Chapter Text
“Hey baby, how are we doing over here?” A warm wet towel brushes delicates over tender tissues and he groans, trying to turn over and away from it. His husband tsks and then there’s an arm sliding below his knees and a hand gripping his shoulder. A moment of pressure before he’s being lifted in the air only to come to rest against his husband’s warm chest, his face right at the junction of neck and collarbone. Sure enough a towel wraps around his ass to prevent any further cleaning up as if the whole thing won’t get scrubbed tomorrow morning before his husband leaves for work. “Gotta… finish… check Baehh- email…” “Wow he’s already thinking about that, hyung?” Minseok scoffs. “I am warning you now that he sometimes runs off in the middle of sex because he’s just had this idea that he has to get down right now and neither the notebook or the phone next to our bed is sufficient, he just has to go now.” Jongdae’s bright and piercing laughter rings out through the room, Jongdae’s face scrunching with it and Yixing’s stomach swooping at the same time.
“On second thought, hyung, that makes a lot of sense,” Jongdae says once his bout of laughter ends.
By this point, Yixing is pretty sure he’s got full command of his facilities but no command of how much time has passed since he sent his email. But it’s sure to have been enough time for Baekhyun and Chanyeol to get back to him with something and that really means he should–
Yixing flails a bit and starts to try and stand but Minseok stops abruptly.
Yixing looks up at him, eyes blinking.
“Baby. Kitten. Have I ever stopped you from working?” Eyes fix him firmly in place, large and enrapturing but currently with a tension around them that belies Minseok’s seriousness. “I am expecting an answer, baby. Do you ever remember me stopping you from actually doing work when you needed to?”
It’s an unfair question in many ways because there’s a great deal that Yixing forgets on a regular basis but on second thought he does think such a thing would have led to a serious fight and he would probably remember that. Eventually he has to shake his head. He doesn’t remember being actually prevented and it is unlikely enough given the givens.
“Then won’t you let me get us all cleaned up then with some more food and water in you before you go off to do your work again?”
“Yeah, Yixing-ge, be well behaved for hyung, he’s looking all feral and bitey but also like he wants to wrap us both in a million blankets and put us on a shelf somewhere where he can watch us and not worry about us.”
Minseok blushes strongly and looks away. Normally he’d be covering his bright red ears, but he can’t not with Yixing in his arms so instead he just starts hustling through the post scene routine with more vigour.
Isn’t it strange just how treasured he must be for someone to feel so strongly about him? Isn’t it terrifying that love means that he temporarily hands over the reins of when he works to someone else? That he stops being one hundred percent in control of his own destiny? He wraps his arms around his husband’s neck and lifts himself up enough to kiss Minseok’s cheek in apology for the thought.
“Jongdae-yah, how do you have so much energy? Some of us are over thirty and feel it.”
“Hyung is so old,” Jongdae says, stretching out the last syllable and skipping a bit as he walks for good measure.
“Hyung’s age is what gives me seniority over brats like you.” But for all of Minseok’s sternness, with Yixing in his arms he’s hardly going to smack Jongdae, though that seldom seems to stop him with Baekhyun. “Not that you’re, uh, my brat.”
Yixing can’t help the light giggle that erupts out of his chest and into Minseok’s chest. It shakes through him before fading into the solid warmth of Minseok’s body.
A kiss is pressed against his head before Minseok looks up and continues. He’s lost his scene voice in that moment and he sounds like a tired big brother or maybe even an uncle as he says, “Jongdae-yay do you mind using some of that energy to start the shower. There’s a shower stool in the corner, it’ll need to be dragged in too. Yixing will need it warm but not too hot at first.”
“Ay-ay, hyung!” Jongdae says before bursting into cheerful song, bouncing around as he completes tasks.
Yixing looks up at Minseok and blinks a bit.
“That’s different,” Minseok says. “I guess I must have forgotten. Or maybe just never…”
“–I guess sex does different things to different people?” Yixing doesn’t think Minseok will mind the interruption, really. And it is interesting and all a bit mystifying, most of the people they’ve played that hard with have flopped out pretty quickly afterwards. Normally it’s Minseok’s dedication to cleaning everything and everybody up as soon as possible that raises eyebrows.
Jongdae bounces back into the room. “Anything else?”
“Uh, some of the pre-boiled water for Yixing from the water boiler, he doesn’t like the stuff from the water filter.”
“Thanks,” Yixing mumbles out.
Like usual, Minseok seems soft and fond, on the edge of the kind of tired that means that for once he’ll be sleeping deeply and easily tonight without needing to tire out his beautiful anxious brain any further. No anime in bed tonight. His eyes blink down occasionally in deep exhaustion.
Then Yixing glances back over at Jongdae. He didn’t really think it was possible for their dongsaeng to get more energy than he usually has but clearly he was wrong. This is Jongdae after running around with Baekhyun AND Chanyeol, Jongdae after too many cups of iced Americano, Jongdae almost as high as he’s ever seen him on music.
Glancing between the two of them almost feels like whiplash but he finds himself responding to Jongdae’s energy as he flits between whatever extra tasks he’s conjured up for himself.
“You can let me down now. I promise I’ll be good,” he says and Minseok hesitates for a moment before complying.
Minseok slurs his response.“You’re always good.”
Yixing’s feet come and touch down first, still held up by Minseok’s other arm. There’s a moment where he almost stumbles but he regains balance and nuzzles into Minseok’s sweat soaked hair. He breathes there for a moment, slowly regaining himself and then stretches, back popping in satisfaction as he does.
Minseok winces. Oops. He normally does big pops like that outside of his husband’s immediate vicinity. He kisses his cheek in apology and Minseok looks down.
“I know you–”
“–It’s okay I normally–”
They both collapse into each other, not quite laughing, their bodies shaking. Minseok might be crying a bit, probably with the force of being either overwhelmed or overtired, so Yixing kisses them away with the lightest press of lips on delicate skin and then looks away from his face to give him a moment to compose himself. Minseok is still naked aside from some underwear he’s pulled back on and he looks wonderful like this, a wonderful mixture of soft and hard, smooth muscles and curves, a solid waist and slender calves.
“You were as splendid as any man could be tonight.” Yixing wraps his arms around his husband, letting him lean into him. “You looked after everyone even after your long day of work and then you let Jongdae take charge and play with me. The very best husband in the whole wide world, I’d have people knocking on the door trying to steal you away from me if they even had an inkling but I won and now you’re mine, my husband.”
Minseok swats at him. “Bad– I– well, you’re a wonderful sub and my perfect kitten and you’ve won a lot of awards because you’re an amazing musician and composer so– so there!”
A slow clap fills the room.
“Wow, the two of you, my two hyungs, having compliment battles. Does it only end when one of you can’t talk anymore from all the blushing?”
Sometimes.
Okay, most times.
“Okay now come now, it’s time for you two to shower because as XingXing-ge pointed out so well earlier, we still have work to do! And then when we’re done I’m going to take the longest bath in existence so chop chop! I’ve got a scheduleeee here!”
Thankfully Yixing is with it enough to not need the shower stool today and if anything, he spends more time cleaning and looking after Minseok than Minseok does him. Something at work must be bothering him if he’d come home this exhausted and Yixing must just not have noticed it through the haze of work and music. He takes extra time on Minseok’s hair, rubbing his fingers in deep, letting his nails scratch gently down his scalp while Jongdae slides around Minseok’s body, soaping him up and then scrubbing him down with exfoliant. Yixing leaves him to clean his face and rinse off while he and Jongdae fool around, making each other’s hair into silly, childish shapes once they’ve rubbed shampoo in but both agreeing without words to be quiet otherwise.
By the time they’ve dried and lotioned Minseok up he seems moments away from passing out. He grasps onto their hands before he gives in and falls asleep, pressing his lips over the backs of both of them in turn. And then he turns over, the duvet trapped between his legs, and falls asleep.
Yixing feels a bit like they’re schoolchildren as they sneak out of their bedroom and into his office. As Jongdae closes the door behind them, they finally erupt into giggles, sound proofing safely keeping them from waking Minseok up no matter what they do.
Yixing gasps, trying to catch his breath amongst the giggles.
Jongdae hits him on the back once and at least Yixing can breathe again.
A bag of chips and one of his aloe tea drinks is thrust in his face.
“Here, hyung would kill me if he realized neither of us had fed you after a scene like that. We can’t have you passing out on us, once in college was definitely enough.”
Yixing would hiss at him if he could but he’s too busy sitting down on the floor with his haul in front of him. He pops open the bag of honey butter chips instead, smiling as the smell fills the room. He quickly tosses one into his mouth and crunches before allowing it to dissolve. In this fashion he races through the bag, being sure to suck any residue off his fingers before twisting the cap off of the drink. Normally he’d be breaking out the iced coffee drinks at this point but starting off slow is probably better for his health. He’s finished both by the time he turns back to Jongdae.
Jongdae, of course, had taken out one of said cold brew coffee drinks, but unlike Yixing he’s still sipping at his.
“That was impressive, hyung. Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Pass me the skipping rope, please?”
Jongdae hands it over and Yixing turns on his pump up music mix. After five minutes of skipping, he’s starting to feel sharper and lets himself slow down.
Jongdae’s on to coffee number two.
Yixing doesn’t mention that what he’s really aching for is a walk outside and a smoke. It’s a routine to ignore that impulse at this point, whatever his college self was used to.
Without words he cracks open the computer and checks their work chat as well as his email to see what Baekhyun and Chanyeol have been up to.
A lot it turns out but they’ve still got the last little bit to send him. Which makes sense because, now that he double checks the clock, it’s been a couple of hours since he sent it.
Like this he can almost see the point of taking breaks to do something else that isn’t work after sending out his portion of a project.
Almost.
What Baekhyun and Chanyeol have sent over is very positive, Baekhyun’s sent over his section, Chanyeol has made some tweaks and still has a section he’s fiddling with but otherwise they’re both happy with Yixing’s biggest changes. Next to him, Jongdae has started going through his vocal warmup, sending out hoots and howls and whoops. Yixing double checks the microphone in the small recording booth, bringing with him a small water bottle of room temperature water so it won’t trip up Jongdae’s throat and the updated sheet music. As he leaves, Jongdae comes in and closes the door.
Yixing depresses the intercom while he goes through the last of his sound check. “Can you hear me?”
“Load and clear. How’s the microphone?”
Yixing holds a thumb up. “Okay now I’d like you to go through that warm up again so I can be sure I’m happy with the settings. When you’re ready we’ll do a run through of your lines.”
How many times have they sat like this? As Jongdae sings, Yixing adjusts the settings. They start easy with the short clips they need to fill in harmonies, running through them until they’re happy with how it’s sounding. With that fill in place, it’s time for the main event.
“Less of a nasal quality for that line,” Yixing says.
“Yeah, yeah I hear you. Let me try it again.” Jongdae takes a small sip of water and breathes.
And then it happens. That moment where Jongdae just lets go. Soaring through octaves, eyes closed like all the emotions in his body are flowing out from his lungs and through his mouth into perfection.
“I’m not quite happy with that one,” Jongdae says as soon as he’s done with the line and Yixing chuckles. Maybe there are a few reasons they get along.
They do three more takes, Jongdae doing variations on the performance until they’re both satisfied with the breadth of options that Yixing will have to play with and then it’s Yixing’s turn in the booth.
It’s always a bit hard to step in after Jongdae, easy to feel like there’s no way that his voice compares.
But of course it doesn’t need to compare and Yixing knows that in his brain. Their company is known for the diversity of vocal tones they can provide in their songs. Harmonies with one voice, however distorted by Yixing and Chanyeol’s software, just can’t compare with multiple voices.
So Yixing too works through his warm up, singing through the song softly several times until he’s finally starting to feel like a singer again.
The recording booth is very quiet and he sips some water from Jongdae’s bottle. That indirect kiss bolsters him enough to slip on the headphones and begin recording proper.
Once he’s got the music in his ears though it’s easier. Singing what the song needs, his soul raising and falling like he’s on a rollercoaster as he carries through.
Finally Jongdae gives a thumbs up and Yixing slips the large headphones off, leaving the recording room behind for the moment.
Jongdae holds out a hand to clasp and then drags him in tightly for a hug. He’s smaller but his enthusiasm is catching and Yixing can’t help but bounce with him a bit as he talks. “That was awesome, hyung, you sounded really good in there by the end. I’m really pumped about those changes you and Chanyeol made to the piece and I can’t wait to see the final product! Taemin and Jongin aren’t going to know what hit them!”
Yixing burrows into him a bit, wishing his arms were free to rub at the back of his neck or to tug at one of his ears.
“I’m glad you think it works,” he mumbles. “You know I value your feedback on my work.”
“I have a good feeling with this one, hyung,” Jongdae says as he releases him.
Yixing sits down for a listen but sure enough, between the takes from the four of them, he and Chanyeol should have what they need. He uploads them onto the cloud software that they use and sends Chanyeol a message. His long night won’t be over for a while still.
He’s caught up in his conversation with Chanyeol about which of the tracks to use when Jongdae clears his throat behind him.
“So, uh, I should really head home now since you’re all done with me.”
“You don’t need to do that!” Yixing scrambles to say.
“Yixing, I love you and I love Minseokkie-hyung but I don’t think I can handle crawling in bed alone with my ex right now.”
Oh. Right.
As honest and forthright as a sword slicing to expose the truth in one swoop.
How had Yixing forgotten that? He thinks back to Minseok’s many hesitations after the scene. Clearly he was the only one who had. But his stomach drops and he’s suddenly on the verge of tears as though what that sword slices through instead was a greenhouse. Now the panes of glass litter the floor and the gardener is barefoot while the tender seedlings are at the mercy of a winter’s wind.
Jongdae claps him on the shoulder and tries out a smile. “Plus, I want a bath, hyung! You know me and bathes.”
“We have– We have both those things! There’s the couch in here and a guest bedroom and you’ve seen our bathroom, there’s a tub in there, just– If you want to, you could stay. And then tomorrow, tomorrow you could stay too, if you wanted to and hyung will be gone and I’ll be… if you wanted to see me like that, I, uh, that is, it doesn’t have to be anything really, you could just pet me a bit if you wanted and Minseokkie-hyung will wake up before me to go to work anyways so he could explain and you could decide then. Just– if it isn’t too awkward for you, I know this is new but I…”
Yixing gives up and trails off. It aches with a deep sense of wrong, the thought of Jongdae leaving right now and Yixing going back to work with that eating out his chest, Minseok dead to the world and desperately needing his sleep.
A cat yowls at the door, Lulu by the pitch of it, and Yixing wanders over to let him in without question, grateful for the interruption. As Yixing sits down on the couch, Lulu hops into his lap and he starts stroking through his fur.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Yixing says, eyes locked on Lulu as he rubs at his ears and along his face with both hands. “You can leave of course, Minseok and I have a routine and I’ll be fine. But,” he takes a deep breath, holding on to a dream he didn’t even know he had. He can do this. What’s the worst thing, Jongdae saying no twice?
He lets the breath go and starts up again. “But if you want to stay, there are places you can sleep that aren’t the master bedroom and a bathtub for your nightly soak. I like our tub, it’s good for my back so I think it might work.”
Jongdae walks up to him, squatting so that they’re at eye level. “Hyung, you know that I’m the kind of person to speak my mind. Do you need me to stay the night for your sake? Are you going to, like, drop if I leave?”
Yixing strokes through the warm lump on his lap, following the gradient of colouration. Honest, he can be honest.
“A little bit probably,” tries a smile, ‘But Lulu and Tan are pretty good about keeping me company and it’s never been dangerous or stopped me from working.”
And then, in case Jongdae shares Minseok’s sentiments about using his ability to work as metric, Yixing continues. “As long as I’m working it’ll be fine and then I’ll crawl into bed. If I can’t sleep I’ll come back here or jump rope until I pass out and in the morning Minseok will check on me wherever I’ve ended up.”
It’s easier now that he’s stepping through the routine, imagining the worst case scenarios and how safe he and Minseok have made them over the years. “Tomorrow’s off for kittenplay and decompressing anyways. Minseok will call me partway through the day like always, sometimes he’s had someone come over like Junmyeon or Lu Han if I needed it. I can text tonight if I think it’s getting bad and one of them can make sure kitty-me is fed and watered and pet and stuff.”
He takes a breath and holds it, eyes still as focused on Lulu as he can manage. “Yeah, let me do that now. And then we can hug or maybe a goodnight kiss and you can go home, yeah?”
Yixing slips his phone out of his pocket, pulling up his text messages and scrolling down. Lu Han or Junmyeon, Lu Han or Junmyeon… Lu Han is the safer bet if Minseok is looking so tired about work there must be something big about the company going on and there’s no way that Junmyeon’s going to be spared that.
Yixing turns his head back up to face Jongdae, doing his best to plaster a smile on his face that says, ‘don’t worry, you can trust me to look after myself’. “Yeah I’ll ask Lu Han, he probably misses playtime anyways and he’ll be happy to see Minseokkie-hyung so–”
Jongdae wraps his hands around his own, cell phone and all. “Yixing-hyung, don’t call anyone, okay?”
They’re smaller than Yixing’s own but they still manage to obstruct most of the screen and drape over the rest of his hands, weighing them down like an anchor. “I’ll stay. They all have work when I have the day off and you’re– I mean it was my scene. You’re right, you have a guest bedroom and I’ve always wanted to try your gorgeous soaking tub. I’ll take a bath while you finish and then I’ll tuck you in with hyung, okay? And I’ll look after you in the morning.”
A hand stretches up and tucks a strand of his hair that had been falling into his eyes beyond his ears.
“But, Jongdae, I don’t want you to stay if you have somewhere else to be. It’s the first day you’ve had off in ten days. And normally don’t you sleep all day and don’t see much of anyone on your days off?”
“It’s the first day we’ve had off in ten days I think you mean, hyung.” Jongdae has now started fussing with the collar of his shirt as though from a lack of things to do. “And I’ll be doing exactly what I’d normally do only with three kitty princes spending the day with me.”
“Well I guess if you put it that way…” And Yixing wants it, wants so bad to give in. Jongdae wouldn’t offer if he didn’t want to, would he? He wasn’t really that kind of person after all and people were allowed to change their minds once they thought things over some more.
“I do. Now are the spare towels in that spotless linen closet of Minseokie-hyung’s? And are there any I’m not allowed to use?”
Jongdae’s standing now and the lights of the studio are shining through his hair like a halo. His hand has followed Yixing’s hair to the back of his head and it’s holding him there, supporting his head as he looks up at him.
Being looked after by Jongdae. Alone. Finding out what that might be like when all he knows is the way that Jongdae fusses over all of his friends.
“The blue towels are for bodies and the black ones are smaller and are for hair. Yours isn’t dyed so it’s probably fine either way but–”
Jongdae presses his finger to Yixing’s lips. “But nothing, I’ll follow Minseokie-hyung’s system. And I’ll be back for you, hyung. You’re going to be all mine tomorrow morning.”
The possessive lick coils at the base of Yixing’s spine as Jongdae walks out of the room seeming much larger than his actual stature. He can feel Jongdae’s dark eyes on him as he pushes through to finish his tasks. The feeling stays with him even as the work subsumes him completely, like a flame kept alive in an ocean.
When he resurfaces, Jongdae’s lying down on the couch with a face mask on his face. “Perfect timing, hyung. My night time routine is all done if you’re ready to lock up for the night.”
And so Jongdae leads him to his own bedroom, taking out a pair of sweatpants and helping him into them, offering another sip of water, all in complete silence. And then he flips open the covers that Minseok hasn’t already claimed and helps Yixing crawl in.
There’s a moment, the scent of his husband clear in his nose and Jongdae’s hand around his that he hopes that he’s changed his mind, that somehow with Yixing there it’ll all be okay.
And then the covers are being tucked around him and Jongdae is kissing him, face clasped between his palms.
As Yixing turns over in bed in the now dark room, he wonders what it’ll feel like when he wakes up alone from this dream with Minseok at work and Jongdae home with phone on do not disturb mode.
It’ll feel sad, probably.
Dreams shouldn’t tempt him with impossibilities.