The Dreams of You and Me

Might I request: a hero who defeated a villain keeps having dreams about them, to the point where they're not certain if they're real or not? <3

***

First part included

It couldn’t be the villain, they knew that. There was absolutely no way. The hero had checked the footage at the prison and the villain was still there, doing nothing interesting, in their maximum security cell that the hero had been reassured (multiple times) suppressed the extraordinary abilities of anyone sealed in.

It couldn’t be the villain.

And yet.

The villain had a power over dreaming, and the hero was having dreams.

Nightmares.

No, dreams. It would have almost been easier if it was nightmares of the traditional kind, something that they could dismiss easily as memory or some kind of post traumatic stress.

But, it wasn’t that.

The villain never had been that.

—

Sometimes, the two of them were in a garden. It was autumn. The leaves were falling. They villain would peer at the bare branches of the tree, fingers entwined in the hero’s, before they’d glance over.

“Do you feel like that?”

“What?”

“Empty,” the villain said, smiling at them softly. “Cold. Without me to hold you as the days go dark? Who do you have to keep you company in your shadows, now? They all think you’re the sun.”

The tree would spark in the light, and go up in flame.

The villain would hold their hands up, shivering, to warm themselves upon the heat.

“But they don’t know,” the villain looked away from them, “how you burn.”

Other times, the hero dreamed of the fights. They’d spring into action, exhilarated by purpose and terrified at the thought of failing it, and battle the villain’s dream-creatures across rooftops and alleyways.

The villain never said anything in those dreams. They didn’t have to.

They hero would wake up in the morning and know the day would be different to what it had once been; they had done what they were made for, so what now? The hours ticked by. There were no monsters, and no wonderful creations either. No magic. Only the hero, trying to smile as people on the street stopped them and told them what a great job they had done. There was peace.

It never felt like that.

One time, they dreamed of the cell. They hadn’t ever been in it, but they could imagine what it was like. Suffocating. Silent. Lonely. Cut off from their gifts, the villain would not be able to dream. They would never find an escape. Not for a second.

The hero would say they were sorry.

The villain wouldn’t look at them.

The hero would say “please” and “I had to” and “you knew it was always going to end this way. You know this story as well as I do.”

And the villain would laugh, “happily ever after.” And then, they would cry.

The worst nights were when the hero dreamed about the life the two of them could have had.

—

The hero began to avoid sleep, only to take sleeping pills a week later because dreaming was the only way to see the villain. The prison had stopped letting them see the the footage by then - there had been gentle voices, and the number of a very good therapist pressed into the hero’s hand.

The dreaming was awful, but at least it was familiar. It least it felt less like abandonment.

They considered visiting, considered demanding the villain stopped. They could force their way inside, couldn’t they, if no one would let them. Wasn’t it the hero’s right to see the villain?

But what, then, if they were wrong?

It couldn’t be the villain. There had to be a way to know for sure.

They imagined the villain would tilt their head, and raise their brows, oh so amused. The thinnest, most impenetrable of barriers would separate them. Close enough to see but never touch.

“Oh,” the villain would say. “You always were a bit obsessed with me, weren’t you?”

The prison officers had begun to have a distinctly pitying note to their voice when the hero called.

“Yes,” they would say, every time. “They’re secure. They cannot hurt anyone anymore. Thank you for your service.”

—

There were no other markers that the villain had their powers. No one else had dreams of them - or, at least, no one talked about it online. There were no grand schemes to foil.

But, then, wouldn’t that be a scheme, to infect the hero’s mind alone? To make them feel crazy. The best trick! How cunning, how clever, how like that infuriating and cruel villain of theirs.

The last time they had seen the villain, alone, before all of the trials at court and the media frenzy, the villain had shoved them up against the wall. Their eyes had been wild. Their fingers had curled a brand around the hero’s wrist.

“If you do this,” the villain had hissed, lips hot against the hero’s throat, “do you think you will win? Do you think, with the help of all your little friends, that it will be the end? I never had friends. I just had you. Don’t let them take me alive. I’m begging you.”

“I begged you to leave with me. I begged you to run.”

“You better kill me.” The villain kissed their mouth, hard, drawing blood. “Or I will haunt you, that’s a promise.”

___

If it was only a dream, only ever the hero’s dream alone, then that meant it was really over.

It had to be the villain.

*****

Breaking into a maximum-security prison – intended to hold people of great and unusual power – was not a good idea. The hero knew that. Not in the least because they might show up, might see the villain, and then they’d have to see the villain.

Then, either way, they’d know and there was something a little unbearable about that. Knowing anything, doing anything, meant sending their story staggering forwards again and all the hero wanted was to go back.

Funny thing, to want to go back to before they won.

Won.

Hilarious in its own right, that. No wonder the villain had been so scathing at the concept.

The point was that it was a bad idea. What if they didn’t find their way back out? What if they were locked up too? What if one of the defences on the building vaporised them? What if the warden decided that, post failed break in, the villain should be moved and maybe that was exactly the outcome that the villain was scheming for? Either way, the hero wouldn’t then know where the villain was.

___

It felt like a dream to stand in front of the villain again. The hero had dreamed it enough times that maybe it was; break in, and all. They’d considered enough in their waking hours how to approach the problem that it felt reasonable enough for the thoughts to bleed into their dreaming.

The hero’s power was over illusions. They could make people hallucinate, could make mirages flicker, could create holograms of themselves to distract and deflect attacks.

The villain looked like an unconvincing hologram of themselves; washed out and pale from the lack of sunlight, in some fundamental way a ghost of themselves.

The hero wished they hadn’t come. They were glad they had.

Guilt churned in their gut.

The hero stepped closer to the thick doors of the cell, peering through the tiny glass window that was the only contact the villain had with the world beyond the four reinforced walls of their cell. It was a tiny space, that may have been white once, but was now only grey. It looked worse than on the security footage.

The city officials had promised the hero that the villain would be secured, but well taken care of. Treated with humanity and dignity. No luxuries, perhaps, but the essentials for comfort and survival – a bed, a bathroom, some books perhaps to fill the time. The villain loved stories.

There was a bed. There was what could be called a bathroom, in that it offered a place to do one’s business and a slightly pitiful looking shower.

There were no books. There wasn’t much of anything at all. In the camera footage, there was books. The villain looked comfortable and healthy and not…

The hero cleared their throat.

The villain did not open their eyes, though the hero did not think they were sleeping, or give any indication that they heard.

“Hey,” the hero said, a bit too raspy, a bit too soft. “I’ve been dreaming of you.”

They meant it as an accusation. Maybe. Possibly a confession, though confession implied something that the villain didn’t already know. God, they were tired.

The villain’s eyes opened then, at the sound of the hero’s voice. They observed each other through the window slot. Then, the villain snorted, with such utter contempt, and closed their eyes again. Pointedly.

The hero tensed.

They curled their fingers around the bars, and wished they could – what – they didn’t know. Send an illusion through? Give the villain a mirage of open dreams and the life that they always wanted?

“Not you doing it then, huh? You did promise to haunt me.”

The villain said nothing.

“Though I guess, seeing you…”

“I have no powers in here,” the villain said. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t send a treacherous little worm like you dreams. Unless you’re here to break me out, I want nothing to do with you.”

“Because I let you be taken in alive.”

“Is this how you would want to live?”

“I didn’t try to take over the world.” But then, that wasn’t quite an answer to the question, and the villain snorted again.

The hero leaned against the door, conscious that they didn’t have long. Their illusions they’d left on the security room would keep the cameras distracted, keep anything suspicious from showing up or keep anyone from listening in unless they combed back through the footage, but eventually an actual guard would come around. They never took too long to circle another patrol. And the hero’s powers didn’t work this deep into the facility.

“You don’t look so great,” the hero said. “They told me –“

The villain laughed.

The hero’s mouth clicked shut.

“Are they treating you alright?” the hero asked.

“You’re not here to break me out, as I said, I want nothing to do with you.”

The hero told themselves that they’d done what they planned to do. They’d – well – unless the villain was a really convincing liar (and in all fairness they were) then it wasn’t the villain sending them dreams. The hero was just having dreams. About the villain they left to rot in such a miserable place. Which meant they had to get on with the rest of their life. They had to find a new dream.

They watched the villain through the window.

They’d won.

They left the villain before the guards came looking. They got on with their life; they cleaned up, they made the right moves in all of the interviews.

They snuck back in the following week.

And the week after that.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.