“This should do it.”
With his hands on his hips, Kai looked over the setup.It wasn’t perfect.He had this old-looking couch up here with a nineties pattern that had faded with age.Nick had given it to Kai.It’s my uncle’s, but he doesn’t use it anymore.Kai snorted, but he didn’t want to think about that anymore.
Instead, he sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the old TV, yet another item he’d not brought with him when he’d moved.The damn thing flickered to life, and Kai went through his library of games.
“Hmm, witches, demons; nah, none of those.Uh, that one always makes me misbehave, and then the NPCs judge me.I really do need zombies, but medieval zombies.”
Kai clicked on the game and relaxed as soon as the familiar music filled the room.
Getting back into the game was strange at first, like putting on a pair of old shoes, but once he’d been eaten by zombies a few times, the muscle memory was all back, and the game was easy fun.It was distraction from the everyday, distraction from—Kai didn’t want to think about it, so he didn’t.
After a few hours of that, with the light shifting outside, Kai’s eyes got that sandpaper feel, and he knew it was time to go to bed.Before that, he raided his fridge, but the most appealing thing in there that didn’t require any cooking was some peach yogurt one day past its best-before date.
Kai closed the fridge door with his hip, fished a too-large spoon from the cutlery holder, and opened the yogurt.“You’re a goddamn metaphor for my life here,” he told the expired host of probiotics as he ate right there in the light brown kitchen with the small round table that had a chicken-patterned tablecloth thrown over it, so disgustinglynormal.
Kai finished the last of his yogurt.He was feeling petulant, and he knew it, but the frustration he felt in his bones sat too deep, like some kind of rot he knew was there but could do nothing about.
He tossed the plastic container and the spoon into the sink, not wasting a single thought on cleaning that.He barely had the energy left to brush his teeth and get undressed.
The light that was left of the day was red, like skin freshly bruised.Kai fell forward onto his bed, hugging the sheets, his eyes too heavy all of a sudden.The day had been too long.The last few months, they had been too long.
Just before sleep took him, Kai mumbled, “I’m hurting.Please help.”
He fell asleep like that, wearing only his boxers, the room softly lit by the menu screen of his zombie game.
As dreams went, this one started out a full ten in the weirdness ranking.Kai was underwater, floating, and for some reason he could breathe.Bubbles purled from his mouth, and he watched them drift to the surface.
On his left, a school of small silver fish swam past, and from further up, from where the surface was, light filtered down.It was muted, though, and looking at himself drifting there in his boxers—because he was dreaming of his boxers, of course—everything had taken on softer shades.It was calming.Then again, this was the ocean, and when he was eight, Kai’d had a recurring dream of a shark in the pool they used for swim practice.The beast had been out to eat him.It had chased him, opened that maw with all those sharp, sharp teeth…
Kai’s heart beat faster.
“Kai, don’t be afraid,” said a dark, masculine voice drifting through the water like circling waves birthed from a dropped stone.
Kai looked around, making bubbles rise from his hair, but all around him there was only water, blue and deep, though not cold.
“I’m down here,” said the voice, and something moved beneath Kai’s feet, something large and coiling.Kai paddled to get away.This was entirely too much like the shark dream for his taste.The darkness beneath Kai lost some of its substance, and rather than a sea monster trying to devour him, a diver swam up to meet him.And he looked familiar.
“Hello,” the diver said, and Kai remembered where he knew the guy from.He was that beautiful man, the one who had come into the store, had been all excited about being given some jam, then had waved like he was drowning.Fian.His name was Fian.He wore the same clothes he’d worn in the store, sans the jean jacket.Clearly he had no trouble breathing in this dream ocean either.
Am I having a literal wet dream?Like, a super weird one?That’s the only explanation, right?Zombie games don’t mess with your dreams like this…
Half convinced that was it, Kai stopped his paddling and turned.In this dream ocean, moving pretty much yielded the same result as it did in the real ocean, so that was something.
“Hello.”Kai examined Fian.It wasn’t inappropriate checking out the object of his fantasy, because if this was the dream Kai’s brain thought he needed, well, who was he to argue.Man really is hot.Fuck, I like how that dark hair moves in the water.
Fian slowly, carefully ventured a small smile.It smoothed the lines of his face and made him look warmer.
“You don’t have to do that here.Tread water, I mean.”His smile faltered.“You can of course!If that makes you comfortable.But there’s no need.”
He’s sort of cute.This dream is telling me I need cute in my next lover, whoever that might be.Just this dream lover for now.
“Really?”Kai stopped moving and was distracted by movement from his right.
He looked that way and saw rays, four at least, beating their wings—their fins as they moved through the water effortlessly and with so much grace that Kai knew for a certainty he wouldn’t tire of watching them, not even if he did so for days.
“They won’t do anything.”
Kai turned, and Fian was there suddenly, right in front of him with those big expressive eyes, their grayish blue so much more intense in the ocean light.If he’d been awake, Kai knew heat would have risen to his skin, and possibly, he might have retreated.
