Reversal of Fortune [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

I dreamt of Yiuwa a lot.

Even though it was just a dream, just hallucinations piling up, they were an odd comfort that I couldn't resist anymore. It was a beacon of warmth in days that just blurred together in pain. I dreamt of what we could do if my curse wasn't between us. I answered a lot of questions I had about a normal relationship.

In the morning, we would wake up together. He would shower first and I would go downstairs and pretend I could make something that wasn't boxed brownies. I don't know why I got an odd thrill out of making things for him, watching him sit down and eat something I made. It was so fucking fifties housewife, something I never pictured myself doing, yet I felt oddly good doing something like that for someone else... no, not just for someone else, but for Yiuwa.

In the afternoon, we'd go on a date. A normal date, somewhere nice. We'd go out to eat, come home and just watch movies together or have sex.

The idea of something so relaxed, so normal, so... happy. It was blissful. It was my go-to-place when reality was too exhausting, and lately, it was too much.

Yiuwa had been right.

I wasn't quite sure when that frayed rope in my mind snapped. I just knew that I didn't hurt as much as usual, didn't get hungry as easily, was too tired to fight anything. I sat curled up in my cell, ruined leg tucked beneath me, deformed arm tucked against my stomach, my head resting against the wall as I soaked up the hallucinations dancing around me. I'd been in the cell for too long, and began to wonder if I'd hallucinated seeing Yiuwa at all here, which was a small comfort because that meant that I hadn't destroyed Yiuwa; he hadn't become a shadow.

Maybe he'd moved on. Maybe he found happiness.

But the mark on my neck was still there, wasn't it? I couldn't tell. Every time I reached up to touch it, I couldn't tell what I felt. Most of what I felt was pain, but it should feel like pleasure, shouldn't it? Or was that a hallucination too?

I had no idea what was real anymore.

I just became an actor in the hallucinations now. I was as much a part of them as they were of me.

Today's hallucination was a bit different. I sat in the cell as usual, a plate of rotting meat and moldy bread sitting outside the bars to tempt me, but I wasn't all that hungry, so I just sat watching it as it seemed to slowly disintegrate on the plate. No mice or rats came to partake of it. I wasn't even sure if there were any rodents down here with me.

I heard footsteps, heavy boots thumping on the stones. I watched a pair of massive boots land in front of me, and I blinked slowly, lifting my eyes to see Uriel standing there. The look on his face was a combination of fear, frustration, guilt. I felt the corner of my lips twitch.

"I was right," I mumbled. Uriel did feel guilty. Or at least, in this hallucination, he did. It was written all over his face when he looked down at me. He looked like he hadn't been eating well either. He still dressed like a comic book bad guy, though, all black on black, leather on leather, and today the hood on his jacket was pulled up over his head.

"Come on," he said, opening up the cell, "We need to move now, before we run out of time." I nodded, moving to get up, but it looked like I couldn't move in this hallucination, so I just slumped on the floor. Uriel ground his teeth together and reached inside. Strangely enough, he was gentle as he pulled me out by my arms and lifted me up against him. Even though he was still physically smaller due to the curse Michael had placed on him, I now weighed less than he did. I almost laughed at the thought of him carrying me around.