#wenreneArtTober Prompt : sleep

***

The sensation hits her like a freight train.

It violently jerks her out of slumber and rips her eyelids open, chest heaving and lungs gasping for air as her heart pounds against her ribcage.

A shadow looms over her vision and a piercing scream dangles on the tip of her tongue, but the sudden touch against her cheeks calms her senses immediately.

"Joohyun?"

The voice was barely a whisper and there was no mistaking the underlying worry laced in the tone, but Joohyun was too focused on the gentle brush of Seungwan's thumb across her cheekbones. She leans into the touch, the easing the stiffness of her body as she blinked away the remnants of her dream.

"Bad dream," she whispers before Seungwan has a chance to ask. Her voice quivers and Joohyun presses a hand to her chest to still her rapidly beating heart.

Seungwan doesn't say anything and Joohyun senses that the younger woman must have been waiting until she was ready. Seungwan's considerate like that. But even in the darkness, there was no denying the waves of concern emanating off of her. It takes a moment before Seungwan lays back down again, pulling Joohyun close and tucking her into an embrace without question as they attempt to lull back to sleep.

She greedily inhales the younger woman's scent and it calms her frazzled mind. She doesn't understand how Seungwan does it. Doesn't understand how a mere touch has the power to relieve all her fears and anxiety; have them dissipate just like that. Yet, at the same time, it was the same mere touch that was so dangerously capable of setting her skin aflame, igniting an unmistakable heat that would pulse from her core.

Seungwan's voice cuts through the silence just when Joohyun's thought the younger woman had drifted back to sleep.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

Joohyun shakes her head. A part of her fears that she would speak it into existence.

"It's nothing, just a silly dream."

Silence ensues and Joohyun realises that Seungwan was waiting for her to elaborate.

"I don't remember it clearly but, I just know that you were hurt," she pauses, hesitantly, "because of me," she whispers, her own voice deafening in her ears. 

Joohyun had been vague, purposely so, because she could not bear to recall the vivid details of her nightmare. Didn't want to. And she was so afraid that Seungwan might have noticed how much it rattled her more than she let on.

"It's just a dream," Seungwan reassures her. "I know you would never intentionally do anything to hurt me."

She says it with so much conviction that it scares her, but Joohyun nods because she knows she would rather die first before ever hurting Seungwan. She buries her face into the crook of the blonde's neck and wills away the unsettling thoughts.

"But if you ever do hurt me," Seungwan drawls sleepily, "I'll make sure to find you in every lifetime to annoy the out of you. I'll latch on and never let go."

The corner of Joohyun's lips tug up in a small smile at the teasing lilt in Seungwan's voice before feeling the latter softly kiss the top of her head.

"Should I be worried then?"

"Depends. Does the prospect of me annoying you for the rest of eternity concern you? I must warn you; I can be very irritating if I want to."

Maybe it wasn't all that terrible –she wasn't exactly sure– but if it meant having Seungwan in her next life and the one after that, then maybe just maybe, it would be worth it.

She'd just have to first find an alternative way to 'hurt' Seungwan.

Preferably with pleasure.

Yes, that could work.