comment_fic | Thursday: Song titles

Hello, everyone. I’m

nagi_schwarz and your host for the week. Today's theme is song titles. Prompts can be the titles of songs, nursery rhymes, and any other pieces of music.

Just a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and the fandom's full name
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the above-mentioned spoiler cut.

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...
+ Any, any, Stalker (10cm)
+ Any, any, You’re the Best (Cha Eunwoo)
+ Any, any, Fly (Jinjin ft. Moonbin)

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tag=song titles

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From:

nagi_schwarz

“All right.” Myungjun placed the last of his pencils in their leather case and rolled it up, fastened it with a neat knot. “You did well today.”

Minhyuk, who’d been perched on a tall stool as Myungjun’s model, nodded and hopped off. “No problem. Honestly this is a lot more fun than a lot of photo shoots I’ve done.”

He wiggled and stretched, and Myungjun remembered that he was a dancer by avocation, and by Bin’s report a very good one. No wonder his flexibility was impressive.

“I’ll probably need you to sit for me when it comes time to do some prop studies, but I’ll reach out to your agency, I’m sure they’ll let you know.” Myungjun smiled.

“Of course, hyung. I’ll make time in my schedule for you for sure.” Minhyuk headed for the door.

“Excellent. Till then, I’ll see you in my dreams.”

Minhyuk whirled around, eyes wide. “What did you say?”

Myungjun blinked. “What?”

“You just said I’ll see you in my dreams.” Minhyuk’s gaze was strangely intense.

“Oh.” Myungjun felt his cheeks heat. “It’s what I say to all my muses. Because they inspire me, like dreams. It — sorry, it’s just a habit. I didn’t want to make you feel weird, or anything. I mean, you’re a gorgeous model, so I’m sure plenty of people dream of you, above and beyond Dongmin. Wait. That didn’t sound right. Uh —”

“It’s fine, hyung. I see what you mean.” Minhyuk looked amused now. “It’s an unusual farewell, is all. But it’s unique, just like you. See you in your dreams.”

He bobbed his head, then slipped out of Myungjun’s apartment.

Myungjun watched the door closed behind him. The kid was witty when he wanted to be. See you in your dreams. Not a bad comeback.

He turned back to the initial sketch he’d done of Minhyuk. How was he going to make Park Minhyuk look magical for the cover of Dongmin’s newest novel?

*

Myungjun opened his eyes. He was standing at a giant gate. It stretched above him toward a sky that he somehow knew was eternally twilit, and it was made of horn and ivory. Perched across the top were three fantastical creatures — an eagle with the body of a lion, a two-legged dragon, and a winged horse.

“Who goes there?” the dragon asked, peering down at him.

The winged horse said, “It’s just a dreamer.”

Only then all three of them turned, and the gate eased open a fraction. Myungjun tensed, expecting some other nightmare or fantasy creature to come charging at him, but instead he saw Park Minhyuk.

Well, not the Park Minhyuk who’d been in his art studio several hours prior.

Well, Myungjun supposed, it was him, but of course this was a dream, and he looked different. Usually he had warm, dark golden skin and bright dark eyes and sleek black hair. Here, he had skin as pale as moonlight, and eyes as endless and gleaming as the distant stars, and hair the deep blue of midnight shadows.

But he was smiling a familiar dimpled smile. “Hyung! You’re dreaming. Want to dream with me?”

Myungjun blinked. The characters in his dreams weren’t usually so conversational, were they? Only he rarely remembered his dreams, except for the super vivid ones that became paintings, usually mystical landscapes and cityscapes, like the giant gates before him.

“Me?” Myungjun asked.

Minhyuk nodded. “Yeah. You said you’d see me in your dreams, and I agreed, so here I am.”

That sounded logical, because this was a dream, but of course it made no sense in the real world. People couldn’t just appear in each other’s dreams, mystical talk of dreamwalking aside.

If Myungjun was going to be dreaming so vividly though, he figured he might as well have fun. “Sure. I’ll dream with you.”

Minhyuk smiled, and then he turned and looked up at the three guardians of the gates. “This dreamer is with me.”

“Yes, Shining One,” the eagle-lion said.

Minhyuk nudged one of the gates — ornately-carved ivory — open wider. “Come on, hyung. This way.”

“Where are we going?” Myungjun asked.

“Anywhere you want, within The Dreaming,” Minhyuk said. “Usually when Dongmin-hyung comes, if we don’t go on a date, we hang out in the Library, since that’s where most writers go. But we could go to the Gallery, or even the Conservatory, or even the Stage.”

He led Myungjun along a winding path toward a tall castle that was at once wholly beautiful but also looked like a thousand fairytale castles put together.

“I have no idea what those places even are,” Myungjun said.

“Well, the Library is full of books that people only dream of writing or finishing,” Minhyuk said. “If a book is finished in the waking world, it vanishes from the Library. But we have additional plays by Shakespeare and things like that on its shelves.”

He walked right up to the castle door and pushed it open. Surely the journey would have taken longer Myungjun glanced over his shoulder, and the giant gate he’d come through was smaller than a toy in the distance.

“Are we just — allowed in here?” Myungjun asked.

“Most dreamers don’t come this way, just begin their dreams wherever they need to be, but you’re with me,” Minhyuk said. “The Gallery is full of paintings and drawings and other art that people only create in dreams, or dream of finishing. Want to see some Da Vincis? Although I think maybe Waterhouse might be more your style.”

“Then the Conservatory is where…the songs people only dream of finishing or making are archived?” Myungjun followed Minhyuk along halls made of pale stone veined with green and silver, though some hallways were midnight black and lined with gleaming ruby runes and symbols and sigils.

“That’s right.”

“And the Stage…?”

“It’s where the performances of people’s dreams are. A rock concert. The perfect K-pop comeback stage. That piano recital you panicked in during third grade. The play you didn’t make the audition for. Your Olympic freestyle skate where you stumbled.”

“Much more variety,” Myungjun mused.

“Oh, there’s variety in the Gallery, too. Sculptures, clothing designs, the fishing net you promised to finish repairing before your mother passed away from a terrible plague.” Minhyuk smiled at him.

“That sounds really amazing,” Myungjun admitted. “And kind of — overwhelming. Are there noraebang performances on the Stage? You know, like the time you wanted to impress your crush by singing Tears or something but hadn’t warmed up your voice properly.”

“If you like, of course.” Minhyuk led Myungjun through an increasingly labyrinthine series of twisting and turning corridors, with corners and offshoots and doors springing up everywhere. “I figured since you’re an artist, you might want to start in the Gallery, but also I know you’re a great singer, and we could go visit the Stage. Didn’t you once say you wished you could have seen X Japan live in concert, back before their guitarist passed away?”

“How do you know that?” Myungjun turned to Minhyuk, startled, but then a memory hit him, hazy, as if from a distant dream — or the waking world — of sitting around a table in a street tent bar with Jinwoo, Bin, Dongmin, Minhyuk, and Sanha, all six of them taking turns grilling the pork belly bacon and talking about their favorite music.

Myungjun could still smell the sizzling bacon, hear it pop and hiss on the grill, but then Minhyuk opened a door and showed Myungjun into a seemingly endless room.

There were pedestals, frames, display cases, all scattered across a floor of pristine white marble that was threaded with only the faintest golden veins. The first painting, front and center, was of Minhyuk.

Myungjun stared at the painting. It was his painting. The one he’d been contemplating all day. He knew his own brush strokes, knew the curve of Minhyuk’s long, strong fingers as he held a transparent globe in which flashed an entire galaxy. He prowled forward, inspecting the heavy wooden frame that was gilded along the edges. The placard beneath the painting read Kim Myungjun, oil on canvas, potential cover for the Cha Eunwoo novel Ice Flower.

“How is this here?” he demanded of Minhyuk, who was studying a small clay sculpture of a crooked, lumpy, winged heart (Alex Torres, Mother’s Day Gift, Kindergarten).

Minhyuk turned to him, smiling. He was wearing the same outfit as in the painting, Myungjun realized, the tan button-down shirt and slacks. He looked like he’d stepped out of the painting. Well, this certainly was a dream.

“You’ve been working on this painting in dreams, of course,” Minhyuk said. “Do you want to work on it some more, or would you rather work on something else?”

He gestured, and the painting was no longer in a frame but on an easel, and a table of paints and brushes and a palette and palette knife and jars of his working oils appeared beside the easel, and —

“I paint and draw all day for work. I love doing them, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still my job. Let’s do something fun.”

“What would you like to do?” Minhyuk asked.

Myungjun considered. “How are you at video games?”

“In the waking world? Abysmal. Here, I’m as good as you need to be. What would you like to play? We can go to the Stage and see The Perfect League of Legends tournament battle, or —”

“How about Overwatch?” Myungjun turned and headed for the door, and this time it was Minhyuk who followed him. “I want to be Hammond.”

“Hammond?” Minhyuk echoed, puzzled.

“You know, the hamster in the wrecking ball.”

Moments later, when Myungjun was covered in fur and in the actual Wrecking Ball as laser fire exploded around him, he almost regretted his decision, but then he heard Minhyuk let out a cry of alarm, and he scrambled to save his teammate.

In dreams, video games were a thousand times better.

Minhyuk was a thousand times better at them, too.

*

Minhyuk perched on a stool in the middle of Myungjun’s studio, holding a spherical glass paperweight while Myungjun arranged lights around him. Something about the way the light caught on the glass reminded him of a swirling galaxy, and he wasn’t sure why.

“You all right, hyung?” Minhyuk asked.

Myungjun glanced at him and wondered what he’d look like with dark blue hair. “Fine. Just — I had a really vivid dream the other night.”

“Hope it was a fun one,” Minhyuk said.

Myungjun set down the final lamp and stepped back, surveying the way the light played across Minhyuk’s features. “You know, I think it was.”

From:

brumeier

So cool! I like how everyone is getting a chance to spend time in the Dreaming, which gives you the opportunity to show more of it and that's always a good thing. ::grins:: Too funny that Myungjun chooses to play a video game, and then become a character in the game. Immersive!

Thanks so much for this great fill!