Maverick was presumed dead, but the web of lies woven so carefully into Barnaby's memories still remained. He was plagued by the helpless feeling of knowing that all the sweet moments he cherished, all the hard times he learned from, and all the emotions he savored were false. Some memories may have been true, but none escaped the twisted influence of the falsities. Barnaby finally came to terms with the fact that nothing he knew was pure. He often wondered if there was a way to restore his memories and right his mind, but was the complete truth something he could handle? The question remained at the front of his mind and he struggled daily to commit to an answer.
Suddenly, the question was forgotten, the answer still unknown, but nothing else mattered when Kotetsu returned to Sternbild. Barnaby's depression lifted and he didn't think twice about his questionable past. Everything was to be made anew, now. Without Maverick in his life, Barnaby possessed a new freedom to make the memories he chose instead of living out his uncle's lie.
He and Kotetsu returned to HeroTV, and Barnaby felt like he was re-living a past time. The oppressing shadow of Apollon's CEO was lifted and replaced with freedom's warm rays, and there was no longer anything holding control of the hero duo and keeping their feelings for each other at bay. The friendship deepened immediately upon Kotetsu's return, and romance blossomed soon afterwards. Barnaby realized that for the first time in his life, he was truly happy. He was happy not as a result of an implanted memory or the removal of an event that would cause him grief; he was happy because Kotetsu and Kotetsu's love was the unadulterated emotion he had been lacking for twenty-six years. His love contained a previously unknown purity, untouched by Maverick's cruel hand, and the emotion was overwhelming.
When they made love for the first time, nothing in the world could have seemed amiss. Their kisses were heated and full, lips meshing perfectly and tongues sliding over one another endlessly as they drew their breaths from each other's mouths. Kotetsu's thrusts were slow and passionate at first, carefully savoring Barnaby's sweet, eager body and making it his own with every forward lunge of his hips. Barnaby saw stars and knew nothing else in the world at that moment but the feeling of Kotetsu's tanned skin on his own. Warm and content and full of his lover's seed, Barnaby didn't dream that night.
A next time came, of course, and a next. Sex became a regular occurrence, and it wasn't long before Barnaby realized he barely left Kotetsu's house anymore.
Everything was perfect.
Kotetsu reluctantly pulled out of Barnaby and flopped down beside him among tangled sheets, gathering his panting blond into his arms and breathing in deeply the smell of sex and Barnaby's shampoo. Barnaby turned to plant a light kiss on Kotetsu's lips, followed by a breathy whisper. "Go to sleep. We have work tomorrow."
Kotetsu nodded thickly, nuzzling into Barnaby's soft curls with a gentle sigh. With the warmth of Kotetsu's naked body against his back, it was easy for Barnaby's eyes to flutter shut and remain that way for most of the night.
He couldn't breathe. He was choking and gagging, head held still by some unknown force and not allowing him air. He was in pain, though he knew not from what, and red flames swirled around him in a sickening display of arrogant control. His name was called softly at first, echoing throughout the smoke and the heat. The calls were more urgent, but amidst his suffocation Barnaby couldn't answer. In an instant he was jolted out from that place and thrown back down into reality with a force that seemed to knock the breath out of him. He drank in the air around him in noisy, desperate gasps as Kotetsu stroked his hair and rested his nose against Barnaby's sweaty cheek.
"Just a nightmare, Bunny, it's all right. You're safe now, Bunny. It's ok," he murmured. It was a long time until Barnaby calmed down. It had been so long since he had had a nightmare that the magnitude of this one was staggering. After so many dreamless nights, he had almost forgotten that such things as dreams existed.
Turning in Kotetsu's arms to face him, Barnaby buried his head into the broad chest before him and hid himself from the world. There in the dark with only Kotetsu's rhythmic heartbeat to cheer him on, Barnaby fought the dark tendrils of doubt seeping into his mind and poisoning the perfect world he had made for himself. Convincing himself that the nightmare formed because of stress at work or from something he ate, he held on tightly to Kotetsu and blocked out the possibilities he didn't want to consider.
The next time Barnaby sucked Kotetsu's cock, the dream returned. Barnaby relished the way Kotetsu looked down at him, loving golden-brown eyes hazed over with lust. He savored the feeling of warm semen hitting his face, forming messy trails over his cheeks and lips and chin. But most of all he basked in the warmth of Kotetsu's words when he pulled Barnaby back up to him and gently kissed his forehead. "I love you, Bunny."
A few hours later he awoke, his body racking with sobs. No matter what Kotetsu did to comfort him, Barnaby remained inconsolable. Again and again he asked, "Bunny, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"
Barnaby didn't know.
In a matter of weeks Barnaby's world descended from flawless beauty ruled by love back into the depths of uncertainty and helplessness. He finally accepted the reality he had been forcing himself to avoid, admitting that he knew the reason for the nightmares after all. Scared and with a heavy heart, Barnaby once again found himself in the black place he thought he had escaped forever. Twenty years' worth of memories suppressed by Maverick were trying to break free. Barnaby didn't know it, but he had encountered too many contradictions for the implanted thoughts to remain dormant, and his mind was in turmoil as it struggled to sort fiction from truth. This subconscious, panicked sorting resulted in the nightmares that plagued Barnaby nearly every night.
The question he had been avoiding for the year between Maverick's presumed death and Kotetsu's return returned once again, angry and demanding an answer.
Was it really worth knowing the truth? Would the good memories outweigh the bad when all was said and done?
Barnaby finally knew the answer, though the decision was not made by choice.
The next day he began his search for a psychiatrist.