Into the Dark

A/N – I have nothing to say, so I figured I'd take the chance to thank my readers. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and voted. A big thanks to Kuromei whose review made me have a much-needed 'aha!' moment.

Review replies are in the forums: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=16004&st=0&gopid=210324&#entry210324
AFF Community Forums > Fan Fiction > All Other Subdomains > Original Writing > Slash
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Saturday Alex woke up late in the morning after another restless night. He glanced at the clock before rolling over and going back to sleep. Several hours later, he woke up again to see it was early afternoon, and he grudgingly got up. It wasn't that he had anything in particular to do, but he still wasn't willing to sleep through the entire day.

Shuffling out to the kitchen, he turned on the coffee maker, desperately needing that extra kick. It seemed to take forever, but he finally had his coffee. However, when he walked back into the kitchen and smelled it he nearly gagged. Pulling up his shirt to cover his nose, he checked, but it didn't appear to be burnt. Still, he needed his morning fix, so he poured himself a cup, and retreated from the kitchen. Taking a sip, he grimaced before going back and adding more milk and sugar. That had to have been the problem – he had just made it too strong. Alex dumped out the rest of the pot, deciding a second cup wasn't worth the effort.

It was as he was getting out of the shower when he noticed something that really bothered him. He had noticed the rather large bite mark that Muranthen had given him the first time they had sex; it had been dark, and his fangs had broken the skin rather deeply, so it wasn't surprising that it wasn't healed yet. But to his dismay Alex realized that rather than taking a while to heal, it was actually leaving a fairly obvious scar. One that would be very hard to explain. Grumbling, he went into his closet, and made sure he had plenty of shirts available for work that would cover the bite mark, at least until it was less noticeable. There were only a handful of shirts that would hide it, but they would have to do until he had a chance to go shopping.

After he had calmed down from the mild panic seeing the wound had caused, Alex curled up on the couch with one of the books, attempting to take his mind off everything. Unfortunately he had the same problem of not being able to concentrate as he had during the week. He was almost wishing it was Monday again so he could go to work and have to concentrate. His thoughts went back to the previous night, and the date he'd had with Jamie. There was no denying he had had fun – but it was the type of night he would have enjoyed with a friend, not a potential lover. And now that he was allowing himself to think on it, the kiss they had shared – had made him feel like he was cheating on Muranthen. It was a ridiculous thought; the cat man was in a different world and they had been unable to communicate to know what sort of relationship they even had. But it didn't change how he felt about it.

Finally, Alex tossed the unread book to the side with a new resolve; deciding there and then that he would see if there was any way to get back. It was a long shot, but it was preferable than living with the regret he was currently dealing with. It had been three days, and he already felt like he was going crazy. His work was suffering, and he was hurting an innocent bystander by leading Jamie on. He knew time was supposed to make things better, but he had come to the conclusion he didn't want it to. If nothing came of his attempt – well, he would deal with it then.

Now it was just a matter of where to start. It wasn't like he could go to a travel agency for this sort of thing. He figured a search online would at least give him an idea of what to look up, even though he was expecting to have to sort through dozens, if not hundreds, of junk sites. Trial and error would have to do. Turning on his laptop, he sat there for a moment before typing in 'alternative worlds'. He wasn't wrong; what he found varied from insane conspiracy theories to obscure scientific theories to gaming sites. He opted for the scientific theories as a starting point, and went through everything he could find. Some of the theories seemed plausible, but were obviously just that – theories. The scientists didn't list any real proof, and definitely no ideas on how one would get to the hypothetical worlds. The rest of the 'theories' were so off the wall that Alex was surprised their peers hadn't laughed them out of their respective universities.

Glancing up, he realized it was dark out, and that he had missed dinner. Reluctantly getting up, he made a couple bowls of pasta – one of the only meals he ever bothered to make for himself any more – and sat back down. Alex tapped at the keyboard for a few minutes, unsure of what to search for next. He tried typing in 'real alternative worlds' to see if that turned up anything new, but it seemed all of the same scientific sites showed up.

Groaning in frustration, Alex finally gave up for the night. He could barely keep his eyes open, and his mind was too tired to come up with any new ideas. It wasn't like he had truly expected it to be that easy, even if it was frustrating.

Sunday morning – after another restless night – Alex dragged himself out of bed to continue his search. He made himself a cup of coffee, which he made too strong again, and sat down in front of his laptop, determined to devote as much time as necessary. It was exhausting and he spent nearly the entire day in front of his computer, only broken for quick meals (mostly eaten right there) and one phone call from Jamie. He had been surprised, even if he really shouldn't have been, to hear from the blond. They had chatted for a while, about the horrible movie they had seen, their jobs (even though it was mostly about Jamie's job, because working in retail always made for good stories) and anything else that came to mind.

Alex finally shut everything down Sunday night feeling like he wasted his time. He had even looked up synonyms to 'alternate' and 'parallel' to try searching them, and still nothing. There was no way he was going to give up yet, though.
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Monday morning was hellish attempting to wake up. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep since he had gotten back, but at least over the weekend there had been the option of sleeping in or even taking a nap. Still, he forced himself to get ready and get to work. He opted to just skip the coffee altogether this time.

At least this week (at work at least) he was a bit more himself; but instead of focusing on his projects, he was spending as much time as he could researching any lead he could find to get him back to Muranthen. He was wading his way through everything he could find on other or parallel worlds, but it was slow going, as there were hundreds if not thousands of sites. The internet was amazing in theory, but unfortunately anyone could post whatever they wanted and claim it as fact. Luckily, it was usually pretty clear as soon as he clicked on it if it was just some RP site or something similarly unrealistic. About midway through the week, he switched to the travelling aspect of it; searching for sites on 'strange portals' or 'gateways'. Again, a lot were total junk, and the ones that weren't didn't give him any information that would help him.

There were still a few concerned looks from his co-workers, but since he was still pulling his weight, they left well enough alone. His nights were spent much the same as his weekend – eating when he got hungry, and the rest of the time glued in front of his computer, digging through more worthless information. Jamie called a few more times during the week, and Alex welcomed the interruption in what was turning out to be a tedious task. He wondered if the blond felt like he was being ignored since Alex never called him; but the subject never came up, and it seemed that Jamie just accepted him as someone who didn't call anyone that often. Luckily, that was a fairly accurate assumption. Alex didn't need anything else to feel guilty about.

He went out with Jamie again on Friday, this time to dinner and (of all things) mini-golf. He actually had a blast, even though they were both abysmal at the game, and decided to make up their own 'rules' about halfway through. But at the end they were stuck awkwardly standing in front of Alex's apartment building. Alex wasn't ready to sleep with Jamie until he was sure he had no way back to Muranthen, and Jamie was clearly confused as to why when everything seemed to be going so well that Alex wouldn't invite him in. The younger man finally left after an almost-chaste kiss, probably thinking Alex was one of those people who prescribed to the 'third date' rule, but assured of a date the following weekend.

The rest of the weekend was spent the same way as the previous one. He thought he found a lead late Saturday night (or more accurately Sunday morning) and stayed up chasing it until the sun was coming up and he was nearly passed out over his keyboard.

Sunday afternoon finally saw him stirring again, although he felt like he was hung over. Dragging himself out of bed, he made himself a cup of coffee and returned to the computer. The lead would probably pan out to be nothing, but it was the closest he had gotten. He had searched on strange sightings, and narrowed it down from there. The people on the forum mentioned the weird lack of light he had seen and fallen through; that was something at least, and now he just had to determine if they had ended up in the same place, or if any had even actually gone through it at all. Well, first he had to make sure it was the same thing as he had experienced, and then hope that someone on the forum was actually sane. After reading through a bit, Alex decided that asking the group couldn't actually hurt anything, and he posted a new topic to the group. He had just said he had seen one, and was curious if anyone knew what it was. Alex browsed around a bit more, but nothing seemed to be as close as the one site he found. He could only hope it wasn't a fraud like the rest. The optimism he had felt the previous weekend was slowly starting to fade.

Alex forced himself to go to bed early, even though he'd only been up a few hours, since he was still tired from his late night. Getting to sleep, however, was even harder than it had been. After a night spent mostly tossing and turning the work day seemed to drag on forever. Trying to concentrate on a project due at the end of the week wasn't working, and he was worried about how it was going to turn out. Alex was actually rather glad he had been passed over for the promotion at this point; had he gotten Chris' job, he would have had to do a much better job of hiding his exhaustion and distraction. He was just shutting everything down at work when he noticed he had received some responses from the group. Not wanting to read them at work, he walked home as quickly as he could.

While the computer was starting up, he made himself dinner, finding himself starving just from the brisk walk home. Alex ended up making two of the microwave dinners, still hungry after he finished off the first one. But at least one of the responses from the group had been good news. Most of the replies were along the same lines; saying they'd seen one two, a few asking if he would go through it next time he saw it, and a bunch of idiotic comments like 'so kewl!' that he completely ignored. Unfortunately he had expected to have that level of maturity when he first attempted to post to the group. But there was one member urging caution, and that intrigued him. Alex responded to that comment, asking why they said that, hoping it would give him more information without having to admit his own experiences. At least if he was forced to admit he had gone somewhere, it was only anonymous strangers who would think he was insane.

The next few days he was on edge, waiting for more responses. Unfortunately they were all along the same lines as the first day, and he had more or less given up on that site. He almost forgot about his date with Jamie on Friday, but managed to make it to the restaurant on time, if a little bit out of breath.

Jamie grinned when he saw him rush up to where he was standing outside of the restaurant, but his smile wavered a bit as he took in the dark circles underneath Alex' eyes, fading into a look of concern; apparently he looked as exhausted as he felt.

"I'm so sorry Jamie, I lost track of time."

The blond waved off his apology. "Not a problem, there's a wait anyway. I didn't think it would be this crowded or I would have called ahead for reservations."

"That's fine; we can always get something to nibble on at the bar." Since he had been plastered in front of the computer all day, he had forgotten to eat again.

Nodding agreement, Jamie led the way inside the crowded restaurant, making their way to the bar. Even that was crowded, and they had to stand, but it didn't take long to get a few standard bar snacks placed in front of them. Alex and Jamie both agreed not to bother getting anything out of the kitchen yet; with as busy as it was, they probably wouldn't get it until they were ready to be seated anyway. The room slowly cleared out as other people left or were seated, and eventually it quieted down until they were actually able to hear each other. It took a while for them to actually get a table, but they talked about their weeks, and the time passed fairly quickly. Alex was still starving by the time they finally got seated, but thankfully once they had put in their orders they were served fairly quickly.

Alex was stifling his yawns by the time they got to desert, however.

"Look, Alex, I thought we could try another movie tonight, but I have a feeling you'll just pass out on me. Why don't I get you home, and we'll meet up next Friday?"

He nodded, looking at the blond gratefully. "I'm sorry; I still haven't been able to sleep. I feel like I'm just getting worse."

"That's really not good. At least it's the weekend and you can catch up on some sleep. Will you go to the doctor if this continues?"

Alex sighed; he didn't really like doctors, but it was probably necessary. "I promise if I'm still having problems sleeping by Monday I'll go to the doctor."

Grinning, Jamie reached over and gave him a quick kiss. "Thank you, that makes me feel much better. Now let me get you home."

True to his word, he made sure Alex got home, and put the older man to bed. He made jokes about the elderly needing their rest, but real concern was obvious in his eyes. Alex continued to insist that he would be fine once he had a good nights' sleep, but he reassured Jamie that he'd keep his promise to go to a doctor if his insomnia didn't clear up soon.
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Saturday morning saw Alex unwilling to do anything but lounge in bed. His stomach finally pushed him out of bed, and he made himself a nice large breakfast. He ended up making himself a few more eggs, and another cup of coffee that was more cream than coffee. Finally full, he trudged over to the computer to check if there was a response before heading back to bed. There was a response, but it was curt, and rather rude. The other man; or at least Alex was assuming it was a man, all but told him to fuck off; that he wasn't dealing with anyone else asking stupid questions. Alex decided to email back directly, telling him about the houses he had seen and the people, although he didn't mention Muranthen.

The next response came quickly, even though Alex didn't see it until he roused himself from bed late Sunday morning. The response was a curt one line response saying that it would be best to meet and talk in person. Alex wasn't sure how he felt about that, but he figured if he met the man in some public place he could deal with someone delusional or crazy. And if he really did know how to get back there, then the risk was worth it. Unfortunately, he had woken up too late to meet with him that day, and they both worked during the week, so it would be the following weekend before they could meet.

The week went incredibly slowly, probably due to Alex's nerves about the coming weekend. They had also finished the first project under Chris' lead on Friday, so the work wasn't intense, and he found himself actually dozing off at his desk. While waiting for the man's response he had continued to look up different leads with no luck, so if this didn't work out he wasn't sure where else to go to find his way back. On Wednesday he was finally called into Chris' office. To be honest, Alex had been expecting it since his second week back; his concentration was shot, his ideas were nonexistent, and his participation in the team meetings was half-hearted at best. All he could hope for was that this was just a warning, and not a dismissal.

Alex entered Chris' office without knocking, as he had been called in, and stood, attempting not to fidget, in front of the other man. Chris looked upset, and Alex realized that this was probably the first disciplinary action that his boss had to deal with. If he hadn't been so worried, he would have felt bad. Chris sighed and waved Alex towards the seat.

"Alex, I have to say I'm surprised I had to call you in here. I know we were both going for this position, but you never seemed to be the type that would react so poorly to being passed over for promotion. Between you and me, I've been told the decision was a hard one, and you were second choice."

Alex heard the words, but let them pass over him. 'Second choice' still didn't get him anywhere; and it wasn't even the reason behind his poor performance. "No, Chris, I'm not upset about that. Really. You deserve it. I've just been having some really bad insomnia lately; I didn't mean to have it affect my work, I just can't seem to make myself sleep."

Chris' stern look faded into one of concern. "I'm sorry to hear that; do you know what could have caused this? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I'm not really sure." Liar; he knew the exact reason he was having a hard time sleeping. "I've never had a problem sleeping before."

Sighing, Chris nodded. "Alright, well, go home for now; see a doctor. You have sick days – I'm suggesting that you use them to figure out what's wrong. Give me a call Monday morning and let me know when you think you can come back. We should be okay on these minor projects without you; and I'd rather have you rested and at your best before another big project comes up."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Alex smiled. "Thanks Chris; I appreciate it. I'm really sorry I let it get this bad."

Chris raised an eyebrow before responding. "It happens to the best of us; we just need to remember it's okay to ask for help once in a while. Get out of here; go home and go to bed. I'll talk to you Monday."

Alex nodded. "I'll do that. Thanks again Chris. Talk to you soon."

Leaving the man's office, he stifled a groan before returning to his cubicle to gather up his stuff. If the person he had spoken to didn't have a way to get back, he could easily see his life spiraling out of control. Glancing at the clock, he noticed it was still relatively early; more than enough time to listen to Chris' 'advice' and see a doctor. He dutifully went, and the doctor prescribed him sleeping pills as Jamie had said. Alex already knew he wouldn't take them though – pills wouldn't help. Muranthen would help.
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He hadn't even realized that he hadn't spoken to his sister in the four weeks he'd been back until she showed up at his door. They normally talked every few days, and his silence must have worried her. Alex immediately felt guilty because he had seen the missed calls from her, but kept forgetting to call her back, and now she had come all the way out to check on him. He let her in and she immediately saw his state and the mess his apartment was in and went into mother hen mode.

"I left Lexi with Greg for the rest of the week so that we could have some brother-sister time. I'm glad I did now; what on earth happened to you Alex? Did some asshole dump you again? Really, I don't know why you pick those losers; you deserve someone so much better." All he could do was stand to the side and watch as hurricane Lisa swept through his apartment leaving cleanliness instead of destruction in her wake. She talked as she worked, asking Alex questions without giving him time to answer. He was used to her overprotective nature however, and just followed after her, making the appropriate noises of agreement or nodding when necessary.

In short order the apartment was clean and she grabbed a couple glasses, poured some wine and sat Alex down on his couch. "Now, tell me what's going on."

He knew there was no getting out of telling his sister something, but he couldn't exactly tell her the whole truth. It still sounded impossible even to him half the time. Alex had actually kept the snack bar in the cabinet so that he could use it to prove to himself it wasn't all a dream. Still, his sister was persistent, and could easily tell if he was lying to her. So he had to give her a highly edited story, but one that was – more or less - true.

"I met a...foreign guy a few weeks back. It seemed to be going really good, but there was a bad communication gap and he wanted to go home and I wanted to stay here. He just lived too far away. So I was the one who broke it off when he left. Shortly after I started seeing another guy, who is really great, and everything I should want, but I can't stop thinking of this other guy. I've been contemplating going to find him. The problem is – I'm not exactly sure where he lives, just the general area."

Lisa listened to his story with a thoughtful frown. "So how far is far away? There are these things called planes now – even if it's the other side of the world, it's not like we'd never see you again. And how did he feel about you breaking it off? What about the new guy – does he know about your ex?"

"Far is far...as in, I don't know how often I would be able to come back and visit. It's also a matter of the cultural differences. I'd have to learn a new language, get a new job...it was just a really big decision to make." And what an understatement that was. Lisa obviously didn't approve of him skirting the question, as her eyes narrowed in annoyance, but she didn't call him on it – yet. She would keep needling him until he finally revealed where his mystery man was from. Too bad he didn't know. "He wasn't happy – he didn't want me to break up with him. And no, the new guy doesn't know anything about him. I didn't want to make him feel like a rebound or something. That just makes the whole worse, because I now feel guilty about the whole situation."

His sister nodded, chewing on her lip. It was a nervous trait both siblings shared. "Well, first of all, you owe it to the new guy to tell him about your previous boyfriend. If it really is a rebound relationship – don't give me that look, only you can decide that, but as a neutral third party, that's exactly what it sounds like – you'll both figure it out soon enough. You need to do something soon though; the guilt is obviously wreaking havoc on your health. You look like you haven't slept in a week."

"Ugh, I feel like I haven't. I just can't sleep. I got sleeping pills, but I can't bring myself to take them. I don't trust things like that. The last time I took any I felt even worse the next day. It's horrible; I keep dozing off during the day because I'm not getting enough sleep at night. They actually sent me home from work yesterday, said not to come back until I'm rested up and useful to them."

"Oh honey, you really do need to take better care of yourself. I'm sure your sleeping problems are a result of everything weighing so heavily on your mind. Are you eating right at least?" She had seen the nearly empty fridge and the freezer of frozen dinners.

He nodded, "Too much I think. I know I told you I was upset that I put on those few inches at New Years? Well, I've definitely put on a few more. I'm going to have to buy new pants if this keeps up."

She tsked at him. "I'll call Greg; tell him I'm staying here for a while. I'm not going anywhere until you're better. "

Alex nodded; if anyone could make him feel better it was his sister. Besides which, he knew it was pointless to fight her. "Now drink up, a glass of wine will help you sleep better than any pills." She smiled, and Alex tried to smile back, but he only had a sip before he put the glass down with a grimace.

"I think I'll pass on the wine. My stomach's been acting up a bit – don't want to push it."

"Your stomach too? Have you been to see a doctor?"

Rolling his eyes, he reluctantly nodded. "Yes Mom. He said that I seemed perfectly healthy, if overly tired, and that most likely all of my symptoms were probably the result of stress. He gave me sleeping pills, but other than that, the only real solution is to get rid of the source of the stress. Unfortunately that's not going to be easy to do."

Lisa still looked concerned, but didn't say anything else, knowing when he was going to be as stubborn as she was. "Fine then, go to bed, try to get some sleep, and I'll be here in the morning." Alex dutifully got up, gave his sister a hug, and retreated to his bedroom.