Work Text:
Pressure in the air weighs Mingi’s lungs down. Even if he lies flat on his back to let them expand it’s not enough, both crushing and constricting him until he caves.
He tries to remember what the little anxious thing inside him looks like, a separate entity to himself that he can step back and comfort. There’s more than enough oxygen flowing through his chest to keep him alive but it’s his own body rejecting it.
He can’t leave the pressurized cabin. Even in the comfort of his own bed, the walls are the same color. If he covers his head with blankets he’s still there and it’s going to suffocate him.
Sleep might be out of reach now. But it’s what he chooses to focus on instead and counting the colors that fade in and out of his lava lamp is something.
Blue is the color of the sky and he should hate it when it’s the source of his current troubles, but he can’t hate the sky. What he hates is the walls that curve inwards to cage him in like the fish he is.
He’s always thought that this is what it would feel like to choke on air that can’t sustain him. Though he’s still certain that fish don’t ever see the inside of a plane’s cabin and remember it long enough to develop such a reaction.
It circles back in an endless cycle. Breathe in, hold, breathe out slowly. Don’t let his mind go anywhere that could suffocate him. It’s hard to when he is there, still trapped with his legs folded against his chest and waiting for his heart to stop filling his veins with panic.
It’s been too long stewing in his own body and he can’t find where he ends and the panic begins. In the silence should be better but his brain fills in the constant rumble on its own. Dizziness tears through his head the same and suddenly it’s too much, and he has to stumble out of bed to drag himself to the bathroom.
When he flicks on the light it throws everything into sharp focus. Mingi leans over the sink with his hands braced on the countertop cold enough to slow the flow of blood in his clammy palms.
He’s surely just as pale as he feels but he doesn’t want to look yet. Nausea twists through him and he can’t decide which is worse—breathing in his own fear or the phantom turbulence that throws him off-kilter.
It’s a blessing that it fades out a little when he splashes water over his face. The lights in the bathroom are warmer and looking behind the mirror creates the illusion of more space for him to fill with his breathing. It’s enough to keep him standing steady until he feels secure enough to go back and get a glass of water.
It’s another problem when he tries to drink and his throat closes up. Frustration joins the other sensations in him but he tries to keep it down, reminding himself he’s not there anymore. It works about as well as it always does and he continues to keep his breathing regular even through the familiar resistance.
“Fuck.” It’s a waste of his energy to curse to no one and Mingi leans on his elbows, staring at his messy hair in the mirror too close to be comfortable.
It takes him a while to register his phone under his arm. He must have left it in his exhaustion when he got home—he had neglected too much of his routine in retrospect.
There’s a voice message from Yunho when he checks. Without even thinking, he opens it and Yunho’s voice fills his ears. Asking how Mingi’s doing after the flight, telling him to remember his breathing exercises.
Mingi zones out after the first few words. It’s soothing just to hear Yunho talking, indirectly but still something to hold onto. At least he doesn’t sound all worried like he did not even several hours ago when Mingi was curled into himself on the plane, frozen as he still is.
Yunho goes on to walk Mingi through what he always does, saying to follow his breathing as familiar as Mingi’s own. He does, and it works better when the rushing in his ears is pushed away by Yunho’s voice. He’s glad the message is longer than usual—Yunho must have recorded it just before he went to bed and his deeper voice crackles in the speakers.
“If you need to or want to, call me.”
Mingi considers taking him up on the offer. He knows from experience that Yunho truly won’t mind and Mingi has ended up talking to him late into the night.
Something stops him this time. Yunho would be tired, he reasons; he’d driven them back from the airport and he’ll likely be sleeping by now. It’s not what’s really stopping him but he tries to ignore the feeling in his gut.
Mingi stands in front of the sink and listens to the message again, focusing on Yunho’s voice flowing through him until he doesn’t stumble when he takes a step.
In the master bathroom the air is cooler and he can breathe a little better with the open window. Maybe now he can finish his nightly ritual and at least shower, find some aspect of completion to regulate his agitated body.
He goes to run the shower hot and strip off all his clothes until he stands bare, shivering a little but it’s good to keep him from going all muddled again.
The steam rolls out behind him. He’s standing stuck once again, much too tempted to pick up his phone just to hear Yunho’s voice low in the receiver.
Mingi is a creature of habit and weak will. To indulge himself in something that both helps and makes things worse is too easy to do.
This time Yunho’s voice playing out again is decidedly worse. It’s deep and warm and gets him warm in return. His own eyes staring into himself in the mirror are reminiscent of a deer in headlights—Yunho soothes that away too, reminding him of the push and pull of his lungs in his chest.
There’s too many things eating at him now. The easy ones are guilt, anxiety; the worst of it is yearning. What good is being able to sort out his emotions if they only continue to pile in his chest? He hasn’t found a solution yet. For everything there’s always something he can do, and he knows there’s something for this too but like hell is he ever going to take it.
Instead he stands under the shower water and lets it wash away every churning thing under his skin. The glass is already turning foggy but he can’t move to get going. The steady patter echoes in the tiled bathroom to ring back in his ears, too akin to the waterfall rushing in his head. Maybe it’s stupid to think he could drive it away at all. He isn’t too far from being a drowning fish again, neither able to stay in the air or the water.
So he steps out. It’s not even cold on his wet skin in the air that’s so moist it’s practically wet too. A small note of comfort is right in reach and he leans against the counter when he puts the receiver to his ear again.
He stays standing there, shivering for different reasons than the water still running down him and in the shower. The speaker doesn’t quite capture Yunho’s resonant voice but it’s fine, better even that it serves as a reminder it isn’t him speaking directly.
Not like Mingi hasn’t heard all this before—the only certainty when it comes to the mess of feelings in him is that Yunho cares about him and he cares about Yunho. He can hear it in the fondness and concern laced in his words, always a little more bare when he’s tired too. If anything it only makes him more earnest and Mingi can’t help but soak it all up like he’s greedy for it.
The scalding water isn’t enough to drown out a different heat building in him the longer he lets Yunho’s voice wash over him. The calm it’s meant to hold is different when he’s filled with anything but.
If Yunho knew—
No, Mingi can’t think about how he would react knowing Mingi is getting off to his voice of all things. Still the thought won’t leave his head so he wrangles it into place even though it hurts a little; the worst outcome would be Yunho’s shame and disgust, horrified to know that Mingi thinks of him in such a way. It’s easy to get stuck on it but Mingi forces himself to move away from the thought.
The best one would be that Yunho would tell Mingi he’s been in love with him all along and they’d get married and live happily ever after.
Oddly that’s the one that brings Mingi back to himself. It’s like a joke, too far-fetched to have any impact if he’s to say it out loud so it doesn’t even feel wrong to think it. And he does, maybe more than he should lest it turn serious.
The most likely outcome is he’ll let himself feel the boatload of shame when he plays through Yunho’s message again, force himself to delete it, shower, then go to bed pent up yet at least not much worse for wear.
Of course he can change it. He could let the heat rushing in his blood simmer until it boils over and grants him some semblance of relief. It won’t make the shame go away, but it’ll be there either way and the day he finds a way to kill it is the day he stops.
So he chooses. The end of Yunho’s message rings in his head again, telling Mingi he’ll see him tomorrow, to call him if he needs or wants to. And he does need to more than anything—or maybe just wants to. It might be the same thing, and Mingi doesn’t know why Yunho would bother saying it as if they’re separate.
He’s already too far gone for the guilt to stop him. Mingi leaves the speaker loud enough that Yunho’s voice fills the room enough to engulf him in its warmth and Mingi leans against the wall of the shower, letting water fall over his skin with it.
This isn’t how Yunho intended Mingi to hear him but it fits too well with his hand sliding to his cock, already half hard and too sensitive under the water.
Two familiar things that become wrong meshed together. Yunho speaking in his stable manner turns saccharine when he guides Mingi through breathing deeply in and out, telling him to inhale for a few seconds, hold another in his burning chest, then exhale slow and relaxed in his whole body.
“Breathe with me.”
Mingi inhales. His own fingers dig into his cock almost painfully until he lets himself release the tension again.
Yunho’s breath out is longer than his and they fall out of sync too fast. Mingi doesn’t bother trying to slow down again and it’s easier to split his focus between his own hands pulling at his cock and pinching his own chest. Through his ragged breathing he catches Yunho’s scattered words of slowly and with me and relax.
It’s what he wants to hear but it’s working, his worst fantasies turning Yunho’s voice into praise that feels good enough to allow himself a few moments of insanity. The more they pile up, the more they become harder to throw away once he’s done with them and it’s yet another fear in the back of his mind, that his certainty about Yunho will start to crumble the more he indulges in the uncertain side.
It’s not enough to stem the flow of pleasure in him, tainted by guilt but still there. Always there, but rare to be satisfied like this—it’s even more shameful that under it all it still feels so good.
Every time he hears Yunho’s words it reinforces the need in Mingi’s aching chest and breathless lungs and his cock pulsing under his fingers. If Yunho was here Mingi might not be choking on his own breaths or drowning in himself—but he doesn’t want to imagine Yunho seeing this part of him too. Perspective is a curious thing and now the panic attacks don’t seem quite as bad in retrospect, when he’s jerking off in the shower and gasping out Yunho’s name.
Yunho’s guiding words fade out in a lull until it’s just his soft breaths but Mingi’s whines are there to break up the quiet. It tilts the scales away from how they usually are, Yunho’s message spoken in a lower pitch that turns his voice gravelly and Mingi’s accompanying gasps high and breathy, squeaking out of his still constricted chest.
When Yunho speaks again after releasing a last breath, his voice carries the barest hint of a deeper resonance as he clears his throat and goes on like nothing happened, sweet as always when he tells Mingi yet again he’ll see him tomorrow, and to make sure to call if he needs.
Mingi comes with the ghost of Yunho’s touch painfully gentle all through his body. It’s tight on him when he squeezes too hard, gasps too loud, sinks to his knees on the hot tile and lets himself go.
He’s able to come down from the high without falling into it. The air is full of steam and ironically it’s what helps him to breathe freely again. Both water and air soothe away his tension and he doesn’t have to force his mind to stay away from himself now.
For the moment he’s content to let the water wash over him and feel the burn on his pinkened skin. With his release there’s a period where Yunho isn’t with him and Mingi isn’t reaching out to find him, and so he uses the blissfully mindless time to wash himself up without anything clouding his head.
It’s soon to come back anyway but he can’t expect the post-nut clarity to last forever. Still he can bear the echo of Yunho’s voice flowing over him and the cascade of feelings it brings without collapsing under the weight.
Mingi’s hair is still wet but the room is steady under him when he falls back into bed. This time he doesn’t let himself wallow in the useless shame when he goes back to follow through with Yunho’s guidance once more, properly this time and it isn’t so hard once he’s doing it correctly.
He shuts off the sound at the end of the exercise, right as Yunho’s sigh rings deep in his chest.
He deletes the message without a second thought. The promise of seeing Yunho again tomorrow is enough.
He sets his phone down and rolls over into the pile of blankets cradling him. There’s only enough room in his head for so many things and now that the crushing pressure has been released from his mind, it’s replaced by an ache that he knows all too well.
How Mingi wishes he could reach in and pull out the yearning thing inside him that he can’t help but want.