Jin didn't understand why Lilith was being so uptight.

Chimin randomly going limp, all bug-eyed and creepy as a corpse? Sure. That was weird as hell--even for Park Chimin. Is he permanently stuck with that stoned and zoned look on his face? Perhaps. (The poor fool.) But he's not dying.

Jin took a moment to consider how they had almost catapulted into the fiery inferno of a hot star and burst like fleshy fireworks into the deep expanse of the universe.

Jin had stretched Chimin's unconscious body out on top of the small table inside of the shuttle, strapped down using a few spare luxury leather belts that he'd happened to pack for the voyage. Jin gave a disappointed sigh as he saw how the odd angles were chapping the leather.

Oh, the sacrifices one makes for love and friendship.

Jin shuffled around in his small duffel of easily accessible medical supplies.

He better gift me some new belts once his ass is cooking with gas again. And not the horrendous thrift store kind, either. Used clothes are for peons, not princes.

The good doctor pulled out a small circular shaped device and began running the scanner along the length of Chimin's frame. Consecutively, certain familiar and unfamiliar vital signs were read and communicated to Jin through a small see-through screen that he held up in his other hand.

"Hmmm. That's odd."

Jin paused whenever the scanner came to rest along the side of Chimin's neck. The sasspot doctor refreshed the reader and made it start its scan all over again, still holding it in the same place. He waited. The small device gave a tiny PING to say that it was finished with its readings again.

"Very odd."

Jin set the scanner down and began tapping into the small screen, zooming in on a particular data point and squinting his scrutinizing eyes.

"Where the hell did those come from?" Jin had turned his disbelieving eyes from his clear screen clicking with numbers, down the Chimin's blank-eyed face.

--

Lilith was glaring into Joon's side profile and asking herself how she could possibly be having second thoughts about loathing Kim Namjoon for all of eternity.

She watched the dash lighting reflecting eerily off of Joon's sunkissed skin, watched his teardrop eyes scanning the readings flashing along the left side of the glass. She let out an aggravated huff.

Joon's low voice rumbled, though his attention remained forward, "Well sorry for breathing."

"Oh shut up, Joon."

"You're starting to sound like a broken record, Lilith. Surely you have something more poignant to say to me than that over and over again."

"Yes. How about snap your trap? Zip your lip? Cut the bullshit? I think any of these would also do."

"I was just doing what you asked me to and minding my own business. You're the one getting all worked up."

Lilith's fists tightened into themselves, her fingers curling so hard they pinched. She wanted to drop-kick Joon right in his smugly set jaw.

And yet, thinking of Chimin's dangerous threat about the future fate of Kim Namjoon...made her hesitate to do so.

Also, that he was the one flying the ship.

Sitting there in silence or spouting off philosophical platitudes. No matter what Kim Namjoon seems to do, he just... pisses... me... off.

"Hey babe, you got a second?" Jin was suddenly draping his long frame over Lilith's copilot seat, and his plump lips were puckered like he was eating something sour.

"Sure." Lilith popped out of her seat and stepped back towards where Chimin's body was strapped down onto the table.

Jin lingered, leaning over that chair a few moments after Lilith had walked away. He was death glaring at Joon's side profile and contemplating five separate ways to take a scalpel to the ex-leader of Noon Mool's face in order to ruin his obnoxiously adequate looks. 

There was something electric inside that cockpit that Jin could feel stirring... a tension he could recognize that he wasn't the center of... and Kim Seokjin absolutely did not like it.

He pushed heavily off of the back of the chair and followed Lilith to stand over Chimin's stiff-yet-living body.

Lilith's brows crinkled into a worried frown as she looked up into Jin's serious dark eyes. "What did you find?"

Jin mumbled, "I'm not sure. But it could be something." He pulled his clear handheld screen up, pinched and spread his fingers, and then watched as what seemed like a sillouhetted image of Chimin's brain and brainstem appeared, up close and personal.

"What are those?" Lilith asked, her tone almost nauseous.

"Those three wormy looking things branching out of the brain stem are exactly what they look like."

"...Leeches?" Lilith practically gaged on the word.

"Close. They're caratypes. Incredibly rare, only found in the Ill-Ship-Chill Galaxy in the wild, these little alien worms like to attach to the central nervous system of their host and feed off of the body's natural electric charge. They leach a low enough power that they can dwell in a host for a pretty long time before the host shows any physical symptoms."

Lilith balked. "So Chim has... brain parasites?"

"Never really thought of 'em that way, but yes. You could say that."

Lilith swallowed. "That's absolutely disgusting. Well, this just took a sci-fi-horror turn I wasn't expecting."

Jin barked a dry laugh. "Using nanotech and some hormone stimulant techniques, caratypes can essentially be programmed into attaching to a set host while withholding infusing their paralyzing venom... until the whenever the controller chooses. So these wormies could have been hanging out in Chimin's body for months, honestly. But for some reason, whoever infected Chim decided that now was the time to induce those hormones and say to these little brain demons that it was time to shoot 'im up and watch him turn into a stiff."

"S-so you're saying... someone tried to kill Chimin using... ALIEN BRAIN LEECHES?"

"Y'know, Lil, I never thought I'd live to see you be the more dramatic one of the two of us. And yet here we are."

Lilith shoved Jin hard in the arm, but Jin only laughed.

"But now that you put it that way, I'm not sure if they were just trying to kill Chimin..." Jin's voice gained a greater hush than it already held to ensure Joon wouldn't be able to hear, "...or if they were trying to kill someone else."

Lilith gave a small gasp and glanced over her shoulder at the back of Joon's chair. "Surely not at the expense of us all?"

Jin's voice took on a conspiratorial tone.  "Depends on whoever's behind it though, doesn't it?"

Jin didn't like the growing furrow in Lilith's brow, or the way her chocolately eyes started to stare through him instead of look at him.

He set the glass screen down in the chair next to him, then stepped forward and wrapped his hands around Lilith's back. Jin pulled Lilith's smaller, shorter frame into his chest and nuzzled his chin into her dark brown hair. 

As he felt her body relax and meld into the curves of his own, Jin himself felt a wave of relief wash over him. He could feel her cheek shifting and nuzzle into the front of his shirt. She inhaled the smell of him deeply, then exhaled heavy and all-at-once.

Lilith whispered, "I love this smell."

"You should. It's the cologne you bought me for my last birthday."

"The one that costs more than my entire shoe collection?"

Jin gave a haughty, avoidant scoff for an answer--but he was amused.

"Jin."

"Mmm?"

Lilith's voice turned coy, and Jin was here for it. "I like it when you talk like a real doctor."

"Lil. I am a real doctor."

"It's easy to forget."

"Why? Because with a face like this, such brains to go along with it would seem too good to be true?"

Jin could feel Lilith's cheeks shift against his chest. She was smiling. "Because sometimes you just sound like an idiot."

"HEY."

Jin's arms tightened, and Lilith shifted her chin so that it was propped up against his chest and she was looking up into his slightly annoyed face. Lilith's brown eyes were positively glowing.

"Kim Seokjin."

"Mmm?"

"I'm glad you're my idiot."

Jin's eyes narrowed into slits, looking down at her beneath his sheath of shaggy black hair. His face leaned down closer to hers, but despite his glare, a smile couldn't help but find it's way into the edges of his lips.

"God, I wish I could have you all to myself again. Our time back on the other ship was a dream I've been missing for too long." Jin's whisper was low, sprinkled with amusement.

"Ugh. Don't remind me."

Jin's warm breath tickled the side of Lilith's cheek, the top of her ear, and while one of his hands spread down the dip of her lower back, the other began to trace feather-light through the baby hair curls softly feathering out from the base of her neck. "I'd make you call me a few other things... like..."

Jin whispered something into Lilith's ear, and she gave him a playful shove as she wrestled out of his arms.

"Kim Seokjin. Don't make me knock you on your ass."

He was aghast. "What?! I thought you--"

Lilith's glare turned into a playful smirk. "Unless you want me to."

The confused offense in Jin's eyes shifted turned into a satisfied gleam.  "My favorite kink."