Samhain

chapter seventeen: when they remember

Maybe, just maybe, if he inches away little by little, he can get up without San noticing.

Wooyoung manages to lift his hips and shift forward, putting about an inch between his back and San's chest. The cool air that floods the small space gives him goosebumps. The small separation provides a welcome relief from the heat that had been building between them.

Now, the hard part.

He needs to figure out how to untangle himself from San's limbs.

At some point during the night, San shifted back to his human form and wrapped himself around Wooyoung. San's arms encircle him under his shoulders, fingers delicately resting upon his forearms. One of his legs is intertwined between Wooyoung's thighs.

Wooyoung needs to escape. Desperately. And preferably before San wakes up.

He had a dream. Given his overwhelming exhaustion, he anticipated it would be another dreamless night, but he wasn't provided that luxury this time.

And it felt so real. They were positioned just like this, San warm against his back where his hands were slowly dipping under the waistband of Wooyoung's sweatpants.

Wooyoung shifts uncomfortably, and he feels color creeping into his face. He needs to leave. Now. He needs to take a cold shower and wash these thoughts out of his mind. He needs to steal his wand again and figure out a way to erase his memory with a spell.

Cautiously, he starts to move his leg, slowly slipping his thigh out from under San's weight.

San stirs.

He hooks his leg around Wooyoung's calf and pulls him back into his chest, closing the distance that Wooyoung had steadily put between them over the past thirty minutes. Half awake, San breathes deeply into the skin on his neck.

He stills with a sudden realization.

"Happy to see me this morning?" San asks, voice deep with sleepiness.

Wooyoung doesn't know how he can feel so annoyed and panicked at the same time, but somehow, San managed to do it all with one goddamn sentence. No longer caring about waking him up, Wooyoung jerks his leg forward, trying to wrestle himself out of San's grip.

"Sh-Shut up. I have no idea what you're talking about."

San breathes out a laugh, and the feeling of his breath on his skin makes him feel like he's on fire. And maybe he is on fire, after all, because the burning feeling in his face continues to spread down his neck and through his lungs.

"Yes. Yes, you do." San states this matter of factly, burying his nose against Wooyoung again. "You know I can smell what kinda dream you had, right?"

Wooyoung feels his stomach drop.

They can smell your fear. Wooyoung blinks as Yunho's words from many, many days ago come back to him. That's right. No wonder they can tell how stressed and anxious he is all the time - he probably smells like a bundle of anxiety.

Apparently, they can smell other things, too.

"I was waiting for you to wake up." He can hear the smile in San's voice. "Didn't want to interrupt your dream. Can I know what it was about?"

Wooyoung is mortified. He wishes the apocalypse would come early and destroy the earth already. Maybe death isn't such a bad option after all.

"W-Will you please just forget?" Wooyoung tries to unlatch San's solid grip around him. "Fuck, I can't believe you talked me into sleeping here."