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It's kind of hard to be frustrated when you're two badly timed breaths away from passing out, but Hongjoong does his best; he deserves it, really.
The dumb little oxygen canisters that they've been given for back stage don't really do anything for normal people; 21% O² is more than enough for a healthy respiratory system and they're stupid and there's no evidence that they help with athletic recovery. Hongjoong kind of hates that the one clamped over his mouth is, in fact, helping enormously.
He opens his mouth to complain, but his head swims again and he has to drop it back to the stupid yoga mat. Seonghwa has no trouble following, so the mask stays put and there's a fresh hiss as Seonghwa pulls the trigger to dispense more oxygen.
It's not even his lungs that are the problem! His stupid POTS is worse in the heat and half his blood has gone horrible and stagnant in his feet, making them hurt and numb at the same time. At least when backstage IV fluids were fashionable, it actually fixed things, the oxygen is just a stupid short term sticking plaster and he hates the smell and the sticky plastic, and that his hands are too shaky to hold it himself, and that Seonghwa is smiling like that because it means he's worried and trying not to let on to the kids.
He tries to breathe evenly.
It's really hard.
"Here, water. You need help with it?" Seonghwa asks, his shoulders angled to give him some privacy in the cramped, dark warren under the stage. Yunho is behind him, facing out at the makeup team and being dabbed with approximately one million tissues.
The water bottle is fitted with a straw, so Hongjoong clumsily grabs it, twists the modified cap off, and, while Seonghwa is distracted by taking the oxygen mask away, dumps the ice water over his throat in a violent, splashing rush. It flushes down his chest, pools under his head, probably makes a massive mess of his makeup, and feels fucking amazing.
"Hongjoong!" Seonghwa scolds, but that's only because he doesn't understand the way the cold plunges Hongjoong's heart rate back towards normal levels and makes the un-enriched, scorching hot air of the desert feel like pure glacier meltwater.
He only gets one heaving, relieved breath in before Seonghwa attacks him with the mask again, but he can't complain; he grabs Seonghwa's hand and coordinates pressing the trigger with another huge breath.
"Okay," he croaks, lungs feeling like a million bucks. "Now I need to drink. Is there-" he stops to breathe properly, because Seonghwa already knows what the rest of the sentence was going to be, and reaches out of sight to haul another bottle of water out of a cooler.
Seonghwa doesn't hand it over and shoos his hand away with a flick of his fingers. "Don't drown yourself this time."
The irony of that, combined with what feels like pretty severe hypoxic mania, comes out as a deranged giggle and he lets Seonghwa put the straw in his mouth. He can't quite lie still anyway; his heels are paddling against the non-slip and his hands grab and release whatever is under them at any particular moment; Seonghwa's wrist, his own clothing, anything. He drinks as fast as the straw allows, feeling the dive reflex kick in again at about a quarter of the way through the bottle as the cold convinces his body to conserve oxygen; his heart settles in his chest, quieting into something closer to a normal rhythm.
His brain clears a little more and he finally remembers to put his arms above his head; his lungs take the extra space with enthusiasm and he almost chokes on his mouthful of straw. Seonghwa takes it away before he can do himself any damage and he fills his whole chest with beautiful, amazing, delicious air. His eyes might roll back a little, who cares.
…Don't answer that, he already knows; the mask returns and he takes an obedient huff of enriched air.
"You have Autobahn and Roar before you have to get up," Seonghwa tells him, leaning close. His eyes are flicking nervously around the under stage, over Hongjoong's body. "Or I can get you someone from management and you go to a clinic or- something."
He's not quite panicking, but he is having to be very brave. Hongjoong takes a deep breath, mostly to show willingness, and gently takes his hand to pull the mask off his face.
"It's just the heat and the POTS," he promises, smiling even though it makes him look loopy and addled. "Did we bring the sports massage guy?"
"No-"
"Okay," he dismisses the idea. It's fine, he can make more blood. "Then I need salt, and another bottle of water, okay?"
"Like electrolytes?" Seonghwa asks. The whites of his eyes are showing less now. He held it together so well while Hongjoong wasn't able to talk, he's so Good.
"Yeah, hypertonic."
Seonghwa's nose scrunches; he doesn't know the word, and Hongjoong realises he used the English one, and can't find the one in Korean because he's swimming and still pretty…yeah.
"Can it be salty food?"
Hongjoong's turn to scrunch his nose; he can't afford to make his body redirect blood to his stomach right now. "No, it needs to go in the water."
"Is it going to make enough of a difference?" Seonghwa mutters angrily before turning to talk to the hovering staff members; Hongjoong doesn't catch what he says, because hearing people through the noise of the performance above them is as much about seeing their lips as it is using your ears.
Well, anyway, while he's turned away, Hongjoong twists at the waist and walks his feet up a handily positioned beam thing. By the time Seonghwa looks back over, he's got his ankles crossed halfway up the wall and is quite comfortable, really. The blood rushing back into his torso feels great, and his feet stop their weird prickling, yay! He flashes Seonghwa's outraged expression a V for Victory sign.
"Can you stop smiling at me like that! You-"
Hongjoong licks his teeth and tucks his grin away, struck dumb by Seonghwa's worry.
"…You almost hit your head on the way down," he finishes. "On the corner of the steps."
"…Shit."
Seonghwa grimaces. "The fucking heat. I'm worried about Atiny too, so stop making me worry about you!"
"Sorry hyung," he murmurs, letting his eyes close for a minute, just to actually listen to his body instead of fight it.
"Don't you 'hyung' me," Seonghwa bitches in the meantime. "If anyone else fainted, you'd be having a fit."
"If anyone else fainted, it would be weird. We know exactly what's happening with me," he points out, gesturing lazily with one hand.
There's a ripping noise, then the sloshing of a water bottle being shaken. "That doesn't make it nothing. Do you realise how worried Atiny would be if you hurt yourself! How often do you ask them to look after themselves, and here you are being-"
Hongjoong reaches over and fiddles with the fringe on Seonghwa's dress trousers. It's silky, and Seonghwa chokes mid-sentence.
"I'm alright, hyung, I promise. I won't go out there until I am."
"Do you need longer? We can change the set list, San and I can-"
"Seonghwa-hyung," he repeats, softer, and Seonghwa crumbles into a loving, relieved pile as he finally lets himself be reassured. It's a little hot to let him stay draped over Hongjoong's stomach like this, but they can afford a moment or two; Hongjoong runs his fingers through Seonghwa's hair, where it's not too pinned down with product, and Seonghwa melts a little further.
"Bastard," Seonghwa mutters when he picks himself back up again.
Hongjoong smiles at him, giddy and pleased. "I'm going to be up in plenty of time, I promise."
"Shut up and drink your salt."
Getting up after is never as hard as people think it is. Or as hard as it looks, maybe? His system is in full on panic mode, heart pounding away in his chest and flushing his newly hydrated blood violently through his body; he could run if he needed to.
Seonghwa isn't even sure about letting him walk, which is objectively hilarious.
He only bumps into the understage framework because it's safe to lean on! It's fine!
"Oh my god, let me call the medic instead-"
"Hwa-hyung~" he sings, putting on his best drunk pirate slur. "Get me my microphone and my hat!"
Seonghwa scrunches his nose, defeated. "You're sure."
"Never been sure-er in my life," Hongjoong promises, grin gigantic and face-aching.
Seonghwa jams his hat on his head with way more force than it needs and threatens him with the oxygen canister. He takes a drag on it, like it's a fancy cigar he's never smoked, and pushes it back into Seonghwa's hands just as Mingi whips Atiny up into a barking frenzy.
He's down to thirty seconds to get his alleyway clear of fussing hyungs, before the camera turns on and he's got to march.
"Please don't run?"
"Of course not," he lies, sparkling around the edges. "Get outta my camera angle!"
Seonghwa backs up, more through years of practice at being Good at Angles than anything else like obedience, or god forbid 'believing Hongjoong'.
"Don't bite your lip, it's fucking your lipstick up," he scolds, grinning. Seonghwa flips him the bird, finally, and makes way for the gimbal camera rig. The camera operator makes eye contact; they nod at each other.
Go time.
The stage goes quiet, then: "OKAY LET'S GO MY CAPTAIIIIIN."
Hongjoong, his mic now potentially live, doesn't swear up at Mingi, but he wants to! Atiny go absolutely insane about it, though, so you can't be mad for long. Even Seonghwa, in the wings and mostly just a silhouette against the flickering glow of some LED panels, tips his head back to stare through the understage at Mingi's approximate location.
Then the lights on his camera rig come on, brilliant and a little disorienting, and Atiny scream again.
Hongjoong tips his head so just his right eye peeks out from under the brim of his hat and presses his mouth into a lopsided smirk; the noise redoubles and he starts stalking forwards as the music, his music —slammed together last night that was technically this morning to fit the vibes of coming back to Coachella as headliners— starts to swell around him.
He's still floating on euphoria when they reach the hotel; the aftermath of a brutal concert is a well worn routine, but Seonghwa does take over most of the organising and decision making, so Hongjoong just puddles in the bed when Seonghwa dumps him there.
He needs a shower, but goodness it can fucking wait. His feet are going to swell the minute the hot water hits him and he wants to bask in the echoing roar of "N.O ONE!" still ringing in his ears. Once he'd got back up on the wave, he'd bullied through the rest of the set on the sheer energy and now he's drunk on the dregs.
He's almost asleep, apart from the dizzy vertigo keeping him half alert, when Sannie creeps in.
"Is he okay?" Hongjoong hears him ask Seonghwa. There's rustling too; Seonghwa is probably giving in to San's pleading eyes and giving him a hug.
"He's having a flare up-"
"Decompensation!" Hongjoong corrects, slurring a little.
"He's fine," Seonghwa concludes, with a slightly wet sounding laugh.
San is quiet and Hongjoong's got his eyes closed so he can't guess what passes between them in the following moment, but eventually the bathroom door shuts and the edge of the bed dips. San's cologne wafts over him in a soothing, warm wave and he hears the shower start over the rustling bedding. Seonghwa must be in the bathroom, now that someone is here for Hongjoong. He doesn't need watching over, he's fine right here, but if it makes Seonghwa more comfortable and lets San self soothe, Hongjoong is completely on board.
San doesn't touch him, but he's so close that it's academic, and Hongjoong rolls his head in his direction in toothy, giddy welcome.
"Hi," San replies, rustling slightly closer. "Happy?"
Hongjoong can't get control of his face. "Coachella…"
"We did it," San agrees, small and cute and just a little bit loopy.
Hongjoong grins at him in triumph, and manages to open his eyes in a brief flutter. The world spins around him even worse, which was the reason he's been keeping them closed, but it's worth it to see his Sannie's soft, bare emotions plastered across his face.
He's worried and happy and tired and satisfied. Proud. What a combination.
"Sorry for being floppy," Hongjoong murmurs as his eyes close on him again. "I'm so happy though."
San hums in agreement. "The heat was a lot," he murmurs in forgiveness. "I was glad to get my jacket off."
Hongjoong laughs without opening his mouth and the ripples shake his whole body. He'd love to jiggle a knee or tap or something because the joy demands an outlet, but also he feels so heavy that he must be sinking into the bed. "You were spectacular."
"You too, hyung! Whaaaa, and the sword!"
"Hwa did good," he agrees, remembering the weight, the outstretched arm trembling, the way Seonghwa folded desperation into the performance to make it bigger and brighter and alive.
There's a ticklish sensation near his waist, which drags him back out of his internal monitoring; San is pulling on his jacket because he hasn't hugged anyone in a whole five minutes and he is, by this point, dying about it. Hongjoong sighs enormously, to an amused little hiccup from San, and rolls towards him without opening his eyes again. Too tired, anyone who is in the way had better sort themselves out or he's not to blame for where his arms and legs end up-
San drags him onto his chest, tucking Hongjoong into the crook of his neck and making sure Hongjoong's leg is flung over his with a proprietary hand on his thigh. It's so comfortable, why is it so comfortable??
He settles there, body weirdly pleased by the heat of San's muscles despite the violent heat of the rest of their day, and possibly loses some time.
Not much! Because he hears Seonghwa finish in the shower. But some. He feels disjointed from the world; he knows it's evening, but his back brain has lost track and it feels like a strange blend of mid afternoon and three a.m.
It's like the natural extension of his vertigo. Unmoored from time and space…
And most of his body.
That's a good thing, he thinks. There's no way he doesn't hurt after hitting the floor like that, but he's not feeling it and that is as good as it gets.
"Is he asleep?" Seonghwa asks quietly, definitely quietly enough not to wake him if he was actually sleeping; he's caught enough dressing room naps to know that about himself.
He twitches his fingers in a little wave, and grunts.
Sannie giggles a little, and shrugs underneath him. "I tried my best."
Seonghwa laughs tiredly. "You're a tough nut, Kim Hongjoong."
He too wishes he was already asleep, alas. "'m gonna shower," he mumbles into San's collarbone.
"I'll wash your back," Seonghwa volunteers smoothly, a little too smoothly. Like he'd already decided before he came back out. It's not the lower, coaxing tone of 'showering together' either; Seonghwa thinks he's a fall risk.
…He flexes his ankle, curls his toes, feels the tingle of swelling around his arches and has to admit he's right, but he doesn't have to like it.
What he does like, though, is his partner knowing him well enough to help without him having to ask. Because he'd never think of it, not when he's like this. He doesn't like being sick, so he ignores it, waits for it to go away -which! In his defence! It always does- and occasionally ends up in a soggy pile in the bottom of a shower, or asleep in the bath.
"Hongjoong?"
He takes a deeper breath, realising he didn't actually answer Seonghwa, or move to get up and may have dozed a little while he contemplated. "Sorry Sannie, you're just too comfortable… I'm up."
Sannie helps him the rest of the way to sitting upright, which is very kind of him except for how being upright is nauseating and disconnected from gravity. San makes a sad noise, but it's not his fault, it really isn't, so Hongjoong leans on him with a grateful hum.
He strokes Hongjoong's spine, nape to waistline, and sighs. You can hear the pout in it so Hongjoong braves opening his eyes.
Damn the man is cute; it really doesn't matter how mature he gets, how big, how settled in himself, he's still that nervous, wriggly little trainee to Hongjoong. It's probably not fair to him, not really, but Hongjoong can't help it. He does trust him to be a full grown adult, it's just-
"Hongjoong-ah…"
He startles and turns to Seonghwa, who has knelt at his feet, wrapped in a hotel gown and probably nothing else. "Sorry, hi, what did you-"
San giggles at him, and Seonghwa is smiling, so he can't be doing too badly, but he does cut himself off with a little nose wrinkle.
"I was asking if you want to skip showering. We can work something else out."
Hongjoong absolutely does not want to skip; he fills his lungs all the way to their bases, until his ribs ache and the roar of air fills his body. "I'm good to stand for a bit, we just have to be careful about…the getting up part."
Seonghwa nods seriously, his lip distorted by just a hint of a bite, like he's trying not to. "Slow and careful we can do."
"Just pitch me backwards to the bed if I start to go; I'll be fine once I'm down again."
He doesn't enjoy the worry that pinches Seonghwa's features, but it's better to have a plan than to just… Faint on them and let them panic. The fainting is normal, this is how he makes it safe. They can manage this fine, it's no different from Seonghwa's eczema or Jongho's knee.
He takes another full breath, San's hand rubbing a circle in the small of his back. Right. Yeah, he can do this.
He pushes to his feet, Seonghwa rising to meet him. He was right, it's bad; he feels a rush of cold, a disconnect from his body. It climbs up the back of his neck and drains a headache from the back of his skull, which is a relief but deeply weird, then saps the energy from his limbs.
Fingertips go first, and he sets his feet so he'll fall backwards if he needs to, but the numbness slows and recedes before that actually becomes necessary.
He realises his vision is greyed out only when it starts to come back, the colours looking strange and bright, sparkles blinking in and out of existence against the white of Seonghwa's robe.
"Hah…yeah, I'm good. Thanks."
Seonghwa squeezes his shoulders, then cups his face in both hands. "Are you sure?"
"I would never let one of my members harm themselves," Hongjoong promises, managing to make eye contact despite the gentle swirl of the room around him. "And that includes me."
Seonghwa wrinkles his nose in disgusted amusement. "You'd better, you awful workaholic."
"I sleep!" He promises, falling easily into the same old groove. "Not everyone needs two hours of Switch time after lying down, Park Seonghwa. Some of us just. Go to sleep!"
"Excuse you, I am mentally decompressing, for my emotional wellbeing! You fall asleep in makeup chairs."
"I'm using the time to its best potential."
San, who has made significant inroads on stealing their bed for good, laughs at them both. "Go shower, oh my god!"
Standing upright in the hot shower feels so good that he forgets briefly that it is, actually, quite bad for him.
"Shit, Seonghwa, I need to sit down, right now, right now-"
There is a damp slither and some swearing, but he lands safely on the tiled floor with Seonghwa's grip protecting his head.
The lights halo around him, mostly because they're almost blinding Hongjoong but also because Seonghwa is his saviour and the most beautiful person in the whole world.
"I appreciate the warning," Seonghwa grumbles with a frown making him even more beautiful. "But a little more warning would have been better."
"Sorry… Out of it."
"I realise that. Stay there, I'll get towels. We shouldn't have indulged."
Hongjoong grunts in agreement and curls his body into a comfortable ball in the corner. He already washed; they were just standing there like two penguins, enjoying the water. Unfair.
"How is it?"
It hasn't changed; his head is swimming and there's white noise where his thoughts are supposed to be. "I need to sleep," he mutters, deeply annoyed.
"Are you sure? We could get you an IV probably-"
"Hyung," he whines, because he can't actually comfort Seonghwa right now, and he doesn't know how to decide if getting a doctor out is worth it when all he really wants is to sleep, and they never find anything wrong with him, anyway and sure maybe over-hydrating would help the POTS but what if lying down was what helps and the needle is just incidental and-
"Right, sorry," Seonghwa mumbles, like he's tired too, at the end of his rope, struggling. Hongjoong can't help him, he's in a pile at the bottom of a fucking hotel shower…
"Bed?"
"Of course."
Seonghwa doesn't carry him, but his feet are taking noticeably less weight than they should be.
San makes a devastated little noise when they emerge, draped in towels, and hops up to help. It's weird to be at the center of this behaviour, they let him stay at the edge, usually. Between them and the managers, where he can buffer them a bit… but now they're orbiting him instead of logbook or Yeosang or Mingi and he doesn't mind it. He's so sore.
He doesn't really register much else, if he's being honest. He knows Seonghwa gives him pyjamas, and that he then takes them back and puts them on him when he doesn't do it himself. He knows San dries his hair, too, hair dryer whirring, but the knowledge feels academic or once removed. Distant.
Things come back into aggressive clarity when San touches his foot though; the pressure hurts. Pins and needles, a pain like his skin is tearing, pressure and heat and you might call it burning except for how cold it feels too.
He hisses and pulls his foot away sluggishly.
"It's so puffy," San mews, pouting in sympathy. "I won't touch them again, sorry hyung…” He has lotion in hand, so Hongjoong can figure out what he was going to do, but he's too sore to bear the kind of massage it'd take on a day like today, and he doesn't want to tear up with Sannie in here, it's not right to make him worry so much.
"It's alright, it'll be gone by morning," he manages, curling his toes against the very strange mishmash of sensation in his poor feet.
"San, could you fetch the wardrobe pillows?" Seonghwa asks quietly, gently, and San goes out of Hongjoong's line of sight.
"Mnn?"
Seonghwa just flashes him a fake little smile and pulls the covers back weirdly far, further than even slightly necessary, Hongjoong is not tall. "Here, lie down. Do you want painkillers or anything?"
"No, I already grabbed some at dinner," he murmurs, partially aware that the question is just a distraction so Seonghwa can scoop his legs up onto the bed without too much protest. But jokes on him; Hongjoong loves the bed, he would marry this bed, it is amazing.
"Hwa-hyung," Sannie mumbles, somehow managing to slur it into one syllable.
"Thanks. Are you staying? There's space."
Hongjoong misses San's answer, because Seonghwa tucks the spare pillow under Hongjoong's knees and it makes a whole slew of uncomfortableness-es disappear in a very gentle but personally significant rush of warmth and easy air. He lets his arms flop and they land at weird angles but he does not care because he's so comfortable and getting enough oxygen to his brain feels a little bit like reaching heaven.
"You may as well," Seonghwa says, confusingly, and flips the duvet up over Hongjoong. The cool cotton and settling weight make it very hard to focus on the rest of what they say, but he does know that Sannie is staying by the end of it.
There'll be more by morning, probably; too used to the early days when they could only afford a few hotel rooms, and squashed themselves in. Wooyoung will follow San, too unnerved by the silence of a room to himself… Yunho and Mingi will be fine by themselves; hard to cram yourself onto a couch at their height and with Mingi's bad back. But Jongho and Yeosang will either show up before they go to sleep, or in the dead of night when one of them wakes up and— a yawn interrupts his fuzzy predictions anyway, and the bed dips as someone…Seonghwa shaped slides in beside him.
"Pillow trick's nice…" he slurs, mouth clumsy and tongue thick.
"I saw the… yeah. I hope it helps," Seonghwa murmurs, almost drowned out by the rustling of cotton as he tucks them both in and smooths the duvet over Hongjoong's chest.
"Thank you," Hongjoong manages, through the thickening weight of sleep.
Seonghwa clucks at him and pats his chest again. "Good night, Hongjoong-ah.”
The air feels fresh and clean in his lungs and there's a slow sway to the world that tells him sleep is only a few breaths away, so he shimmies his head against the pillow to get comfy.
Seonghwa is so …good, and beautiful, blinking back at him, with his hair trailing silkily over his face the longer they stare at each other across the landscape of a shared pillow. It takes enormous effort of will to find his fingers, and more again to move them, but it's worth it to watch Seonghwa tilt his face into his touch. He tucks the errant lock of hair neatly behind Seonghwa's ear and trails his fingers along his jawline.
Seonghwa kisses his fingertips as they pass, his cheeks flushing a gentle rose pink. He also catches Hongjoong’s hand and tucks it unceremoniously back under the covers. “I said good night, Hongjoong.”
He giggles softly, eyesight flickering as his eyelids get too heavy to hold up at all and he falls asleep.