Finn’s boyish grin always lit up his entire face, even when his thoughts held sour notes of irritation. I stood in this dream, reminiscing about the countless possibilities that might unfold. There were many memories of my life at Gemini Academy as a student. I gathered my bearings, assessing the clean-cut uniform of my younger self and how he hadn’t added goth embellishments yet. How I hadn’t. That meant this memory came from my first year at the academy.
The way Finn’s eyes glimmered, studying the sky, I knew his magic had locked onto some type of historical fact floating in the air. Here he’d stormed over, ready to bite my head off for something I couldn’t recall, and now, he’d been left to fight back a giggle fit over something no one but him would understand, thanks to a thousand inside jokes he shared with the secret histories of the world.
Realizing Finn was lost in a daze, I watched my younger self turn on his heel, ready to walk away and avoid any scolding. No. Not scolding. Work. It came back to me as I spun away from Finn; the sunlight cut through the courtyard at the perfect angle, shining against Finn’s glorious face and highlighting his hazel eyes that’d stopped shimmering from the effect of his magic.
“You can’t keep dodging me.” Finn looped his arm through mine and dragged me across the academy courtyard.
My heart raced and surged with excitement because Finn’s grip held me tight, and each breath carried a deep inhale of his cologne. I never wanted this moment to end. The me of then, at sixteen, still sorting through my feelings, and the me of now, at damn near thirty-five, dreaming of what life used to be.
“If I’d known you were gonna be this difficult, I’d have partnered with someone else.” Finn released me once we reached one of the outdoor lunch tables and squared my shoulders before shoving me down into a seat.
“Fine. Trade partners.” I shrugged, pretending not to care because despite busting my ass my first year at Gemini Academy, I remained aloof about anything this place had to offer. “Work with Milo.”
I nodded to the curly, blond-haired mop top sitting across from us and stuffing his face with food.
“Yeah, right.” Finn scoffed. “He’s even worse than you on this peer project.”
“Not uh.” Milo glowered, still eating. Geez, I’d forgotten how much he stuffed his face. Guess he still had quite an appetite but got better about shoveling food in his mouth at all hours of the day.
“Look, I don’t care if you’re above the whole sharing details about your life.” Finn crossed his arms, giving me a very surly expression, which from Finn always brought a smile to my face.
Even when I worked my hardest to scowl and glare and pretend I hated everything, seeing a pouty Finn made it impossible, and the tiniest of smiles nearly crept out. That said, I knew how this memory played out and that I fought Finn tooth and nail when it came to sharing my life story—hell, it took him until we graduated, and I shared what a sad sack kid I was with no friends except some imaginary one who eventually ran off too. How that was even remotely vital to instruction for some history project on ourselves still eluded me. Personally, I thought our instructor ran out of lesson plans and tossed together the most exhausting self-assessed project possible.
“Mrs. Valson will take off a whole letter grade if it’s turned in late.” Finn pointed an accusatory finger at me, practically ready to jab me in the chest. And I invited it because back then, my telepathy worked best when making physical contact with another person, and I wanted to know Finn’s every thought. Even the supposedly grumpy ones.
“A ooole lebber graade?” Milo asked, mouth full of food. When I turned and glared, he simply hummed a tune in his head and stuffed his face with another ridiculously big bite of his sandwich.
“Yes, and I’m not failing a history class,” Finn said, practically embarrassed at the idea someone with his branch could ever struggle in a course framed around historical facts.
I sank into this dream, indulging in Finn’s rant to my younger self as he pretended not to care what Finn said, but in truth, he did. I did. I loved him so much by this point in my life, and even now, all these years later, I found myself enamored by this memory, relishing each passing second relived.
For so many years, memories such as this haunted my sleeping hours, filling my mind with recollections of all the days wasted, not truly valuing the time I had with Finn. Then, I found closure. Closure given to me by a piece of Finn’s magic tucked away in my subconscious. Closure granted by Milo’s unyielding presence. Closure found after spending years dodging it at all costs.
But memories and moments with Finn had eluded my slumber since the revelation of my manifestation’s actions. He’d stolen Finn away, a piece of Finn that had been bound to the most dangerous devil I’d ever had the misfortune of encountering. My manifestation wrought havoc onto the city, onto the lives of so many, and he did it all without an ounce of remorse until it was too late, and the blood of Jamie Novak had been spilled.
I believed that was why dreams of Finn had stopped so abruptly. He didn’t haunt my memories because he haunted my choices. The lengths I went to save him, to bring him back. And yes, I fully grasp the manifestation acted of his own accord, but I remain culpable. Part of me knew he was out there. I could feel his presence like pin prickles against the nape of my neck. I sensed our connection in the faintest ways. Hell, I’d recognized the effect his absence had on my branch yet ignored it. I told myself I wanted to focus on the evolution of my branch, the way my telepathy had advanced. In truth, I think I wanted an excuse to ignore the horrors my manifestation intended to unleash because of my selfishness, my arrogance, my—
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Finn said, eyes glowing subtly as he studied my mind for the peer project.
“Don’t use your goddamn magic on me,” I snapped because it terrified me that Finn’s retrocognition would glimpse every sordid and confused feeling I had for him.
At sixteen, I’d come to realize I was very gay. I had a hundred thousand different fantasies about what I wanted to do with Finn, with Milo, with Finn and Milo, but despite having telepathy, I had no clue if either of my close friends were, in fact, queer.
Turned out that at that age, Milo often focused on his sexual urges for women when around his nosy telepath because he didn’t know what to make of his own desires. Sorting out erections for women was one thing, but he didn’t grasp why he got just as aroused when with Finn and myself or when staring at his male enchanter idols on the TV screen.
Being bisexual must be utterly exhausting to decipher as a teenager. Hell, I’d heard my share of thirty-somethings still trying to gain an understanding of their bi-thought processes.
“Well, if you spent less time beating yourself up and more time answering my questions, then I wouldn’t have to pry,” Finn said with a smile, hazel eyes still glowing as he rooted through my history or someone else’s. He had this nonchalance when casting, when talking, when revealing the deepest truths he’d unraveled.
I didn’t recall what I beat myself up over instead of focusing on our peer project, but my self-loathing hatred for all my choices or lack thereof wasn’t something I’d developed overnight. Oh no, I spent years cultivating and finetuning the art of blaming myself for all the world’s problems. It was a true skill.
I chuckled—internally, of course, since in reality, my younger self simply scowled at Finn, and my slumbering body merely gurgled a bit while my eyes fluttered open before the darkness of the dream memory took hold again.
Memories of Finn were always so timely, so perfectly planned. Here, I’d been beating myself up for the actions of my manifestation, and so my subconscious sent a message through Finn to remind me not to blame myself for everything. From what I recalled about this memory, it involved Finn scolding me throughout our peer interview for withholding answers and for berating myself, while Milo scarfed a sandwich and dodged his peer partner for a project he didn’t want to do—since he knew it held no value to our grades, but he didn’t share that with us at the time, damn clairvoyants—and a lot of placating us instead of taking a side when Finn and I inevitably broke out into bickering arguments.
Every fiber of my being wanted to settle into the memory, into this simpler time, and indulge in the monotony that came with youth.
A pitter-patter of frantic footsteps scampering in the distance pulled my attention. Of course they did. The universe loved to steal shining moments from me at any chance it had to take them.
I huffed hard enough that it almost roused me from my sleep, but the weight of this goddamn vision held me down and ensured I had the displeasure of watching it unfold.
Caleb ran toward me, carrying a black void of nothingness that ate away at all the scenery of my dreamscape. The sunlight faded. The academy crumbled to pieces. Finn and Milo vanished in a breath.
Each step carried the weight of death. Caleb’s sweaty face engrained itself in my mind, his frantic expression, the muddy snow-white hair from a bad dye job he’d gotten as a first-year student. When he winced in pain, silently shouting in the darkness, I rolled my eyes. Figuratively. Maybe literally. All I knew was by the time he’d hit the shadowed ground and Kenzo stood beside him, retrieving the bloody dagger embedded in his back to show to Tara, who’d also appeared in the void vision, I’d lost all interest.
This damn premonition of the future haunted me for months on end, but I’d somehow helped in averting it. Unfortunately, whether Milo’s visions were prevented or ended up cementing into reality, the vision itself never faded away. I mean, this was clearly my students during their first year at fifteen. It wasn’t possible for this specific vision to happen anymore.
It was a terrible fucking magic, and since I had the misfortune of absorbing tens of thousands of Milo’s clairvoyant musings of potential outcomes when we shared a kiss last year, that meant I had to deal with these visions regularly. Everything Milo did to store them in a less inconvenient place within my mind was only temporary. The tethers holding the visions at bay often snapped, and I was always greeted with the void vision, one I’d now had the misfortune of seeing close to a hundred times over.
Even as I sighed with annoyance, the damn thing replayed on a loop five more times. It just kept reminding me of what could’ve been.
I understood that with so many visions stored in my mind, they were bound to wriggle loose and flood my thoughts, but I didn’t understand why the void vision always had to pop out first. It came to me like a harbinger of ill tidings, bringing with it a cluster fuck of countless other visions.
One by one, they clouded the darkness surrounding the void vision. My mind became a collection of puzzles where each piece stemmed from a different work of art. Sightings of burning buildings. Images of bloody battles. Singing in the rain for surprising days off. Dancing at the club with a nauseous stomach— damn sandwich . Clammy hands as I approached a podium, clearing my throat. A trophy so close to my grasp, I’d finally achieved accolades for my inventions. Dogs barking and chasing a familiar up a tree. Fiends everywhere, feasting on traces of magic before exploding into wisps of fluttering white light. Magic cast with precision during exams. Magic cast carelessly during a case. City streets erupting as destruction swept through Chicago. People honked, cursing the construction they knew was bound to start soon, yet blamed the lazy bastards fixing the roads for why they’d be late to work.
Every vision burst through my mind so quickly, I barely grasped the fleeting sights. Some of them felt like they belonged to me, like these outcomes could be mine, but none of these visions held my story. No, it was merely an awful way of perceiving the future for Milo. Some of his visions were over the shoulder of those he observed, like catching a short film. But others…others pulled him into the driver’s seat, peering through the eyes of the would-be could-be person in question.
I had no idea how Milo made sense of any of those visions, sorted them from urgent to mundane, figured out which potentials were outdated and which could still come to pass.
“Such an exhausting fucking headache,” I grumbled, groggy and finally waking from the dreadful lack of sleep. Sleep had almost found me, allowing me to feel well-rested while locked in a dream, yet those damn visions stole away any semblance of rest I’d found.
“Bad dream?” Milo asked with a yawn, rolling over from his corner of the bed where Charlie had forced him after wedging himself between us at two in the morning. His hind feet were stretched far, jabbed into Milo’s back to maintain a proper distance that Charlie approved of.
Charlie chirped when I rubbed the orange fluff on his face. Carlie chirped too, my fat little tabby cat sitting at the edge of the bed with doe eyes of desperation. She wanted food and pretended to be sweet. Another minute and she’d be rubbing against my feet. Another two minutes and she’d be biting them. Three minutes and the claws would come out.
Still, I struggled to gain my composure. Between the blobs of orange representing my cats, the bright inferno of sunlight piercing through my bedroom window, and the countless visions still swimming through my head, it was any wonder I hadn’t passed out. Okay, passing out would be a reward, something that allowed me to sleep, even if restless.
“Well?” Milo asked again, scratching his facial scruff. He’d been stretched so thin making a thousand different arrangements on short notice that he’d barely had time to rest, let alone focus on grooming habits.
I liked the five o’clock shadow, though. I also liked his curly, blond hair, which I could only ever truly run my fingers through first thing in the morning before he tossed in a ton of product to establish the Enchanter Evergreen look.
“Maybe he needs a new look,” I whispered.
“Dodging my question.” Milo smiled with tightly closed eyes, the goofy type of grin like a dog enjoying pets as I massaged his scalp.
“The visions came loose again,” I answered Milo’s question.
He responded by brushing the sleep from his eyes, an action that proved a most difficult battle. The war on a good night’s rest plagued us both. And guilt pinched at me, stealing the bit of sleep Milo had left before starting his next big case. A case that’d be unlike any other. A case that’d change everything. A case that’d steal him from me. Even if only for a few weeks. I didn’t like it.
“Lemme see what I can do.” Milo wrapped his arms around me. They were so much bigger than mine, firm and powerful, carrying the weight of the world and all his love for me.
“I gotta learn how to do this on my own.” I pulled away, almost as reluctantly as Carlie would whenever I picked her up and held her captive with affection.
Milo smirked, scooting closer and sending Charlie trotting to the edge of the bed to join his sister. He meowed in protest, furious to have his sleep and cuddle pillow taken from him.
“You don’t have to learn today.”
“I have to learn soon. I mean, you’re leaving today, so now is basically—”
“Is basically,” Milo interrupted. “Is basically the perfect time for a last-minute tune-up on the creaky floorboards of your brain.”
I huffed, which only invited Milo to scoot closer. Telekinetically, he pulled out an enchantment he’d bought specifically for diving into my mind with ease. Gently, he placed the symbol on my shoulder. I shuddered at the warm vibrance radiating off the magic, magic that merged Milo and me into a unified consciousness. He pressed his forehead against mine and then tumbled into my mind.
Here we stood, surrounded by messy, shattered visions floating around my inner core, shimmering and blaring and doing everything they could to steal my attention to the urgency of their potential future.
“This shouldn’t take too long.”
“Good.” I crossed my arms. “Wouldn’t want you to miss your flight.”
“You’re so sassy this morning.” Milo’s smile filled his face, making my cheeks heat and burn with flustered frustration. “I like sassy Dorian. You gonna get like this every time the Global Guild calls on me for an out-of-town trip?”
“Don’t know,” I practically growled, attempting to show his absence wouldn’t bother me, which obviously had the opposite effect since Milo giggled. “How many trips are you planning?”
“However many the Global Guild requires my assistance on.” Milo channeled his magic, sending it into the enchantment he’d placed on my shoulder and cascading through my body. “Or however many I deem appropriate for the best possible future. Only happily ever afters if I have anything to do with it.”
Milo waved a hand, herding the loose visions like wrangling cattle. He had such a knack for it.
“Like a Border Collie,” Milo said, playfully panting with his tongue out. “Except I think they herd sheep.”
I tsked, reminded how unified our minds were when he dived into my inner core with that enchantment. He’d gotten better at reading the exposed frequencies of thoughts floating inside my head; it was as if he’d read my mind.
While he worked on restoring order in my head, I sat and watched. Whenever I gestured, commanded, or demanded for the visions to move, they ignored my actions. It was enough to make me feel impotent in a psychic sense. As a telepath, controlling things within a mind was supposed to be easy. Controlling things in my own head—I should’ve held complete and total mastery, but I sat and studied Milo like a novice.
The way he pulled the visions, some in big sweeping groups, others he’d pluck one at a time, but everything he did held some specific arrangement. I couldn’t see the system behind his method. There was a purpose, though. He stacked visions on top of each other meticulously. He sorted which piles sat beside each other and which were placed furthest apart. He hummed as he worked. Not to keep me out of his thoughts, which he willingly shared. No, he enjoyed the melody in his head. It helped ignore that what he did was work, instead thinking of it like a treat.
A day inside the head of your grumpy boyfriend. What a field trip.
“Someone’s extra sassy this morning.”
I sighed. My thoughts rang a little louder than intended.
“Loving it.” Milo winked, then continued working. “ Wish I had time to show you what happens to sassy boys who mouth off. ”
I took an immediate deep exhale, forcing a breath to settle the sudden shudder of exhilaration that traveled across my skin. A tingling sensation of lust and love and kink all roused tightly in my chest before blood flow found another outlet, making it difficult to hide how much I enjoyed Milo’s thoughts when my morning boner rubbed against his inner thigh as he worked.
We lay together while Milo finished locking away the visions, slamming them together with such force they appeared welded. It wouldn’t last, it never did, but I’d slowly learned to adapt to the presence of Milo’s visions in my head.
“They’ll hold long enough,” Milo said, turning to me and smirking from the shadows of my inner core. “And when I return from my case, I’ll make my next mission helping you master the art of clairvoyant Tetris.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Each potential future needs to fit together just right so they don’t stack too high and crumble in your mind.”
“Then why do they keep crumbling? Or exploding. Or whatever.”
“Because visions are also like cats,” Milo said, grimacing as Carlie bit his toes outside my mind. She’d grown impatient and planned to drag us out of the depths of my inner core if it was the last thing she did. Anything for breakfast.
“Tetris cats?” I quirked a brow, telekinetically removing the fat cat from the bed so she didn’t claw up Milo’s leg.
He moved closer, cuddling against me. The scruff on his face rubbed against mine while inside my head, he swaggered closer, bringing us together in an embrace inside and outside my mind.
“You have to get ready,” I whispered.
Milo’s mind buzzed with a checklist of a thousand different things he needed to get finished before going to the airport, yet the highest priority sang in his mind. He wanted to enjoy every second in bed we had together. He wanted to hold me so tightly that I’d feel this hug for the next several weeks in his absence.
“We still have a few minutes left.” Milo kissed my neck.
With Milo heading off for this Global Guild mission, I’d have to learn how to be independent again. I wouldn’t have him around for weeks. Longer maybe. After pushing him away for over a decade, the idea of spending more than a few days without his light, his joy, his love—it felt impossible. I didn’t know how I’d cope without having him here, so I lay in bed soaking up a few more minutes of cuddling and doing my best to savor these precious moments.