Sharing Nightmares

S.S. Long || Beneath the Tracks

Beneath the Tracks by S-S-Long

"What are you looking at out there that's so fascinating, Ben?" I asked, as I padded through from the bathroom into the living room. "You were standing there when I went to take my shower."

I'd returned to the flat I shared with my partner half an hour earlier, after finishing my shift at the bakery nearby; I'd been covered with sugar, with flour and with sweat as the bakery's kitchen had been as hot and as messy as it ever was, despite the October chill that was draped across London streets. That day's orders were filled with pumpkin pies, with sticky toffee apples, and a hundredweight of gingerbread men in various Halloween disguises. My personal favourite had been the spicy biscuits iced like Dracula. Whilst normally I enjoyed Halloween at the bakery, I was forever glad when it was over for the year, and things quietened down until Christmas rolled around. If Halloween was busy, then Christmas was even worse.

My partner, Ben, had been seemingly engrossed in watching something unknown outside, when I'd entered the flat, barely aware of my roared greeting somewhere in the vicinity of his ear. He'd nodded, smiled, accepted my kiss, then complained of my sticky body and gingerbread pumpkin flavoured sweat. I'd immediately taken the mumbled, distracted hint and taken a shower, despite being curious as to what he'd been watching; his playful shove in the vicinity of my icing smeared, t-shirt covered belly was further incentive to move.

From outside came the first delighted screams of Trick-Or-Treaters as they wound through the streets in a colourful cavalcade of costumes, each small head covered in a myriad of hats - witch-demon-pirate-fairy godmother. I even saw someone dressed as a brown monkey, which I didn't understand. As far as I knew, monkeys weren't scary, nor were they typically associated with Halloween.

"There's a hole beneath the train tracks, again," Ben finally replied, as he cast an amused glance over his shoulder at me.

"Again? Isn't that the second hole they've found this month?" I asked, as I padded closer to him, to rest my hands upon his hips, and my chin upon his shoulder, before I joined him in staring out of the window.

As Ben had said, many of the National Railway men associated wuth station and railway alike were milling around, either staring down at the hole itself or seemingly flapping around, not doing an awful lot of anything.

"Hmm-hmm, it is," Ben said, as he nodded and turned his attentions back to the tracks outside. "I think there's definitely a problem there. Anyway, Dylan, we'd best get away from the window, otherwise they'll notice that we're nosing."

"Says the man who's been staring out at them for half an hour," I teased, as I pinched and twisted at the flesh of his slightly chubby hip playfully. "Come on, what do you say to a bite to eat and a cup of coffee?

I'm fair starved."

"I don't know how the hell you can look at food all day and still remain hungry," Ben said, as he shook his head in amused amazement at me.

I merely grinned, in return and shrugged, even as I led him into the kitchen by the hand; I pressed him down to sit at the table gently. Ben sighed and relaxed, content to let me do the cooking as usual; my partner was absolutely hopeless at the pursuit and was the type of man talented enough to be able to burn water. Even his toast turned out inexplicably soggy after he'd simply popped the bread in the toaster. I guessed that that was why I was the baker of the partnership and he wasn't; cooking and Ben Reagan did not mix.

I whipped together his favourite snack of French toast, complete with a typically seasonal pumpkin spice coating and a glass of freshly pulped apple juice to wash it down with. Ben grinned greedily when I slid his treat before him, and began to wolf it down, even before I'd taken my own place at the table. I tutted, and shook my head at him, yet predictably, he took no notice of me. Instead, he continued eating.