viggorli_xmas | a gift for koulagirl666

In Dreams (2/3)

Please see part 1 for warnings, authors notes &c.

Chapter 6

Viggo made a light dinner for them both of sliced fresh fruit, cheese, and rosemary bread. He wanted to build a fire in the fireplace, but when he started to stack logs, Orlando asked him not to.

"No fire. Please," Orlando said. "Just sit with me."

So Viggo sat next to Orlando on the couch. The living room was bathed in soft yellow light from a floor lamp Viggo had bought from an estate sale in May Creek. Outside the tops of the trees at the edge of the clearing were beginning to disappear in the fog rolling in from the coast. Viggo held Orlando while they ate, and he wondered again how Orlando had come to be back in his life.

He'd told Orlando it didn't matter, but in truth it did.

Viggo wasn't a religious man. He didn't believe in a higher power. He had faith in certain people and hope for others. He had no explanation about how Orlando came back that fit into his own personal philosophy. He had kept Orlando alive in his heart for five years. Had his faith alone done it? If absolute faith could make hope a reality, what did that say about the nature of reality?

Reality was what he could see and hear, taste, touch and smell. Viggo's senses told him that Orlando was real. Even if he wasn't quite the same man who'd disappeared, he was still Orlando. He smelled like Orlando, felt like him in Viggo's arms. He looked and sounded like the man Viggo had fallen in love with all those years ago, and when Viggo had kissed the back of his neck, the taste of his skin had been Orlando's.

Then there was the intangible sense -- the gut feeling deep inside -- that told Viggo even more than his five senses did that Orlando had come back to him. Viggo thought his senses might be fooled if he indeed had lost his mind living out here all by himself, but his gut wouldn't betray him. Viggo placed another kiss on Orlando's shoulder, and wondered if he should be thanking someone -- or something -- for returning Orlando to him.

Orlando shifted in Viggo's arms. "I know this is an apple," he said as he brought a slice before his face. "In fact, I know it's not a red delicious because it has this green tinge to the skin."

"Fuji," Viggo said, and Orlando frowned. "That's the kind of apple," Viggo said.

"That sounds familiar." Orlando sighed, a frustrated sound. "So if I know what an apple is, and not only what it is but what kind it isn't, why can't I remember anything about my life? Who I was?" He dropped one hand to Viggo's thigh, stroked the denim with gentle fingers "Who we are together?"

Viggo shook his head. "I don't know."

"Would you tell me? Tell me something about the person I was?"

"I can do that. I can also show you."

Viggo wasn't about to show Orlando any of the movies he'd made. The movies were about Orlando pretending to be other people. Instead, Viggo showed Orlando the photographs he'd taken of Orlando over the years, and the photographs other people had taken of the two of them together.

They sat on the couch as Viggo spread box after box of photographs over the coffee table. Orlando looked at each one intently, touching some with a tentative finger, laughing at the ones with hobbits making faces or Viggo doing something odd. It took hours. Viggo explained the story behind some of the photos. Others he let speak for themselves.

"I don't remember any of this," Orlando said at last.

He held a photograph of himself and Viggo in India taken after Rings finished principle photography. Viggo had asked a man they met to take a picture of the two of them, disheveled and dirty, their packs on the dusty ground next to their feet. Orlando's curls were just growing out, and they'd both had scruffy beards. No one knew them then. In the picture they were leaning up against each other, shoulder to shoulder, happy smiles on their faces.

"It looks like I had a happy life," Orlando said. He glanced at Viggo. "Like we were happy together."

Viggo blinked away the heavy feeling that threatened to overwhelm him at hearing Orlando speak of his life -- of their life together -- as something that only existed in the past.

"We were," Viggo said.

Orlando put the photograph back with the others. His forehead wrinkled and a line grew between his brows. "I'm not sure I'm this person anymore," he said. "If I can't remember myself as this person, how can I be him?"

There was only one answer to that -- he couldn't. Viggo didn't want to say it, but something in his expression must have said it for him. Orlando's eyes took on a hollow, haunted look.

"You came here," Viggo said. "That says something. I don't know what, but it must mean something." Please let it mean something.

"I came back to you." Orlando reached out and touched Viggo's face. "That must be why I'm here. I came back to you."

* * *

Chapter 7

For the first time since he'd moved in this house, Viggo shared his bed with another person.

Viggo had given Orlando a pair of track pants and a t-shirt to sleep in. Orlando hadn't even questioned where he would sleep. He'd held Viggo's hand when they walked upstairs to Viggo's bedroom. He changed his clothes and climbed beneath the down comforter on Viggo's bed, and when Viggo climbed in beside him, Orlando had snuggled up against him.

None of Orlando's touches were sexual. Even though Viggo ached, he simply held Orlando in his arms as Orlando's breathing evened out. Soon soft snores escaped from between Orlando's lips and his body became heavy and boneless against Viggo's.

Viggo thought he wouldn't be able to sleep, but soon he found his thoughts drifting, the tension in his body bleeding away into the night.

He realized he'd fallen asleep when the dream started.

In the dream he was running. His footfalls slapped against asphalt, and his breath puffed out in misty clouds in the chill morning air. The last shreds of fog ghosted the trees.

Viggo recognized the road that he'd run down that morning. Only now, as he ran, he experienced the curious sensation of running and also watching himself from a distance as he ran. He seemed to float above the road at the level of the treetops.

He heard the growl of the approaching car. In the slow-motion, underwater quality of dream movement, he turned in time to see Orlando sitting in the middle of the road, his back to the runner Viggo and the approaching car. Viggo felt the jolt of pavement as his feet pounded on the road as he also watched himself turn toward the car. His heart beat hard in his chest as he experienced the same panic he had that morning. Only this time, as he floated near the treetops, Viggo also watched Orlando. He saw Orlando get to his feet, take three steps toward the trees where his attention had been focused...

And disappear.

It was almost as if a dark hole in reality had opened up and swallowed him.

Viggo saw himself turn after the car narrowly missed him. He watched as he searched the road, as he called for Orlando, frantically running along the shoulder and peering into the dense undergrowth and the tree line on the downhill side of the road. He felt the same panic he had that morning, only now it was from a different source.

Orlando had disappeared into nothingness.

Viggo tried to make his dream self search the spot in the road where Orlando disappeared, but neither the Viggo who'd been running on the road or the Viggo who floated near the treetops would do what he wanted.

Frustrated, he told himself it was only a dream, but it didn't feel like a dream. Viggo had always had an active dream life. Some dreams he remembered on waking, some dissolved as soon as he opened his eyes. But all of his dreams had a disjointed quality, one unrelated image following another, always with a measure of unreality. Elaborate wooden steps that led nowhere. Tornadoes that rose from Henry's sandbox. Ballroom dancing lessons taken with Brigit. Things that made him feel like he'd tumbled into a reality where rationality and logic did not apply.

This dream, though -- even though he'd been split in two, one observer and one participant, it still felt more like watching a film of what he'd done that morning than dreaming about it.

If he was watching a film, what was he supposed to see?

He watched himself sitting on the road, close to where Orlando had been sitting. He saw himself cry, saw the dejected slump of his shoulders and the bereft expression on his face.

He felt that invisible tug again, the thread that pulled at his gut and told him that in spite of everything, Orlando was back.

Don't give up on me, Viggo!

The voice was loud and distinct and so real that Viggo woke up with a start, convinced Orlando had spoken.

In the dark of his bedroom, it was difficult to see anything beyond the solid bulk beneath the covers that he knew was Orlando. Viggo could feel him though -- the warmth of his body, the arm that still curled around Viggo's waist. He listened to Orlando's steady breathing and knew that Orlando was fast asleep.

It hadn't been Orlando who'd spoken to him in his dream. Not the Orlando who slept beside him now.

Or was it?

Viggo shivered. He turned toward Orlando, intent on pulling him into a closer embrace, and that's when he saw it.

He'd left the curtains over his bedroom window open. He always did. He liked to see the early morning sky, that time of the morning before dawn proper when the approaching sun started to bleed the black from the night and replace it with shades of indigo and then barely-seen pale rose. Viggo didn't sleep well. Many nights he'd sat in his bed and watched dawn approach through this window before he dressed and went out for his run about the time the first rays of sun turned the fog into grey mist.

Tonight the fog shrouded the trees outside his window, tendrils of earthbound clouds that hugged the tree line as if unwilling to cross the short expanse of flat land between the trees and his house. The fog was illuminated by the faint light of a crescent moon that turned the mist silver.

At the center of that silver fog was a black deeper than the surrounding night. It seemed to pulse with intent like a malevolent apparition out of a childhood nightmare.

Viggo blinked to try to clear his head. He thought he might still be dreaming. The ice invading his blood told him he wasn't.

Beside him Orlando stirred, his feet restless beneath the comforter. The dark on the other side of the glass seemed to surge toward the window. Orlando moaned in his sleep, his forehead creased in a frown.

"No," Viggo said under his breath, the intensity in that one word not diminished by the low volume.

Orlando twitched and sat up so suddenly and with so much force that he nearly pushed Viggo backwards off the bed. Viggo grabbed Orlando and held him tight as Orlando began to wail.

"Nononononono...." Orlando's voice was hollow, his words strung together so tight it sounded like one never-ending denial. Viggo recognized other words in with the seemingly endless string of no's. "I don't want to. Don't make me go!"

Viggo held his head against Orlando's, murmured reassurances in his ear. In Viggo's arms, Orlando's body was a mass of straining, trembling muscles, but he wasn't trying to get away. He was hanging on to Viggo for dear life.

"You're not going anywhere," Viggo said. In his mind he saw the Orlando of his dream disappear into a black hole in reality. He kissed Orlando's temple. "I won't let you."

Orlando turned and clutched at him. "Don't give up on me," he said, and now Viggo's blood did run cold.

Orlando's eyes were the same fathomless black as the darkness at the heart of the fog.

* * *

Chapter 8

Viggo thought his heart might stop beating. Even in the dark of his bedroom he could see that the black that had invaded Orlando's wide brown eyes nearly obliterated the whites. It looked like a movie special effect, but this was real life.

"Don't let me go," Orlando said. "Please. Don't make me go."

Viggo held on tight. "I won't. I won't."

At first Viggo carried on his fight for Orlando in eerie quiet. Orlando's wails had diminished to quiet whimpers. He buried his head against Viggo's shoulder and held on so hard Viggo knew Orlando's fingers would leave bruises. Viggo's own shallow, rapid breaths hissed out through his mouth. His heart was pounding now, a reaction to Orlando's fear, yes, but more because something that definitely was not a part of reality as he knew it hovered outside his house.

The thing in the fog made no sound. If anything, it was almost like it sucked all sound from the world. Viggo could hear none of the night noises he took for granted. The air felt colder than it had just moments ago. Viggo didn't think it was all due to the shock of finding out once again that the world wasn't quite what he'd always thought it was.

"What is it?" Viggo asked. "How can I stop it?"

Orlando shook his head. "I don't know."

Viggo wasn't sure which question Orlando had answered.

At a loss, Viggo tried the most logical thing he could think of. He turned to face the dark outside his window, summoned all the anger, hurt, and pain he'd suffered for five long years, and projected it at the thing terrifying Orlando. "I won't let him go!" Viggo said. "You're wasting your time here."

The thing recoiled. Viggo thought he could actually see it churning and collapsing in on itself.

"Leave! Leave him alone!"

Viggo's shout echoed inside his bedroom. Orlando flinched, but the churning dark retreated even farther away from the house. As Viggo watched, the dark seemed to bleed into the fog. With a soft pop that Viggo felt more as a change in pressure than a sound, the last of the dark winked out of existence, and all that was left was the silvery fog in the fading moonlight.

"It's gone." Viggo stroked Orlando's head. "It didn't take you. It's all gone now."

Orlando didn't move his head from Viggo's shoulder. "For now," he said. "It will come back."

Viggo should have known it wouldn't be that easy. "How do you know?"

"I can feel it."

"How?"

Orlando lifted his head to look at Viggo. His eyes weren't back to normal yet, but Viggo thought he could see more white than before. "I feel it calling me, like this dark little voice inside me. I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you."

"I don't want you to leave me." Viggo kissed Orlando's forehead. He remembered his dream. "Is that where you went when I saw you on the road?" He hadn't seen a black vortex, but maybe the thing looked different in daylight.

"I don't remember." Orlando glanced out the window and shuddered. "I only know it's someplace I don't want to be." He paused for a long minute. "I think that's where I was."

"In that thing?"

"Or on the other side of it."

The other side of the mirror. Alice, we've gone through the looking glass. Viggo had to suppress the urge to giggle at the unreality of it all. He didn't think Orlando would understand gallows humor, not now. Not this Orlando. And Viggo knew if he laughed now, his laughter would have a hysterical edge that neither one of them needed to hear.

"I don't think I can sleep again tonight," Orlando said. "I'm afraid if I close my eyes, I'll see it again."

Viggo sometimes dreamed of the ocean, of watching Orlando being swallowed beneath the waves, and being unable to do anything about it. He could understand the need to stay awake to keep bad things away.

"Then we'll both stay awake," Viggo said.

"Thank you."

Orlando turned in Viggo's arms. His fingers moved against Viggo's back, digging into tense muscles in all the right spots, just like Orlando had done years ago.

Viggo couldn't help himself. The after-effects of adrenaline and the feel of Orlando in his arms, in his bed, were too much. He bit his lip to keep himself from kissing Orlando. He couldn't control the other reactions of his body.

The fingers on his back didn't stop moving, but Viggo could feel the change in Orlando just the same. He knew Orlando was aware of the growing heaviness between Viggo's thighs.

"We were lovers," Orlando said.

"Yes." We were so much more than that.

Orlando drew closer. "I wish I could remember."

Viggo nuzzled Orlando's neck. He could feel Orlando's own arousal growing. "Your body remembers."

A soft sound escaped Orlando's lips. Viggo felt it against his ear. "Please." The word was little more than breath against Viggo's skin.

Viggo wrapped his arms around Orlando and gave into the temptation to kiss his neck. Orlando moaned as Viggo wet Orlando's smooth skin with an open-mouthed kiss.

"I came back to you," Orlando murmured as he turned his own head to kiss Viggo's hair. "Make me yours again. Please."

Viggo had to see. He pulled his mouth away from Orlando's skin, cupped Orlando's head with both hands, and looked deeply into his eyes.

He saw sorrow and need so intense it had turned Orlando's eyes deep and dark, but the unnatural black that had leeched into Orlando from the thing beyond the window was gone. This was Orlando -- Orlando as he was now -- and he wanted Viggo to make love to him.

It had been five long years. Viggo was no saint. He couldn't have stopped himself if he tried.

"Yes."

* * *

Chapter 9

Orlando had no scars on his body that Viggo didn't already know by heart. The long line down his spine was still there, as were the faded reminders of mishaps with swords and knives and the occasional tree root or boulder that tripped up a gangly young man too energetic to slow down and watch where he was going. Nothing on Orlando's skin told Viggo anything about what reached for Orlando from the other side of the darkness.

"Love me," Orlando said. His hands gripped Viggo insistently. Desperately.

Viggo made himself slow down. His instinct was to bury himself inside, as deep as he could get, until not a molecule of air was left between their bodies and the emptiness inside Orlando was driven away. But it had been years, and he didn't want to hurt either of them.

He'd lit a candle he kept on his dresser for times when a storm roared in from the coast and electricity fell to the fury of the wind. The small, flickering flame hadn't alarmed Orlando the way the fireplace had, and the soft light let Viggo see the body he'd dreamt about all the nights he'd spent alone in this bed.

Orlando lay beneath him now, hips in motion, thrusting himself against Viggo's belly. Long legs wrapped around Viggo's waist and drew their bodies together. Viggo shuddered at the feel of Orlando's hard cock against his own.

Viggo had no supplies here, nothing to use except a bottle of lotion he kept on the night stand for the times when memories overwhelmed him and his imagination let him substitute the feel of Orlando's hand for his own. He used the lotion carefully now to make Orlando ready for him. By the time Viggo thought he could safely slide inside without hurt, they were both trembling.

Orlando didn't let him wait any longer. He grabbed Viggo's cock and positioned it. The heat and slick skin and tension against him was too much. Viggo slid in with only slight resistance, and then he was lost.

The world could have ended around them and Viggo never would have noticed. All he felt was Orlando, hot and tight around him. All he saw was Orlando's face, contorted with pleasure, but eyes open and looking at him.

Orlando. Looking at him.

Viggo lost his rhythm as he realized there was awareness in Orlando's eyes that hadn't been there a moment before.

"Orlando?"

He nearly stopped, his cock buried deep.

Orlando sobbed once, and then he smiled and sobbed again. "Oh, god... Viggo!"

Now Viggo did stop. His chest had become too tight to breathe. He didn't need breath anyway, all he needed was the man looking up at him with eyes that remembered him. Remembered them..

"No, don't stop," Orlando said. "I don't know how long...."

Orlando's feet dug into the back of Viggo's thighs, urging him on. As wonderful as this felt, all Viggo wanted to do was hold Orlando in his arms and talk to him. Fucking made it difficult to think.

"Please, luv," Orlando said. "I don't want to go away again, not yet."

Viggo didn't understand but he moved, a much gentler rhythm that before. He bent down and kissed Orlando, and it was like every kiss they'd ever shared -- deep and exquisite and more than just a meeting of mouths and tongues and breath.

The kiss built up Viggo's need, and he found himself thrusting harder. Orlando's cock strained against his belly, trapped between the two of them. Viggo reached down to curl his fist around it. He started to pump, but Orlando's hand on his wrist stopped him.

"No," Orlando said. "Wait. I need to tell you...." Orlando's face screwed up in pleasure as he shuddered.

"I love you," Viggo said. He didn't understand any of this, but this one thing he wanted to tell Orlando while he was still Orlando in body and mind. "I've never stopped."

Orlando's eyes glistened. "I know." His strong hand gripped Viggo's hair. "Belief. It's a powerful thing." Orlando hauled Viggo's head down to kiss him again. "I need you to believe me one more time, luv. Can you do that? For me? For us?"

"Yes," Viggo said without hesitation. Blood was pounding in his ears, and he could feel himself getting ready to come. He tried to slow down again, but he knew it was too late. "Orlando, I can't... it's been too long and I...."

"Listen, then." Orlando's hot breath panted against Viggo's face. "I don't think I can be with you like this again, so you have to listen."

Orlando made a keening, whining sound, and Viggo knew he was close to coming too.

"Tell me," Viggo said.

"The next time... oh god...." Orlando shut his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose. "The next time you see it, don't run from it. Don't let me run from it."

What? "Orlando... no!" God, what was he talking about? "I can't let you... " Fuck. Viggo felt the tightness in his groin and knew it was too late.

"No, don't let me... " Orlando tensed beneath him, and Viggo knew he was coming too.

"Viggo... don't let me go alone," Orlando said, and then Orlando's cock pulsed in Viggo's hand, and the world dissolved as Viggo's orgasm ripped through him.

* * *

Chapter 10

Viggo was afraid to open his eyes. He was afraid Orlando would be gone, that this would all be nothing more than a cruel dream.

Then he felt Orlando stir next to him. Viggo smelled them, the unmistakable scent of sex and sweat, and knew it was real.

But when he rolled over to look at Orlando, Orlando looked back at him with eyes devoid of recognition. For this Orlando, they had just made love for the first time.

Viggo did his best to keep his pain to himself. He leaned down and kissed Orlando's lips. "Hey," he said.

Orlando reached out with one hand to touch the side of Viggo's face. "We've done that before," he said.

"Yes."

Orlando frowned. "I felt something... like I was here but I wasn't."

Viggo swallowed hard around the need to cry. "You remembered. For a moment you remembered."

"And it hurt you."

Viggo couldn't deny it.

Orlando moved suddenly, rolling away from Viggo to sit up on the edge of the bed, his back to Viggo. The long scar down his spine was an eerie shadow in the flickering candlelight, like the sinewy trail of a snake.

"I shouldn't be here," Orlando said. "Every moment I'm here, I remind you of what I used to be. I can see it. I remind you of what you've lost."

"No." Viggo sat up quickly and wrapped his arms around Orlando's shoulders from behind. "Here is exactly where you should be. I was dead without you."

Orlando's voice was almost too soft to hear, even in the quiet house. "I'm dead."

What? "No. You're real. You've alive and real and warm and breathing, and--"

"I'm dead inside."

Viggo took a deep breath to try to steady his nerves. To give himself a moment to think of what he could possibly say. He kissed the back of Orlando's head.

"I feel hollow," Orlando said. "Like something's been carved out of me." He bent his head to lean his cheek on Viggo's forearm. "When we were together, that was the closest I felt to being whole."

"I feel that, every time." Viggo pressed closer to Orlando's back. "If I could stay deep inside you forever, I would."

Orlando made a soft noise. Viggo realized it was an aborted laugh.

"I imagine that would make us a bit sore after a day or so," Orlando said.

Viggo smiled in spite of the circumstances. This was the first time this Orlando had shown any sense of humor about himself.

"Be worth it," Viggo said. He squeezed Orlando's shoulders. "Are you sore?"

"Only in a good way." Orlando turned his head to look at Viggo. "I hope we did that a lot."

There had been days they'd spent doing nothing except loving each other, interspersed only with bouts of raiding the kitchen for whatever wasn't tacked down to replenish their energy.

"We did," Viggo said.

"I think we should do that again." Orlando turned fully in Viggo's arms. "A lot. Tonight." He leaned forward and kissed Viggo.

It wasn't the same as when Orlando had kissed him while they fucked, but it was deep and sweet. Viggo tried not to compare the two.

They made love again, slower this time. Viggo did his best to live in the moment, not to hope that when they both got close, he'd look down and see awareness in Orlando's eyes.

This time it didn't happen.

This time, Orlando didn't come back.

* * *

Chapter 11

Viggo thought he was too wound up to sleep, but emotional and physical exhaustion got the better of him. When he opened his eyes, the world outside his window was a softly moving gray. Fog from the coast had socked in his valley.

The bed beside him was empty.

Viggo sat up with a start. "Orlando?" he called out.

Nobody answered.

Viggo got out of bed in a hurry, not bothering to put on any clothes. He raced through the house, checking each room, hoping to find Orlando doing something mundane, but all the rooms were empty.

It was later in the day than he'd first thought. The clock on his microwave said it was nearly ten in the morning. Viggo couldn't remember the last time he'd slept that late. Unless a storm was on the way, the fog was usually long gone by ten. He couldn't help remembering the pulsing dark that had come with the fog the night before. Was it a storm or that thing that had brought this fog?

Viggo threw open his back door. "Orlando!" he shouted.

He couldn't see more than fifteen feet in front of his face. TJ wickered from the direction of the pasture, but it was little more than a disembodied sound. The fog was cold and clammy against Viggo's naked body, but the trembling in his fingers had far more to do with fear than the chill in the air.

Orlando was gone.

No. That couldn't be. Viggo wouldn't let it. What had Orlando said to him last night? When Orlando had finally come back all the way, what had he said? "I need you to believe in me."

"You're not gone," Viggo said aloud.

The words bounced back at him off the fog. They sounded dull and impotent.

"You're still here," he said, more forcefully. "I'm not letting you go. Never again."

He closed his eyes and concentrated on that moment when Orlando had been beneath him. On the look of recognition when Orlando saw him. On the words Orlando had spoken in a voice that cracked under the weight of emotion they carried.

"Come back to me," Viggo said.

The air pressure changed, sudden and sharp. TJ whinnied in fear, and his hooves beat out his retreat from the pasture fence. Viggo opened his eyes, but he felt more than saw when Orlando returned to the world. It felt like a picture that had been wrong somehow suddenly found focus. Viggo knew Orlando was back long before he heard him finally cry out in the fog.

"Viggo!" Orlando's voice was high-pitched and frightened.

"Orlando! Where are you? Keep talking to me."

"I don't know. I was in bed with you, and now I'm here. What's happening to me?"

Viggo had walked every inch of his farm in daylight and dark, in sunshine and fog, but he still had trouble finding Orlando. It was almost like the something was trying to keep them apart.

By the time he stumbled across Orlando, Viggo's hair was dripping wet from the fog and his feet were numb from the damp cold. Orlando was in front of TJ's pasture, sitting on the ground exactly how he had on the road, with his knees drawn up and arms wrapped around his legs, only he was naked, too.

Whatever had taken Orlando had taken him from their bed while Viggo slept.

Don't let me go.

Viggo crouched down and wrapped his arms around Orlando. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have slept. I should have kept you safe."

Orlando didn't return Viggo's embrace. "I don't think I'm supposed to be here," he said.

Viggo felt like his heart forgot how to beat. He did his best to keep his voice even. "What makes you say that?"

Orlando's shoulders lifted in a shrug. His skin was horribly cold. How long had he been out in the fog?

"C'mon," Viggo said. "Let's get you inside and get you warm."

Orlando stumbled on the way back to the house. Viggo told himself it was just because Orlando was chilled to the bone. He'd never been the most graceful of men to begin with.

But when Viggo got Orlando inside, he could tell that something was wrong. Orlando looked faded somehow. His brown eyes were dull, his hair hung lank around his face. His skin had a sallow look.

Viggo wrapped him in a blanket and tried to get him to sit on the couch, but Orlando insisted on following Viggo to the kitchen. Viggo wanted to get some hot tea inside both of them, not to mention a hot meal.

Orlando stood off to the side while Viggo worked. His dull eyes never left Viggo's face.

"Tell me what happened to me," Orlando said. "Why I never lived in this house with you."

Viggo turned his face away and concentrated on the eggs he had going in the frying pan. "It doesn't matter. You're here now, that's all that--"

"I need to know," Orlando said.

Viggo didn't want to talk about it. If his belief in Orlando was all that was keeping him here, Viggo didn't want to take the chance that talking about Orlando's death would cut the fragile connection between them and he'd lose Orlando for good.

"Please, Viggo." Soft footsteps sounded behind him, and Orlando's chill fingers touched his neck. "Please."

Viggo took a deep breath. "You disappeared at sea. The ship you were on sank. No one ever found--" Your body. "--you. Everyone assumed you died at sea."

"Everyone?"

Viggo shook his head. "No," he said in a small voice. "I didn't. I couldn't. You were so vibrant, so in the moment. So with me. I couldn't believe... didn't want to believe that you were gone."

"I am, you know. Gone."

Viggo whirled around, half expecting to see only an empty blanket on the floor, but Orlando stood behind him, his dull eyes sad.

"The me you knew is gone," Orlando said.

"You're not gone!" Viggo said more forcefully than he intended. "You are standing right here with me. You are not a dream or a hallucination. You're real. I saw you last night, Orlando. You came back to me all the way. You were with me and you talked to me, and you called me--"

Viggo stopped when he saw Orlando's eyes widen in alarm.

"No," Orlando said, backing away from him. "That's not possible. That's not supposed to happen."

Not supposed to happen? "We talked about this last night," Viggo said slowly.

Orlando shook his head back and forth, repeating "No, no, no," over and over again.

"Why wasn't that supposed to happen?" Viggo asked. He reached out and grabbed Orlando's shoulders. "What is it that you're not telling me?"

"I don't know!" Orlando shook free of Viggo's grip. "I don't know why I say the things I do, why I'm here, why I'm drawn back to you again and again and again. You said I'm not a dream, but I don't dream, Viggo. I'm awake with you and then I'm just gone and I wake up somewhere else, and I'm alone."

Orlando was clutching the blanket around himself so hard his fingers had turned white. Viggo wanted to hold him, but didn't dare. He was too afraid Orlando would simply fly apart.

"You're never alone," Viggo said.

"But I don't dream," Orlando said. "That can't be normal, can it?"

Nothing about this was normal.

Orlando shook his head again and turned his back on Viggo. The eggs on the stove started to burn, but Viggo ignored them.

On the floor beneath Orlando's feet, the tile was smeared with something dark. Viggo had swept up the glass tumbler he'd smashed against the back door -- had it only been yesterday? -- but he must have missed a piece, and Orlando had stepped on it with his bare feet.

"Orlando, baby," Viggo said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I think you're bleeding."

"Bleeding?" Orlando glanced down at his feet. "Why don't I feel it?"

"You're cold, that's all." Viggo took a towel off the counter and crouched down. When he touched Orlando's foot, it was like a block of ice. "Lift up for a second."

He held Orlando's foot like he'd held TJ's hoof so many times. Orlando leaned on Viggo's shoulders to keep himself steady. Viggo found the sliver of glass and managed to pull it out without tweezers, then he pressed the towel against Orlando's foot.

"I need to get some bandages," Viggo said. "Think you can hobble over to the chair?"

Orlando nodded, and Viggo helped him sit down. Viggo left him there, staring off into space, while he went to the bathroom to get what he needed.

The bathroom had only a tiny window high up on one wall. With the fog outside making the day darker than normal, Viggo had to turn on the light. He reached for the medicine cabinet but froze halfway.

Viggo had gotten Orlando's blood on his fingers when he got the glass out of Orlando's foot. In the dull light of the kitchen, the blood had looked deep red. The bright bathroom light gave Viggo his first good look at what covered his fingers.

Orlando's blood was black.

* * *

(continued in part 3)