DreamFever
For Anne and Trece and Tanko, who brought me to YaoiCon. And for Kez, who drop-kicked me into their hands to begin with.
Somewhere out on the distant, fuzzy edges of the world, Tybalt, Prince of Cats, whose subjects were once as gods and have never forgotten, was begging for a bite of fruit. He made sad kitten faces up at the tall, delightfully boyish girl who held him pinned to the sand, kissing at her fingertips when she finally pressed the crisp white wedge of peach-flesh between his lips. She settled against him, letting his arm curl across the small of her back. They fed each other, stopping now and again to kiss and share the sweet, delicate aftertastes that lingered on their lips.
She kissed him a little harder, pressing her tongue against his own, sliding it along his smooth, pointed teeth. Then she was laughing and teasing, gone in an instant, running down the beach until he ran her down, bringing her to the sand and holding her as though he wished never to let her go.
Cool surf washed up around them, making the black silk of her dress gleam wet against her skin, like India ink against the finest porcelain. She kissed him again, scratching behind his ear, always amazed by the smooth, perfect blend of sleek black cat and golden-skinned youth. He closed his eyes, purring his contentment to her, and the world faded away.
The kisses felt different when the world returned, as light and timid as feather touches. Tybalt found himself in his bath, cradling a lithe little creature, not so much unlike himself. His name was Adam, he remembered, some priceless gift from human folly. His hair was white and pure as milk, and his eyes were sparkling, cobalt blue, bright and full of endless, perfect love. Tybalt smiled and held his subject tightly, pressing a kiss between his ears, remembering those early times. First like a child and then like a man, Adam had learned each day a new saintly virtue, and each night a sweet and secret sin. Most of all, Tybalt remembered the way Adam loved to snuggle close, sliding his naked, perfect skin against his prince’s own, first in innocence, then in desire. But then the angels had taken him away.
The angels had taken him away.
He bolted up in bed, panting heavily as his heart raced to bring him out of slumber. His sheets were damp with sweat, and no one slept beside him in the darkness. “Only a dream,” he breathed, over and over again, trying to calm himself. Adam had been lost to him for half of a thousand years, like the girl whose name he could still not bear to speak. The realization settled in, curling its icy coils deep in the pit of his stomach, and his eyes narrowed to slits. His roar echoed in the empty halls.
Tybalt stumbled aimlessly through the night, trying desperately to clear his head, searching for the peace his dreams had shattered. The hours slipped by, and he found himself before a heavy-grained oaken door, tracing his fingertips against the glyphs burnt into the wood. Chalam, the dreamer, lived there, sculpting the dreams of the poets and the lovers and the blind.
But he could make all the dreams he wanted. Even for the gods.
Tybalt’s suspicions flared, for a moment, and subsided almost as quickly. It must have been coincidence; an uninvited dream was unthinkable. Yes, it must have been a coincidence; Chalam’s dreams were powerful, staggering things. The poets would chase them for months, when he poured them across their minds, intoxicated by their beauty. As real, as powerful as it had felt, though, Tybalt was already calming; his breathing was even, now, and he could almost dismiss the last remnants of memory from his mind. He pressed his forehead against the cool, unforgiving wood, closing his eyes as he tried to soothe himself into some kind of calm.
Like a ghost out of a dream, a girl’s sweet breath - hers - caressed his lips, filling his mouth with its subtle, half-forgotten taste. He gasped in surprise, sucking it into his lungs, and the memory slammed into him again, with the strength of the centuries that had buried it away. Frustrated, he roared again, swinging at the door. He shattered its frame as he slammed it open, filling the room with the sounds of cracking wood and his furious, half-coherent growl. “Chalam! Stay out of my head!”
A small, sylph-bodied boy peered around a corner, studying Tybalt through amethyst-colored eyes full of some absurd blend of awe and expectation, innocence and martyred pain. “I really got to you, didn’t I?” he laughed.
Tybalt’s ears folded back, flat against his head, as his muscles tightened to steel-cable bundles beneath his skin. Ignoring his emerald, slit-eyed glare, Chalam slipped a little closer, his eyes growing wide in enchantment.
He reached out, tracing his tongue across his lips, and brushed his fingertips down the edge of Tybalt’s jaw and along the long tendons of his neck. “That’s so beautiful…”
Before he could finish his sentence, Tybalt’s anger exploded, like a striking cobra, and the prince threw him to the floor, sending him sprawling across the tiles of polished chrome and glossy black marble. “If you ever do it again, I’ll kill you, I swear.”
Chalam made a soft, whining noise as he sat up, reaching into a half-finished dream that lay nearby to pluck the head from a sparkling white rose that bloomed within. “I won’t,” he murmured, turning it over in his soft, long-fingered hands. “I only want one, that’s all.”
Tybalt silently traced his tongue across his lips, not understanding.
“There’s a reason you came here, and it’s more than your hour of sleep.”
“My reasons are my own, sculptor.”
Chalam licked his lips, thinking as he rolled the rose-blossom into a smooth, even ball, working with the slow, confident strokes of a sculptor in porcelain. “You loved them, didn’t you?”
Tybalt closed his eyes and turned his head away for a moment, unwilling to answer.
A flick of Chalam’s fingertips sent the tiny bit of dream flying, and it splattered against Tybalt’s skin, gleaming like mother-of-pearl against the soft-tanned gold, and flashes of memory seared themselves across his mind, one after another, until his knees buckled and he slid to the floor. Adam stretched out across the sheets and gingerly settled his hips on a pillow, looking back over his shoulder, eager and nervous beneath his prince’s hands. He tasted his tears against her cheek, the only ones he had ever shed. He remembered smiles and laughter and long, adoring kisses, sweet and pure and better than sex, all as clear as the moments he’d shared them, and just as freshly, he remembered the pain of their loss, pain that had taken centuries to lock away.
Chalam smiled again, smiled that absurd blend of emotions, as though it were all the explanation he needed.
Tybalt roared and lunged for Chalam, slamming him to the ground in a shower of jeweled dream-shards. “Stay. Out. Of. My. Head!” he growled, punctuating the words with the fury of a god, throwing heavy, savage punches across the sculptor’s face. Over and over he swung, sometimes missing and cracking the stone beneath, until even an immortal’s rage could burn no more, until his fists hurt and Chalam lay stunned beneath him, until one of those absurd purple eyes began to swell shut and the other stared emptily up at the ceiling. He sat there, keeping him pinned, and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, Chalam stirred, spitting blood across the floor. “That’s… that’s beautiful” he said, half to himself, as he watched the brilliant red pool against a mirrored tile. “Can’t you see why I chose you?”
“Damn it, no,” Tybalt growled, taking Chalam’s neck and slamming his head back against the tile once more. “And if you don’t tell me, I’m just going to kill you and leave.” His claws slid out of his fingertips, stiletto sharp against china-white skin.
Chalam started to roll his eyes, thinking better of it at a twitch from Tybalt’s hand. “Love, Tybalt. Hope. Fear. Lust. Despair. I’ve never felt them before, never felt those big and wonderful feelings, only little ones. I only want a little.”
“How would I give them?”
“I only want a dream, Tybalt.”
Tybalt’s eyes narrowed again, instantly suspicious. “You want me to make you a dream? Make one of your own.”
“I can’t.” He shook his head, as much as he could without tearing open his throat. “Those are the rules, Tybalt. That’s the way magic works. The maker of dreams has none of his own; the bringer of passion has a heart of stone.” His eyes closed, resigned to it. “Look at me, Tybalt. Closer.”
His skin was crossed with lacework scars, a million threads of starlight woven through the pristine white, down his face and chest and arms and belly, disappearing beneath the soft white pants he wore. Tybalt sheathed his claws and traced one, his curiosity caught by their delicate beauty.
“Every dream I make, Tybalt, every one that goes unfilled. Every one leaves a scar, mirrored from the soul I touched. But none of them are mine.” He opened his eyes again, meeting Tybalt’s gaze, and twisted, showing a long, angry scar across his back. “I left that on a poet,” he whispered, “But still he believes; still he comes back and pleads for more.”
A faint little smile cracked Tybalt’s glare. “That’s the power of kink, Chalam.”
The joke passed unnoticed. “That’s the power of love, Tybalt. He’ll adore her forever, but she will never know.” He was almost begging, now. “So this thing… these feelings… they must be truly beautiful, or why else would he come?”
Tybalt rose to his feet, turning to walk away, and Chalam scrambled behind him. “I’ll do this,” the prince growled. “Once. And then you’ll stay out of my head.”
Chalam had only just begun his thanks when Tybalt spun, throwing a vicious punch to his jaw, and faded the world to black.
Chalam heard the gentle wash of surf against the beach as he returned to the world, underlined by a low, rumbling purr. He was napping, with his head in a soft, warm lap and a soft-furred tail draped along his side.
“Wake up, little dreamer,” Tybalt purred to him, stroking his fingers gently along the spiderweb of scars. “Today your dreams come true.”
He snuggled a little closer to Tybalt’s thigh, pressing his cheek against the smooth, perfect skin beneath, wondering how long it might be, before the sun might kiss his own skin to that warm, golden color. How long could he stay there? Forever would have been too little, but Tybalt helped him up, and they walked along the edge of the surf, in silence. They shared no words, but didn’t need them; he slipped close against Tybalt’s side, content in the warm, mysterious pleasure of his touch, and everywhere the prince’s fingers roamed, the scars would fade away, as though the rules that bound him would never dare to touch the Prince of Cats.
It was magical.
He felt cleaner, stronger, more than he had in centuries, and maybe for all of time, like he could be happy walking this stretch of beach for eternity, melting a little inside, every time Tybalt flashed him another carefree smile, pearly-white and framed by the points of his long, feline teeth.
They passed a pair of footprints in the soft, wet sand, and the dying memories of the place where their owners had lain together in the sand, but Tybalt didn’t seem to notice. He slipped his arm around Chalam’s waist, holding him a little closer, and rose a deep blush in his cheeks with a single word, breathed against his ear. “Love.”
In time, they walked up to a beach-house, elegant and pristine in that long-dead plantation style. They found it filled with the music of sweet-voiced violins, somewhere far away, so they shared a dance, slow and deliciously sensual in its long, effortless spirals through its empty halls. It filled him with the indescribable ecstasy of Tybalt’s bare skin against his chest, and the shame that he was still clothed, hidden from the touch of that confident, naked beauty.
He chanced a kiss, a feather-light brush of his lips against Tybalt’s own. A fiery hunger answered it, a hard, full-mouthed kiss that sucked out his breath and filled his mouth with the slippery-rough caresses of a feline tongue, and strong, soft hands, holding him tight, sliding down the curves of his body until his pants fell away, and there was nothing, anymore, to hide him from the hot press of golden, supple flesh.
The kiss pressed him backwards through the halls, lost in pleasure, until he felt Tybalt lowering him into a deliciously hot bath. Then it broke, with much gasping for breath, and Tybalt slipped in behind him, holding him comfortably in place as he began to stroke him, tracing the lines of long, gentle muscle that hid beneath his pure white skin. He answered, of course, drunk on the pleasures of his touch and the gentle strength that overpowered him so very easily, and he squirmed in his prince’s arms, feeling himself harden in the hot, delicate caresses of the water.
He felt Tybalt harden, too, between his legs, and he blushed deep red, whispering a quiet prayer of desire into the steamy air as his hands slid down and caressed the thick, smooth flesh.
Tybalt whispered, too, a single word. “Hope.”
Lost in the smoothness of skin and the heat of water, they lay there, how long Chalam could neither tell nor care, until Tybalt whispered again, his voice slowly edging itself with steel. “Right here, Chalam, right here I remembered. Right here, I knew that you were in my head.”
Chalam’s eyes widened in horror as understood, watching Tybalt’s narrow to feral, angry slits.
“It’s time to pay your consequences, dreamer,” he growled, “It’s time to you to hurt. It’s time for you to fear.”
Even in the steaming-hot water, Chalam’s blood ran cold as Tybalt slid himself along his inner thigh, and then the crease of his rear, settling into the sensitive little pit at the base of his spine. “Tybalt… I’m sorry. Please…”
“Yes, please,” Tybalt laughed, toying with his prey. “I’m going to like this, Chalam. This is how much it hurt.” His hips thrust savagely, driving him deep into the tiny body beneath him, barely an inch at a time.
Chalam screamed. It was like being torn in half.
He tried to fight back, tried to push Tybalt away, but he was stronger, heavier, faster, angrier, but most of all he wanted it more, and thrashing and kicks only seemed to urge him on. Worse, though, his body answered the prince’s touch, slowly accepting him and turning every vicious, hateful thrust into a hot, fast burn of agony that exploded into pleasure as it began to pull away.
In time the pain began to wear away, softening at the edges until he could almost accept it, almost enjoy the hard, animal rhythm of it. Tybalt must have sensed it, must not have been satisfied in his revenge; he shoved him hard to the floor of the tub, deep beneath the water. He choked, looking back to see that beautiful, sadistic smile, and thrashed hard, desperate to get away, but Tybalt only slowed, savoring the feeling of the stretched-tight muscles playing against his skin.
His lungs burned. Surely Tybalt meant to kill him.
Then he could breathe again, clean, steamy air, pulled up for a single breath, a feeling so beautiful that nothing else mattered, not protest, not escape, not even the agonizing invasion of his body. It lasted for a moment before Tybalt shoved him down again. And again. And again.
Every time he was sure he would die; every time Tybalt held him down for a few moments more. Each gasp of air came sweeter than the last, more desperate, a moment’s respite from his burning lungs, the naked pleasure of life writ large and urgent, until there could be nothing else, and every tiny sensation, from the water in his hair to claw-marks in his skin, raced along his fraying nerves, a sacred, perfect reminder that he was alive, gloriously alive. Even Tybalt was pleasure, stretching him tight and moving deep within his body, smooth and perfect as he writhed upon him, pressing back, deliriously eager for it, as though his degradation were life itself.
The world began to dim around him as he choked, spasming hard as his body slipped from his control, just a slutty little plaything now, and far off in the distance, out on the edges of his mind, he felt Tybalt’s hot, savage climax, and, to his horror, his own, coiling around each other to explode in a brilliant silver light, wiping clean his sins and soul. He looked back, through the graying waters, as Tybalt pushed him further down, mouthing a single word: “Lust.”
And then there was only darkness.
Chalam bolted awake, sweating ice onto the cold stone floor, and sucked in the air with deep, starving gasps. It was only a dream, he told himself, but what a dream it had been, everything he could have imagined, and a thousand times more. He was terrified, he knew, but he’d loved it, too; the splatter of blood on his floor had been shot through with thick globs of white, and he felt a wet, sticky puddle beneath his hip.
He staggered to his feet, halfway between fear and longing, and stumbled to his work. What did it mean? Surely he could ask; surely Tybalt would not mind a harmless whisper in his sleep.
Or perhaps he would. It was pointless to ask; the prince had ruined the tools and sacred names that would let him know, burned and smashed them beyond repair. In the pile of ashes and broken wire, he’d left a single card, scribed with a single word: Despair.
Chalam took it, turning it in his hands, and found the note written on the back.
Maybe you’ll have a dream unrealized, or maybe dreams come true.
Stay out of my head, Chalam. You’ll learn soon enough.
Sweet dreams.-T
As he sat there, reading, again and again, a long, red scar, jagged and angry with pain, etched itself above his heart.
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