"Dreams" Javier had called them.
Kevin would never admit how much it had scared him that first time. That night he had woken up late to find his partner standing in the kitchen, eyes intense but distant, staring and unresponsive until Kevin shook him. Kevin had known about them, the waking dreams, though only vaguely from what little the nurses could tell him. He knew that during onset Javier had sometimes dreamed while he was still awake, but he hadn't realized that it still happened. Javier had never told him.
He'd had questions, of course, but he had put them away as he often did. Then Javier had started to apologize again, and Kevin couldn't stand that. Because sure, maybe it was something his partner should have mentioned before accepting the invitation to stay, but they both knew it wouldn't have changed Kevin's mind. They never happened often, anyway—in the first three months Javier had been staying with him there had been only five that Kevin was aware of. And according to his partner, he'd managed to train himself out of reacting to them long before his release.
Still, the idea of Javier becoming locked in, forced to watch his nightmares unfold in front of him was difficult to be comfortable with. It had been in his head at first to keep an eye on his partner, to snap him out of it if he could. Unfortunately the late, unpredictable hours Javier kept were prohibitive of that end, and Kevin finally had to concede his defeat.
One night, after they had started sleeping together, Kevin woke to find Javier sitting on the edge of the bed, that familiar, odd vacancy in his eyes. Pulling him out of it with a cautious hand on his shoulder, he'd coaxed Javier into bed. They had lain together quietly for a while after that, Kevin's arms around him, a strange tension electrifying the places where their two skins touched. And normally Kevin would have never asked, but it was such a common, natural question that not asking never honestly occurred to him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He had asked, softly, hand stroking slowly down the length of his partner's arm. "I mean, they say it helps if you share your nightmares."
And he had felt Javier stiffen awkwardly beside him, shifting almost as if he wanted to pull out of Kevin's grasp. After a brief moment, though, he settled in, melting back against the warmth of Kevin's body. Then reluctantly—so reluctantly, and in the loosest details possible—he had told Kevin what he'd seen.
It was as bad as he could have imagined it to be, but Kevin listened silently. When his partner had finished, a kiss and a few light comments mopped up some of the darkness around his eyes, and even brought out a weak smile. And while he drifted off first, the next morning, when Javier swore he had gotten some real sleep that night, Kevin believed him.
He felt so stupid when it hit him later that day. Just one of those random connections the brain often made when it was occupied by something else entirely, but the realization left him feeling chilled, and ill, and uncomfortable just the same.
Because he knew what they were like, if only vaguely. The nurses had described a few of them.
Javier's dreams were violent and bloody and painfully, painfully vivid. Cruel visions that had taken him months to distinguish from reality. Dreams where the worst parts of his changed nature were let loose of his usual firm control. Dreams where his chases didn't end with cuffs. Dreams where his darkest emotions were given brutal expression, and anger overflowed into hunger. Dreams where restraints broke, and bones splintered, and blood ran, hot and rich. Dreams...
Dreams.
That was realization Kevin had made, a subtle twist to his understanding that cast a sick pall over the rest of his morning. Javier nearly always called them dreams.
Dreams. Not nightmares.