The thoughts had been digging at him even before they'd left New York. Some nights he would look at Asterion now and see the similarities - something about the curve of his lower lip and color of his eyes in the right sort of light. They were tricks, he knew. Just like he knew that they wouldn't really be as fond of each other if they met as he sometimes thought they'd be. They were so different - but now he couldn't think of her without thinking of him.
Because he loved him. He knew that was the reason even if, as a reason, it fell flat - felt as if it needed to be proven, somehow, or tested. Like it was a trick his heart was trying to play on the rest of him. Her loss had left an empty ache inside of him that ached, still, but Asterion... he had filled up another place in his heart that Orpheus must have hollowed out over the ages, to leave him room.
He didn't understand it, and since they'd been on the road, he hadn't tried to. They were ignoring everything else that threatened to eat them alive, in some cases literally, so why not ignore the ironic, too? The impossible? Save that his mind wouldn't let him ignore it, and it had been a perfect night... later, he could say that his subconscious must have thought it too perfect, because even if he hadn't dreamed of her in months - had it really been months, plural? - when he fell asleep in his lover's arms, he ended up in hers.
Hers were much less forgiving. They were around him, clinging and steely, and in his sleep Orpheus tossed just barely as he freed himself.