Taekwoon had finally managed to convince an edgy Hakyeon to go to bed. Hakyeon showed signs of exhaustion and Taekwoon wasn’t going to stand there are watch the man try to tough it out. As much as Hakyeon wanted to stay awake and elude the encroaching shadows, his eyes were slowly drooping, jerking up and down like spasmodic shutters. In his position around Taekwoon on the couch, Hakyeon’s head started to tilt forward in sleep and quickly jerk back up, startling him awake over and over again. Taekwoon was fed up and impatiently herded him toward the bedroom.

Hakyeon was securely tucked under the covers while Taekwoon perched on the edge of the mattress. The redhead’s eyes were wide and slightly scared. “Will you leave the light on, please?” he mumbled. A brief silence hung in the air, tentative and fragile. Volume dipping low enough to be near the limits of human hearing, Hakyeon whispered, “I don’t want to disappear in the dark.”

If the situation had been different, Taekwoon would’ve leveled another one of his infamous flat glares at his husband, subtly telling him that he was being ridiculous. In normal circumstances, Hakyeon was the brave, adventurous one who jumped fearlessly and asked questions later.

This was anything but normal.

Taekwoon carried an uncompressible whirl of anxious pressure in his chest. It felt like something in him was rising continuously but going nowhere, rising and rising, up through his neck, into his cheeks and exerting a subtle pressure behind his eyes. Something in him was pushing up and outwards, like sheets of rippling heat snaking from overheated asphalt. It made him feel antsy and unsettled. Leaving the light on didn’t stop the pressure, but it made his head stop spinning.

With every light in the house burning, Taekwoon slipped out of his pants and button-up shirt. He folded the pants and returned them to the dresser, but threw the shirt into the hamper. Ignoring his pajamas, Taekwoon tugged the corner of the blanket up and slid beside Hakyeon, clad in only his boxers. He pulled a wriggling Hakyeon into his side and reveled in the warm knock of their shins and the soft skin of Hakyeon’s arm curling awkwardly around his neck to gently the side of his face.

Hakyeon leaned in further, touching their noses. “Boop.” The lights hummed.

“When I close my eyes,” Hakyeon said. “It’s dark.”

Taekwoon slid his fingers across his partner’s cheek and cupped the back of his head. He gently drew his husband’s face closer and pressed a solid kiss to his lips. He trapped Hakyeon’s face under the curve of his own jaw, enclosing the man in the darkness of his body. “Just stay close to me.”

The next thing they were aware of was the hybrid screech and buzz of their alarm clock filling their bedroom with obnoxious noise. Instead of kicking Hakyeon to get him to turn the alarm clock off, Taekwoon pushed himself up on his elbows, eyes rapidly blinking in an attempt to wake up. He reached over, upper half balanced on one elbow, and tried to reach the annoying alarm. He couldn't reach. The wail of the clock was grating on his last nerve. Unreasonably annoyed, he shifted to the right, flopped on top of Hakyeon, and stretched, finally smacking the button.

“Urgh,” Hakyeon groaned, "Are you made of lead?”

Taekwoon looked over from his position on top his husband, seeing Hakyeon rub his eyes with his good hand. His hair was unruly and sticking up ridiculously.

“You can stay in bed.” Taekwoon offered.

Hakyeon shook his head tiredly, “No, I would feel like I’ve wasted the day.” 

Taekwoon nodded and pushed himself up and away from Hakyeon, who continued to lay there in a dramatic pile.

Once Taekwoon exited the bed, Hakyeon stretched spread eagle and tangled himself further into the sheets. Taekwoon was rummaging through the closet for a shirt when he heard a muffled cough from the bed. Turning slowly with a black t-shirt dangling from a clenched fist, he glared at his significant other. "No."

Hakyeon's innocent eyes peeked over the end of the comforter. The whole pile of blankets shifted when he shrugged.

"No." Taekwoon repeated, stalking toward the bed, as if he could remove Hakyeon’s sickness through sheer disbelief.

Hakyeon looked a little scared. He clutched the covers to his chin and slowly scooted backward until he was stopped by the headboard.

"No!" Taekwoon exclaimed, accusing finger pointing straight at Hakyeon’s face.

Hakyeon erupted into a mad fit of coughing, eyes scrunched and blankets muffling the awful scratching sound being forced from his throat. Once he had regained control of himself, the red haired man flopped over in defeat. "Why is my life so terrible?" he moaned. "What did I do to deserve this?"

Taekwoon sighed and sat beside Hakyeon’s head and softly ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't know," he replied. "And I don't know where to begin with yesterday." Taekwoon shook his head helplessly, sounding lost.

"Maybe we should consult a psychic," Hakyeon suggested, only half joking. He pressed his forehead into Taekwoon's hip.

Taekwoon didn't reply, but actually half considered the idea. Was there anywhere else they could go and be taken seriously? Would a psychic even believe them? Most psychics were frauds. Well, first things first. "Do you want pancakes?"

Taekwoon called the school while whisking pancake batter and let them know he had a family emergency and would be using some of his sick and vacation days. They weren't happy, but Taekwoon almost never called in and he had time off saved up. He promised to drop off his lesson plans for the rest of the week the next morning

They spent the rest of the day occasionally discussing what had happened the night before, but not making any headway. Hakyeon’s cold only grew worse. His coughing was joined by a sore throat, a running nose, and a small but irritating headache. "How is it possible for someone to get sick so fast?" Taekwoon had muttered to himself while hunting down a box of tissues. Hakyeon only huffed miserably, tugged the laptop into his lap, and started researching demons, curses, and ways to remove them.

"Don't forget," Taekwoon said, "I have to take those files in to school tomorrow. Are you going to be okay by yourself?"

"I don't know," Hakyeon said. "Not like I have much of a choice." He squinted at the screen, trying to decipher a picture of what looked to be a goat's head on a man's body, and was that a snake?

Taekwoon was silent, but Hakyeon could practically hear the gears in his brain turning, trying to find a way to get out of having to leave in the morning. "Seriously Taekwoon, it'll be fine" he interjected. "You'll be gone for a half hour at most. I'll keep all the lights on and have my phone right next to me...does this look like a snake to you? Down there!?"

***

The next morning, Hakyeon dozed fitfully, his stuffy nose and raw throat making it difficult for him to fall asleep completely. He turned, grinding his face into the pillow as if he could push his pain into the cotton and out of his body. The covers had become twisted around his waist and tight over his shoulders, so he tried to kick them straight, but only succeeded in wrapping the sheets around his ankle. Frustrated by the sheets and an uncomfortably dripping nose, he hauled himself upward, squinting against the light in the room, and ripped the sheets away from his legs. Once they were straightened, he tossed the covers over his feet, pulled them away from his waist, and curled into the warmth trapped beneath them.

He slept like this for a little while longer before he woke again. Hakyeon reached a hand out of his warm blanket sanctuary, arm groping for the box of tissues that Taekwoon had so thoughtfully placed beside the bed before he left to drop his lessons off at the school. He vaguely remembered his partner kissing his forehead and saying goodbye not too long ago, but had no sense of the time.

All Hakyeon managed to do was knock the tissue box off the nightstand and watch miserably as it bounced across the floor. He could have cried. Here he was, feeling like death itself had taken up residence in his aching body, nose and throat a disgusting, snotty mess, head pounding like a drum, and he had to get out of bed to get the damn tissues.

There was a split second where he considered wiping his nose on a corner of the sheet, then pushing it to the far side of the bed so he wouldn’t touch it, but the thought of the look on Taekwoon’s face when he inevitably noticed quickly convinced him otherwise.

Huffing exasperatedly, which led to a hacking cough, Hakyeon flipped the sheets off his top half. He had no intention of actually walking to the tissues, no; the plan was to flop his top half out of bed and try to reach the box without completely falling out.

Hakyeon slid off the side of the bed, left hand planted on the floor to support his torso. His right hand stretched toward the box, the tips of his fingers just tickling the hard edge. Grunting, he reached just a bit further, carefully trying to scoot the box toward him. His wrist was aching, but the urge to stay in bed was stronger. The tissues slid away another quarter inch. Rolling his eyes, Hakyeon jabbed his hand out, managed to get one finger in a good position, and slid the box toward him. His left hand was shaking with effort, but triumphant, he levered back onto the bed.

Blowing his nose was a relief. He felt like he could breathe again, and though he knew he would feel stuffy in a minute or two, the effort had been worth it. Taekwoon would laugh if he could see how pathetic his partner was right now, Hakyeon knew he would. Hakyeon crumpled up his used tissue and peered to the side so he could throw it into the trash. Before he could make the inevitably terrible toss, Hakyeon saw something on the far wall that made him pause.

Frowning, Hakyeon threw his tissue, staring at a patch of shadow that spread much too far considering the light in the room. As he watched it, the shadow seemed to grow darker in intensity. Hakyeon felt his heartbeat speed up, a quick shot of adrenaline that made him jerk in place. Dark echoes of the events in the garage echoed through his mind.

He slowly leaned back, pushing himself away from that side of the bed and tugging the covers up closer to his chin. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light. Maybe his sickness-addled mind was deceiving him. Hakyeon blinked. The shadow remained. He blinked again, holding his eyes shut for a beat longer. Had the shadow expanded?

Hakyeons' heart was still racing in his chest and something in him was telling him to flee, to run into the sunlight and wait for Taekwoon in a place where no shadow could touch him. The shadow pulsed. It throbbed in a sick parody of a heartbeat, growing and starting to move completely independently of the light sources from the hallway and the windows.

The shadow wobbled and quivered, cycling through various shapes, all of them vaguely familiar and somewhat sickening, but none of them definable. The mass of shadow was a black that seemed endless and all consuming. It was not the shade of deepest black, but instead the absence of reality, a place where the world had failed. Hakyeon was stuck in the far side of the bed, paralyzed with a choking, cloying fear like a deer frozen in the headlights, waiting for an inevitable and painful death.

At least it was stuck in the wall, Hakyeon thought, at least it isn’t in here with me. He tried to move, to throw himself to the floor and crawl out of the room if he had to, but his limbs betrayed him. The phone with Taekwoon's number programmed into the speed dial sat like a brick in his pocket, and the corner dug into his hip.

 Hakyeon could do nothing but lay still and watch in arresting dread as the mass started to pull itself into the room, as quiet as death. It was as if all sound had been stolen from the area, taken and destroyed so the only sound Hakyeon could hear was his heartbeat thundering in his ears and his breaths, shallow and shaky. He morbidly hoped he had fallen asleep. Perhaps his difficulty breathing from his cold had pushed his brain into forming a horrendously vivid nightmare.

Pulling the last of itself out of the wall, the dark writhing thing fell to the floor, landing silently and spreading slightly, like the first curls of smoke from a quickly growing fire. It grew taller, stretching, portions of it tearing soundlessly as it morphed into the rough shape of a human being. But a mere human shape couldn’t contain it. Black tendrils forced themselves from the shaky human outline, whipping back and forth as if searching for something to rip and tear.

The light shining in the room from the hall flickered and dimmed before going out completely. The sun, mostly blocked by the closed blinds, seemed the fade as well, throwing the bedroom into a sinister half-light. It brought Hakyeon’s  world one shade closer to the reality of the creature that was slowly wrenching itself into existence, violating the sanctum of Taekwoon and Hakyeon’s  bedroom.

The creature had finally taken the vague, shadowy shape of a young boy and it grinned, a gray jagged wound across what posed at its head. It glided toward the bed where Hakyeon was curled underneath their covers, shaking.

Hakyeon’s eyes widened because he was too terrified to close them. The thing approached, slow and inexorable though the ends of its legs disappeared into nothing. The surging, writhing darkness slowly leaned over, reaching out what resembled a hand and placing four too-thin fingers on Hakyeon’s cheek. Hakyeon felt like he was suffocating, or perhaps his heart had beat so fast it had burned out and come to a standstill. He couldn’t move a muscle. The fingers on his face were cold, their touch wispy, almost feathery. They gently caressed his cheek. The touch was possessive and terrible.

The creature’s other hand moved to grasp the covers that Taekwoon had tucked around his shoulders not three hours ago. Rather than violently ripping away the one protection Hakyeon had left, the thing slowly pulled the sheet away, uncovering his left hand. Hakyeon’s eyes prickled and burned, tearing up of their own volition. The tears broke free and slid down his cheeks, making them feel itchy and tight. The void hovering over him pulsed again.

It kept its movements slow and deliberate as it lightly touched Hakyeon’s uncovered hand, a stark contrast to the tendrils and spikes that erupted from its back, lashing back and forth angrily. It picked up his hand after an agonizing second, and the grasp was so cold that Hakyeon felt like his hand had been flash frozen and broken off at the wrist.

He watched in hyper-aware horror as a cut bloomed across his hand, searing with a freezing, aching pain. A dark, boneless finger moved inch by inch across the back of his hand, opening an oozing cut. Warm blood welled up and slipped down to his palm, scorching a trail across his hand like the concentrated flame of a blow torch.

The cut continued diagonally and blood slowly dribbled onto the pillowcase, pooling slightly before soaking into the tightly woven cotton. The creature stilled, lifting its hand away, the ripping tendrils calming as if finally content. The darkness hovered attentively, watching the blood flow from the red, angry-looking wound with no eyes as it simply reveled in the pain it had inflicted.

Black lips curved into a grin, proud of what it had done. With that smile pasted across the thing’s face, recognition flashed in the front of Hakyeon’s mind.

With a shudder, his mind heaved the name. A new kind of fear enveloped him as he thought one name, 'Taekwoon.’

Without warning, the creature burst out of the shape it had been holding, becoming an unfathomably dark mass of rippling antagonism.  It sank to the floor, as flat and non-assuming as a shadow once again. As it slid up the wall and faded into the darkness, the light flickered back on in the hallway. The sun brightened as if appearing from heavy cloud cover, brightening the room again.

Hakyeon gasped, freed from his terror and paralysis. His heard thudded almost triple time and the sensation was almost physically painful. He quickly kicked out of his bed covers, feeling claustrophobic and trapped.  Hakyeon stood, cradling his injured hand and stumbling into the kitchen, doing his best not to let any blood drip onto the floor. He was shaking almost uncontrollably. Crouching, he pulled the first aid kit out from under the sink and treated his wound with an efficiency that was beginning to scare him. Meanwhile, his mind was reeling with what the monster was doing with his husband’s face.

Hand throbbing with pain, Hakyeon cautiously tiptoed back to the bedroom. He stood in the doorway and took in the spots of blood that had soaked into the pillowcase. Though Hakyeon had no desire to enter the room, the blood was going to dry. Steeling himself and flipping on the light, the man gingerly approached the bed and stripped the pillow of its case, intent on getting the blood out before it stained.

Even though something as banal as keeping a stain from a cheap pillowcase shouldn’t have been his top priority, Hakyeon was on autopilot, mind churning while going through normal tasks to try retain some semblance of normality. He was scared of going back to bed, of lying down and closing his eyes, knowing that the inky, morphing thing would find him vulnerable.

He knew Taekwoon wasn’t the one doing this to him, Hakyeon knew for sure that this wasn’t his husband’s fault. It was something that only wore his face to unsettle him even more, to really hit him where it hurt.

‘That thing only wanted to mess with me mentally too,’ Hakyeon thought. ‘I won’t let this thing win.’ He pushed the thought out of his head, refusing to let it bother him.

His cellphone remained in his pocket, Taekwoon's number sitting in the speed dial slot, uncalled.