Big Macintosh didn’t dream very often. Well, according to something he heard a long time ago everypony dreamed, so he supposed he just didn’t remember his own. He remembered parts. A color or how it made him feel or something along those lines, but it was never solid. It never felt real. He was a sound sleeper, and often when his head hit the pillow he felt as though he opened them a second later and morning would have already arrived, and his body moved with newfound energy that came from rest.
But tonight, Mac dreamed. He dreamed he was young again in the middle of a lake so vast that he couldn’t see the edges. It was vivid. He could see the muddy water and taste it as it slipped past his lips and droplets coated his tongue. He kept trying to swim, not forward or back to shore but straight down. He had lost something, and he was convinced it was down there. He kicked his hooves helplessly until his lungs burned and ached trying to touch the bottom. Every time he got a little further, and swore he was just a hoof’s reach away. He always had to resurface and gasp for air, coughing and sputtering. He remembered nothing but a feeling of agony and loss. A feeling like he couldn’t live without whatever he had misplaced in the bottom of the ocean.
His stomach was full of the muddy water and he upheaved it. He tried once more to touch the bottom, but it seemed further away. It wasn’t just that he was getting weaker, but the ground was actually abandoning him. He wasn’t strong enough to reach what he lost.
Then he saw it. Out of the corner of his eye a glimmer that caught his attention. He swam as fast as he could to the shore, afraid it would grow further away like the bottom of the lake. He was so exhausted he crawled when he reached the shore, his mane sopping over his eyes and blinding him. He crawled closer and closer to the glimmer that caught his attention. It was warm. Warm in a way that whatever he had lost had made him feel. He brought it to his chest and squeezed it and began to tremble, and then cried. He was terrified to lose it. Terrified the bottomless lake would rip it from him as it had his precious possessions before.
“Mac?”
Big Macintosh felt something tickle his nose, and suddenly the dream faded. It didn’t melt nor fade, but simply popped like a pinprick hitting a balloon. His eyes fluttered open, and he was laying on Caramel’s chest. Scents of cotton and sugar and cinnamon filled his nose like a drug and he buried his face deeper.
Already the dream was fading from Big Macintosh’s thoughts. It was like trying to hold sand. It wouldn’t stop slipping through his hooves no matter how much he tried to keep it. He sat up, slowly, realizing his body was so interconnected with Caramel’s that this task was nearly impossible unless he were to disturb the other as well. He groaned, laying down again with his chest buried on the inside of Caramel’s foreleg.
“Mmm,” Big Macintosh groaned. It was rare to feel like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and now was one of those times. He was reminded all too painfully that he wasn’t at home in a bed he knew like the back of his hoof. If anything made waking up pleasant, it was the fact that Caramel was here. He kissed his chest without thinking and repeated it until he could bury his muzzle deeper.
“Morning,” He mumbled.
“Are you okay?” Caramel asked. “Sorry I woke you.”
Big Macintosh opened his eyes and looked to the window. It was hardly even sunrise yet. He looked up again, properly this time. Caramel’s eyes were exhausted looking as if he had just been woken up as well. He was looking at Big Macintosh with a sense of… worry? It wasn’t a general worry, but definitely directed at him. He touched Big Macintosh’s cheek and rubbed. That’s when Big Macintosh felt the streaks of tears on his face.
“You were crying,” Caramel mumbled. His voice was uncertain and small as his eyes adverted Big Macintosh’s own. He seemed afraid to say it, as if Big Macintosh wouldn’t want to hear it. “You were making weird noises and… y-you scared me.”
Big Macintosh sighed as he rubbed at his face. He didn’t realize it until now, but for some reason he felt sad. He didn’t know why exactly he had been crying, but it didn’t feel wrong. At least, no more wrong than Caramel looking at him like that made him feel.
Another thing… he felt an overwhelming desire to pull Caramel to him. He did just that, lifting his hooves and wrapping them around Caramel’s body. Caramel gasped at Big Macintosh using strength without thinking. He pressed their bodies together in a way where Caramel probably thought he was actually trying to force them into one, like two smaller soap bubbles forced together, but he loosened his grip only when the tufts of fur on Caramel’s neck were deeply imbedded into his nose and he could take in his scent. He wanted to breathe in nothing but it. He wanted to hold Caramel as he was now and not let go. He didn’t know why this desire was so strong, and more desperate than it had ever been before, but he knew it was his and his alone.
“Did you have a bad dream?” Caramel asked.
Big Macintosh shrugged. He thought Caramel was probably right, but he couldn’t remember. He remembered a bad taste in his mouth like mud, but that was it. He thought he remembered Caramel, and maybe his parents too. Feelings like nostalgia and loss and desire and love and everything were lost in his head too exhausted to make sense of it all. Even now he felt sleep tugging on him again, his eyes dry and aching just from being open. He didn’t want it to take him yet, though, because that would mean leaving Caramel. That would mean loosening his iron grip for even a second and forgetting he was there.
“I don’t wanna lose you,” Big Macintosh mumbled, not sure why he felt compelled to do so.
Caramel stiffened slightly, as he normally did when Big Macintosh said something unexpectedly touching. He softened though, and slowly his arms rose around Big Macintosh and hugged him back. He felt a kiss on his forehead, something rare for Caramel to give as it was something Mac himself did to the other when trying to give comfort. He felt guilty for worrying Caramel, and guilty for squeezing him so tightly, but most of all he felt tired.
“You won’t,” Caramel said. “Let’s just lay down, okay?”
“Eeyup,” Big Macintosh mumbled, his words barely a whisper.
He thought Caramel asked him something, but he was fading. He wanted to dream again. Something happy. Something less scary. Something that involved Caramel in a better light. He thought that he never wanted to wake up without Caramel by his side, so he wanted to dream of that. He wanted to dream of opening his eyes and seeing his lover with wrinkles on his face in a bed so worn by two bodies over the years, and he wanted it to be Caramel. He wanted to kiss him with just as much love as he did today.
He wanted…
He wanted…
He never wanted to wake up without Caramel again.
That’s when sleep overtook him, yet that thought continued to linger.
Big Macintosh didn't often remember his dreams, but he remembered the feelings that they provided. Right now, he was feeling something beyond loss and beyond even love. It was a feeling he couldn't describe with words or actions or anything known to ponies. It was a feeling that he had to let exist without definition for now, because it was all feelings in one. A desire for it, really, to know that feeling and experience it and breathe it and taste it and feel it on his skin and everything imaginable. Maybe it was something he couldn't feel alone, and needed the company of another to fully enjoy.
When he awoke in the morning, he wouldn't remember the dreams. But he would remember how he felt holding Caramel close to him, and never wanting to let go.