#336: Midnight Calling

[sweetestjongin]

Title: Midnight Calling
Pairing(s): jongin/d.o.
Rating: NC-17
Length: chaptered (23k)
Warning(s): explicit mature content (sex, alcohol, smoking, medication, language)
Trigger(s): mental health issues (sleeping/eating disorder, mental institution), fear/horror, delusion/lunacy, violence, death, slight!gore
Summary: 1960, somewhere in a corner of a night sky: The sandman Jongin prowls through the autumn nights to catch bad dreams of the sleeping. One secret night at Oh's Diner, he happens to chance upon the mysterious stranger Kyungsoo, who doesn't only get him entangled in an ardent love affair but also in a deadly riddle Jongin is forced to solve, because his paranoid nightmares turn out to be dangerously prophetic.

Author's Note: actually the prompt lists "death" as sours, but as for myself I couldn't think about a single nightmare to such an extent which is not related to death, that's why I couldn't help but write this bittersweet story the way it is.




Midnight Calling

First Night

He took a sip from the beer bottle. He didn't know where to look first. The music was too loud to think clearly. He let his gaze casually wander around the dim lit diner he had entered minutes ago. The barely crowded room was hued in blue and pink neon light, making the whole diner resemble a mesmerizing neon ocean and he just drowned in it.

Music-drunk, he watched some men shaking and rattling their well-dressed bodies to the melodious tune resounding from the jukebox in a corner, stormily dancing around each other like magnetizing vortexes, holding each other entranced in flirty gazes and filthy thoughts.

He felt the bitter liquid coldly running down his throat. The more he drunk, the more the colors surrounding him become one and formed a beautiful violet kind of shade.

He blanked out the dancing men in front of him as he caught sight of someone standing at the other side of the room. Like a lavender moon shining brightly in a blurry night sky, that dark-haired young man caught his entire attention.

As said man noticed him as well through the rolling crowd, they exchanged a shy smile. While doing so, his clover-like lips formed a precious smile; a bewitching one like he had never seen before. But as sudden as he appeared in his eyesight, he suddenly lost track of him as the dancing kept on whirling around.

He found him later in a corner right next to the jukebox. As he approached the quite tiny figure from behind, their close faces mirrored in the glassy surface for a short moment. He didn't look at him as the other leaned against the white wall next to the music device, but he felt his curious smile resting on him.

"Anything special you want to listen to?" His big brown eyes wandered around the song list. He still didn't give him a single side glance, but a subtle sheen of a smile rested on his lips.

"Surprise me." Their gazes met and both lost themselves in the other's endearing smile, being all frozen in time. The dark-haired turned back to the jukebox and tried hard to stay focused and not to break out in laughter as he found a suitable song. He fumbled around the pocket of his skinny blue jeans and fetched out a coin, which he inserted in the slot.

The music box rumbled and clattered in order to change the song. A few seconds and a lot of unanswered smiles later, a new but familiar tune echoed through the diner, setting the dancing floor on fire anew.

The man leaning against the wall gulped down his speechlessness. He didn't notice that he blushed a little, but in the dimly pinkish light nobody noticed. He grinned from ear to ear, trying hard to keep it cool.

"I got a rocket in my pocket." The dark-haired claimed while looking closely into the other's brown eyes. First, he kept a straight face, underlining the sincerity of the blatant flirt, but shortly after he snapped into a big smile. "It's the title of the song. Jimmy Lloyd?"

"I know. And I like it."

"I like it too." He played with him, and both knew it. And even though he didn't enjoy these kind of games very often, he loved to keep on playing with that handsome unknown. "The song, I mean."

"Of course." He watched the other taking a sip from the bottle he was holding and emptying it at one haul, before addressing him directly. "So, you're into Rock'n Roll?"

"Yes. You know, it's always about just one thing." He knew. But he wanted him to say it. He wanted to bath in his attractively deep voice and read it from his kissable lips. "Sex."

Their eyes met again, this time conspicuously electrified with a certain tension. While putting the bottle on to on top of the device, he approached the taller next to him. Their bodies didn't touch, but they were so close he clearly felt the shorter man's hot breath stroking his chin as he looked up to him. "So, you wanna dance?" He nodded.

He didn't cease from looking at the winsome opposite moving his delectable body from side to side passionately, hips back and forth professionally. Sometimes, he closed his eyes and drank in the music and the atmosphere around him. When he opened them again, he sent tingly little shocks down the spine of whomever he looked at in this exact moment.

He loved to dance with him; to swim with him in the neon ocean. For this moment there was just the two of them, caught in a moment in a corner of a night sky.

The song changed. The jukebox rattled again and spitted out a surprisingly intimate tune, that abruptly heated up the whole ocean with its romantic mood and its sinful lyrics. Elvis Presley, he guessed, but he wasn't sure.

With arms resting on his shoulders and feeling softly sensual strokes touching his neck, he looked right into the other's big brown eyes as they both danced closely, with their pelvises gently touching and simultaneously moving in the same direction. The purple light shimmering in his eyes reminded him of little stars. Every reflection was like a whole galaxy.

"You smell like cotton candy."

"Do I?" The shorter nodded with a bright smile, with eyes resting constantly on the taller. "Maybe it's the pomade I use for the hair styling?" He looked very stylish with that modern rockabilly hair. In the colorful neon light, his swept up and waved brown hair had a magical sheen of magenta. His dancing partner really liked his look, especially in combination with his simple white shirt and the leather jacket, that made him appear dauntless, even rebellious. He awfully liked that.

"I don't think it's the pomade." He approached his partner, with one hand mildly resting on his nape and their bodies slightly touching. He gingerly sniffed at the taller's soft neck, tracing along his collarbone up to his chin. His sweet breath tickled on the other's skin, sending perfectly dangerous shivers down his body to secret areas further down.

"Admirable. I've never met someone who smells like candy."

"Well, I'm a special man."

"Yeah, I can tell. Wait, you're not a hustler, aren't you?"

"No! Are you?" The other denied by shaking his head. "I'm Jongin."

"Kyungsoo." Both smiled at each other in relief until Kyungsoo put on a straight face, like he got reminded of something unpleasant. "Listen, I want you to know, I'm not looking for anything. I'm just here to enjoy the night. I have only this one night."

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"Just be with me for a while. For this night."

"Okay." Jongin smiled and fondled Kyungsoo's warm cheek with his thumb naturally. He wanted to kiss him, but wasn't sure if it was appropriate. However, they were standing so close, dancing slowly, with their crotches touching eagerly. More than just his lips wanted to touch him.

"Do you want another drink?" Kyungsoo nodded and eased from Jongin's slightly tensed body.

As he walked over to the bar, he watched the blonde bartender leaning casually against the counter, with a skew smile on his face and a cigarette in his mouth, waiting for it to get light up by one of the customers. The cigarette sizzled fervently between his puckered lips like the little flame in his eyes as he winked at the helpful man teasingly.

"Hey, Sehun, can I get another two bottles of Budweiser, please?"

"Sure, buddy." He danced around the bar and fetched two bottles of beer. "You already called dibs on that cutie, didn't ya?" He pointed with a smooth shook of his head in Kyungsoo's direction, checking him out from top to bottom without shame.

"I don't own him. I just enjoy his company."

"Yeah, that's what I tell myself too when my married neighbor comes over for a little late-night tryst." He ruffled through his parted blonde hair and blew out some smoke, that embraced Jongin like an old friend. "He's cute though."

"He's not your type."

"What do you know about my type?" Clenched eyes focused on Sehun, who didn't look at him until the very moment Jongin took the cigarette out of his mouth to take a puff for himself. Sehun watched the cigarette glowing teasingly as his friend sucked on it, keeping steady eyes glued on the cheeky bartender.

"He's NOT your type." Alongside his mocking words, he blew out a big cloud of smoke right into Sehun's face who didn't flinch for just a bit. He just grinned as Jongin placed the cigarette back in his mouth before leaving with the bottles.

"Think of me when you bang him!"

"Bite me!" Sehun couldn't help but emit a hearty laugh over his friend's last reaction.

As the smoke clouds faded, he noticed someone entering his diner. And immediately, all the men in the bar ceased from each other, standing straight next to the bar and clenching their bottles while not daring to look at each other. The whole scenery changed at the flick of a switch and Sehun totally didn't agree with that sudden mood change.

The music stopped - nobody dared to enter a new song. Sehun emitted a profound sigh and stubbed out the cigarette stub.

"Officers, what can I do for you?" The two policemen approached the counter in slow but steady pace, letting their investigating gazes wander around the dubious night event.

"Looks like a fun night. Just a bit odd without the girls. What kind of party is this? "

"No party, officer. Just a bunch of men going for some last beers before returning back home to wife and children." The policeman didn't answer and kept on inspecting the strangely pretty bartender and the other dumbstruck men. Cloaked in these rebellious clothing, blue jeans and leather, and neatly styled hair, all of those blasted greasers huddled together at one place in the middle of the night meant no good at all. He was suspicious, but without clear evidences or witnesses he wasn't able make any arrests.

"Well, we better keep the music at low volume. We don't want to catch attention of the people living around here, aren't we? We don't want anyone coming here, walking in a sick pity party of turd burglars, right?" He looked at the bartender with a fake smile. His annoyingly discriminatory words bounced off Sehun like bullets off a stone wall.

"Nobody wants that." He answered with a likewise fake smile and two cold bottles of Budweiser placed on the bar counter.

Sehun sincerely hoped Jongin wouldn't get into any desperate plight with the cops tonight, but as he looked around the diner, whether Jongin nor the other cute one were seen in the room. What he didn't know, both sneaked out of the back door the moment Kyungsoo caught a glimpse of the policemen lurking beyond the neon light outside of the diner and as soon as Jongin returned to him.

(…)

Both ran down the narrow back alley, laughing like crazy at the other's hand. They slowed down the moment they were out of puff and could see the main street crossing just a few walks away.

"Hey, let's don't go over there." Kyungsoo suggested as he got control of his fitful breathing while still holding onto Jongin's hand tightly. He pointed at the lighted street where a random couple just passed by.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't wanna get caught." He focused on Jongin's rosy lips. The notion of leaving without acquiring a taste of them bothered him. "I'd like to keep on like this. Let's stay here, please."

"Here? But it smells like garbage and piss." Jongin looked around the dark alley, but couldn't see anything to sit except a single dumpster. As he looked back to Kyungsoo, he suddenly felt lips pressed against his own. They felt warm and incredibly soft, and Jongin couldn't stop himself from devouring every piece of Kyungsoo's bittersweet lips. "Well, that's quite an argument."

In the presence of the protective starry sky, Kyungsoo jumped on top of the dumpster, which actually didn't smell that bad. Jongin spread the other's legs fondly, just to shove himself between his thighs.

Their lips met again. This time even more intense, rougher and without taking a break while letting tongues mate playfully. Jongin even tasted sweet - not as sugary as his scent due to the bitterness of the last drops of beer resting on his lips, but still tasty. Kyungsoo didn't cease from enjoying the taste, like he was sucking on a chewy candy cane.

"Damn, I never wanna stop kissing you." Jongin breathed hotly into the other's mouth, pressing his forehead against the other's.

"Just this night, you remember?" Jongin sighed. "Hey, don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Being disappointed." Jongin didn't answer, just looked up with a little pout and a wry smile to assure he was alright. But yes, he was a bit disappointed. "Don't make it real, Jongin."

"What can be more real than my tongue inside your mouth?" Kyungsoo chuckled, tugging at the button border of the taller's jacket playfully.

"You know what I mean. And please, don't try to find me after this."

"What if I want to find you?"

"Just don't. But you're free to remember me."

"Will do." Both giggled, then their lips met again for another round of ardent kisses, more romantic and intimate than they intended to. The game changed its rules, but Kyungsoo refused to accept that.

"You look tired." Jongin noticed as the other's ceased from kissing him and looked at his face closely.

"I'm always tired."

"Maybe… I should take you home?" He wasn't sure if he should ask him this straightforwardly, but his mind and especially a certain part of his body nearly bagged him to ask. Kyungsoo could read the intention from his face, but even though he wanted to spend the night with him, he couldn't.

"Better not. Let's stay here."

"Okay, I tried. But hey, you're free to go whenever you want to."

"That's not it."

"What's it all about then?" Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, with a smile resting on his lips.

"Can't you just believe I simply don't wanna go home now?"

"Okay, I believe that." Kyungsoo kept on sucking on Jongin's lips, even biting them softly, which caused the standing one to trace his hands alongside the other's thighs subconsciously, slowly reaching his private parts, but Kyungsoo stopped him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"It's alright, I don't blame you for wanting it. It's just… I don't want to make it real. If it gets too private, too intimate then you just get attached. And I can't have that. Sex always ruins it, don't you think?"

"Well, in contrast to someone inside my pants, I know you're right." Kyungsoo laughed and felt kind of relieved that Jongin understood. "But to avoid further accidents, we might stop kissing now." Kyungsoo agreed and watched Jongin taking a seat down next to him.

They kept on chit-chatting while snuggling and playing around with each other's hands. Kyungsoo couldn't stop stroking Jongin's adorable caramel skin. He truly admired the tone - he even reckoned that was why he smelled so sugary sweet. But his soft skin didn't taste like caramel. He had tried.

The time passed and Kyungsoo kept on yawning, always hiding his face behind one hand, but Jongin noticed anyway.

"Do you want me to take you home? Just escorting, of course."

"No, I'm alright. Don't worry about me." Kyungsoo got up from the dumpster, implying he was about to leave. "Are you going back to the diner?" He asked, hesitantly at first, but a part of him truly wanted to know.

"No, I'm gonna leave for work."

"Work? Now? It's after midnight."

"It's the night shift."

"What kind of job is it?" Jongin narrowed his eyes and bobbed his head slowly and all playfully.

"That's quite a private question, don't you think? It would make so much things more real if I tell you." Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. Both played tonight's game very well, but it was about time to declare the winner, and frankly, Kyungsoo didn't feel like it was him.

"Close your eyes." Jongin did as ordered and felt soon after Kyungsoo's warm lips caressing his one last time. As he opened his eyes after a while of silence, Kyungsoo had disappeared.

Jongin sighed deeply, admitting the defeat. He plunged his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and left the dark back alley a little later.

(...)

With the cobbled rope made from bed sheets and towels he had provisionally tied together, he climbed up the outside wall to sneak back into his room on the fourth floor.

Apparently, his disappearance went unnoticed. The small room remained silent, uninterested in the young man's nightly trip and kept on sleeping in the tranquil dark.

He took a peek over to his roommate's bed, that was closer to the door then his, but he didn't react in any way. He must be sleeping - he almost thought, but in the corner of his eyes, he noticed a narrow light creeping on the floor. The bathroom.

"Baekhyun?" No answer but an oddly choked sound resonated from the other side of the door. Kyungsoo called his name again and the sickish gagged noise resounded anew. He worried and opened the door, just to find his roommate kneeling on the cold tile floor, with his head alarmingly close to the porcelain bowl, with one hand wiping over his shuddering lips.

Kyungsoo understood and entered the bathroom in order to pour some water from the faucet into one of the tooth mugs, giving it to the other who had just flushed down what he left there.

Baekhyun dropped himself back at the wall near the toilet, facing Kyungsoo who had hunkered down to give him the water, but didn't dare to look at him. He felt ashamed, so he fixed his gaze on the white tiles he was sitting on, hiding his teary-eyed face behind the blonde bangs of his tousled hair, that curiously shimmered pinkish in the sparse light of the bathroom.

"You did so well." Kyungsoo sighed in concern, sitting down opposite to his roommate. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." His voice cracked a bit, so he took a sip from the mug without saying anything else. Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose due to the still present stench of what Baekhyun had poured in the toilet. Unfortunately, it wasn't a stench Kyungsoo wasn't used to.

"You smell." He said jokily, poking his opponent with his feet playfully until Baekhyun's precious smile got tickled out.

"Where did you go? I woke up and you were gone."

"I was out. I didn't feel like sleeping, so I sneaked out to catch some fresh air."

"You still don't sleep?"

"You still don't eat?" Baekhyun blinked nervously and bit his bottom lip, but Kyungsoo didn't expect an answer. "I was at Oh's Diner. It was men's night only." Baekhyun completely understood what that meant and was wide-eyed.

"Oh, you cocky boy." Kyungsoo smiled cheekily. "What if you've got caught? You could go to jail for getting off with another man."

"So what? Jail or this mental-shit-thing, it doesn't matter. There is no difference to me. I'm imprisoned either ways."

"But in here, you have me." Baekhyun put a lot of effort in giving his opponent a bright smile, but Kyungsoo recognized his weak motions. The poor boy looked drowsy. His face was still reddened and his eyes wet, but it got better with every minute that passed.

"Don't worry, I won't leave you alone. I'll always come back."

"Don't mind me. Be careful, always. For your own good." Kyungsoo nodded and focused randomly on Baekhyun's bare feet next to him, thinking about that one guy he had met and the perfectly imperfect night they had spent together.

"Actually, they almost caught us. But we managed to leave through the back door just in time."

"We? Did you meet someone?"

"Yes."

"And you like him."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because you didn't stop smiling since you start talking about tonight." He was right. Kyungsoo didn't realize until now that the edges of his mouth remained in a constant smile. He kneaded his own lips with a finger and a thumb to make himself stop. He even blushed a little, which caused Baekhyun to chuckle amusedly.

"Possibly. Maybe. Whatever. I won't see him again."

"Just because you don't allow yourself."

"Because where is the point?" Kyungsoo raised his voice a bit. "What if it gets more serious and he wants to spend the night with me? Does he come over and watches me taking those goddamn pills? And then there's me being all drugged and drooling on my pillow like I'm nuts? How romantic."

"Kyungsoo, you have a sleep disorder. You're not lunatic."

"But he will think I am. I live in a fucking mental asylum. There is no space for a relationship." Kyungsoo sighed deeply, looking at the floor and absently drawing random signs on the tiles with his forefinger.

"So… you already consider a relationship with him?" Baekhyun suddenly said after a short break of silence, with a bantering smile resting on his lips.

"That's not the point! I…"

"It's ok. You don't need to explain yourself. You know, I'm tired of watching you trip over your own standards over and over again. Fact is, you had a fun night, probably only because of him. Why giving up on that feeling?" Kyungsoo remained silent, mainly because he didn't know what to say. He knew Baekhyun
was right, but his own orneriness hazed his mind. "I'm tired."

"I know…"

"No, I mean I need to sleep." Baekhyun made the first attempt to get up but failed. Only with Kyungsoo's help he made it back to his bed, where he got tucked in by his friend caringly.

"Kyungsoo?" Baekhyun started in a sleepy voice with partly closed eyes, preventing Kyungsoo from leaving the side of the bed he was sitting at. "Promise me to think of him when you go to sleep. Who knows, maybe he'll come and appear in your dreams."

"He doesn't want to be in my fucked up dreams." Kyungsoo huffed. "But… it's a sweet thought though." The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to dream of Jongin. "What if he doesn't come?" He sounded more worried than he intended to.

"Then go back to the diner and try to find him. If he can't be in your dreams, make sure he's there when you wake up." Baekhyun held onto Kyungsoo's hand, even stroking it with his thumb. "Promise me."

"Only if you promise to eat your breakfast in the morning." Baekhyun protested by emitting a guttural groaning sound from under the white blanket he was tucked in.

"It's not that easy…"

"You think it's easy for me? God, I must be out of my mind."

"Maybe that's exactly what we need right now. Someone who occupies our mind. To make us forget about the mess inside."

"You're quite deep today, do you know that?" Baekhyun smiled sleepily and for a short moment Kyungsoo wasn't sure if he already fell asleep. He patted Baekhyun's delicate hand before letting go off him. "Sleep well, Baek."

"Goodnight, Kyungsoo."

(...)

Just the thought of going back to bed terrified Kyungsoo. The pale blanket waited for him, like a ghost being about to claw at him the moment he sank down.

He panicked for a moment, thinking about the nightmares he was going to have again. This thought nearly weakened his body and pricked in every of his limbs. He squint his eyes shut, trying hard not to hyperventilate.

Even after this special night, he was still scared to sleep. He clung to the notion of Jongin's beautiful eyes watching over him to calm himself. However, he couldn't stay concentrated, because there was something in the corner of his mind. Something that always had been there.

As the final solution, he decided to throw in a sleeping pill the doctors had given him, so he could sleep for at least a few hours straight. As they kicked in, all the things he experienced tonight, the music, the touches, the kisses passed by in his mind's eyes, creating a breathtaking play of colors in the sweet shape of Jongin, who pacified him with hot kisses. For a moment, he swore he sensed a breath of his candy-like odor, but maybe that was what they call lucid dreaming.

That was why he didn't notice the man sitting at the side of his bed. Patiently, he watched Kyungsoo's chest lifting and lowering evenly, and listened to the soft sound of calm breathing and nearly unnoticeable snoring coming from Baekhyun's bed.

"I didn't expect to find you here. But I'm glad I did." Jongin whispered, but he couldn't be heard. He took the sleeper's hand in his own and fondled it cautiously. From that moment on, Kyungsoo started to quiver in his sleep. He squinted his eyes like he was in a sudden pain and even emitted some choked murmurs.

"Are you having a bad dream? Let me help you." Jongin placed one hand over Kyungsoo's thick eyebrows, covering his eyes and forehead. Kyungsoo didn't stop shuddering, it even got worse, he jerked under the touch. Then, he let go of his face and looked at the palm of same hand.

As he looked up again, he found himself surrounded by absolute darkness. There was nothing but perfectly inky blackness and wintry breezes unpleasantly crawling up his neck. He humped his back and crossed his arms due to the unexpected coldness. A weird unease took hold in his guts; an unease which he usually never felt.

As he turned around, he caught sight of a tilted window hanging quite high above his head in seemingly loose air, casting a cone of strangely lurid moonlight on the floor. Inside of that circle of light he found a crying little boy in blue-striped pajamas clenching his own legs and hiding his face behind his knees.

The uneven wooden floor creaked eerily under every of Jongin's steps as he approached the boy cautiously. The chilly wind whistled horribly through every leak at the dark attic, twisting every last nerve, but Jongin remained calm - it was just a dream after all.

"Hey little one, are you okay?" He didn't answer, so the adult crouched down to try to catch a glimpse of the boy's face, even though Jongin already figured out who that boy was. He tried to reach out to him, but the young cringed.

"No. Don't. Go away!"

"It's me - Jongin. It's alright. Kyungsoo, look at me. It's me." This time he got allowed to stroke his short black hair, but he raised his head in a jiffy, looking at Jongin with terrifyingly ghastly eyes.

"He's here."

The whistling resounded aloud and Jongin realized it was an actual whistle coming from behind him. He heard floorboards whiningly squeaking under a heavy weight, even though no one moved. They weren't alone. Someone was with them.

"Who's here? Kyungsoo, tell me."

"He's coming for me." The boy began to cry again and grasped his own hair madly, trying frantically to make himself even tinier.

"No, I protect you. It's your dream, you can make him stop. Kyungsoo?" He suddenly stopped in motion and looked across the adult's shoulder with an agonized expression.

"Too late."

Jongin felt a strong shiver creepily running down his spine, like a bunch of bugs nastily scuttling down his back and paralyzing his whole body. A deadly cold breeze touched his neck and made his weak flesh crawl.

As he sensed a whiff in the corner of his eyes, he caught his breath and turned around hastily, just to find nothing but obscure darkness.

The boy started to whine again and in that moment Jongin watched the deep black shaping a shadowy silhouette in the distance - a faceless shadow about nine feet tall, spreading out its enormous limbs and claw-like hands.

Jongin was utterly terrified. For the first time, he was scared to death.

The shadow dashed towards the boys. It screamed agonizingly. Jongin panicked but froze in fear. As he couldn't dodge, it went directly through him. The bad collision immediately numbed his limbs and senses, and he got brought to his knees.

The feeling of nausea knocked Jongin out. And there was this awfully ear-shattering sound in his dizzy mind. It was the boy. He was screaming like he never heard a child screaming before. As he turned around to him, his eyes were blacked out and a nasty black gunk oozed from his mouth and eyes.

The shock kicked Jongin out of the nightmare and he found himself back in the bedroom next to Kyungsoo. He was still sleeping, but sweated all over the body and didn't squirm with pain anymore. Jongin didn't understand. He had never witnessed such a strong nightmare.

"Shit." He sighed and rubbed his faces in disbelief of what had happened. But it was only a dream. And in the end, that was what he came for.

He put his left hand carefully on Kyungsoo's sweaty forehead and started to absorb the nightmare. However, the nightmare hurt him, causing Jongin to suppress a surprised screech. He endured the strong pain and watched the nightmare burning along his protruding veins, painfully sidling up his arm like virulent black snakes, until Kyungsoo's breathing became more comfortably.

He suffered a sudden headache, and there was a faintly beeping sound in his mind, but the sight of a peacefully sleeping Kyungsoo made up to both.

"Rest now. No shadow will haunt you tonight. I protect you from that dreams, do you hear me? I promise." Jongin whispered to him, but he knew he wouldn't hear him.

Softly, Jongin traced down Kyungsoo's temples with his fingers. Every touch sent out invisible and harmlessly electrified sparks, that stimulated Kyungsoo's bothered brain and every nerve cell to induce a pleasant dream. Jongin wondered if he felt the same lovely tickling as he did in his fingertips.

With a last kiss on his cheekbone, Jongin vanished.


Second Night

"Speaking of last night, what happened to that Chinese guy you desperately flirted with?" The blonde leaned over the bar counter, his lean booty still wiggling to the rhythm of Summertime Blues. He looked squarely into Jongin's asking eyes, who kind of feared a sincere answer.

"He stayed, even after the police crashed the party. I took him home and… well, a gentleman doesn't talk about his sexy time. Let's just say he gave me the Yes and I gave him the Oh."

"Rank." Jongin faked a disgusted face just to mock his friend, who licked his lips and grinned triumphantly before continuing to prepare the milkshake, which he lastly topped with a split strawberry and a pink straw.

Meanwhile, Jongin glimpsed randomly at the latest newspaper lying next to him on the bar counter he was sitting at. The headline contained a black and white picture of a local boy, who seemed to have mysteriously disappeared from his room without a trace last night. Just as Jongin pondered on a possible case of child abduction, Sehun interrupted his train of thoughts by presenting the delicious milkshake to him.

"What about your boy? Did you meet him?" Jongin nodded, unable to speak because he took a pull on the straw first.

"Yes. Thank you for searching him out. And for switching sectors."

"No problem. You wanted me to find him, so I did. But hey, don't make me regret giving you that sector." Sehun gave his opponent a warning glance while admonishingly waving around with one finger. Jongin noticed sincere concern resonating in his words. "It's quite a toughie you've got to deal with now. The nursery you had before is nothing compared to a madhouse. It's the grand dame of nightmarish places. It's agonizing. It can drive you crazy."

On cue, Jongin got triggered with the disturbing dream of Kyungsoo and how much of a twinge the nightmare was. He pulled the sleeve of his jacket a bit away to catch a glimpse at his toned ankle hidden under the bar table, but he couldn't find anything unusual.

"Don't worry. I'm fine. Besides, it's the only way of seeing him." Jongin lost himself a bit in the pleasant notion of cutely sleeping Kyungsoo. Sehun snatched that moony spark in Jongin's eyes and knitted his prettily shaped eyebrow.

"So, you're his stalker now?"

"No! I honestly enjoyed last night. It was all so simple and clean. I didn't want it to end, you know. I can't leave it at just that. I want to be with him, even though he might not want it." Sehun frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Dude, that's closely the definition of a stalker."

"Oh, shut your gay face! You know what I mean." The blonde bartender couldn't help but laugh loudly, causing some eating customers to turn their head to the two men at the bar.

"It's alright. I know exactly what's going on here. You fell for him."

"That's not…"

"No, Sehun, no. Just think about the consequences…" Sehun imitated his friend by changing his voice similar to Jongin's and waggled with his arms jokily exaggerated, but after all he did it quite well. "Love only hurts. Blah blah."

"Hey, stop that!" He demanded but couldn't stop chuckling though. "I've never said that." He did, but maybe not with this words. Sehun wanted to raise an eyebrow to mock him, but he decided not to and watched him taking some pulls on the straw of the milkshake in a quite adorable way.

"How's he doing so far?"

"Kyungsoo? He's alright, I think. It's…" At first, he had doubts about whether he should tell him or not, but in the end the cheeky bartender was not only his best friend for years on end, but also a much more qualified sandman as he was. "… it's his dreams that worry me. I've never felt like this before. I was scared."

"You? But you're a sandman. A dreamcatcher. It's your job to catch scary dreams."

"I know. It's weird. But that nightmare was… special. Just thinking of it gives me the horrors."

"What did he dream about? What did you see?"

"Nothing, that's the point. It's the feeling it gave me that creeps me out. No wonder he is afraid of sleeping."

"Do you know why he has those dreams?"

"No."

"Why don't you just ask him?"

"How?"

"Right now. He just came in." Following Sehun's surprised gaze, Jongin didn't expect to spot a meek Kyungsoo near the entrance door, cloaked in a slightly oversized pea coat and with cutely reddened ears. He noticed Jongin at once and smiled at him sheepishly.

(…)

Both sat at the last seat area, in the corner of the diner. Sehun gave them this place far away from other possibly listening customers. The teasing smell of freshly made French fries roamed the room, as well as the smell of bacon, that played mockingly with Jongin's nostrils.

The near jukebox played a modest song and thereby broke the awkward silence between the two man. Both thought about so much they couldn't put into words, so they decided to let the other speak first. So in the end, both didn't say anything and just smiled expectantly at each other.

Then, just as both opened their mouth simultaneously, they stopped in motion and held their breaths as they noticed that the other wanted to say something, which just lead to another break of silence.

"I didn't mean to make it awkward. It feels a bit like the day-after, even though nothing happened, don't you agree?" Jongin did and answered with a relieved smile.

"Then let's stop making it awkward. It's not like we're complete stranger." They kind of were, and both knew that. Just because they knew the taste of the other didn't mean they knew the person he is. But Jongin truly wanted to know him - and what he didn't expect, Kyungsoo wanted the same. "Do you want to eat something?"

"No, thanks. We just ate."

"We?"

"My roommate and I. We just had breakfast." Jongin wondered what Kyungsoo's pleased smile was all about, and watched him taking a deep breath to gather all of his courage.

"You must think I'm totally bonkers coming back here, just one day after I said I don't want us to meet again."

"I don't think that. I'm glad you came back. But… why did you?"

"Actually, I don't know." He twiddled with one button of his dark blue shirt nervously, thinking about how he should tell him the following. "Can I be honest with you? Without having you judge me?"

"Of course. Always."

"I…" Unfavorably, Sehun appeared at their table to take orders, interrupting the two and therefore Kyungsoo's train of thoughts.

"What can I do for you, sweetie?" Jongin sighed huskily and his eyes nearly rolled back into his head. As much as he loved his perky friend, there were certain moments where he didn't want to see his pretty ass - and that was one of them.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"You should try the milkshakes. I make them myself. I don't have much talent butt-shaking." Kyungsoo kept quiet because he didn't get it. Sehun kept quiet because he didn't get why Kyungsoo didn't get it. And Jongin never wanted to smack Sehun as hard as he wanted to in this moment.

"Okay. That failed. Thanks, dude. Bye." Jongin insisted Sehun to leave immediately without making it worse by giving him an unmistakable look, which he understood and walked away casually like nothing happened.
"Is he your…?"

"Hell, no. He's just a fellow. A good friend. A dumb one." Kyungsoo smiled shyly, somehow being relieved that Jongin wasn't taken.

He eyed his opponent as he took a sip from the milkshake he brought with him to the table. Under his worn leather jacket, Jongin wore a white tee shirt again, probably the same he wore last night. Kyungsoo wondered if the shirt would smell like him now. He would have loved to find it out.

"I dreamt of you." Jongin looked up in surprise, he didn't see that coming.
"You need to know, I never dream of people I know. I just never have sweet dreams."

"So, I'm a sweet dream then?" Kyungsoo nodded resolutely, a hidden smile resting in the edges of his mouth. "What was the dream about?" Jongin truly didn't know. He didn't make the dreams. The dreamers did. Their stimulated and eased minds created the sweetest illusions they can ever imagine after being touched by a sandman.

"Don't laugh, okay? I was in my child's room in my parents' house. My mother sat on the side of my bed and she was reading a bedtime story to me, like she did when I was younger. And…" His smile broadened until Jongin could see his white teeth. "The window magically opened, like it got pushed open by the wind or something, and then… you came in. You flew into my room with a dumb smile on your face and the intention to take me away. It was hilarious." Both started to giggle, but Jongin did it because he found Kyungsoo's dream absolutely adorable.

"You dreamt I was Peter Pan?"

"Yeah, kind of. It's stupid, I know. I don't know what's gotten into me. You're free to laugh now."

"Where did we plan to go?"

"What do you mean? Don't tease me."

"You said I wanted to take you away."

"I don't know? Somewhere nicer. Somewhere only we know? Anywhere but here." Both grinned at each other, until Kyungsoo's smile gradually got weak and more serious. "The thing is, I liked it. Dreaming of you. For the first time in forever, I felt comfortable. Like I was with you last night. And I had that dream just after I met you. Maybe it's a sign. Like someone wants me to see you again. Do you think that's stupid?"

"No. I'm glad you came back. I also wanted you to see me again." Both lost themselves in the other's joyful eyes for a while.

"Jongin, we already have spent the night together. Now, do you like to spend the day with me?"

"I'd love to."

(…)

It smelled like old paper and dust inside of the second-hand bookshop. Every book was covered in a beautifully ornamented leather binding and its very own sheen of history.

Jongin had to admit that he never visited this kind of bookshop before. But they randomly found it down the street as they walked around the city, being all into chatting that they didn't notice that they had reached the other side of the city.

Under the screen of almost floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, Kyungsoo randomly touched Jongin's hand slightly but purposefully. As they looked to both ends of the aisle and didn't see anyone, they intertwined their fingers shyly. They didn't talk, they didn't move, they just browsed through the old books with their hands constantly linked.

Kyungsoo was so into poring over one book, that he didn't notice Jongin's gaze dreamily resting on him. Kyungsoo's hand felt soft and warm. He didn't want to let go off him again - he did once and regretted it. But he came back. That meant he also didn't want to let him go, right? Jongin's thoughts flashed over, causing him to think about countering things all at once. He wished his head would shut up and let him just enjoy this moment and the sweet feeling Kyungsoo gave him. He wanted to enjoy it as long as possible.

He looked up to the taller with surprised brown eyes as soon as he felt the other's lips softly pressing against his head. Kyungsoo looked around the store again, before dragging his partner along to the backmost corner of the bookshop. Hidden behind some human-high piles of books, he pushed Jongin against the wall, grabbing his shirt's collar and pulling him down to him.

They sucked on each other's lips for a while, first gently, but then wildly and relentlessly. Jongin even grabbed the black-haired head to prevent it to drop back as his tongue entered Kyungsoo's eager mouth. It made him moan loudly and Jongin dearly hoped that didn't cause someone to hear them.

Kyungsoo stopped holding captive of Jongin's lips abruptly, as he felt something hard pressing against his lower belly.

"Sorry…" Jongin admitted with a bashful smile.

They startled a little the moment they overheard a distant voice coming from the other side of the book pile. Although they didn't want to, they let loose of each other and independently returned back to the room.

Jongin glanced around the store, but couldn't see anyone in the close area. He didn't realized that Kyungsoo had disappeared in another aisle, leaving Jongin browsing through the bookshelves all by himself, with the sweet taste of Kyungsoo still resting on his puffy lips.

He nearly knew all of the books he found, even though he never read most of them. Sometimes he found one, which he knew from his childhood, but he couldn't believe that it was already written a century ago, now resting in a dusted bookshelf like a lost wreck on the ocean bed. If it wasn't randomly, nobody would have found it. Jongin himself was like one of these dusted books, born in another century and now forgotten by the modern people. For the first time in a very long time, he became aware of his own immortality again, and with it the reminder of what he feared the most about falling in love - the ship's presence was endless, but the crew had gone a very long time ago.

As he just tried hard to gulp down the painful lump in his throat, he noticed someone walking around the next aisle, beyond the bookshelf Jongin was standing in front of. He watched Kyungsoo's round eyes peeking out from it, the moment he pulled out one of the books. Jongin grinned from ear to ear, because these were the only things he could see of him due to Kyungsoo's low height. As the shorter spotted Jongin on the other side as well, his adorably wide eyes formed cute little crescent as he smiled back at him.

"What's your favorite book?"

"Hm…" Kyungsoo cogitated. "I don't know. I like a lot of books. I can't name one offhand. But usually, I enjoy fantasy stories the most."

"Like this one?" As Kyungsoo looked through the gap to Jongin again, tiptoeing to catch a sight of the book Jongin was holding up, he glimpsed at a small book covered in slightly faded green and decorated with golden-shimmering detailed adornments on the front. He smiled brightly as he read the golden title: Peter and Wendy.

"I loved that book when I was a child."

"I'd never expect that." He couldn't see Jongin's perky smile because he had hidden his mouth behind the book, cutely peeking out from it, but he heard it clearly playing along in his ironic words.

"Did you read it?"

"No, but I've seen the movie at the theater. You know, the animated movie that came out a few years ago." Jongin looked at the used book in his hands, skimming some of the slightly yellow pages. "I'll buy it for you."

"No, don't. I can pay for myself."

"Please, it'd be my pleasure. I'm Peter and I want to tell you my story."

"But…"

"No arguments, Wendy." Kyungsoo gave in with a smile and shook his head in disbelief over that charming idiot. He puckered his lips to send Jongin an air kiss over to the other side, who smiled confidently and answered the same way.

(…)

"It's quite risky doing this kind of special events."

"Yes. But he does it anyways. It's his diner and nothing can stops him from throwing these secret parties. And there is no way of telling him otherwise. Which I think is good. Otherwise we would have never met." Jongin gave Kyungsoo a meaningful side glance as they walked through the close-by park.

It was late autumn and cold breezes swept the fallen leaves every which way. Both didn't mind the cold or the annoying wind ruffling their hair, they felt way to pleasant with each other.

They spent almost the whole day together, until the sundown set fire to the mist haunting the park, tainting the surrounding in a blazing reddish color. They couldn't clearly see where they were walking due to the opulent fog. They were just blindly guided by the street lights framing the park's main pavement.

Kyungsoo didn't answer to Jongin, he didn't even look at him. He had humped his back to bury himself a little more in his darkish coat in protection from the cold. His ears and his nose were adorably rosy-tinted, but he didn't flinch just a single facial expression while walking. Jongin wondered.

"Do you think it'll ever be accepted? Socially, I mean." Kyungsoo suddenly asked, feeling the weight of ambiguous gazes of passing strollers resting on him heavily. "I'm sick of hiding and pretending to be the person I'm not." He continued in a lower voice, almost mumbling in the collar of his coat. "I'm sick of kissing you only in the dark."

"I do believe it'll be better. I'm certain about it. Maybe not in our generation. Maybe not even the next." Kyungsoo scoffed - that wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. "But someday, there will be a time and a place for people to be free and to be the person they are. No matter what sexuality, gender or even skin color."

"It's a messed up time we live in. It's hard to believe in a change." As a sandman, Jongin had witnessed much different times; times in which Kyungsoo wasn't even born; brutal ones, that suffered from war and death. Frankly, Jongin was more than relieved that these times had ended a few years ago. But all these, Kyungsoo wouldn't understand.

"The world is changing, you know? Every day just a little bit. You can't see, but it does happen." Kyungsoo gave him a short side glance. "Maybe, in like sixty years, when you'll be a grumpy graybeard looking out of the window of your retirement home, you'll be able to watch two men or two women kiss on the street, holding hands and even marrying." Kyungsoo put a lot of effort not to emit a derisive laugh.

"In sixty years, we'll be dead."

"Hey, don't be so pessimistic about it. Believe."

"I don't want to wait until I'm old. I want to love now."

"Kyungsoo, nobody holds you back from loving someone. Just do it. It's not a crime to love, you know." Jongin wasn't sure if he might sound too selfish. He was already falling, all the way down, there was no turning back now and he knew it.

With every silent step, they walked deeper in the park until the sun disappeared beyond the horizon and left the sleepy world over to the protection of the moon and the clear sight of the starry night.

"So, you don't mind being in a relationship with another man?" Kyungsoo asked hesitantly without looking at the other. He focused on something far away in the distance.

"No, I don't mind." Jongin smiled to himself.

"What about marriage? Don't you want to marry a lovely woman?"

"I'd love to marry. But I doubt it'll be a woman."

"What about children?"

"Oh, I love children. I want to have some."

"But how?"

"I don't know yet. I never actually thought about it, but I'm sure there'll be ways. In the worst case, I have to abduct one." Kyungsoo didn't responded and just looked at him aghast. "Oh no, of course not. It was such a bad joke. I'm sorry." Jongin turned bashfully red like he might have never done before. What made him believe this would have been a tolerable notion? Smooth, Jongin. Smooth.

"It's alright." Kyungsoo's features turned softer and he kept walking. "You'd be a great father, Jongin. Better than every other dad." Not until this moment, Jongin realized what Kyungsoo had focused on in the distance - a young mother with a buggy coming their way. The moment she passed, Kyungsoo looked oddly sorrowful.

Jongin wondered what crossed his mind. He wished he could read thoughts instead of dreams. This way, he could learn more about him and all the things he didn't tell him. Like his family. Or his past. Maybe there would have been some reasonable connections to his awful dreams.

(...)

"Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed."

Jongin listened patiently to Kyungsoo's calm voice while he was reading the book aloud. Both sat at a quite hidden park bench, far away from the main street, but still in the close reach of the lamps. Jongin's arm rested casually on the backrest, embracing the man next to him and cautiously touching his shoulder and his soft neck, only then when it was safe to do so.

"When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. This is why there are night-lights." Kyungsoo stopped reading and looked absentmindedly on the ground, like he got reminded of something. Jongin did know what that something was, but he couldn't admit it.

"It's weird, isn't it?

"Well, it's a children's book."

"No, I mean us. Twenty-four hours ago we didn't even know each other. We randomly bumped into each other at a bar, made out just for fun without even knowing anything but the name, and now we're here."

"The only weird about it is, that you told me you don't want to get too private, because you don't want to get serious. But yeah, here we are." The other's close breath tickled at Kyungsoo ear, and he turned around to him, looking from his lips up to his warm eyes.

"I don't know. I really like you, Jongin. Since I met you I feel safe. Like you're by my side even when you're not." Jongin had to think about the moment he held Kyungsoo's hand while he was sleeping. Of course he was there. He promised to protect him from his own dreams. "Which is weird, because I basically don't know anything about you. And you don't know anything about me."

The silence of the night set in, hushing the whole park and sending the last strollers back home. Just the two men stayed, closely sitting on the park bench while reading a book together in the pale shade of the street lights. In this moment, Jongin didn't care at all and took Kyungsoo's hand without hesitation, tucking it safely between his own two hands while looking squarely into his eyes.

"I want to get to know you, Kyungsoo."

"Seriously?" Jongin nodded determinedly. When Kyungsoo sighed, the chilly whiff he exhaled brushed against Jongin's cheek. "Fine. But don't be scared when you learn more about me."

"I won't." Kyungsoo informed him about a location where he was able to find him. Jongin knew that place - it was his working place after all - but Kyungsoo was never allowed to know that. So he acted like he didn't and pretended to have difficulties memorizing the address.

"You'll find me there. You're sure you can memorize it?"

"Yes. Got it."

"So, see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow." Under the cloud of the night, they fluttered a last kiss before returning to their homes.

(…)

"How is he?" Baekhyun asked with a saucy smile on his pretty lips, face softly pressed against the cushion of the bed he was lying in.

"He's very gentle and… nice."

"Just nice?"

"I can't put it in words. He is just like… him. He's Jongin." Kyungsoo walked from the bathroom over to his bed, in which he made himself comfortable.

"Oh, there is that smile again." Baekhyun noticed, causing Kyungsoo to blush a little. He ran his fingers through his black hair nervously to try to distract the watcher of looking directly into his rosy face. "Your face tells me more than a hundred words. You love him."

"I barely know him. But I can't deny a certain affection." Baekhyun squeaked into his blanket and couldn't stop smiling over his adorable friend. "He'll come visit me tomorrow, he promised."

"Are you sure about it?" Kyungsoo nodded with a bright face, subconsciously covering his worries that Jongin might have left after realizing he was hospitalized in a mental institution.

"Yes. I want to be honest with him. I can't keep on lying to him."

"Aren't you afraid I might embarrass you? You know I talk my head off when I'm nervous." Baekhyun worried. Of course he was quite excited too for that one guy that made stubborn Kyungsoo fall for him within just a few days.

"No, I don't worry that much. Because just one wrong word from your dumbass mouth and I'm gonna tell Park that you have a secret crush on him."

"You monster!" He pulled the blanket over his head dramatically and pretended to be in a snit.

Kyungsoo watched him with a playful smile, until the book resting on the night stand caught his attention. He grabbed it and started to continue from where he stopped back when he was with Jongin in the park.

"I feel like you've changed, Kyungsoo." Baekhyun said after a while of silence, peeking out from the duvet and watching his roommate read silently.

"Maybe I just grew up."

"I always thought you'll be one of the boys that never grow up."

"You mean like you?" Baekhyun didn't answer and just giggled, before he turned off the light on the night stand and went to sleep.

Kyungsoo stayed awake a while. This time not in fear of dreaming, he was way into the story he was reading. It was a very fantastic story. He considered that children didn't really get what the story was truly about. Only people with a mere infinite power of imagination could put all these meaningful words in colorfully vivid pictures.

His eyes became heavier with every chapter he read. He eventually reached the chapter with the Mermaid Lagoon and for an intense dreamer like Kyungsoo, he was able to see an actual mermaid swimming across his mind's eyes. Or did he dream already? No, not yet. He pulled himself together to finish the chapter at least.

"The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon, when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for mortals then…" Kyungsoo rubbed his eyes. He felt his limbs become more and more powerless like they had already felt asleep. "…Wendy had never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course Peter would have accompanied her…" The thought of Jongin came up in his mind and how much he wished him to be at his side right now.

He sighed and listened to Baekhyun's soft breathing only for a while. The soothing sound insisted Kyungsoo's eyes to shut peacefully until he felt that strange tingling sensation running through the body just before one fell asleep.

But the night light had to be turned off first. In the moment he did it he noticed the main door standing just a bit ajar - the light of the corridor shined through it. Kyungsoo was certain he closed it properly when he came back. Anyways, he got up from his bed, toddling over to the door on bare feet, just dressed in his pajamas.

He realized that the light shining through was way too bright - usually it got dimmed at the late night. He opened the door and clenched his eyes to slits. He couldn't see properly due to the intense brightness of the pale lights illuminating the white corridor he walked out to.

"Hello? Is someone there? The light… it's too bright." In the distance, he noticed one light switching off immediately. But the intensity didn't decrease. "Hello?"

Another light fell out. And another one. And again, until Kyungsoo realized that something was wrong. He felt a shiver thrilling his body as he suddenly became aware of the situation he was in and that the lights turned systematically off alongside the corridor. And there were just a few left between him and the darkness.

"No. No!" He rushed back to his room, but as he turned around there was the closed door, but there was no handle. It was like the doorframe was professionally painted on the wall, against which he throbbed hysterically with fists and palms.

He tried to call Baekhyun's name, but his voice didn't resonate in his own mind. The darkness came closer. And with it what Kyungsoo feared the most - the shadow. He knew it was lurking in the blackness of the fallen off lights.

He panicked. With teary eyes, he ran down the hallway, throbbing against every other door without handle he passed. He didn't know how far he ran, but his feet hurt and his unsteady breathing burned inside his lungs.

The shadow had almost reached him. There weren't many lights left, but Kyungsoo reached the last door at the end; a real door this time. He opened it without hesitation and closed it hectically behind him, just before the last light fell off with a strange snarl.

Kyungsoo leaned against the door, trying very hard to control his fitful breathing. As someone knocked at the door from the other side for three times, the boy cracked and got brought to his knees, hiding his crying face behind both hands.

"Kyungsoo?" Jongin's voice rang out from the other side. Kyungsoo couldn't believe it and stopped crying. "Kyungsoo? Are you in there?" He knocked again, but he didn't answer. "It's me - Jongin." He was confused. Was that really Jongin? He got up and reached out to the door handle with shaking hands.
"Kyungsoo! Open now! Kyungsoo!" He stopped in motion as he overheard the other's unnecessarily harsh words. He knew Jongin would never talk with him that way. Whoever it was at the other side, it wasn't Jongin. "Kyungsoo! I know you're in there!"

Kyungsoo stumbled backwards. The powerful words of the person feigning to be the one he loved resonated in his mind. He knocked again, more aggressively this time.

"You're not him. He wouldn't scare me the way you do. Leave me alone. Go away!" There was no answer. No knocking. Kyungsoo bumped against one of the six hospital beds that were scattered around the room he was locked in. He groped along the cold metallic bed frame, eyes constantly fixed on the door from which the voice suddenly resounded again, but this time ghastly twisted; grave and shattering.

"I know what you did, Kyungsoo. You can't hide from me. You're mine."

The voice echoed in Kyungsoo's mind, over and over again. Every word scratched at the inside of his head painfully. And just as Kyungsoo thought this was the end, nothing actually happened. Silence dominated the room.

A sudden motion in the corner of his eyes made him turn around fearfully to the bed he was holding onto. A young girl just woke up and raised herself from the bed. With her, five other children got up from their beds, looking blankly at the man in the middle of the room.

They didn't do anything. They just looked at him with empty eyes. Kyungsoo didn't understand, until all of them opened their mouth simultaneously, and a huge amount of water came out all of a sudden. An endless waterfall literally streamed out of their heads, flooding the whole room.

In a blink of an eye, the water reached Kyungsoo's neck. He couldn't move. And even worst, he couldn't swim. In just a few more seconds, Kyungsoo risked to drown in the small room he was locked in.

In panic, he hurried back to the door, feeling desperately for the handle under the surface. He took a last deep breath as the water devoured him in just one bite. He felt the dark water tearing at him frantically, like wicked underwater creatures trying to rip him apart.

The moment he grabbed the handle and tugged at it in order to open it, the water had mysteriously disappeared and Kyungsoo found himself dry and looking directly in the grotesque face of the tall shadow, that immediately grabbed the terrifyingly screaming boy with its dark claws and dragged him back into the room.

The door thudded close and remained in absolute silence.

"Kyungsoo? Are you here?" Jongin ran down the white corridor, calling the dreamer's name repeatedly, but unfortunately he didn't answer. The strange printed doors weren't a big help though. But he had to be there. It was his dream. He was dreaming of that empty place. "Please, answer. Where are you?" In the end, he found the only working door.

Unfortunately, he opened it without considering what was behind it. He hold his breath in shock as a massive wall of water jumped at him unavoidably, vigorously washing away all of him as it ran down the hallway.

The water filled Jongin's lungs and blinded him, so that he couldn't see anything but dark realm. It felt so real. Like he was actually about to drown. Even though he knew it was just a dream. But why didn't he wake up? He should wake up now.

He found himself surrounded by murky water, like he was drowning in a sea or a river. He bumped into something. As he realized it was a someone, he grabbed his arm and put a lot of effort to make it to the surface with the last breath clinging to his lungs. He took a very deep breath as he emerged with the other motionless body.

"Kyungsoo! Are you alright?" As he turned him around to see his face, he suddenly realized he hold onto someone completely different. A young boy with empty eyes and a coldly blue face. He obviously had fell victim of the cold water. Same as all the other bodies floating motionlessly on the water surface around Jongin. Jongin gave a pursy shriek and he pushed the body he was holding onto away.

One of the bodies had Kyungsoo's face. As Jongin noticed, he swam immediately over to him, vanquishing dreadfully cold water and disturbing waves just to get Kyungsoo ashore.

Thankfully, he learned how to do rescue breathing a long time ago, that was why he was able to reanimate the other. The poor boy trembled in every limb and spluttered a bunch of water just to dropped himself back again into Jongin's protective arms.

"It's okay. I'm here. I…" Jongin choked on his words as he caught a glimpse up the silhouetted bridge they went ashore nearby. There was the shadow, waiting and observing both down below with its evil white-eyed grimace. Jongin couldn't believe he was looking at it, and that it looked right back at him. He couldn't move. He was terrified. Terrified by a dream. That was when he got kicked out of it and found himself back next to sleeping Kyungsoo in his room.

He needed a while to pull himself together. These nightmares were strong. He felt it paralyzing his body and occupying his mind even after he left it. Why did he dream such powerful dreams?

He started to absorb the nightmare just as he did the night before. Again, it burned along his veins, thickly running up his arms like a thousand needles penetrating every blood vessel from the inside. But this time he was prepared and clenched his teeth to suppress an outcry.

The sandman felt dizzy and recognized Kyungsoo's silhouette only blurred. And there was this dazing beeping sound resounding in his mind that made him feel deaf and numb. Due to the strong headache it caused, he supported his head with his hand and took a deep breath. What the hell was this nightmare?

In his sleep, Kyungsoo turned around to him, being very close to Jongin's face with his own. Jongin stroked his cheek lovingly and placed a weak kiss on his forehead.

"Don't be afraid. I protect you. I'll always do." He whispered to him, but he didn't get heard. Jongin took the book, that was lying next to him in the bed, and put it carefully on the night stand. Then, he vanished.


Third Night

"Hey, do you even listen?"

"Hm?" Jongin looked up from the strawberry milkshake he sipped at being all in the clouds, looking directly into the bartender's doubtful eyes. He didn't notice that he drowned out Sehun's words for quite a while. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just don't feel very well today. We went for a walk in the park yesterday. Maybe a caught a cold or something."

"Jongin, you can sincerely tell me if handling nightmares at the madhouse is too much for you. No big deal, really."

"That's not it. And please, don't call it a madhouse." Jongin insisted with a bugged face, poking around the ice-cream with the straw carelessly. "He's alright. He's having troubles of sleeping, he's not insane. And I don't even judge him for it. I've seen what he dreams of. It's horrifying."

"That bad, huh? Tell me about it."

"Something's haunting him in his dreams. A thing or a person, I don't even know. It's… it's this kind of thing you see, that doesn't really have a physical body or a face, but it's there and you can see it, in all of its appearance. But when you wake up, you have forgotten about it and what's left is just the feeling, that scares the shit out of you." Sehun listened closely, painting pictures with Jongin's words in his mind. In the whole world, Sehun was the only person who completely understood what he was talking about. "It tries to kill him."

"Damn. That's some serious shit, buddy."

"Yeah. And I don't know what to do to make him feel better. I don't know what to do, except of helping him getting rid of these nightmares every night over again."

"Which is already quite much." Jongin sighed and ran his fingers through his brown hair, leaving it all tousled.

"It always feels so real. More than just a dream. I think I nearly drowned last night. Sehun, can we die?"

"No, I don't think so."

"But you're not certain about it?"

"Well, you already died a long time ago. That's why you're a sandman now. I truly doubt you can die again." Jongin remained silent, thinking about the other's words. He never felt that terminal before. "Especially not in a dream, I mean… it's a dream. An imagination concocted by a burdened mind. It's a perfect illusion." Jongin scoffed.

"Yeah, and that illusion tried to drown him under a bridge last night. I saved him but… all those other children, I…" Sehun raised his sharp eyebrow.

"Wait, what? What are you talking about?"

"His nightmare, last night."

"That's…" He interrupted himself and rushed over to an empty seat, where an elder couple just got off from a few minutes ago, leaving behind some emptied coffee cups and a newspaper lying on the table, which the bartender grasp tensely. Jongin span around on his bar chair, gazing after his blonde friend with a frown.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you talking about this bridge?" Sehun came back with a newspaper he held up high at Jongin's eye level.

The head line was stained with another horrible crime, that happened last night. Some young people got found dead floating in the local river near the known bridge at the other side of the city. After they got fished out of the cold water, the coroner confirmed death by drowning of all six children.

"No fucking way. That can't be…" He deeply wished it wasn't true, but as he identified one boy as the one he hold onto in Kyungsoo's nightmare, his jaw dropped in completely disbelief. He took the newspaper out of Sehun's hands and skimmed the article quickly.

"No, Jongin, don't try to tell me that Kyungsoo dreamt that this would happen."

"He did, somehow." He was speechless. But the evidences were clearly indisputable. "The bridge. The river. The boy. It's like his dream, I swear. But just six children, that doesn't include Kyungsoo."

"Which you saved."

"No way. Someone predicting future events while sleeping? Is that possible? Did you ever hear about something like this before?"

"No, never. In my whole career as a sandman, cross my heart."

"What's going on?" Suddenly, the photograph of the missing boy from yesterday's newspaper came up in his mind. And with it, the nightmare Kyungsoo had that night. The attic and the young crying Kyungsoo. Was it possible? Did he dream that these crimes were about to happen?

"Do you think he did…?"

"No! He wouldn't do such things. Besides, I visited him every night and took away these weird dreams. He never left the room these nights." Jongin didn't even dignify these nonsense with further communication. "I need to go." He stood up from the bar chair rapidly, rummaging around the jacket's pockets in search for some loose cash. "Do you know any flower shop around here?" Sehun just raised an eyebrow in amazement.

(…)

Jongin walked down the white corridor, his body tensed, his mind bothered and bemused, and armored with a single flower. It felt surreal moving along this hallways during daytime, surrounded by actual people, publically seen and invited by Kyungsoo.

"Excuse me?" He leaned against the ward's information desk, directly addressing a quite tall man dressed in a white shirt and tie sitting behind it. He looked up from the paper he was reading right at the visitor in front of him, looking all confused and slightly overworked. "I'm looking for a patient called Kyungsoo." Jongin knew where his room was. He visited him every night in secret since they met, but he had to play his part this time.

The ebony-haired nurse blinked nervously and looked pryingly around him, causing Jongin to look around in confusion as well, even though he didn't know why.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't let you visit him."

"Why not?"

"He's got a strict curfew recently and is not allowed to see any visitors today."

"Is this kind of a punishment for something?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you." Jongin couldn't deal with this nonsense right now. He needed to see Kyungsoo. He sighed and leaned forward to the other man, with his elbows resting casually on the desk between them.

"What's your name?"

"Chanyeol…?"

"Listen, Chanyeol, I'm just asking for a few minutes with him." He slightly whispered while looking deeply into the other's big puppy eyes in search for a certain emotion he could call upon. "Didn't you ever want to be with someone even though you're not allowed to?" And then he found one.

The male nurse gulped, tripping over his own thoughts and felt uneasily hot all of a sudden. It was like the stranger had just read his mind. However, he didn't know that it wasn't the first time Jongin encountered him. Actually, he met him quite often during his night shifts, every time he fell asleep at his desk and dreamt of Kyungsoo's roommate.

"I-I really can't…" Chanyeol stammered, clenching his fist around the pencil in his hand while thinking hard about the right words. For his benefit, Jongin noticed something in the corner of his eyes and finally ceased from gazing at him with that displeasingly interrogative look. As he followed the visitor gaze, he noticed Kyungsoo down the corridor, looking over to the talking men before he disappeared behind the door to the staircase.

Both men exchanged mute glances.

"…I'll just pretend like I didn't see that."

"Thanks, buddy." Jongin smiled joyfully and tapped on the table as a sign of thankfulness and farewell, and went over to the staircase door.

Just as he walked through it, he unexpectedly bumped into a passing doctor, whose round glasses fell from his nose due to the sudden collusion with the visitor. Both went down to their knees to pick up the glasses simultaneously, which made the whole accident even more clumsy and slightly awkward.

"You have my apologies, Sir." Jongin apologized as he watched the quite young doctor adjusting the frame on his nose.

"It's alright, it's alright. No harm done." The doctor with the odd bob cut smiled at him surprisingly joyfully and with a calm voice. He didn't seem to be angry or irritated at all. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?" He put one arm on Jongin's shoulder caringly and examined him top to bottom to make sure he wasn't harmed.

"No, I'm alright."

"Good." He didn't ceased from kindly smiling at the stranger and looked him right in the eyes, but curiously enough, he didn't let go of him, which slightly irritated Jongin. "Everything's fine, yes?"

"Eh- yes. As I said, I'm alright."

"I'm glad." He finally took his hand from Jongin's shoulder after patting it a few times, and disappeared beyond the door.

Kyungsoo, who leaned against the white wall of the half landing and watched the two men's interaction from afar, suppressed a giggle by twiddling with his bottom lip. As Jongin approached him with a smile, he looked bashfully to the ground and felt his heart beating fast.

"Hey."

"Hey. Well, that's me. I'm mental. Still wanna hook up?" Kyungsoo fooled around, but Jongin clearly sensed his concerned tension.

"That doesn't scare me."

"Why not?"

"It's still you. Here, this is for you." Kyungsoo blushed a little as the other handed him a single white flower he brought for him. He never got flowers from a man before. He truly appreciate it, even though he didn't know how to respond. However, he took the flower with a sincere expression of thanks and a sheepish smile. "You know, the woman in the shop said the dahlia is a symbol of enduring grace, inner strength and balance in challenging situations, and something about commitment of… whatever, I didn't really get it. I just picked it because I thought it's pretty."

"Sweet. I like it." Jongin looked at the shorter, both being all smiles. He lost himself in Kyungsoo's mild face, thinking about the latest events and the connected enigma surrounding this young man. He felt like the answer was nearly graspable. Like it was hidden in Kyungsoo's head, which he could touch so easily; running his fingers through his short black hair, clenching it at the back of his pretty head just to pull it down roughly, so he could suck the answer from his fucking kissable lips.

"You're okay?" Jongin looked up from the other's mouth, being dragged back to reality.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just… wanna kiss you."

"Do it." Jongin approached the other, softly pushing him against the wall. His knee made itself comfortable between Kyungsoo's thighs and his tongue inside of his mouth, exploring all of it adventurously.

(…)

"Do you mind if I ask you why you're here?" Jongin asked, warming up his slightly cold fingers at the cup of the freshly brewed coffee in his hands. They sat at a window table of the institution's cafeteria. It wasn't very comfortable and the few people around distracted Jongin. Their bothering voices babbled in his mind annoyingly. He just wanted to listen to his opponent, and to him only.

"Okay, first, please don't think I'm crazy or such. I'm fine, really. I just don't sleep. I mean, I do, but I can't sleep properly without medication. I'm having bad nightmares since my teenage years, you know."

"Nightmares? How comes?" Jongin was quite good at pretending he didn't know about it, but he needed him to admit by himself. He needed to find out why he had these predicting dreams and why there is the exact murder the morning after. Jongin listened closely, connecting Kyungsoo's words to create a whole picture. But somehow, a bunch of pieces didn't fit.

"I don't exactly remember when it started and how old I was, but I know I was quite young and I started to have weird dreams about darkness and solitude. About thoughts and feelings a boy this age shouldn't have. There is a man terrorizing me in my sleep. I've never seen him, but he is always there. He always comes for me. Every night."

On cue, the suppressed memory of the eerie shadow threateningly looking down at him from the bridge came suddenly back to his mind. He wouldn't have described the figure as an actual person, but the more he thought about, and the more he remembered about certain details, the picture of the silhouette assumed more and more human shape.

"Kyungsoo, in the end it's…"

"Just a dream? Yeah, that's what the doctors telling me for years. Over and over again. It's not the nightmares solely. Due to that, I forced myself to stay awake for days, sometimes even weeks. I didn't sleep at all. And that fucked me up, until I wasn't able to manage my own everyday life anymore. I was a complete wreck. And of course I couldn't tell my parents so I became more of a burden for them, every day a little more. So eventually, they sent me in here. For treatment, to get better, to sleep."

Jongin didn't know what to answer. He didn't fully consider Kyungsoo's condition, troubled by these nightmares since he was young. Kyungsoo noticed Jongin's inner digression. He had that thoughtful look, that everyone got when he talked about his past life.

"But hey, it's okay in here. My roommate became a very good friend of mine. A dumb one, but…" Kyungsoo managed to make Jongin chuckle, using the words he described Sehun with the day before. "And at least, the medication is strong enough to send me to sleep for a couple of hours. And it's getting better, every day some minutes more."

"But does it help you to get rid of those dreams?" Kyungsoo grinned insincerely, focusing on the dark brown liquid in the cup he was holding onto.

"Actually, the only thing that changed was… I'm trapped in my dreams now, because I can't wake up by myself anymore due to the strong pills. I'm trapped with him, in my own mind. So, yeah, thanks for nothing."

"There must be a reason why you have those disturbing dreams, don't you think?" Jongin couldn't wait any longer, he needed him to finally answer this question that bothered him for quite a long time. He needed to find out the truth. Now.

"I know what you're thinking." Jongin knitted his eyebrow in surprise. "But no. I had a wonderful childhood and a loving family. No dads or uncles, that touched me inappropriately. No suppressed memories of molestation, that now come back as a nightmare or that bullshit. Doctors keep on asking me that and I can tell that they still don't believe me. I'm tired of those questions."

"I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to imply anything. I'm just wondering. It's strange. I've never heard about anything like this before." Jongin really wanted to hold Kyungsoo's hand right now. It was just a very few centimeters away from his, and he kind of sensed that the other wanted it too, but they couldn't be that obvious in public, especially not in a mental institution.

"What scares me the most is that I usually don't realize that it's a dream. Everything feels so real, like I've been at this place for my whole life. I don't question the things I see, they just happen. And I believe them. So I run for my life because I know he is after me."

"That's really some weird shit." Kyungsoo agreed and took a sip from the cup. "So that means you remember your dreams when you wake up?"

"I used to do. But since I'm in here, I don't exactly remember. Not in detail. Especially the end is always very fishy. But sometimes, I feel like it's still in the corner of my mind, but I can't express it. Do you know what I mean?" Jongin nodded.

"They say, if you can't remember a dream in the morning, it means you have successfully solved the problem you had to deal with in your dream."

"Do you think he finally gets me?"

"I'd rather believe you made it." Kyungsoo appreciated his encouraging words, but just the notion of that strange man ultimately catching him and doing things to him he couldn't remember crept him out, so he took a deep breath while shaking off all the disturbing thoughts.

"Listen Jongin, I just want you to know that I'm not out of my mind. I just can't sleep like any other ordinary person. Damn, I wish I didn't dream at all."

"Don't say that."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to dream. It's important. It's a necessary counterbalance to the harsh reality you live in. You experienced for yourself what happens if you don't dream." Kyungsoo kept quiet and listened patiently to the other's meaningful words. While talking, Kyungsoo spotted a powerful spark glimmering in Jongin's eyes.
"In your sleep, you create your own world full of things you love and you feel comfortable with, like precious memories and moments of your life you've been the most happiest. And you surround yourself with people you love and who love you. It's a world that makes you feel like you've never been hurt. I believe, this is what sweet dreams are made of."

"Well, that's the original plan. But I'm the only exception." Kyungsoo mocked.

"Do you remember the sweet dream of your mother you had? And how she read you a bedtime story, until I came in?" Kyungsoo's scoffing smile got weaker. "You do. You've told me about it. I was just about to take you to that world."

"You mean, like Neverland?" Jongin chuckled gleefully and nodded determinately.

"Yeah, like your very own Neverland." Both grinned without saying another word for a while, thinking about the things they had just said. Kyungsoo's gaze remained at his sweetly smiling opponent, watching him emptying the coffee.

"Thank you." Kyungsoo started in a serious voice, causing the great sincerity to sound with every of his bittersweet tune. "For listening to my story. And not judging me for the person I am."

"I'd never judge you for anything. I really like you, Kyungsoo. I do." Kyungsoo hesitated to answer thoughtlessly, but Jongin could read the answer from the adorably bashful smile hidden in the edges of this heart-shaped lips.

"Do you wanna go somewhere else?" Kyungsoo shook his head with noticeable disappointment.

"Please, don't get me wrong, there is nothing I'd rather do than going to another place. I'd love you to take me to your place." Jongin looked up from the cup and found himself entranced in the other's flirty gaze. "But not tonight. Park caught me when I was stealing into my room yesterday. He promised not to report me when I promise to be present at the nighttime routine today. But…" Kyungsoo considered the options. "If you like, you can come to my window tonight. I'll let you in."

"What about your roommate? Don't you think he'll notice?"

"Baekhyun sleeps like a log, he never notices me sneaking out and in."

"Okay, I'll do. The risk of getting caught is exactly the rush of adrenaline I need right now." Kyungsoo laughed heartily, lighting up Jongin's little flustered heart.

(…)

As it turned out, Kyungsoo was right and Baekhyun slept indeed like a log; so deep in sleep that Jongin almost feared Kyungsoo had drugged him. The comfortably snoring man didn't notice Jongin climbing up the façade with the blanket-robe Kyungsoo let down for him. He didn't even notice how both laid down in the bed, kissing gently and ardently while snuggling up to each other. Jongin's arm rested protectively around Kyungsoo's body, stroking his back and holding him tight.

He then ran his fingers through Kyungsoo's short hair gingerly, fondled his nose with his lips and occasionally placed brief kisses on his warm skin whenever he felt like it. The other remained motionless, just nestled up to the sweet scent of Jongin's warm body with his eyes closed.

"Do you want me to sing you to sleep?" Jongin whispered in his ear, his mouth loomed so close that his breath tickled nicely at smiling Kyungsoo's ear. "Better not. But I'll stay with you until you fall asleep."

"Can't you stay with me like this forever?"

"Do you want me to?" He nodded slightly, almost unnoticeably. Kyungsoo didn't see it, but he felt the other placing a tender kiss next to his ear and another one on his temple. "Now sleep, dear. Go to your Neverland."

"Will you be there, too?"

"Yes. It's where I live. Promise me to visit me in my house under the ground."

"Will do." He murmured the last words Jongin barely understood, but he clearly felt how the other slid away into the land of sleep.

(…)

Jongin felt Kyungsoo's warm cheek resting on his as he buried his face in the sleeper's crook of the neck. He suddenly scrunched his nose as he randomly inhaled the strange smell of Kyungsoo. Unexpectedly, he smelt very tangy, nearly smoky. Did he smoke?

The objectionable odor pricking in his nose woke him from his short doze. He found the once warm human cheek to be nothing but the pillow he was lying on. With sleepy eyes, he felt for Kyungsoo next to him, but he couldn't find anything but the blanket.

Wondering where he went, Jongin got up from the bed and tiptoed carefully past the quietly sleeping Baekhyun to steal out the door.

"Kyungsoo?" He hold his breath as he found himself to be somewhere completely different than the expected hallways of the asylum. He walked out to another corridor, which was smaller, cozier and painted in a mesmerizing variety of motley colors. Floor and walls were perfectly stitched together to a colorful patchwork pattern consisted of textiles, wood paneling and various buttons. All this farraginous colors hurt in Jongin's eyes and fascinated him at the same time.

The ground felt soft and supple under his feet as he approached the face looming at the multicolored wall directly in front of him. As he came closer, he recognized the silently screaming face of a doll's head only, whose pearly eyes darted from left to right repeatedly to the beat of the ticking of the clock it was made up of.

The disquieting ticking lapped around Jongin's mind and hold him captive in his hypnotic sound. He didn't realize how long he remained motionless like this, staring with empty eyes in that stony face, at a second floor of a freaky house he had never been before and he didn't know how he got there.

A sudden clattering of crockery and cutlery coming from downstairs caught the sandman's attention. As he walked over to the stairs, he felt the eyeball-shaped lamps looking over and after him, following every of his soundless steps like prying eyes.

He climbed down the stairs that were made of giant pencils of various colors and were even bigger than himself. In his state of trance, he automatically walked over to the loud pink plastic kitchen, where he caught sight of a life-sized doll sitting immovably at the table, resting its suited torso on the top. Just as he noticed the big hole in its cracked head from where all these spread out red licorice had spurted from, he felt something hard breaking into pieces under the weight of his foot. As he lifted it, he looked right into a shattered doll's eye he had just broken and that probably belonged to the second doll in the pretty petticoat lying on the ground next to the fridge, ravaged like its fellow but way more mutilated.

"What's going on?" Little by little, and with every horrible detail Jongin got aware of, he undid himself from the oppressing trance and felt his heartbeat alarmingly pounding in his chest. The sight of the battered doll couple raided in their own house filled Jongin with terror. And the way it did made him realize in what kind of situation he found himself.

A piercing scream from upstairs startled Jongin, inducing him to immediately run back up the stairs without thinking twice - he knew that shriek way too good - just to find the room the familiar cry came from being on fire. Jongin retreated, crossing his arms in front of his face in protection of the dangerous flames, that wildly ravaged the little room, remorselessly consuming every cradle and cuddly toy.

Between all those fiery crackling, the jolted sandman overheard a distant wailing coming from the other side of the flames. As he put a lot of effort in seeing something beyond the blazing fire and the disturbing smoke, he caught sight of Kyungsoo pushing himself as flat as possible against the wall.

"Kyungsoo! Kyung…" Jongin coughed. The harmful smoke sneaked into his lungs every time he opened his mouth to yell the other's name, but he never answered. He pulled his shirt over his nose to shield the airways from inhaling toxic fumes. "It's just a dream. It's a perfect illusion." Jongin recited Sehun to reassure himself and to gather all of his courage to make it through the sheet of flames.

The stinging blaze burned his skin and he shouted out in severe pain, but didn't cease from running through the igneous fire, eyes constantly fixed on the helpless Kyungsoo on the other side. The way it hurt and branded his skin felt way too real.

"Are you alright?" He held tight onto the tangled Kyungsoo as he reached him, just in time before a part of the roof truss broke through the ceiling. Kyungsoo looked at Jongin with deeply shocked eyes.

"Jongin?"

"Yes. It's me. I'm here." He nodded timidly and looked around the ablaze room, while clinging firmly to Jongin's burned arms and sweat-soaked clothing.

"Help me, Jongin. I can't do this anymore. Please, help me!"

"I will! Just tell me how. What can I do to make all this stop? Kyungsoo, please. I'm desperate!" Since the ceiling broke loose, the firestorm got fed enough to present itself in all of his tremendous intensity. Jongin couldn't understand his own words anymore, much less Kyungsoo's. But there was one shocking sentence he was able to read from his lips.

"Kill me."

The only thing Jongin could think about was to shook his head vigorously. He would never ever do such thing. They needed to escape from that fearsome place. And if Kyungsoo wasn't able to exit the dream, Jongin had to force a way out.

As he looked around the room hastily in search for a possible exit path, he caught sight of someone standing in the door beyond the wall of fire. He couldn't recognize who it was, but he clearly noticed a pair of ghastly white eyes swathed in an unreal cluster of shadows looking right at him. As it stepped into the room, it became one with the mighty fire, fanning the flame to get even more immense. Jongin protected Kyungsoo with his body. He felt the blistering heat scraping his skin unpleasantly.

The sandman couldn't believe his own eyes as the fire formed a vast face, hardly recognizable but identifiable. It spoke to him in his fire-crackling, deeply screeching voice.

"He… belongs… to me." Just as Jongin made a move to insist, he felt the fatal flames climbing up his legs and scorching his clothes at once, rabidly ripping and tearing at his skin and setting his whole body on fire.

He died. He could feel it. He never suffered such agony before. But the most painful was that he couldn't do anything to help Kyungsoo beside him. His death cry vibrated brutally in his head and he was forced to watch his skin melt.

(…)

He brushed a tear away and buried his face in his hands. He sat like this at the edge of Kyungsoo's bed for an uncertain time, until he sighed deeply and relieved that he woke up from the nightmare just in time. His fingers were still shaking and he couldn't get rid of those pictures, even though he tried so hard to forget.

Jongin shook his head in disbelief - he thought it was the only thing he could do recently. He eyed the calmly sleeping man next to him, who looked all harassed and sweaty. In this moment, he kind of envied him that he might had forgotten the dream the next morning.

"What is wrong with you? And why can't you tell me?" With every night, the questions bothering Jongin accumulated more and more - and his head was just about to explode.

In the same way, the firing ache of the absorbed nightmare viciously streaming in his veins got more and more severe with every night. Tonight, the sharp pain was unbearable for the weakened sandman and he collapsed on the ground, badly thumping his head down on the solid floor.

His head didn't stop spinning and he couldn't feel his arms or legs all of a sudden, his whole body felt numb and it scared him. The aggressively loud beeping sound droned in his mind and made him additionally deaf for quite a while. He never felt so helpless before, and he couldn't even cry for help.

Minute by minute he got better, until he could move his fingers and toes again and solely heard Kyungsoo's pleasing sleeping noises. He didn't know how many minutes he lied on the cold floor, thinking nothing but: "Fuck."

(…)


Fourth Night

"You didn't come back after you visited your sweetie-pie yesterday…?" Sehun insinuated and wiggled with his pretty eyebrows, supporting his tall skinny body against the bar counter and panting for every little sexy detail of Jongin's last night. Unfortunately, Jongin was absolutely not in the mood for his friend's annoying josh.

"I stayed." He simply answered in a low voice, not deigning to look at his daring friend, who walked on thin ice today but didn't think about giving up.

"Overnight? You plucky boy! So it's getting more serious, huh? Oh sweet lovey-dovey Jongin, who used to believe love only hurts and…" He started to imitate Jongin again but got immediately shut down.

"I said STOP IT!!" Jongin banged a flat hand energetically on the table, making the bartender cringe in surprise. Some present customers who overheard the sudden harsh sound turned their heads to the bar counter in amazement.

Not until he sensed the slowly increasing pain in his palm, Jongin realized what he just did and couldn't explain to himself why he did it.

"Relax, kitty cat. I'm sorry. I…"

"No, I'm sorry." Jongin sighed tiredly and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know what's gotten into me lately." Sehun noticed his miserable face and his tired eyes with worryingly dark circles under them.

"You look very haggard today. What's bugging you?" Jongin felt the other's refreshingly cold hand resting on his forehead all of a sudden. "You feel quite hot. I hope you don't catch a fever." He took the bartender's hand from his head and pushed it away.

"I tell you what's bugging me." Jongin took the newspaper he had stared at deep in thoughts earlier and slid it to the other side of the table, over to the bartender. Sehun took it and read it: Suburban one family house caught fire last night. The parents and their few month old daughter died in the flames. Sehun felt deepest sympathy, but didn't exactly know what Jongin meant. "He dreamt about it. Last night. He was there. I was there."

"That can't be."

"They found the parents' bodies in the kitchen, right?" Sehun skimmed the text before nodding hesitantly. "And the fire source was somewhere in the child's room, am I correct?" Sehun shook his head, not because Jongin was wrong, but he simply couldn't believe the things Jongin alleged were proofed to be absolutely correct. "We died in these flames, Sehun. I died in a dream."

"Okay, listen sweetheart, there is something very wrong. You're a sandman, you can't die, whether in dreams nor in reality, much less catching a cold or running a fever. Something's happening to you."

"This is not about me. It's about Kyungsoo. Something happens to him." Jongin focused on something randomly, which was the untouched milkshake Sehun had made him, from which he didn't even took a sip since he came to the diner.

"Okay, I'll come with you tonight."

"No, you don't need to. I'll get him out of there. He can't stay at the institution. This place does things to him." Sehun worried about his best friend. He eyed every detail of the other's exhausted face, from his messy brown hair to his slightly reddened lips he was constantly biting on, and down to his clenched fist with that peculiar pattern of veins. "Yesterday, I asked him to come to my place for dinner tonight. I need him to stay at mine. Just to make sure that he has nothing to do with those latest crimes."

"Are you afraid that he could sleepwalk while dreaming?"

"I don't know. But I'll make sure that nothing like this could happen."

"How? You can't chain him up…?" Jongin didn't answer and just looked blankly at his opponent. But Sehun noticed an oddly dark spark flashing in Jongin's gloomy eyes, that made him worry even more.

(…)

It knocked three times at the door. And as soon as Jongin opened, he looked in the brightly smiling face of Kyungsoo, who pulled one hand out of his coat's pocket to wave at him timidly.

"Hey. I hope I'm not too late."

"No, you're just right. Come in."

While preparing the dishes, Jongin kept his guest in the corner of his eyes, watching him taking off the coat and looking around Jongin's simply decorated one-room apartment. Kyungsoo didn't expect Jongin to have a preference for vintage furnishing - he always stroke him as one of these spunky rockabilly guys - but he truly appreciated the coziness and the conformability that radiated from the smallish apartment.

"Do you want to drink some wine?"

"Sure." Kyungsoo watched him pour the velvety ruby liquid in two glasses professionally, before his hungry eyes went up and down Jongin's well-toned body. He looked perfectly attractive in this simple black tee shirt and the skinny blue jeans. And the way he casually ran his fingers through his chestnut hair made his heart beat faster in eager anticipation of what was underneath those clothes.

They enjoyed the meal Jongin had prepared and one or two bottles of red wine, until the only thing they tasted was the other's slick tongue. Jongin drunk Kyungsoo's luscious lips like the most delicious wine, ardently feeling up his body like a valuable bottle. And he had just popped the cork.

Stripped down to just his underwear, Jongin threw fully undressed Kyungsoo on the bed. The lying grabbed eagerly for the other's underwear and the excited hard-on inside as he kneeled over him, admiring all of the glorious nakedness of the delicate body between his thighs. He waited for this beautiful view a long time. He waited for this skilful tongue to find its way down his belly, caressing his bulge to excitement and some arousing spots of his caramel skin, that were once covered by clothing.

With thirsty lips wrapped around him, he grasped a strand of Kyungsoo's black hair gruffly, urging the warm mouth to take in more of him.

"There are so many things I'd like to do to you." Kyungsoo moaned in response without keeping up the pace, until Jongin's firm grip forced him to look up to him. "But right now, there is just one thing I can think about."

A bunch of teasing later, Jongin took out a pair of handcuffs and manacled the eagerly aroused Kyungsoo one-handed to the bedpost. He loved the way the other played his little game along. He knew that Kyungsoo had a dirty mind, and little did he know how dirty it actually was.

"Tell me when it hurts."

"It's okay."

"I don't mean the manacles."

Watching the pinioned one squeezing his eyes shut and moaning obscenely the moment he angled his hips in search for the sweetest spot, triggered an inexpressible arousal flaming up inside Jongin's heated body like he had never experienced before. The intensity of that thrill surprised him, and he looked down at the sweaty body he pinned on the bed and that trembled on the brink of release.

Somehow - and he didn't know why - he felt almighty, like he could do anything to that vulnerable boy. He grasped Kyungsoo's chin firmly, sinking some fingers in his opened mouth at which the other started to suck hungrily, before tracing down his soft neck where he encompassed Kyungsoo's throat with his hands.

Time collapsed, and a familiar ticking resonated in his dazed mind, telling him to do it. So he clenched his spit slicked fingers and squeezed his throat slightly. However, in the moment Kyungsoo opened his lust filled eyes, the delightful shocks he sent down Jongin's spin brought him back to his senses.

"Don't stop now." Kyungsoo moaned and bucked his hips, inciting Jongin to plunge fully deep into him repeatedly. Every passionate thrust was more sinful than the last, climaxing both to pure ecstasy until Kyungsoo felt Jongin's sudden warmth filling him up, causing him to release white hot spurts on his own belly.

Jongin sank deep in one last time as he tried to reach the other's face to leave a sensual kiss on his swollen lips, before he finally let go of the exhausted body and untied him from the bedpost.

Dressed in Jongin's shirt only, Kyungsoo nestled up to him, inducing Jongin to put his arms around his still heated body and hold him tight and closely. He buried his face in his hair and let his fingers find their way from the other's hips up to the nape until they stroke his ear and temple fondly, which made Kyungsoo surprisingly sleepy. After placing a last kiss on Jongin's neck where he had snuggled his face into, Kyungsoo closed his feeble eyes and both slid away into the realm of dreams.

(…)

In his sleep, Jongin watched all the pictures he witnessed in the past few days passing by. All those dreamy colors he bathed in the night he met Kyungsoo, the greenish dusty book resting in his soft hands, the burning sky at sundown in the park and especially the beautiful sweating body quivering under every of his touches.

With every picture of a certain moment, all the emotions he experienced came back, making him smile in his sleep, until all the colorful moments gained momentum and flapped their wings like multicolored butterflies, agitatedly flying away and passing his mind's eyes one last time.

What was left was a strange feeling. An unpleasant one. He felt cold and lonely. Like he got lost somewhere, lying on the cold ground and being all forgotten.

As he intended to wrap himself up in the blanket, he suddenly noticed with dismay that he couldn't move his limbs. They were fixed and he stuck in motion. Something held him down to the bed he was lying in, trussing him up at arms and legs with invisible chains. With still sleepy motions, he tried to struggle against the unexpected captivity, wondering and slowly panicking as he awoke from the dream.

While still not being able to think clearly, he opened his weak eyes slowly and took a tired glimpse at his own wrists and ankles just to find them entangled by padded leather belts. Besides, he found himself not being in his apartment anymore, he was chained to a single bed, dressed in white clothes he didn't know, in an oppressively tiny room he was held captive in.

He awoke with a start, tearing at the strange cuffs clutching at him, more and more vigorously with every second he awoke.

Beyond the shine of the grimly pale light of the single lamp he was forced to look right into, he caught sight of two roundish lights lurking in the dark, over in the shadows. The sight of these white eyes triggered a memory he had hidden in the corner of his mind. He hold his breath and was about to scream for help as the eyes came towards him, but as they stepped into the bright light, Jongin looked right into a pair of light-reflecting round glasses of a young man he didn't know.

"Who are you?" He asked in confusion with a shaky voice. The stranger was draped in a white long coat and he approached him with a concerned face.

"Good morning, Jongin. How do you feel?" Jongin didn't understand. "The tranquilizer we had to give you were quite strong. They might have caused a little dizziness, disorientation and headache. So don't be afraid in case you show those symptoms."

"I… I don't understand. What's going on? Why am I in chains?"

"Don't you remember last night?"

"I'm not sure. Who… who are you?" The unknown man sighed and continued with quite a worried voice.

"I'm Doctor Kim Joonmyeon, you're authorized doctor. And you know that." Jongin shook his head - he didn't know him at all. "You know me since the day you came to us." As he took off his glasses and looked back at the immobilized man, Jongin indeed recognized something familiar in his reassuring smile. He remembered his eyes and his mild voice from past days he couldn't trace back.

"Doctor…" Jongin squeezed his eyes shut, trying hard to organize his thoughts. "Where is Kyungsoo?" Instead of an answer, the doctor gave him a sorrowful look, causing every so little alarm bell ringing in Jongin's head. "Where is he??"

"He didn't make it."

"What? What are you talking about? Where is he?!"

"You do not remember, don't you? You've killed him. We found you both on the rooftop last night. You were choking him to death. We… couldn't save him in time."

"Bullshit! That's a fucking lie! I would never do that!"

"I thought you liked him. You both seemed to get along quite well. Why did you do that?" Jongin was dying to cover his ears in this moment, shutting out all of that hooey the stranger tried to tell him, but a certain memory triggered him all of a sudden and he looked right into the hurtful light in front of him with blankly open eyes, until he felt a tear running down his temple.

"He… asked me to."

"I'm sure he didn't."

"He did. In his dream. At the dollhouse. He wanted me to make it stop. He didn't want to suffer anymore. I'm his sandman. It's my job to make him feel better." His voice broke at the end and he began to cry silently. He didn't know why, but his mind told him things he didn't want to hear, showing him memories of past events he was once sure he never had. The view of Kyungsoo's distressed face turning dangerously blue under his grasp came up and he shed bitter tears over what he did to the one he loved.

"You don't know your own mind."

"It's nearly a complete stranger right now."

"I once had great hope in you, Jongin. I was so sure with the lord's mercy we can get rid of your demons that causes all those blaspheming hallucinations and the schizophrenia you suffer from. You're not a sandman. And you've never been. Something like this doesn't exist. It's all in your head. You're sick, Jongin."

"I know who I am…"

"And who are you right now? Jongin or Sehun?" He thought about it, rummaging around his crowded mind until he was sure that he was Jongin in this moment.

"I'm Jongin. I think. I don't know. Why does my head tell me otherwise? It hurts. Please Doctor, make it stop."

"I tried very hard to help you. God knows I did." The doctor heaved a deep sigh. "But since last night, when you killed another patient, an innocent one, your dearest friend, I feel like I lost you."

Jongin's head couldn't stop from spinning and hurting, so he dropped back onto the pillow wearily. He overheard the soothing sound of the rain echoing through the metal-grilled window above the headboard, and some raindrops dripping melodiously on something solid in close area. Every drop resonated in his mind. Drip. Drop. Tick. Tock.

After a while of silence, it knocked at the door from the other side. After the third knock, Jongin eyed the massive metal door and suddenly became frightened as he caught sight of a huge shadow through the small window, that opened the loudly squeaking door and entered the room.

With cautious eyes and reddened big ears, the tall man looked around the small room he just entered in search for the doctor. Jongin thought hard about where he had seen him before, until the penny finally dropped.

"You!" The talking doctor and the nurse looked to the man on the bed. "You know me. You've met me when I visited Kyungsoo. You know who I am!" The addressed looked to the much shorter doctor, asking for permission to answer the patient, which got agreed from the authority with a single nod.

"Yes, you're Mister Kim Jongin. A patient I care for. For more than one year now." Jongin kept quiet, desperately mulling over the fact that he just addressed him with his full name, which he had never told anyone before.

"How…?"

"Doctor Kim, the police had arrived, they demand to speak the patient in person. They suspect him of being related to the latest local murders." Chanyeol whispered, but in a small room like this Jongin could hear him anyways. The doctor looked over at the utterly confused Jongin with a worried expression.

"Tell them, whatever he did, the patient is not responsible for his actions. He's mentally incompetent. I will certify him insane as soon as I return to my office."

"I'M NOT INSANE!" Both men didn't respond and kept on talking.

"How do we proceed further with him?"

"He's completely out of reality. I'm afraid this requires special treatment. Mister Park, please prepare the electroconvulsive therapy. We will start the shock treatment right away."

"What…?"Jongin couldn't believe what he just overheard. As he looked over to the communicating men, he found himself entranced in their serious gazes, that made his flesh crawl displeasingly. "No! You can't…!" He watched the tall approaching him with the equipment until he was so close that Jongin could grasp the other's wrist even though his own were chained, begging him to stop his current actions.

"I know what you dream about. I know you're in love with that one patient." Jongin claimed with a creepily distraught expression resting on his face. Chanyeol frowned while trying to get of the other's firm grip. "How do I know this when I'm not able to read people's dreams? How do I know you love Baekhyun when I'm not a sandman?!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jongin looked at him closely. The ignorance mirroring in Chanyeol's big brown eyes made Jongin suddenly realize something very important. Something he didn't notice earlier.

The moment Jongin let go of the nurse's arm, he noticed doctor Kim to be about to leave the room without saying another word.

"Doctor!" Jongin interrupted him, making him stop in the doorframe with his back facing the bed. "You will pay for this. As soon as I get out of here, I'll find you." The doctor didn't turn around, he waited a moment until Chanyeol finished attaching the therapy machine to the patient, before he closed the heavy door behind him.

"No! Stop! You can't do this!" Jongin convulsed his whole body brutally, desperately thrashing around to withstand the actions of the nurse, who had turned on the clattering machine and then applied a coldly slimy gel to his temples.

Just as he was about to scream and to tense every muscle painfully one last time before torturous shocks paralyzed his whole body, he felt nothing but a pleasant tickle around his temple area in the end. This funny tingling made him see stars in his mind's eyes, suddenly forming a night sky he was directly looking at.

He then realized that he had woken up and sat in the bed staring out of the window right at the beautiful starry sky. Was it just a dream? If yes, why was he in Kyungsoo's room at the asylum? Jongin didn't know, but he didn't question it.

As he got up from the bed, he noticed someone lying in the other near the door, blanketed partly by the bedcover. The moment he approached him, he felt something wet underneath his bare feet, and soon after noticed that the lying man didn't move, not even his chest lifted and lowered as usual. Close enough, he looked right into the static face of Baekhyun and the viciously gaping wound freely drawn on his bloody-red throat.

The sight of the dead body didn't irritate Jongin, instead, he sensed something solid resting in his own hand. As he looked down his arm, he recognized the blood-sodden kitchen knife he clenched. It fell loudly rattling to the ground as he opened his palm and dropped it, just to see it dip into the puddle of blood under his feet.

What did he do? Did he do it? No, he would never…

The door standing ajar and letting in the corridor's light caught his attention and he walked out to the hallways. Some lights flickered twitchily, almost fearfully due to the horrible tragedy they had to enlighten.

The corridor was painted with deep red pools of blood, spreading out like a crimson velvet carpet of dead bodies. And there was a cheerful song resounding in the distance, coming from one of the rooms down the corridor. On his way to that room, Jongin walked incuriously over bodies of patients and nurses he had seen before, but he didn't care and kept walking while leaving little red footprints wherever he went.

He came across a doctor's office where he found the playing phonograph and a wooden desk. With the song attuned a strange sound beyond the table, a soft whimpering, barely noticeable but Jongin identified it. The moment he got on his knees, he found a whining young man huddled underneath the desk.

"Kyungsoo?" The person flinched and tensed up, shaking in fear. "I was looking for you."

"Please, don't hurt me. Stop hurting me…" He begged with a shaking voice. Jongin couldn't see them but merely heard the tears running down his reddened face.

"It's just me."

"I know exactly who you are. And what you did!"

"Please, come out of there. I'm not gonna hurt you." Jongin reached out for him, but as his hand touched his shoulder slightly, Kyungsoo startled and jumped out of his hiding place. Facing his opponent at the other side of the desk, Jongin looked into the tearful face of Kyungsoo, whose chin was still shaking in fear.

"I didn't do this. You must believe me."

"I did! I believed you. Since the very first moment. You made me fall for you. And you promised me so much. You wanted to take me away from this place, did you forget? You said you'll take me to Wonderland. But you're liar!" He tore up again. "And a murderer! I know it was you. All these murders in the newspaper… and now here. Do you even realize how many people you have killed?!"

Seeing Jongin grinning shadily with his dark eyes hidden behind his bangs gave Kyungsoo a chill. He scared stiff as his opponent looked up and started to chuckle maliciously. Jongin pulled back one of the chairs opposite to the desk to casually flop down on it, with elbows loosely resting on the armrests.

"Well, you're good at it. I almost believed you." Jongin revealed while ruffling through his unkempt hair.

"What are you saying?"

"You almost fooled me, pretending to be Kyungsoo." The addressed frowned and shook his head in disbelief over the other's lunacy. "But you did one fatal mistake. It's Neverland, not Wonderland, fucker."

Kyungsoo scoffed spitefully. Jongin's vitriolic gaze rested on him, nearly burned on his skin like a fresh sunburn, until he couldn't bare the pressure anymore and lastly gave in. He finally took of his fake mask and moaned in annoyance as he rolled his big round eyes.

"Oh, fuck this childish stories. They're all the same. It's all about telling deluded brats about freaky places that don't exist. It's a fucking pacification told by adults to hide the fact that their kids go batshit crazy." Jongin felt a certain emotion setting itself on fire in his guts. An emotion he didn't feel for a very long time and not as much as he did in this moment. Hatred.

Kyungsoo noticed and delighted himself in the other's scornful gaze. He nearly sensed the smoke gushing out of Jongin's head, and inhaled all of the loathing, smoking it like a tasty cigarette.

Jongin watched the other taking place at the leathern office chair, sitting right in front of him at the other side of the desk, with crossed arms resting on the table and an atrociously mischievous smile on his face.

"You really hoped it wasn't me, didn't you?"

"I know Kyungsoo didn't do it. It's you, the one I'm talking to right now."

"But it is me. The real me. The true side this shitty nuthouse tried to oppress all the years. Didn't you figure it out yet? The nightmares are just a metaphor for the things I really did."

"Oh please, cut it out! Don't even try to convince me. I know you're not him. This is just one of Kyungsoo's nightmares. And it's you. The shadow." The moment Jongin gave voice to it, the walls around them collapsed and got consumed by dangerously perfect darkness. Still sitting in their chairs around the desk, Jongin watched a pair of shadow hands grasping Kyungsoo's shoulders gingerly, clutching his collarbones one by one with abominable spider-like fingers. But there was no person standing behind him - at least Jongin couldn't see anyone, but he sensed that something had raised behind him, building up high like a tower of flawless darkness.

"I told you he belongs to me." Kyungsoo's eerily smiling face got even more ghastly and malicious than before. He never believed Kyungsoo could look that monstrous.

"Kyungsoo, I know you're there. Please, talk to me." Jongin reached over the table to hold onto Kyungsoo's arm, looking worriedly and questioningly at his sinister eyes, that suddenly started to tremble under Jongin's endearing touch. "I know you recognize me. Please, remember who I am. And who you are." He tried to call upon the actual Kyungsoo whose body had been possessed.

"J-Jongin?"

"Yes love, it's me. Talk to me!"

"I…" His chin started to quiver again and his eyes welled up with tears. "I'm so alone. D-Don't have nobody to… call my own." Jongin knitted a brow while watching the other's edges of the stammering mouth tauntingly raising up again. "Please, turn on your magic beam. Mister Sandman, bring me a dream." Jongin dropped back in his chair with a sigh the moment he recognized the lyrics of a popular song the shadow had just recited. "Oh Sandy, why do you even keep on bothering coming here?"

"He needs me."

"Nah, he doesn't."

"I promised to protect him from you."

"Well, turds on that."

"You will regret this. I swear, I'll find you when I get out of here."

"You can't escape. And you can't save him. You can't even save yourself."

"What are you talking about?" As Jongin felt a cold grip around his wrists all of a sudden, he recognized that he was tightly manacled to the chair he was sitting at. "Let me go!" The other didn't answer and just got up from the seat to roam around the dark place. He walked around the table slowly and casually with an endless-seeming shadow following every of his steps. "This is just a dream, Kyungsoo. You can make him stop."

"It's a NIGHTMARE, sucker!!" The clamorous noise of Kyungsoo brutally kicking away the desk with just a single thrust gave Jongin a jump, and he watched it disappear in the dark, eaten by nothing. "I'm curious. When did you realize it was all just a nightmare and your brain didn't actually get roasted by electric shocks?"

"Baekhyun." Kyungsoo frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest while looking down on the sitting Jongin. "That imposter Chanyeol earlier, he truly didn't know who Baekhyun was. The real Chanyeol would damn know about him. He's been dreaming of their skinny love for month. But you can't know, because certain feelings like this, like affection, devotion, and love can only be found in pleasant dreams. They flourish in sweet dreams only to which nightmares don't have access to."

Kyungsoo rolled his black eyes without saying another word and kept circling the chair with the manacled man until he disappeared behind Jongin's back. The sandman sensed a deadly cold breeze biting his neck and a bestial snarl dangerously close to his ear. In this moment Jongin doubted it was still Kyungsoo behind him; he even doubted it was something human. Whatever it was, it made him shiver in fear.

"Well, but there is one very important question you didn't dare to answer yet." To his surprise, an unchanged Kyungsoo appeared in the corner of his eyes and strolled back into Jongin's field of view, looking at him squarely with vibrant dark eyes and a maniac smile. "Tell me, whose nightmare is it? His?" He pointed with both forefingers at himself. "Or yours?"

Just as Jongin thought about the option that it wasn't actually Kyungsoo's nightmare he was into, his chair got kicked away by Kyungsoo and tilted dangerously backwards until the weight of the chained man caused it to lose its footing at the invisible edge of a limitless abyss, in which he mercilessly fall down into.

Falling deep down into the darkest shade of nothing, Jongin screamed himself hoarse until nothing but a squeak came out of his lungs. The mighty fall gave him a shaking up tingling sensation that prickled under his skin, churning all of his guts and turning his whole inside upside down until there were no feelings left but a thrilling tingle in his stomach area.

Standing on the edge of the rooftop, with the frisky wind of the nighttime playing with his hair and his little toes clinging to the brink, Jongin felt indeed like he was floating in the air. As he was about to spread out his arms to fly away, he took a last glimpse and opened his eyes, just to look directly down to the busy and noisy main street dangerously deep below. The moment he held his breath and inhaled the cold autumn air with a jerk, he came back to all of his senses, just in time to waggle with his arms frantically to hold the balance. The way his heart beat alarmingly and painfully in his bare chest made him realize that he finally got back to reality.

As he looked around the star-lightened platform, he recognized it to be the rooftop terrace of his apartment building, at which he spent a lot of nightly drinking sessions with Sehun. But this time, he couldn't explain what he did there.

"How did I get here?"

"I made you." He heard a bittersweet voice resounding somewhere in his back. As he turned around, he looked in the dark brown and absent-looking blank eyes of Kyungsoo. He was still dressed in Jongin's black shirt, with nothing more but his underwear, standing almost motionless in front of him.

"Love, are you alright?"

"He is." He then realized it wasn't Kyungsoo's voice that echoed across the rooftop. He didn't even opened his mouth once. The ghostlike voice sounded distant but still so close; familiar but still unknown.

Illuminated by just the silent stars far above their heads, a strange person moved over in the darkness somewhere behind Kyungsoo. Jongin noticed him by catching a glimpse across his beloved's shoulder and watched him leaving the hiding veil of shadow.

As he stepped into the starlight, Jongin looked into a nearly cadaverous pale face of a young man, that was deformed by an unearthly smile and blemished with dead black eyes and abysmally dark circles. He almost didn't recognized him, but as the stranger approached and checked out half-naked Kyungsoo's backside bottom-first while licking his lips thirstily, he suddenly remembered. He had seen him once, probally a bunch of times at which he couldn't remember at this moment. But this face, less distorted and wicked but with a pair of round glasses resting on his nose, stuck in his memory.

"You. I've seen you at the asylum. You're not a doctor, I suppose."

"Busted!"

"Then why have you been there?"

"Oh, I never left." The dark person declared, exposing his gunky teeth flashing beyond his dreadful smile.

"Who are you?"

"I'm like you. Just the bad guy."

"You're a sandman?"

"I was. Until I found out it's way more fun to give nightmares instead of taking them. Now I'm so much more than just a dumb sandman. I'm the shadow creeping in your worst nightmares. The dark spot in the corner of your mind, that makes you do things you can never ever image outside of your dreams. I'm what you fear the most." The way he stood closely to Kyungsoo, who didn't even flinch just a single motion, made Jongin realize that he had been hypnotized. Even worse, as the nightmare reached out to Kyungsoo's ear with his nastily black-tinted hand to stroke his skin, he knew that his lover were completely controlled by him.

"You… you made him do it, right? You made him committing all these horrible murders."

"What a bright spark, Sandy!" The shadow's lustily snarling chuckle pricked in Jongin's ears, aching like raging flames. He watched him tracing his dirty hand down Kyungsoo's neck, over his spin and down to his bottom. "He is my favorite puppet. Just look at this squishy… face." He squeezed his butt cheek possessively, while firmly grabbing his chin, which immediately boiled up Jongin's blood furiously. He clenched his fists and teeth in raging anger, so much that his white knuckles heated up with sweet pain. "Who would ever suspect such a cute boy who isn't even aware of what he's doing? Locked away in a nuthouse, but with the remarkable talent of escaping his room whenever he feels like."

"Get your filthy hands of him!" The deadly pale face turned around to him in a flash. "You're a miserable liar. I've been with him all these nights. He never left the room."

"Neither did you. But here we are." The dark person let go of Kyungsoo and strolled around the rooftop casually with a constant smile resting on his seedy mouth. "I love dreams, I really do. Especially the part where you lose completely track of time. Five minutes in a dream can be like five hours in real-time. And it can happen so much within just five hours." He eyed Jongin across his shoulder, entrancing him in one of his impish grins. He sensed that Jongin bothered his head over the mischievous words he had stated. Did he just implied that he drugged Jongin with sleep? And hold him captive in Kyungsoo's nightmares until he returned from the killing sprees?

"You couldn't have done this. I'm a sandman! You can't manipulate my dreams."

"I AM YOUR DREAMS!" The nightmare's harsh snarling shout yanked at Jongin's already shaking legs, almost pulling the stone cold rug out from under his bare feet. "I am inside of you, little sandman. You absorbed me. You felt my poison filling your veins, penetrating your mind and polluting your thoughts. I know what you were thinking when you butt-fucked him. You wondered how your fingers feel around that fragile neck. How it feels to hear him choking and begging for mercy. You were dying to know how it feels to control a life." Jongin didn't say anything. He just listened. He listened closely. Every word of the other triggered him with thoughts and feelings he shouldn't have, accumulating to a pitch-black cloud of unpleasant emotions hotly scraping his inside and filling his lungs with its toxic fumes.

Jongin started to breath fitfully and his legs turned to jelly, almost bringing him down to his knees.

"You're weak. I fuck around with you since the very moment you laid an eye on that pretty tushie. And you didn't even last four nights. Boring. I already cracked you like the nut you are." Jongin looked around in confusion, shaking his head to get rid of the other's words resonating inside of it.

He felt like ripping his bothering clothes to pieces to cool down his suddenly heated up body and to breath freely again, but he didn't wear any but his underwear. As he looked down his body, he noticed the blood running thickly through his veins being abnormally black-tinted and throbbing painfully.

"What's happening to me?"

"Don't blame yourself for not realizing. I was like you once, back in the old days, prowling through the night to knead mushy brains. But after absorbing countless numbers of lunatic dreams of billions of hopeless mudheads, do you know what happens then? Did anybody tell you? No, I'm afraid nobody did. Let me wise you up, dumbass. This! This is what happens. You go bananas!"

"I'm not like you!"

"Just wait for it. Wait until you listen to the voices telling you to enjoy the nightmares stuck in your head. Until you play around with them and create your own. And when you feast on all the terror and agony you bring, you became the nightmare."

"Stop it! I will never be like you!"

"Look around you, Sandy." The dark one spun around with spread arms, letting his full-length dark coat dancing with the wind waving across the rooftop. "You're already playing the game. And boy, you're losing."

Something cold but nicely soft in both of his hands caught his attention, and as he followed his arm down to his palms, Jongin looked right into the weary face of Kyungsoo, who slowly awoke from the sleep-like trance he was bedeviled by. He gave Jongin a weak smile and opened his mouth a bit to emit nothing but a choked sound.

"No." Jongin couldn't move. Every little motion; every single thought made the grasp around the other's throat even tighter. He didn't have a chance to struggle against his own actions. He was no longer in control of his own body.

"You know you have to do it. At least a part of your mind does. Listen to the other side. You've seen in your dreams what will happen tonight. What he will do, if you don't stop him. He will kill his best friend and all the other loonies. It's gonna be a bloodbath!"

"You mean what you make him to do! I will make sure it won't get that far." The dark one didn't answer, he just chuckled creepily. Jongin didn't cease from looking at Kyungsoo's teary-eyed face, but he could clearly feel the nightmare's dark stare resting on him.

"If he won't do it, you will." He tried hard to push the memory of the knife resting warmly in his hand in the last nightmare aside, but it made itself clearer, with every second a little more.

"Kyungsoo, I'm so sorry. I can't save you…" He couldn't fight back the tears running down his cheeks any longer.

"It's okay. You're here. That's all that matters." The tears welling up in Jongin's eyes made him unable to see that Kyungsoo shed one tear for himself, but maintained his reassuring smile.

"This is how you suffer the most. When you're awake. Welcome to your worst nightmare, Mister Sandman."

The shadowy man focused on the couple that walked dangerously close to the edge. He didn't make Jongin, he did it all by himself, until Kyungsoo's heels exceeded the corner of the rooftop.

Jongin fought back the urge to press his hands together desperately, deciding winless struggles in his head against his own mind, until he finally realized that he didn't stand any chance.

Looking down at the beloved face of Kyungsoo with his trembling clover-shaped lips, standing on the edge of death in front of a beautiful background of a cloudless night sky while chilly breezes tousled his black hair and blustered underneath his shirt, Jongin ultimately gave in.

"I love you, Kyungsoo."

"I love you more." Despite a whiny chuckle, the tears in Jongin's eyes made the other's appearance completely blurry, and he could only sense his silhouette and the pleasant touch the moment he clenched his soft hands around Jongin's strained wrists. "Let go, Jongin. And let's fly away. Let's fly to Neverland."

Jongin cried. His chin trembled and he could barely talk. But he managed to reach out to Kyungsoo's lips. The kiss tickled in Kyungsoo's mouth, scaling slowly up his nose and forehead where it lastly warmed up his brain, and pleasuring his mind with Jongin's last pleasant dream.

The intensity of that kiss and the weight of Jongin leaning against him made Kyungsoo lose his balance and together they fell from the high building.

Jongin didn't let go of Kyungsoo during the fall and vise versa. The flashing light of the streets further down whirled around in Jongin's mind. He couldn't see anything but blinding lights of blue and pink furiously sparkling around and illumining the neon ocean arising from Kyungsoo's sweetest dream, in which he drowned at long last.

Embracing the mesmerizing purple-enlightened atmosphere of the dim lit bar he found himself in, he looked around the stormily dancing crowd in search for the one he had just lost track off.

He found him in a corner right next to the jukebox. As he approached the quite tiny figure from behind, their close faces mirrored in the glassy surface for a short moment. He didn't look at him as Jongin leaned against the white wall next to the music device, but he felt his curious smile resting on him.

"Anything special you want to listen to?" Kyungsoo's big brown eyes wandered around the song list. He still didn't give him a single side glance, but a subtle sheen of a smile rested on his lips.

"Surprise me." Their gazes met and both lost themselves in the other's endearing smile, being all frozen in time.

THE END.

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