Work Text:
Intricacy of Being - Saeyoung
Saeyoung wakes up with a rapidly beating heart and a body drenched in cold sweat. He sits up immediately, a hand clasped over his chest, with lungs trying to remember how to breathe. A feeling of phantom hands linger on his skin, as it itches down to his very core. He tries to blink himself awake, golden eyes hazy and unseeing without his glasses’ help.
In. Out. Hold. In. Out. Hold.
He tries to reign in the thoughts that sit at the edge of his mind, tries to ignore the panic that tries to rise in his throat, but all this he found in vain when he turns to his side and feel that she wasn’t there.
“MC?” he whispers. knowing it comes out as broken, strained, afraid. When he hears no response, he fumbles for his glasses on his bedside table and forces the lights open with an angry hand.
The space beside him is empty.
The space beside him is empty.
Saeyoung feels phantom hands on his skin, hears phantom screams in his head, and before he could think twice, he runs to his worktable, hands flying over his laptop, opening every single cctv he had inside his bunker. Luciel’s eyes dart at every screen, desperate and afraid, that he almost reaches for the gun in his locked drawer, his mind screaming “they have her, they have her, they have her and this is your fault—“ but then he catches someone moving in the kitchen. He pauses, a heavy feeling in his chest; he waits, cold sweat dripping down his back; and he is afraid, because every second wasted watching this silhouette move is another second made that could’ve saved you. He waits, desperate, hoping that the silhouette belongs to her. But it disappears at a corner that the cctv cannot reach, something that she begged Luciel to add, something that he now regrets relenting to. So now he reaches for the gun, muscles tensing and angry, and he dashes out the door, careful not to slam it so as not to make a sound.
Luciel always hated his trainings.
Hated it to it’s very core.
And he hated how he had to use it against his brother.
And he hated how he has to use it if it means to saving her.
So he walks slowly, each step calculated, his ears straining to hear.
He hears rustling in the kitchen and he moves, his mind awake and aware, his gun at the ready.
Ten steps…
seven steps…
four steps…
three…
two…
one.
He hides in the corner, body close to the ground. He turns a little, eyes zooming in to the direction of the noise, and he almost relaxes when he sees you.
Even with her back turned to him, there’s no mistaking the brown hair that he loves getting his hands tangled in, nor the lean shoulders where he loves to rest his head. There’s no mistaking the swaying movements of the hands that are preparing tea, now that he pauses to smell it, and the way it swiftly yet beautifully moves like a dance to no sound. There’s no mistaking the quiet humming that comes from the lips he loves to kiss, nor the song she always sings when she couldn’t sleep. And there’s no denying the eyes that turn to him in surprise as she spins around to reach their dining table.
“Sae—“
She doesn’t get to finish his name as he closes the gap between them, arms immediately wrapping around the one who had kept him anchored when he threads on deep water. He breathes in her scent, relishes on the way her body feels against his, and revels in the warmth that she exudes. MC doesn’t hesitate to return his embrace.
“Saeyoung, what’s wrong?” she asks in a quiet voice, very much used to his nightmares, yet always open for him to speak.
“It’s nothing,” Luciel answers back, quiet and cold and terribly afraid.
MC doesn’t comment on it, only squeezing him tighter as slim fingers go through red hair. “Would you like some tea?” she asks instead.
“Do we have Dr. Pepper?” he says, his own arms answering hers.
“It’s too early for that, Sae. Try asking again in five hours or so,” she chides him. The fingers on his hair doesn’t stop as the hand on his back began rubbing soothing circles. It’s when he feels her head lean into his shoulder that he begins to relax. “Would you like something else?”
“I want you safe,” Luciel says.
“I am safe.”
His dream touches the edge of his consciousness again and if he hugs a little tighter, MC doesn’t mention it.
"I want you well."
"I am well."
"I don't want you in any more danger because of me."
A light laugh escapes her lips.
"I've said this before and I'll say it again, whether it's a hacker or a bomb, I'll stay with you."
"But I'm dangerous," Luciel answers back, his voice almost begging her to understand as he tried to keep her close.
"And you're also so much more," she says. "You are kind, and sweet, and loving. You are smart and talented. For the life of all that is good, you are a terrible cook. And you have an unhealthy obsession with Honey Buddha Chips and Dr. Pepper. You are a prankster and one day Yoosung is going to kick you out of his house for it. You are a cat abuser and although I understand Jumin for keeping you out, I know. you mean no harm. You are helpful and good and even though it doesn't help Zen's narcissism, I know it helps his fame. And even if you stress Jaehee to the bone, I know that you'd fly in and save her from work again when she needs it. I know you. And you being dangerous is just another part of you. And that's okay."
And if his eyes start to feel a little wet, or MC's shoulder suddenly feels damp, none of them comments on it as they stay frozen in that moment of peace. And they stay like that, just standing close together, anchoring one another, in the dead of the night with only MC's quiet humming to fill in the silence.
“I’m safe,” MC repeats again, as soft as a whisper yet as strong as promise. “And I have you. And you have me. And we are as safe as we can be.”
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah.” And he pushes down that little thought that still nags at his brain, still angry and smashing and just a little bit terrified that all of this is just a dream, or a nightmare, or a reality that will be ripped away from him - that he is a danger, not only to RFA or to himself, but even to MC. He tries to ignore all of those thought and latch on the words that MC tells him. Because this is MC and MC never lies.
And when MC pulls away a little, he fights the urge to stop her.
“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks, hands reaching out to cup his face. He leans in to her touch immediately, his fear softening at the sight of her kind yet confident eyes.
He knows he will never get rid of that fear, knows that he’ll always wake up to nightmares that threaten to take her away, and knows that one day his nightmares could be real. But for now, in the quiet of their bunker’s kitchen, with her hands on his cheeks and his hand on hers, with his lips at the inside of her palm, a soft kiss making it’s way to her skin, he allows himself to be vulnerable, to be weak, to be human.
And Saeyoung smiles.
“I would love a Dr. Pepper please.”