Work Text:
Every night seems like a normal night until it isn’t.
Doyoung blinks himself awake and immediately feels something is off, something in the way the shadows curl over the walls. He can see his alarm clock on the nightstand, red numbers glowing faintly in the dark. It is 2 am.
He closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep but feels something in the room, something other than the weight of silence. He tries to roll over but suddenly feels a hand on his arm, solid and real.
Doyoung feels his body seize up, feels all his muscles tense as if to propel him out of bed and away from the intruder. But no matter how he wills it, he can’t move—his body feels heavy, and an unfamiliar weight spreads across his chest like a stone.
He’s sleeping on his side but he can hear the intruder breathing behind him, and after a moment he feels a finger gently touch his cheek. The intruder’s breath fans across his neck, cold as the winter wind. Doyoung closes his eyes and wants to say please leave me alone, please, I have nothing for you to take, but he can’t. His mouth feels cemented shut, his teeth all glued together. The breath recedes but there is still that disconcerting feeling of being watched, of someone observing him. A desperate plea lodges in his throat but he can say nothing, can’t move.
The weight on his chest vanishes and Doyoung bolts upright, a scream budding on his lips. He expects to see someone in a mask, an open window, an intruder with a gun who planned to rob him blind. He sees nothing.
His door is still closed, and the room is filled with inky nighttime shadow. The windows are all locked shut, from the inside, and the curtains do not flutter with movement. The entire room is dark and silent, and Doyoung is the only person there.
He looks at the clock. It is 2 am.
…
“You look tired,” Johnny observes the next morning as he passes his desk. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Doyoung says, typing at his computer. He doesn’t even look at Johnny. “I just had a really weird night."
“Wanna talk about it?”
“No,” Doyoung says. He looks at the stack of papers on his desk, then at the clock on the wall. “But what I would like to do is go and get something to eat.”
Doyoung is very good at pretending last night didn’t happen.
…
Whatever happened last night happens again the next night.
Before Doyoung finally rolls into bed he checks all the windows twice and makes sure the door is locked. He closes the curtains, and after examining his room to make sure he is wholly alone, he turns off the light and goes to sleep.
Doyoung sleeps like he usually does—like the dead. Dreams are fleeting and make no sense, and the world becomes a place he does not know. Usually, he sleeps until his alarm wakes him in the morning with its incessant beeping, but tonight he wakes up sometime between 2 and 3 in the morning, the moon bright outside his curtained window. Doyoung turns and glances around the room, and he is alone.
Pressure. Something unseen presses him to his bed and he feels a scream rise in his throat. He is alone, he knows he is alone but he feels arms snake around his waist, feels a foreign body press against him.
There is no one there , he tells himself, chanting the words over and over again in his head. There is no one there, there is no one there.
The arms tighten around him and Doyoung chokes down a sob that he cannot release. He is trapped inside the prison of his own body and he does not know how to escape.
I’m dreaming , he thinks desperately. This is all a dream. I’m dreaming.
There is a soft sound like a sigh and Doyoung feels a hand brush against his face. The touch is soft and would be almost comforting if Doyoung did not get the feeling that whatever was touching him was unnameable and horrifying.
Doyoung sees nothing but the windows and the wall and the bright mocking moon. His mouth feels dry, his skin too tight. Eventually, the arms retract themselves from around his waist and the room seems to darken. One moment, then another, and suddenly Doyoung is up and out of bed and screaming.
He’s alone. He’s been alone the entire time.
The moon watches and Doyoung knows he was not asleep.
…
“Is it...is it possible to dream while you’re awake?”
Johnny chews on his noodles thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so. There’s a name for it, too, but I can’t remember.” He looks at Doyoung. “Is that why you haven’t been sleeping well?”
Doyoung shrugs, but it's the truth. Last night he had stayed awake almost all night, trying to catch any glimpse of an intruder in his home. He had eventually fallen asleep on his couch, and when he had awakened some unseen person had a hand resting on his shoulder. Every night for the past week he has had to deal with some form of waking nightmare, and no matter what he does he can’t sleep.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” Johnny says, and his voice is worried. Of course he would be—he’s been Doyoung’s friend for almost ten years. “Like a doctor, or one of those sleep professionals. You look like you haven't slept properly in days.”
Doyoung picks at his noodles with his chopsticks. He’s not very hungry.
“I’ll do it this weekend,” Doyoung says. “Don’t worry about me.”
…
“I’m not going to sleep,” Doyoung announces to the empty room in front of him. His computer is open on his lap, a movie pulled up. “I’m not going to sleep, so don’t even think of trying something funny.”
The words have less venom and more fear than Doyoung intended. Music plays from his laptop and Doyoung sips at the black coffee sitting on his nightstand. He’s not going to sleep. He won’t.
Hours pass by with the aching crawl of time that does not want to move. Exhaustion sets into Doyoung’s limbs so he stands and paces around the room. The movie ends and he starts another, one with a jarring action plot so he doesn’t get bored and inadvertently fall asleep. He makes more coffee. He turns the volume up.
Sleep claws at him, tries to press his eyelids down, tries to spin him away into nothingness and Doyoung tries, he tries so hard not to fall asleep but he does. He’s on his second movie and what feels like his tenth cup of coffee when he finally slips under exhaustion’s control, his eyes too heavy to keep open. It is sometime between 2 and 3 in the morning.
Sleep is like bliss. True sleep, that time when Doyoung is oblivious to the world and the world to him. He is not afraid of sleep. He is afraid of what happens when he does.
The lights are all still on when he wakes. He blinks a couple of times, registering the odd angle of his head on his bed. The movie is still playing—he’s only slept for about an hour, and it has flown by faster than all those hours he spent forcing himself awake. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe nothing will happen tonight.
He tries to sit up but he feels a hand on the side of his head, holding him down. Panic runs through Doyoung like a wildfire and he realizes he can’t move, that his limbs are frozen in place.
He feels the hand run through his hair, brushing it away from his face. Doyoung closes his eyes and prays that this will end soon, that this neverending nightmare will be over just as soon as it began. The hand rests on his head, touch light.
“Did you sleep well, darling?” a voice says. It’s gentle and deep, foreign to him, and it seems to echo in Doyoung’s mind like a song. He can’t look up to see the owner of the voice, can only look at the white wall and the lamp and the movie playing on his laptop. He lets out a sound that must sound like a whimper but then doesn’t know if he made any sound at all.
“Are you tired?” the voice asks. “You must be tired, Doyoung.”
Doyoung can feel his eyes growing heavy but he feels betrayed by his body, by sleep itself. He feels heavy, like he is sinking.
“Sleep,” the voice says, hand resting on his cheek. “I’ll see you soon enough.”
Sleep. So far away yet so close. Doyoung tries to turn his head, tries to look at the owner of the hand rubbing circles along his cheek, but he cannot.
Sleep. The hand vanishes and Doyoung falls deep into the dreamless black.
…
“Sleep paralysis can be caused by many things,” the doctor says. He looks at a sheet of paper in front of him, uncapping his pen. “When did this start?”
“About two weeks ago,” Doyoung says. His hands are folded in his lap.
The doctor nods. “Did you have any change of sleep schedule before this started? Any unusual amount of stress?”
“Not that I can think of,” Doyoung says, and he has to force the words out. Exhaustion has become his constant companion, clutching at him all hours of the day. He remembers looking in the mirror this morning and trying to rub away the dark marks under his eyes, only to realize that he could not.
Sleep. To sleep without dreaming, to dream without waking, to sleep without being afraid.
“We can have you come next week to do a sleep study,” the doctor says. “Just to make sure nothing is wrong. But sleep paralysis is fairly common, so I’m not very worried.”
Doyoung thinks he hears faint laughter in the distance.
…
Doyoung goes to the sleep study the next week and lies patiently as the doctor tapes electrodes to his forehead and tells him softly that they are going to measure his brain waves as he sleeps. He listens, detached, and when the technician leaves the room he shifts a little, eyes tracing patterns on the ceiling. He feels like a bug under a microscope.
The room is dark and sleep comes gradually and calmly, like waves to the shore.
…
There is a voice in the darkness, and it is familiar.
Doyoung knows that this is a dream right away. It is hazy in a way that only dreams are—the edges fade in and out of his vision, and the voice that echoes towards him is too clear to be real.
You don’t want to see me, the voice says, and it bleeds with mock sadness.
Please leave me alone , Doyoung responds. For once he is not bound by the constraints of his traitorous body. The words are watery and fading but at least he is not chained to silence . Please.
But Doyoung, the voice responds, a shadowy figure coming into view. Won’t you miss me? I can’t leave you, darling.
The figure does not have edges, it does not have form. Doyoung can only make out bits and pieces of what is standing before him, can only catch it in glimpses. A sharp smile. Pale skin. Light, golden hair.
The figure has hungry eyes, the force of them burning into him. It looks at Doyoung like he is its next meal.
Doyoung stumbles back but still he feels a hand on his face, palm soft and cold against his cheek. It is familiar, too familiar, and Doyoung can feel a scream rise in his throat.
Don’t be afraid, darling. I would never hurt you. You’re too important for that.
What do you want? Doyoung yells, pleads, into the murky void between them. What do you want?
The figure laughs, and suddenly its hand is burning cold into his skin. Doyoung screams but he cannot move away, pries at the hand touching him but can’t quite grasp it. Pain comes in waves, the void around them sparking with white light. Doyoung sees something terrifying, but he does not know what it is.
The figure steps away and Doyoung falls to his knees, gasping. He curls into himself, arms around his knees as his chest heaves. The figure looks down at him.
Oh, Doyoung , the figure breathes, its voice light. All I’ve ever wanted is you.
…
“We’ve found nothing unusual in the results of your study,” the doctor says over the phone. Doyoung listens with an almost numbing calm as the doctor lists how normal his heart rate was, his breathing, his sleep pattern. His skin feels cold as he thanks the doctor and hangs up. He thinks he feels a hand on his shoulder, fingers digging into the gap between his bones.
Darling, a voice says in the distant corners of his mind. Darling.
…
Doyoung wakes up and it is 2 am. The red numbers on the clock seem to mock him, seem to laugh. He feels a hand brushing through his hair and he wants to cry. His eyes burn as he looks upward into the dark.
“Darling.” The voice is almost musical. “How are you?”
Doyoung tries to cry out but all he can manage is a harsh exhale in his throat.
What are you, he thinks. Why are you doing this to me?
A face comes into view, one with delicate features and wide honey-colored eyes. The face smiles at him, teeth bright and blond hair spilling over its eyes. He pats Doyoung’s head affectionately, leaning over him.
“I’m Jungwoo.” He smiles again, and his smile is a shade crueler than a smile should be.
Darkness crowds in on Doyoung’s vision, shadows swirling over the walls and through Jungwoo’s smile.
I’m dreaming. Doyoung closes his eyes. I am dreaming.
Jungwoo laughs, and then he is gone.
…
Day bleeds into night and night bleeds into sleepless terrors, into hands on his cheek and pressure that never goes away.
Don’t hurt me, Doyoung thinks one night. Please.
“I won’t,” Jungwoo says. His fingers are soft, rubbing circles into the skin at Doyoung’s shoulder. “I would never hurt you, Doyoung.”
Doyoung closes his eyes and feels a gentle brush of lips on his forehead, feels a pull in his chest. He wants to scream but there is a hand resting on his chest, a weight, a presence, and it will not let him go.
Jungwoo drifts his hands through Doyoung’s hair, humming. Doyoung closes his eyes and he knows this isn't real. He knows. But he is still terrified that he might not be dreaming. That this nightmare that calls itself Jungwoo may be a real phantom, one that will plague him every night until he ceases to exist. Jungwoo, no matter how fair or lovely he may seem to be, is still a nightmare to him. An illusion. Unreal.
Sometime in the moments between being awake and being afraid, Doyoung falls asleep. He falls asleep with Jungwoo’s mouth on his forehead whispering words he does not understand, hands digging into the soft spaces between his ribs. He falls asleep and the world is black nothingness. No light, no dreams.
When Doyoung wakes he isn’t thinking about his nightmares. He is only thinking about the day ahead, about the emails piling up in his inbox and the papers piling up on his desk. He makes coffee and peels off his shirt to get dressed. Something catches his eye in the mirror, like a dark splotch on his ribs. He turns to get a better look.
A heartbeat, and finally Doyoung realizes what he’s seeing.
It’s a handprint, bruised into his ribs.
…
“Johnny, it wasn't a dream this time,” Doyoung whispers over the phone. He doesn’t have to whisper, there’s no one in his apartment but him and he’s taken the day off of work.
But Doyoung can’t shake the feeling of being watched, of eyes tracing all his movements. He can feel them on him as he paces around the room, clutching his phone to his ear as if it might be ripped away from him.
“It had to be,” Johnny says, voice grainy through the phone. “Didn’t the doctor say that the hallucinations were, like... common?”
“You don’t understand,” Doyoung hisses. “There was someone here this time. It was real .”
“What makes you so sure?” Johnny asks. Doyoung pauses, hand resting over the dark print on his ribs. He can feel eyes watching him.
“I know,” he says. “I just know .”
…
“Are you scared of me?” Jungwoo asks, blond hair falling over his eyes. He has a hand resting on Doyoung’s forehead and all Doyoung can do is stare at him, unmoving and afraid.
Yes , Doyoung thinks. There are no barriers in his mind. I’m terrified of you.
Jungwoo frowns slightly, brushing a finger across Doyoung’s cheek. “Is it because I come to you like this? Does this scare you?”
Doyoung squeezes his eyes shut. Yes.
“What if it was different?” Jungwoo says, more to himself than to Doyoung. “What if we didn’t meet like this?”
Let me go , Doyoung thinks, eyes still closed, his entire body tense. Just let me go.
He can hear the smile in Jungwoo’s voice when he responds. “Never, my love.”
...
This is a dream.
Doyoung turns in a slow circle, watching the shifting black walls around him writhe in the dim, otherworldly light of the dream. The floor beneath him is covered in dense black fog, so thick that he cannot see his feet. He looks up and sees a figure with soft eyes and golden hair, smile sharp as nails.
"Doyoung," Jungwoo says reverentially, reaching out to touch him. "My darling."
Fear is an ever-present stone in his stomach whenever Jungwoo speaks to him. His skin burns where Jungwoo pulls him into an embrace, hands soft.
Doyoung tears himself away. At least in a dream he is only confined by the limits of his mind and not his body. He moves to run and finds that as much as he wants to, he cannot. A strangled scream rises up in his throat and he cries out into the darkness. He feels a hand on his shoulder, then feels cool breath misting across his cheek.
"Are you unhappy to see me?" Jungwoo asks, pouting.
"I don't know what you are," Doyoung hisses. "I don't want to see you ever."
"You don't have a choice, darling," Jungwoo says dryly, eyes sparking with some frightening emotion. Doyoung takes a step back.
"Why me?" He pleads to Jungwoo, voice hazy in the dark. " Why?"
"Why not?"
Doyoung swings at Jungwoo, the movement graceless and unpracticed. Jungwoo vanishes before his fist connects and he stumbles into the dark fog. It tastes like ash on his tongue, grainy and bitter. He feels strong hands pull him up, hears a softly mocking voice.
"Darling," Jungwoo says jokingly, hands wrapped in the collar of Doyoung's shirt. "I think you missed."
Doyoung pushes him back and Jungwoo releases him with little resistance. Doyoung feels like a mouse in an elaborate mousetrap, with only the feeling of freedom and nothing else. He can't wake up, can't startle himself away. He only stops dreaming when Jungwoo lets him. Until then he is just a mouse, and Jungwoo is the cat that has him in its sights.
He tries to punch Jungwoo again but this time he catches his fist in his hand, his grip like an iron vise around Doyoung's knuckles. Doyoung hisses in pain but Jungwoo doesn't let go, his grip only tightening until Doyoung is whimpering and trying to pull his hand away, other hand pulling at Jungwoo's arm. Jungwoo's eyes are inhuman in their blankness.
"Darling," he says. "You don't want to fight me."
He lets go of Doyoung's hand and Doyoung falls to his knees, clutching his fingers to his chest.
"I want to leave !" He yells, voice echoing. "I want you to leave me alone !"
The dream shifts and then becomes jagged, the walls full of spikes that jut out into the space between them, so close to Doyoung that he can barely move. The room becomes nothing but bright white light, glaring to the eye. Doyoung blinks rapidly, squinting, and in the brief moment of sight he sees something terrifying standing in front of him, something with red eyes and a grin that stretches across its face. He sees horns and black veins and smoke and then the room darkens, returning to black nothingness.
He squints. The only thing standing in front of him is Jungwoo.
"You want me to leave you alone?" He says, and his voice is dangerous. He steps through the spikes to where Doyoung stands, trapped, and reaches out to press a finger against Doyoung's mouth. "You want me to leave?"
Doyoung doesn't open his mouth but he feels hatred burning through his veins, a sharp contrast to the cool of Jungwoo's fingers. The answer is yes. It is always yes.
"You have to make me leave," Jungwoo says, voice dropping into something silken and seductive. His thumb dips between Doyoung's lips and Jungwoo looks at him, eyes heavy with intent. "You have to give something up."
"What?" Doyoung asks, voice a hush. Jungwoo draws circles on his cheek with his fingers.
"You have to give me something," Jungwoo says, softer this time, eyes raking over his face. His gaze is honey-colored and bottomless, an abyss in his pupils.
"No," Doyoung murmurs. He doesn't know what Jungwoo wants, doesn't know what he's talking about, but he does know he will not give in. " No ."
Jungwoo grins. "Do you think you have a choice, darling? Do you?"
He vanishes and laughter fills the dream, reverberating off the walls and into Doyoung's chest.
Do you? Do you? Do you?
When Doyoung finally jerks awake, his hand is bruised purple and his mouth is dry. He looks at the clock. It is 2 am.
…
The dreams do not stop. Jungwoo does not leave.
Doyoung spends each night gripping his sheets and trying to stay awake but sleep gets him eventually, always pulls him under into Jungwoo's otherworldly embrace. It is a cage he lives in 8 hours a day, from sunset to sunrise, something he cannot prevent or avoid.
Jungwoo wants him for something, but he doesn’t know what. There’s a secret in the adoring touch of Jungwoo’s hands, in his soft appearance. He meets Doyoung in the prison of his dreams now, very rarely coming to him the way he did before. It's a small mercy that Doyoung does not have to feel frozen, awake but not. Now he knows he is dreaming.
That is the only thing he knows.
Every night, between soft murmurs of a silken voice and hands that burn on Doyoung’s throat, Jungwoo tells him he must give him something. He doesn’t say what.
“Make this real,” Jungwoo whispers in his ear. “We could be together.”
“I don’t want to be with you,” Doyoung replies, the words a rehashed variation of what he says every night. “I don't want you at all.”
The dream ends. It is 2 am.
…
“You really need to take some time off work,” Johnny says. “Take a vacation or something. You really don’t look well.”
“I’m fine,” Doyoung says, sluggishly waving his hand. “I’m fine.”
“No you’re not,” Johnny says, pulling the paper Doyoung is staring at away from him. “Have you slept at all lately?”
“Oh, I sleep alright,” Doyoung says, and he feels the urge to laugh. “I sleep well every night.”
“Please,” Johnny says. “Take a break. You’re running yourself into the ground.”
“I know,” Doyoung says tiredly. He says nothing else.
…
“Tell me what you want,” Doyoung says, standing in the murky fog of a forest that does not exist. He can hear Jungwoo laughing in the trees, an illusory phantom.
“Really?” Jungwoo says, face coming into view as he peeks around a gnarled tree. “You really want me to tell you?”
“Yes.” Doyoung grits his teeth as Jungwoo walks closer, footsteps light on the foggy, invisible ground.
“I just want a kiss.” Jungwoo says, holding up a finger. “That’s all. One good kiss.”
It’s a trick, Doyoung mind screams. It’s a trap. He will never be satisfied.
“Don’t lie to me,” Doyoung says, mouth set in a grim line. “Tell me what you really want, coward.”
Jungwoo laughs and vanishes among the murky trees, each foggier and less real than the one before. Doyoung can hear his voice calling him from beyond the trees, a soft voice that says darling, darling, darling.
"Oh Doyoung," Jungwoo says, suddenly standing right in front of him with his nose inches away from Doyoung's. "What I really want is your soul ."
Doyoung tries to step back but Jungwoo grabs his wrists, eyes terrifying in their serenity. "I want your soul, Doyoung. I have always wanted it. Do you know what a soul tastes like?" Jungwoo licks his lips slowly, eyes eating Doyoung alive.
Doyoung shakes his head, dream forest becoming less solid around them. Jungwoo's eyes light up.
"It tastes like dessert," he says. "It tastes like the finest icing on the richest cake you could ever have. It tastes like a meal that you think about for days. It tastes like the first sip of water you take after 100 days in the dry, dry desert." Jungwoo is smiling wide, evil bubbling to the surface of his features. "That's what you'll taste like, when I devour you."
Doyoung can only stare at him, heart thumping in his chest. He wants to wake up but he can't, wants to be as far away as possible from whatever Jungwoo is.
"I want your soul," Jungwoo mouths quietly, voice dripping with hunger.
"My soul?" Doyoung finds the space between his fear to laugh. "Is that it?"
"That's it." Jungwoo lets go of Doyoung's wrists and rubs his face with his thumbs. "But then again, any soul will do."
Doyoung frowns, watches Jungwoo's hungry eyes, pulse beating like a broken drum.
"Any soul?" He whispers. "Not just mine?"
"A soul is a soul is a soul," Jungwoo says nonchalantly. "Yours would be nice but you put up such a fight. So much trouble."
This is a trap. All things involving Jungwoo are a trap.
"I can give you a soul that isn't mine...and you'll leave me alone? You'll leave forever?"
“It can’t just be any soul,” Jungwoo says, and his voice is a low purr. “It has to be a soul that means something to you.” Jungwoo touches his arms, fingers trailing over his skin. “That's what makes it good .”
Doyoung isn’t thinking about the consequences. He is thinking about a night where he can sleep without fear, without dreaming or waking. He is thinking about the comforting feeling of complete oblivion.
“You’ll leave,” he whispers.
"What else would I do?" Jungwoo says, and Doyoung knows that he is playing right into his trap. How could he give away someone else's soul to Jungwoo? Jungwoo, with his sharp teeth and hungry eyes. His beautiful face and bruising hands.
Monsters betray. That's what monsters do.
Doyoung looks Jungwoo dead in the eye and extends his hand towards him. Jungwoo's hand is unbearably hot in his.
"I'll do it," he says, and he feels he has already given up his soul. Jungwoo smiles at him. "I'll do it."
…
"Johnny?" Doyoung says, watching the other man spill coffee all over his papers. "Are you good?"
"I'm fine," Johnny says, wiping at the desk mechanically with a napkin. "I'm just tired."
Doyoung nods but he thinks he sees a familiar figure standing behind Johnny, beautiful and sharp. The figure curls its hand around Johnny's shoulder, pressing into the fabric of Johnny's shirt. It seems solid, almost real. It is no longer just a dream.
Jungwoo grins at Doyoung, eyes swirling red and gold, his teeth sharper than before. His mouth drips with vapor, an inky gold and white that he licks off his fingers. Doyoung notices the dark circles beneath Johnny's eyes, the wrinkles in his shirt.
He nods at Jungwoo who nods back, eyes gleaming. Jungwoo vanishes and Johnny absentmindedly rubs at his shoulder, smoothing out the crease in his shirt.
"Try to sleep," Doyoung says soothingly, even as he hears a soft voice laughing in the distance. "You need to rest."
He hears a voice whisper darling, darling, darling, and as he watches Johnny squeeze his eyes shut with exhaustion he does not allow himself to feel remorse. He looks at his computer, away from Johnny, away from Jungwoo's terrifying smile.
It's just a soul, he thinks. That's all .
A voice that isn't his echoes in his head, laughing. That's right, darling. Just a soul.