Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

TUESDAY • MORNING

“RISE AND SHINE!”

Taehyung’s dark hotel room was suddenly awash with light and the unwelcome voice was reverberating through his body. Trembling slightly, he partially peeled away his duvet to discover Hoseok's large shape standing at their window; before he could focus on anything more than this vague silhouette, his view was interrupted by a close up of a grinning Hoseok.

“ Rise -- and -- shine !” he repeated, this time enunciated in a whisper as he reached for a handful of Taehyung's left ear.

“ Rude ,” Taehyung croaked, wafting the invasive hand away feebly. He let out a broken whine as he let an exhausted arm flop over the side of the bed. Hoseok laughed softly as he started to gently rock Taehyung out of his slumber.

“You ever going to have breakfast, princess?”

Taehyung sat up with a panicked start and scanned Hoseok.

“You’re dressed, Hobi!”

“That’s the general idea --”

Taehyung’s wide eyed stare whipped around in the direction of his bedside table.

“Oh my god--”

“It’s 11:30 --”

The realisation sunk like a weight in his stomach -- their final rehearsal was at midday.

His gaze returned to Hoseok.

“Why didn’t I -- couldn’t you -- ?”

“Wake you up?” Hoseok finished with a frown. “You kept kicking me when I tried --”

Taehyung looked dumbstruck. A trickle of shame washed through his body.

“Aaaaah, I’m so sorry, Hobi … I don’t remember … ” Taehyung trailed off. He felt himself becoming suddenly frustrated and tearful. Hoseok’s grin melted into concern.

“Are you feeling okay …?”

He stared into the distance for a few moments. Honestly? No.

Frankly, he felt like shit. If so inclined, he could have filed an array of complaints against his body that morning. For one, a litter of frogspawn had crawled into his throat in the middle of the night, and for another, somebody had kindly filled his limbs with hot thick soup. Plus his bizarre fever dreams had managed to outdo themselves on their third or fourth cycle.

But he wasn't in the business of complaining. He swallowed his emotions.

“No,” he admitted in an honest, short tone.

Hoseok placed a hand to his clammy forehead.

“You’re a little hot. Let me get you a drink of water, okay?”

He nodded weakly, and Hoseok marched out of the room.

The moment the door snapped shut, Taehyung collapsed fetally into his duvet.

Panicked thoughts about the concert began to race through his mind. Not today, not today, please. I can't be sick today. He fiddled with his duvet distractedly as he watched a minute of the clock flash forward by one digit. If I can get up now and show Hobi how well I am …

He dragged one leg over the side of his bed, then another … with a strenuous flourish his feet found their target, the floor. His head swam and he watched himself keel over onto it.

Fuck.

His eyeballs were drowning in daylight, the smell of friendly window dust wafting up his nose.

Please turn off the fucking sun.

With the skin of one supporting hand squeaking pathetically against the window pane, he pulled himself into a sitting position. Resting his head against the glass, eyes tightly shut, noise from the street below finally began to register in his mind.

Ah … the sound of wellness …

The air by the window was cool and soothing. The noise of life was energizing. He could almost fool himself into thinking he was well --

“Taetae?”

He opened his eyes -- an extremely worried Namjoon was standing opposite him, holding a glass of water.

“Are you okay?”

Am I okay Am I okay Am I okay --

“ Yeah, I’m fine!” he let out a throaty laugh as he began to stand himself up. He had prepared himself for a major wobble, so he was exceedingly pleased to discover that his vestibular system had promptly righted itself.

Joon glanced at Hoseok questioningly.

Wow, I can laugh, he thought -- his window hand let out another pathetic squeak against the glass.

Namjoon didn't look entirely convinced. He was nodding slowly and incredulously.

“Let's get dressed, shall we?” Namjoon prompted him.

Taehyung grinned a little stupidly as they watched him wander towards his dresser.

“Drink this,” Namjoon ordered as he slid the water along the cabinet towards him. Taehyung pulled the glass to his lips -- his arms didn't feel like his -- were they Namjoon’s? -- … no, no … -- they were his --

A comforting hand -- Hoseok’s -- found his shoulder blade --

“Are you sure you're okay? Honestly? Man to man, you look like shit.”

Taehyung snorted painfully into his water.

“Thanks, dude --” he dribbled at the compliment.

“You’re very pale--” Namjoon interjected.

“You look like death ,” Hoseok nodded, skipping straight to the point.

Tae lifted his head up feebly and -- ah, now he saw himself in the cabinet mirror for the first time.

He really was very pale; his black bangs clung to his forehead in sweaty strings and his mullet -- well, his mullet must be somewhere -- it might have been fruitful to send out a search party --

“The stage crew is still a little jumbled, so rehearsals got pushed by a couple of hours--”

Oh holy Lady of Luck --

“-- so uh, get dressed, okay? We left you some breakfast,” Namjoon finished, giving his arched back a couple of gentle motivational slaps.

Before Taehyung could gather enough of his words together to respond coherently, both of his hyungs had left the room.

He stared at his own reflection for a few moments.

It was going to be one of those days.

Fine .

I'll beat this cold into submission.

Chapter Text

Every swallow felt like a mountain sliding painfully down his gullet.

“Taetae, have you taken any medicine?” Namjoon enquired.

“Ah …” he replied thickly through his yoghurt.

“You should take something for the concert,” Jimin added, brushing a loose strand of Tae’s hair back behind his ear.

“It’s just … a cold --”

Seokjin interrupted. “You should see a doctor straight after the show, seriously --”

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TUESDAY • 7:30PM

“Is he okay … ?” Jimin called out at a half-jog. He was glaring worriedly at Taehyung as they all walked down a side hall backstage.

Tae had hooked an arm around Hoseok and his head was lolling towards the floor as they trudged along behind most of the others.

“I thought he was going to faint midway through-”

Jimin, who was the sole member trailing behind Hoseok and Tae, ran up beside them. He was surprised to find Taehyung’s expression almost totally absent; his eyes were hooded and his sticky fringe sat awkward and unbothered by any correcting hand. He looked extremely sick, and Hoseok was staring darkly at his ailing companion.

Hoseok lifted a caring hand to Taehyung's cheek.

“He’s burning … ”

“... I feel … “ Taehyung suddenly interrupted, then trailed off, as his body slid towards the hallway floor. Hoseok’s arm, which had been curled supportingly around Tae, deftly lifted him upwards before he could hit the ground.

“Chair! Jimin, a chair -”

At lightning speed, Jimin retrieved a chair from further down the hall, and the two awkwardly sat him down in it. Stage crew descended upon the unconscious Taehyung, but he came around quickly.

“I’m okay … I … I just need a lie down …” he explained shakily, trying to assure everyone -- but his weak articulations were betraying him.

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TUESDAY • 7:45pm

Taehyung’s world had become suddenly very discombobulating. Concert lights had begun to dance in his field of view, though he believed himself to be decidedly off stage, and objects were beginning to split and multiply. A double-headed Jungkook swam into view --

“Tae?”

“Uh?”

Everything sounded waterlogged.

He dropped himself lengthwise onto what he could only assume to be furniture. Disembodied hands were guiding his body --

“He needs the hospital-”

Sounds of Daegu. Yoongi?

Basic gravitational principles evaded him. Why had he just seen Jungkook on the ceiling?

With the longest exhale he could muster, the little energy that Taehyung had left radiated from his body into the warm embrace of whatever lay beneath him. His thoughts drifted sleepily into the scent of the upholstery.

-------------------

Six crestfallen members gazed helplessly as their Taehyung remained unconscious on the dressing room sofa. It was bizarre and frightening to see this new, extremely sick Tae lying before them.

A stage medic spoke into a walkie-talkie --

“-- call an ambulance --”

The members' faces, already fairly creased with shock and worry, had never dropped so fast and so far into the abyss before.

His breathing was now phlegmatic and rapid, his complexion deathly pale. The medic lifted a finger to his wrist, and a look of confirmation fell upon his face.

Taehyung had entered the third trimester of fucked.

The medic released his wrist and it flopped carelessly by Tae’s side. More words, scary and undecipherable words, streamed down the walkie-talkie.

The members stood silently in a stiff panic. Namjoon’s eyes were moistening. Hobi was crouching closely by Taehyung's mop of black hair, mostly gazing absentmindedly at an undesignated bit of scalp. Seokjin was the sole sitting member; he had taken a plastic chair in the corner and, leaning forward, was staring at Taehyung with an utterly lost and vacuous look.

He flitted into consciousness now and again, giving a momentary flutter of eyelid or a trembling hand.

“He ... had told us it was just a cold …,” Jimin broke their silence hoarsely. He was standing in the very centre of the room, his whole body composed with an air of profound desperation and powerlessness. Yoongi’s hand was clutching Jimin’s arm in a distracted attempt at mutual comfort.

“Kookie?”

A strangled voice from the endangered member --

Jungkook, the calmest of the six of them, had been hanging closely behind the medic. He hurried forwards instinctively.

Taehyung was squinting painfully at Jungkook as he gently cupped one of Taehyung's hands in his own. Tae's other hand grasped uncomfortably at his neck. He exhaled weakly and drifted into feverish sleep once more.

Another medic entered the room with oxygen. Once Taehyung was masked, Hoseok slipped a comforting hand into an available patch of hair.

This was not a cold.

Chapter Text

TUESDAY • 10:00pm

Glandular fever .

Hoseok could have kicked himself.

Hoseok's sister had caught glandular fever a couple of weeks previously, so he and Tae had paid a helpful visit. They had known it was risky, with their schedules and all, but Tae had insisted.

Except this wasn't just glandular fever. The exertion of the concert had transformed it into pneumonia, and now Tae was lying in hospital periodically chucking his lungs up.

Hoseok walked a little guiltily into the hospital room, his eyes drifting upon the form of the currently unconscious Taehyung. He was still on oxygen.

He'd cringe at that gown, he found himself thinking with an internal smirk. All his tangled emotions shot chuck chuck chuck through his body; Tae would laugh, so I guess I can, he reasoned, as he settled himself into a chair at the bedside. One by one the other members entered, until the six of them were settled quietly around him.

They found the silence to be punctuated only by the eerie sound of Taehyung's rattling breathing, so they tried to fill the space up with a little light conversation. Jungkook rested his head comfortingly upon one of Taehyung's arms.

“Ah …” Namjoon sighed, an air of aimlessness in his voice, but the conversation went nowhere.

Jungkook lifted his head with a gentle start as he felt a hand begin to run through his hair. He was pleased to find Taehyung smiling down at him groggily.

“Hi,” he croaked.

“Hello!”

“Ah, Taehyungie … we were so worried …”

A glimmer of relief shone in Hoseok's eyes, and a broad loving smile had grown on his face. He reached out comfortingly for Tae’s hand and promptly wove their fingers together. At that Tae’s own smile grew.

“Did we finish the concert?” Tae could barely remember the day that had just elapsed.

“Yes, don’t worry about that,” Namjoon replied softly.

“You fainted on perfect schedule,” Seokjin grinned. He suddenly checked an invisible watch on his wrist, then proceeded to mimic a fainting damsel. The other members all chuckled, and even Taehyung let out a weak laugh, though he paid for it with a hacking coughing fit. Jungkook rubbed his back encouragingly until the coughing began to clear, and Tae laid back with an exhausted exhale.

Physically, Taehyung had never felt so terrible, but the warmth he felt in the room at that moment could almost have made up for it. A feeling of profound safety and gratitude washed over him.

His hyungs made him feel invincible .