Work Text:
It had been a long night. Actually, that was an understatement, Minho's pretty sure he hadn't slept for more than two hours.
Last night...8:15 PM...
"How are you feeling pup?" Minho asks observing the way Seungmin was tightly wrapped up in a blanket, quivering underneath all the layers he was wearing despite it already being baking hot in the dorms. A few days ago Felix had woken up with a splitting headache, stuffed nose, and pain just about anywhere possible and since then it had passed round to the majority of the members. The only safe ones at this point were Minho, Jisung, and Jeongin.
Seungmin rolls his head to the side shivering at the cold surface of the pillow, “Cold,” He whimpers, lips quivering again. If he were big, he’d probably just power through it but when little Seungmin was a bit of a crybaby. Minho never minded.
Minho nods taking a seat on the edge of his bed, “Would you like some soup? It’ll warm you up,” He suggests while brushing the hair back that had been sticking to the boy’s forehead.
“No food, want Hyungie,”
They compromised, Minho brought him over some food as well as stayed with him. At some point during their cuddle session, Hyunjin had joined them and consequently ended up regressing almost right away. Minho had ended up leaving them to sleep not caring that they were in the same bed, they both already had the same cold so it's not like they could catch something from one another.
Not long later, he'd settled down on the couch with Chan across from him who was working on a new track that had been on his mind for a while, he'd been sitting there with his headphones on for at least an hour now without moving. Minho knew it was the usual, nothing would stop Chan once he'd got into his zone but he was just worried. With this cold going around the members, Chan had gotten it quite bad not helped by his lack of sleep and general mindset when it came to working.
Minho had been watching a boring reality show for the past half-hour and was honestly two minutes away from falling asleep if he didn't change the channel soon. Opening up the guide, he notices Inside Out had just started which coincidently was Chan's favourite movie when little. As soon as Chan took his headphones off, he clicked on the channel which had immediately caught the older's attention. Just as he thinks it's working, Chan shakes his head and walks out of the room towards the bathroom.
It was worth trying. If Chan didn't want to watch it, it didn't mean Minho couldn't.
"What're you doing?" Chan says plainly pointing at the tv knowing full well what Minho was trying to do, "It's not going to work, I'm busy," He makes abundantly clear in the way he not so gently puts his headphones back on but Minho wasn't stupid...He could see that his laptop wasn't even on anymore. Ten minutes later and his screen was still pitch black, though each time Minho would look over Chan would pretend to be working.
He laughs at his failed efforts, "Channie~" He sings opening up his arms, inviting the boy into a hug that he couldn't refuse. Chan finally gives up placing his laptop on the floor and timidly settling into a warm hug, with his headache neverending and slight temperature, being wrapped up in someone's arms made him feel a lot better. It was an added bonus with the movie playing too.
After the movie had ended, Minho had carried the little to bed seeing as he'd fallen asleep along with a lot of the other members. Halfway through the movie, Changbin had joined them claiming that Jeongin had gone to bed and he was lonely. That resulted in little Changbin. All in all, Minho is 90% sure that everyone was little today.
"Are you sleepy, bub?" Minho asks as he approaches the couch after tucking Chan into bed, Changbin had been dozing off for a good portion of the movie. Fortunately, he hadn't gotten as bad as a cold as a few of the others- specifically Seungmin and Hyunjin- he just got sleepy quite quickly.
Changbin shakes his head betrayed by a yawn forcing its way out, "Are you sure? My baby looks very sleepy..." Minho muses, picking up Changbin and taking him to his bed without waiting for a reply, he knew the little was happy to go to bed given he was already lulling his head to the side every few seconds. From the journey from the front room to his bed, Changbin had fallen asleep in impressive time. After making sure he was okay, Minho quietly climbs up the bunkbed's ladder seeing Chan still fast asleep. He turns to Felix noticing his blanket had been kicked completely off, Minho makes sure to leave him a fresh glass of water by his bed and grabs a damp flannel to place on his forehead in hopes of cooling him down a bit.
He fell asleep in his own bed shortly after, Hyunjin and Seungmin were still cuddled up fast asleep which meant he was free to sleep.
And he did sleep...For an hour.
10:48 PM
He thinks he's dreaming when he hears sniffling coming from above him, at first, he'd ignored it assuming it was either Hyunjin or Seungmin sleeping but when he started to feel tugging at his sheets and a body dipping onto his mattress he realised it wasn't a dream. Minho blinks open his eyes knowing that he couldn't have been asleep for overly long considering he still felt the sleep weighing down on him.
"Dada," Hearing that being said in a shaky voice brought him back to the present, there were only two littles that used that name with him and that was either Felix or Jisung and given Felix had a lot of a deeper voice...This was most certainly Jisung cowering at his side desperately trying to wake Minho up.
He blinks his eyes open rolling over to face who he suspects is Jisung which happens to be correct, he's sitting on his knees shaking Minho's body with all his might and if he wasn't awake now he surely would be with all the effort going into each shove.
"Jisung?" Minho yawns trying to wake himself up from his small nap, "What's wrong baby?" He frowns shuffling up to sit against the headboard to let Jisung find peace in his lap. The little doesn't reply, instead, he rests his head against Minho's chest and then he feels it, he is burning up. There goes another member.
"Sungie sweetheart, do you not feel well?" It was more than evident that that was the case, if his hot skin wasn't enough to go by, the shaking would have alerted him to it. Jisung nods though he seemed to have calmed down a bit whilst in his caregiver's hold.
While tending to Jisung, he'd lost another hour of what could have been spent sleeping. He didn't mind, of course not, making sure his littles were okay always made the top of his list even if it meant putting his own needs on hold. Eventually, he managed to get Jisung back to bed sparing a look at Jeongin who looked peaceful as ever cuddled up to his life-sized teddy bear that they'd brought back from the Christmas EveL set, Jeongin had instantly grown attached to it.
Then he'd gone back to bed but with Hyunjin snoring, falling asleep didn't come easy or at all for that matter. Then, somehow, it was 6 AM.
It seemed a bit pointless going to the company to practice when all of his other teammates were under the weather, but he got up and got ready despite believing he would be of a lot more use here helping them recover. If they were still all little, he could only imagine the mess they'll end up in without having a caregiver around. Though, at least they wouldn't be as energetic and chaotic as usual.
"Oh, God..." He stares at his reflection in the mirror, a tired, sleepless night mirroring off the glass. By a miracle (and a hint of makeup) he makes himself look somewhat awake, hair not so dishevelled as had been and eyes looking a lot more open and ready for the day. He had about an hour until he had to leave which allowed him to grab some breakfast and a cup of coffee before he heard the first signs of someone waking up.
It didn't take overly long for Hyunjin to emerge around the corner peeking at Minho through his hair which was slowly growing back to its longer length, "Min staying?" He asks full of hope, clutching onto Minho's sleeve.
It breaks his heart to tell him, "Sorry Jinnie, I'll only be gone for a few hours," Minho sighs wanting nothing more than to stay, "I promise," Though Hyunjin looked as if he'd been told the worst news possible, he links his pinky with Minho's making sure to seal the pinky promise.
"MinMin looks tired," Hyunjin pouts while clasping both hands around Minho's smaller ones and attempting to drag Minho back to bed, it wasn't successful in the slightest...All Minho had to do was tickle Hyunjin's side a little for him to break away in a fit of giggles.
"Sorry love," Minho apologises contrary to his grin, "I'll see if I can come home early, how about that?"
Having said that, he ended up at the company for a lot longer than that...A lot, a lot longer.
It wasn't like he didn't try to leave, things just kept getting in the way. His muscles felt like they'd been slaving away for hours on end which wasn't exactly a lie and due to that, he'd ended up falling asleep for far too long.
Not having a chance to eat was probably one of his biggest problems, the hunger in his stomach was overtaking every other feeling. The only feeling that pushed its way past his screaming stomach was worry, he hadn’t seen his littles all day and it was concerning him to the core. Thinking about it made his legs bounce up and down even more from where he was seated in the car, there were just over five more minutes until he’d be home but five minutes seemed like far too long. Making matters worse, he had had to stop off at the pharmacy to grab some more medicine for the boys and the queue had been stupidly long resulting in a 20-minute wait.
Back at the dorms, Chan was lying half asleep on the couch cuddled up to either Jeongin or Seungmin, he wasn’t exactly sure. He’d been asleep for a good portion of the day, his thinking was that if he went to sleep Minho would be there when he woke up. Though, that logic hadn't worked for the past 2 times he'd gone to sleep.
“Min Hyungie?” Chan squints his eyes open searching his surroundings but most of his vision was blocked by Jeongin’s hair in his face.
On the floor, Seungmin lifts his head from having been pampering Jisung with wet cloths just like Minho did to them, “Not back,” He huffs removing a wet cloth from the other little’s face only to place it back in the same place seconds later.
“Dada gone?” Felix suddenly says after a while of sitting in silence, “Not back?” He whimpers genuinely believing that was that Minho was no more. Felix always seemed to think like that, Minho almost found it endearing if it wasn’t for the tears that always followed.
Hyunjin shook his head at Felix’s words, “MinMin said he’d be back!” He states, energy oozing out in every word he lets out. Felix didn’t look too convinced but it worked for now.
Between Seungmin playing doctor to Jisung and Changbin battling Jeongin for the remote, it wasn’t shocking when they didn’t notice the door opening through the commotion.
“What’re my babies doing?” Minho smiles, worry slowly leaving as he sees his littles all in one piece. Everyone whips their heads towards their caregiver who had now entered the room and had begun analysing the scene albeit with 7 boys hugging the life out of him.
“Dada back,” He hears Jisung’s muffled voice close to his ear followed by similar words coming from Felix.
He smiles hugging them all back to the best of his ability, “Of course, how could I possibly go a day without seeing all these cute faces?” There are a few giggles as the hugging session comes to an end and the littles disperse back to where they had been.
“Dada, Minnie is a doctor!” Jisung claps his hands pointing at Seungmin who looked to be a lot better today than he had been for the past few days.
Seungmin wraps his blanket around his shoulders while attending to Jisung, “M’ making Sungie better,” He explains as he sticks a pen in Jisung’s mouth mimicking a thermometer, Minho had quickly taken it out slightly concerned about germs.
“You’re doing a great job sweetie,” Minho praises ignoring the pen issue and moving to get a start on some food for everyone, he doubts they'd had anything. However, as he was about to step into the kitchen, he feels arms wrap around his waist tugging him back to the couch. Fearing that he'll land on Chan and Jeongin, he turns his head noticing they weren't there...Solves the mystery of whose hands were pushing him forwards.
He lands on the couch with a quiet oof, "What's going on?" He laughs taking note of how Seungmin was now approaching him with the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders. Now with a blanket covering him, a pillow that Changbin had brought over, and a Stitch plushie that Felix had given to him, he started to work out what they were trying to do. He lets them do their thing for a few minutes, fussing over him as if he were the ill one.
"Hyungie gon' be happy," Jeongin beams. Minho's glad to see him looking a lot less lethargic as he had been this morning, as soon as he'd seen the maknae slumped against the table this morning, he'd made sure to call Jeongin in as sick. 7 down 1 to go. Thankfully, surprisingly, Minho remained well.
"But I am happy buttercup,"
Jeongin doesn't accept the answer, nor his attempts to move from their cosy sofa-bed they'd set up for him, "No moving!" He demands holding his arms up into a big X. Lost, Minho looks over to Jisung and Hyunjin who were also preventing him from moving.
"I've got to get the dinner ready," Minho desperately tries, not giving in just yet. As much as he wanted to let the boys all play caregivers, he still had things to do. He had to put the dinner on, start the laundry, give the boys the correct medicine (some liked liquids whereas others didn't), clean the dishes, get all the littles ready for bed-
"Nuh-uh, Dada relax," Felix points a finger at him which looked a little odd given Minho was used to seeing him as a cute, lovable, bubbly little...He was 100% still adorable.
Fine, he could relax...He really needed to let some of the stress go anyways.
From his peripheral vision, he sees Chan and Changbin heading into the kitchen which almost makes him regret staying on the couch. It wasn't as if he didn't trust them but Chan in the kitchen was dangerous enough as it was let alone joined by Changbin.
"Hey, hey, what're you two doing in there?" He calls out worried for his dear kitchen and, well, mostly for their welfare. He hears the duo giggle as well as cupboards opening and closing, anything was better than the oven. There was bound to be a mess later, he could deal with that tomorrow.
Changbin pokes his head back out grinning, "Food, Channie an' Binnie's rest...Restaurant!"
Minho lets them get on with it, he knows that if he even moves a muscle then he'll have one of the boys glaring into his soul. Felix had decided that Minho needed a cuddle partner and had made himself comfy lying on top of his chest, Jeongin had started helping Seungmin with playing Doctors and Jisung was helping Hyunjin plush up the pillows around Minho.
Deciding to fully let go and unwind, he makes his first request, "Jinnie baby, could you do me a big favour?" He smiles watching Hyunjin gasp and nod enthusiastically, always happy to help.
"Would be a good boy and fetch me a drink?" Minho asks knowing Hyunjin would happily oblige, Jisung too wanted to help.
The pair of them scatter off into the kitchen joining Changbin and Chan in whatever they're doing, it didn't take long for Jisung to come scrambling back in after they'd come to the realisation that they didn't know what he wanted.
"Dada want hot or cold?"
Cold, the first thing that came to his head was cold. There was no way he was going to let one of his littles tackle the kettle, that screamed injuries and burns. Once, a few weeks ago actually, Jeongin had been cooking (while big) and accidentally got a small burn, he'd immediately regressed and the event alone had Minho praying that nobody would get close to anything hazardous while little. He wanted that anyway, even before that incident.
"Cold, water is fine," Minho puts his thumbs up when they ask if he wants ice too, there's not much that could go wrong there. He laughs to himself hearing Hyunjin whining at how cold it was, Felix seemed to giggle too at the fuss in the kitchen shocking Minho, he had thought the boy was asleep.
"Thought you were sleeping cupcake," Minho smiles down at Felix who sits up a bit shaking his head, as wide awake as ever.
Felix was pretty content on staying wrapped up with Minho under the warm blanket Seungmin had placed on them, "Not sleeping," He chirps, "Dada's warm and comfy,"
Minho wraps his arms around the little bringing him back down to cuddle, "Is that so? My little Lixie is very warm too," All in all, that wasn't far from the truth. With Felix still having a temperature, his skin was a bit hot to the touch making Minho worry for a moment but seeing as Felix was smiling away and not complaining, he guessed he was feeling alright.
"Dada's warmer," Felix claims, "Like home."
Minho melts on the spot, trust Felix to make his heart melt...Cuteness overload.
"Cold drink!" Jisung and Hyunjin come barging towards the couch with a glass filled to the brim, ice cubes dancing on the surface of the water. He watches and ignores the fact that Seungmin had toddled over and snuck a sip of his drink, he was glad the little was somewhat taking care of himself between placing soggy towels on his forehead and bringing items that Minho deemed as being fairly unnecessary.
He takes the glass sipping on the side Seungmin hadn't drunk from, "Thank you very much," Minho says, the smile never leaving his face at all the effort they were putting into this. He was so used to looking after them that it felt a bit odd being on the receiving end, he must admit, it was nice to just sit back and relax for once in a while.
"Dinner!" Changbin comes in, walking painfully slowly with a plate in his hand, Chan had some packets in his hands which confused Minho to the core. Once Changbin had reached him and placed the plate on his lap, he'd realised why Chan had packets in his hands. It was more of a lunch than a dinner; if you could even call it a lunch. Minho tried his best to hold back the laugh that was threatening to break through at the sight of the...Meal.
The boys had put two pieces of bread on the plate (no fillings), a packet of gummies that Minho had hidden...Looks like a new hiding place will be required, they'd also managed to put some noodles on the plate, cold, soggy noodles. Though all of it was edible, he almost wanted to feed it to the dog. The only problem was they didn't own a dog.
"This looks-" Seeing Chan and Changbin's faces waiting for compliments, he didn't have the heart to tell them it wasn't exactly a dinner, "This looks great, thank you so much," The two beamed at him watching expectantly for him to eat. Pushing down his reluctance- mainly because of the soggy, unflavored noodles- he decides to eat the two pieces of bread first which wasn't too bad, just a tad bit dry. He swallows thickly as he brings the noodles to his mouth, forcing a smile for the sake of their happiness as he chews on the noodles.
Satisfied that he liked it, Chan and Changbin went back to playing on the floor letting Minho get up- he'd only got a leave of acceptance because he claimed he needed to go to the bathroom but in reality, those noodles were going right into the bin. Even though it had been pretty revolting, he couldn't help but laugh and soon after the smile returned as he thought about just how much effort they'd put into it. He suspects what they'd done is put noodles in a pot filled with water but due to his rule of not turning on or touching the oven, they hadn't heated them up.
He had been correct. At least they followed his rules.
As he walks back into the front room, Seungmin is running towards him with pyjamas in his hands, "Hyungie gotta be comfy," He says handing the clothes to him, it took him a few seconds to realise that these were his workout clothes which were just some grey joggers and a black tee. Thankfully, they were clean. Seeing as Seungmin wasn't going to stop pestering him, he changes into the clothes.
He checks the time noticing it was only 7:30 in the evening, way too early to sleep. Whatever he was thinking didn't matter as he found himself being pushed back onto the couch by none other than Changbin who settled on top of him rather than Felix this time. One of the littles (he's not sure who) turns on the tv. He notices the programme as Hyunjin's favourite show when little, it was a classic cartoon sort of thing and honestly, Minho actually didn't mind it. He could stick some of the things they liked to watch but a lot of the time he found himself scrolling on his phone, to be fair, he was more into watching other things that weren't aimed at children.
"Does Hyungie want-"
"Shh, he's falling asleep," Chan whispers to Seungmin pointing at Minho's sleepy state. He wasn't quite asleep yet but he wasn't awake either. Minho was in that state of mind where nothing quite seemed real, everything was just a little out of the world. His eyelids kept fluttering shut joined by unintelligible words slipping past his lips every few minutes.
Changbin stays still peering up from where he was still lying on his chest, "Nighty-night," He smiles feeling as if he's really helped in getting his caregiver to fall asleep, in hindsight, he had helped a lot today as all the other littles had.
A few more minutes passed where all the littles hovered around Minho staring down at him and to anyone else, it would look like something out of a horror movie but in reality, they were just 7 lovable littles silently cheering for their victory of getting Minho to rest.