The inn was hidden in the misty valleys just outside of Zurich Southern Province, carved into the cliffs like a secret waiting to be forgotten. It was Lucien's idea, a reprieve, he'd called it. A break from 'the noise' of the city life, though the only one who ever raised his voice in that mansion was him. Eliàn had said nothing, of course. He never did.
The moon was swollen and red that night, hovering like an unblinking eye over the icy ridgelines. Eliàn stared at it through the frost-etched window of their room, long after Lucien had slipped under the quilt. It wasn't the moon's color that disturbed him, it was it's silence. Something about the way it stared back without flinching, without blinking. Just like him.
He finally drifted to sleep when the fire had burned to embers. That was when it began.
The dream felt real, as always.
Hands, too many, gripped his waist. Hot breath at his neck. Two to three dicks inside his butt hole and his mouth. One of the men held his arms down. He heard a voice say, "It's okay, you won't remember anyway."
He remembered.
Then came blood. Slick between his thighs. Then the steel of the table, cold beneath his spine. He remembered the buzz of the fluorescent lights as they opened him up, took a growing fetus from inside him that they had no right to. The white room reeked of antiseptic and iron. A voice whispered, "It didn't survive. Be grateful."
Be grateful.
He woke up chocking on bile. Tears streaming down his cheeks before he registered the wetness. He sat up, gasping for air, his chest rising and falling too fast. The sheets stuck to his skin with sweat, twisted between his legs like ropes.
Then he felt it, Lucien's hand on his shoulder. "Hey," Lucien said softly, like he hadn't been the one to shatter him in a thousand subtle ways already. "It's just a dream. Come here." Eliàn flinched violently and jerked away. He scrambled to the edge of the bed, knees curled into his chest, eyes wild. He looked less like a lover and more like an animal backed into a corner.
Lucien's brow twitched, but he knelt on the floor next to the bed, keeping his voice low. "Was it...about the past?" he asked carefully. Too carefully. As if the answer mattered now.
Eliàn didn't respond. His arms tightened around himself, nails digging into his forearms. He stared at the flickering shadows the fire cast on the far wall. They looked like hands. Lucien reached out, just a fraction. "You can talk to me."
Eliàn turned to look at him then. Really look. There was no anger in his eyes. No fear either. Just an eerie calm that made Lucien pause. "Why?" Eliàn asked quietly, voice hoarse from crying. "So you can use it against me later?" Lucien's mouth opened slightly. Closed again. For once, he had no response. Just silence between them, brittle as glass.
Eliàn laid back down slowly, his back to Lucien. The tears had stopped. But the dream had not let go. Lucien lingered a moment longer. Then stood, adjusting the robe around his frame. He stared down at Eliàn's curled form, as if searching for a lock he'd once had the key to...but now found rusted shut.
The fire crackled.
Outside, the blood moon watched them both.