THE BROTHERS | NCT BXB

1: Nightmares

There's something pulling him down under. His bones are bricks; heavy, immovable things unable to reach the surface due to the sheer force of the water pulling him down. He questions if that's what it really is - water. The weighted, bitter thing clogging his throat, filling his lungs, his mouth, his throat, his blood stream, with sharp salt, like glass, tearing at him from the inside out. He can't breathe or see. It's dark. So, so dark. And there's nobody with him in the inky vastness of the ocean, left alone to swallow him whole and suck him into its depths like a whirlpool.

He looks down at his hands, blinking water uselessly from his eyes. They're red and sticky, and it's blood, he knows. The blood won't come off no matter how much he rubs his hands together till they're raw, shakes them off till they're numb, or digs his nails in them - it only leaves the underside of his cuticles with more blood. It won't come off - and it's growing now, from his hands to his arms, and he can feel it in his mouth as he goes lightheaded; iron and metallic. And he thinks one last thought before his body gives up and sinks into nothingness;

Is this how it feels to be a dead man?

Taeyong woke up in cold sweat, body too hot under the thin blanket. He shot up, reaching out into the darkness and gasping for air. Though, he didn't need to worry for long - he was whole, he was alive, and he could see his hands through the darkness of his room; they were clean and dry. Not a fleck of dried up blood on them, only tough textured palms as he rubbed them together to regain some feeling in his skin and bones. He shut his eyes, shuddering out deep breath. He was fine. It was fine. He should've been over it by now.

The dream should've been over him by now. His conscience had told him that he'd done nothing wrong - he had done nothing wrong, he reaffirmed to himself. It was just a nightmare. A stupid fucking nightmare that wouldn't leave him alone - a nightmare with no real substance. Taeyong breathed out a sigh, laying back down to stare at the wall for a few minutes, focusing on the sound of his breathing and the rustling of trees outside. Dead men couldn't hear the wind - they were in purgatory, or heaven, or hell.

Hell.

Taeyong gripped unto his sheets, knuckles turning ivory white as he shut his eyes. He'd force himself back asleep whether he liked it or not and that was that.

Taeyong let the water cascade down his body to wash away his thoughts - an internal and external purge before he started another day. The water scorched his skin and turned the crevices of his fingers pruny, and only then did he deem it time to step out of the shower and in front of the crooked mirror. Looking at his reflection, he felt nothing in particular - a little bit dull. His eyes were sunken in from the nightmare that kept him up last night, like it always did when it recurred, and his blonde hair had fallen flat. He'd ask Ten to cut it maybe, Ten had said he was good with scissors.

He smiled then at his reflection, before that too fell flat. It was too large for his face, too angular, too sharp and wonky - and most importantly, it wasn't genuine. He hated fake smiles, he could notice them from a mile away, and they never meant anything good. So, instead, he frowned and went out to change and pick up his school bag, the destination of town's university in mind.

The walk wasn't far, ten to fifteen minutes at most, but he didn't like it. The more time he had to think, the more his thoughts would spiral. He was tired of it - thinking. But he lucked out with the distance because in a town like that, it could've been further. But Ridgewood was perfect. All the houses and stores were in close knit circles, nothing too far apart when he needed to go shopping, and the people mostly kept to themselves. At least, they did when they saw that Taeyong wasn't willing to talk.