AllyBlue stories: In Dreams

Joel hadn’t dreamed in longer than he could remember. Nights had been blessedly blank ever since he’d arrived on the island, his sleep deep and restful. So the first dream took him completely by surprise.

He stood in an empty room with blank gray walls. He felt like he was waiting for something, but he didn’t know what. He went to the window and looked out. A man stood on the grass outside, looking up at him. The man seemed sad, though Joel couldn’t figure out why.

Joel lay in bed for a long time after he woke, staring up at the ceiling fan revolving over his bed. The sorrowful face of the man in his dream lingered in his mind, though he couldn’t remember exactly what the man looked like.

“Just a dream,” Joel said to himself, because no one else was there. He shoved the white cotton sheet off and slid out of bed.

The sun was just rising over the green mountains on the horizon when Joel walked out onto the beach. The turquoise waves sparkled in the morning light, and the sand felt cool under his feet. He stretched, relishing the warmth of the tropical sun on his bare skin. He’d stopped wearing clothes as soon as he realized he was alone on the island. Now, he could barely remember a time when he hadn’t been naked.

Joel walked out into the clear water, dove under a rolling blue swell, and swam until the palm trees looked like toys and his hut was swallowed by distance. He flipped over to float on his back and scanned the length of the beach around the bay, more out of habit than anything else. He hadn’t seen another soul since the morning he’d woken up alone in the cozy little hut on the beach.

After his swim, Joel stretched out on the fine white sand and watched puffs of cloud drift across the deep blue sky. No airplane contrails marred the peaceful perfection of that sky. Sometimes, Joel wondered what exactly had happened to the world. Whether everyone else had disappeared, or he himself had been whisked away to this solitary paradise. But mostly it didn’t matter. He had everything he needed here, and he didn’t miss other people.

The day passed the way the days usually did for Joel. Quietly. He wandered the jungle paths behind his hut, listening to the soothing music of birds and insects. When he got hungry, he picked fruit from the trees and ate it as he walked. When the heat became oppressive, he dove into the cool water of the river, in the wide place just past the waterfall.

Nothing much ever happened here. Joel liked that just fine.

He returned to the hut as the sun began to sink behind the mountains. He sat in the big rocking chair on the front porch, sipping a glass of chardonnay and watching the sky shade from brilliant red and orange through pink and lavender to deep midnight blue. The stars appeared one by one as the sky darkened to black.

Joel sat for a while longer, contemplating the rippled reflection of the moon on the water. He felt vaguely uneasy, as he usually did after nightfall. Not because of any sense of danger; in all the time he’d been on the island, he’d never seen anything more threatening than a wasp. The darkness simply gave him a feeling he couldn’t find words for. Like staring at a locked door, aware that he knew what was on the other side, but unable to remember.

He stood, picked up his empty wine glass, and went back inside. The light of the lamp beside the window pushed back the creeping night and suffused the little room in a soft golden glow. He lay down on the bed and drifted to sleep with the light still on.

*****

The room was darker this time, the walls dingy. Only a faint light filtered in past the heavy curtains that now covered the windows. He pushed the thick drapes aside. The sky outside hung gray and menacing over a bleak landscape. The yard was empty. Joel turned, and there, standing beside the closed door of the room, was the man he’d seen before.

“Who are you?” Joel asked. His voice sounded muffled and oddly distorted.

The man took a step toward him, one graceful hand reaching out, and Joel’s pulse sped up. The man’s smooth olive skin, black hair, and full lips made Joel feel things he thought he’d forgotten long ago. But it was the man’s eyes that glued Joel’s feet to the floor. Eyes as black and bottomless as the ocean at night. Eyes that bled a palpable sorrow.

Joel reached out and took the man’s hand in his before he realized what he was doing. The second their hands touched, Joel was overcome by a strange sense of mingled dread and want. He let go, stumbling backward. Whether he was trying to escape from his fear or his need, he couldn’t say.

He sank down to the floor, the blood pounding in his ears. As the world went gray around him, he thought he heard the man call his name.

Joel woke with a start, breathing hard. The sheet clung to his damp skin. The face of his dream man lingered behind his eyes, lovely and sensual, a compelling mix of softness and strength. He could still feel the weight of those black eyes, the warmth of the long, slender fingers curled around his.

It took him a minute to realize what the strange sensation in his groin was. He lay back and ran his fingers tentatively up and down his erection, shivering at the light touch. He’d nearly forgotten what it felt like.

It took less than a minute to get himself off. One hand around his shaft, the other wandering downward to circle his opening, stroking and pulling, a firm thumb against the slit at the tip of his cock, and Joel came, ropes of wet heat splattering his belly. He shut his eyes.

...dusky skin warm and slick beneath him, long legs and strong arms around him, soft lips and harsh breath against his ear, clutching heat around his cock. “Joel, yes, harder...”

Joel sat straight up in bed, eyes flying open. The shocking suddenness of the vision frightened him. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, wide eyes roaming the room. Everything seemed perfectly normal. No grimy gray walls, no strange men with beautiful sad eyes. Only himself, semen drying on his stomach while the morning light poured in through the windows.

He sat there for many long minutes before his shaking subsided.

*****

Though the sun shone as brightly as ever, the day seemed dark to Joel. As if some giant hand had thrown a cloak of shadow across the sky. Sunset found him still curled up in the big rocking chair, staring out at the wide sandy beach and emerald green jungle. Watching, and thinking.

He knew he hadn’t always been on the island. He knew there had been a life before, a whole world. But he couldn’t remember it. Whenever he tried, panic rose like bile in his throat, thick and choking. So he’d stopped trying ages ago. After all, he reasoned, he was here, with no idea how or why he’d gotten here, and no way of leaving, even if he’d wanted to. And why would he want to? This place was a dream come true. Quiet, peaceful, beautiful. Balm to soothe a troubled spirit.

He’d never wondered before at the ease with which this unknown island had become his home. Had never questioned how everything he ever wanted or needed, from food and water to fine wines to electricity, existed here in an abundance that never seemed to diminish. It had all seemed part of a phenomenon beyond his understanding, beyond his ability to control. A thing to enjoy without question.

The dream changed all that, though Joel wasn’t sure why. All he knew was that something about it had jarred that locked door in his mind, shaken it in its frame. Another dream could burst it wide open, and flood his perfect little world with deadly knowledge. He knew it with a certainty he’d never felt before.

“Won’t sleep,” he whispered to himself. “Don’t need to.”

Joel went back inside, made himself a sandwich, and curled up on the sofa to watch a movie on the plasma screen TV that hadn’t been there an hour ago. He ignored the thought of the dream man’s liquid eyes, that soft skin that he ached to touch. If he gave in to his desires, everything would change. And he knew, somehow, that it wouldn’t be for the better.

*****

Joel hadn’t stayed up all night even once since his arrival on the island, preferring the blank safety of sleep to the living dark. But sleep had become his enemy. Sleep, and the unwelcome dreams it now brought.

He resented it. Resented that these strange, disturbing visions had invaded his haven and forced him to face the long nights with eyes wide open. Why, he wondered, did his own mind betray him so? And why did his subconscious insist on inventing the most beautiful man he’d ever seen to tempt him into the unwanted dreams?

You know, a quiet little voice inside him whispered.

“No,” he said, stubborn, thrusting his chin out.

But deep inside, he knew the voice was right.

He managed to stay awake for three nights and three days before exhaustion caught up to him. On the fourth night, he sat ramrod straight in a wooden chair at the kitchen table as darkness fell, TV blaring loud and cheerful in the corner. He fell asleep after an hour, head resting on his folded arms.

The room seethed with shadows. Joel huddled on the cold floor in the corner, arms tight around himself. The windows had disappeared. He thought he could make out shapes of things hanging on the walls, but when he tried to look at them, they blurred and shifted, blending into the grimy gray paint. He liked that he couldn’t see; the things the vague outlines suggested made his stomach knot.

The door to the room slammed open. Joel jumped, heart triphammering in his chest. Something huge and dark blocked out the light. Joel stared, and pure terror bloomed in his guts.

“No,” he whimpered. “Go away. Please go away.”

The figure took a step into the room, then another. As it moved, it shrank, and lightened, and solidified, until the menacing hulk was gone entirely. The lovely man from the previous dreams stood looking down at Joel, dark eyes heavy with sorrow. Joel sagged against the wall, weak with relief.

“Joel... please...”

The man’s voice sounded watery and far away, but something in it struck a chord in Joel’s mind. His insides twisted with a strange mix of grief and desire. Without thinking about what he was doing, whether it would save him or destroy him, Joel rose to his feet, took the man’s hands in his, and pulled him close.

Those black eyes locked with his. “Joel, please...”

Joel slid a hand into the man’s thick, dark hair, letting the heavy strands slip like water through his fingers. “Please what? Who are you? Why do you make me feel like this?”

The man held Joel’s face between his hands and kissed him, tenderly, sweetly. Joel swallowed the sob rising in his throat, but he couldn’t stop the hot tears from trickling down his cheeks. It scared him, feeling this way. Like he’d lost the most precious thing in the world, and didn’t know it.

“Please come back,” the man whispered against Joel’s mouth. “Come back to me.”

He started to pull away. Joel grabbed his wrist, holding him. The black eyes gazed at him, patient and sad.

“But, but I don’t... know you. Do I?” Joel shook his head. “Don’t leave me here.”

“Come back,” the man repeated.

“I don’t know how.” Joel clutched at the man’s hand, letting out a little cry when the long fingers slipped away from his. “Please, don’t go, don’t leave me! I can’t get back, I don’t know how!”

The man smiled, and the beauty of it stole Joel’s breath. “You have to remember, Joel.”

The man turned and walked away without looking back. Joel tried to follow, but his feet refused to leave the floor. So he stood there, unable to move, or speak, only able to watch as the man walked out the door and the lights blinked out.

When Joel opened his eyes, he was back in the familiar brightness of his hut. He sat up, looking around him. Sunlight sparkled on the bay outside and lit the little room with a warm glow. He got up and wandered around, touching this and that, reassuring himself that it was real, and that the dream was just that. A dream, nothing more.

He wandered over to the refrigerator and poured himself a tall glass of fresh mango juice. Kicking the refrigerator door shut with one foot, he leaned his elbows on the counter and took a long swallow. The smooth, faintly tart taste of it revived him, made him feel grounded again. He drank the rest, then set the empty glass on the counter.

Then he saw the picture.

It hung on the refrigerator door, held to the white metal by a magnet with a stylized sun painted on it. The picture showed two men, smiling against a background of high green mountains and turquoise water. One of the men, a tall blond with bright blue eyes and the beginnings of a sunburn on his bare shoulders, sat perched on a wooden bench on a blindingly white beach. The other man, shorter and darker with black curly hair and enormous black eyes, sat in the blond’s lap. The two had their arms around each other, the dark one’s ebony curls mingling with the other’s fine pale strands where they leaned their heads together. The blond’s big hand rested possessively on his lover’s thigh.

Joel tugged the picture out from under the magnet and stood staring at it, mouth dry and heart racing. He touched a tentative fingertip to the glossy photo, tracing the sensual features of the dark-haired man.

The man from his dreams, whose soft voice and sorrowful eyes had called so irresistibly to him.

Only in the photo, those dark eyes weren’t sad at all. They sparkled with a joy Joel could feel in his bones, the man’s smile wide and happy. Made him wonder what had happened to change that face so drastically, and if it had anything to do with the big blond man in the picture.

A man who, now that Joel thought about it, looked vaguely familiar. Joel studied the handsome face with a frown. An icy lump of dread coalesced in his guts.

“Who are you?” he said softly.

The picture remained silent. Joel set it on the counter with a sigh.

“Fuck this. I’m going for my swim.”

Joel stalked toward the door. As he reached to open it, a flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye. He whirled toward it.

And froze.

An old-fashioned full length mirror in a swivel stand had appeared on the other side of the room. And staring out of it, tall and golden and handsome, was the blond man from the picture.

Joel walked slowly forward. The man in the mirror did the same, blue eyes as wide and shocked as Joel knew his own to be. Shaking inside, Joel moved a palm down his own belly, watching his twin behind the glass echo the movement.

With a sudden lunge, Joel pressed both hands flat against the mirror, half expecting to feel warm flesh under his fingers. His skin met hard, unyielding coldness. He yanked his hands away, turned his back on his reflection, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Sunshine. Hot, humid breeze. Scents of jasmine and greenery heavy in the air. Lush verdant mountains, sapphire sky, clear blue water cool on his bare skin. A sudden shock of cold as a splash of salt water hit him in the face. Victor’s infectious laugh, melting his annoyance immediately.

“You little fucker!” One eye cracked open, squinting against the sting. “Shouldn’t splash me, boy.”

“Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it, big guy?” Dark eyes laughing, shining, making him want.

“Your ass,” wading up, grabbing that gorgeous naked ass in both hands, “is so mine.”

“Always yours, Joel.” Black eyes hot now under the laughter, copper skin glowing in the tropical sun. “Always yours.”

That beautiful body in his arms, kisses deep and hot and needy, Victor’s sweet wailing cry when he came, and heaven itself couldn’t be any better...

Joel jerked and opened his eyes, breath coming in ragged gasps. He stumbled over to the counter and leaned on it, fighting dizziness. The vision had been so clear, so vivid, like a cherished memory.

As if it had really happened.

The picture lay on the counter, where he’d left it. He picked it up and turned it over, somehow knowing what he’d find. And there it was.

“Me and Victor, Soufriere, St. Lucia, April 2003. Beach outside our villa.” Joel read the words in a hoarse whisper. The words he’d written, another lifetime ago.

Joel’s hand started to shake, the panic he hadn’t felt in so long overtaking him as the memories tried to float to the surface. He shoved the picture away and strode out the door, out to the white sand and brilliant blue water and the high green mountains rising beyond the bay.

The bench was there this time. It hadn’t been before. Joel sat down on it, staring numbly out over the water.

*****

Joel sought out the dream on purpose this time. As soon as the sun had set, he took one of the sleeping pills that had appeared on the bedside table, stretched out on the bed, and closed his eyes.

“Please be there, Victor,” he whispered. “I need to know.”

He lay awake in the moonlit dark for a long time before the tension began to leave his body and he finally slept.

Joel huddled naked in the corner of the room. It had changed again. Cold stone walls this time, deep gray with darker patches where the damp of the ground had seeped through. Concrete floor with a drain set in the middle. A metal table, a hose connected to a faucet in the wall. The faucet leaked on the floor in a slow, steady drip where the hose attached. A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling threw a harsh light around the room. It couldn’t quite illuminate the walls, though, and for that Joel was grateful. He didn’t want to see the hazy shapes any more clearly that he could already.

“Victor, where are you?” Joel’s voice refused to rise above a shaky whisper. “Please, don’t leave me here alone.”

The sound of a door opening made Joel jump. He looked up. On the other side of the room, a narrow wooden staircase rose out of sight beyond the low ceiling. Weak sunlight filtered from the top. Joel smiled as Victor descended the stairs.

“Victor. Thank God.” Joel stared forward, and nearly fell. Frowning, he looked down at his feet. His ankles were encased in pair of thick shackles connected by a short, sturdy chain. Another chain tethered him to the wall, preventing him from walking more than a few feet.

He looked back up at Victor, fighting panic. “What’s happening, Victor? Why am I chained?”

Victor came to him, wrapped his arms around him and gently kissed his lips. “You have to remember,” he said, stroking Joel’s hair. “It’s the only way.”

Joel clutched Victor close, buried his face in those shining curls. “I remembered you. I found a picture, from St. Lucia, and I remembered. Why can’t I come back?”

Victor pulled back and stared up into Joel’s eyes, keeping their fingers wound together. “It’s not enough to remember me, Joel. You have to remember everything. Everything that happened.”

Joel shook his head, the panic rising again. “No. I don’t want to, Victor. Please don’t make me. Please.”

“I can’t make you do anything. You have to do it yourself.”

“No. I can’t.” Joel felt the truth of it in every molecule of his body, though he wasn’t sure why. He buried his hands in Victor’s hair and kissed him. “Come back with me instead. We can live there forever, Victor. Nothing ever runs out, nothing ever changes. Nothing bad ever happens there.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

Victor pressed close, cupping Joel’s face in his hands, and they kissed for a long, long time. When Victor broke the kiss at last and stepped back, Joel thought the raw pain in those black eyes might tear him apart.

Victor took a step backward, then another. “Good-bye, Joel.”

“No, don’t leave me, please.” Joel reached for Victor’s hand, but he was already standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Victor, please, please don’t go, please!”

Victor turned toward him, silhouetted against the light. Joel wished he could see his face. “You’re so close, Joel. So close.”

“Victor, please...”

“Hurry, Joel. I miss you.”

Victor disappeared up the stairs, the door closed, the light went out, and Joel fell to his knees on the cold floor and screamed...

Joel woke, gasping and shaking, the echo of his scream vibrating in the air. He curled into a ball, arms around his head, eyes shut tight.

“Don’t make me. I can’t. I can’t.”

You can, Victor’s gentle voice whispered in his mind. You have to. Come back to me, Joel. I love you.

“I’m scared.”

I know. But I’m here for you. Right here beside you. I’ve been here all along.

Joel lay curled in his bed, in his peaceful little hut on a tropical paradise of an island. In the last place he’d ever felt safe and happy. Before whatever it was that had ripped him away from Victor and sent him here. His body trembled all over, his skin wet with sweat, heart racing. He didn’t want to remember. The knowledge would surely break him. But he had to. For Victor. For himself. For the love they shared, the life they’d made together.

Joel took a deep breath, let his muscles go limp, and shut his eyes.

...“Victor, dammit, did you leave the milk out again?”

“Again? That was you before, genius. Probably was this time, too.”

“Yeah, go ahead and blame it on me, like you do everything else.”

“God, Joel, grow a fucking skin, huh? I didn’t blame anything on you that you didn’t do. That’s your department.”

“I don’t do that!”

“So why’d I have to listen to you scream at me for ten solid minutes after you knocked my wine glass off the table last night?”

“You shouldn’t have put it there!”

“Christ, I don’t believe this...”

Joel whimpered at the sudden memory. It had started in earnest not long after that magical vacation in St. Lucia, though the trouble had been simmering under the surface for a long time. The constant arguments, the lackluster sex, followed by the huge fight that resulted in Joel sleeping on the sofa for a week. The realization that their problems weren’t going away by themselves, that they had to do something to fix their relationship.

Joel curled up tighter, hugging himself as the memory of what they’d done rose like acid inside him...

...Tall. Taller than Joel, shoulders wide and powerful, arm muscles nearly splitting the seams of his shirt. Pale gray gaze a little too intense, smile wolfish.

“Victor, I don’t know. He’s a little off, don’t you think?”

“We agreed that a threesome would spice up our sex life, and maybe we wouldn’t fight so much. Come on, Joel, just try it this once. We don’t have to do it again if you don’t want.”

It was good. Rob, the man they’d hooked up with online, coaxed Joel into doing things he never thought he’d do with anyone but Victor. After it was over, Joel and Victor went home and made love with a passion that had been absent from their bed for far too long.

They met Rob four more times before they broke it off. The sex had been good, but in the end it left them both feeling hollow. But it served its purpose. They’d rediscovered each other, the arguments had stopped, and life was good.

If only Rob had been able to let them go. To let Joel go...

“No!” Joel sat up in bed, eyes wide and heart racing. “I can’t. I can’t.”

When his legs stopped shaking, he jumped out of bed and ran outside. He stood on the beach, taking big deep breaths of salty air. He dropped to the warm sand, sifting it through his fingers, trying to keep the memories at bay. To keep that locked door in his mind from flying open and bringing him face-to-face with a reality too terrible to bear.

But it was too late, and he knew it. He collapsed onto his side as the door burst open and the memories engulfed him...

...Gray walls. Gray concrete floor, rough and icy against his bare skin. Dark, damp, cold. Cuffs around his wrists, manacles on his ankles.

“Please, Rob, let me go. Please...”

“I can’t, Joel. I love you.”

“No, you don’t! God, why are you doing this?”

Quick sting of the knife laying his cheek open to the bone. Rob’s eyes bright with madness. “Don’t you ever tell me I don’t love you, Joel. The minute I saw you, I knew we were meant for each other. I do love you. I’ll prove to you just how much.”

Endless days huddled in the corner of the dark basement, naked and filthy and cold and afraid, until he could barely remember a time before. He learned to retreat into his mind when the basement door opened and Rob came to him like a demon. When Rob chained him to the metal table and did those things to him, made him hurt and bleed, he shut his eyes tight and let his mind wing its way to place of beauty and safety.

And one day, he simply hadn’t come back...

*****

The first thing Joel noticed when he woke was the smell. A harsh, vaguely medicinal odor, with a hint of stale sweat underneath. Nothing on the island had ever smelled like that before. And the bed was harder than it had been, the sheet thick and rough against his skin.

It took him a moment to notice the faint sound in the background for what it was. A voice, flat and tinny as if speaking over an intercom. When it hit him, he nearly passed out again.

People. There were people here. Which meant one of two things. Either the world had finally invaded his personal paradise, or...

Or he’d gone back to the world.

Back to that cold, dirty basement.

No, no please, his mind screamed. No...

... “No please, don’t, don’t hurt me anymore, Rob, please...”

“It’s because I love you, Joel. You know that.”

“God, no...”

Pain, hot and cold and sickening, skin and muscle and bone giving way, blood and pain and no, it wasn’t real, not anymore...

The vision vanished, leaving Joel trembling in the dark. He tried to open his eyes. His lids fluttered, letting in a faint glimmer of fuzzy light.

Light.

There was no light in the basement, except when Rob tortured him. He had floodlights for that, the better to see Joel’s pain with. But there was no pain now. Aches, yes; his whole body hurt like a toothache, a marrow-deep throb that permeated him right to his core. But not the bright, flaring agony that had finally driven him so deep into his own mind that he hadn’t even known that’s where he was.

Dazed and sluggish as he was, Joel still knew what that meant.

He’d come back home.

It took a monumental effort to get his eyes open, but he managed. The bed he lay in was narrow, with white plastic rails on either side. A thin, dark blue blanket covered him from the waist down. A clear plastic tube ran from a bag of fluid hanging on a pole to a needle in his hand. When he rolled his eyes up, he could see the slow drip of liquid from the bag to the tubing.

He turned his head a little, wincing as his abused muscles protested the movement. The room he occupied was small, with light blue walls and a white tile floor. There was a curtained window in one wall, a sink against the other. The door stood halfway open. He could hear the soft shuffle of rubber soled feet outside.

He couldn’t see Victor anywhere.

Joel’s heart hammered in his chest. “V-Victor?” His voice was a harsh croak, and his throat felt like raw meat. “Where...? Victor?”

He heard a soft rustle from the corner near the head of his bed, where he couldn’t quite see. There was a yawn, the sound of a chair creaking. Then a sudden gasp, the mattress moved, and Victor was there, sitting beside him on the bed, leaning over him, both hands on his cheeks.

“Joel? God, Joel, can you hear me?” Victor’s voice trembled. “Please tell me this isn’t another dream.”

Joel licked his lips. “No. Not a dream. Is it? Am I dreaming you? I dreamed of you, Victor.”

Victor smiled, his dark eyes bright with tears. “I don’t think we’re dreaming, baby. I think you’re back.”

“I... I went to St. Lucia. You remember it? So pretty. I was safe there.”

Victor’s smile faded. He bent and gently kissed Joel’s bruised lips. “You’re safe here now, Joel. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Joel raised a hand to touch Victor’s wet cheek. He could see the bones in his own hand, stark under skin so pale it was nearly translucent. “What happened?”

“Joel, I don’t think...”

“Please. I need to know.” He stared steadily into Victor’s face.

Victor closed his eyes. “You were missing for almost six months. Nobody could find a single trace. Not one clue to where you’d gone. They told me that you’d probably just left, and didn’t want me to know where you were.”

“I’d never do that to you.”

“I know.” Victor laced his fingers through Joel’s, holding on tight, eyes still shut. “I never believed that. But I couldn’t find you. I hired a private detective, and she couldn’t find you either. You’d just vanished.” Those black eyes opened, locking onto Joel’s, thick with anguish. “Then Rob walked into the police station last week, and told them what he’d done, and where to find you. And he shot himself. And they went there, and found you, and brought you to the hospital, and called me. And, and I came, and fuck, Joel, you were... Christ, the things he’d done to you...”

Joel reached up, pulled Victor’s face down, resting their foreheads together. He laid their clasped hands over his heart. He was shaking deep down, with the renewed memories of endless weeks of fear and pain, and the sorrow of seeing his lover hurting for him.

“They said you were catatonic,” Victor continued, his voice soft and ragged. “They said you’d dissociated your mind from your body, to escape the torture. They said you might come back, and you might not. That I shouldn’t get my hopes up. You nearly died, Joel, there were broken bones and infected wounds, and he hadn’t fed you in ages, and... God, Joel. I couldn’t just give up on you. I couldn’t.”

Victor was crying steadily now, his tears falling warm and wet onto Joel’s face. Joel wrapped both arms around him and pulled him close. He ignored the way his wasted muscles shook, blocked out the sharp pains that sliced through him with every little movement. Victor was in his arms again, smooth cheek pressed to his chest, black curls soft against his fingers. Nothing else mattered.

They lay like that for a long time. Eventually, Victor sat up again and met Joel’s eyes. “Joel? You said you dreamed of me?”

Joel smiled. “Yeah. Just the last few nights. Or, well, what seemed like the last few nights.”

“I dreamed about you too, Joel.” Victor’s dark eyes gleamed. “Four nights in a row.”

A strange feeling fluttered in Joel’s chest. “What did you dream?”

Victor’s brows drew together. “The first time, I dreamed I was outside a house, and I looked up, and saw you standing in the window. I wanted to call to you, but I couldn’t make a sound. The next night, I was in the room with you, and you... you touched my hand. I wanted so bad to talk to you, but I couldn’t. And the next night...”

Victor’s voice wavered. He stopped, clearly fighting some powerful emotion. Joel ran his fingers down Victor’s cheek. “You spoke to me. You told me I had to remember.”

“Joel... did you...” Victor’s black eyes held Joel’s. “You dreamed it too.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“All of them.”

“Yeah.” Joel covered Victor’s hand with his own, curling their fingers together. “They seemed to spark my memories. I remembered you, and St. Lucia. And then after the fourth dream, I remembered it all.” He stopped, forcing down the panic that wanted to come when he thought of Rob and the basement and the things Rob had done to him. “And once I remembered, I came back.”

They stared at each other. Joel could read his own thoughts in Victor’s face. There was no need to say it. They both knew what had happened, even if they couldn’t explain how, or why.

Joel moved over in the bed, mindful of his IV tube. He opened his arms, and Victor came to him without a word. Within minutes, they were sound asleep with their arms around each other, Victor’s head pillowed on Joel’s chest.

The nurse’s aid who found them that way a few minutes later smiled indulgently as she tucked the blanket snug around them. “Sweet dreams,” she whispered, and turned off the light.