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He’d fallen asleep during what he thought was just a regular night, in a regular bed, curled up next to his regular boyfriend. But the night had turned out to be anything but, the whole thing like some crazy dream only it wasn’t a dream, at least it hadn’t felt like a dream. It had felt real, as he opened his eyes with a gasp, jolted suddenly from sleep and his New Year’s kiss, which he was apparently still sharing with Ian, and then, something far, far more important. Three little words had slipped out before the kiss, before reality had snuck back up on them, three little words that Shiloh hadn’t even started to think about and something he was sure that Ian hadn’t either; at least he had thought he was pretty certain. Yet here they were, only inches apart and the words rang out clear as a bell in his head, and he shook it, trying to piece everything together. It had to be a dream, there was no way it could have been real, as he glanced at Ian next to him, looking completely bewildered.

They couldn’t possibly have gone from suits to pajamas so quickly, it was just impossible, and he was pretty sure he remembered going to bed just as clearly as he for some reason remembered the party. It wasn’t unpleasant, the memory, the more he considered it, but it was incredibly confusing.

“Ian?” he asked softly.

Shiloh watched Ian for a moment longer, groggy, before he rubbed at his eyes. He sat up as well, dragging the sheets upwards around his shoulder, the blankets comforting as he tried to make sense of things. Had it really just been a dream?

“I don’t know,” he said finally, “I don’t think so. I mean it wasn’t like it was a nightmare or anything but it was just a strange dream. Vivid, that’s all.”

He paused, and glanced at Ian again, his brow wrinkling a little in thought. It had been a good dream, but he wasn’t sure if it was something he wanted to share, if he should share. They were taking things slow, after all, as they came, and Shiloh didn’t even know how he felt about those three words, let alone Ian. But it had felt so real, so good and that surprised him. He guess he felt okay about it, he guessed he liked it but it made things complicated now, looking at Ian. It’s not like he could just come out and say something like that. Ian seemed out of it a bit himself and Shiloh couldn’t spring something like that on him… He didn’t want to ruin what would, what should be a special moment, if it ever came to pass.

Rubbing at his eyes again, he forced a smile at Ian, before crawling over him. Maybe a drink and some movement would clear his head.

“Just gonna grab some water,” he explained as he pushed off the bed, feeling around in the darkness for his desk and the water bottle he was sure he’d left on top of it.

“You too huh? Was it, you know, again?” He took a quick gulp of water, swallowing with satisfied sigh. “Yeah, water’s good. Here.”

He didn’t want to stray long from the bed, even if things were confusing. No sense changing a constant good over a silly dream, especially not one that had been so good anyway. Maybe his brain was just getting ahead of itself, he did like Ian a lot and that was the next logical progression. Scary, but they were just words in the end. It had all just been a dream anyway, he’d probably forget about out in a week, if not by morning. He stepped back towards Ian, his feet bare and poking out from beneath his pajama pants as he climbed back onto the bed, offering him the bottle.

It was only then that he noticed Ian staring at something in his hands, a little piece of paper. Shiloh yawned, and leaned closer, curious.

“What’s that? Want me to get the light?”

There was a similar note tucked in his own pocket, but Shiloh hadn’t noticed it yet, far too concerned with other things.

“I’m glad it wasn’t bugs,” Shiloh smiled back, watching Ian for a moment out of concern, the reaching out to gently sweep the bangs from Ian’s face after he’d taken his fill of water.

But Shiloh hadn’t forgotten the note either, and his first thought was to reach for it, out of an unrestrained curiosity, but he respected Ian, so he settled onto the bed, his legs folded beneath him and waited for Ian to explain that it was just some silly thing, like a leftover grocery list or maybe a fortune cookie fortune he’d kept. Shiloh did that sometimes, both keeping fortunes and forgetting to throw away his grocery lists. Sometimes the little papers had wise words, and there was always idea that of course you could randomly pick whatever one but that one had found it’s way to you, and fate or not, it had to mean something. It could be inspiring, anyway, and he liked them.

Ian, however, never got around to explaining. Shiloh watched confused, as the paper was scrunched up and hid away in Ian’s pocket, and he looked up at his boyfriend with a look that said he wasn’t getting out of things that easily.

“No, not creepy. Well, Jack was maybe a little creepy but and I know he’s sort of a little creepy even when he’s not a figment of my imagination but he’s a good guy you know, and I guess, well, it had to be a dream right? It was a New Year’s ball or something, here, except it wasn’t here.”

He relented just a little bit, answering Ian’s question before his fingers ghosted over the fabric of Ian’s pocket, and he tapped it purposefully, trying not to linger too much on the strange dream. Chances are it would come back when they went back to sleep, he could try to sort his feelings out then or in the morning. Right now, he wanted to know what Ian wasn’t telling him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ian or that he suspected something, Ian had given him no reason to doubt him and Alistaire’s attempts had been petty at best. He was just a nosy person by nature, and stubborn, and he wanted to know.

“I can understand if it was uh, something work related and you can’t tell me but you know you can tell me anything, right, Ian?”

Ian was being strange. Not that Shiloh was innocent either, but he watched something flicker across Ian’s face, an emotion he couldn’t quite peg, disbelief maybe; nervousness.

Shiloh wasn’t sure what he expected as Ian pulled the piece of paper back from his pocket, but as he took it from Ian’s hands, what Ian said next was definitely not what he expected, nor were the little words scrawled across the paper in gilded lettering, suggesting that what he’d just experienced had...

It was Shiloh’s heart’s turn to pound, as he glanced up at Ian. Then did this mean he remembered? Did he remember everything? It hadn’t been Shiloh in that other place but at the same time it had, he was there, he’d experienced it but there was no possible way he could exist in two places at once, in two separate timelines. But that left the implication that it had been him at the ball, and his feelings, his excitement from that night and his happiness, had been real.

Was it the same for Ian?

“Where did you find this?” Shiloh asked. “Your pocket?”

With his other hand, he fished into his own pockets, and produced a very similar looking envelope, even in the darkness. He set Ian’s piece of paper down in his lap, and opened his own envelope, only to find the same little card inside. He set it down too, not sure what to think and he looked up at Ian for help.

“It was some dream, if you remember it the same as I do,” he said, voice soft, placing his hand over top of Ian’s and rubbing it gently.

Shiloh remembered it too. Remembered a night with Ian, not that it was any different than usual but there had been no anxiousness, no shyness other than the excitement of new romance, the butterflies in his stomach from a source of hopeful happiness rather than worry. Even Jack hadn’t been able to dampen his spirit, hadn’t been able to rattle Shiloh beyond thinking that he was being an a*****e, hadn’t made him shirk away from Ian’s hand. In this life, he was getting better, he was embracing things but in that world, it had felt so dreamlike because of the distinct lack of issues piled on by reality.

Ian’s words had surprised him, but there’d been no time to react before he’d woken up, his last memory the sweetness of Ian’s lips pressed against his. He vaguely wished they’d had more time, that maybe if he knew how that self felt, it would help his current self sort out this situation. As it was, even though his hand massaged Ian’s gently, a source of comfort for himself and for Ian too, he hoped, but it didn’t ease the awkwardness of the subject or give him any sudden insight onto how to broach it.

“Yeah, me too,” he said finally, struggling to find the right words. He longed for some of that bravery back. He could sure use it. Bringing it up himself might implicate Ian in something he wasn’t ready to admit, and too there was the problem of Shiloh not sure what he wanted to hear, not sure that either answer would be the right one. They’d been dating awhile now and it was true, they’d been through a lot together. Especially Ian, he thought as he squeezed his hand, poor guy.

But were they ready for that sort of commitment?

Ian lifted his hands, and Shiloh smiled as he kissed the tips of his fingers, as Ian’s lips found that special place they shared. It was a pleasant distraction, but it didn’t immediately help him answer Ian’s question.

“I don’t know.”

It was an honest answer, and he wanted to be honest with Ian. He’d said those words before, to his sister he’d meant it, to the rest of his family it had been more of a formality and to his friends it had been simple and silly but nothing more than platonic. This was a whole different kind of “I love you” and he’d never said it before in his life. To be more accurate, he’d never felt it in his life, not in this sense and he wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to feel like. There weren’t any signals in real life like in the movies, no lead up music or director to cue you. Shiloh guessed he’d always supposed it would just happen, it would just slip out when the moment came and would feel right, and the other person would say it back and maybe it would be a moonlit night with fireworks in the background or something cliché like that, but it would be the night of his dreams. It had been the night of his dreams or at least what he’d thought had been a dream but it had been real and they’d both been there while not being there and it had been said but Shiloh… Shiloh hadn’t said it back.

“Ah, wait, that came out wrong,” he quickly corrected before Ian could answer, tugging his hand closer in his haste to explain. He brought it up near his chest, almost hugging it. “It’s not, I don’t mean that in a bad way, you know, there’s just a lot of feelings and I’ve never done this and I like you a lot and I’m not sure what exactly you are asking me, does everything include that, does…”

How he felt shouldn’t be dependent on a clause, shouldn’t depend on whether or not Ian felt the same way because that wouldn’t be love at all but just fulfilling some mutual need for attention, it would mean he was using Ian to fill a void but not that that void was Ian-specific. And, he considered it, he looked at Ian, staring him straight in the face as he thought about it, and that void, if it were empty, was pretty Ian specific. When he’d died, he’d missed all of his friends but with Ian it had been such a particularly powerful blow, such a loss of the more obvious things they shared, but more tellingly, little nuances that he hadn’t even realized they had, that he hadn’t known he would miss, that he’d taken for granted.

“I’m not sure what love is supposed to feel like so I don’t know if I’m doing this right but I like waking up next to you,” he smiled, “I like hanging out with you, I like being with you, I like kissing you I like... I like the way you smile at me and it feels like you know, it feels like what love should feel like when you look at me, all warm and fuzzy and kind of hard to breathe, like I’m the luckiest guy on the planet. We said we would take this- we would see where this goes, go with the flow right? And maybe this interrupted the flow a little bit but I like where it’s going and I like you so…”

His smile was little, but it was bright and it held steady despite the pounding in his chest as he leaned forward, not for a kiss but past his face so he could whisper the words in Ian’s ear, assured that no one would hear them but him.

“I think I love you, Ian.”

I can’t.

There was a imperceptible flicker of emotion across Shiloh’s face, the tiniest wane of his smile the only clue to the way his chest has suddenly grown impossibly tight, why he felt like he was drowning without water, a feeling he’d felt before but far worse now because what he’d given up had been willing, what piece he of himself he’d offered to Ian had been of his own violation. But it still wasn’t enough, and some part of him sank, some part of him gasped until the water burned his lungs, until he drowned that piece of himself, so foolish and naïve and stupid in its hope, by fixing his smile, forcing the corners of his mouth up higher like he always did. In his mind he felt like he sat there for ages, reeling, but it had only been a second and Ian wouldn’t notice anything different.

He felt hot, and his head was still swimming but he smiled anyway, his fingers reaching down until they found Ian’s hand, tentative almost now, in their gentle coaxing as they tried to intertwine with Ian’s.

Please, don’t take this away, was what he wanted to say. “It’s okay, Ian,” was what came out, three other words that he often repeated but that usually meant nothing was okay at all. But it had to be okay, and if those three little words could make it so, if they could erase sound of the ones he’d just been silly enough to say, then he’d say them as often as he had to. He took a small breath, smiled, and rubbed Ian’s hand.

“If you’re… not there yet, it’s okay, you know, we said we’d take this slow.”

That was what he was supposed to say, right? It was the right thing to say. Ian hadn’t said he didn't like him, that he didn’t want this just that that was something he couldn’t say. Shiloh leaned forward, resting himself against Ian, his chin resting on top of his shoulder as he stared blankly at the wall as emotional fatigue settled over him.

He was shutting himself off again, closing it all up, but it would be okay. It was better this way.

It hurt less.