In Your Dreams

Fai was having a nightmare. A seriously frightening nightmare. A nightmare so terrifyingly horrific that it made the fears of the real life seem almost welcoming. And Fai had most likely experienced every fear there was in real life—from fear of starvation to fear of death to fear of never being loved.

But this nightmare topped it off.

And the scariest part was that unlike most nightmares—which came in gruesome packages with fangs and green slime and claws and voices that caused shivers to go up and down your spine—this nightmare had a deceiving appearance. Because this nightmare had abs as tight as a clothesline, flawless tan skin than rippled over them, hair as inky as the night sky, and eyes redder than blood. But it did have a voice that made shivers go up and down Fai's spine—just not in a bad way.

This nightmare—this terrifyingly horrific nightmare—seemed to suddenly be appearing everywhere Fai went, everywhere he looked, and everywhere he was. It seemed to be following him around every single place imagined. Wherever Fai was, so was his nightmare.

And instead of normal nightmares—which just instigated fear—this nightmare dissected Fai's fears, and seemed to be custom-made just for him. Just to make Fai's every moment…well…nightmarish.

Even worse, now this nightmare talked back to Fai—this nightmare talked to Fai even when Fai didn't talk first. And no matter how hard Fai tried to ignore the nightmare and drive it off with happy faces and smiles, it just kept coming back—like some sort of boomerang.

Fai had tried falling asleep and luring the nightmare into a false sense of security. He'd tried annoying the nightmare. He'd even tried slapping himself awake. But no matter what he did, what methods he tried, he couldn't get himself to wake up from the nightmare.

He'd fallen in so deep and gotten so involved into it that he was actually starting to…like the nightmare. It was starting to seem…not all that scary. In fact…Fai would even go so far as to say that the nightmare was just a simple dream now.

But Fai had long ago learned that wonderful, magical, spectacular dreams were just as bad as the terrifying nightmares that made him scream when he woke up—if not worse than them. Because, you see, if a dream was so beautiful and real and it was everything you wished for, wouldn't it hurt you more when you woke up and found that it was just a dream? Wouldn't it hurt so much less—or even make things better—if you dreamed of something worse than reality?

And even knowing this, Fai still wanted the dream to continue—he never wanted it to end. He just kept falling deeper and deeper into his dream world and he never wanted to stop. His dream comforted him when he was sad. It put up with him when he was faking smiles. And even though it was a little rough—or a lot rough—when Fai was being an idiot, Fai secretly suspected that the dream thought the idiocy was just endearing…if not irritating.

In his dream, Fai was able to have the things he hadn't had since he was with Ashura—kisses and laughs and flirting and embraces and sex and words (even if not as pretty as the ones Ashura spun) and heat and gazes. Fai knew that as all dreams did, this one would have to end. Even though all of this, Fai remained very aware that he was dreaming.

But even when it felt so real…if this was still really a dream…

Then Fai never wanted to wake up.