Mild smut in the middle of the chapter
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Seonghwa didn't have a bad dream on Friday. The day after, Hongjoong came to work alone. Grumbling and shivering, he stomped right up to the third floor. Today, the building was quiet and conversed only through its creaking and groaning with Hongjoong. The familiar sounds were calming in the company they provided to Hongjoong.

In high spirits, since Seonghwa had slept through an entire night peacefully, Hongjoong arrived at his desk. Jongho had left him a chocolate bar with a sticky note on it not to eat all of it today. Chuckling, Hongjoong chucked the note into the bin and began snacking. The chocolate would be gone by the evening.

While the server warmed up, Hongjoong pulled his jacket off and placed it on the back of his chair. San had sent him a message on Instagram. When Hongjoong clicked on it, he was greeted by an old post from Wooyoung two years prior. A picture where he had sensually led a jacket slip down over one naked shoulder, clearly not wearing anything underneath as he stared at the camera with hooded eyes. San had added a gif of an anime girl with a nosebleed to the picture.

Hongjoong left him on read.

Tonight Park fell asleep early for his standards. Either he had popped the sleeping pills in early or he had suffered an exhausting day at the station. Yesterday, as things got boring after a few hours, Hongjoong had found his mind straying to mishaps he could trigger in that station's neighbourhood at night hoping to see a certain police officer pop up. Was vandalism worth getting arrested and questioned by him? Maybe. Hongjoong could relate to the comments under his posts.

But no, Hongjoong was no wild stalker fan. He was better than that. Rather, he rose to invade Seonghwa's deepest and darkest soul in the upcoming nightmare.

Yes, Hongjoong had decided to call him Seonghwa. Purely in the privacy of his own thoughts, though.

Cellar, predator, cat.

Hongjoong double-checked the warning words before he left. Was the cat the predator? Usually, it would only read cat in those cases. Unsure, he threw himself onto the soft ground of the psycho room. He packed cat treats, his favoured gun, and wire clippers. Before he left, he fixed his hair just a little bit more and added cool black eyeshadow to his eyes. Then he slipped over into Seonghwa's dream.

Limbo was where Hongjoong's realm was. He could dream up whatever he needed and use his lucid skills to distort events to his liking. The dream itself, however, belonged only to Seonghwa. Hongjoong had no other influence in it apart from acting on his own free will.

Hongjoong appeared in front of a long staircase. With no light overhead, it just led down into a corridor so black it seemed to swallow everything. Spiders crawled over the ceiling above his head, big and unsightly with their many legs.

Not that Hongjoong could object. He liked a certain pair of legs too much for their length that he could judge spiders. Maybe spiders considered shorter legs sexy. He would never know.

Careful and slow, Hongjoong descended into the cold basement. The naked walls and stairs around him exuded a stony coldness. He shivered when he approached the end. Stepping into the thick void had his nerves on edge.

Voices travelled through him, muffled through the door.

"Please... I just want-"

"No, sweetheart. Aunt Alice told me how you speak behind my back about me. Didn't you like the cakes I baked you?"

A hoarse yell echoed through the basement. Hongjoong's steps quickened when he identified Seonghwa's voice.

"I expected you to be better. Does that hurt?"

Another pained yelp. Hongjoong arrived at the door and leaned against the wall next to it. After a quick moment of gathering his wits, he reached into his bag. The scent of tuna wafted into his nose.

A purr came through the door. Then the screaming stopped abruptly. Torturously slow, a pair of paws came to scratch on the door between the deliciously wafting treats and the animal. Large paws that thumped onto the ground too loudly to belong to a regular house cat.

"Did you find something over there, cutie?" Steps accompanied the voice of the old woman as she came closer. A mewl replied to her.

Hongjoong flinched when she spoke again, her voice cracking like a whip.

"Stay here and don't move! I don't want your disgusting little body crawling around in the areas I just cleaned."

With all of his might, Hongjoong threw the soft chunks of fish. He hoped that Seonghwa's perception gave them wings and let them disappear farther up on the staircase.

Hongjoong pressed his body flat against the wall when the woman and the cat emerged. Faster than the light coming from inside the room, the kitten jumped off. The woman followed slower and with her hunched back, making it difficult for her to go.

Swiftly, Hongjoong slipped into the room and waited for the door to fall shut naturally. He turned the key shut painstakingly slow and quiet. Before Seonghwa got to lift his head and notice his presence in the room, he jumped behind the large main furnace to hide.

Seonghwa must have heard him, for his head snapped up. But his mind dreamt up a different person.

"Yunho? How did you get here?"

Not daring to breathe, Hongjoong leaned against the heater.

"I came to help you, stupid. You look worse for wear," a gentle voice replied. Curious, Hongjoong peeked between two thick pipes to glance over at them. Thick isolation foam hid him from view excellently.

Seonghwa sat tied on a chair in the middle of the room. His bare body was scratched up badly by vicious claws that had left bloody marks all over him. A faint blush dusted his cheek when Yunho knelt next to him. The tall man was clad in the uniform of a paramedic, likely a colleague from work.

Hongjoong quickly averted his eyes when he guessed where Seonghwa's thoughts strayed next.

How could he resolve this situation? Yunho here promised the safety Seonghwa likely sought. Yet Seonghwa felt too threatened by the lady outside to leave.

"Y-Yunho, I don't think that's-"

"Shh, don't worry. You'll feel better in no time." A wet noise followed, and Hongjoong pressed his hands to his glowing face. He had done the weirdest things in his own dreams, too, and summoned the most stupid solutions for the wrong moments. Dreams were absurd and disconnected like that. But he didn't want to listen to that. Or imagine Seonghwa's embarrassment the next time he saw his colleague at work.

Hongjoong doubted they were more than colleagues. Seonghwa's dream self would have reacted differently then.

Quickened breaths and whimpers echoed through the room. Hongjoong tried to close his ears off to them and to calm the raging blush on his cheeks. Embarrassment so real washed over him that for a moment, it felt like his dream and he was the one making Seonghwa do unspeakable things to him.

Praying that the dream would end soon and Seonghwa felt healed enough by Yunho to escape, Hongjoong reminded himself of the setting. A mouldy basement. Dead moths and spiders in every corner. Dust. Rough concrete. A tyrannical woman and her cat.

The slick noises on the other side of the boiler had every cell in Hongjoong's body cringe.

"Yunho... Yunho..." The whispered sighs of Seonghwa made it none the better. Hongjoong desperately fought the need to peek and check on them. He had to watch Seonghwa, yes, but he just couldn't watch Seonghwa, not like this.

Hongjoong's knee jerked when Yunho pulled off with a wet popping sound. The pleased sigh that escaped Seonghwa would replay in Hongjoong's darkest hours. Faster but quieter slick noises followed. Little bits of Hongjoong's soul crumbled away with every squish.

"Recovering? I hope you aren't in pain anymore."

When he went back to work Hongjoong believed to see the corner of the dream glimmer the slightest bit. The colours mixed, forms blending into long swirls.

Just when he readily wanted to jump out of this mortifying dream and into his working room, something banged on the stairs. Startled, Hongjoong glanced at the door.

The woman must have acquired a cane somewhere. With slow taps of it, she came down the stairs, bringing bad news. The rhythmic thumping of the cane on stone made her arrival all the tenser.

Finally, Hongjoong glanced over to the two men, after all. Yunho had his head in Seonghwa's lap still, moving up and down. Unable to grab onto him or pull him off, Seonghwa squirmed in his bindings, his muscles flexing under his skin. At the sounds outside, panic had taken over his features.

"Yunho- Yunho, stop, she's coming back!"

As if he didn't hear him, the paramedic continued. The mixture of terror and pleasure made for a fascinating mix on Seonghwa's face, but Hongjoong quickly wrenched his gaze away.

"Hope you didn't move, sweetheart!" The woman called from outside.

Seonghwa tried to topple his chair over and push Yunho off. His body trembled in response to the pleasurable touches, unravelling more and more.

The cat scratched at the door, this time from the other side.

"Yunho, please-" A choked out moan fell from Seonghwa's plush lips. He threw his head back, thighs flexing and spasming under Yunho's large hands.

The tapping outside stopped. When the door handle pushed down, Seonghwa sat petrified in fear.

"Oh, when did you lock the door? So you moved!" Rage filled her voice. Seonghwa cowered and clenched his eyes shut.

Hongjoong did not expect her to be able to get in. His fingers slowly pushed a few bullets into his gun, muffling every click of the metal.

The next second, that cane punched a hole into the door. Rotten wood splintered off when she made her way in with her weapon.

Seonghwa let go of a deafening scream, pushing further away from Yunho. Creepy, an old and veiny hand reached through the hole in the door. Like claws, her bony fingers stretched out to feel around for the doorknob. When she searched for it on the wrong side, she clawed at the door again, pushing more wood off.

"Are you having fun, sweetheart? Introduce your friend to me!"

Hongjoong grit his teeth when her head poked through the door. Her neck grew, swelling grotesquely far and thick, as if she had dislodged her skull from its place. She looked around for the doorknob. Her trembling fingers reached for it when her grey eyes finally spotted it.

With a deafening bang, Hongjoong's weapon unloaded. It threw back her head, having her slump down over the window she had created.

Seonghwa knew enough about bullets not to revive her accidentally. Horrified, all three of them stared at the body.

"You shot her!" Seonghwa gasped disbelievingly. His eyes found Yunho, tears of dread and gratitude wetting them. Slowly, Hongjoong sunk his gun, still wary of the cat.

"I did! Anything to save you, Seonghwa!" With that, Yunho surged up to kiss him. Once more, Hongjoong concentrated on his fiddling hands. Their alleviated giggles as they kissed made him smile. Even though his heart was irked. He disliked seeing Seonghwa so close with strangers. Couldn't it at least be Wooyoung? He had become something of a friend.

Hongjoong leaned back against the boiler. When Yunho had got Seonghwa free of his chains, he scooped the man up into his arms to carry him over to the washing machine. A second too late, Hongjoong noticed it was in the line of sight with his hiding spot. Hastily, he pulled his outstretched leg in and huddled into the blind corner.

The two men made out right where they were, with zero regards for their surroundings. The more Seonghwa fell into Yunho's touches, however, the less he minded. The next time Hongjoong glanced up, the room had already brightened a bit, and the horrible chair and body in the door had disappeared.

"Can I fuck you?"

Hongjoong gagged at the horrible choice of words Yunho whispered against Seonghwa's skin. Some sort of consent must have been given because they were right back to kissing.

Disturbed, Hongjoong rocked himself back and forth and tried to think of anything else. Of San, his paint flowers, Mingi's adorably squished cheeks on his desk.

Finally, the dream faded out before Hongjoong had to witness Seonghwa getting banged on a washing machine by his hot coworker. Hongjoong awoke in his psycho room, emptily staring at the ceiling for a long while.

He sighed deeply when he sat up. Once he had adjusted the pulsing arousal in his pants, he scrambled to his feet to leave. His report was written just a bit more aggressively that day, with more force on the keyboard, and some snappish words thrown in here and there. He doubted Jongho would mind.

Hongjoong spent his Saturday noon alone and frustrated, watching over Seonghwa who had put far too many inappropriate images in his mind.