Author's Note:
This story contains CNC and male-on-male incest. If that's not for you, best move along now. And, of course, everyone in this story is 18 or older. Enjoy!
Chapter One
Incestion
I woke with sand in my mouth and the surf crashing against my body, but it was the children's shouts that roused me. The boy and girl were crouching nearby, watching as the tide ate away their sandcastle. I called to them but they didn't turn, didn't acknowledge me at all, and then the darkness took me again.
Time passed. How much, I could not tell. The next time I woke the guard was standing over me, his rifle barrel trained on my head.
--
The soldier brought me to a castle, this one made of brick and mortar, looking like it had withstood a thousand ages and would withstand a thousand more. I was led at rifle point to a wood-panelled dining room where an elderly man sat alone at a vast table. His face was creased by the years, his eyes clouded with memories.
"He was delirious," the guard explained, "but he asked for you by name. And he was carrying this."
The guard placed the signet ring I'd been wearing on the table. The old man's eyes slowly moved across it, though whether they recognised the item, or anything at all, I could not say.
"Are you here to kill me?" The old man asked, his arthritic fingers straying across the mahogany tabletop to the ring.
I didn't answer, giving him time to feel the symbol embossed in the gold.
"I know what this is," the old man's voice cracked with emotion, "I've seen one before. Many, many years ago. A man I met in a half-remembered dream. A man possessed of some radical notions..."
With great effort, the old man raised his decrepit head and stared deep into my eyes, remembering, or trying to remember, someone from long, long ago.
--
Sixty Years Earlier
"They say we only use a fraction of the true potential of our brains...but they're talking about when we're AWAKE. When we dream the mind performs wonders."
"What's your point, Joe?"
That's my twin, Nash. It's amazing the difference a few seconds can make. We're both six-two, crazy blond hair, broad shoulders and strong arms, but that's where the similarities end. Nash has always been a worrier, a details kinda guy. Me, I'm a dreamer.
"Have you ever dreamt about a woman you've never met?" I asked, waving to the bartender and pointing at our empty glasses, "And woke up afterwards feeling like you'd lost something?"
"Jeez, brother, I'm not telling you about my wet dreams."
"I'm talking about LOVE, Nash. Falling madly, deeply, wildly in love with a person that doesn't even exist. A person you unconsciously created in your head."
Nash took a long sip on the cold pint of beer. "You know I can't pay for this, right?"
"Have you?" I pressed, ignoring Nash's concerns.
Nash stared into his beer. "Maybe once."
"That's my point, Nash. THAT'S my point. Our waking lives effect our dreams but our dreams can effect our waking lives too. It's a two way street."
Nash shrugged, "How does any of this help us with Eliza? We just stroll into that bitch's dreams and ask her nicely to sell off Dad's company and give us equal shares?"
"That's exactly what we do."
"Uhuh."
"This is the real deal. I've created a machine for dream sharing."
"Are you smoking again?"
"Let me ask you a question. You never remember the beginning of your dreams, do you? You just turn up in the middle of what's going on."
Nash swigged from his glass, "I guess."
"So...how did we end up at this bar?"
A frown creased my brother's forehead, "We came here from..."
"How did we get here?" I pressed, "Where are we?"
I watched as the cogs turned in Nash's mind, his relentless reasoning driving him to the only conclusion available to him.
"Oh my god. We're dreaming."
"We're actually asleep in my garage," I said calmly, "this is your first shared dream."
Nash held up his beer to his face and studied the condensation on the side of the glass in wonder. "It's so...real."
"Dreams always feel real while you're in them," I explained.
Nash drained his beer in three long gulps and waved the bartender over for a refill, "In that case, I'll take another."
"Nash Hayward!"
My stomach dropped. I knew she'd be there. I just didn't think she'd find us so soon. Nash looked towards the woman who had called his name and his mouth dropped open.
"Mom?"
"Time to wake up," I said, pushing Nash firmly so that his stool overbalanced and tipped him off it.
But he never hit the floor. A heartbeat before he crashed into the ground, Nash simply disappeared. And a moment later, I woke up too.
--
Nash jerked awake in the cheap deck chair beneath the harsh strip light in my garage. I pulled the cannula out of his arm and pressed a cotton bud against the oozing speck of blood.
"What was Mom doing there?" Nash demanded, "she's dead!"
"She's part of my subconscious. The dreamer's subconscious FEELS someone else in their world and...and the subconscious attacks, like white blood cells fighting an infection."
"Mom was going to kill us?"
"Just you, actually." I said, trying to sound casual.
"Joe, this doesn't sound safe."
"Do you want to be poor forever?"
Nash hesitated. "What do you need me for?"
"I need you to be the dreamer."
"I'm a fucking accountant, Joe. I do spreadsheets." Nash gazed around my garage, his eyes falling on the briefcase-sized machine that had, moments earlier, been pumping a powerful combination of sedatives and psychedelics into his blood stream.
"That's not what you used to say. You told me that when we grew up we'd build the future together. You said that when we took over the company we'd show people our creations. You told me it would free us."
"And I'm sorry, I was wrong," my brother sighed, burying his face in his hands, "I grew up. I don't dream anymore."
I knew it would come to this, I just hoped it wouldn't happen so soon. "Nash, no one knows our big sister the way you do."
Nash's reaction was instant. He glared at me suspiciously, suddenly on the defence. "What's that supposed to mean?"
