Rated PG-13 : Brief sensuality.
Includes slash, which involves sexual situations between two men. If you're uncomfortable with the idea, don't read this.
This is a one-shot follow-up to 'Boxed In', part of my 'Red Fire' R-rated series of Wes/Eric slash stories. If you haven't read that, you'll be slightly lost.
A/N added after initial posting: All quotes, including the title, are from Hamlet.
Reviews are always appreciated.
He was so beautiful, his face so warm and smiling, strands of dark blond hair falling over his forehead, a strong nose and full lips... His eyes, blue-green and brilliant, seemed to glow with life. He closed them, head tilting back, revealing the strong column of throat, leading down to a broad chest and wide shoulders... Smooth skin, so smooth, so soft over hard muscle...
His hands were reaching out, touching, fingers caressing, leaving trails of hot excitement... But something was wrong, suddenly those fingers were no longer warm and gentle; they were sharp, scratching, digging in painfully; the soft smooth skin was withering away, turning gray and shriveled, drying into dust until only white bone was left, and an eyeless, empty skull dropped to the floor and shattered, the pieces disintegrating and vanishing as if he had never existed...
Eric woke with a shuddering gasp that he knew would have been a scream if he had had the breath for it. Gripped by the mindless and irrational terror of a nightmare, he bolted upright in the bed, staring into darkness until enough rationality returned to let him reach out and snap on the bedside lamp.
The illumination helped. But not much. The bedroom he had lived in for almost three years seemed stark and empty in the harsh light, almost surreal. The bed he had slept in... the bed he had been with Wes in...
Lingering fear from the dream intensified. It had been so real... what if something had happened... he could feel that something was wrong... Eric reached for the phone almost without conscious thought. It seemed to ring for a long time. One part of him had second thoughts -- it was the middle of the night -- another, more primitive part feared for his lover's life. Until there was the click of the receiver being lifted and Wes's sleepy voice answered.
"Hullo?"
"Wes?"
"Yeah... Eric?"
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah, sure... What's wrong?"
What was wrong? Abruptly Eric came fully awake and realized just what he was doing. Waking Wes up in the middle of the night, bothering him, when he already was having trouble sleeping, and all because of a dream. A stupid dream.
"Nothing. Nothing. Sorry. Go back to sleep."
"Eric, what is it?"
"It's nothing. I shouldn't have called. Just -- forget it and go back to sleep."
"Eric..."
"I'll see you tomorrow." He hung up and stared at the phone for a few moments. How could he have done that? So stupid. So... weak.
Twenty minutes later, having given up on getting back to sleep, Eric walked into his kitchen. He stood irresolutely for a moment, looking around. Funny how a room could look different in the middle of the night, harsher and barer somehow, more cold and empty than it seemed in the light of day. He shivered, uneasy in the silence.
Coffee. That was what he had come for. He crossed the room to the counter, filled the coffeemaker, and started it. The sounds as the dark liquid began to trickle into the pot were welcome and yet seemed strange, the sound of normality against the traces of isolation, loss, and fear still left from the dream.
Just as he was telling himself how ridiculous it was to be frightened by a nightmare, the doorbell rang, loud against the quiet night. Eric jumped, and cursed himself for being so easily startled. Willing his heart to stop pounding, and adding a curse for whoever could be bothering him at this time of night, he headed for the door.
He realized who it must be even before he opened it. Wes smiled at him. "You weren't sleeping, were you?" he asked.
"No."
"Thought so. I was worried, after that call."
"I'm okay. You shouldn't have come; you need your rest."
"I'm here now. Can I come in?"
"Huh? Oh. Sure." Eric moved back to let him step inside. Wes paused long enough for a quick kiss and then led the way into the living room. Eric followed and watched him flop onto the sofa with a sigh.
"Did you drive over here yourself?" he asked.
"Yeah. You don't think I would have gotten Philips out of bed, do you?"
"You shouldn't be driving when you're taking those pills."
"Haven't been taking them for the last couple days. Didn't like the way they make me feel groggy in the morning."
"How have you been sleeping?"
Wes shrugged. "Better. Of course, you'd know that if I'd spent the night over here lately."
Eric frowned at him, but avoided the implied question. "Want some coffee? It's decaf."
"I guess."
The small chore of getting two cups of coffee together took only a minute or two. All too soon Eric was sitting down next to Wes, wishing it was equally quick and easy to collect his thoughts. He was conscious of the other man watching as he took a sip.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
Eric sighed inwardly. "Nothing's wrong."
"So you're not going to tell me. Eric, talk to me. Please."
"It was just a dream. It was nothing."
"A dream... it was enough for you to call me in the middle of the night."
"I said it was nothing."
Wes picked up his own cup, and took his time answering. "You know, I just thought of something. Everyone's been so concerned about me. Everyone's been taking care of me, including you. But who's been taking care of you?"
"I don't need to be taken care of."
"But obviously something's bothering you. You've been avoiding having me come over-"
"That's not true."
"-You've been putting up your wall again. That's what I call it. The way you always act when you're upset about something. You just sort of shut down."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"And now, you've had a dream. What was it about?"
"It was nothing!" Eric stopped himself, ashamed of the sudden surge of anger. "So I had a nightmare. Who wouldn't, after seeing you climb out of a goddamn grave? No big deal."
"'I could count myself a king of infinite space, if it were not that I have bad dreams...'"
Eric glanced at him, amused in spite of himself. Wes could always make him smile, somehow. "You're very poetic tonight."
"Yeah. Tell me what the dream was about."
"Jesus. Okay." Eric sighed. "You were in it. We were -- you know -- together."
"I didn't know making love with me was such a nightmare for you."
"Are you going to let me tell it or not?"
"Sorry. Couldn't resist."
"Wiseass. Anyway, we were doing it, and then... well, you sort of changed..."
"Changed? How?"
You turned into a rotting corpse, and then a skeleton, and then you shattered and disappeared into dry, dead dust... But he couldn't say it. "You just -- were gone. Like you had never been there."
"I died."
"I -- I guess." In spite of himself, Eric shivered.
"Like I almost died in real life."
"Yeah."
Wes took another sip of coffee, obviously thinking. Now it was Eric's turn to watch, wondering what was going through that blond head.
"I've had nightmares, too. Dreams about being back in the box. They got bad enough that I couldn't sleep without those pills," Wes finally said.
Eric stared into his coffee cup. "I know."
"It's not surprising for either of us to have bad dreams, after what we've been through."
"You're the one who went through hell, Wes! You were kidnapped and buried alive for five days. You were the victim. Nothing happened to me."
"Except thinking I was dead. Except being suspected of murdering me."
"That was nothing..." He caught the expression on Wes's face and frowned. "All right, thinking you were dead was -- was bad. Really bad."
"Is that what's bothering you? There's something else, isn't there?"
"Wes... can't you just drop it? I'll be fine."
"We're partners, Eric. In more than one sense of the word. That means something to me." Wes was leaning forward, his blue eyes intense, his voice steady but with an underlying tone of pleading. "I want to know what you're thinking, and what you're feeling. I want to help. Please, tell me. Talk to me."
"I've been thinking about leaving Silver Hills." Eric listened to the words as he said them, surprised at himself for letting it slip out.
"What?"
"Don't look like that. I don't think I'll actually do it."
"You don't think you'll do it? What's going on? You can't leave!" Wes took a deep breath. "Why?"
And again the truth slipped out, almost against Eric's will. He looked away as he began to speak, not really seeing the walls of his house as someplace darker and filled with shadows seemed to surround him, someplace he knew only existed inside his own mind. Again he listened to himself talk, part of him surprised to hear the words.
"I've never had much of anything, Wes. My parents ran out on me. My grandmother died. The foster homes didn't last. Neither did prep school. A few friends in the service, but that was about it... and then I came here. Joined the Guardians. Met your father, and became a Ranger, and -- and ran into you again. I wanted so much to have a place here. To be successful, have things. And -- I got even more than I hoped for."
His eyes moved back to Wes's face. "Now I have a home, and a good job, and friends... and your father... and you... It's too much, Wes. All my life I've lost just about everything I cared about. And now I almost lost everything again. Most of all, you. I don't like this. I don't like having things I can lose, having people I can lose, it scares me..."
"Eric, it's okay... it's okay."
Wes's arms went around him. Eric almost resisted the embrace at first, but it felt so good, so safe, to shut his eyes against the dark and hug him back, just feeling warmth and closeness, the familiar clean smell of Wes's hair, the sound of his voice murmuring something meaningless and reassuring. Just for a moment, it was all he needed, somehow, and he leaned his face into Wes's shoulder and let himself be comforted. But like all such moments, it ended all too quickly.
"Sorry," he said, the inevitable embarrassment and shame at his own weakness intruding.
"Don't be. I'm glad you told me." Wes looked into his face a little anxiously. "Just promise you won't leave. At least not without me."
"Okay. I promise." Eric managed to smile.
"Do you feel better?"
"Well, yeah." Surprisingly, he did. Much better. Maybe there was something to this talking business after all.
"Good. Mind if I sleep here tonight? It's been a while."
"Yeah, it has. Come on, let's go to bed."
"'To sleep, perchance to dream...'"
"'Aye, there's the rub.'"
"You're pretty poetic yourself."
"Yeah, right. You know, we don't have to sleep... at least not yet..."