Recurring Nightmare

It’s his usual nightmare. The moon is a full, round apple, softly illuminating his mother’s body. He tries to hold her in his arms, tries to keep her with him. Even as she smiles up at him, her body melts through his arms, a pool of sticky flesh and skin that stains his fur. It’s the same thing, night after night, especially when he’s sleeping next to Blue. He doesn’t know he’s sleeping next to Blue. He’s too deep in the dream.

“Mama. Don’t go,” he gasps, holding her hand and watching as flesh melts to bone melts to nothing. “I didn’t do anything this time.”

It’s always the same, but in the moment, he’s never able to identify that. It’s like watching it for the first time every time, his mother’s slight body crumpling within the folds of her dress. White like a wedding. He feels more than sees the eyes on him, knows exactly what’s coming next when the clink of glass meeting a hardwood table reverberates in his head. The sound echoes in his mind, clangorous and repeating in on itself over and over and over and over—

“Matti?”

It’s Blue.

“It’s not safe for you here,” Mattias forces out between tremors, one hand pressed to his temple like some sort of outside force can dispel the roaring in his head. The headache, pressing down on the back of his eyes, is just another reminder of what’s to come. “He’s coming.”

Blue’s entire body is eclipsed in shadow. Only his round, wide eyes, glowing like beacons, betray his location. There’s something tired lining his face, like this isn’t the first time this has happened. It certainly won’t be the last. The dark circles beneath his eyes look especially prominent like this, the sharp contrast with the light stark in the misty, formless scape of Mattias’ dreams. Blue steps forward, but the shadows move with him.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs softly. “This isn’t my dream.”

 The shadow clings to Blue’s skin. Sticky. Mattias’ mind flashes back to the image of his mother dripping through his fingers, always out of reach. Always leaving him. Always gone. There’s no way of stopping it, no — time after time, it’s always the same. Her rib cage caving inwards like a small bird crushed by some insurmountable pressure. Is it his doing? His father’s?

Blue’s voice cuts into his internal monologue. “Don’t think about him.” It’s a command, clear and sharp. What goes unsaid: if you think about him, he’ll appear. Mattias isn’t clear headed enough to know that right now.

Mattias curls within himself. When Blue draws closer, he feels the biting wind of a thousand little chills running down his spine, the essence of Nightmare itself wrapped around his body. Blue, for his part, seems somewhat remorseful. He reaches out a hand. From the tip of his finger, a maw opens wide; at first, it’s just a tiny creature of a thing, but it quickly stretches open in ways beyond logical comprehension.

“I’m sorry,” Blue sighs, and there’s that exhaustion again. Tired, tired. “Just look inside.”

Eyes prickling on the back of Mattias’ neck. He feels the compulsion to turn around. Tears stream down his cheeks, silent and unbidden.

“Don’t turn around.” Blue’s eyes are burning with determination. He could force Mattias, technically. It’s a dream. He could control it to an extent, but not in any way that is safe enough for both of them. “Look inside.”

Mattias looks.

Mattias sees.

Outstretched before him is a kaleidoscope of memories and things he’s forgotten. Blue gripping a key in his hand, ornate and dark and carrying the weight of the world. Mattias and Blue skating on a pond together. Lucifer glaring into Mattias’ eyes, Blue hiding a laugh behind his hand — that one’s wobbly, like it hurts even to think of. Mattias and Blue, Mattias and Blue, Mattias and Blue. Over and over again, a million small things. Little instances. Moments when he wasn’t so heavy with his past.

Mattias gasps. Blue engulfs him.

And then he wakes up.

Blue’s tucking a little ornate box onto the bedside table when Mattias has stopped hyperventilating, the aftershocks of his nightmare running through his body like a mantra. He doesn’t really remember what he dreamed, but he feels it in his bones. He feels watched. It takes a while for the shaking to stop, and by then he doesn’t even notice the faint glow of the box and the subtle click as the lock slips into place. Blue sits up, watching Mattias with a careful intensity that betrays the number of times he’s done this.

Locked away a dream in a box to be forgotten. Mattias doesn’t know. But that’s the nature of forgetting, isn’t it? That there’s nothing to remember in the first place?

“Are you okay?” It’s a redundant question, given the way Mattias is shaking like a leaf.

“Yeah, I don’t. I don’t know what.” Words are hard. Stuttering like a child on their first words, tripping over the syllables. “I don’t know what.”

Blue sighs, leaning back against the headboard. It’s a practised movement, the contractions of his muscles a little too fluid. Moving slowly. Don’t trigger the frightened beast’s ire. “Yeah.”

Even as the seconds pass, Mattias finds himself shaken by the ghost of something he can’t remember. “The light.”

Blue snaps his fingers and the room is filled with soft candlelight, wisps dancing through the air. Not bright enough to strain the eyes, but not dark enough that Mattias can only see squinted silhouettes.

“Do you need me to.” Blue doesn’t finish the sentence, instead gesturing to himself. It goes unsaid — Mattias has grown a lot in the ten years that have passed and admitting he needs someone to rely on sometimes is part of that, but they’re both averse to vulnerability even at the best of times. Right now is not the best.

“Yeah.” Mattias curls into Blue’s arms, his head resting on Blue’s chest. The comforting, clean smell of woodsy ash and something warm fills his nose. He inhales deeply. It’s calming, like a low hearth burning in the corner of a cottage. Coming home.

Blue strokes Mattias’ hair gently. “Yeah,” he murmurs back. Sometimes they don’t need many words to communicate. Sometimes, it’s just a feeling, and they’ve known each other for so long — been through so much — that there isn’t even a need to vocalise half the things they want to say to each other. Other times, they need to say things, because it has to be said to be believed. Things like I love you or stay with me or I need you with me.

Right now, Mattias needs Blue with him. Maybe it would be different if he knew that Blue has been locking dreams and memories and bad things away in his little box for months, poring over the repetitions. Permutations. What’s different? What’s the same? What does it mean?

If Mattias knew, maybe he wouldn’t trust Blue anymore, and that’s not something Blue can afford to let happen. Not again. Not after they’ve come so far.

He knows that there’s something watching. It isn’t just Mattias’ father; there’s someone looking through his eyes, using that memory like a projection or a disguise. A shell, maybe, and it’s as impenetrable as anything Blue has encountered in the dreamscape. If there’s an entity out there powerful enough to do something like that, night after night, creeping closer and closer each time — well, they’re in danger. What Blue can’t understand is why.

The dim light of the candles has lulled Mattias into a fitful sleep. One stroking palm against Mattias’ forehead and it’s dreamless, the dreams eaten by Blue himself. Mattias goes limp against his body, heavy like a dead weight, but even the crushing pressure is reassuring when it comes with the knowledge that he’ll be safe another night. One more night of Blue keeping vigil, of fighting to keep his nightmare magic at bay. He’s not sure if it’s his proximity to Mattias that’s causing the dreams or if it’s something intentional by whoever is out there watching them. In the past, he thought it was him.

He thought a lot of things were because of him. To be fair, a lot of them were. But now, knowing what he does today, he’s almost certain that there’s always been something else at play.

He dims the flames, being careful not to jostle Mattias where he lies against his chest. He shuts his eyes momentarily, furrowing his brows, and thinks. Outside the window, the moon is full, just like the dream. He rotates the image of the black key in his mind — the thing that Lucifer had given him all those years ago. The thing that Lucifer had died for. None of it makes sense, and yet he’s sure there’s a connection between all these moving parts. He dedicates himself to another night of pondering with the answer just out of arm’s reach, curling his arms around Mattias protectively.

Beside him, on the bedside table, the box rattles.