evoltwinz - Tumblr blog

evoltwinz · 9 months ago

Text

: : songbird.

joshua x dokyeom, idolverse, hurt/comfort, pining, set post-caratland '24 bc wtf were carats on that day

4k+ words, no warnings

also on ao3 | kinda me projecting thru josh in this fic,,, seokmin deserves to know he's loved and i think shua deserves to be the one to tell him

summary: “hey,” joshua said again, softer. seokmin didn't meet his eyes, gaze flitting around like a nervous bird, panicked at being caged in. joshua's heart constricted. “just slow down a little for me, okay? what’s wrong?” - or seokmin has always been delicate, in joshua's eyes. and he'll hold seokmin's face gently, even when the tears begin to fall.

In some kind of delicate, precious way, a way that extended far beyond the restrictive spheres of “romantic” or “platonic”, Joshua kind of belonged to Seokmin.

It was the same way that Seokmin kind of belonged to Joshua, too: a mutual possession, a mutual protection, a mutually beneficial sort of scheme. Where Joshua could hold Seokmin’s face in his hands, call him his entire world, and Seokmin could do the same to him, and they’d both instinctively know that they meant it in ways that no one else could ever explain.

Part of Joshua was always, eternally, everlastingly, owned by Seokmin—sweet, golden, angelic Seokmin. It was something that hardly needed pointing out, as ingrained into the universe as it was.

Though, on some days, Seokmin hardly seemed to know that at all.

“Hey,” Joshua said as Seokmin brushed past him, looking intent on booking it out of the waiting room, making it out of the stadium and getting home as soon as possible. “Seokmin, wait.”

He placed a hand on Seokmin’s arm, before his eyes widened and his fingers gripped tighter, startled.

Seokmin was shaking.

“Hey,” he said again, this time far softer. Seokmin wasn’t meeting his eyes properly, his gaze flitting everywhere around them like a nervous bird, panicked at being caged in an unfamiliar place. It made Joshua’s chest constrict, and he took a rattling breath. “Hey. Just slow down a little for me, okay? What’s wrong?”

Seokmin hadn’t even let the stylists remove any of his makeup, his hair still stiff with hairspray and his eyes lined with dark eyeshadow and little smudges of glitter. None of them had even begun to get all cleaned up yet either, with only he, Seokmin, and a few others with their mic packs removed at all, and it was a testament to how startlingly eager Seokmin was to just leave.

He kind of thought he knew why—what had happened at the concert would hurt anyone, and Seokmin was one of the gentlest people that he knew—but he still wanted Seokmin to let him know, to talk to him, to reach out and let Joshua hold him in his arms.

Joshua tried to follow Seokmin’s gaze, tried to make him look him in the eye, but it was a fruitless task. Despite all the makeup designed to make his eyes larger, more intense, more there, Seokmin’s irises were brittle and he looked so small, eyelashes shuddering with every breath he took.

Seokmin finally met his eyes for a brief moment, and then looked away.

“Nothing,” he said, with a smile. “I’m fine.”

Then he tried to pull away, tried to finally leave the room and escape, but Joshua simply held tighter, bringing his other hand up to hold Seokmin’s shoulder, keeping him in place.

Seokmin wasn’t trying to escape whatever cage of intrusive thoughts he’d gotten himself stuck in this time. He was merely flying headlong through the door, willingly flinging himself inside and letting others lock the exit behind him.

Joshua sighed. Seokmin was a fool if he thought Joshua would allow that to happen.

“You’re not,” he said gently, and then let go of his shoulder, using the hand on his arm to drag him back further into the waiting room.

Around them, the rest of their members were bustling noisily about, removing mic packs and kicking off shoes and arguing over who could get into the stylists’ chairs first to remove their makeup. Jeonghan, however, had situated himself on one of the couches, eyes shut and arms crossed, looking like he’d accepted he wasn’t going to win that fight any time soon. For all his mental intelligence, he was still built like a fragile paper doll, after all.

Seokmin frowned as Joshua dragged him across the room to where Jeonghan was napping, forcing him to sit down on the couch. “Hey. Hyung, what are y—”

Joshua tapped Jeonghan on the shoulder, making the man scrunch his nose in annoyance. “Jeonghan, could you watch Seokmin for a moment for me? Just while I get a few things.”

Jeonghan just grunted noncommittally, but he adjusted his sleeping posture so he could see Seokmin better out of the corner of his eye.

“I'll be right back,” Joshua said to Seokmin, who looked both tired and confused. “Don't go anywhere.”

And then he was gone, set on carrying out his task.

The entire room was thick with noise and cologne and the sticky heat of too many bodies sweating in a small space, so Joshua made quick work of gathering up his and Seokmin’s belongings from where they’d been scattered everywhere due to their pre-concert stress. He ended up shoving two phones in one bag and definitely accidentally gave Seokmin his chapstick that he was now never going to get back, but it didn’t matter.

What Seokmin needed was to be somewhere quiet. Being somewhere too loud only amplified his own thoughts, multiplied his feelings, until he was overwhelmed both by the noise and his own fears. Like being trapped within a devastating storm, the destruction would only increase until there was no other option than to just pray and wait it out.

So it had made sense that Seokmin had originally tried to leave on his own. But that wouldn’t do, either: if left unattended, Seokmin would throw himself back into that cage, and it would be nearly impossible for him to escape.

“Chan,” Joshua said to their youngest member just as he was about to sit down at the last empty vanity, “Could you go and grab my charger for me? It’s over by the clothes racks there.”

Chan looked up from his phone and whined. “Can’t you get it yourself? I literally had to fight for this chair, and if I get up, Mingyu hyung will definitely—”

“I’ll guard it for you,” Joshua promised. “Please, Chan? I don’t ask things from you often.”

“Fine,” Chan conceded with a sigh, standing up. “Be right back.”

As soon as he left, Joshua took the opportunity to swipe several makeup wipes, cotton pads and the entire makeup remover bottle from the vanity. He struggled to fit it into both his and Seokmin’s bags for a few moments before promptly giving up and simply running off before Chan returned.

“I’m back,” he said, coming to a stop in front of the couch he’d dropped Seokmin off at. He was still there, thankfully, and Jeonghan still looked to be fast asleep.

Seokmin looked up at Joshua, taking note of the two bags and the makeup removing equipment that he hadn’t been able to shove away. There was a flicker of confusion in his gaze before he sighed.

“Hyung, what are you doing?”

He looked exhausted beyond belief, and part of Joshua—the part that belonged to Seokmin—ached. That kind of bone-deep, heart-paining exhaustion wasn't something that Seokmin deserved to experience at all. Nevertheless, he just smiled, extending a hand in Seokmin’s direction and pulling him to his feet, wrapping that same arm around his waist.

“I’m taking care of you.”

Seokmin looked at him, lost, but Joshua just smiled again, pulling him in close.

“Come on. Let’s take you somewhere else.”

───────────── ও

Somewhere else ended up being the bathroom, because it was the nearest, quietest place that Joshua could take him to in the shortest amount of time.

The thirteen of them weren’t actually cleared to leave the stadium just yet, with fans still clogging up all the hallways and exits, so he couldn’t even head towards the company cars which would have given them more room to sit in. (Now that he thought about it… with the clearance not even being granted yet, Joshua didn’t know how Seokmin had originally planned to leave.) He couldn’t have taken him back home, anyway, because it would have taken far too long, and he needed to help Seokmin as soon as possible.

So here they were, squished into the bathroom which was, thankfully, one of those single-person places rather than full of communal cubicles. Joshua sat Seokmin down on the toilet lid before rummaging through the things he’d brought with them, busily pulling out tissues and that large bottle of makeup remover that hadn’t fit in any of their bags. His movements were unusually messy, clumsy in a way that he rarely ever was, but. This was because of Seokmin. Because Seokmin always made him do things like this, act out and say and do things he’d never do otherwise, all to help him and remove him from danger as fast as he could.

Because Seokmin was his to keep safe.

Seokmin watched him, and he was acting unusually too, sitting there far too docilely and far too quietly, his irises still devastatingly too fragile when he met Joshua’s eyes.

“We’re going to remove your makeup, okay?” Joshua said softly. “You’ll forget if we don’t do it now, and you’ll end up with bad rashes tomorrow.”

Seokmin blinked up at him. “Why…” he paused. Swallowed, then nodded. “Okay.”

Joshua smiled as reassuringly as he could, before bending down and pressing the cotton pad against Seokmin’s face.

Holding Seokmin’s chin steady with one hand, he swiped the cotton over his cheek with the other, rubbing off as much of the products as he could. Seokmin was still shaking under his hands, the slightest tremble like he was a little wren whose heart was beating too fast in its ribcage, but he seemed to calm down the slightest bit as Joshua removed the rest of his makeup with slow, steady strokes.

Neither of them uttered a word. Joshua was too focused on getting Seokmin cleaned up to say anything, and Seokmin seemed too focused on tracking his movements with those autumn-browned shivering eyes.

Finally finishing with the first cotton pad, Joshua released Seokmin’s face and straightened up to set it aside on the sink before prepping another. Then he bent over Seokmin once again, hand cupping the side of his face and gently tilting his head up towards him. Inexplicably, the movement made Seokmin’s breath hitch.

Joshua paused, worried, and drew back. “Is this okay?”

Seokmin’s expression had softened, just the slightest, and his voice was a whisper when he spoke again. “Yes,” he said, eyelashes shuddering. And then he added, “Thank you.”

It made Joshua smile, bending down over Seokmin once again even though his back groaned in protest.

“No need to thank me,” he responded in the same soft voice. “You know I’ll do anything for you, Seokmin.”

It was a soul-achingly truthful thing for Joshua to say. He winced internally, briefly embarrassed, but Seokmin didn’t seem to mind. He breathed in slowly, then exhaled, relaxing into Joshua’s hands.

“Yeah,” he said, and when he smiled, it looked more genuine than before. “I… I do.”

Joshua smiled back, and continued his work.

It was a kind of mesmerising process, being able to watch and feel in real-time as the idol skin was wiped away, leaving just Seokmin sitting there before him, less polished, but more real. More vulnerable. He brushed a finger over the bare skin of Seokmin's cheek, wiping away the tacky moisture left behind, lightly pressing against the pretty little mole that was now visible on his skin.

Seokmin watched him do so, his expression curiously unreadable, but when Joshua's fingers pressed down against the soft skin of his cheek again, imitating a gentle, adoring pinch, he closed his eyes and smiled.

After using up the second cotton pad, Joshua straightened, deposited it away and prepared yet another. Before he could reach for Seokmin and bend over him again, however, a hand wrapped itself around his wrist, staying his movements.

“You’ll hurt your back if you keep doing it like this,” Seokmin murmured. He looked up at Joshua through half-lidded eyes, thumb rubbing feather-light circles around the wrist bone.

If Seokmin was feeling a little better, Joshua would have grinned and replied with something along the lines of it’ll hurt me a lot less if you just did it yourself, all teasing and light in the way he always talked to Seokmin. But Seokmin wasn’t feeling himself, and that was the entire reason Joshua was here. And when they were like this, just Joshua and his Seokmin, Seokmin and his Joshua, he couldn't help but soften his words with a honey-sweet, truthful sort of care, baring parts of his heart which would have been teased and jabbed at in the light of day.

So Joshua just hummed contemplatively, straightening up once more to look around them.

“There aren’t any stools here. It’s alright, I’ll be fine,” Joshua assured him.

Seokmin didn’t look convinced. He looked up at Joshua properly, tilting his head back further, and though his irises still looked a little glassy, he melted the moment he met Joshua’s gaze.

“We can just sit on the floor,” he suggested. Before Joshua could even protest, he was already sliding off the toilet, tugging Joshua down with him. “It’s okay. It’s not that uncomfortable.”

“But it is dirty,” Joshua chided, despite the fact he was already sinking down to sit in front of Seokmin, shuffling closer. “Oh, well. Just send me your dry cleaning bill after, okay?”

Seokmin laughed at that, a tiny hiccup of noise like the chirp from a baby chick. Joshua smiled and reached forward to cup his face again. He noticed that he was no longer shaking. The smile was returning more naturally to his expression, now, and Joshua hadn’t realised he’d missed it so much.

This was good.

Seokmin was finally remembering that he had Joshua, always.

Quietly, Joshua continued to clean him up, moving from the cotton pads to wiping the entirety of his face with wipes. He hadn’t brought any cleansers with him, having been too rushed in his grab for anything he could find. Briefly, he wondered what the rest of their members were doing, and if they'd noticed their absence. He wondered whether Chan had ended up finding the nonexistent charger he’d asked him to fetch.

In the end, only Seokmin’s eyes and lips were left, and a little colour had returned to his face, the natural warmth blossoming across his cheeks, spring-like. He hadn’t stopped following Joshua’s actions with his eyes, and now, when they made eye contact, he smiled.

Joshua smiled back, relieved, as he discarded the last of the wipes, finally bringing out the last of the cotton pads.

No longer did Seokmin look like a terrified little wren whose heart was too big for its chest.

“There we go,” Joshua said with a smile. “You're looking much more like yourself again.”

Seokmin raised an eyebrow, a half-teasing, half-honest vulnerability in his next sentence. “Much more ugly, do you mean?”

Joshua tilted his head, as if he were truly considering Seokmin's words. He took in his warm skin, the little dips and divots from acne scars, the dark moles and those gentle eyes. He smiled again, and ruffled Seokmin's hair: his dark hair, back to its natural colour that made him look younger, sweeter, like the feathery colours of an adorable wren.

“No,” he said decisively, truthful. “Much prettier, in fact.”

Seokmin smiled, and it was clear he didn't believe him, but Joshua let it slide.

“We’re going to do your eyes, now,” he carried on, lifting up a liquid-soaked cotton pad. Seokmin’s eyes drifted away from his face to look at what he was holding. “I’ll do them one at a time, if that’s okay.”

Seokmin nodded. “It’s always okay.”

Joshua smiled.

He raised the pad closer to his face, and Seokmin instantly fluttered his eyes shut, trusting. The skin around one’s eyes was the thinnest, and Joshua held his breath every time he applied pressure, but Seokmin didn’t seem to mind. He looked almost… content, a relaxed air settling over his frame as Joshua held his face with one hand and patted cotton over his eye with the other.

Joshua ceased his movements with the pad, eyeing Seokmin carefully to see if he’d missed anything. Seokmin peeked at him with his untouched eye, curious. They made eye contact, and Seokmin laughed softly.

“This is kind of weird,” he said. “We’re sitting on the floor, in the bathroom… and you’re taking off my makeup for me.”

“It is kind of weird,” Joshua agreed. He quirked a grin. “Did you only just realise?”

“Yeah,” Seokmin said, as Joshua wiped the moisture off of his eye and then moved onto the other. Without being asked, Seokmin shut his eyes again, letting Joshua carry on as he talked. “Also, hyung, did you steal these from the stylist noonas?”

Joshua laughed. “Maybe.”

“Hyung! Stealing is bad, you know.”

“Uh huh. Running away from everyone else to wallow in your feelings is also bad, you know.”

Seokmin stilled, quietening under Joshua’s touch. “That wasn’t what I was going to do,” he protested under his breath. Joshua continued to gently dab at his eyelid, removing the last of his makeup.

“I’m not scolding you,” he murmured. “It's understandable. And it’s alright.”

He finally set down the cotton pad, brushed away the remaining moisture, and coaxed Seokmin to open his eyes. Eyelids fluttering, nose scrunching at the uncomfortable change from dark to light, Seokmin eventually looked at him, eyes flitting back and forth between Joshua’s own. His expression was troubled, emotions all tangled together like tree branches tangled together by harsh winds.

“But I’m here,” Joshua added. “I want you to come to me. It’s okay to need some time to be quiet, but I want you to come and be quiet with me.”

Seokmin swallowed, lips parting just slightly, and it was only then that Joshua noticed how close they were sitting, Seokmin pressed up against the toilet bowl, Joshua crowding into his space, practically in his lap. He could almost see every unreadable thought darting through Seokmin’s mind.

“Just come and use me. Be with me. Make me do things like—like removing your makeup in a tiny bathroom in the middle of the night, because I’ll do anything you need me to do, Seokmin. All I want is for you to feel safe again.”

It sounded like a confession, almost. Seokmin breathed in sharply, and Joshua panicked, fearing that Seokmin would now draw away, only for his eyes to widen as he did the exact opposite.

Seokmin’s eyes welled with tears, and he leaned into Joshua’s space, burying his face into Joshua’s shirt, clinging to him as he let out a sob, the shudders returning with full force.

Seokmin began to cry.

“Oh, angel,” Joshua breathed, automatically pulling Seokmin in for a tighter, more secure hug as he shook and cried into him. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

Seokmin didn't respond in any sort of coherent way, simply pushing himself further into Joshua's arms, thighs spread over his lap, fingers twisted into the fabric of Joshua's shirt as his cries gradually raised in volume until he was wailing brokenly against him.

Joshua hadn’t planned on making Seokmin cry like this. He’d never want Seokmin to cry at all, but on days like this, where everything had felt so off and Seokmin had done his best to push through and make others happy only for that to be thrown right back in his face in the end, Joshua had accepted that, perhaps, it needed to happen. Seokmin needed the chance to release all those complicated, complex emotions that had been warring inside him.

He’d planned to let Seokmin cry it out back at his apartment, though. In a safe, comfortable space, where he had tissues, hot chocolate, and all the soft blankets that Seokmin would need to clutch onto like a lifeline.

Not here, on the bathroom floor of a stadium, where Joshua only had a few stolen makeup wipes and his own concert-sweaty self on hand to comfort him with.

Seokmin deserved more than just him to be there as his comfort, really. He deserved all the most comforting things in the world, especially when he cried. But still, Seokmin clung to his shirt, pressing his face into Joshua’s neck even though he probably smelled really bad and was still sticky with sweat, looking like he had no thoughts of moving away for a while, and Joshua thought that perhaps, sometimes, Seokmin thought just Joshua might be enough.

“You did well,” Joshua said, rubbing circles into Seokmin’s back. “You did so well today, angel, I promise. You really did. Anyone who tells you otherwise is being foolish.”

Seokmin didn’t respond, still too busy trembling in his arms.

“Even if it’s you telling yourself that,” Joshua continued, gentle. “You always do your best, so why shouldn’t that mean you did well, too? There is no universe where your best efforts equate to something bad.”

Seokmin gave a hiccupping sob and made a strangled, distorted noise, evidently trying to mouth words into Joshua’s skin. “I… hyung… I-I just feel so bad for being so—”

Joshua gently stopped him, threading a hand through his hair. “Shh, it’s okay. You have nothing to feel bad for. I promise, okay? You did nothing wrong. Everything you feel guilty for, everything you feel went terribly… none of that was your fault. It's the fault of the people who made you feel this way, not you. Never you, angel, never you.”

As Seokmin trembled and cried against him, Joshua continued to soothe him as best as he could, making soft noises and patting his hair. He was so small, and Joshua knew he was anything but, knew the broadness of his frame had almost rivalled his own until Joshua decided to work out intensively a few months ago, but Seokmin had always felt delicate, to him. He looked it now, too, as he hid himself in Joshua's arms, buried himself against Joshua's chest.

He sounded so hurt, sobs fragmenting with every other breath he took and it pained Joshua to think that some people—some terrible, terrible people—had done this to quite possibly the kindest person he knew.

Joshua pressed a kiss to the top of Seokmin's hair, blinking rapidly to push down his own feelings that were welling up in the face of Seokmin's sadness.

“I’m here, shh, it's okay. I’ll be here for however long you need. We can talk later, but now, you can just cry. I’ve got you.”

Joshua could feel Seokmin's pulse thrumming rapidly from where his chest was pressed against his own. It was as if he really had turned into that little wren, whose heart was too large and beating too fast and threatening to swallow him whole.

Seokmin was just a devastatingly tiny songbird, in Joshua's eyes. A little wren, with a rapturous, magnificent voice that seemed almost ridiculously at odds with the delicacy of his stature. Because for all his blindingly golden smiles and loud and boisterous expressions of love, Joshua would always see who he really was, right down to his very soul.

Seokmin’s dawn-pale soul, begging to be cared for, to be cherished, to have its feathers stroked by someone who would adore him no matter how big or small he may be.

Joshua could see it all. He could see it now, as Seokmin draped himself over him, clung to him tight, sobbed into him like the world was ending around them and Joshua was the only person who could save him.

Seokmin just wanted to be loved.

And, well. Joshua just wordlessly pulled him in even further, blinked away his own tears rocking him from side to side and let him cry until his skin and the shoulder of his shirt was stained with tears. He held him impossibly close and impossibly tight, as if holding him tighter could help put back all the small, soft feathers Seokmin had lost from people cruelly ripping away at his kindness with their words. Due to the amount of people who couldn't see just how much love Seokmin was giving to them, whilst humbly asking for only a fraction in return.

It was a good thing that he had Joshua, then, who would always be there to love him.

After all, a part of him would always, eternally, everlastingly, belong to Seokmin.

taglist (send ask if you wanna be added/removed!): @my-moarmy-heart @weird-bookworm @bangantokchy @bittersweet-folder @leigh-darling @ahuiahoe

#❄️ writing that i love pov #cute cute cute cute!#i read this a few days ago but i came back 🤭#i really enjoyed the softness of it more than anything #every action felt so full of love #i love them so much #together especially

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