Nightmares

Despite successfully killing the Byun family leader in Regiis, both Baekhyun and Hei still have nightmares about what could have happened.

Set: Around a week or so after Cutlass ends.

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Baekhyun was good at differentiating dreams from reality. Part of him knew that it wasn’t real; knew what actually happened, and knew that all he had to do to escape was to wake up.

It still didn’t help the cold dread when he watched his father raise his cutlass, too fast and too close for him to ever stop. It didn’t help when he had hesitated, because even then, the proposition had tempted him. He was so close, he had the blade, he could kill him—

Then silver flashed down, followed by red, but it wasn’t his own blood like it should’ve been. Instead, it was Hei lying on the ground, crimson pooling underneath her and staining her dress, dripping from , spreading and spreading until he was covered in blood too. Then she would look up to him, and Baekhyun knew without even seeing her expression that she knew and he knew that he’d made his choice, and made the wrong one, and—

He snapped awake in a cold sweat.

For a while, Baekhyun sat upright, trying to slow his breathing as he pressed his forehead against his knees. The cabin was too dark for him to see anything other than faint outlines, but he could hear Hei’s breathing beside him, steady and familiar. He coached himself through the process; one in, one out, until it no longer felt like his heart was pounding erratically against his chest.

The bed shifted beside him, and he felt a hand rest gently on his back. “Baekhyun? Are you okay?”

He took a deep breath. Just a dream. “Yeah.”

Settling back under the duvet, he reached over for Hei’s hand. He caught it around her fingers, smoothing the pad of his thumb over her palm, and she moved closer towards him.

Some sort of aftershock from the dream made it feel impossible to close his eyes, but Baekhyun tried to anyway. He could tell Hei had gone back to sleep, tucked close enough to him that he could feel her breathing on top of hearing it. Somehow, it was enough to lull him back to sleep as well.

***

In the worst nightmares, Hei didn’t actually fail to turn back time.

She watched the patch of red subside, the wound close, until there was no visible sign of injury on Baekhyun, and she would wait for him to get up like he should’ve. But he wouldn’t move, even though she’d turned back time, even though he was no longer wounded, and she would huddle over a cold body and cry until she could barely breathe. His father would melt away from behind her because it didn’t matter anymore; it didn't matter what he could do after he’d already fulfilled the worst possible outcome.

Those were always the hardest to wake up from. In the moment between consciousness and unconsciousness, panic would settle in like a thick cloud, and she would struggle to discern whether her memories were real, or if maybe the dream was.

It