#i already had koi watercolors (small set) and a water brush pen so i was set | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

taeyongtime · 6 years

Text

r.e.m.ember

genre: dream eater!au

group & member: NCT’s Ten

word count: ~3.2k

a/n: this right here lowkey for ten’s plus one @taeyxong

[dream I]

The key slowly turns in a clockwise fashion, his nimble fingers tucking the silver object back to its pocket in his jacket once the door creaks open. His footsteps echo in the long hallway despite walking on his bare feet, eyes narrowed against the white light that greets him once his entry is complete.

“Interesting.”

There is nothing around him, only the span white space that never seems to end. Not even another creature or imagination of a creature crosses his path as he makes a lap around the area, confirming that he had entered a most unusual space for the night. His body leans against what seems to be a wall or some other structure that can support his back, fingers tapping thoughtfully against the solid surface in thought. What to do, oh what to do.

“A dream without a dream,” Ten muses, reaching into the breast pocket of his black jacket and taking out a black ink pen, “Is nothing but an empty canvas left open to the imaginations of dreamers and their reality.”

—

“Back already?”

The door closes behind him and Ten sighs as he greets the gatekeeper at the Entry. “There was nothing, Johnny.”

“Nothing?” the tall figure echoes, frowning at the thought. “Was it just your door?”

“Perhaps. But I did get to draw in the white space, so that was fun.”

“You know you can’t eat what you draw.”

Ten laughs, a chime that rings off the gates that separate the doors and the dreamers. “I had fun regardless.”

“What’d you draw?”

“A tree,” he answers, closing his eyes as he recalls the image of inked leaves scattering down by his feet. “Some of the branches dangled low enough for me to touch with my fingertips and the whole thing glistened with silver pearls.” Reaching into the single pocket sewn at the left side of his garment, Ten beams at the black leaf nestled inside and hands it off to Johnny. “It was beautiful, Johnny. I only wish I was tall enough to reach one of the pearls.”

“Well, maybe someday,” his friend laughs, tucking the leaf behind his ear. “Thank you for the gift.”

“Good night.”

“Maybe I’ll see you in the morning.”

—

[reality I]

You wake rather alert on this fine Saturday morning, the needle of the hour hand on your clock barely past the 6th increment as you sit in bed. Last night had been peculiar, your dreams rather empty for once as you recall seeing a large span of white space. Just white space, nothing more and nothing less besides the omnipotence that was your unconscious roaming against the white walls. Corridor. Shapeless hollow, if you will.

“But there was…” Your eyes close and there it is, the flickering image of what looked like a tree rooted in the center of it all. A tree the color of black ink, with branches hanging low and dropping inked leaves all around the base as the top shimmered silver. You’d certainly never seen a tree like that before, especially not one that glowed with a platinum finish, and inspiration buzzed at your fingertips as you force yourself up and out of bed.

“Yes. Yes, it could work.”

You quickly brush your teeth and make yourself some toast for breakfast, slathering a healthy amount of strawberry jam onto the crisp bread and holding it in your mouth as you grab your paints from the shelf next to the fridge. A full set of watercolors and the small portable easel good enough to start with, you delicately hold the sweet toast in between your teeth as you head downstairs to the basement that served as your art studio. Placing down your colors and easel, you finish the rest of the toast in a few bites and roll your sleeves up, making sure to tie your hair into a bun for ease as you locate your battered sketchpad at the upper left of your worktable.

“Okay,” you mutter, flipping to a blank page and twirling one of your sketch pencils in between your fingers. “It was something like…” A few quick strokes make their mark on the page and you pause, eyes gleaming at the box of oil pastels next to the ruler and some lone markers that hadn’t made their way back into their original box.

“This will do.”

You fish the silver oil pastel out of its spot next to its darker gray companion and dot your sketch, the finished pencil-sketched tree sparkling with silver resemblance to the platinum finish you had seen in your dream.

“Metallica. I can work with that.”

Ripping out the sketch and setting it on the small easel you had brought down, you opened the lid to your watercolors and groan at forgetting to get a cup of water, having to make a second trip up at the unintentional blunder.

—

[dream II]

The early morning brings Ten to the Entry again, giving Johnny a friendly nod as the gatekeeper let him in, silver key already in hand as he approaches his designated door. Shabbier than most and not as nice-looking as some of the others here, it was still the door assigned to him when he first qualified as a dreamer and he knew it would only be a matter of time before he got a new key to unlock a new door. Not that he didn’t like his current door. Yesterday’s spectacle was unprecedented and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about the white space and the dreamless dream.

The door clicks open and he steps in, twirling the silver key in his fingers as he enters the dream, pleasantly surprised to see the tree he had drawn yesterday as a greeting.

“Why, hello.” He tiptoes and plucks an inked leaf from the branch, blowing it to his left while the rest of the tree looms overhead. “Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Exchanging the key for his pen, he scribbles over the trunk of the tree and it melts, forming into a pool of rippling black ink despite the lack of movement within the liquid substance.

Or maybe…

Ten backs up when a hand abruptly reaches out from the surface of the ink pool, and without a second thought he grabs hold and begins to pull, eyes widened in surprise at seeing the figure wheezing by his feet.

—

[reality + dream]

You gulp in large breaths of air and shriek at seeing him. “Who are you?”

“Wild,” Ten murmurs, still staring at you until you manage to get yourself up. “This has never happened before.” He licks his lips in anticipation and you take a step back, the soles of your feet touching the pool of ink again.

“Oh.”

He extends a hand and you cautiously take it, letting yourself be pulled to safety as the pool begins to shrink until not even a droplet of water remains.

“Did you do that?”

Ten shakes his head. “This is your dream, not mine.”

“My dream,” you echo. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Anything here is within your control.”

“So I can make you disappear then?”

Ten snorts at the question. “No, you can’t.”

“But you said it’s my dream.”

“Yes, but there are still some things that operate out of your immediate control.” He takes out his black pen, uncapping it and pausing in thought before using it to draw a glass cube into view.

“I created this,” he begins. “Just because this is your dream doesn’t mean you can erase what I’ve made.”

You tap at the glass, surprised at the sturdiness underneath your fingertips. “This could be a good tank.”

Water starts to fill up the moment those words leave your mouth, churning into a rosy pink color.

“This is your dream,” Ten repeats. “You can’t take away what I’ve made, but you can certainly add to it if you’d like.”

“I want two fishes,” you begin excitedly. “Goldfish… no, maybe koi. I’ve always loved how pretty they are.”

Two koi fishes the color of mottled orange, white, and black appear in the glass tank soon after, their mouths a gaping ‘O’ shape as they make lazy laps around the confinement of their home. Small air bubbles rise to the surface, and you stare with renowned interest at the branch of flowers that hovers over the water’s edge.

“One for you,” Ten offers. “They like the flowers.”

You take the offered branch and hold it over the tank, a smile lighting up your face as the larger of the two koi swims up to your branch and begins to nibble at the budding blossom closest to the water.

“Cute.”

—

[reality II]

Having nodded off, the sensation of cold droplets on your skin bring you out of slumber and back to reality, the shout at black paint smeared across your thighs a sight for sore eyes. Somehow you had knocked over water into your paints—specifically the black inks—water mixing with the colored additive to form the dark river that was still spilling endlessly onto the floor of your studio.

“Fuck.”

Mopping it up with an old rag, you wring out the water in the old basin next to the water heater and leave it tossed inside, shifting your attention to the black smears on your skin. Being messy was a given in the realm of art, nothing to throw a fit over when you had to get your thoughts on canvas before Inspiration took them away again.

“But first,” you muse as you gaze returns to the water heater. “A trip to the pet store to look at some koi.”

—

[dream III]

“I met with my dreamer, Johnny.”

The gatekeeper scoffs. “There aren’t supposed to be any face-to-face interactions.”

Ten nods in acknowledgement but presses on. “It really happened. Creation blossoming at my fingertips and…” He licks his lips at the memory. “Delicious. It was the best tasting dream I’ve had in a long while.”

“Is your key defective?”

“You’re just jealous.” Ten pushes past Johnny and stops before his door. “See you later.”

“Mmm.”

Twisting the knob, Ten opens the door and steps into the passage leading into his dreamer’s dream, shivering at the nippy breeze that greets him once the door closes.

“That’s a first.”

Heavy rain is pouring by the time he steps into the dream, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth as the wind picks up, almost howling in the backdrop of the falling water. Feeling his head getting soaked and droplets seeping in through his clothes, Ten reaches into his jacket pocket and draws an umbrella for himself, opening it and leaning against the walls of the dream. The rain doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon, and hopefully it doesn’t continue this way when melancholy was the last thing he wanted after the excitement and delight at the dreams nights before.

He doesn’t know how long he fell asleep underneath the umbrella, only that his tongue was now ridden with the taste of frustration and sorrow. Nightmares were the worst dreams to sit through and the worst to eat.

—

[reality III]

You should have expected this after turning in your completed watercolor portraits of the silver tree and koi tank in your dreams.

Inspiration leaving as quickly as she came, your brain remained fuzzy as you tried to brainstorm another idea for the art contest your teacher had entered you in without your consent. It was made worse when the medium for the contest was charcoal, something you had little experience in when your area of expertise had always been watercolor. Sure, she had pulled you aside for supplementary sessions to practice working with it and you did fine with simple strokes and shading, but when it was time for you to use your creativity for your own piece… no. Your brain just does the thing where it shuts down at the thought of creating something new and the deadline was only one week away. Seven days to complete and submit a charcoal sketch that didn’t look like shit because you were better than that.

“I hateeeee this,” you groan, grabbing tufts of your hair in frustration. “I don’t even watercolor so how do I charcoal?”

The package of charcoal still unopened after buying them the craft store earlier this week, you finally reach for it and pull off the plastic packaging, staring at the black art tools with disdain in your eyes. Flipping open to a fresh page in your sketchbook, you take one of the charcoal sticks out of the case and make a diagonal line down the paper, building on top of it with consecutive lines and rubbing out the edges with a soft eraser.

“No no.” You tear the page out and scrunch it into a ball, tossing it to the side. “Not good.”

Two hours pass before you know it and the mountain of paper balls littered around the floor is a sight to behold, scrapped idea after scrapped idea mockingly making their presence known to the frustrated artist. You debate taking a quick nap to recharge, but lately you haven’t been sleeping very well, your dreams morphing into dark and dreary moods of rainy spells and loud noises that jolt you awake not long after closing your eyes. So different from the carefree exchanges from before with that curious—

“Maybe I’ll see him again,” you muse, falling face-first on the middle of your sketchbook. “Maybe he can help.”

—

[reality + dream]

You open your eyes to a spell of heavy rain, water droplets soaking you wet from head-to-toe until you remembered to pull the hood of your paint-splattered hoodie over your head. Walking quickly, you search for any sign of another life but all you see is darkness. The only things you hear are the steady pitter-pattering rain and your own footsteps as you continue onward. Your dreams have never been this dark before, and fear was beginning to gain hold of your frail wits until you spot the shadow of what looked to be a building three feet away. Eager at the hopes of meeting someone—anyone—underneath the roof in the rain, you pick up your feet and make a run for it, the smile on your face dissipating at the lack of presence besides your own.

“I thought he’d be here,” you grumble, taking a seat on the cool tiles of the pavilion and eyeing the candlesticks on each corner. “Wish there was warmth so I wouldn’t be freezing in this rain.”

“This is your dream, remember? Anything here is within your control.”

Each of the four corners light up with a newly lit candle flame and the figure from your dreams earlier waves awkwardly as he takes a seat across from you.

“It’s been raining a lot lately.”

“Ah, well…” You pick your words carefully. “An artist has her moments.”

“Are you working on something?”

You begin to tell him about your charcoal dilemma and he listens attentively, nodding every so often and tilting his head, the glint of his multiple ear piercings catching glimmers from the candle flame.

“Hey, I never got your name,” you speak up, staring at him curiously. “Or do you even have one?”

“Oh, I’ve got one. It’s Ten.”

“You have ten names?”

A burst of giggles and you duck your head in embarrassment after realizing your mistake.

“That was cute,” Ten laughs.

“Your face,” you begin, “It’s… artistic.”

“Really?”

“May I… Can I draw a picture of you?”

A sketchbook and pencil materialize onto your lap and he nods his head in permission before you begin. His features were easy to sketch, definitively recognizable even in pencil, and as you add the finishing touches his nose, the pencil sketch shows itself in your mind in potential charcoal. The shadings could be improved and there were lines that could be shorter and others blending into the neckline but… it had potential. Your contest entry was salvable.

“Thoughts?”

You hold up the pencil sketch of him and Ten’s eyes widen in delight. “That looks just like me!”

“I need to make this in charcoal, do you think this can be reproduced in charcoal?”

“I never doubted your artistic ability at all.”

The grin on your face spreads to each side of your cheeks. “Then I’ll bring this back so I can start immediately!”

“You’ve forgotten this is a dream,” he reminds you, chuckling as two of the candles become extinguished by the sudden breeze that blows in, no sound of the storm from earlier. “I’ll be pleasantly surprised if you can even remember any of this once you wake up.”

“But… it’s my dream. I’m quite good at remembering dreams.”

“Not if I eat it first.” Ten stares at you with a soft gaze and smiles. “I’m getting a new key, so I probably won’t ever meet you in your dreams again.”

“Eat,” you echo, thoroughly confused. “Key…?”

“Best of luck in your future endeavors and never stop believing in yourself, alright?”

“Wait, Ten… what are you—”

—

[reality IV]

You wake, cold sweat running down the back of your neck as you sit up. The charcoal sketch you had slept on now smudged, you touch at your face and grimace at the black stains on your fingertips.

“Oh shit!”

Your reflection exactly as you predicted, you turn on the tap by the crusty basin and wash off the smudges on your face. Staring at the cracked mirror above head, you close your eyes and try to remember the dream you had while you were asleep.

“Come on, come on.” Your nose scrunches in an attempt to speed up the recall process, but nothing comes to mind. Nothing definitively workable, at least.

“Okay,” you mutter, gritting your teeth. “Okay, fuck this, I’ll make use of these lines… darker here… lighter there… pencil and charcoal…”

❀

The envelope comes in the mailbox three months later, the association that had sponsored the art contest you participated in warmly informing you of your win and simultaneously giving you the location of the art museum that had your winning drawing on display. Not caring much for the trophy that you were supposed to pick up by the end of the week, you hurriedly get dressed into more appropriate clothes to wear out and arrive at the museum in approximately thirty minutes, inclined to tell the staff you deserved free admission to view your own work but paying proper fare for ticket entry anyway. You take a map from the information kiosk and locate the correct exhibit, taking the elevator three floors up until you hit the corner designated for the winners of the contest under the group that were the very ones who sponsored this very museum—fitting that they would place winning work in their own sponsored institution.

“That’s beautiful.”

You turn around, face paling at the sight of the young man staring at the charcoal drawing. His lean figure is an uncanny resemblance to the subject of your drawing, down to the sharp nose, angled jaw, long neck, and remaining limbs that hold up the rest of the lithe body.

“You look familiar,” you begin carefully. “But I can’t remember where I’ve seen your face before.”

He shrugs, grinning as he tilts his head curiously at you. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ve met each other once upon a dream.”

#ten #nct #nct scenarios #ten scenarios #nct imagine #nct imagines #nct u #dream!au #queued to post

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