Dream

by Carole Cummings

  The Father merely sighs, shifts a slight shrug, and waves a pale, long-fingered hand at the sky. “They begin the weave of my shroud. But they do not yet sing my dirge.”

  Dallin frowns and turns to look at Wil. Wil looks back now, shifting his glance between Dallin and the Father, but he doesn’t move from beside the water.

  “You should tell him.” Dallin turns back. “He thinks you sleep. He thinks you won’t help him.”

  The Father’s eyes drift to Wil, turning just as sad as the Mother’s had done. “And would you have me tell him that my hope lies in his hands?” He shakes His head. “Too many burdens.”

  “Yes,” Dallin answers boldly, “I would tell him. His strength is nearly bottomless, but he grieves for the wrong reasons. Do you think he wouldn’t help you if he knew?”

  “On the contrary, I have no doubt that he would.” The Father sighs again. “Apples and potatoes. He accepts a cage like he belongs in one.”

  Dallin blinks to hear his own words come out someone else’s mouth—this Someone Else.

  The Father’s image flickers before Dallin’s eyes, winks out for the briefest of seconds, then flashes back into focus again. “Time is short.” His voice is a little lower than before, the smooth tenor going slightly weak and tinny. “Hear me, my brave gift. Your heart is true. Do not second-guess it. You have the soul of a Guardian and the mind of a constable—follow them both. No fate is unchanging. No destiny is set.”

  He flickers again, dwindling to a glint of intense eyes, before wavering back into clarity.

  Dallin frowns, thinks about it, brow drawing down and twisting. “It’s Your brother, isn’t it? He’s doing something to You, taking Your strength, and it’s killing You. You’re not even here.”

  He’s a dream within a dream. What was that Wil had said?

  “Have you noticed that Aisling means ‘dream’ and not ‘dreamer’? Isn’t that strange?”

  And then Dallin’s attempt at reassurance thrown back at him with casual cynicism—“And what makes you so sure you’re real?”

  Dallin stops thinking about it before his mind trips and falls down. He doesn’t know what it’s costing Him to do this, but it must be a lot—to sap the strength of a god….

  The Father smiles—delighted and open—so very much like Wil that Dallin almost smiles back, but it seems wrong somehow, so he doesn’t.

  “There,” He says. “You feared She had not chosen well. You would doubt even the word of your Makers.” His smile is approving. “Your own convictions disprove your doubt.” He nods toward Wil. “His choice is what matters.” He fades, almost transparent, then regains His substance. “He chooses you. I would have you see to it that he continues to choose himself as well. Our fates are joined, but mine is not his to save. You’ve more than one calling, Shaman.”

  And then he’s gone, winks out without so much as a faint gleam to mark that he’d been there. Dallin blinks and frowns. Not quite as cryptic as Wil’s experience, apparently, but still Dallin wonders why They seem loath to just come right out and say things clearly. If he ever gets hold of one of Them again, he’s going to ask.

  He puts it away to ponder later as he turns and walks through tall, frosted grass until he fetches up beside Wil. Wil doesn’t look up as Dallin approaches, just tilts his head back, peers up at the stars.

  It’s strange how natural it’s become, Dallin muses. He doesn’t groan and gripe when he finds himself here anymore; Wil doesn’t flinch and back away from him. Dallin never would have thought it.

  He doesn’t speak first. He’s not sure why, but it seems wrong to him. Intrusive. If Wil wants Dallin’s input, he’ll surely ask for it—demand it, more likely, Dallin thinks with a small smile—and if he doesn’t, well. Dallin will simply Watch. The most basic right a person should have, Dallin believes, is solitude inside one’s own head, so he gives Wil the choice to reach for it.

  “We are their children.” Wil slides a look at Dallin, then jerks his chin at the sky. “We’re all made of stardust, you know—forged in the crucible of their hearts. Our world is not the only one. Sometimes I can see the shadows of others inside their songs.”

  Dallin’s mouth twists. He considers that silently for a long while, then decides it’s just a little too big for him. Wil, with his open mind and vast belief—things like that are for him to know and see. Dallin will just let Wil know it for both of them.

  “He’s sick.” Dallin’s voice is unintentionally hushed, but he doesn’t make any effort to amend it. “He’s not sleeping, and He’s not disregarding you. There’s something wrong with Him.”

  Wil snaps his glance at Dallin, frowning.

  “He didn’t want me to tell you,” Dallin goes on. “He said you’ve enough burdens, and I agree, but I thought you deserve to know.”

  Wil is silent. He drags a hand through his hair, pushes it from his eyes, stares down into the water. Dallin catches a faint glimmer at the corner of his eye.

  “Thank you,” Wil whispers, trying to thwart the tears.

  Dallin hadn’t realized he was going to do it, but his arm slips around Wil’s shoulders, relaxed and natural, as though he does it all the time. Wil doesn’t pull back, so Dallin leaves it there.

  “Too much has been kept from you.” Dallin tightens his grip. “This grief is a clean one, and yours if you choose to hold it. It’s not His right to keep it.”

  Dallin cringes at the boldness, but it’s nothing he wouldn’t’ve said to Him directly if given the chance. Even gods can be fallible, Dallin knows that now, and he really doesn’t think this one at least would strike him down for knowing it.

  “I never….” Wil shakes his head, quickly swiping his sleeve across his eyes. “It keeps… sneaking up on me.” He peers up at Dallin, eyes luminous as they always are here, but somber, the burning somewhat muted. “You see me.” It comes out low and mildly confounded.

  Dallin raises an eyebrow. “Well, of course. You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “That isn’t what I mean.” Wil looks away again. Slowly, as if he doesn’t really know how to do it, his head tilts to rest on Dallin’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just… glad.”

  That’s all the sense Dallin needs. He smiles, sighs, then turns his gaze out over the river. He hopes it still looks the same, hopes Wil has a chance to stand beside it and watch it like this—peacefully and with gladness in his heart.

  They stand for quite a while, just looking, listening, the breeze flicking strands of dark hair up to brush against Dallin’s cheek. Wil is warm against him, loose and relaxed, so much so that Dallin is disappointed when Wil stirs, pulls away a bit, and turns. The disappointment turns to puzzlement when Wil reaches up, lightly takes hold of Dallin’s shirt, and tugs… turns to astonishment when Wil drags Dallin down, kisses him.

  It’s warm and soft, but firm, Wil’s mouth gently insistent. Dallin hesitates for only a second, molding his mouth to meet it, holding back a small groan with all his will when Wil’s hand slips to Dallin’s nape, pulls him in. Deep and close to imperative. Dallin hears a low hum from Wil, answers back with a shaky one of his own.

  It’s a dream, Dallin tells himself dazedly. No harm done, it’s just a dream.

  And then it’s over, Wil drawing back, laying a light brush of lips to the corner of Dallin’s mouth as he pulls away. Dallin has to restrain himself from following after.

  His chest has gone tight. Breathing is more of a labor than it should be. He stares down at Wil. “Why did you do that?”

  Wil just smiles. “I wanted to see what it was like.”

  Is that all? Dallin wants to ask, but instead he says, “And what was it like?”

  Wil grins this time. “It was nice.” And then, like the Father before him, Wil’s gone, leaving Dallin blinking at empty air.

  Empty air, and a river that isn’t real, and stars that sing, and other worlds inside them, and gods, and magic, and….

  It’s a dream. That’s all.

  “Nice,” Da
llin echoes, laughs, because yeah, yes, it really was. He shakes his head. “Holy fuck.”

  HE HAD to really think about it to figure out where he was when he opened his eyes. Dark, the faltering gutter of a lamp wicked too low, the faint damp smell of mold overlaid with antiseptic.

  Right. The Temple. Chester.

  Not standing by the river. Not kissing Wil.

  Kissing Wil.

  Dallin scrubbed roughly at his face.

  What the hell had he been thinking? Then again, thought hadn’t exactly entered into the equation.

  A dream. It was just a dream.

  Maybe it really was. How was he supposed to tell the difference anymore? Maybe Wil hadn’t really been there at all. Maybe the whole thing with the Father had been merely Dallin’s buried wish to confirm his own theories, and the whole thing with Wil had been….

  Shit, shit, shit. What had the whole thing with Wil been? What the hell was Dallin doing making Wil an erotic player in Dallin’s apparently too-active imagination? Was Dallin a deviant and he’d just never known it before?

  It had been too long, that was all it was. Dallin thought back, trying to bring to mind the last time anyone had touched him with intent. Corliss’s brother, that night she’d introduced them at her birthday party, and it hadn’t lasted long after….

  Mother’s mercy, had it really been more than a year ago?

  Dallin flung an arm over his eyes. Groaned.

  Kissing Wil.

  “Holy. Fuck.”

  “You’re awake.”

  It was low and sonorous, gravid.

  Dallin jolted up, almost not even noticing the sharp pinch and flaring burn of the still-healing wound, and pitched his glance to the doorway.

  Backlit by the sconced light in the stone passageway, Wil’s lean silhouette slanted against the frame, hair disheveled and loose shirt open. Smudges of low torchlight slipped fingers of gold and carmine through black hair, smoky flame flicking slower than it should over skin pale as the moon, but all Dallin could see was eyes. Wil stood there, staring at Dallin for what seemed years, waiting for invitation, maybe, then, when Dallin remained mute, pushed away from the door, prowling silently across the small room. Wil merely looked for a moment, measuring silently, before one leg came up, flung over Dallin’s hips, and Wil was kissing him again, pushing him back into the hard pillow.

  It wasn’t a dream this time. The body against Dallin’s was solid and real.

  Reaction shot right through him, and he arched just a little, groaned when Wil responded by pressing down, shifting, digging his fingers into Dallin’s shoulders.

  What the hell are you doing? This isn’t a dream, you can’t do this.

  Long fingers slipped into Dallin’s hair, spangling little tingles leaching from them and flushing hot over Dallin’s skin.

  Yeah? Why the hell not?

  Without thought, Dallin’s hands came up, slid inside Wil’s open shirt, fingers tracing ribs that were well padded with muscle now, sliding around to track the dip that plunged just below the knobs of the spine. Dragged Wil in tighter.

  Wil hummed, pulling back slowly, like he didn’t really want to, and looked down at Dallin through the darkness, breath light and fast. The fitful light spattered one side of his face, gilded its angles. A small, pleased smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

  “Why did you do that?” Dallin bit his tongue too late.

  What a stupid question. What did it matter, really? This was a man who reached for what he wanted with no compunction or shame, and what he was reaching for right now was Dallin. Did Dallin really want to argue?

  Wil’s smile curled wider. “I wanted to see if it was different.”

  “An experiment?” Dallin almost snorted, but curiosity got the better of him. “And was it?”

  Wil’s fingertips slid over Dallin’s whiskery cheek. “It was nicer without. You don’t have it over there, y’know.”

  Dallin hadn’t known that, but he didn’t pause to worry about it. “No?”

  “No. But this will do.”

  Without even a moment’s deliberation, Dallin decided the beard had outlived its dubious usefulness. He smiled as he tugged Wil back down.

  “I’ll shave it in the morning,” he promised, then pulled Wil in close and kissed him again.

  5

  HE’D WANTED it. He’d wanted it, so he’d taken it. Life. A moment of stillness. Forgetfulness. Pleasure, where there was so little. An empty mind—all heat and motion. Oblivion, however temporary. Uncomplicated animal desire.

  Except he hadn’t expected the animal to… purr. A low, rumbling growl somewhere inside him he’d never known existed, and now that he knew, he wanted to shove the thing back into its shadowed den, send it back to its winter sleep. And maybe cut its throat while it slumbered.

  He hadn’t expected the sweetness. The intimacy. His own failure to back away from either. The refusal to blush at the sounds that had been wrung from him, the eager asking that wound from his throat, raspy and demanding. The willingness to allow those wide hands to guide him into an arrangement of bodies and limbs that wouldn’t tear at sutures, and then rock into it all with as close to abandon as he’d ever been.

  It wasn’t as profound as when his fingers had been healed—it was the intent behind the intimacy that was different. Real emotion. Authentic caring. Then he’d backed away. Kept backing away, even as he hung on, bare limbs entwined, watching him sleep, choosing to keep his own eyes open. He didn’t want the river, and he didn’t want to have to refuse it, so he stayed on this side of dreams.

  Dallin.

  He tried it silently on his tongue, pressed his lips together.

  You’ve never called me by my name, he’d said… after.

  Wil had already been distracted, trying to drag himself from the morass of alien emotions skidding through him, so he’d just let his mouth take the lead: Would you like me to?

  No one calls me by my first name. Soft musing in the dark, slowly, as if it was a revelation even to himself. Even the Tanners call me Brayden, or just lad. Not even Manning. And then he’d turned and pierced Wil with a weighted stare. Yes. I’d like you to.

  It was like boulders on Wil’s back, that stare, but he’d juddered a smile, said it for him—Dallin—and grown inexplicably warm and light-headed at the slow curl of a smile he’d got in return, discomfited by the way the name coiled around his tongue and tripped off it so easily.

  Sleeping now, perhaps even waiting for him. Wil stared at—

  He shut his eyes, teeth clenched.

  Dallin. His name is Dallin. You can do him that one courtesy, considering. It’s only a name, after all.

  Wil stared at Dallin now, wound around Wil’s body on the too-small bed, Dallin’s grip the only thing keeping Wil from slipping to the floor. Contrarily freeing in its constriction. A slow ache bloomed in Wil’s chest, bucking against the hold and burrowing into it at the same time.

  Wil sucked in a low breath that shook just a little, despite him. Just looked.

  Dallin was… well, he really was quite handsome. Features in perfect proportion—straight nose, strong jaw, kind mouth, dark, intense eyes, wonderfully wide and fit. Anyone who looked at him, regardless of any bias, would have to acknowledge his general attractiveness. The breadth and strength that had been so intimidating once had abruptly turned intoxicating. Sweeter and more generous in the intimate dark than anything Wil had ever experienced—and his experience was hardly limited—and yet the carnal power had nearly taken his mind.

  Dallin had asked once what Wil slept with men for, and Wil had answered truthfully if not wholly. He’d never slept with anyone for money. Not out of any kind of absurd moral conflict, but because accepting money from the wrong person could mean a quick arrest and immediate induction into a workhouse if one couldn’t pay the fine, so Wil had never taken that kind of chance. For survival, though, he’d take any kind of chance, and one night of allowing another to grunt atop him for a while was now and then a f
air exchange for not freezing to death.

  Anyway, it wasn’t as though Wil didn’t get his own gratification out of it. Everyone generally got what they wanted, or at least what they thought they wanted. And when someone like Orman showed up…? Well. That was an entirely different sort of survival, but the solution was just as effective, if not more so.

  Give them what they think they want to keep them from taking what they don’t know you have.

  It made Wil shudder, made Dallin shift restlessly in his sleep, so Wil pushed it away.

  Perhaps this had been survival of a different sort. Survival of the soul, though that sounded a bit melodramatic. Certainly there had been the physical fascination, but that had barely entered Wil’s consciousness before now. He hadn’t felt an actual want… need, until….

  His head was starting to pound. That isn’t a headache; it’s your brain trying to claw its way through the stupidity. He pushed his knuckles into his eyes, pressed hard.

  Sorry. I’m a user, didn’t you know? I’ll use you to make sure I don’t get exiled from my own mind, and I’ll use you to make myself feel better after having extracted the promise. Just because you happen to honestly care doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t alter your usefulness. In fact it rather enhances it, doesn’t it?

  So why did it set every emotion Wil possessed—and some he hadn’t known he possessed—into some kind of gyrating spasm?

  Because you mean to betray him, and you both know it, and he’s going to let you, and you both know that too. And it won’t make him stop caring, and that’s… it’s like….

  Like a chain around his neck—constricting, cutting off breath, making it clench in his chest like a mailed fist wringing the juice from a ripe berry, sweetness spilling over cruelty, making the ache of it burn bitter and darkly gentle.

  Damn it, all Wil had wanted was to forget for a little while.