Chapter Text
It’d been bothering him all week long. It was normal for Khun not to sleep at night. He’d spend time plotting and putting together the next idea of what the team needed to do in order to move on to the next floor. However, this was the first time he was seeing hallucinations.
At first, he didn’t think anything of it. Simply considered it a trick of the eyes one time and that it wasn’t something to worry about. After all, weirder things had happened to him while climbing the tower.
This particular night, Khun sat up on his bed, typing away on his lighthouse, gathering intel on their next move to go to the 54th floor. It’d been barely a week since he and a handful of others had vied for Baam’s “hand in marriage.” To which - none of them won. It was an outrageous thing for Traumerei to put together anyway and quite childish in Khun’s eyes.
Forcing Baam to marry someone? What a joke. No one had any control over the irregular. So, it didn’t come as a surprise to Khun when the family leader of the Lo Po Bia family couldn’t control him either.
After slaving over his research and planning for what felt like ages, Khun rubbed his eyes, willing them to stay open and concentrate on the screen just a little longer. As he blinked away the dreariness, his eyes fell upon the dragon he’d been seeing off and on that whole week.
Khun stared at the beast, surprised in such a way that he was simultaneously unsurprised . It had a slender head, sharp eyes, and long whiskers that framed its long body. Khun had never seen a dragon before, but from some of his previous research he assumed that this must be one.
Why was he imagining this? What was the dragon there for? Was his subconscious trying to tell him something?
Shaking his head, he went back to focusing on the documents in front of him on the screen. Trying to convince himself that if he didn’t pay it any attention that maybe it’d evaporate and he could go back to working without his mind playing tricks on him.
A few more hours passed in the stillness of the night before there was a gentle rasp against Khun’s bedroom door. Muffled through the wood, he could barely make out, “Khun, can I come in?”
Baam, he sighed. The wave controller had been struggling to sleep since Khun had awoken from his coma. If he gave it too much thought, it made Khun’s heart ache. He hated seeing Baam suffering more than he already did, especially in a way that Khun could not directly fix.
He pushed his lighthouse away from him before crossing the floor to open his bedroom door. On the other side of the threshold stood a very worn-looking Baam with bags under his eyes that were too dark for Khun’s liking. The irregular was starting to look like him before applying makeup in the morning.
After looking Baam over from head to toe, Khun stepped aside and gestured for the other man to come inside. Once Baam had crossed towards Khun’s bed, the light bearer closed the door behind them and watched as Baam plopped down on Khun’s crumpled sheets.
“Nightmares?” Khun asked.
Staring at the ceiling, Baam nodded his head and sighed. Khun hated to see him like this, but what could he do? There were things happening in Baam’s subconscious that Khun innately knew that he couldn’t help with. The most he could do was continue planning and strategizing in a way that brought Baam a bit more peace in the waking world.
“Can I sleep here tonight?”
The question Baam asked was innocent enough, but Khun didn't exactly want him to witness Khun’s own lack of sleep. But how could he tell Baam “no?” He couldn’t. So, he sighed as he walked over and plopped down on the edge of the bed.
Khun felt the mattress shift beside him, which lured him into looking over his shoulder to see Baam on his side on the other side of the bed. He had one hand out in invitation for Khun to lay down beside him.
Shaking his head, Khun chuckled, “Get some rest. I’m going to finish what I was working on and then I’ll join you.”
Baam pouted at that, but Khun reassured him that he would indeed sleep beside Baam that night. He wouldn’t go back on his word. Baam deflated a little, but eventually got comfortable on his side of the bed and slowly drifted off.
Khun kept taking peeks away from his lighthouse to see Baam’s eyes fluttering as if he was trying to stay awake until Khun would join him.
It was sweet the way Baam always seemed to wait for Khun. It was as if the irregular was always looking for him. The thought of it made Khun chuckle as he watched Baam lose the fight to stay awake.
When Khun was certain that Baam had truly drifted off, he lightly brushed the loose bangs aside that had fallen in front of Baam’s face. He smiled when the soft face was revealed to him once again. He looked so peaceful asleep on Khun’s bed. In fact, Khun was so entranced by Baam’s calm state that he didn’t even realize when the dragon had appeared again.
“Ehem,” it cleared its throat. “It's quite frustrating to be overpowered even while he is asleep.”
Khun ignored the apparition.
“He looks so weak, yet I can feel a vast darkness inside him,” it hissed.
Khun disregarded the dragon once again and instead focused on lightly running his fingers through soft brown locks.
“Aren’t you scared of him?” The dragon taunted.
Khun remained silent.
“Hey. Can you hear me? You’ve acknowledged me off and on all week. Suddenly, as soon as he’s here you ignore my presence?”
“Because you’re not real,” Khun snapped.
Slithering up beside Khun, the dragon challenged him, “Wanna guess again?” It sneered.
He stared down the creature as it locked eyes with him. Neither one willing to budge. This was ridiculous. It was clearly a hallucination. Khun was arguing with a hallucination. It was stupid.
Khun rolled his eyes and began to chastise the dragon for being a trick of his mind and not leaving him alone to work the entire week. In the middle of him lecturing the hallucination, Baam stirred, “Who are you talking to?”
He rubbed his eyes before looking at Khun and then back at the dragon.
He looked at the dragon. Baam clearly looked at the dragon. “Are you talking to the Leviathan?”
Whipping his head around to look at Baam, Khun practically shrieked, “The Leviathan?!”