Meadow

Days into weeks, weeks into months- was it truly spring already..? The cold had not yet let go, and though it was miserable on his lean-turned-leaner body and made all his bones ache, he clung to that final feeling of winter, because once it was gone he felt that it would be some irrevocable sign that Cullen had cut him loose, and it terrified him. Adrift in the Crossing like a sailboat without a crew, he simply wandered. It was a life not dissimilar to the one he’d had before coming to the islands, and yet something fundamental had changed. He told himself it was lack of sleep- he was still sleeping as rarely as his body would allow him, and he told himself this was to keep from being startled awake by Cullen’s teeth and hooves... But as time dragged on and the world around him continued to be quietly peaceful, it became harder and harder to ignore that it was the dreams he was avoiding most.

And it wasn’t only Cullen and sleep he was avoiding. He found himself ducking quietly away every time he heard voices or saw shadows moving in the distance, though he couldn’t have explained why. The continued isolation wasn’t helping his already fuzzy sense of reality, and perhaps it made it worse when he dreamt of figures approaching him, no longer remembering the rules for each of them when they confronted him. But perhaps it also helped distort the way time passed, so that when Cullen appeared to him there was always the wholehearted belief that it might really be him, and Varanduil knew the shapes of his body and the feel of his teeth and the texture of his golden flesh so intimately that even the silver flash in his maddening blue eyes was perfect, every time. This Cullen had not let him go, and whether he came in violence or accusation or, sometimes, occasionally, brutally, with that long-gone honey-slow affectionate patience, his presence was a refreshing terror and a lingering hot shiver in his bones each time he awoke from him. It was a comfort.

-But Cullen was not all he dreamed of. Not by half.

So, when his brother’s sweet voice brushed that tender nickname against him, Varanduil was not surprised to see him, only surprised that he’d dozed off. -And then, when he turned to him, stunned that he was smiling. Fearghas never smiled in his dreams, no matter what he’d done to try to coax one from him. It took him far too long to realize that this was because he’d never seen Fearghas smile- not happily- and didn’t know what it would look like. He’d given up trying, after that. That this... Facsimile was doing it now twisted something sharp and bitter into his guts, as if his subconscious had suddenly given up on ever seeing the real thing and invented one for him. The dream thudded right up to him, backlit by a hazy halo of spring sunlight, his body steaming until it glowed with it, and Varanduil laughed thinly, proud and resentful all at once. This Fearghas was too lighthearted- another clumsy stroke, because Varanduil had never seen him be that, either- striding right up to bump against him as if asking to play.

Varanduil briefly considered trying, but the reality was that he didn’t know how to play any game someone like Fearghas might enjoy- he knew how to accept blows, and he knew how to desperately scrabble against someone with the intent to live, and there was no lighthearted roughhousing in between for him- so he decided not to waste this strangely gentle dream on the pointless attempt. A practice fight with the real one had been awkward enough- he, as always, more eager to watch his partner’s reactions, knowing he wouldn’t win even if he tried, and Fearghas... Varanduil had the uncomfortable suspicion that Fearghas had been going easy on him, and it had made him not only uninterested in hurting him, but actively afraid of it. Fearghas’ victory had been assured before it had started, but Varanduil’s horrible revelation had dragged it clumsily out much longer than necessary.

The sound of the dream Fearghas’ soft exhale by his head dragged Varanduil’s hazy mind from the memory, and he noticed suddenly just how large he was. Too large, towering over his older brother, and Varanduil knew viscerally that this was wrong because Fearghas had been Cullen’s height, if far from his build, and Varanduil knew Cullen’s body better than his own. Where Varanduil had grown thin in these anxious, self-isolating months, this dream had become larger than life. ...Was it some subconscious wish for his sweet, soft, tender brother to grow untouchable, so he wouldn’t have to worry? Big and strong enough to make his enemies hesitate- he laughed again, humourless. Cullen never hesitated. This powerful, filled out figure of his brother was no safer from him.

He found himself staring at Fearghas’ muscled withers, close enough to touch, high enough that he’d have to stretch to reach their apex. The speckles and streaks of white ghosting down from them made him wonder how many of them he’d reconstructed from memory and how many were fakes. He recognized one, near the dimple of his muscled crest, and craned to touch it wistfully. Strangely warm, and he’d never been warm before. Perhaps, even in spring, Varanduil should be concerned about freezing to death in his sleep. Perhaps it was a sign he should try to wake. ...He even smelled nostalgically similar to memory.

“How are you, truly?”

The playful lightness had vanished, and Varanduil swung his head swiftly around to study the dream’s face- this was an expression he was more familiar with; this soft, careful look grazing pity was one he rarely saw in the dreams but remembered with vivid nervousness from the Savanna. Though the fake smile had made his veins tighten with some unpleasant, bitter feeling, because it was fake, he suddenly missed it in the face of this blatant care, and he reached out- reached up- and caught wet tendrils of Fearghas’ dark forelock between his teeth, tugging gently. Tasted of sea salt. What a strange detail to add. He could almost admire himself for it.

“Don’t make that face,” he ordered quietly, letting go the leash to shift closer alongside him, until he could rest his chin- with a little resentful awkwardness- across his tall back. Warm. Warm and damp, and he could feel a pulse under his fur. Unfair, he thought, that he could feel so bone-deep tired even as he was sleeping. Maybe this, then, wasn’t sleep trying to pull him under, but death. A gentler way to die than he had ever expected for himself, resting against sweet, concerned Fearghas. Perhaps that was why the dream was so uncharacteristically kind to him this time. A final mercy.

-But no, he still had the real Fearghas to- to what? Protect? He scoffed into the dream’s spine. But even if he was near to useless, he did have Fearghas to protect. And if he failed him, he didn’t want it to be in this pathetic way.

“...I don’t want to talk about me. I’m tired of myself. Tired of- just tired,” he admitted quietly, though was it really an admission, in a dream? “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong, little brother,” he urged softly, dredging himself from the sleepy warm haze of the fake Fearghas’ comforting body to tap his nose against his muscled shoulder in a clumsy facsimile of the playful nudge he’d received. “I’ll try to fix it for you.”