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The summer brought with it a boiling haze that stung his bare feet when Techno stepped onto the cobblestone balcony. It was the price to pay when erecting a palace monument so far along the edge of the world, where the sun’s sticky fingers took hold of the land the quickest.
Techno hasn’t been sleeping, but the headache that comes with the heat makes him wish for blessed release.
From life.
He can feel the rough handle of the shovel around his fingers. He chews on the frayed skin of his bottom lip. At least the potatoes kept him busy; he regrets putting an end to that ordeal, but no, that had been for the best. The chorus bounces like a dumbbell in the corners of his head. He had been running on an exhausting two hours a day, any more and he might’ve actually- keeled over.
“Hey, old man.”
Techno jerks back under the shade of the grand dark oak, bark digging into his back. A smear of green drops head first from the tree, legs curled around the branch.
“We are the same age.” he says, and his initially nerves, threaded through his voice, comes roaring back when he considers Dream’s sharp-toothed grin. Warily, he flits back to the open balcony door, soothed by the familiarity of the cool air between the wooden crack. “What are you up to?” he drawls, nails painting circles in the groove. “Come for another round?”
He can see his pulse through his wrist.
Dream laughs like Techno has said a particularly funny joke, light, savouring chuckles, coy in its thoughtfulness, and it’s how Techno knows Dream is shamming. Between one blink and the next, Dream launches himself at him.
Techno kicks the door open behind him, and they tumble onto the ground in a mess of knees and elbows. The futon catches most of the impact, but Techno's right elbow hits something funny, which makes his next punch go a little sideways. Dream is silent to his quiet oomph's and grunts, knees him in the gut when Techno isn't paying attention, trying to block few hits across the side of his arm. Techno gets him back though, wraps his legs around Dream's waist to twist them around.
He shoves his arm across Dream's throat, clamping his thighs down on his bucking legs.
Techno reaches out gingerly to adjust the mask properly when he notices it eschew, thumb brushing against its scratches. Dream hadn't yet made a sound past gritted teeth - Techno wonders erratically if the man needs to breathe at all, but when he withdraws, some fight goes with him.
Dream licks his lips.
"So you wanna tell me why you came?" Techno says, sitting back.
Dream's hand comes up to the edge of his mask, as if to make sure of its existence. “Just thought I'd check up on you,” he croaks, shifting against the mattress. They knocked over the little side table. There are a thousand bedrooms in the monument, all Techno's own - Dream has ambushed him in six. A hot breeze billows into the room, pulling with it silk curtains. “I heard you sounded a little down.”
Techno puzzles. “Is this about the duel?" he muses, drawing a shrug. He tips his head back with a relieved chuckle, "That’s just how I talk,”
Dream hums; he settles back, loose-limbed. His smile as he regards Techno is indulgent, like listening to him is half the reason why Dream remembers Techno's coordinates and tumbles into his lonely netherbrick monument. The other half is the hand that is smoothing down Techno's black slacks.
"Dude," Techno says, flat.
Dream laughs, "What?"
"You serious?"
Dream rolls his hips, and Techno inhales.
On the days Techno does sleep, he comes awake unpleasantly, all of a sudden. There will be a quick thud of his heart against his ribs, a gong demanding he get up, he feels like a perpetual motion machine, grinding down and grinding away until... nothing. A cacophony of trying to keep the monument together- why sleep at all?
Now, awareness comes in lapping waves. Roused from the black abyss from which there is nothing, and he can be nothing, and for once everything is blessedly quiet but for the sound of trickling water seeping away between his toes. The fan runs quietly above him, cast in cool, deepening purples, and he stares at its turns, collecting himself.
The sun is retreating on the other side, and Techno is the first to receive moonshine, dousing the broad sleeproom in subdued shadows. The room is boxed by old books, bound with sacrificial leather turned a dull fluorescent with magic, tucked carefully behind the cabinet's glass. The glass directs the pink-purple streaks of the sky onto the floors, and Techno turns his nail-bitten fingers to catch it.
Dream is astoundingly warm, a line of heat rolled onto his side.
Techno turns into him, mouth fuzzy from sleep. His first sleep.
In a long time.
There are little nicks on the crude smile mask, no doubt the result of insistent arrows. Techno takes the purple he caught and paints them onto the white shell with his fingertips, breathing, listening to Dream's breathing. Dream's never stayed behind before. He's close enough to tuck the stray strands of hair back into Dream's loose hood; the man enjoys his anonymity with a jealous fervour, and looking for too long makes him conscious. Techno won't look for too long. He pulls his hand away guiltily, rubbing his thumb against his palm to be rid of the feeling.
He should put some distance between them before he gets all mopey-
His cape is under there.
Techno furrows his brow down at it. The heavy cloth is pulled under Dream, draped across in a bizarre move that could not have been accidental. He's usually better at keeping his clothes all close to himself, but Dream must've been insistent on it.
Leaning on his elbow awkwardly, he casts a look around the room.
The desk sat across the right corner of the room mocks him where he lies, on it a tea-set and the ever-present glow of an oil lantern, its handle crooked with wear. He regards it mournfully; if it were not so dangerous to place a lantern next to him in bed, he would have. Now, he is forced to work in the dark.
Nudging at his dagger with his foot, carefully tossed out of reach before their tryst for the safety of everyone involved, Techno makes a triumphant noise when he has it in his grasp. It invokes a quiet snuffle beside him, and absently, he smoothens a hand down the side of Dream's head.
The first tear is the hardest.
He wraps the sharp end of the blade around the cloth, and pushes through with a quick pump of his arm. The sound of ripping fabric in the ensuing quiet is quick and short, bleeding into the background of shifting leaves, the hollow roar of a distant mountain wind. It gets easier after that, but he has to be quiet when he moves. As each 5 inch slice allows him a little more freedom, six cuts has him sitting up properly to get to the other end of his cape. The cuts curve around Dream's tucked arms, and Techno, peering critically at the bundle of fabric tangled between his legs, pulls at them gently to even them out.
A sleep-mussed voice comes from above him, “Did you take your meds?”
He rears back quickly, clutching his blade to his chest so hard the cool metal bites into his palm. Pushing himself to a sitting position by his left arm, Dream adjusts his crooked mask absently with his right, faced towards him. There's a small amused curl of his mouth.
The cape is cut almost perfectly in the shape of a sleeping figure, red threads breaking from the jagged outline, and only at the end does it come apart.
Techno doesn't like the look of it.
"Uh... I didn’t, but I also needed to get out from under you to actually... be able... to take my meds."
Dream huffs on quiet laughter; he crawls towards Techno to pull the dagger from him gently. "You could've just unclasped your cape."
Techno blanks.
Dream's smile broadens, then falters, and disappears; it's always disconcerting against the mask above his mouth, and Techno watches him warily as he slides the dagger across the hardwood floors. "You haven't been sleeping." Dream says, not unkindly, as if in casual conversation, and whatever he can see beyond the mask, Techno hopes it isn't the violent smears of black underneath his eyes. "Did you sleep just now?"
Uncomfortable, Techno pulls himself to his feet, turning his face away. "Yeah," he says, waving a hand as he pads towards the desk. He needs some water right about now. "It was good, you're a really good snuggle-buddy."
The tea leaves are clumped together, turned the water a murky brown.
"That's good," Dream says to the room at large. When Techno makes the decision to peer at him out of the corner of his eyes, he's getting all his clothes in order. He ties the knot of his boots with one heel against the cabinet. "You know the thing with sleep is that I'm always hungry when I get up."
"We can go hunting," Techno suggests, relieved.
Dream's hand is fleeting on the small of his back, and Techno can't be sure he doesn't see a smile on Dream's face when he turns. It worries him, Dream. The things that happen between them, drawn back into hunting, into playing, into... something that isn't the edge of the world. To live in the lapping waves, instead of waiting at the cusp, wanting to be let in. Worries him enough that he feels sick to the stomach, forgotten hunger gnawing at the back of his throat.
Dream hasn't let him down so far.
There's the old familiar hunt creeping up on him whenever they meet in between, and when he follows Dream out the door, he thinks he can feel water washing over him.