Chapter Text
His feet hurt. So fucking much.
That's Seungmin's first thought when he wakes up the following morning, in his poorly dried clothes, and it continues to be his main thought once he's at work. He redid the bandages before he left and put on the softest and most cushioning socks he owns, a pair of real alpaca hair socks. It helps, just a little. It doesn't hide his limp when he makes it to his cubicle at work. He's never seen someone limp on both legs, so he's sure he's a real sight to see. He doesn't talk to anyone. He hides in his cubicle during lunch and holds his bladder all day long, so as not to even need to walk to the bathroom. The less people see him, the better.
Seungmin is successful on that front. His interactions for the day are very limited and most are others coming to his cubicle, where he can be sitting, to talk to him. He's hyper aware the entire day though. He swears he sees Minho walk by his cubicle more times than normal. He, accidentally, catches Jeongin's eyes once on his way out for the day. His face seems to be of worry. Probably worry over their stupid project that they still haven't heard anything back on.
Tuesday rolls around just the same. Or at least the morning does until someone comes and finds Seungmin in his cubicle right before lunch.
"Hey Seungmin, you got a minute?"
The voice startles Seungmin in his seat and he turns around, already on edge because he knows that voice.
Jeongin hovers just outside of Seungmin's cubicle. He looks unsure of himself. He taps his fingers against his leg, making an almost discernible noise, yet Seungmin can hear it as if it were echoing around his brain.
Seungmin doesn't answer him, not verbally. He cocks his head to the side and gives the best look he can manage that says well, you're wasting my time, what is it?
Jeongin looks him up and down before responding. Seungmin can feel his gaze and can sense the judgement behind it. Why wouldn't he? Jeongin is a dom and knows that Seungmin is a sub, he probably realised over the weekend that Seungmin is below him. That being paired on a project together is practically demeaning to Jeongin.
"Are you okay?" Is not what Seungmin expected to come out of the other.
He squints his eyes at Jeongin and his tone when he speaks is nothing friendly, "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Oh…" Jeongin moves his tapping hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, his eyes drifting lower again. Seungmin glances down to see if he spilled something on his shirt or pants and sees nothing. "I'm–" Jeongin cuts himself off with a deep breath, "Manager Park got back to me. He wants to meet with both of us at 5pm on Thursday. It's his only open time that day."
"Is he sending out an email or calendar invite with the meeting?" He's being short, he knows he is, but he isn't going to act all friendly—or go back to being friendly. Not when Jeongin knows too much.
"Oh, uh yeah. I just ran into him by the coffee and he told me so I thought–"
"Great, I'll wait for the email." Seungmin cuts him off, already turning back to his desk, ready to end this conversation.
"Seungmin," Jeongin steps into his cubicle as he says his name and Seungmin hates it. He didn't realise how much comfort he took from Jeongin hovering outside—waiting outside. He asked permission to enter before and now? Now he enters without such consent. Jeongin seems to notice it immediately as well and hurriedly back tracks before continuing, "Can I please meet your dom?"
"No." Seungmin is quick to answer. Even if he had a dom, why would he invite another dom into his space, into his life? Having one dom is already like being outnumbered, two is suffocating.
The answer doesn't deter Jeongin, "Please. I think it would be better if I did. I was the one who messed up last week. You didn't have a choice in anything. I should be the one who faces any consequences."
It's a stupid honor thing, Seungmin can feel it. Jeongin wants to prove himself to another dom. Maybe Jeongin doesn't have a set sub yet and wants to befriend another dom to learn how to get a sub.
"I already told you it was fine. I thought we agreed to drop this topic. You agreed to keep your distance. Are you rescinding that agreement?"
Jeongin's face seems to fall at that, his eyes guilty, "No. I'm sorry, I really am. I'll keep my distance."
"All communication will be through the team's chat or work emails. I'll see you on Thursday at 5 in Manager Park's office." His tone is final.
Jeongin nods, "Yeah. I'll see you then." His eyes flit down Seungmin's body one more time before he's gone.
Seungmin feels gross. Maybe Jeongin was checking him out? Maybe he wants to meet Seungmin's dom so badly to see if he can dom him too? Maybe he got a taste last week and wants more? Either way, Seungmin feels unsettled. It feels like ants are crawling up his legs, under his pants. He scratches at his scalp as if there was lice on it. Everything feels wrong right now. He doesn't feel safe.
All of a sudden he is filled with a deep want. A want to disappear to the 8th floor and wrap himself in a blanket until everything feels right again, but it's the middle of the day. There is bound to be one person up there currently. Plus, he would have to walk to the elevator and let everyone working watch him limp. He can't do it but he wants to.
The day drags by. The bugs never go away. His feet still hurt. He doesn't want to be seen or even perceived by anyone. He wants to just crawl into his bed and disappear. When 6pm finally rolls around, he waits. Waits for the entire floor to clear out, which takes an hour. It's not like he gets anything productive done during that time, which would have been nice. No, he spends the time scrolling through his phone, hoping to distract himself enough from everything around him, but it doesn't work. He's never been one for social media and trying to force it now isn't working.
It's after 7pm when he finally deems it safe to leave and as he heads to the elevator, using every single object possible on the way to alleviate the weight on his feet, he does notice the soft tapping of a keyboard coming from the marketing section of the floor. He wastes no time getting out of the building, lest he be seen by whoever that was.
The next two days are very much the same. Get to work early enough to hide in the cubicle and leave late enough to not be seen. Except Thursday he has to deal with the meeting at the end of the day.
He's on edge all day about the meeting. The email merely stated the time, location, and "Marketing Project Review" as the title. No tell if it's a good or bad meeting and if Seungmin should prepare himself for being fired. He does spend half the day mentally preparing himself for having to be near Jeongin again, but at least they will be in front of one of their managers and Jeongin cannot do anything to him during that time. Nothing outside of work related actions and conversations.
He leaves for the meeting early, both to make a good impression on the manager but also to give himself enough time to hobble his way over. It's lucky for him that he did give himself so much time because Minho stops him about halfway there.
"Good luck in there. Jeongin has been driving us all insane with his stupid nervous tapping in the marketing corner."
It's friendly—it's normal and yet every alarm in Seungmin's head is going off. Why would Minho approach him? He has never approached him before, not for the smallest of hellos. Does Minho know it was him in the sub room?
"Uhh, thanks." He manages to mumble out, wanting to run away but is currently very incapable of such action.
"Of course," Minho gives him a quick pat on the shoulder, "Jeongin is stressing that he messed up your chance to move up in the company. Says he fucked up all the papers the night before and had to fix them to turn them in. That's decent of him to at least fix his own mistake."
"What?" Seungmin lets the word slip from his mouth before he can even catch himself. Jeongin lied? He told everyone that he messed up the papers, when in fact it was Seungmin who spilled the food all over them? Why? What does he gain from that?
Minho raises an eyebrow, "Did he not mention he messed up the papers? I could've sworn he said he spilled his dinner over it in the conference room. Thought that's why he's been so weird about it when we mention the project to him. Huh." He shrugs as if it is no big deal even though it is a big deal to Seungmin.
"By the way, did you twist your ankle? You've been limping all week." Minho points out.
Seungmin's eyes widen fractionally at the observation and then latches on to the option Minho has given him, "Yeah, tripped on the stairs in my apartment building."
"You should get it checked out then if it keeps hurting." The other suggests, eyes flickering down to Seungmin's feet.
"I'll– I'll keep that in mind."
"Well," Minho smiles, "Good luck, I shouldn't keep you." He says before turning back to his original path before running into Seungmin.
Seungmin merely watches him walk away before giving his head a small shake and heading towards Manager Park's office. He arrives before Jeongin, just barely. Jeongin doesn't meet his eyes. He has a small manilla folder in his hands and pulls out copies of their projects and hands one to Seungmin. Seungmin is grateful because he didn't think to bring his own, but only nods his head in response which garners a weak and forced smile from Jeongin. They're both 5 minutes early when they walk in.
The papers twitch in Seungmin's hands as he and Jeongin stand in front of Manager Park's desk. Luckily for Seungmin, Jeongin starts speaking first.
"Manager Park," He reaches out to give him a handshake and then gestures towards Seungmin who does the same, "We are pleased to hear that you have gone through our project and have feedback for us."
After that it is almost a blur to Seungmin what the meeting is about. He talks briefly about his financial plans and how if they have the project last over a second quarter they can disperse the costs before the conversation moves completely onto Jeongin's actual marketing plan. Which Manager Park and Jeongin must talk a full 20 minutes about as Seungmin stands quietly next to Jeongin. He's acutely aware of how much his feet are starting to hurt while standing so long and he tries to minutely move his weight back and forth to alter the pain.
"Now whose idea was it for this alternate social media account? It doesn't follow our typical style." Manager Park says and the words cut through Seungmin's haze.
"That was Seungmin, actually. A wonderful idea really." Jeongin offers up.
"Oh…uh," Seungmin attempts to start, but is severely thrown off by having to join the marketing conversation.
"It's so out of left field. We would have to rework our finances and structure of our social media team completely to include that. We don't do anything like that."
We don't do anything like that
The words echo around in Seungmin's head as he tries to formulate any sort of response. Marketing is not his speciality, he can't answer these questions.
"Well, we threw it in there as just a wild card since this product line is aimed towards those of lower income who might be put off by our more classy appearance and write off the product being for them without really knowing." Jeongin speaks up, saving Seungmin from whatever failed answer he would have given.
"Wild card, for sure. We don't have anything in the budget for this." Manager Park keeps talking.
Seungmin feels a clenching at his chest. His idea isn't possible. His budget plans aren't possible. He failed. Jeongin asked him to share his idea and it's bad. Jeongin asked him to write up a financial plan for it and it doesn't work.
"If you flip to page 14, you can see where Seungmin did move around the budget to include having to train and have some social media team members focus on the newer model."
He messed up. He messed up. He messed up.
"Train them? On what? This isn't how any of them currently run the platforms."
He failed Jeongin. He failed Jeongin's order.
"In section 6, Seungmin has allocated a certain amount of funds to be put towards research and development of this new model of marketing, because we won't be relying on fancy editing, graphic designers, or even have any of our ambassadors involved, the total towards this idea is less and can be a side project. With this new product we can have it do a trial run, essentially."
Seungmin isn't paying attention. The only thing bouncing around in his mind is that he failed his dom.
"I do see that. It is worth looking into."
He failed his dom. How could he do that? Was all the praise from last week just a lie? Is Jeongin going to rescind it all now? Will Jeongin be upset at him for putting him in subspace just to not have actually earned it because he did not do good like Jeongin had insisted? He owes Jeongin, doesn't he? For putting him in subspace, for not telling anyone he's a sub, for taking care of his mess and lying to everyone as to why the papers had to be redone.
He owes him so much and yet he can't even be good in return.
".... alright? … gone …"
"... believe … having … medical …"
A hand is touching Seungmin's back and it grounds him slightly. Not enough to keep the words from floating around him, but enough that he feels more in his body and not floating amongst the words.
"... you … help …"
"... aware …the …."
"... please … covered … today… pushed … Congrats."
"Thank you …"
The hand is pushing on his back, guiding him out of the room. He follows it blindly, tears threatening to encase his vision. The hand is insistent but he can't keep up, his feet still hurt.
"You're … got … promise."
He needs to focus on the voice that's the least he can do but instead he focuses on not running his hip into a table again because now he has a matching sting there as on his feet. The hand pushes him into an elevator and he feels it lurch. Is he about to be thrown out? Fired for being a failure?
He hears the ding of the elevator reach the floor, he doesn't see it though because the tears have started to flow. What a sight he must be. Crying after a failure and limping? Real pathetic.
"Same…"
The hand is pushing him into another room. Maybe his failure is being presented to the board. A fun joke for them all to laugh at. He can't stop the tears so he braces himself for the laughs and jeers from them. What a failure. What a mess. A sub who should have never left their dom because they're useless without them.
He's being sat onto a couch. It feels familiar. He reaches his hand out to rub at it and finds that it's the same cushion softness of the couches in the sub rooms. How sweet that he gets some familiarity at this moment.
"Where is it?" The voice says and for some reason it is clearer than before. Then a heavy weight is being laid on his shoulders and Seungmin panics.
It's too constricting. He feels like he's being tied down—held down. He lets out a startled noise as he fights the weight off of himself and chucks it to the floor. He starts gasping for air as if he was drowning.
"Fuck, fuck. What did I do? You liked that last time. Shit." The voice also seems panicked which isn't helping Seungmin.
He wants to have control of himself. He wants to get a full breath. He wants to stop crying. He wants to stop shaking, but he can't. He can't do any of that right now. He's a failure, a constant failure. A joke of a sub—of a person.
The hand now grabs his own and brings it to a solid surface. He barely registers it as someone else's chest.
"Can you feel that? Can you focus on my breathing?"
Seungmin tries, he really does, but he can't. It's too hard to breathe like them, to match the rise and fall of their chest, when the sobs choke him up.
"C-can't." He forces out, "S-s-sorry."
"No-no, that's okay. You're allowed to cry. If that's what you need, that's okay. Do you want to lie down?"
Seungmin manages a nod. Lying down helps, it always has before. Hands are gently easing him onto his side on the couch. Soon enough one of them is pushing a small stuffed bear into his hands. Seungmin hugs it close. It's the same one from when he visited the sub rooms before, maybe…
"Bl-blank-ket." The hiccups and sobs break up the word but he gets it out.
"But you– Maybe there's a better one."
Then a blanket, also a familiar weight and not the heavy one, is laid across his body and Seungmin feels safe.
"You can keep crying if you want. I'm not going anywhere." It's gentle. Nothing the voice has said has been mean to Seungmin. The world isn't falling apart. He's not being fired or ridiculed. Instead he is cosy and safe and allowed to cry.
So he does.
He cries until the world goes static. His vision has blurred over. He entertains every single idea and thought that pops up in his head because the finger gently stroking his hand keeps him attached to this world. It allows him to watch the river without being swept away with it.
He failed his dom.
He failed the order.
He ruined the project and Jeongin had to pick up his slack.
He didn't deserve subspace. He didn't deserve to feel good when all he has been is bad.
He doesn't–
"Are you still in there, Seungmin? You look like you went somewhere."
Seungmin blinks his eyes, blinking away the tears and blur. He's no longer crying, just sniffling. He has no idea how long he's been crying and listening to the voices in his head. Jeongin slowly comes into view for him. He's the voice, the hands, the breathing.
"There you are." Jeongin mumbles, a sad smile on his face as he still traces Seungmin's hand. "Thought I lost you."
Seungmin doesn't speak. He simply moves his hand, which Jeongin immediately stops touching, to trace Jeongin's face. Just to make sure he is real in the numbness of reality. He starts on the bridge of his nose and goes down to the tip. Then he traces the lips before reaching his chin and moving along the jawline to go across his cheekbones, over the nose, across the other cheekbone. His finger then follows along the forehead all the way around to the opposite side's brow and then back to the nose. He does this multiple times and Jeongin just lets him.
He matches his breathing to the tracing. He watches Jeongin's eyes flutter as he goes along the brow. His lips stifle a smile as he touches them. A withheld sneeze from his nose. It's calming. He draws circles on Jeongin's cheek, finally pulling that smile out of hiding. Once he feels that Jeongin is real he pulls his hand back to hug the bear under the blanket.
"Better?" Jeongin asks.
Seungmin shakes his head.
"Oh."
Where he should have emotions right now feels hollow and cavernous. The pain he should be feeling is numb. He's cried his heart out—his soul out, right here on this couch.
Actually, he did feel better. Better when he was touching Jeongin or Jeongin was touching him. He didn't feel so far away then, so he reaches his hand back out from under the blanket and takes Jeongin's in his, setting them both on the couch so his arm doesn't hurt. This is his tether right now. This is what he needs. He feels no longer as hollow but he's tired, so very tired. So he lets himself drift off to sleep.
*
"-min, Seungmin."
Seungmin lets out a small groan as he's forced into the waking world by a hand shaking his shoulder lightly.
"Hey, you up?" A gentle voice whispers near him. Seungmin can't remember the last time he fell asleep near someone, perhaps he accidentally fell asleep on the bus, except this seat is way too comfy.
"Ugh."
The hand stops shaking him, "Oh good. You're awake again. You knocked out so fast so I wanted to let you catch up on some sleep but it's getting late. Your dom is probably worried about you." Even in Seungmin's half awake state he can tell there is something off about the end of that statement. Like the speaker doesn't believe what he says but still says it in hopes of catching Seungmin in a lie.
He's just confused enough to think for a split second that he was still with her. "My dom?"
"Yeah." The voice falls sullen and Seungmin forces himself to blink away sleep as they continue, "The one who punished you and hurt your feet."
What? He hurt his own feet. There was no dom to do that for him. Jeongin comes into shape sitting on the floor in front of him and the evening's ordeal comes rushing back to Seungmin. He dropped. His mind, in its instinctual state, thought of Jeongin as his dom again and thought he had failed him by doing the project incorrectly. He dropped in a meeting.
"Fuck– Manager Park." Seungmin mumbles out, going to push himself up from lying and realises he is still holding Jeongin's hand. He lets it drop to the couch and feels a little lost without it. For some reason it was keeping him sane, but he can't have that. He needs to stay sane on his own.
Jeongin looks down at his dropped hand before pulling it back to his chest and then takes in Seungmin's panicked state, "It's okay. He understood you were having some medical issues. It's nothing he can fault you for, plus the meeting was practically over. Our project is getting pushed through to the next step to actually be implemented. He is even going to have your idea get a trial run on the side. You did good, Seungmin." He smiles as he says it, but something is wrong.
The praise feels good and helps tie him back to reality, but he doesn't like it. He wishes he had more control of himself to not need this outside force to help him relax after a drop. He shouldn't need praise and yet, it feels so good.
Seungmin shrugs the blanket off and sets the teddy bear to the side. "You're right, my dom is worried. I should go." He makes a move to get up but Jeongin shoots out his hand to grab Seungmin's arm, keeping him sitting on the couch.
"You know what your dom is doing to you isn't okay, right? They shouldn't be punishing you like this. A punishment between a dom and sub still gets enjoyed by the sub to some extent, it shouldn't cause you long lasting pain. Plus, you shouldn't be punished for something outside of your control."
The words are jarring, especially coming from a dom, but Jeongin looks so serious and so pained as he says it, like he has walked on the glass instead of Seungmin.
"If anything, I should be the one punished, not you. It's my fault you went into subspace. My fault you knocked over the bowl—for everything really. It's my fault for you dropping today. Whatever they're doing to you, please let me take it instead."
Seungmin is all of a sudden faced with a choice, one he did not see coming at all. Either he lets Jeongin keep believing he has a dom which means he will have to refuse Jeongin's insistence to take his punishments, even though they don't exist. He's not sure what the outcome of that would be. Jeongin pitying him? That or he tells Jeongin that he doesn't have a dom and risks whatever safety the idea of being owned by someone already was giving him, but he's not even sure if that is giving him any safety because he doesn't feel in danger with Jeongin. Not with someone who is practically begging him to let him take punishments for him.
In the end it feels too simple of a choice.
"Jeongin, there is no dom."
Jeongin's face morphs from worry and guilt to confusion, "What?"
"I don't have a dom. Haven't in a while."
Relief washes over Jeongin, like every muscle in his body releases tension. "So, you're not being punished? Thank god… but your feet?"
"I tripped on the stairs at my apartment and twisted my ankles some." The lie rolls off easily since Minho already gave him something to go off of. "I didn't want to call out of work over them, so I've been careful."
"I thought they were…" Jeongin trails off and shakes his head, "Do you know why you dropped today?"
Seungmin cannot confess that he dropped because his mind has decided Jeongin is his dom, that would be stupid. Just because he doesn't feel Jeongin is dangerous, does not mean he can't become so once he learns he has some power over Seungmin. That's what happened with her. She wasn't dangerous in the beginning, she was safe, but that safety slowly slipped away into something much more terrifying.
He shrugs instead, "Guess since I went into subspace while working on the project, I was a bit vulnerable getting feedback on the project. My brain correlated it as failing a task."
Jeongin's shoulders drop again, "It is my fault. I've really messed this up."
Seungmin doesn't have an answer for that. Jeongin looks like he's carrying the weight of the world again and Seungmin is simply watching him crumble under it.
"I take it you see a clinical dom then if you have no dom. Might be best to bring it up to them to work through why it happened."
Clinical dom?
"I– What's that?"
"What's what?"
"A clinical dom? What are those? Why would I have one?" Why would he seek out a dom on purpose, especially one that sounds like they're trained in being a dom? They would notice how bad of a sub Seungmin is and try to force him to be good again, like her.
"You don't– That's not healthy. When was the last time you went into subspace besides last week?" Jeongin is incredulous as he asks, like the idea that Seungmin has willingly avoided subspace is beyond crazy to him, which reminds Seungmin just why no one is supposed to know. Everyone is going to see his refusal to need a dom as dangerous and stupid and a reason he needs to be controlled by someone.
Seungmin finally pulls his arm free from Jeongin's hold, "I'm perfectly fine without needing a dom, actually." He puts his defenses back up. He's been too truthful with Jeongin and that's exactly how he's going to end up back with a dom. It's foolish.
"I– no, you need a dom. You need to go into your subspace." He's confused, but of course he is. A dom wouldn't understand.
Seungmin flinches back at those words. "I don't need anything." His tone has moved back to the hostile aspect it was when Jeongin showed up at his cubicle earlier this week.
He watches as Jeongin winces at the tone of his voice. He can barely see the beginning of a shaking in his hands. He looks scared.
"It's not healthy to avoid it. Maybe not a clinical dom but someone. You need someone." He pleads, his voice wavering in strength.
"No."
"I've got friends. Channie's boyfriends. One's a switch and one's a dom. They could help if I asked. They're kind. They'll be careful."
Absolutely not. Seungmin isn't about to let himself be at the mercy of strangers, ignoring the fact he has been at Jeongin's mercy twice now.
"What about you?" He asks without thinking, but it's not in a way to plead for Jeongin, but a way to stick a knife in him, "I'm not good enough for you?"
Something breaks in Jeongin's eyes. He looks so defeated. His hands tremble clearly now, his voice breaking as he speaks.
"I'm–I'm not a good dom. I don't…I don't dom. I can't."