They pretty much smother him with love.

Sometimes the exhaustion just gets to him, knocks the wind right out of him and leaves him half dead. Realistically he knows that exhaustion is still there even after the intense TLC (because there’s no way to really get rid of the physical exhaustion beyond eating properly and sleeping for a good thirty hours) but it makes all the difference mentally. By the time they’re through he feels half alive, as opposed to half dead and that's an important difference. It’s pretty much magic, given that Sungkyu really isn’t really prone to optimism.

It goes like this: basically, he lies there and they do everything. He has Dongwoo and Woohyun each on one side and it’s all about him.

Right now Woohyun is pressed to his back, his skin feels pleasantly cool against Sungkyu’s (he might be running a low grade fever, but when Woohyun tries to pull away Sungkyu makes a wordless sound and he just understands, and stays). Dongwoo’s hand is tracing slow patterns on his stomach (there’s the infinity symbol, once, twice and then three times), light but not ticklish. It’s warm rather than hot; it’s exactly what Sungkyu needs.

Sometimes the stress gets to him. He’s worked so hard (they’ve worked so hard) and while those efforts are increasingly recognised— he’s nervous. He’s as miserable as he’s happy and it’s impossible to shut out those feelings some days. Half empty, half dead, he’s half happy and half terrified at the same time— and they always know.

He’s too tired for anything to really happen (it’s not the first time and it’s not going to be the last) but neither of them comment on it. (Right now anyways, tomorrow Woohyun will likely , but not until he’s had a full night of much needed sleep.) They just touch him and love him, without ever needing him to ask for anything. Dongwoo hums their new song against his neck, smiling as always. Woohyun at Sunkyu’s thighs and up his side as he presses light kisses to his shoulder.

It’s good, like drifting in the warm sea early summer (he’d like to go to the beach again with them, all of them, and not for work). Sungkyu’s feeling good enough to feel horribly selfish for only taking, soaking up their affection and only barely reacting, but he stops himself before he can ruin their efforts and spiral into a self-depreciating loop. They do it because they want to, all of them.

He thinks (as Dongwoo presses a kiss to his temple and Woohyun presses a kiss to his cheek) that he’ll do the same for them whenever they might need it. He hopes they don’t, he doesn’t want to see either of them so tired, so beaten, but he knows he will. That’s their life. They’re as happy as they are miserable— and they’ll never complain about it because they’re so happy. He thinks fleetingly that it’s perfect like this; they’re happy and when the misery becomes too heavy they have each other to block it out.

Woohyun gently cups his flaccid and Dongwoo tweaks his lightly, almost at the same time and Sungkyu manages a laugh in spite of his exhaustion. He’s half alive.