struggle to catch up.
“Something about the coagulate not working like it should. I dunno. He threw me out.” Jimin takes a sip of water to mitigate the sourness of the next bite. He wonders if there’s any tea handy. Tea might help. He shrugs with his next mouthful, talking through his food in the way he knows Yoongi hates. “He was worried it’s gonna be a bitch to patch up. We’re running out of space on the arm.”
Jimin knows part of the reason for his bad mood, in addition to the general funk of the day, is the guilt that kicks him for fucking up. It’s too late in the game to be making mistakes. The stakes are too high, and he’s done the puncture often enough to be able to do it right.
Yoongi wouldn’t blame him for that - he’s probably worse than Jimin at adapting to the biological side of everything - but Jungkook does, and it always puts him in a rut to get dressed down by his younger brother.
Doesn’t feel like the way that’s supposed to go in life.
Yoongi grunts, shaking his head with a scowl. Whether it’s at his table manners, or the situation as a whole, it’s hard to say. Jimin isn’t too pressed to figure it out, more concentrated on stabbing at a lump on his plate, and at least Yoongi resumes eating.
“How’s the arm looking?” he asks after a few more minutes, going for direct this time, and Jimin tries to school his expression at the itch he feels pick up.
It’s like the damn thing knows when he’s thinking about it. It’s almost like a burn, the way it claws for his attention.
“Same as before,” he answers, and Yoongi raises his eyebrows, pausing his chopsticks midway to his mouth.
“Yea?”
Jimin nods, looks a little off to the side in the hopes that Yoongi doesn’t call him out on his bullshit today. All he’d have to do is lift the cuff of his shirt to know how monumentally fucking untrue that statement is. But today’s not the kind of day he wants to raise anyone’s hackles any higher than they already are. Jungkook’s been in a bad mood all week - if he hears that Jimin’s worse, it’ll only bring everyone down further.
Jimin hates being the one to drag things down.
“Still - you’re thinner,” Yoongi states, not a question. “You should eat more. Whatever that shit is, it’s not going to help you any to starve.”
Jimin nods to that, doesn’t say that hunger hasn’t really been crossing his mind all that often lately. It won’t help him at all to let on to that fact.
The thing on his wrist isn’t new to any of them. They’ve seen it before, back on day 57, in patchwork marks up the length of Namjoon’s left leg. It didn’t go away then - spread farther along in bubbled blisters that nobody could explain. It looked a little like poison ivy. Jimin’s is more like a scab.
Namjoon kept it to himself for too long. Jimin knows it’s dumb as hell to do the same, but they don’t have a second clean room to shove him in if it gets worse. And the thought of being in there, stuck forever, outweighs any allegiance he has towards the truth. Maybe he’s selfish for that, but he doesn’t like thinking about it.
Before Yoongi can continue, the door to the main room unlatches, followed by the scrape of thick-soled boots across the concrete - Jungkook. He likes to stomp around - always has, since he was a kid dragging mud through their parent’s entryway. Jimin’s used to it, doesn’t even startle at the noise as Jungkook trudges his way in. He watches Yoongi turn his head and raise his brow in greeting, but doesn’t bother to do the same.
He’s not feeling particularly inclined towards pleasantries right now.
“I fixed the wound,” Jungkook says without preamble, throwing himself into the chair by Yoongi’s side, across from Jimin. “The coagulate wasn’t evenly spread, got too concentrated by the wrist. Should be good now.”
He sounds less pissy than he did an hour ago, when he railed at Jimin for the mistake, but there’s still something about his tone. An edge. He always gets like this, when it comes to Namjoon. Of all of them, he’s taken to the clean-room protocol the harshest. Probably has to do with his own attachment. It’s not like they don’t all have reason to worry, but Jimin knows there was something more going on there between the two of them, before the crash. He isn’t sure, exactly, if that’s progressed much since.
Romance hasn’t really been a high-priority subject recently.
“That’s good, that you fixed it,” Yoongi hums, resuming his eating.
Jimin tries not to glare down at his own plate at the lingering wave of irritation. It’s hard not to berate himself about how they wouldn’t have had to fix it, if he’d done it right the first time. Jungkook doesn’t say anything more to that fact, but Jimin’s sure he’s thinking it. When Jimin does look up, Jungkook averts his eyes not to have to meet them.
It seats something unpleasant in his chest, the terms he’s found himself on with Jungkook lately. Not necessarily bad, but off. Distant, in a way that feels impossible for the sheer amount of time they spend together. Like lines running parallel - only an arms length apart.
And it unnerves him, if he’s being honest.
Growing up together, they never used to fight. Jimin was just two years older than Jungkook, and it was enough of an age gap that they probably should’ve butted heads, but it never really happened. Jungkook looked up to Jimin in everything. He idolized him - followed him to school, and then followed him to ThermoGen. They always seemed to be on the same page about everything.
And they aren’t now. Or at least, they’re close in a new way - more equal. Less simple, maybe. And Jimin’s aware that that comes with the territory of growing up, but sometimes he worries if it’s deeper than that. If there was some opportunity to keep Jungkook close and he missed it. It leaves him with an unsettled feeling.
It seems that nowadays they exist in an air of uncertainty that never used to be there. Jimin’s been trying not to let it get to him. He knows it’s a symptom of the circumstance. You can’t spend a year in close quarters without dispute. It’s impossible not to step on one another’s toes.
“Is there anything leftover?” Jungkook asks the question towards Yoongi, but it’s Jimin who pushes his plate across the table - still half full.
Yoongi didn’t make enough for three, he knows. Jungkook tends to eat on his own, late in the evening as he works. He runs on a constant schedule, one that Yoongi and Jimin never feel all that inclined to follow. That being said, it’s not unusual for him to pilfer from their own evening meal. Jimin doesn’t even think twice about abandoning his serving - it’s not like he’s enjoying it anyway. It might as well get eaten by Jungkook, who never seems to bother tasting what he eats. He’s like a vacuum cleaner, that one.
Yoongi shoots him a look, but doesn’t bring up what they’ve only just discussed. Jungkook takes the plate with a small smile that makes him look too young. Sometimes Jimin wonders when Jungkook stopped being his kid little brother, but sometimes it's bitterly clear he still is. His eyes are big and round as he accepts the plate - food already stuck to his lip just from the first bite. Jimin struggles not to tsk at it. He knows Jungkook wouldn’t appreciate the babying.
He’s still the older brother - there will always be that intrinsic responsibility there. Even if Jungkook irritates him, and they butt heads from time to time. Even if they walk this constant and unnervingly fine line.
He scarfs his meal down faster than Jimin would expect him to for what it is, but that’s always been Jungkook for you. They all sit together as he does, Jimin at some point making himself the cup of tea he’d been considering. It warms his hands at least, though it does nothing to quell the jittery feeling in his stomach as he watches Jungkook eat.
It’s only when he’s finally scraped up the last of his rice that he speaks again.
“Thank you, hyung,” he says purposefully, standing up and stretching before sliding the plate into the sink basin, probably for Jimin to wash later. He leans down and pulls up a stack of paper from the floor that Jimin hadn’t noticed him come in with, though maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. Jungkook never stops thinking - never stops having new ideas.
Today it’s a pile of folders. Jimin recognizes the bottom few as old logs of Namjoon’s results, printed out and organized. It kind of pays to keep a paper trail, with the risk of digital files crapping out when the power goes down, so it isn’t surprising Jungkook has them. The top few, though, those Jimin can’t pinpoint.
“What’s with the books?” Yoongi voices ahead of Jimin, stalling Jungkook before he can worm his way back into his room for the evening.
Jungkook looks down at his arms as if in shock himself at all the papers in his possession, and Jimin snorts a laugh before he can help it. Jungkook’s always been a shit liar - acts like he’s caught before he’s even begun crafting the story. It’s the eyes.
“Been looking through the records,” he says, shuffling from foot to foot with both Jimin and Yoongi’s eyes on him. Jungkook hates attention.
Jimin squints at that, watches the way Jungkook almost itches to leave the room without further conversation.
“You hiding something?” he asks, because why bother pretending they don’t know.
Jungkook scoffs, rolls his eyes. So he is, definitely.
“No, hyung,” he grouches - back to bitchy Jungkook now that he’s gotten what he wants from them. He kicks his boot on the ground, reshuffles the folders in his arms. “I’ve just got shit to do. Am I allowed to do that? Or should we all just sit in here in the kitchen waiting with our thumbs up our asses?”
Yoongi rolls his eyes and stands up as well, turns around to shove his own plate in the sink and set about cleaning up. Jimin doesn’t blame him for turning tail. It seems like, recently, setting Jungkook off takes little more than saying the wrong thing. Or even just saying the right thing in the wrong way. He swings back and forth between doe-eyed little brother and brooding pest, depending on the time of day. It’s annoying, but what’s Jimin supposed to do about it?
He pulls down his own sleeve as he feels the rash heat up again. He has reason enough not to let this bubble over into some kind of spat. Between just the two of them it’s fine, but Yoongi will start to drag shit up and make it a hell of a lot worse.
“Just go, Kookie,” he sighs, holding his eye contact for a moment, bringing his tea up to his lips for another sip. “Stay out of trouble.”
Jungkook holds his gaze for a moment longer, before some of the tension in his shoulders drops and he nods. He turns on his heel, slips into his own room with the door shut firmly behind him.
Yoongi rejoins him at the table after a moment longer - shoves a new plate of something in front of him, something pickled, by the looks of it. Jimin takes the plate without a word, as well as the new pair of clean chopsticks Yoongi hands him.
His stomach turns at the meal, but he should eat. His arm burns more than it did before, and Yoongi’s right, he’s getting thinner.
---
The whiskey tastes better once the generator shuts off.
Jimin doesn’t normally drink - not really - but he tends to make an exception when Yoongi suggests it. He tends to suggest it about once a week.
They used to drink more when they were still in university together. Yoongi was two years ahead, a mentor in the engineering department. He’d fallen into a friendship with Jimin loosely - offered him a smoke outside the building when he asked, let him hang around even when he didn’t. It was an easy sort of friendship. They were both smart, near the top of the class, and Yoongi said he liked Jimin’s attitude. They’d club together, sometimes, though Yoongi didn’t ever seem all that interested in clubbing.
Namjoon had joined every once in a while, too, when Jimin managed to drag him along.
They’d get piss-drunk and dance and then show up to lecture the next morning hungover beyond belief, until one of them begged off and bought coffee. It was sort of a Thursday night routine, by the end of it.
And when Yoongi had applied for a data analysis position with ThermoGen and nailed the interview, he’d passed the details along to Namjoon and Jimin after. He pretended not to care one way or another if they went for it, but Jimin knew Yoongi didn’t offer information unless he meant it. It had seemed like a sweet gig, anyway.
They didn’t drink as much, once they were all working, but Yoongi drinks too much now.
Jimin sits with his back to the door of the diagnostics room, tucked away out of sight. Yoongi’s pressed up by the wave reader, the bottle tipped loosely in his hand. It’s one of those liquor bottles with the square bottoms, cheap shit, and Jimin watches as he taps it rhythmically from corner to corner. Every eight turns he takes a sip. Jimin doesn’t know if that’s on purpose, or just coincidence.
He’s not too sober himself, so he’s comfortable with it being either way.
It’s not like they need to be hiding to drink like this. Jungkook knows they do it. He sees the bottles pile up before they get tossed away with the rest of the scraps. He’s not an idiot, nor does Jimin think he would particularly blame them one way or another for what they do. They’re all adults here, after all.
But Yoongi prefers the diagnostic room - says he likes the quiet - and Jimin’s never cared enough to question him on that fact. The whole building’s quiet, once the generator turns off. Yoongi always did have his preferences.
They sit together usually for around an hour - not long enough to get shitfaced like they used to, but just the right amount to dull down that edge that builds up over the course of the week. After countless failed trials, there’s always reason enough to numb themselves at least for a little while. Liquor helps.
Maybe that’s not healthy, but what about any of this is healthy, anymore?
Yoongi kicks out a foot, nudges Jimin in the kneecap to get his attention, and Jimin raises an eyebrow. He leans forward to grab the bottle when Yoongi hands it over, tips a measure back and bites down hard at the taste. He’s not a lightweight, but he was never really a whiskey guy.
There’s a noise from the hallway, faint. A door closing, papers shuffling. Jimin knows it’s Jungkook from the thunk of the boots. They stop just outside the door and then continue, and Jimin surmises from the sound that he’s headed towards Namjoon’s room.
Not really a shock. It’s where he always goes. It’s late - later than they should be spending out and about - but that doesn’t matter.
“He seem off to you?” Yoongi asks, after they hear the sound of a door close. He rolls his neck this way and that to ease the tension from the position on the floor, but he keeps his eyes steadily on Jimin.
It’s just a hit past ten. Jimin shut things down just before joining him. It’ll be too cold to stay on the concrete soon, if they don’t time it right.
Jimin shrugs, knocks back another drink and then nudges the bottle back towards Yoongi’s waiting hand.
“He’s been pissed,” Jimin says as he settles himself more comfortably against the doorframe. “We all are. Nothing’s working. We don’t know shit.”
It’s the truth. They don’t.
Yoongi purses his lips, looks down at his hands, and Jimin takes the moment to knock his head back against the metal of the door. The room spins a bit when he closes his eyes, just slightly, in that funny way it does when you’re just edging past the point of drunk. He’ll probably need a glass of water before bed, if he doesn’t want to wake up tomorrow feeling lousy.
“Nah but-” Yoongi cuts through Jimin’s thoughts, and Jimin opens an eye to signal he’s listening. He watches as Yoongi goes back to tipping the bottle along the floor, over and over again. “He’s seemed - off.”
Jimin furrows his brow at the wording there, the way Yoongi paces the phrase. Talking about Jungkook - gossiping - is kind of old news at this point. Jimin usually tries to steer the conversation away. It feels weird to do it now. Feels like adding unnecessary room for distrust.
But the way Yoongi says it, Jimin doesn’t know if he likes that. Yoongi likes to dredge up shit, but the thing is he doesn’t really worry. He thinks a lot, considers, ruminates, whatever you want to call it, but the last thing he does is worry.
Tonight there’s something there, to his tone, like he’s carefully not saying something he’s been tossing around in his head for a while. Jimin doesn’t know how to parse it, certainly not with the whiskey.
“Spell it out for me, hyung.”
“It’s like,” Yoongi licks his lips, takes a swig, and seems to think better of it. He switches gears, starts again, “You remember that old radio he found? The one back in the southern wing?”
It’s an odd segue, maybe, but Jimin does recall, if only vaguely.
Jungkook was in charge of a lot of the initial data collection. He toyed with the machines, brought the ones he thought they’d need, found the blueprints for the ones they didn’t have. He scoured the place top to bottom - dragged along anything he found. There were tons of papers, files, documents. Mostly shit that didn’t end up mattering in the long run. But there were some files in particular that Jimin can recall Jungkook getting especially excited about. One of them had been the handbook for an old transistor radio down in the basement.
He’d found it, he said, still able to turn on. That was back when they’d still been in touch with people outside the facility, back before things outside got too dicey and they cut their losses. Jimin had asked about it, months after, but Jungkook had said he wasn’t sure it mattered after all. It could still communicate, but the signal was dead, he’d said. Didn’t lead anywhere.
“The transistor stuff?” Jimin asks, to clarify.
Jungkook hadn’t brought it up in months, at least not to Jimin. But, then again, they didn’t tend to discuss too much outside of protocols anymore. He supposes it could still be on his mind now, finding a way to communicate. Though the why of it, that he doesn’t have an answer for.
“Yeah, that,” Yoongi confirms, setting the bottle down and thumbing at the front pocket of his jeans. “He just - he mentioned something to me last week, about wanting to head back towards the southern wing to find it. It was while you were toying with the defibrillator that one evening. He headed out and came back - dragged it all the way here by himself. And when he did he had all these fucking papers with him.”
“Jungkook finds papers all the time,” Jimin points out.
“Sure,” Yoongi agrees. “But he wouldn’t let me see them when I asked. Told me not to worry about it.”
“Huh,” says Jimin, not quite sure what to make of that. “He didn’t say anything at all?”
Yoongi pauses, looks at Jimin in that way that says he’s not sure how much he’s willing to own up to. It’s a look that sets Jimin on edge again, even with the soft feeling of the liquor clouding his thoughts. Yoongi doesn’t look that way all too often. Jimin resists the urge to scratch at the itch building up under his skin for it.
“That’s the thing,” Yoongi starts slowly, lowers his voice just the slightest bit, as if Jungkook is some beast lurking outside the door, and not just Jimin’s younger brother, with stomping boots and a snot-nosed attitude. “He came back and asked if I knew anything about the Onsan team.”
“Onsan?” Jimin asks.
Onsan was the other operational base for the T-Sub-06 project. The specs had been designed at ThermoGen, and then shipped out to production there for the actual launch. The missile launch took place about 6 kilometers outside the Onsan hub, in an acquired field just off the highway. The effort had required constant communication between the two locations, nailing down the logistics of the transfer after the build was complete.
Of course Yoongi knows Onsan - they all knew Onsan. Knew, past tense.
“You think he’s trying to get ahold of them,” Jimin fills in.
Yoongi doesn’t reply, tips his head back for another sip at the whiskey. Jimin furrows his brows. It’s not difficult to piece together what Yoongi’s hinting at here. A transistor radio and the Onsan team - Jungkook’s skittishness these last few weeks. Anyone could see where that all connects. But-
“They’re all dead,” Jimin says, after a beat of silence spent watching Yoongi drink. He rubs at the dirt under his own fingernails. “Onsan hasn’t been operational since the day of the crash.”
They’d tried every measure of communication to reach the team when things had first gone down - even considered driving out once - but it was a bust. It was a shit journey there, even when highways were still operational, and once the power grid snapped it was pretty much considered a wash.
Onsan wasn’t like the research hospital. It wasn’t like the facility at all. It was a warehouse at best, a few buildings and empty space. Too far away to reach if things got dicey. Sure as hell wasn’t built to house anybody long term. If they’d survived the crash at all, and that was a massive if, the general consensus was they weren’t there any longer. There was no sense in reaching out to a deadzone.
“Yeah, I know that.” Yoongi says, licks at his lips. He pauses, as if he’s weighing something in his head. “Does Jungkook know that?”
Jimin leans forward and grabs at the bottle again, takes a swig before he snaps.
“Of course he knows.”
There’s a slam of a door outside, thick boots along the concrete, and Jimin and Yoongi fall silent as the steps tread by. They listen, as Jungkook slides open the pane to the chemical room, most likely. They wait for the click of the lock shutting into place to continue.
“Look, maybe it’s nothing,” Yoongi says after a beat longer, a carefully measured silence. Jimin’s sure he can sense the building irritation. “But he’s been more and more offbook lately, and I just - everything with that conversation rubbed me the wrong way.”
“This conversation rubs me the wrong way,” Jimin mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face.
The floor’s getting cold now, and he doesn’t know how much longer he wants to sit here humoring Yoongi with his bullshit. He came to drink and stop thinking altogether, not cram his skull full of new problems to deal with.
Jungkook trying to contact Onsan isn’t necessarily an issue in and of itself. There’s no reason they shouldn’t try to reach out to others, especially not the team most closely intertwined with the initial launch. Hell, it isn’t like they haven’t tried to, in the past. If they were still there, they might be able to join up - help one another move forward.
But they aren’t there. They know they aren’t there.
And Jungkook wasting his time building up false hope is a problem. There’s more risk out there than just finding a few dead bodies in the dirt. A lot more risk.
“Look. I’m just saying,” Yoongi says. “It’s a concern.”
Jimin hums noncommittally, looks down at his fingernails.
He just wanted a drink.
He doesn’t want to waste his time stressing over whatever it is that Jungkook’s up to, if he’s even up to anything. He’s always doing shit - it doesn’t have to mean anything. He hates the idea of going behind one another’s backs, casting doubt. Life’s already fucked up enough, as is, without adding alliances and distrust to the list.
“Maybe,” he says after a lingering pause, if just to reply.
“I’m not trying to start anything,” Yoongi sighs, lifting one hand, palm out, expression worn. “But you know just as well as I do that it’s not good for him to be sticking his nose out there where it doesn’t belong. We have shit to do here. Namjoon’s here , not out in Onsan. Whether you like it or not, the kid’s distracted, and just because you don’t want to read the signs doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
“What do you want me to say, Yoongi?” Jimin groans, dropping formality. It isn’t quite a shout, but it isn’t quiet either. His voice echoes through the diagnostics room, and he cringes. He lowers his volume, but does little to stop the irritation from bleeding into his tone. “What do you want me to do, huh? I can’t tell you what he wants with Onsan. I can barely tell you what he fucking wants for breakfast.”
“And that’s the problem , Jimin,” Yoongi hisses back, the bottle swinging in his hand to make his point. “We don’t know what the fuck he’s up to. We don’t know why he wants it. Hell, we don’t even know what he’s doing right now .”
“He’s with Namjoon,” Jimin counters, hating that at some point this became a disagreement. “He’s working to figure this shit out.”
“Are you sure that’s what he’s doing?” Yoongi asks more harshly, and Jimin groans, scrubs a hand down his face again without answering. It’s getting too late for this back-and-forth and bitterness.
“You’re getting worse,” Yoongi says with finality. “I saw the blisters. I’ve seen your ribs. The last thing we need is him running off to cause trouble. I can’t save you both alone.”
“Don’t bring me into this - I’m fine.”
“For the love of- you’re not fine. Fucking look at yourself.”
Jimin bristles, his jaw clenching, as Yoongi gestures vaguely to the whole of his body - as if the progression of his symptoms are painfully clear. They aren’t. It’s a fucking rash - nothing more, nothing less. His ribs were always prominent. He’s always been lean.
He doesn’t know how this turned into an argument again. The same argument they keep having, every time anyone's nerves fray past the point of salvaging. Distrust building into cruelty. There’s no way to stop it once it gets rolling - no way to diffuse it until morning - and Jimin feels, all too suddenly, a sense of fatigue at the idea of even trying.
He’s in no mood to continue.
Nothing this day has gone as planned - just one wrong move after another. A year of isolation and encroaching on one another’s space hitting a breaking point, maybe. It doesn’t matter what the reason is - he’s done with it for the evening.
“I’m going to bed,” Jimin says quietly, directing the words towards Yoongi’s splayed legs after a tense and bitter silence. He stands on unsteady feet - catches his balance on the doorframe. “I don’t need to listen to this shit anymore.”
Yoongi remains on the floor, his eyes cast downward towards the bottle, as Jimin fumbles through opening the latch. His fingers are less coordinated than he’d like them to be. Maybe he drank more tonight than he should’ve. He doesn’t say anything else towards Yoongi before he goes, and Yoongi says nothing in return.
That’s just how it is sometimes, in these situations. In the morning they’ll talk again - act as though the spat didn’t happen. They’ll move forward, just as they always do.
Jimin presses lightly to the wall as he makes his way back through the darkness of the hallway, towards the main hub of the labspace. He can hear movement behind the door to the chemical room - the gritty scrape of canisters opening, the stirrer set to low. Jungkook never stops working, even late into the night, he never stops.
Jimin hates the ugly feeling that dredges up now, having to wonder what it is exactly he’s working on .
He knows it’s the algae probe - trial #57 - base shot five. It’s what they discussed this afternoon. A slightly higher dosage, hoping to cut through the particulate matter buildup. It binds well to carbon in the trial runs, Jungkook had said. It has a fighting chance.
Jimin knows that to be true. He refuses to allow Yoongi’s own bitter insinuations to cloud that fact.
He goes to bed, to allow for the dawn of another day.
---
Day 414 begins unlike any other day that has occurred before it.
There are a whole host of reasons that solidify that fact, but the first, and the most glaringly obvious, is that Jimin does not awake to the bitter cold of morning.
There is subtle difference even in the air as Jimin cracks open his eyes before dawn. Something hard to pinpoint. There is light below the doorway, as if he’s slept past the point of morning. The normally oppressive darkness tinged gray - the unrelenting cold, subdued. And for one immense moment, he doesn’t understand the difference. He is almost content to appreciate the warmth of the air that surrounds him - accept the light of day.
Until he remembers there are no windows in the base.
And then he rolls out of bed, hits the floor in a harried rush, even before he’s comprehended why. His brain is fuzzy, foggy, moving on impulse alone.
He can hear it, now that he’s listening. Beneath the warmth of morning hums the constant buzz of the power breaker, set to life.
And Jimin is on his feet, even before he’s really conscious. And then, when the understanding of what that buzzing means fully kicks in, he is frantic - all but running to escape the heat of the bedroll.
There should never be a thrum of electricity this early. The generator is on.
The generator doesn’t run at night, and for good reason. There is too much risk in operating it before daybreak - uncertainties to deal with that are better left untouched. The power gauge isn’t built to withstand the temperature drop. Its reaction is fickle - finicky. Jimin’s hands are charred to prove it.
Nobody else runs it - nobody else touches it.
Jimin finds no time to dress before he’s out the door, mind racing, socked-feet pounding along the warmth of the concrete flooring. His mind races. It’s too early for the floor to reach this temperature. He can’t think about how long it’s been running. He doesn’t want to consider it.
Yoongi isn’t in the bedroom - his own cot left made - untouched, unrumpled from sleep. Jimin can’t help the fear that grips him at what these two compounding facts could amount to.
The kitchen is empty, as is the analytics room. Jungkook’s space, too. Clean - unsettlingly clean. Jimin slams through the hallways, finds no better option but to head straight for the courtyard, where the sun has yet to rise. It’s still before dawn.
The generator buzzes, alive, where it always sits - dead center. Jimin inspects it with shaking hands, wills himself to calm down at the nauseating uncertainty of it all. It’s fine - it’s normal. No damage, no system failure. Operating as always. It does nothing to quell the intense anxiety in Jimin’s gut.
If nothing’s wrong - nothing astronomically wrong - then why is it on to begin with?
He heads back inside on unsure footing, anticipates danger at any turn with a pounding heartbeat and restless fingers. The itch under his shirtsleeve is burning.
The generator’s been running for hours. And, of course, Yoongi and Jungkook know how to operate it. They can turn it on and off - they know the failsafes to use if something goes awry. It was the first thing Jimin trained them on. If there were ever any situation they might need to use it without him, they can. If, for whatever reason, he isn’t around anymore to do it himself.
But he’s here . There’s no reason - at the very least no good reason.
No reason that doesn’t leave Jimin strung tight with nerves as he re-enters the lab space. It’s too quiet, even for the morning. There is something very wrong.
The chemical room, the closest to the courtyard entrance, stands empty. Jimin hears the clink of the stirrer in a beaker of something on the benchtop. The incubator hums. There are vials in the shaker, a capped compound sitting on the bench, as if Jungkook has only just stepped out for something from the other room. As if he’ll return any moment.
The lights in Namjoon’s room are off.
The diagnostics room is another story.
It’s there that Jimin finds Yoongi. If not for a few glaring differences, he might almost be convinced of the fact that he’s stayed there all night. He sits right where Jimin left him - a bottle beside him. In the darkness of the room, behind the cradle of his fingertips, Jimin almost doesn’t notice the shiner on his face just over his left eye - the building bruise. Almost.
But the injury is the least of his concerns, with the mess that Jimin nearly trips over in the center of the workspace. A scattering of electronics across the floor - mesh and wires and coil. Shattered - smashed and then stepped on and smashed again. It’s not something done by accident.
It doesn’t take a genius to know what it is.
The tape deck strewn to the side - the busted up wire mesh of what once was a speaker. A transistor radio, ruined on the floor of the diagnostics lab. It’s been all but brutalized, slammed to the floor in pieces until indiscernible - irreparable.
And amongst the wreckage sits Yoongi, with a bruised face and bloody knuckles.
It’s hard not to jump to conclusions.
“What happened?” Jimin whispers, his fingernails digging crescents into his flesh. He’s stuck at the doorway, his shadow cast over Yoongi on the ground. “What did you do?”
His attention is stuck on the pieces that litter the space between them. The transistor hadn’t been massive by any means. The massacre on the floor is way more than just one hand radio. There’s too many parts - too many pieces. And Jimin doesn’t know what poor piece of equipment got in the way of whatever the fuck happened here, but he feels himself about to snap just thinking about it. Of all the stupid places for something like this to happen, Yoongi had to go and choose the most important room in the whole operation.
“What happened in here?” he asks, after Yoongi makes no motion to answer. Jimin steps into the room, only slightly, feels the crunch of something sharp under his socked foot and steps back again. “What the fuck did you do ?”
It’s said louder this time - maybe spat is the right word - echoes through the confines of the diagnostics lab. Yoongi clutches at his head and groans again, scrunches his eyes shut in pain and it serves him right.
Jimin’s angry, it’s taking everything not to bite down hard and take a swing. The only thing stopping him is the slew of parts and pieces in his way. It’ll take hours to clean all this shit up, and longer to figure out what Yoongi and Jungkook probably broke in the process.
They don’t do this - whatever in God’s name this is. A hissy fit, it seems like. A tantrum over Jungkook playing with a radio Yoongi didn’t want him to touch, like little kids fighting over a toy.
And normally Jimin might find that funny, but there’s no humor in this. There’s no humor when Namjoon’s life is on the line.
If the generator blew a fuse - he doesn’t even want to think about it.
“Are you serious right now?” Jimin asks, something akin to disbelief leaking into his tone. “Are you kidding me? You turn the generator on so you can, what, bash in the wave reader with the lights on? Are you an idiot?”
Yoongi mumbles something in return. From behind the cradle of his hands it's impossible to make out, and it does nothing to curb Jimin’s shortening fuse.
“Speak up.”
Yoongi removes his hand, stares Jimin down from the floor. There’s blood on his chin from his split knuckles, and Jimin curls his lip.
“I didn’t start up the fucking generator,” Yoongi bites out, pushing his hands down on the concrete to leverage himself up. “He already had it up and running when I got in here. Had that fucking radio plugged in and everything.”
“You all know better than to turn the power on without waking me,” Jimin enunciates hard, watching Yoongi right himself. He refuses to cross the room to assist. “Jungkook knows better.”
“Yeah, he fucking does,” Yoongi levels back, a furrow to his brow as he assesses his swollen knuckles. “He knows and he did it anyway. Got me real good in the face when I tried to get in the way.”
“Where is he?” Jimin snaps.
“How the fuck should I know,” Yoongi glowers back, spits it out like his patience is wearing thin at the conversation. “You think I kept tabs on the kid after he decked me and knocked me out. How should I know where he went?”
“You’re supposed to watch him.”
“And you’re supposed to get your head out of your ass and-”
“He’s gone,” interrupts a voice over his shoulder, and Jimin jumps before he can think better of it, feels his anger flicker and then all but die out at the sight of Namjoon at the door frame.
Namjoon stands - but only barely - his weight held up only by the grip in his fingertips, and as quickly as Jimin’s nerves had dissipated at his sudden interruption, they reignite tenfold.
He’s wearing the same clothes he wears in the clean room, but it’s different - harsher, somehow. The bandages that cover his wrists are more prominent here, as is the blood the seeps through, even now. The injuries are somehow more severe than they seem within the desolate walls of the clean room. It feels all the more real - jarring.
He’s wearing a face mask to cover his mouth and nose, and Jimin would laugh at the absurdity, if the entirety of the sight didn’t drop his gut to the floor.
“What are you doing out here,” Jimin frets in a whisper, already stepping forward to help tip Namjoon into a better standing position. His skin is clammy, and he sways at even the briefest contact. “Joonie, you can’t-”
“He’s not out here,” Namjoon continues, even as he accepts the assistance. His voice is the only solid thing about him right now.
There’s sweat at his hairline. It isn’t easy for Namjoon to walk far - not anymore. The stitches pull, he’s said, they never stop pulling, woven threads coming loose. Jimin can’t imagine the pain he’s in. He can’t imagine how he’s managed the strength to make it out here.
There’s a sense of dread at the fact that he’s here at all. Because if Namjoon is here-
“He’s gone,” Namjoon continues, flicking his gaze between Yoongi and Jimin. “He left about an hour ago.”
“He’s-” Jimin starts, stops himself - begins again. “Gone where?”
He knows where. Because where else would Jungkook have gone, with all the signs laid out front and center before them. There’s no other option but one, and he knows it. They all know it.
But there’s a part of him that hopes, still, as he jerks his gaze frantically between Namjoon in his grip and Yoongi maneuvering himself upwards off the floor. A hope that maybe he’s wrong, and that Jungkook’s boot will stomp down the hallway any moment now - thick-soled and mud-caked.
He’ll come around and he’ll yell at Namjoon for making them all worry and apologize for turning on the generator when he shouldn’t have, and the day will carry on as it’s supposed to - as it has every day for the last living members of the ThermoGen T-Sub-06 operational project.
Namjoon sinks heavily along the doorframe, his knee all but giving out after the feat of holding himself steady for so long. Jimin catches him before he can slip further. The air is stifling, his hope dimming.
“What does that mean,” Jimin asks, his voice unsteady, uncertain. He looks to Namjoon, but it’s Yoongi who fills it in.
“Onsan,” he says, finally standing up.
His boots crunch over the radio parts as he makes his way to assist them at the door, the previous heat drained from his voice. In its wake there’s only resignation. He shoulders half of Namjoon’s weight, pushes them forward towards the hallway, even as Jimin struggles to stumble along.
Jimin’s mind is racing and still at all once - eerily silent, like the morning air that surrounds them. Humming with life and brokenly desolate all the same.
Together, they bring Namjoon back to the clean room. They’ll need to reseal it, decontaminate, if they want to maintain the integrity of the space. Namjoon had to open the door to get out. There’s a lot of work to be done to get it back where it needs to be.
Jimin’s brain is slow.
It’s slow as they lay Namjoon back down, as they set up the monitors and the pulse ox, and as they reset the ventilator system. He runs on autopilot.
And it’s slow when Yoongi turns to him, just as the sun is creeping over the horizon, at the dawn of the 414th day since the crash, and shoves his backpack in his arms. Because they both know he’s going. They both know he’d follow Jungkook to the ends of the earth if he had to.
Just as Jungkook followed him around as a kid, and then to university, and then to ThermoGen, as a member of the T-Sub-06 operational project.
A new science fighting climate change.
He gives Yoongi the operational instructions for the generator. He loads his pack up with the essentials. He meets Namjoon’s eye through the glass of the clean room. He does everything in his power not to itch his arm.
And he follows Jungkook out the door.
Into the harrowing dawn of the 414th day since the end of the world.