Pairing: SKZ & Felix
Genre: Idol AU
!!TW!! : Littlespace, secret-keeping, angst, anxiety, bullying, lots of crying
(requested by @Compass. Lovely)
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The trip back to the dance room was quick and efficient, and they didn't cross paths with anyone. When they finally got back, only their boyfriends were there – everyone else, from their manager to Minsoo, had seemingly gone home for the day. As soon as he stepped inside, their boyfriends rushed up to them.
"Why were you gone so long?"
"What's wrong with Felix?"
"Is he okay?"
"Felix?"
For some reason, Felix reacted to Hyunjin's voice. His head instantly snapped up and, the moment his eyes landed on the older... he burst into tears again, his sobs quickly turning to outright wails in mere seconds.
"Mama!"
Felix was wriggling too much for Jisung to hold onto, reaching out his arms and making grabby arms at Hyunjin. Everyone gawked at the freckled boy for a few seconds but, upon realizing his wails were only getting louder, Hyunjin finally snapped out of his confused state and quickly walked over.
"Shh, shh, it's okay, I've got you, baby," he murmured soothingly as he picked Felix up, the younger instantly quieting down as he clung to him. "There you go, you're okay – everything's fine, love."
Hyunjin went to sit on the couch, settling Felix more comfortably in his arm. The freckled boy eventually stopped crying, simply sniffling occasionally as he hugged Hyunjin with all his might. After a minute or so of silence, Chan finally spoke up.
"Okay. Did anyone here know Felix is a little?"
"A what?" replied Seungmin, a tad confused.
"It's basically when someone mentally regresses to a younger headspace as a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, or trauma – or sometimes just for fun, too," explained Changbin, sounding a little awed as he stared at Felix. "But I never thought... Huh. A lot of things suddenly make a lot more sense."
"Wait, you're saying Felix is like a baby right now?" blinked Jeongin.
"Well, he's mentally younger, at the very least. There's no way to know his mental age unless we ask," shrugged Chan.
Hyunjin couldn't help but stare down at Felix with a smile. "And here I thought you couldn't get any cuter~."
"How did you know about this headspace, hyung?" asked Jisung, curious.
"There are many idols in the industry who use Littlespace as a coping mechanism. I used to babysit a lot when I was still a trainee," he admitted.
"A few of my close friends are littles," added Changbin with a small smile.
"I know about it because of the weird stuff STAY make up sometimes," admitted Minho, looking like he was just about ready to snatch Felix from Hyunjin's arms. "But I never thought Lixie was actually one... He never told me – or any of us, from what I understand."
"But why would he keep something like this from us?" wondered Jeongin, sounding a bit saddened.
"I think that's an issue to address a little later," cut in Jisung, biting his lower lip. "Something happened earlier – something that caused him to get into that headspace—"
"Slip," supplied helpfully Changbin.
"Something caused him to slip, then. And I think I know exactly what."
They all watched as Jisung walked up to the couch. Hyunjin had now managed to fully calm Felix down, and the freckled boy had his eyes closed, mouthing at Hyunjin's neck every few seconds or so while the older gently petted his head. Careful not to disturb Felix, Jisung gently pulled up his sleeve, revealing the bruise blooming on his skin.
The room instantly felt ten times colder than before.
"What the f—"
"Hyung, no! Don't curse in front of the baby!" shushed Jeongin.
Minho half-glared, but still corrected himself. "What the heck? Where is this from?"
"Hyung, this wasn't an accident – the bruise is shaped like a hand."
Frankly, it didn't take a genius to connect the dots. Felix hadn't been injured this morning, none of them had grabbed him in such a way, and the only time they hadn't been around him was when he left for his daily meeting with Minsoo.
Chan gritted his teeth, a fire burning in his eyes. "We're going to have a chat with Minsoo-ssi tomorrow. But first, let's get our baby home."
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When Felix woke up, he was still in Hyunjin's arms – except they were no longer in the dance studio, but in his room, back in the dorms. At first a little disoriented, it didn't take too long for what happened to sink in, the fuzzy memories slowly coming back to him as horror filled his guts.
Just as his breathing started picking up, he felt Hyunjin's arms tighten around him.
"Shh, sweetheart. It's okay, everything's okay."
Frankly, were his eyes not hurting so much from his earlier crying fit, he probably would have burst into tears again. As it was, though, he simply let himself go lax in his boyfriend's hold, forcing his breathing to slow down. As scared as he was, the mere fact that Hyunjin was still holding him helped reassure him.
He doesn't hate me. Everything's okay.
"How do you feel, Lix?" asked softly Hyunjin, threading his fingers through the messy hair on the back of Felix's head.
"Tired," he croaked out, his voice hoarse and his throat sore. "I'm sorry—"
"Shh, no apologies. Let's go to the kitchen to grab you something to eat, hm? The others want to see you, too."
Felix could only agree, and Hyunjin got up. An intense devastation almost instantly swept over the freckled boy, a sense of abandonment chilling him to the very core – but before he could even say anything about it, Hyunjin wrapped his arms around him and picked him up, Felix instinctively wrapping his legs around his waist to steady himself.
He flushed a deep red when he met Hyunjin's eyes – they were filled with adoration.
"You're cute, Lix."
His blush deepening, Felix instantly hid his face in Hyunjin's neck. The older chuckled, patting his bum before heading out. They made it to the kitchen under a minute and, when they arrived, they found the rest of their boyfriends already there, either seated at the table or leaning against the counter.
The moment they entered the kitchen, all of their faces lit up.
"Lixie!" exclaimed cheerfully Jisung. "Come here, baby!"
"Yah! You got to hog him earlier, now it's my turn!" protested Jeongin.
"No! If we give him to you, you'll never let him go again!"
"As if you'd be any better!"
Though their argument was playful, Felix was still in a wobbly headspace, meaning he was quite sensitive. He couldn't help the tears quickly filling his eyes despite knowing deep down that his boyfriends weren't actually fighting.
"Cut it out, you two," warned Seungmin, instantly walking up to him and petting his head. "It's okay, Lix, they're not really mad."
With a small pout, Felix extended his arms to Seungmin. Hyunjin let out a strangled noise of betrayal, but he still handed him over to the younger, and Seungmin victoriously returned to his seat with Felix now seated on his lap. Before anyone could say anything, Minho placed a glass of warm milk and a bowl of porridge before them.
"I'm not hungry," he mumbled, averting his eyes.
"You need to eat something, sweetheart," he urged, briefly ruffling Felix's hair. "You've gotten way too light if the others can carry you around so easily. Please, for me?"
Felix would never be able to turn down such a request so, still pouting a bit, he nodded and grabbed the spoon so he could start eating. The silence that filled the room was... surprisingly comfortable. The others were waiting for him to breach the subject, and he appreciated that they let him set the pace of this long-overdue confrontation.
Eventually, he found the strength to speak up.
"... what happened yesterday... was me slipping into what's called a headspace," he started, unsure of their general knowledge of the subject.
But they all nodded quickly, as if expecting it, and he shot a slightly helpless look at Chan, who simply offered him an encouraging smile.
"We know. Binnie, Minho, and I knew about Littlespace, so we quickly figured it out – and the others read up on it while you were sleeping."
Well, that certainly saved him the trouble of explaining everything. And, if the way they were all looking at him with the same love as before was anything to go by, then he truly had nothing to worry about, after all. Realizing he'd been hurting for so long, that he'd been unable to trust them when he really should have, made his heart clench with guilt.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, looking down. "I didn't- I didn't mean to hide. Or- or I did, I didn't want anyone to know when we debuted 'cause I didn't- didn't want you to find it weird or- or leave me, but then I started hiding because- because I was scared you'd hate me for lying or because- because you realized you fell in love with someone I wasn't and- and—I'm sorry."
"It's okay, Lix-hyung," assured Jeongin, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "We get it. I just wish you could have told us sooner so it'd save you the stress, but we're not mad or anything."
"Promise?"
Jeongin grinned a bit, bopping his nose. "Promise."
"Felix, how old is your headspace?" then asked curiously Changbin.
"Ah, that's..." Felix bit his lower lip. "I... don't really know, actually. I- I haven't really regressed in years so I don't know anymore."
"It's alright, sweetheart – we'll help you figure it out," assured Jisung. "Now that we know, there's no way we're letting you deal with this alone. We're gonna take good care of you, Lix!"
Felix flushed a bit at that, the others cooing a bit at his flustered expression. Just as the last of the tension dissolved, however, Chan spoke up.
"Speaking of hiding things, I think there's one more thing we need to discuss." Chan crouched down a bit so he could look at Felix in the eyes, his expression a little sad, but determined. "Felix, how long has Minsoo-ssi been bullying you for?"
Felix's breathing hitched, and he instinctively cradled his injured arm to his chest. He only now noticed the bandage snugly wrapped around his bruise, which could only mean that the others had seen it, meaning all of the cats were not only out of the bag – they literally tore it open.
"... since the first day," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper.
"Is that the actual reason why you didn't come home that night?" frowned Minho.
Felix nodded mutely, curling up a bit into Seungmin's chest as he felt his boyfriends' anger palpably rising. But Chan simply patted his head with a reassuring smile, and Felix couldn't help but lean into the touch.
"It's alright, Lix. He won't be able to hurt you anymore – we'll make sure of it."
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Much to Felix's surprise, the managers they discussed the situation with the following day believed him without too much trouble. Apparently, Minsoo's general attitude had annoyed more than one member of the staff, and a few of the managers had even overheard him cussing out Felix on the phone with someone.
After barely an hour of digging, they found out that Minsoo was actually the father of an ex-JYP trainee, a guy who just-so-happened to have been there at the same time as the rest of them. Apparently, he'd dropped out after Stray Kids debuted with the excuse that "the dumb foreigner stole his rightful place" and his father had gobbled it right up – entitlement ran in the family, apparently, and he'd made it his personal mission to make Felix's life a living hell until he eventually cracked and left, as if his son would be able to take his place afterward.
(Which was a virtually impossible scenario no matter how you looked at it, but Minsoo and his son were too stupid to realize that.)
As soon as the truth came out, Minsoo was let go without even getting to step foot into the company building – really, he was lucky the managers got to him before any of the SKZ members because had it been Changbin, Minho, or Jeongin, he probably wouldn't have left the area unscathed.
But Minsoo was gone, and Felix was safe again. And now, with his most guarded secret out, he finally felt like he could breathe properly again.
"Who's my favorite cutie baby?" cooed Jisung, poking his cheeks.
Felix flushed, swatting his hand away. "Sungie, stop! I'm not little right now!"
"Still my favorite cutie baby!"
The freckled boy rolled his eyes, but he couldn't deny the hug Jisung was now asking for, and he happily sunk into the day-older's warmth as Jisung kept on cooing in his ear. He really loved all of his boyfriends, and he internally swore to himself that he would never hide things from them ever again.
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So that's a wrap for another cute Little!Lix AU! I'm really soft for those but, not going to lie, I'm starting to run a bit low on ideas for this type of AU xD