Mystic Messenger x Reader One-Shots

✧ Nightmares (Saeyoung Choi)

Smoke.

Smoke, billowing into thick black clouds. It stung your eyes, your nose, the back of your throat. You could feel it burning, blackening the inside of your lungs, blistering tissue and muscle.

The fire smouldered all around you, licking at your shoes, spitting embers at your face, ash showering down like dirty snowflakes.

You couldn't see anything.

Everything was being devoured by smoke and flame.

All you could smell was burning, burning plastic, charred flesh. It was an animalistic smell, rotting and decaying and rancid.

More smoke poured into your vision. The heat was intense, a crushing pressure on your lungs. Your eyes were smarting, and then watering.

You couldn't move. You couldn't breathe.

You were losing consciousness. Shadows bruised the edges of your vision, the room started lilting.

And then, all of a sudden-

-arms were around you, warm and soft, tender. You jerked up in shock, your heart pounding like a drum, in your ears, beneath your tongue.

At first, darkness seemed to swaddle you like a surgical bandage, and then light poured through, too sudden and too bright; you squeezed your eyes shut.

"Hey, it's okay," a voice cooed from somewhere, low and thick with sleep. Breaths rustled past your ear. "You're okay now. It was just a dream."

You nervously blinked your eyes open, testing the light on your delicate retina, and turned to find Seven beside you, his arms wrapped tight around your shoulders. His skin glowed in the shafts of light tumbling from the lampshade beside the bed.

"Saeyoung," you breathed, your tongue wrapping around his name as if it were a pearl, delicate, protected.

Saeyoung. It was Saeyoung who had pulled you from the flames that had consumed Rika's apartment. Saeyoung who had been by your side that day, who had not left your side since. Saeyoung who had shown you how to love the scars you'd come away with after the accident.

"I thought... I thought I was back there again, I thought I was trapped."

Seven hummed softly, the vibrations in his throat rumbling against the back of your head. "That was in the past, [F/N]. It's over now. Yeah? It's over. You're safe."

"With you."

"With me," he echoed, his fingertips stroking the top of your bare arm. "I'll always be here."

"Always?"

"Fucking forever," he mumbled, and you laughed quietly. It sounded out of place against the stillness of the night.

Laying your head over his chest so that you could hear his heart, humming like a lullaby, you knew you'd have no trouble falling back asleep, this time undisturbed by your nightmares. "Thank you."

The light switched off. The room swam in darkness. "I made a promise, remember? Now get some sleep. I'll be here in the morning."