It is so easy to think that this is a dream that he could live in forever. To pretend. It is so easy to be the boy that she thinks that he is—to not think about the blood staining him, the memories that to this day come crawling back to him piece by piece. It is so easy to think that he can live here with her and the impossible things that she brings into being and they can be so happy under these stars she paints.
It is dangerous how easy it is.
But she looks so delighted to see him that he can’t stop himself from pretending. She falls against his chest and he gladly holds her there, tucking her in close. He reaches down to brush a gentle kiss against the slope of her shoulder, smiling into the spotted skin. “I wouldn’t stay away,” he murmurs, not telling her that it was harder to dream for so long. That he rarely needs to sleepy anymore. That it was easier to find it but harder to reach it—a logical twist that he has not yet unpacked.
She pulls away though and he doesn’t force her to stay. He just relaxes this body made of dreams, cocking a back leg and angling his head. His smile is slow and knowing, a little arrogant in the corners of his mouth. “You think so?” he asks, glancing down at his molten gold body—but he knows that he is. Of all the things that he has doubted and been unsure of, he has never doubted that he was attractive.
That he was pleasant to look at.
But it means more coming from her.
He laughs then, soft and assured, as he studies her unabashedly. She has grown in this dream world and he wonders what that means—how time must pass for her here. Were she real, would she come into his world fully formed? Would it be as if she was always there? He hates the part of him that wonders. That dreams such impossible things. That longs for it. “I have been…” his voice trails off and a frown made up of all of the realities of the world crosses his features before he chases it away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Another quirk of his lips as he falls back into this world of pretend.
“I’m here now.”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas
all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
@iridian