Miguel, his papa, would tell him stories of the buried kingdom when he were a babe. These stories were often in such vivid detail that Frankie had no difficulty imagining himself there, be it in his dreams while he slept or early in the morning fighting off treents - his mama's legs - with the driftwood greatsword he'd found by the creek. It came as no surprise when he told his parents, on the eve of his tenth birthday, that he felt the unmistakeable pull of the dungeons.

Their family grotto is decorated generously with decades of the kingdom's spoils, lifted by Miguel's expertise. His mama, Luisa, had adventured into the kingdom herself once or twice until she fell pregnant with her twins, her days of dungeon diving cut short in favor of taking care of her kids. As much as she'd prefer neither of them submit to the will of the kingdom, she is silently grateful only one of them feels the need to leave home; Abigail, her second, stays behind, void of the call.

But there's something else that pulls him here, too.

There's something awfully familiar about Tommy that he can't quite place. He reminds Frankie of the dark figure that used to invade his dreams every night; they were always in some chamber of the dungeons when they meet each other but it's as if they've known each other forever, eager to say hello when they catch each other on opposite sides of a deep chasm and sad to say goodbye to one another when Frankie inevitably wakes up in the morning.

Sometimes they meet on the bank of the creek that twists its way through the family grotto, where they share a veritable feast of sweet herb and fresh fruit until the sun sets behind the valley. They're lovers in these dreams; they spend their days chasing each other through the wheat fields, carefree and easy now that they don't carry the burden of the kingdom on their minds, or harvesting vegetables from a tiny garden Frankie's cultivated along the banks of the creek. Sometimes, there is a small bronze babe that blinks bleary eyes up at them from the cradle of their shared embrace.

"I dream about you sometimes," Frankie says, his tone hushed so Logue, sleeping on the other side of the hearth, doesn't hear him.

"Okay," Tommy says, unwilling to entertain the conversation.

"Will the two of you quiet down?" Logue grouses across from them. "I'm trying to sleep."

Frankie withers under Logue's scrutinizing stare then casts Tommy a sidelong look, finding him already looking back with something unmistakeably tender in his eyes. Frankie grins at him; he'll just have to pretend he doesn't see the slight smile he gets in return before the two of them look away from each other in favor of their respective midnight snacks.