forthedog | There's a point to all this dreaming

Entry tags:

darrow,
neil

There's a point to all this dreaming

The metal clangs under his feet--he realizes after a few seconds of it that the floor isn't solid, it's grated, and under it there are hundreds of massive, turning gears.

They're standing over a giant meat grinder.

The little things with their long knives are swarming at them. He's firing, firing, emptying rounds into the room, but they keep coming, cutting at his legs, knocking him down. He hears a scream, high and wordless and terrified, and he sees Neil's twisted face in the dimness, sees them take him and lift him up, blood running over the metal grating as they carry him away. He's trying to crawl, dragging himself across the floor as beneath him that massive infernal machine grinds and grinds, and he sees another quick, moon-like flash of Neil's face as the knives go to work and Neil is screaming--

He's screaming. Sitting up in bed, the sheets soaked with sweat. Alone.

Quiet.

The window by the bed is open and breeze moves across his bare skin. For a few moments he just sits there in darkness mottled by city lights, trying to breathe normally again. And all he can think, with what little coherence he has at some ungodly hour of the fucking night, is that on a long enough timeframe all dreams might come true.

It takes him another five minutes to come to a decision.

He drags himself out of bed and pulls on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, splashes some water on his face and spares himself a look in the bathroom mirror. He looks pale, hollow-eyed. He looks like what he is, which is a man who hasn't been sleeping well the last two nights. And that, coupled with the city's change before, means that he hasn't gotten decent sleep in about a week.

Fuck this.

He could just go, he thinks. Just head out the door. But that feels a little too much like a month ago, a little too much like something dark and crashing, so instead he heads back into the bedroom, sinks down onto the bed, picks up the cell phone and dials Neil's number.

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He has to take a breath. And he can't. Not for a few seconds. It's the first time he's seen Neil wearing this little since... Since. And then he hadn't really even allowed himself to notice much. Now it's like he can't stop looking, even in the hard glow of the hall lighting. Gorgeous body, wiry and narrow and angular and so fucking perfect. So familiar. So new.

"I. Um." He shifts awkwardly, steels himself and pushes his way in as if pressing past a semi-solid barrier. He gives Neil a spare, sidelong smile. "Would you believe I had a bad fucking dream?"

Coughing out a rough laugh, I say, "After the weekend we had? Probably."

I shut the door and the apartment falls into darkness again. If I were fully awake, that might bother me, but right now, it's only a comfort.

"What the fuck do you need, a fuckin' bedtime story?"

"I needed to see you." In the dark everything is at once much easier and much more difficult. What's seen. What's not. What he'd like to see and can't. The sharper lines of Neil's face in what light comes in through the windows. All the rest in shadow. Himself in the shadows.

Even with one good eye, he can see enough.

"They were taking you. They were--" He cuts himself off with a hard breath and turns away.

"Mike," I breathe, taking a step toward him, finally shaking the last bit of fog from my brain.

"'m right here. 'm fine."

I hesitate, and I know it's probably a mistake, but in the end, I can't stop myself from resting a hand on his shoulder, my gut clenching at the warmth of his skin through his t-shirt.

This is one of the things that's different now--touch, and what feels all right where touching is concerned, what's allowed, but the filaments of his nerves are wound so tight that even that much makes him tense up, nearly makes him pull away.

He makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "Shit, it's fine. It's not even the worst fucking dream I have about you these days."

He turns back to Neil again, raking one hand through his hair. "Do you have tea? I'll make some."

"I don't want any fuckin' tea," I say, pulling my hand away from him, giving him a look. It's not fine. If it was fine, he wouldn't be here. Not in the middle of the night, breaking one of the many unspoken rules between us.

I wish I'd known that what it took for him to be okay with me touching him was to lose half the fuckin' blood in his body.

"Just... Yeah, whatever. Cabinet above the stove."

He shoots Neil a harder look as he pushes past, something that isn't quite irritation but might be edging in that direction. In the kitchen he flips on the light, blinking hard, rummages through cabinets for mugs, goes through the ritual of it and lets it soothe him.

Eostre taught him a great deal. At least he remembers some of it now.

"Mike," I breathe, scrubbing both hands over my face and following him into the kitchen. "What the hell are you doin' over here in the middle of the night, sayin' shit's fine. It's not fine."

Fucking talk to me.

"I fucking told you," he says, turning on the burner under the kettle and leaning with both hands against the stovetop. Eyes closed. Warmth.

He shouldn't be here.

"I just needed to see you." He turns his head slightly, eyes still closed. "No, shit's not fine. You can't make it fine."

"All right, you've seen me," I say, dropping into a chair at the kitchen table with a sigh.

Folding my arms across the table, I rest my cheek on the back of my crossed wrists, watching him through heavy-lidded eyes.

"This was easier when you were barely conscious."

"I know." He turns, still leaning, swiping a hand down his face. He doesn't even know how to begin to apologize for this.

So better to not try, maybe.

He hazards a crooked smile. "Fucking monsters coming for you and the whole world gone to fucking hell, not a lotta room to get tangled up in psychology."

The knot in the back of my throat tightens and when I smile, I know it's weak, even a little watery, but I hope he either won't notice or I can chalk it up to tiredness or something.

"Is it fucked up that I wish it still was?" The world going to hell made things simple. Things felt balanced to me for the first time in... in a really long time.

He shakes his head slowly. "No. I was kinda wishing it would be that way for a while. It was... like going home." He breathes out a shaky laugh and scrubs a hand over his face again. "Never thought I'd say that about the fucking Realm."

But in the Realm, he had wanted Tom Hobbes but it hadn't torn him apart inside. He had been haunted by ghosts but he had moved too fast for them to ever get very close. The easy things had been harder. The hard things... had been so much easier.

"Except the stabbing. That part, I coulda done without."

Huffing out a laugh, I say, "I could've done without the nearly gettin' our asses killed, but yeah."

I nudge the chair next to me out from under the table with my foot, my head still pillowed on my folded arms.

"Forget the tea, man. Just sit with me for a minute."

He hesitates, then sighs and pushes away from the stove. "The fucking water has to boil anyway."

He closes the distance between himself and the table and stands for a minute, looking down at Neil--tired, half naked, hair rumpled with sleep, and how many times has he seen this?

Never before now. And more times than he can count.

He sinks down into the chair, hesitates again, and reaches out and closes his hand over Neil's. "Thought I might lose you," he murmurs. "And I don't really even fucking have you, so where's that start making sense?"

Breathing out a shaky sigh, I shift my hand so it fits better alongside his, my thumb brushing across his knuckles.

"You've got me. You've always fucking got me," I admit quietly, lifting my head and pushing my hair out of my face with my free hand. Around my neck, fully visible without my shirt, hangs the wooden protection charm Sam gave me over a year ago, a notch carefully cut along the edge of it, that can't really be seen but can be felt. And on the same chain is Mike's wedding band.

His gaze slides down to the charm, which moves as Neil does, catching his attention. He remembers seeing it before now, but the deeper unfamiliarity of it strikes him and he takes a second or two to puzzle at it--

Before he sees the ring, and his breath catches.

Slowly he reaches out, touches it with the tip of one finger.

He might tell himself that it's nothing to do with him, that it's worn in honor of a man he isn't and couldn't ever be. He might do that.

But he's not as good at lying to himself as he used to be.

"I still don't fucking get that," he breathes, gaze flicking back up to Neil's face.

"Yeah, well, neither do I," I admit with a rough cough of laughter, flashing him a faint smile, my other hand curling around his wrist before he can pull away.

"And anyway, I told you I'd hold onto it, didn't I?"

"That's not what I meant." His arm tenses but only briefly; then he's relaxing, easing into the grip, his hand moving slowly up, fingertips against the cool skin of Neil's cheek and tracing up toward his temple. It's exploratory. It's mapping territory he already knows so well. His breath is tight in his throat, even if the tension is gone from the rest of him.

He runs his fingers along the line of the scar at Neil's temple, up toward his hairline. Somehow--and of course it would be this way, because how could it be any different--that element of imperfection only makes the rest of the face around it more beautiful.

"How did this happen?"

I hold myself perfectly still, afraid I'm gonna spook him, afraid of shattering the moment. His fingertips graze my cheek and I let out a shuddering breath. It takes me a moment to realize what he's even asked of me.

"Uh... The summer after you... After, this whole world appeared, under our feet. Access in the caves, you had to ride this weird submarine car down to get to it. There were supplies... a whole fuckin' city full of 'em. Shari and I went down to see what we could find. I brought Tom's Glock, I figured we'd be fine. But there were people down there. Not really zombies, but... close. We got cornered down in the winery. She ended up breakin' her arm and I got hit in the head pretty bad. We would've been fucked if Sam and Dean hadn't come to get us out."

I'm quiet for a moment, my eyes dropping down to our clasped hands.

"Tom was so pissed at me, and then... 'Bout a week later, he was gone. For a long time, I thought... I dunno, I thought maybe that was why." That I was being punished.

"You know that's bullshit," he says, still soft, throat still tight. Danger, Neil in danger, and he hadn't been there. "You know that's not why."

He wants to lean forward, curl a hand around the back of Neil's neck and pull him in, trace that scar with his lips and his tongue and learn it. Factor it into the detailed map he already has of Neil's body. That map is out of date now.

There's still so much he doesn't know.

From behind him he hears a hissing making its way toward a high whistle, and he tugs his hands gently free. "I should... get that."

"Knowing it and feeling it are two different things, Mike," I murmur, the hand around his wrist moments away from pulling him toward me when the fucking kettle starts to whistle.

Fuck.

I'm left awkwardly empty handed, staring dumbly at him for a moment before I clear my throat and say, "Yeah, sure."

It's a moment that's been broken; he knows it the second he breaks it, and his middle clenches as he pulls away. But it's not gone. Not completely. He can feel it lingering around him, like stepping from a warm room out into cold air.

He pulls the kettle off the heat and fills the two mugs he's found. The tea bags themselves are cheap little things but as the water touches them they give off a comforting smell, somehow both dark and crisp.

The Island feels closer now.

He sinks back into the chair and sets the other mug down in front of Neil. "I know they're two different things," he says, eyes closed over the steam. "That's been my fucking brain for the last few weeks."

"I know," I murmur, sliding the mug closer, palms curled around warmed ceramic and steam curling up toward my face.

"I know it's hard. For you. I mean, I know I'm like... I shouldn't be puttin' so much pressure on you to be him or whatever, but it's just... It's fuckin' killin' me, bein' near you and still havin' so much... distance."

"I know." They both know. They both know. And it fixes nothing. He could hurl the fucking mug across the room. Instead his hands just tighten and then it passes.

"That's what I liked about everything going to shit. It was like the fucking distance disappeared." He opens his eyes, meets Neil's gaze, and it hurts but he holds the line. "So let's try to fucking get rid of it."

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