I just posted Fall as well so don't miss out on that!

This one is one that you should definitely know The Showdown for because it actually takes place during the span of The Showdown. 

So, the original plan for this prompt was the vague idea of one of the children having a nightmare, but then inspiration from a reviewer which I liked waaaayyyy better and flowed so much better.  After reading ‘Ignore’ and the slight allusion to Key watching after Taemin during his coma SilverKey hinted that they would like to read more of Key’s perspective from that night and I thought…why not?  So this one shot was born.  Also a GIANT thank you to SilverKey for editing this one for me as well!

I hope that you all enjoy it!

#38 – Nightmare

Key was going crazy.

But who could blame him?

It had been three days.

Three days of hearing the heart monitor beeping mindlessly in the background, the only sign of life that Kibum could assess.

Three days of the respirator and its Darth Vader-like noises that assaulted his ears.

Three days of running on nothing but cheap, stale hospital coffee because his stomach was too wound up in knots to even think about solid food.

Three days of dodging the half-accusing half-grateful glares from Taemin’s mom who didn’t know quite what to make of him now that she knew of his relationship with her son.

Three days of sitting in that horrid plastic hospital chair because it was closer to the bed than the dingy couch that sat against the wall under the window.

Three days of ignoring the squinty eyes of the ICU nurses who were sticklers about every rule, even though he made a point about following every single one – even shutting off his cell phone completely so that it won’t possibly interfere with the equipment that what monitoring Taemin’s condition.

Three days of wondering that if he fell asleep in the chair, just maybe the nurses would let him stay the night with his Taemin, but never being able to fall asleep in the first place because of the fear that he might wake up to the horrible news that Taemin had somehow took a horrible turn while he had rested.

Three days of living on the edge of terror and hope and pain that all jumbled up into such a mess inside of him that Kibum didn’t even know where to begin and so he just sat there and watched. 

There was an ever present feeling in Kibum’s chest, like his heart was caught in a vice.  There was a pressure there that had no physical explanation, but was there nonetheless.  He would find himself rubbing mindlessly at his chest, over his heart, as though he was trying to alleviate the feeling and massage it away like you do a muscle cramp – but nothing worked.  How could something physical ever heal an emotional ache anyway?

This was how his days went more often than not.

Heck, if someone were to ask him, Kibum didn’t think that he could recall anything other than this hospital.  How did others live day by day?  How had he done it? 

These past three days had felt like three years.

He would wake up in the morning before anyone else in SHINee was awake, from his fitful nights of night terrors and intermittent insomnia.  Waking up to an empty bed, with his face planted soundly into Taemin’s pillow, on Taemin’s half of the bed, when Key had never had a problem with moving in his sleep before.  He would noiselessly brew a pot of coffee, moving about the apartment like a ghost, and quickly dress (often pulling on one of Taemin’s shirts to wear under his hoodie so that he could try and fake himself into believing that Taemin was still close) and brush his teeth before pouring the dark liquid into a thermos and leaving for the hospital. 

He would arrive in time to see Taemin’s father, who usually beat the rapper to the beginning of visiting hours.  Then again the man had a car while Kibum was relying on the subway with his sunglasses to get him to the hospital.  They never talked really.  They greeted each other of course and acknowledged each other again when Taemin’s dad left to go to work, but most of the time was spent with their eyes trained on Taemin, trying to detect any movement, or any slight change in his coloration – anything that might tell them that the dancer would wake up soon.  But nothing as of yet. 

Then Taemin’s mother would come by.  But she would come usually about ten times a day, and not for very long during any one visit.  She would stay for ten or twenty minutes, cooing over Taemin.  Patting his head and crying over his chest.  She was never quiet though.  Always having some comment to say, and she expected Kibum to talk back.  So he would respond politely.  He could never wrap his head around it though.  How she would yammer on…to be honest Kibum didn’t hear half of what she said most of the time.  His ears would be too filled with the sounds of the equipment monitoring Taemin’s status, or the mumbling of nurses when they would come in and jot things down on the chart that hung off the end of Taemin’s bed. 

Kibum had stolen a glance at the chart a couple of times but none of it made any sense to him.  It was in some freaking code that no normal person could ever make out.  He would scrunch up his nose and huff, practically throwing the chart back onto the rail at the end of Taemin’s bed, the resulting clang echoing around the sterile room, joining the symphony of sounds that told them that Taemin was still alive if nothing else. 

Sporadically, Mrs. Lee would gasp suddenly and then take off for the hospital’s chapel and there she would pray for Taemin’s recovery.  And this would cycle on throughout the day with her repeated return and fleeing episodes. 

In the times when he was alone with Taemin, sometimes he would speak to the boy.

Knowing that Mrs. Lee wouldn’t be back for a while, Kibum would pull close his chair to the bedside and would grab Taemin’s hand, that pale little hand that sat so fragiley upon the white sheets that covered his bed.

The white sheets never made much sense to Kibum – they were obviously going to get stained – but he didn’t ask questions.

Quite honestly he didn’t care.  It was just one of the billion random thoughts that would flow through his head while he sat there trying to bring Taemin back by the force of his own will alone. 

Holding Taemin’s hand he tried to somehow move his own energy into his boyfriend’s body, or maybe wishing it into the young man’s body would be a better way to put it…

At the same time he would run his fingers through Taemin’s hair, wondering how it was still somehow so soft despite the harsh soaps and shampoos the hospital used when the nurses kicked Kibum out to give Taemin a sponge bath and keep him clean.

“Hey Tae, I’m here.  Waiting on you to wake up.”  He would say, his voice hoarse from lack of use and the consumption of nothing but coffee for days on end – and he didn’t even like coffee most of the time.

“I don’t know if you can hear me in there, but you need to come back alright?  How am I supposed to fight with you if you’re not here to bear your half?” 

Sometimes he just recounted one of the dozens of memories that would suddenly flash through his mind.  They often say that before your death your life flashes before your eyes.  Well, maybe that can happen before the death of a loved one as well.

“Hey Tae.  Remember that time we were doing handstands in the practice room?”  Key smiled.  It had been a strange day.  “For whatever reason, none of us could manage to pull ourselves together that day.  Onew ordered us to take a break,” Kibum smirked, “he specifically forbade you from continuing to dance.” He breathed out a low laugh, Taemin was known for continuing to dance even when the rest of them were taking a break.  “You were so hyper that day and couldn’t just sit around.  You were literally jumping around the room.  I said it as a joke, ‘Well, do a handstand or something!’ and you actually did!”

Kibum’s smile met his eyes for the first time in days.

“It took you a few tries but you finally got up there.  And then you wanted me to count how long you stayed up.”  He shook his head slightly, “You don’t know this but I was already crushing on you then.  And there you were, all of three feet away, swaying, upside down with your shirt riding up and showing your stomach.  I think you were panting too hard with the effort to notice that I was breathing so loud.”

Kibum glanced up at Taemin’s face, looking away from the contrast of their hands against each other.  “I honestly don’t know how long you were up there…I just made up a number to make you happy.”  That made Kibum feel a little guilty, “And then you wanted me to do it too…but I knew that there was no way that I could after you did.  You came back down so gracefully…I would have just fallen flat on my back the first time around and probably managed to get myself hurt.”

Kibum’s thumb moved absently against the skin between Taemin’s thumb and forefinger.  “When you wake up we should do that again.  I’ll count for real this time I promise.  Heck, I’ll even try it myself if we lay down some pillows or something first.  So come on Taemin.  Open your eyes.”  He pleaded.

His eyes studied every inch of Taemin’s body, looking for any twitch or sign of movement.  Any sign that Taemin might be waking up or hearing him.  But the only movement that his own eyes managed to capture was the occasional darting of Taemin’s eyes behind the boy’s eyelids.

And Kibum would sigh and return to his watch.     

Sometimes he would sing in a whisper, with his lips right poised right next to Taemin’s ear.  Songs that Taemin liked, whether Kibum liked them or not, trying not to be too loud and arouse the ire of any of the nurses who patrolled the halls of ICU.    

Then at some point in the afternoon, after Mrs. Lee’s numerous visits, Taesun would come by and try and talk some as well, wanting to learn more about Kibum as the boyfriend as opposed to Taemin’s “Umma.”

After a while though, the older man would pull out a book from his bag and start reading through his assignment from his university and a companionable silence would overtake the room until Taesun too would leave, once again leaving Kibum alone with the unresponsive Taemin. 

This night in particular though, no one else came back after Taesun took his leave.  Neither of Taemin’s parents returned that night. 

There was a strange ethereal sense to the room when you sat there for all purposes alone without being able to actually interact with anyone else.  The lack of color in the room and the repeated rhythmical noises from the machines around Taemin’s bed made it rather easy to slip somehow into a floaty sense where Kibum felt utterly disconnected to the world around him.  Time seemed to speed up and slow down all at the same time.  Suddenly there was a nurse standing in the doorway telling him that visiting hours would be over in ten minutes, when it seemed like no time had passed at all, though someone could have told him that ten years had gone by without his notice and he wouldn’t have questioned that either.

It was a new nurse he thought idly, standing to go to the bathroom before saying his last goodbye. 

A few minutes later when he returned to the room, it was to find a couple of folded blankets and a pillow sitting atop the worn out couch. 

For a moment Kibum could do nothing but stare, his over-worked brain unable to process what he was seeing.

“As long as you promise me that you will go home tomorrow night, I don’t mind if you stay the night here with him.”  A soft voice came from behind him. 

The nurse was back, standing in the doorway, seeming like an angel in her white scrubs and light blue cardigan.  She was young-ish.  Somehow she could pull off young twenty-something and mid-thirties mother all at the same time, but her voice spoke of great tenderness and caring.

“The other nurses have talked about you, you know?  How you follow all the rules and how you try and talk to him even when you aren’t expecting a response.  That’s good for him.” She said gesturing towards Taemin.  “Some people believe that they can hear you when they are like that.  Maybe he’s listening to your stories and he’ll wake up to the sound of your voice.” 

She smiled gently at Kibum and walked passed him to the couch.  She made quick work of tucking a blanket around the dingy cushions and laying the other one on top, fluffing the pillow at one end so that he would be facing Taemin when he fell asleep.        

She walked passed Kibum once again and gently patted his shoulder as she did, “You make sure that you get some sleep too.  You need to make sure that you’re strong enough to help him when he wakes up, because he is going to need a lot of it.”  And with another pat to his cheek, she walked quickly out of the room, onto checking another patient who needed her attention.

Kibum however, cried.

The gentle and simple act of kindness that was merely allowing him to stay by Taemin’s side a little bit longer broke the shaky hold that he had on his emotions. 

He stumbled over to Taemin’s bed and kneeled, clutching one lifeless hand within two of his own.  Kibum was always cold, and he had used Taemin as his own personal heater (seriously, the kid was like a walking furnace), but now Taemin’s hand was chilled within Kibum’s grasp.  He stared at those hands, because he could not bring himself to look at Taemin’s face.  To see a face that was always so animated and bright but was currently blank.  He couldn’t see that anymore.

“Taemin – you have to wake up!  You have to come back to me!  You’re the strong one here!  I can’t…” Kibum’s hysterical voice began to break, “Tae…please…don’t leave me alone…”

And suddenly Kibum was acutely aware of what being alone truly was.

He had danced around the edges of this awareness for the last few days, but it had finally hit home.  Deep within his core, he just knew – he was alone right now.    

It was the sense of utter emptiness that one would feel, even when surrounded by others.  When in a writhing sea of humanity, you would still feel completely separate and apart – that was loneliness.  And without Taemin, without that sense of completion that he knew now had been there from the early days of their friendship, though he hadn’t recognized it for what it was, he was half a man.  Half a person and he would never feel connected again.  He could try and fake it, he presumed, act like he was still a part of the family and friends that were so important to him, but it wouldn’t be him anymore – not really.  Because Kibum would be gone and left would be a shell that he could never fill again.  There would be a hole left where he was supposed to link to Taemin, a hole that would make anything else that tried to fill the gaping space run out just as quickly as it tried to move in.

Kibum was inherently social, and to not connect to people was to not be Kibum.  But without Taemin – he wouldn’t see the point.

He had never condoned suicide, and he still could not bring himself to consider that idea ever.  But at the moment – he thought he understood.  He understood a pain so deep and primal and heavy that he didn’t think that he could move much less live while enduring it.  In fact, life without Taemin wasn’t living it was merely existing.  He would physically be alive, but mentally and emotionally he would be lost for the rest of his life.  He understood why someone would rather die than to have to endure it day after day after day.

It was a nightmare.

“Taemin…please…please…please…”

Kibum pleaded until his throat grew sore.  Until the nurse, what seemed like hours later, came back to the room and gently led him over to the coach and laid him to bed herself, tucking him in like a child and using a wet tissue to wash the tears from his face.

“Rest now,” she said gently, “just trust that he will come back.  What you have is strong it would seem, so just rest now and trust him.”

And finally Kibum’s brain shut down.  He didn’t even remember his eyes drifting closed, but suddenly it was morning and a different nurse was shaking him awake and telling him that the cafeteria would be open soon if he wanted breakfast.

And things went on that way for days.  Until finally one day, coming back from a coffee run, he heard a gurgling noise as he approached the room.

And he walked in to find Taemin jerking around on the bed.

He had screamed for a nurse and rushed to Taemin’s side, trying desperately to figure out how to help the distressed teen.

But seeing Taemin’s frantic eyes, open and locking on him, had heartened him.  Kibum regained his sense of balance then.  The fuzzy edges came suddenly into focus and the world started to come back into his awareness.  The idea of life beyond this room, of a future without heart monitors beeping and respirators assaulting his senses every moment of every day suddenly were a possible reality and began creeping back into his mind.

Taemin had woken up once.

He would do so again.

And when he did, Kibum would be there.

Because he had promised Taemin, and Kibum was a man of his word. 

His living nightmare was coming to an end and dawn would be breaking, just as soon as Taemin opened his eyes once more. 

I don’t know if any of you have ever been in shock, hopefully not, but there is this sense of separate-ness that you get – that is the only way that I can describe it.  It’s your minds way of protecting yourself from what is going on around you.  I was that way when Matt was in the hospital – just not quite connecting to everything around me and thinking these weird kind of semi-abstract thoughts.  It wasn’t until Matt was awake and moved out of the ICU that I finally broke down and cried and screamed and threw things around my room at what had happened to him.  Anyway, that kind of “out-there” feel is what I was going for in this chapter.