Work Text:
Changbin cracked his eyes open again. The harsh light of the clock on his nightstand telling him that another hour had passed. An hour of silence. It was past three in the morning. Chan had said he would come back to the dorm as soon as he had finished fine tuning a few details on a track they had been working on. That was four hours ago. Changbin tried to sleep. He really did. But the silence was deafening. He couldn’t stop picturing Chan, working himself to death just one street away. It was hurting his heart. He knew Chan was the elder. The one who was supposed to be taking care of them. But who did that leave to take care of him?
Changbin grunted. He wanted to respect Chan’s wishes to work, and not be bothered. This was just too much. Another night. Another morning. Chan was making himself sick. Changbin just couldn’t lay here, in his warm comfortable bed, knowing Chan was sitting hunched in a too worn to be comfortable chair, eyes burning red from staring at the brutal glow of a screen for what must be close to a full day now. He had to do something. Someone had to take care of the eldest.
Changbin felt a bit like a zombie himself as he slouched the short walk to the company building. His body unhappy at being dragged from his warm bed into the bitter night. It didn’t take long for him to enter the harsh white light of the lobby, grunting a greeting at the security guard as he made his way to the elevator. He stared at his phone as he rode up, a part of him hoping Chan wouldn’t be there when he got to the studio. That he had gone to the other dorm. Fuck, he hoped he was passed out on the couch he had slept on more than was reasonable for a grown man in his mid-twenties. He knew though, Chan was going to be awake. The stubborn bastard wouldn’t quit.
Changbin was greeted with the sight that had been haunting his imagination all night when he stepped into their studio. Chan’s pallid face looked more ghoul than the bright man he knew he was. Changbin sighed, feeling fond annoyance at the diligence that he knew one day might kill the man he adored so much.
“That’s not fine tuning.” Changbin chastised as he moved to sit in one of the chairs next to Chan, laughing at how Chan grasped his chest, looking like Changbin might have just startled him to the edge of a cardiac event.
“Fuck! What the hell are you doing here…” Chan asked, eyes looking unfocused as he blinked at him. “It’s not morning yet.”
“I mean, yeah it is.” Changbin pointed at the little clock in the corner of the screen, which Chan seemed to have been stubbornly avoiding.
“You know what I mean. It’s not morning, morning. It’s still last night.”
“Yeah, you need sleep. You are talking the crazy talk of the squirrel.”
“Fuck off. I’m making sense, you are just being pedantic.”
“Well, I don’t need to bust out my bullshit fancy words to tell you that you need to go to bed.”
“I will. I just… I need to finish this.”
“You should have finished it hours ago.” Changbin said a little more softly as Chan turned back to frown at the screen, his hand sliding up to tug his already stress damaged hair.
“I… Look, I can't sleep until I finish this. It’s just… My brain isn’t working. I’m not getting it to work like I know I can. I just have to keep pushing. I can do this.”
“Yeah. No one is doubting you can do this.”
“They are! Everyone wants more! I have to keep pushing!” Chan was sounding frantic, his sleep deprived mind must have been fraught and raw, leaving him vulnerable to the insecurities he worked so hard not to show to the rest of the kids.
“We will give them more. We don’t have to stop. But you do need to rest.”
“I’ll rest when it’s done.”
“When what’s done? This isn’t even the song you were working on when I left.”
“I’ll rest when we are safe! I need to keep us producing, I need to keep up being profitable, I need to keep us popular. I can’t… Fuck! I’m gonna keep working, because I won’t let us down!”
“You aren’t letting us down by resting.” Changbin sighed deeply. This was not the first time he had been witness to Chan’s hidden fears and the pressure he put on himself to be the sole provider for the group and keep them together and happy. He was just not used to him snapping to the hysterical ranting so suddenly. He must have been beyond exhausted. “What would be letting us down is being so much of a stubborn ass that you work yourself sick, and leaving us to fend without you.”
“I can handle it!” Chan said, looking at Changbin defiantly, and never looking more like a scared child than Changbin had ever seen him.
“Yeah. You can. But I can’t.” Changbin leant over and saved the file open on the computer as Chan glared at him. “I can’t handle being the one to hold us together while you recover from making yourself sick. I can’t handle being the one everyone is looking to. You can. What I can handle though, if making sure you get the fuck home, and go to bed. Now.”
Changbin intentionally flexed his arms. Chan was in excellent shape, and worked out at least as much as Changbin did, but Changbin didn’t shred like Chan did. Changbin didn’t care about curating his diet and lifestyle to keep himself lean and flaunt the muscle he built. He knew Chan was strong, and had impressive stamina, but Changbin was healthier, in every way. So if it came to it, Changbin would restrain Chan to force him to get the rest he so desperately needed.
“I… I don’t want to go to bed.” Chan said, his body sagging as he admitted defeat.
“Why not?”
“You know why!” Chan spat back, his emotions on edge. “Even if I go to bed, I won’t fucking sleep. I will still be here, in this room. Just in my head. I will still be working the problems, I just won’t be able to do anything about it.”
“God, you need to take up a vice to shut up that brain of yours.”
“Yeah, well, that wouldn’t really help me in the long run.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, rest is better than no rest. Even if you can’t sleep. Come on. Let’s go home.” Changbin stood up, looking at Chan with a non-negotiable resolve in his eyes as he held out a hand for him.
Chan sighed and took his hand, staggering a little as he got to his feet. Changbin gave him the dignity of not rubbing it in about how if he was clearly too tired to walk, he was too tired to work, and just led him out of the studio, and took him back to the dorm.
It took Changbin longer to return back to the dorm than it did to get to the company with Chan’s stumbling feet dragging and slowing their pace. Changbin kept quiet though, not thinking that jokes and playful teasing were the right thing to lift Chan’s spirits right now. They got back to the dorm, Changbin trying to be careful so as not to wake the other two, hoping they were at least asleep. Chan was swaying a little, clearly so overworked and tired that his body wanted to quit and drop him to the floor right here. Changbin put his arm around him when they had taken off their shoes, taking Chan’s weight onto him as he guided him to his room. He deposited Chan on his bed and crossed his arms as he looked down at him.
“Now, can I trust you to actually lay down and close your eyes? Or do I need to confiscate your phone and laptop?” Changbin asked, half joking as he scanned the room for other devices Chan might end up staring at instead of letting his eyes rest.
“I don’t know…” Chan sounded defeated, it broke Changbin’s heart to hear it.
“Channie?” Changbin said, dropping his arms and tilting his head.
“I’m… I’m so tired. I wish I could fucking rest. Even when I do sleep, I have stress dreams. There is no fucking peace in my world.”
“Fuck…” Changbin sighed, and looked around.
“Can… No, never mind.”
“No, what? What do you need?”
“It’s not need…”
“What do you want?”
“Can…” Chan ran his hand through his hair, his face contorting as he seemed to battle himself to even voice what he wanted. “Can you stay with me? Just… Lay down with me? I don’t want to be alone.”
“Oh… Yeah, of course. You know I will do that.” Changbin smiled, feeling a warmth spread in his chest. He was proud that Chan had actually expressed what he wanted, and was delighted that it was something he could do to help him.
Changbin pushed Chan back onto his bed, laughing as he dropped like a ragdoll to the sheets. He had to manhandle the over exhausted man into a comfortable lying position, before wrestling the covers over him. Once Chan was comfortable, Changbin slipped into the bed behind him. He wrapped his arms around Chan, and pulled him against his body, trying to send out waves of comforting energy, if that was even a thing, and give Chan the security that he so desperately needed.
“Do you need to talk about it?” Changbin asked softly.
“It’s fine…”
“Yeah, so?” Changbin coaxed gently. Chan sighed before wriggling his body to press tighter against Changbin’s frame.
“This, the music and everything that comes with it, is what I love. It is. I never want to stop doing it… But it feels like I can’t stop. Even just to breathe. I would die for the kids, and this life… But sometimes it feels like I actually might.”
“I know. We see how much you work. How much you gave up, and keep sacrificing for us.” Changbin told him, moving his face to press against Chan’s, trying to give him all the closeness that was possible. “We want to help though. You can lean on us. We can hold the line while you breathe. Maybe the reason that you can’t breathe is because you are putting on our air masks first. We have flown more than enough to know that’s not allowed.” Changbin beamed as he felt a light scoff of a laugh from Chan, his body slowly starting to release some of the tension that was so taught his body had felt almost ridged.
“You know that some of those kids would suffocate before they even saw that the air masks sign was lit up.”
“Okay, we are not here to shame your children's lack of intelligence.” Changbin laughed. “But maybe let the others help. You know that we can care for each other. You don’t have to take care of everything. Maybe, sometimes, I know it seems crazy, you can actually just take care of you.”
“That’s not productive.” Chan laughed around a yawn.
“Well, then that is why you let us take care of things. You can close your eyes, you can breathe. We will still be here when you open them. You will keep breathing. We aren’t going anywhere. You brought us here. Let us share the weight for the journey.
“Hmm.” Chan hummed, his voice flat and weak.
“For now. Just sleep. I will take care of everything in the meantime.” Changbin let out a steady breath and closed his eyes, feeling Chan’s body go lax in his arms. “I will take care of you. Always.”