Chapter Text
Pran feels the soft ground under the palms of his hands. Lifting his head up to embrace the warmth of the sun above him, Pran looks up to see a silhouette come into view. The harsh light from the sun behind the figure blocks any identifiable features from his sight. All he can notice are the uplift of the cheeks indicating a huge grin on the owner’s face, and a hand reaching out towards him. Curious, Pran raises his hand towards the figure, and gets engulfed in a different kind of warmth when he feels the stranger wrap his fingers around his hand. He feels the comfort of a hot drink on a rainy day, of a homemade soup when you’re having a cold, a mum’s warm embrace when you’re feeling down. Pran’s let’s out a soft gasp, resulting in a soft chuckle from the other guy. He opens his mouth to say something as he slowly lowers his body to the ground, which has Pran waiting in anticipation. Pran wants to know who this angel who makes him feel so safe and warm is. Just as the darkness of the silhouette slowly fades into colour, just as the mouth starts forming shapes, another sound interrupts Pran’s focus and grabs his attention. Opening his eyes, Pran realises that his alarm rang right at the moment he was about to get his answer. Again. He really should be used to this by now after years and years of going through the same thing, but a resigned acceptance does not mean there is no frustration.
With a slight groan, Pran gets out of bed to go about his usual morning routine. Just another day of never figuring out who this faceless figure he keeps dreaming of is. He has been having these dreams ever since he could remember his dreams. It does not happen everyday, but happens often enough that he knows it is always the same person, even if the setting and what happens in the dreams change often. However, the feelings he gets from the dreams are always consistent. He always experiences such warmth in these dreams. He always feels at peace, feels so much love in these dreams. There are a few dreams that always happen the same way, but he does not like to think about those. Those are not very happy dreams. But the happy ones always make him feel a sense of loss when he wakes up, knowing that he doesn’t get to experience that feeling in his reality.
Staring at his reflection while brushing his teeth, he recalls the excitement he used to feel as a kid after having such dreams. He always used to look forward to meeting his special person, and experiencing it in his real life. To feel that level of comfort in someone’s presence as a daily occurrence. Years went by and the dreams kept changing. With every dream, his excitement used to grow. Because, it felt like he was getting closer to the unveiling of who his special person was, or getting a clue that would allow him to find this person. However, time dragged on and nothing monumental happened in his dream and his excitement inevitably started to diminish as well. It slowly evolved into confusion if he would ever get to feel it, desperation for it to happen so that he can distract himself from the hurt he was feeling on his low days, and finally resignation that it was never going to happen to him. Sometimes it feels cruel that your mind conjures up and gives you this realistic feeling of being engulfed in so much love, and then brutally wakes you up and makes you realise that you can’t have it in real life. But Pran knows his truth, he has resigned himself to just experiencing this in his dreams, and that is good enough for him; or so he has convinced himself. With one last glance at his own jaded eyes staring back at him, he turns around and gears up for his first day as a second year Architecture student. Here’s to new beginnings or whatever.
The first few weeks of his second year go by pretty smoothly. All his professors have given a detailed schedule of the topics and assignments they will cover for the semester. The workload is definitely more intense now compared to his first year, but Pran also knows it is necessary if he wants to do his industrial attachment the following semester. Pran wants to do his attachment at a reputable company and get as much experience as possible. He did not want to run between lectures and interning during that time, which meant he had to squeeze his lectures into his current semester to afford that time away from campus. It did add on to his current workload, but Pran knew the stress will pay off.
Pran was prepared for this additional academic stress. What he was not prepared for is the way his dreams have started to change. All his life, his dreams felt very out of reach. Even though he remembers that there have been physical touches in his dreams, he never felt the skin on skin contact. He always felt the warmth in his heart, the feeling of comfort and security; never the warmth of a human touch on his skin. However, recently the touches have felt very real. He could feel each strand of hair on the stranger’s head just as tangible as the weight of the their head as he was napping on Pran’s thigh. The dreams have also started to feel more intense. While initially it was all very warm and cosy, it started to feel like someone turned up the heat setting. There have been instances when the dreams got a bit steamy with make out sessions and roaming hands, which woke Pran up feeling very sexually frustrated. There is only so many times that his hand could leave him satisfied. After a few times, even that was no longer enough. He started craving the intimacy he felt in the dreams. And his hand could not fulfil that.
Pran understands how psychology works, he understands what déjà vu is. But he can’t help but feel that he really does hear a chuckle very similar to the one in his dreams, or see a familiar looking back when walking around on campus. It has happened a few times too many to brush it off as a coincidence. Maybe the stress and lack of sleep really was getting to his head, blurring the lines between reality and dreams. And he knows that it really is nothing more than wishful thinking, because sometimes the familiarity reminds him of his dreams. And yet in a few instances, the familiarity brought him down a path that he chooses not to revisit. So Pran immediately turns away, focussing on something other than the slight chuckle or a petulant whine, to refrain from thinking about that person.>/i>
Lost in his own thoughts, Pran doesn’t realise that the bus has stopped right outside his faculty building, until the doors start to close. He immediately slams on the stop button by the window to indicate to the bus driver that he needs to get off here, and jumps out of his seat. He throws a hasty wai in apology to the bus driver and tries to squeeze past the figure that’s standing near the bus door. Tries being the keyword, as in his rush he brushes against the male student’s hand, earning a static shock on his right hand. He hears the same gasp he releases being echoed by the other student. He throws another sorry behind his shoulder as he gets off the bus. Turning around, Pran tries to catch the student’s eyes to give another apologetic wai. However, with the sun hitting the glass door, all he sees is a flare where the person’s face should be, and a silhouette gently cradling his left hand. Looking at his own right hand, he notices that it’s slightly red near the knuckles where he nudged against the other guy. Brushing it off as an effect of the static shock, Pran starts walking towards the building and heading to his first class of the day.
“Why do you keep rubbing your hand? Look you’ve made it turn red,” his best friend Wai chastises him, as they are having lunch in the university canteen.
“I accidentally bumped into someone this morning, and got a bit of a shock. And my hand has just been tingling ever since. It doesn’t want to go away.”
“Ohh, yeah a static shock can be annoying. But rubbing it non stop is not going to help. Let’s see how we can get rid of the static electricity in you.”
As Wai googles on his phone on ways to get rid of static electricity, Louis and Safe, the two remaining members of their clique arrive, taking a seat at the lunch table with their food.
“Have you guys heard? There’s a new engineering student that got transferred into our university. Bit strange that they would change universities in their second year. It must be quite a difficult transition. Though, the girls are happy since he is quite easy on the eyes,” Louis says with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
Pran has no idea how Louis manages to find gossip from all around campus, but he has stopped trying to question it after the fourth month of befriending the guy. Louis simply has friends from every single faculty, and manages to get information easily.
“Heard that a few guys are happy about it as well. Apparently he lays the charm on everyone, “ Safe adds his own input, which causes everyone to turn and look at Pran. Groaning out loud, “Just because he might be interested in guys, does not mean I will be interested in him. I know you guys are trying to be supportive after I came out over the break, but maybe you guys want to tone down with that just a little bit. I am not interested in a relationship, … or in hooking up at this point,” Pran interjects before anyone can say anything. “I just want to graduate and get out of here. Now tell me how I can get rid of this weird feeling on my hand,” Pran attempts to change the topic before his friends try to convince him that he shouldn’t be alone and that he should at least try to “broaden his horizons” even if he isn’t interested in a relationship, again.
Despite all the advice from Dr Google, the tingling sensation in Pran’s hand continues to persist the rest of the day. He swallows his irritation and forces his attention on what the professors are saying instead of letting the tingles distract him.
Finally letting himself into his dorm room at the end of the day, Pran sinks into his couch with a groan. He stares at his hand which is now very reddish, thanks to all the scratching he’s been doing the whole day.
Feeling annoyed, Pran groans out loud, “You don’t even have to go away completely. Can you at least lessen a bit so that you don't take up all my focus? I need to get work done.”
He really must be losing it if he’s started talking to his hand. With another groan of frustration, he gets up to prepare dinner. Cooking up an arrabiata goes as smoothly as possible with an annoyingly tingly hand. Just as he gives the pasta sauce a final stir and is about to turn off the stove, a loud bang comes from outside causing Pran to accidentally hit his hand on the hot saucepan. Hissing in pain, he quickly turns off the stove and scurries to the sink to place his hand under running water. It’s only five minutes later when Pran has exhausted all his frustrations by cursing out his neighbour for slamming their door shut so loudly, that he turns off the tap and looks at his knuckles. It was still slightly red and sore, but the tingly sensation has seemed to lessen a bit. So maybe some heat was all it took? (AN: This does not work. Please do not try this) He then proceeds to finish cleaning up, and goes to take his shower before sitting down to have his dinner.
He lets his favourite classical music play through the bluetooth speakers he has in his room, to drown out the chatter and bustle that is coming from his neighbour’s room. They have been fairly quiet all this while and been a respectful neighbour, so he brushes the loud noises to them having some visitors around, which Pran sincerely hopes would not be a regular occurrence. He can be the considerate neighbour today, especially since they unknowingly did something helpful to ease the tingling in his hand. Now he just has to wait for it to completely go away. Finishing up his dinner, Pran then recaps his lectures for the day, and proceeds to start on an assignment that is due in two weeks. His phone alarm rings at 11pm, indicating that it is time for him to put things away and start getting ready for bed. Once he is done tidying up his desk, he brushes his teeth and does his nightly skincare routine before getting into bed. His neighbours are still causing quite a riot in their room, but at least the noise is almost negligible from his bedroom. Sinking deeper into his comfy sheets, Pran releases a deep exhale and gives in to slumber hoping for a night without dreams.
Pran regains awareness to the feeling of gentle fingers tickling his feet. But it all feels slightly hazy, which makes the tickles more bearable. Opening his eyes, he notices that he is sitting by the bank of a lake with his feet dipped in the water, which is also currently being held in the hands of his dream stranger. The water makes the tickles more like a caress, making it something more accepting. “What would you ever say if someone asks you why you are soaked?” Pran questions the guy who is currently standing in the lake, with his almost transparent linen shirt clinging to his skin and breeches that must not feel comfortable. “That is not an issue, my Duke. I will simply say that Schoko here decided to take a spontaneous bath, and dragged me into the lake with him.”
“Well with Schoko being a cheeky minx exactly like his caretaker, no one would bat an eyelash at that. Though it is exceptionally kind of Schoko to give his caretaker enough time to remove his stable jacket before going into the water.” Pran hears himself retort, while glancing at the dark brown Trakehner that was grazing along the grass by the bank.
“Of course. Schoko is exceptionally kind, just like his owner,” the stranger replies with a slight tug to Pran’s leg. “If only said owner would also join me in the water.”
“Sadly, I do not have an excuse for getting soaked, so alas I must do my best to remain dry. The view from here makes the sacrifice pretty worth it, I must add,” Pran said, eyeing the stranger with a loaded gaze from head to where the water level begins to disrupt his view of the stranger’s hips. Let it not be said that the cheekiness did not rub off on him. Pulling his feet free from the stable boy’s hold, Pran hooks his feet behind the stranger and gently pulls him closer, close enough to feel the other’s breath on his cheeks. “Though I’ll admit that nothing in the world could ever compare to this close up view.” Although he says this words in the dream, Pran only sees a blur in the spot where his companion's face would be.
Gently caressing the other guy’s cheeks, Pran closes the distance between them. He feels eyelashes gently flutter on his cheeks, more than sees the other guy close his eyes. Releasing his legs from around the sturdy back, Pran drops a tiny kiss to the stranger’s nose before pushing him into the water. Pran ignores the spluttering coming from the other guy as he slowly gets up and brushes off any dirt that got stuck to his breeches. “Come on now. We've been out here for too long. We should head back before it gets late. I don’t want you to get in trouble again.”
“They love me too much. They are not going to reprimand me,” comes the response as he reaches out a hand towards Pran.
“They just might, when they find out you’ve been defiling their Duke.”
“Such lies. I have not been defiling him. I have only been treating him with utmost respect. And treasuring him as he should be.” the stranger proclaims, while grabbing onto the right hand that Pran has extended out and placing a kiss on the knuckles there.
Waking up with a gasp, Pran feels a new sensation on his right hand. No longer the tingles from the day, but a warmth. Not from the scalding- his skin wasn’t even reddish from the heat when he checked before sleeping- but rather a warmth that came from underneath his skin. Like the kiss from the dream now lives beneath the layer of skin, so that it can’t go anywhere and he will always feel it be a part of him. Pran recalls that he had a very close up view of his dream stranger this time, but the harder he tries to recall the more the image blurs and the dream starts to turn fuzzy. He quickly turns on his lamp on the bedside table drawer and digs around for the notebook and pen that hides there. Flipping to a new page, he frantically writes whatever he can remember about the dream as fast as he can. As his recollections slips away from him, he also feels the warmth on his hand disappearing simultaneously. With slight confusion, at the bottom of the page in contrast to the top that has yesterday’s date, he writes down: “Static electricity from stranger in the bus?”
Pran flips to the previous page and takes note of the date there. He had not written down his dreams since December the previous year. For some reason, his dreams always get more chaotic and intense in December. And those are always the ones he does not want to remember. Looks like he has four months to go before those start again. With a sigh, he glances towards his alarm clock to look at the time. Looks like he has another two hours to go before his alarm rings, but he doubts that sleep will come to him anymore. Pran chooses to let his mind drift as he begins to sketch on the empty page beside his notes, while hearing his neighbour’s door open and close-not so gently- and a pair of footsteps walking outside. He idly wonders why his neighbour is awake at 4:30am on a weekday, as a majestic horse comes to life under his hands.