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In the midst of a dreamless sleep, lightning flashed behind closed lids. He didn’t recall the rolling of an approaching storm, nor even the patter of a distant rain. There had only been the steady breathing of his lover tucked away in his arms, overcome by sleep’s incessant taunt.
But the sight was one so enrapturing he hadn’t allowed himself similar bliss until his eyes had grown too weary to keep watch. The most tender of children, Donovan slept mouth ajar, eager to intake enough air to keep his dreamt-up people and places alive. The blankets found their rightful home nestled comfortably beneath his chin, and his eyelids flickered like the negatives on a black and white film, snatching a bit of Bob’s breath each time.
But now lightning flashed in some dark, unreachable land amidst his own sleep.
He peeled his eyes open just in time to catch another flash, this time nearly blinding him. He cursed and lowered his head, scrubbed a hand over his eyes as iridescent dots sprinkled about his vision. Upon recovery he heard the familiar slide of a freshly snapped Polaroid picture.
“Donnie, baby, whatcha doin’?” he murmured, voice still thick with remnants of sleep, and one eye squinted open.
Donovan looked to the carpet, fiddling with the camera in his hands and blushing despite the pale complexion nighttime washed over his skin. “Oh, erm…had to run to the loo. ‘M sorry, didn’t mean to wake you, love.”
“Get distracted on your way there?” He smirked and made for the cigarettes and lighter on the nightstand. Propped up on his elbows, he swiped his thumb along the wheel and touched the flame to his smoke.
As the tip bursted to life, he glanced sidelong at his boy. Stood there in the middle of the room wearing one of his own flannel shirts—the first few buttons undone to reveal teases of skin—and a snug pair of briefs, he made starlight seem dim.
“Can’t say I didn’t, actually.” Don fanned the photographs through the air, eager for their development. “Although it was on the way back. You’re an angel when you sleep.”
“It’s a shame about that wakeful Bob, though, isn’t it?” He smiled, his cigarette a puff away to make room for his faint laugh.
Without hesitation, the demanding flash of the camera sparked once again. Bob dropped his face onto the pillow with a moan. No doubt he’d need glasses on his weary, abused eyes come morning. But his humming heart couldn’t seem to empathize with his vision at the moment, not when it saw far more than the eyes ever could.
Dylan turned his head on the pillow with a lingering grin, eyes shining like a camera flash of their own. He reached out a hand for Donovan, feeling lonesome on the mattress and more in love than words could express.
The muscle in his jaw twitching on a shy smile, he took the hand and sat on the edge of the bed. He fondly stared down at the photographs in his hand as Bob wrapped an arm around his waist and kissed his side. He leaned into the hold, warmth pooling at every place they touched.
“Still can’t find it in me to call him a menace with a smile like that,” Don responded with one of his own, then turned to share his snapshots.
Bob looked at frames of himself in various stages of consciousness. The lighting was muted and his features rested so softly on his face he wondered who that man was in those pictures. What was it he thought and dreamt of in the middle of the night?
It was comforting to know the answer lay not in front of, but behind the camera’s lens.
He gathered the photos and playfully tapped them against the younger boy’s forehead, receiving a small laugh. He took a final drag from his smoke before offering it to Donovan, who wrapped his lips around it with a meek glow in his eyes. Cigarette stubbed out in the ashtray, he slipped both arms around his lover and pulled him fully onto the bed.
“Sleep with me?” A whispered plea disguised as a question he stowed away in brown, ruffled locks of hair.
A million times yes.
The younger boy smiled and fell into the embrace smoothly. He turned his head to receive a kiss on the cheek. Then a second and a third, and the universe couldn’t have been more in order than at that very moment.
“I dunno, you hog the covers, you know,” he teased, nestling in beside Bob nonetheless.
Bob tipped his chin up and kissed his lips. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he smiled and readjusted the blankets from their scattered arrangement on the bed, “here, take all you need.”
And he did. After draping the comforter around both of their bodies, Donovan laid his head upon his lover’s chest, warm and beating. The only pillow and covering he could see himself ever truly needing.
Slender fingers immediately drew into his hair, and his eyes fluttered at the contact. He turned to catch Bob, arm thrown behind his head, gazing at him with eyes bluer than robin's eggs. Donovan coyly looked down to one of the buttons on the man’s shirt, twiddled it between his fingers.
“What’re you thinkin’ about?” he mumbled, the words nearly as soft as the cotton pressed to his cheek.
A sigh intermingled with the stillness of night. There were hums in the air coming from places he couldn’t name…probably couldn’t touch. Perhaps the stars whispered amongst themselves, speaking in hushed tones of two musicians wrapped around each other in a bed light years away, how hopelessly devoted to each other they looked.
Bob interrupted their celestial banter with, “This song-and-dance business, how tiring it all gets, you know?”
“Yeah?” Back in the moment, Donovan kept a keen ear, ready to herd troubles and woes back into their padlocked cages.
“Sometimes I wish I was somewhere with a little farm or just acres and acres of land. Something the press and demands couldn’t touch, you know?”
Inexplicably, the I’s dotting his dreams hit his chest with the impact of a ton of bricks. The lock on his own insecurities rattled loose and fell to his gut with a deafening clang.
“Sounds nice, love.” He fell quiet, nearly falling foolish at believing Bob’s larger-than-life ideas and persona could involve someone inclined to live life on the sidelines. “You realize we wouldn’t’ve met, though?”
The words tasted bitter and foul on his tongue.
Dylan, privy to the dulled flicker in his younger lover’s eye, smoothed the boy’s hair back with desperate eyes.
“Hey, hey,” Bob shuffled up to lean against the headboard and caught his eyes with the most candor of looks, “I still would’ve turned this world inside out to get to you, babe.”
He bent down to place a firm kiss on his lips, his thumb working desperately to soothe his thoughts as it stroked the soft skin of his cheek. Upon parting, he added with a smile, “You were on my wall of who’s who after all, remember?”
Hope surged into his eyes, mingling among the brown in a breathtaking shine. He tugged on the shirt pooled around Bob’s waist, silently pleading him closer. As the older man lowered himself, Donovan shifted higher to meet his eyes across the pillow. His eyes tracked his face, searching for the tender boy hidden beneath layers of wit and sarcasm.
“What kind of life do you want on your acres and acres of land?” he asked.
Bob chuckled and scratched the side of his nose. It was a funny thought—he’d only seen the grassy fields and teetering rocking chairs. The big picture, but no life there to perpetuate it. He realized dreams lost all magic if in them he didn’t have the boy he loved.
“I’d want the same life I’d want in a cardboard box in a New York slum. One of happiness, music, passion, love….” He paused and gently touched Donovan’s chin before pouring as much sincerity into one word as his heart would allow him. “You.”
An ineffable swell of emotion coursed through his body, suffocating blood, bone, and muscle with the excess of it all. He bit his lip and tossed a leg over his lover’s.
“I want to wake up every morning to your baby blues, brighter than the bloody sky outside.” As if discrediting them, Bob pressed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes. In a beat Donovan had them away and held in his hand instead, stunning blues safely on display once more. “And then,” he continued, smiling, “I want to make us some tea, so we can stand on the deck and watch everything come to life right in front of our cottage. After that, well…we just take each day as it comes and fill every hour with music.”
The rush of promises for a future overcame Bob, and he settled on top of Donovan, framing his head with forearms digging into the mattress. He planted a kiss on the side of the younger boy’s neck.
“And we’re gonna have pets?” he asked with a sense of childlike wonder.
Donovan closed his eyes with a blissful smile as kisses continued blazing across his skin. “Loads of ‘em.”
Another kiss to the sharp line of his jaw. “And there’ll be a riverbank to sit on and play guitar?”
“Every evening before sundown.” He fisted a hand into Bob’s curly chaos of a quiff.
Dylan hummed at the touch and moved his kisses lower, dropping them along shoulder and collarbone. “And we’ll make love in our king-sized bed?”
Don giggled before he could help himself. “Every night after sundown.”
Finally, he lifted his head. With his sleep-mussed hair and alight, captivating gaze, there couldn’t have been a sweeter sight. “And music will pour out of pens like we never thought it could before?” he whispered, words edged with anticipation as they left his lips.
Donovan caught the contagion of his smile and strung his lover up by the twine of his own desires. His arms drew around Bob’s sides in a tender hold. Safe within his grasp was the loving side of Bob Dylan left unknown to the public. The young boy rather liked it that way.
“All at the hands of our undying love,” he finally said with a smile, only half teasing.
Bob mindlessly shook his head, a faint grin of disbelief pulled onto his lips. What could he possibly have done to get so blessed? “What a dream, man. I’m gonna give that to us, baby. You’ll get every bit of that and more.”
“You may be gifted, but your magic isn’t gonna work overnight, love. I’ve got you here with me now, and tomorrow can wait.” He steadied his jaw and kissed his lips, soft and swelled from sleep.
“Alright, alright,” Bob relented, smiling nonetheless. “But I’ll get it working faster’n you think when it comes to your happiness.”
Ever so softly, he rolled over, pulling Donovan with him. The younger boy settled against his lover’s chest, head comfortably cushioned by his breast. Moonlit air gathered around them, wrapping them into a universe all their own.
“I love you, Bob,” he dropped against the beat of his heart.
A firm squeeze answered before words ever could. “Love you too, Donnie.” At once he knew no dream could be sweeter than that of reality. “So much.”