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what your mouth screaming felt like, but he decided to let that
comment pass.
“I’ll try those tonight then, if that’s okay,” he said as he
rubbed his sore neck.
“Where’re
the
drinks?”
Shane
asked
without
acknowledging Vic’s acceptance of the offer.
“What?” Vic asked as he put on his sunglasses.
“You went in to get drinks,” Shane told him.
“I went in to take a piss,” Vic corrected.
“But you always bring back drinks when you go in. It’s the
rule,” Shane said in an oddly innocent voice that made Vic
want to laugh despite himself.
“Whose rule?” he asked incredulously.
“My rule. Our rule. The rule,” Shane answered
emphatically. “You always bring back drinks.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning!” Vic told him, finally
giving in to the urge to laugh.
“So? Normal etiquette does not apply when your ass is in
the sand and your feet are in the water and—”
“Well, drag your ass into the sand and I’ll toss you a
drink,” Vic said flippantly as he settled back into the chair.
“It’s really windy out there,” Shane pointed out plaintively.
“And the sand is hot.”
“So?” Vic prodded.
“Superheated windblown sand hurts,” Shane told him as
he settled back into his chair as well.
Vic laughed softly and closed his eyes.
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“What are we gonna do today?” Vic asked after a few
moments of comfortable silence.
“You’re gonna go get the drinks,” Shane said confidently.
“Fuck you. What else are we gonna do?”
“I thought we were doing it,” Shane answered happily.
“Beautiful.”
Vic awoke shaking for the third night in a row, so scared that
he could barely move. He rarely had dreams at all, not any that
he could remember clearly anyway, and never were they as
vivid as these past few nights’ had been. Nor so gruesome.
He looked over at the clock by the bed, barely moving his
head for fear that the darkness would find him awake and easy
to prey upon. He couldn’t remember being this scared after a
dream since he had been a little boy. What the hell was his
problem?
It was nearly three in the morning. Not late enough to get
out of bed without having to explain to Shane that he’d had a
bad dream and was terrified to go back to sleep. He could only
imagine the incredulous look that would steal over the other
man’s face when he heard that.
Thirty-seven years old and having night terrors, he thought
in displeasure, the fear not having ebbed enough to allow him
to grumble it out loud.
He was still frozen to the spot in which he had awoken.
Still shaking. Still clutching the covers to him as if they could
ward off evil. Still too frightened to even squeak for help. Was
this what panic attacks felt like? When you had one did you
know even as you were panicking that you were a fool for doing
it?
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“Vic?” Shane’s soft voice whispered questioningly from the
doorway.
Vic inhaled deeply, gasping for breath as relief washed
over him to know that someone else in the world was alive and
breathing, but he still couldn’t say anything.
“Vic, you okay?” Shane asked in a louder voice.
“No,” Vic breathed.
“What’s wrong?” Shane asked immediately as he walked
into the room and flipped on the light switch.
Nothing happened and Shane cursed softly.
Vic closed his eyes and remembered that there were no
overhead lights. The switch was attached to the lamps, and he
had cut them both off at the source when he had gone to bed.
“Are you sick? Vic?” Shane asked as he ventured carefully
into the room.
“I’m okay,” Vic managed to whisper after hearing the rising
panic in Shane’s voice.
“You cried out,” Shane told him as he edged into the dark
room, going slowly so as not to trip or ram his toes into
anything. “You cried for help. What’s wrong?”
“Nightmare,” Vic managed to say as Shane’s presence
began to relax him.
“Oh,” Shane said, sounding slightly let down.
“Jesus,” Vic murmured. “I’ve never had such bad dreams
in my life.”
“It’s the melatonin,” Shane said softly as Vic felt the light
thump of his hands patting the mattress. “A side effect is that
it intensifies dreams. Makes them more vivid.”
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“You could have mentioned that,” Vic said flatly as his
body began to calm and the shaking subsided. “What kind of
sleep aid gives you bad dreams?”
“Doesn’t affect good or bad,” Shane said matter-of-factly as
he pulled back the covers of Vic’s bed and sat down beside
him. “Just intensifies them, I guess. What kind of dreams are
you having?”
“Horrible ones. Bloody ones,” Vic mumbled as he blushed
furiously in the darkness and rubbed his face. It was
embarrassing to have Shane there, witnessing the freak-out.
Comforting, but embarrassing all the same. “People-being-
chopped-up kind of dreams,” he said. “Gore and blood and… I
think I was attacked by Bigfoot at the end.”
“Bigfoot?” Shane asked with a smile in his voice as he
leaned back onto his elbow and lay down beside Vic.
“Pretty sure it was Bigfoot,” Vic affirmed. “He jumped into
my car.”
“I’m betting the car ran screaming and left you behind?”
Shane asked, barely managing not to laugh.
“Shut up,” Vic muttered.
“Do we need to analyze these dreams for hidden meaning?”
Shane asked teasingly.
“It’s not funny,” Vic told him seriously.
“Sorry,” Shane said solemnly as he cleared his throat and
settled into the bed. “Wow, you weren’t kidding,” he murmured
as Vic wondered what the hell he was doing. “This mattress is
horrible.”
“What are you doing?” Vic asked, unable to refrain from
asking.
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“I’m lying down with you,” Shane replied, as if it were the
most obvious thing in the world.
“I’m not five,” Vic protested.
“No, but you still called out for help in the middle of the
night and scared the living shit out of me,” Shane argued. “At
least if I’m here I can smack you next time you do it.”
“Fair enough,” Vic agreed sulkily, flushing once more at
the thought that he had actually cried out because of a bad
dream. In front of Shane, no less. “Hold me?” he asked
cheekily, batting his eyelashes and holding his hands clasped
under his chin as he tried to cover the embarrassment with a
joke.
Shane snickered slightly, but then to Vic’s utter
; astonishment, he rolled onto his side and slid one arm beneath
Vic’s head and wrapped the other over Vic’s chest. Vic
automatically turned into the embrace, and before he knew it
Shane really was actually holding him, his breath gusting
against the back of Vic’s neck as he chuckled.
“Anyone finds us like this, we blame it on the liquor,”
Shane said in a low voice full of laughter.
Vic snickered a little in response, and allowed Shane’s
comforting presence to lull him back to sleep.
Vic awoke with a gasp and sat straight up in bed, his
breathing coming in short, painful bursts and his heart
pounding in his chest as the terror overtook him once more.
“It’s all right,” Shane’s sleep-roughened voice told him
gently as a hand tugged at his shoulder. “Vic… calm down. It’s
okay,” he coaxed as he sat up with Vic and rubbed his back.
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“Can we just get up now?” Vic asked shakily. He turned
his head to see the clock, which told him that it was just half
past four in the morning.
“Come here,” Shane said in a gruff voice, and he tugged at
Vic once more.
Vic relaxed back into him and allowed Shane to turn him
over until Vic’s head was resting on Shane’s shoulder and his
hand was clutching at the thin T-shirt Shane had worn to bed.
He was still shaking from another horrendously gruesome
dream, and he couldn’t believe that he was making such a
scene of himself in front of the other man. He wasn’t exactly
the fainting maiden type, usually.
Regardless, he was glad that Shane was there, and glad
that he was comfortable enough with their friendship to hold
him like he was and keep the dreams at bay.
“Not many men would hold a friend after a nightmare,” he
mused quietly as Shane held him tightly.
“That’s not true,” Shane said sleepily, his body already
relaxing as sleep overtook him once more. “No one in his right
mind would leave someone like you alone when you needed
him,” he mumbled.
Vic tensed, his mind almost immediately going to Owen.
But to his surprise, his thoughts quickly jumped back to
Shane, lingering on how natural it felt to lay here with him. He
felt like Shane’s priority right now, and he had rarely gotten
that feeling in the past five years. He held his breath and
waited for Shane to say more, but nothing more came. Soon
Shane’s soft, regular breathing told Vic that his friend was
asleep once again.
The comment had obviously been pointed, whether Shane
had intended it to be or not. Vic told himself that he couldn’t
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help what Shane thought of Owen, or of him. Not now, anyway.
But maybe he had a chance to change Shane’s opinion of him.
He knew one thing: he didn’t want to be judged by the way he
let Owen treat him.
Vic sighed, letting it go for the moment as his body relaxed
back into sleep.
“Hey,” Shane said groggily as soon as Vic opened his eyes. His
head was no longer resting on Shane’s shoulder; in fact, they
were no longer touching at all, but they were both lying on
their sides, facing each other. Vic smiled lopsidedly at the other
man.
“Morning,” he replied roughly.
“You were right. This mattress is shit,” Shane said flatly.
Vic snorted and closed his eyes again. “That mean you’re
not switching with me, then?” he asked wryly, his voice hoarse
with sleep.
“No,” Shane said immediately. “I mean yes, that’s what it
means. But I’d be willing to share the good mattress,” Shane
offered after a moment of thought. “No groping me, though. I
know how you operate.”
“Deal. Deal deal deal,” Vic agreed happily, crooning the
words as he rolled onto his back. He could already hear his
back and neck muscles singing Shane’s praises. “Give us a
kiss,” he requested cheekily as he turned his head to Shane
and puckered his lips comically.
“Get away, you silly bastard,” Shane muttered as he
placed his hand over Vic’s face and pushed him away. Vic gave
him several smacking kisses and then an outright lick on the
palm of his hand for his trouble. “Ugh,” he said in disgust as he
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pulled his now-wet hand away and then wiped it on Vic’s
shoulder.
Vic snickered as Shane scooted away from him, the other
man cussing at him right up until the point where he tumbled
off the edge of the bed.
“I thought I was your shiny thing!” Vic wailed dramatically
as he flopped himself across the mattress and snuffled against
the pillow.
“Fucker,” Shane grumbled as he stuck his head up over
the edge of the bed and glared up at Vic. “Go brush your teeth.
Then we’ll talk.”
Vic stood chest high in the water and watched in amusement
as Shane paced at the water’s edge. He would come in
eventually—his pride wouldn’t stand for it much longer—, but
watching him try to work up the nerve to put his toes in the
cold water was entirely too amusing. The storm they’d driven
through to get there had brought with it mild weather and cold,
calm water. It was absolutely heavenly.
Vic chuckled to himself and splashed a little, kicking off
the ocean’s floor and floating over a wave, allowing his toes to
breach the water’s surface briefly before he set them back down
once more.
“Water’s just right!” he called, stifling a chuckle as Shane
glared out at him.
“It’s freaking cold, man!” Shane called back.
He was right, of course. The water was so cold that it had
made Vic lightheaded as he made his way past the breakers,
and he had shivered uncontrollably for several minutes,
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gasping for breath whenever a wave would hit skin that wasn’t
submerged. He had suffered all this in silence, knowing that
one squeak about how cold it was would drive Shane right
back to his little beach chair and Vic would never get him in
the water.
“It’s fine after a while,” Vic coaxed.
“Yeah, well so is being sober, but you don’t see me rushing
to do that anytime soon,” Shane called back.
“You’re not afraid of seaweed, are you?” Vic asked
tauntingly.
Five years ago Shane would have visibly bristled at the
taunt, and he would have waded in just to prove that he wasn’t
frightened of anything. Now, though, he simply made a pffft
noise that Vic heard all the way from where he was. Several
women walking down the beach chattered and giggled, and Vic
saw Shane roll his eyes as he realized that the only way to
avoid any public embarrassment was to come into the water.
Vic grinned widely as Shane finally slumped his shoulders
and walked into the water that was lapping at his toes. He
st
ifled his laughter when he saw Shane gasp and close his eyes
as a wave splashed the upper portion of his body.
Shane opened his eyes and glared at Vic again, trooping
forward still and finally making it past the breakers and
submerging his body up to his shoulders before swimming the
rest of the way out to where Vic floated.
“I h-hate you,” he told Vic through chattering teeth.
“You know, they probably didn’t care that you were being a
pansy,” Vic said thoughtfully as the women walked by and
Shane shivered next to him.
“I hate y-you,” Shane stuttered.
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“This was your idea, now,” Vic scolded, waving his finger
through the air and sprinkling Shane with water.
“My idea c-consisted of getting a t-tan and g-getting
consistently drunk,” Shane protested as his jaw began to lock
on him. “W-wet and cold had nothing to d-do with either.”
“You’re pitiful, you know that?” Vic said with a laugh.
“If I am, then it’s y-your f-fault,” Shane stuttered as he
shivered and submerged himself all the way until his nose
touched the water.
“Loosen up,” Vic told him with a laugh as he waded over to
him.
Shane bobbed his head up out of the water and lifted his
chin as Vic neared him.
“If you’re all tight then you’ll just shiver more and more
until your teeth all crack,” Vic advised.
“I’ll c-crack your teeth if you even think about d-dunking
me,” Shane growled as he eyed Vic warily. He wasn’t very
threatening, crouched low in the water and looking up at Vic
like he was, but Vic stopped moving and gave the other man
his most innocent look, which, judging from the way Shane
then snarled at him, was not very convincing.
“I won’t dunk you, because then you’d hit me, and I’d
bleed, and then we’d get attacked by sharks,” Vic told him as
he started moving once more. He placed his hands on each of
Shane’s biceps and rubbed up and down slowly as he lowered
himself to Shane’s level. He gasped a little as the cold water hit
his neck. “Just loosen up. You’ll be okay in a sec,” he said as