Chapter 5: The Nightmare
The silence that followed them through the day was a new kind. Not empty, but charged. A fragile thread of understanding pulled taut between every glance, every brush of fingers passing a tool in the garage, every shared meal eaten without the need to fill the air with noise.
When dusk bled into full dark, Taichi stood in the doorway of his old bedroom, now a guest room that smelled of dust and disuse. He watched Ethan move around the master bedroom, turning down the covers on the large bed. The question hung unasked.
Ethan straightened, catching his gaze. He didn’t speak. He just gave a single, slow nod toward the empty space beside him.
That was all the invitation Taichi needed.
They slid under the sheets without ceremony, their bodies automatically finding the shape of the other. Taichi’s back fit against Ethan’s chest, Ethan’s arm a heavy, secure weight around his waist. The room was dark, the only sound the rustle of fabric and their own breathing. The scent of sex was gone, laundered away, replaced by the clean smell of Ethan’s skin and the lingering cedar in the air.
Taichi fell asleep faster than he had in years, anchored by the solid heat behind him.
For hours, it was peace.
Then, a change. A tensing. Ethan surfaced from a shallow sleep to the feel of Taichi’s body going rigid against his. A low, muffled sound escaped Taichi’s throat—a whimper trapped behind clenched teeth.
Ethan held still, listening. “Tai?” he murmured into the dark.
Taichi’s legs jerked. A full-body shudder wracked him. His breathing became ragged, panicked puffs against the pillow.
“No,” he slurred, voice thick with sleep and terror. “No, no…”
Ethan tightened his hold. “Hey. You’re dreaming. Wake up.”
But the nightmare had its claws in deep. Taichi thrashed, elbow catching Ethan in the ribs. His words coalesced into a raw, broken syllable, torn from somewhere deep and wounded. “Daddy.”
The word hung in the dark, sharp as a shard of glass.
“Daddy, please—”
It was the please that did it. The sheer, childlike desperation in that single word. Ethan rolled him, pinning Taichi’s trembling limbs gently but firmly. He cupped his face. “Taichi. Look at me. Wake up.”
Taichi’s eyes flew open. They were wide, unseeing, filled with a horror that wasn’t for this room, this bed, this man. He gasped, a strangled, wet sound, his chest heaving.
“You’re here,” Ethan said, his voice low and steady, a stone in a rushing river. “You’re with me. It was a dream. Just a dream.”
Recognition slowly flooded back into Taichi’s eyes, replacing the terror with a swift, searing shame. He tried to turn his face away, but Ethan held him fast.
“Don’t,” Ethan said, softer. “Just breathe.”
Taichi squeezed his eyes shut, but a tear escaped, tracing a hot line into Ethan’s palm. His breathing hitched, slowly coming back under control in ragged increments. The room was silent except for the sound of it.
“Sorry,” Taichi finally rasped. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“For what? Having a bad dream?”
“For… that. What I said.” The word ‘daddy’ sat between them, unsaid again, heavy and uncomfortable.
Ethan released his face but didn’t pull away. He kept one hand on Taichi’s shoulder, a steadying point of contact. “Wanna talk about it?”
Taichi shook his head violently against the pillow. Then he stopped. He stared up at the dark ceiling, his profile sharp in the faint light from the window. “It’s the same one. Always the same one.”
Ethan waited.
“My real dad,” Taichi said, the words coming out flat, rehearsed. “He didn’t leave. He died. Aneurysm. In our old apartment. I was eight. I found him.”
Ethan’s hand tightened on his shoulder.
“He was on the bathroom floor. In his suit. He was a salaryman. Always in a suit.” Taichi’s voice was detached, a clinical report. “I thought he was sleeping. I shook his shoulder. His head… lolled. The sound it made against the linoleum.” He swallowed hard. “I remember the pattern on the floor. Little gray squares. I remember the drip from the radiator. I remember calling his name, and it got louder and louder, and he wouldn’t wake up.”
He turned his head, looking at Ethan now. The shame was still there, mixed with a vulnerability so acute it was painful to witness. “In the dream, I’m always eight. And I’m always calling for him. ‘Daddy, please, wake up.’ But it’s not his face anymore. It’s… blurry. Sometimes it’s my mom’s. Sometimes it’s…” He trailed off, but the implication was clear. Sometimes it was the man lying next to him.
The pieces clicked into place for Ethan—the restless energy, the solo travel, the dry humor that was really a shield. The fierce, almost desperate way he’d clung to Ethan these past days. It wasn’t just desire. It was the terrified eight-year-old who’d learned that everything solid could vanish in an instant.
“Come here,” Ethan said, his voice rough.
He didn’t wait for Taichi to move. He pulled him in, wrapping him up completely, until Taichi’s face was buried against his chest and his own chin rested on top of Taichi’s head. Taichi resisted for a second, a stiff, proud resistance, then he crumpled. A fine, helpless tremor went through him.
Ethan held him through it. He didn’t offer platitudes. He didn’t say it would be okay. He just held him, one hand slowly stroking up and down the knobs of his spine.
After a long time, the trembling subsided. The silence returned, but it was different now. The truth was in the room with them, another presence.
Taichi’s voice, muffled against Ethan’s skin, was so small it was almost lost.
“Don’t leave me alone.”
It wasn’t a demand. It was a confession. The core fear laid bare.
Ethan closed his eyes. He thought of the ghost in the kitchen, the guilt in his own bones, the impossible line they’d crossed. He thought of the cold bathroom floor and a little boy in a silent apartment.
He pressed his lips to Taichi’s hair. “I’m right here,” he whispered into the dark. A promise for the night. The only one he could make. “I’ve got you.”