Title: Dreams Past
By: Demon Faith
Pairing: Speed/Eric
Rating: PG-13
Summary: writers_choice: wildlife, Speed POV.

***

At night, he dreams.

A feral creature of the night, a lurker in alleys and junkyards, the man nice girls shun like their mamas taught them. He deserves no attention, no regard - he knows that.

He lives where no one knows his name, and he likes it that way. Money only stretches so far, and he lives out in the wilderness, in forests and scrubland, in all ways an animal. He never wanted to be an animal.

It's all so much simpler this way - no university, no comfort, no...snowmobiles. He likes this place, this place without thought, only instinct. The petting zoo would be proud to have him, an example of New York wildlife, finally coming of age in every wasteland from Columbia to Miami Dade.

He could lose himself in the savagery, never go back. It's so free here, so perfect. He doesn't have to be anyone but this base animal inside, and it feels...good.

Speed wakes, sitting bolt upright, sweat-soaked and panting. He clutches at cotton sheets, soft mattress yielding to his slight weight and pillow nudged up against his bare back. This is not the wilderness.

"Speed?"

He whips around to face Eric, who's mumbling and rubbing his eyes, blinking up at him in confusion. Eric reads him well, always has, and is soon sitting up too, leaning close.

"Nightmare?"

Speed leans against Eric's shoulder wordlessly and lets himself be settled back onto the bed, comforted by strong tan arms and the smell of detergent. How to explain that he was running freely, not caged by anything or anyone, wild as any mountain lion shot by hunters?

This is no nightmare - this is the best dream he ever had, the dream he lived.

Yet, head buried in Eric's chest, warm and safe, he realises he might just like this reality better.

***