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Alex couldn’t recall a time in his life when he didn’t wake up from strange nightmares. It wasn’t as if they happened every night, but just enough that Alex dreaded going to bed in case that night happened to be a night where they came.
His mother used to tell stories of when Alex was a toddler and he would crawl out of bed so he could make his way to June’s room during the nights he woke up from a nightmare. His mom always found the gesture sweet. Alex, on the other hand, thought it was embarrassing.
The odd part was, that most of the time he couldn’t remember the nightmares, he would just wake and know he had one. He would feel the cold sweat drying on his skin, the fast beating of his heart. He could hear the voice screaming in the back of his mind telling him to run! Or to fight! But more often than not, hide.
Once, however, at the age of thirteen Alex awoke from a dream feeling joyful and gitty. He couldn’t recall the dream, which is unusual since he could always remember the happy scenes that play for him as he sleeps. He didn’t mind though because for once, he wakes up in the middle of the night and feels at peace.
It got worse around the time he was entering his junior year of high school. He was sixteen and a half, his mom was running for president, he was at the top of his class, he was destined to be captain of the lacrosse team, he had a great best friend, an amazing family. Nothing should have been weighing him down. Except he couldn't sleep. He wouldn’t sleep. He had so much to do, so little time to do it. He also knew that if he slept, he would only be woken up by those stupid nightmares that he couldn’t remember. There’s no reason to sleep when he could take some of the Adderall he stole from Liam and stay up all night studying. He could even pull an all-nighter so he could read his mom’s campaign papers that she left out of the table which he wasn't supposed to touch.
It’s fine. Everything was fine.
Somehow he had forgotten that his dreams, the ones he forgets the moment he wakes up, give just as much euphoria as his nightmares give terror.
Henry very rarely had nightmares growing up, and when he did he could recite every moment back to his mum or dad as they rocked him back to sleep. It wasn’t until he was thirteen when he started waking up from inexplicable nightmares that left him on the verge of a panic attack. Every moment, every minute detail was erased from his memory the moment he woke up.
When he told his father about it in the morning over tea, his father just smiled and told him that hopefully soon things would start coming together.
A year later, at the age of fourteen, Henry kissed a boy for the first time. It was nice. He had never experienced a feeling like that, the way his stomach twisted and filled with butterflies. The tingling sensation that lasted on his lips for hours, which caused him to break into a fit of laughter every now and then.
That night he had a happy dream, and while he doesn’t remember it, he does hope it was about the boy.
When Henry turned fifteen, he started listening more intently to conversations about soulmates, no longer putting up the act that caring about such a thing was girlish behavior. No longer too embarrassed with himself to think about the possibility of having a soulmate. He found out some things from the girls at school, and some from his sister, but most of his research was spent online. He hoped his soulmate wouldn’t have nightmares of the things he accidentally saw.
He didn’t talk to his parents about it, however. Or Philip. He is too afraid of the questions his parents may ask and he doesn’t want to hear the comments his brother would enviably make. University had only made him more of a prick.
At seventeen, Henry has his first time with one of Philip’s friends from university. He didn’t dream at all that night, but he fears the image of what happened will forever play in the darkness behind his eyes.
In the middle of the summer between his junior year and senior year of high school, Alex had his worst nightmare to date. He woke up with tears streaming down his face and a panic attack just within reach. He pushed it away and wipes uselessly at the tears that continue to flow down his cheeks and onto his sleep shirt.
Henry doesn’t sleep for a while after his father dies. If he does, it’s not long enough to dream or to conjure a nightmare. He had enough of that in his conscious state.
Alex solely had nightmares for months after that the first nightmare during the summer. He chalks it up to stress over his mother’s upcoming campaign and election.
The Rio Olympics was an event that Alex had been excited about for weeks, since the moment he was told they were attending. June and Nora had spent hours planning tourist destinations they could travel to and even longer talking about celebrities that would be attending. He wasn’t particularly hyped for anything of the sort, but he could admit that it would be cool to meet royalty.
The moment Henry found out that Alexander Claremont-Diaz was attending the Olympics, he felt an odd mixture of dread and utter glee. He had been developing a crush on the boy since he felt saw him give a speech on his mother’s behalf. Ellen looked like a great candidate for president, but nothing she would say about the states could compare to her son.
That terrified Henry.
Alex was eighteen when he had the honor of going to the Olympics. That was also when he started remembering parts of his dreams. He doesn’t understand why.
A few months after Henry turns nineteen, he starts remembering every detail of his nightmares. He knows Alex was the reason why.
June was watching a documentary about soulmates when Alex walked into her room a year later. Well, more like there was a documentary about soulmates playing on her laptop as she flipped through one of her magazines. He was nineteen and officially the First Son of the United States and June was the First Daughter, but that didn’t mean they were different people than who they were before their mother’s election.
“Anything interesting?” Alex asked, nodding to June’s magazines as he slumped onto her bed.
June flips back a few pages to show a spread of two celebrities Alex didn’t know. The title was in a bold black and red font and read: BREAK UP BETWEEN HOLLYWOOD’S NEXT IT COUPLE? ARE SOULMATES EVEN REAL ANYMORE?
June smiles as Alex rolled his eyes.”You just don’t believe in soulmates because you don’t have one.”
Alex scrunched his noses at his sister, “I don’t believe in soulmates because they don’t exist and they make no logical sense. Oh, we have started seeing similar images while you are both unconscious, which means we were picked specifically by the universe to be together. We have no choice in the matter and we are happy about our lack of free will dictated by the happenstance that both our minds think of clouds. It’s stupid June.”
“It’s not stupid,” June sighed, putting down her magazine before she pointed to her laptop. “Soulmates are a lot more complicated than that. It’s more than having similar dreams, it’s being able to interact with each other’s dreams. It’s the ability to imagine your soulmate’s life before you meet them. It’s the opportunity to know someone so holistically without ever saying a word.”
“Sounds terrifying.”
“It sounds romantic, Alex.”
"Most soulmate science is vastly inconclusive," June’s laptop says, “especially amongst people under the age of eighteen, but there is one thing scientists agree upon across the board: there is nothing worst than the nightmares.”
June turned back to her reading, seemingly uninterested in anything Alex or the documentary might have to say. He got up from her bed slowly and left her alone so he could go study.
That night he dreamt of an unfamiliar street, darkened by rain and nightfall. He dreams up the feeling of a hug, weak and shaky, but comforting nonetheless. He dreams of relief and anxiousness together, intertwined and inseparable. When he wakes up, he feels different than he has ever felt waking up from a dream.
For the first time in his life, he writes down what he can remember.
The last thing Henry expected to happen at his brother’s wedding was to be involved in an international scandal with the one man who seems to haunt his dreams. No matter how many times he attempted to direct Alex anywhere else but in his general vicinity, he failed. That might partially be due to the fact that he started engaging in Alex’s antics, but he would rather tell all his sins to Philip than admit he had any doing in this.
This was not Alex’s fault. Yes, he may have been drunk. And yes, he may have started the banter with Henry, but Henry pushed him. This was all Henry’s fault. And Alex didn’t sleep well the night before, so, of course, he didn’t have the coordination to save himself. Though, at least this will overshadow anyone trying to claim June and Henry were soulmates because of one dance.
“You can hate the heir to the throne all you want, write mean poems about him in your diary, but the minute you see a camera, you act like the sun shines out of his dick, and you make it convincing. Better yet, for all I care, make everyone believe you two are soulmates.” Zahra said and no matter how much Alex wanted to complain, he couldn’t get out of this. So as his dreams got more memorable and as he went back to ignoring them, he was busy be best friends with a man he could not stand.
Henry could not stand being this close to Alex. He hated pretending that he was his friend because he was pretending he hated him because he was covering up the fact that he likes him and is his soulmate. It was a complicated and messy game he was playing.
He couldn’t play the game for long, especially after Alex seemingly stopped pretending to be his friend and actually became one. Especially once Henry dropped the facade that he hated Alex at all. Especially when Alex was coaxing Henry into a seductive dance. Especially when Henry is drunk out of his mind and in a different country. Especially when he’s standing in the cold next to the one person he shouldn’t be alone with. Especially when that person is Alex and he is as thick-headed as they come. Especially when his lips are soft against his own.
That night, while fitfully sleeping on a plane back to England, Henry had a nightmare.
That night, while sleeping with a finger tracing his lips, Alex had a dream.
Alex didn’t think about the possibility of soulmates as he was in the midst of his sexuality crisis. Even when Nora mentioned somewhere between “dick you down” and porn, he didn’t pay much mind to it because anything he may start with Henry is just for fun. Even as he got kissed into the mattress and felt something he never felt before, he never let his mind venture that way. Soulmates weren’t real and this was nothing to freak out over.
That night, while sleeping in different beds under the roof of the white house, Henry and Alex both have dreams.
Henry had silently freaked out about it.
Henry found himself becoming bolder with the fact that he knew they were soulmates, yet never dared to actually tell him. There was only once when he had been completely reckless with the fact that they were, in every sense of the words, meant for each other. Henry knew that he would always remember the tenth of August as the stupidest day of his life. In the span of one email, Henry mentioned dreams three times. Sometimes it baffled him just how dumb love had made him. Or maybe it was their bond that messed with Henry’s ability to reason. The science of it all is still greatly unknown…
So he hid his feelings and ran away from the lake house and his home to go back to England.
He barely slept, too afraid of what he’d dream of.
Alex slept in fits, but slept nonetheless. He dreamed as well, but all he dreamt of was Henry and it hurt to see him. He left him at his family lake house with nothing but a lie.
Every time June knocked on his door, Alex’s heart would leap in hope that Henry would be on the other side, an apology ready at his lips that Alex wouldn’t be sure he would ever hear in preference of kissing his lips. He loved him and Alex had a hard time getting past that new and prominent fact in his life.
“Alex, are you awake?” June’s voice called from behind his door.
“No. Go away.”
“I’m coming in. I brought Helados.” She said as she pushed open his door. “I hope you are hungry.”
Alex only shrugged. His alarm clock read 3 am and he knew June had a busy day tomorrow, but even if he didn’t voice it, he appreciated her company.
June situated herself next to Alex and placed the box of ice cream in his lap. “How have you been sleeping?”
“Not well. I keep have nightmares. I did have this dream about our time in LA though.”
June raised an eyebrow, “really? What about it?”
Alex shrugged again, “Nothing important. Just of Henry putting some note about a… pyramid in my kimono?” June made a noise similar to a wounded dog as she jumped out of Alex’s bed and ran to his closet. “June, what are you doing? It was a stupid dream.”
“Alex, you are so smart, I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Figured what out?” He asked, feeling rather lost as he watched June pull out his teal kimono and put a hand into one of the pockets. She didn’t say anything but the smile she wore when she pulled out a folded-up note said all. “June, that means nothing.”
His sister sighed as she handed him the note.
Dear Thisbe,
I wish there weren’t a wall.
Love, Pyramus
This time, Alex said nothing. Slowly, things were lining up in his head and every conclusion he came up with made no sense.
“Not a pyramid, but close enough. I told you soulmates were real, Alex.”
“No.” Was all he was able to breathe out.
“Yes. And I know you hate the thought that soulmates mean you get no free will, but you do. You can choose, Alex. You can make the choice to go after him. You can make the choice to fight. Don’t give up.” June said, wrapping a comforting arm around Alex. “We aren’t mom and dad. You and Henry aren’t them either. It’ll work itself out, but only if you choose for it to.”
The following evening, after a long night of fighting, Alex and Henry dreamed together in each other’s loving arms.