Work Text:
Everywhere he turned, there was fire.
Flames bloodred and violent, dancing as they licked at his face, his body, swallowing him whole. It was hot inside his skin, his innards crawling and crawling, trying to escape the amalgamation of orange searing fingers, twisting their red-hot tendrils into his skin.
A blood-curdling scream filled the air, drawn from his own aching body. The air sizzled, every breath more painful than the last as the tar-black smoke filled his lungs. Was he touching himself, fingers searing his own skin? Or was it the fire, its smoke so pungent that his eyes swam with a million stars?
His charred skin peeled in response as he drew a final breath.
Around him, the flames burned on.
— — — — —
George’s eyes snapped open. The ceiling of the room was a stark white, unmarred from the flames in his sleep. He sat up with a feeling of lightness like he had slept the best he had in years, despite the nightmares from the night before.
As he got out of his bed, he realized he was in a hotel room of some sort. Had there really been a fire? His skin was untouched, not a single burn or blemish to be seen. He turned to look at the door. He wondered why he was there and if he should leave. Something prevented him from heading to the door so he stayed for a while.
Maybe it was hours.
Eventually, the door opened and a man stepped in, tall and attractive. Not once did his eyes meet George’s, but rather skirted around the room. There was tension in the way his jaw was set sternly.
His brow furrowed and he turned and left the room as quickly as he had entered it.
George frowned and sat back down on the bed. He wondered when he would be able to go home. He felt fine, he was perfectly healthy. What was wrong? He doubted the man was a doctor, as he certainly wasn’t dressed like one.
Where was he?
He tried to recall the day before, but it was hazy at best. Had he gone out? Perhaps to get a drink? His face was immediately darkened with a heated flush as he played through the possibility of a more intimate, adult encounter. Who was the man?
Did he and George…
No.
No. He couldn’t entertain the thought because he would never. Never have a one night stand, much less with a man. The thought repulsed him.
But deep down, it wouldn’t have surprised him.
His stomach coiled in disgust at himself but he couldn’t help but want it.
Hours had to have passed before the man came back, wearing the same pine green trench coat. Heat reached its scorching fingers upwards into his ribcage. He was wonderful to look at, in a way that made George guilty. But this time, he stared directly at George. He felt the flames die in the pooling anxiety in his stomach.
“Where am I?” George asked, but his voice came out sounding worn and tattered, like an autumn leaf stepped on too many times. He sounded almost unrecognizable. “Who are you?”
The man stared at George, but it felt as if he saw through him.
“My name is Dream,” he said, his voice betraying his stern appearance. He had a gentle voice, tentative and tempting. “Do you remember what happened?”
He felt the hearth in his chest grow hot as his heart crackled. Its flames painted his skin red as he looked away. “No, I don’t,” he admitted. “Did I do anything stupid?”
Dream looked at him questioningly. “You don’t remember?”
“If I sucked you off, just tell me,” he retorted, profusely scarlet. “So I can go home.”
Dream made a sputtering noise, clearly unexpecting the statement. George begins to regret allowing those words to leave his mouth. Perhaps he read the situation wrong. “No, you didn’t,” he responded, laughing. George wondered what was it he said the elicited such a wonderful sound from the stranger’s mouth.
“Oh,” George said, and only that. He couldn’t string together any more than one syllable. “I’m not… gay, you know.”
The other gave him another quizzical look. “I never said you were.”
“I know.” He didn’t.
Dream paced the room a bit, examining George as if he were some specimen under a microscope. It made him feel exposed, made him feel bare. There was something about the way the man was tracing George with his eyes. Something that felt like something he should avoid thinking about too much. He shook it from his head and forced himself to look at the wallpaper.
“You were in an accident.”
George’s mind led him back into the hellfire in his dreams. Were his dreams impacted by the accident? Did his subconscious remember something he had already forgotten? His eyes slowly drifted up to meet Dream’s, who already had his own trained onto George. It made his heartbeat stutter.
His eyes were green, George noted.
“What happened?”
Dream’s scrutinizing gaze broke for a fraction of a second as his eyes dropped. He seemed to take a while to think. What was there to explain? “There was a gas leak in a motel... but I brought you here.” His voice was coarse. He didn't meet George's eyes. It felt off.
George stepped back. “Where is here?”
The other pulled back the curtains, glancing out the window. “The top floor of the motel.”
And then he remembered. George had been visiting his parents after not seeing them for months. He stayed for three days before heading back home. Instead of driving all the way home, George stopped to book a night at some dingy hotel that had a complimentary dinner because he had been starving. Now, he felt like an idiot. Had he have driven home, perhaps he wouldn’t be in his situation. But that was life.
He didn’t like how Dream’s eyes seemed so sad and weary.
“Why am I here? In a gas leak? Why didn’t you evacuate me?” George reached to pat his pockets. “Where is my stuff?” Dream stayed silent. Something was wrong.
Dream stared at George, eyes a little distant. “Your personal belongings were destroyed in a fire. I couldn’t evacuate you because everything was blocked. The stairways were collapsed.”
George froze, his nightmare coming back to him. Had his nightmare been a memory? He dismissed the thought, training his focus on what Dream had said. A fire. He examined the walls around them. The wallpaper was normal, unlike the ones from his dreams. The ones in his nightmare had been curled and blackened by the smoke and sizzling air. The carpet was fine. There were no scorch marks to be found. Surely no fire damage could be fixed overnight. He looked back at Dream.
Something about Dream was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
“If the stairways were collapsed then how are you here? How did you save me?”
“George,” Dream started, and said boy paled.
“How do you know my name—?”
“I couldn’t evacuate you because it was too late.”
His heartbeat thudded in his ears, deafening and painful. The other boy watched him carefully, gauging his reaction like he was a chemical reaction. George felt his throat constrict as he stared at the boy in a painful realization. He nodded silently. “You’re dead.”
Dream didn’t respond to George’s statement. “There was a fire, George.”
“You’re dead,” George repeated, the panic rising in his chest.
“No one in the motel survived, George.”
One might as well have stabbed him.
“...What?”
“George. The fire—" Dream sighed,
"—it happened a year ago.”
A silence settled between the two. And though it was only a few seconds, it could’ve been a thousand years. The universe ceased to exist for a moment and George's pulse stuttered to a stop. Just for them, time stood still, frozen like a photograph. Around them, life went on. George looked hard at the ceiling, biting back the tears that boiled behind his eyes.
He thought hard, lips tightly sealed to prevent the words from falling out. His family... had they already moved on?
The tears in George’s eyes never met the ground. “Well,” he said, his voice a broken melody. He smiled a smile that never reached his eyes. “I guess that’s it.”
Without explanation, Dream raised his hand and touched George’s face with a feather-light touch. His skin prickled and he instinctively started to move away, before he saw the way Dream’s eyes went wide. His face grew clouded again, unreadable. He withdrew his hand. “How?” George flinched at how distorted his own voice sounded. “How can you touch me?”
George could still feel the phantom touches against his cheek.
Dream blankly stared at his hand as if he wasn't sure either. “You haven’t let go of life yet. Somehow, your will to live has left you anchored to this world. I think… I think that’s why you’re still corporeal.” It made him wonder; what was Dream? A medium? Was his job to talk to ghosts? George scoffed but the throb in his heart would not subside. He willed himself not to look any further into the darkness of Dream's eyes.
“You need to let go, George.”
George’s hand trailed upwards to touch his face where Dream’s fingers had rested, but quickly dropped it when he saw how the other definitely noticed. He looked to the carpet and imagined the fire again. So it wasn't a dream after all. His hands shook and he clenched his fists. “I have so much left to do, Dream. How can I possibly let go?” He had only been twenty-four, just on the edge of a wonderful life. He had so many plans.
And now they were all gone.
Dream drew closer, that same unreadable expression in his dark eyes. “Tell me,” he said softly, eyes searching and intimate. “Tell me your goodbyes and I will give them to your loved ones.” The pit in George's stomach deepened. He didn't want to say goodbye. Not yet.
“I never had my first kiss.”
There was a pause before George spoke again. “I had such a pathetic life, didn’t I?” He laughed humorlessly. “Of all the things I could think about…”
“Would it help you let go?” Dream’s voice was rougher, lower. There was nervousness in his eyes and George didn’t know why. He knew Dream was toeing dangerous waters, but he couldn't say what. He desperately wanted to know why Dream looked at him the way he did, like he was a wounded animal.
“I can’t promise you anything.” He laughed derisively. “And anyways, it’s not like you’re going to just get some girl to come and kiss— come and—”
Dream’s hand slid along the curve of George’s face, and George could feel the tremor in his fingers. George’s head tilted upwards and his voice sputtered like a candle set in water. Up close, George could count the freckles on the other's cheeks. He could see the ring of gold around Dream's dilated pupils. And he came to another painful realization: Dream was beautiful and George couldn’t breathe. Dream's hand felt like a wave on the beach. Revulsion twisted a knife in his guts.
“What are you doing—?”
“Can I kiss you?”
George’s question died in his throat. Tension simmered in his ribcage like a boiling pot threatening to overflow. He shouldn't. He couldn't let it tempt him. Bitterness boiled in his throat and he swallowed it down. And yet, he searched Dream’s face and didn’t have to think twice.
“Yes,” George answered.
It was as sudden as a thunderclap in a storm.
George grabbed at the collar of the pine green trench coat. He felt Dream’s hands run from his waist to his neck, threading his fingers through George’s hair. Their noses bumped whenever they disconnected for breath, before ultimately slotting together like pieces of a puzzle. George yearned for more, breathing hotly onto Dream’s face as his breath grew shallow.
He felt like he weighed nothing when he tasted the sweetness of the other boy’s mouth.
George dissolved under Dream’s fingers.
And he overflowed.
When Dream opened his eyes again, he stood alone in an empty room.
Within the next week, all of England heard about a haunted motel being freed by the renowned ghost-whisperer, Dream.