This story was originally uploaded under another account. Silly me, but I forgot about it and signed up for another account, under which I uploaded other stories. So now I'm making a half-hearted attempt to get everything collected under one account (even though both accounts have the same pen name *sigh*). Please bear with my flailing about while I sort myself out. Thanks.
Btw, now that I'm actually taking active interest in writing again, a *HUGE THANK YOU* to all those who have given reviews! Yes, I did read all of them though I dropped out of sight for months and months and months, and if anyone can tell me if it's at all possible to move a story from one account to another without losing the reviews (if worst comes to worst, I'll stick something in myself to give credit to all who dropped a line on the review page), I'll be ever so grateful.
This, if I remember correctly, had been written in response to...to...something concerning that Robin Williams film "What Dreams Are"...something. Bah. As you can see, my memory hasn't improved over time. Anyway, there was some sort of challenge, blah blah blah...and this fic then sprang full-grown from Medusa's head. Or something like that.
"What Dreams Are Made Of"Disclaimers: These characters aren't mine, but I take full responsibilities for their actions.
The scent of a rose woke her.
That, and the teasing breath of air from an open window, brushing the tips of velvet petals across her cheek, like half-remembered kisses. She breathed deeply, letting the fragrance fill her mind, before reaching out and stroking the half-open bud.
She could envision it in her mind, without ever opening her eyes. The central petals would wrap around each other in a tight swirl, just so, with the faintest hint of powder saffron nestled in their tight embrace. Then a larger blade, the same carmine red of heart's blood, would hover over like a mother hen, spreading her wings over her smaller chicks. Others would huddle under its shadow, slowly growing bolder as they reach the outer circles, and there would be one, darker than the rest, smaller, that would jut boldly out from its brethren, heedless of the flower's symmetry. Different, yet unrepentant; instead, reveling in its uniqueness. Besides its hue and stature, it would be perfect, its edges unruffled, a dimple gently indenting its base into a shallow bowl, where the faintest streak of yellow ran down its center to spread a fine net of golden veins.
Finally, she opened her eyes to discover the rose exactly as she had imagined it, and she smiled.
Without thinking, she swept her legs over the side of the bed and pushed her feet into a pair of slippers. She didn't need to see the orange-billed yellow faces now encompassing her toes to find a giggle bubbling inside her. Raising her hand, she discovered the rose within her hold, stolen from its previous home upon her pillow, and unthinkingly brushed it across her jaw, closing her eyes once again at the heady perfume and sensuous touch. There were no thorns to prick her thumb.
She found herself in the hallway, dressed in her usual green-yellow outfit and kid gloves, without remembering having changed or even if she'd closed the door to her room. It didn't matter. They were daily, mundane necessities that she went through by rote, to be completed and then forgotten. The rose was still within her grasp. She could still feel the smooth, woody stem on her fingertips, the tickle of the petioles as they nipped playfully at her cheek.
In the kitchen, she found the long dining table replaced by a tiny patio set; a square that had barely enough space for two plates, really. And a vase. The familiar crystalline vessel stood half-filled with water, on the exact center of the yellow-checkered table-cloth, waiting.
She inserted the only thing that would make the picture complete, and when its few leaves fell into the flawless pattern of their own accord, she stepped back, and felt a contentment steal over her such as she had never felt before.
This was peace. This was what she had been searching for all her life, and she had finally found it. And in its finding, it was like all that had happened before became no more substantial than the motes that danced and drifted in the morning sun's light, to be swept away by the lightest breath. All the pain, the struggles, faded to curls of smoke and perhaps a smudge of charcoal, their presence noted but no more to be agonized over as if a wave of the hand and a determined rubbing wouldn't make them fade and disappear. It was nearly perfect.
And when the door opened, to admit a man, the moment was complete. Breaking into a brilliant smile to match the one she was given, Rogue opened her arms and called, "Remy!"
They broke fast upon the patio set, staring into each other's eyes over the rose that had delivered his kiss to her. As usual, she didn't recall how hungry she was until she started eating, and after she was done, didn't remember what she had eaten except that it had been wonderful, just like all the breakfasts before. They finished at the same time, and left the plates where they were, as he rose with the liquid grace she loved to watch and held out a hand to her in a gesture she loved to receive.
He led her out of the kitchen and through the mansion, taking a route she was well acquainted with but had managed to forget for the moment. He whispered sweetly in her ear, endearments in two languages, and she laughed as she pushed his head away, her eyes catching on a particular painting as she turned her face away. They were past it, almost before she'd even registered its presence, but somehow she could see each blade of leaf upon the trees, each spot of gold upon the grass, each glance of sunlight from the rills of water dancing over stream-smoothed pebbles. Distantly, she wondered at the detail she could recall, and curious, turned her head to see if she was right, or had only remembered a dream.
"Now, mon cherie," his voice pulled her back, his cheeky grin and fire-ember eyes completing the spell. "Don' turn away."
Giggling, she tapped his nose with one gloved finger. "Nevuh."
They wiled away the morning hours with talk, about everything and anything and nothing that she could remember. They ran their toes through the morning dew that still remained in the shadow of the mansion, and shivered at the cold and the feel of grass on bare feet. They cleaned loose blades off each other, making a game of peeling them off without ever making contact, and her attention was caught by a particular curl of his forelock that bisected one eyebrow. She stared, fascinated, enchanted by its fall and angle, yet perversely irritated by it as well. Thought stirred, sluggishly, and the barest frown began to mar her forehead as she wondered why she only thought of brushing the lock back, and did not act upon it.
It was forgotten though, when he suddenly rose in one languid movement, and before his eyes even gleamed with the intent, she knew what he was about to do. Yet she didn't move, let him take a step nearer while turning half around, pretending disinterest when he was all but crouched and ready…ready to pounce, which he did, and she pretended to be surprised as his nimble thief's fingers found all her ticklish places with the accuracy of long practice. She fled, and he followed, and the chase led them through gold-dappled shade, and they kicked through drifts of scarlet leaves, red and brown and bright yellow rising with their legs and arms to settle once more in blankets like piles of oft-patched quilts. Collapsing, they lay side by side, their heads closer than the rest of their bodies, and stared up through canopies of delicate maple leaves, nearly translucent with the noonday sun above, bright green with health and life.
"Why ah the leaves green?" she asked, the question rising from her lips before reaching her mind.
"'Cuz it's spring, chere."
The peace stole over her again, a picture moment, when the feelings in one bright flash of time seeps into every cell and particle of the scene and solidifies, like amber, capturing them forever in the scene, never to be reviewed but to recall the people and the plants and everything else as they were, just at that moment. Yet as she turned the hardened resin in the light, she thought she could detect the faintest flaw in its depths, an impurity so slight it might have been the imagination. One that she might have ignored, discounted, explained away, except that it existed at the very heart, rested within the deepest root.
"Why ah the trees green, and the leaves weah lyin' on red?"
"'Cuz it's what you wan', chere."
She blinked, slowly, and in that space, a leaf fell from a branch and nearly reached the ground, the color of dried blood when it finally stilled.
"What ah want?"
"Oui. If it make you happy, if it's what you wan'…den it be."
"But—"
He rolled over, his face hovering over hers. "Shhh, you be a very special girl, non? You deserve t' be treated special."
She smiled, and allowed herself to be pulled up, the leaves picked out of her hair, and led to the lake.
They swam, until their teeth chattered and their lips turned blue. They dried themselves on the heat of sun-warmed rocks, and the summer breeze. Lunch was eaten in the gazebo, morning glories raising blue-violet trumpets curiously toward them. The pattern of the vines hanging across the trellis and the shape of the gazebo's dome reminded her of a time when she was a little girl, but the memory slipped from her grasp like a silver-finned minnow, just as all things of the past did, good or bad, a school swimming, flashing, just out of reach but forever enticing.
They napped on a divan, wrapped in each other's embrace, and played board games in the dusk. They had a candle-lit dinner, in which the rose, now tightly shut in a bud just born, shed only the faintest hint of scent, a shadow in a dream, an outline wavering at the edges of the candles' glow.
After dinner, where they left the candles burning and the utensils where they'd set them, they climbed atop the highest hill on the estate and lay back, watching the stars twinkle, brighter and more numerous than she would have believed possible if she didn't already hold the night sky's image in her mind.
Her brow crinkled as her mind, slow and belligerent, began to mull over the paradox.
"Look, chere. A shooting star." A black gloved hand, with some of the fingers bare, pointed toward the upper right corner of her vision and she gazed up, distracted and irritated.
"What?"
"Aren' you goin' t' make a wish?" His breath tickled the sensitive skin behind her ear, and she could clearly feel the heat that radiated from him where she leaned against his shoulder.
"Ah didn't see it. If ah make a wish, it doesn't count, 'cause ah wasn't the one t' see it."
"Den you'll jus' have t' catch the next one, non?"
"How do y'know theah's gonna be anothuh one?" Her eyes automatically sought out one particular point in the sky, just off a bend in the Milky Way.
"'Cuz you wan' t' make your wish."
She saw it. A brief stitch of light, right where she was staring at. Her mind stilled, but didn't descend into the tranquility of before.
"Now what's your wish?"
"Ah don't need t' make one," she said, voice barely more than a whisper, her mind elsewhere since she knew what she was about to say, didn't need to think of the words that fell from her lips as if by long habit. "Ah already have all ah could evuh want."
"Are you sure?"
She shivered, though she wasn't cold, and against her will, her eyes roved to another point in the sky. And even as she shifted in his arms, there was another bright dash of light, a star skipping across the vast, waveless surface of the sky's expanse. "Ah want t' touch you."
"You can'."
"Why not?" she asked, her breath freezing in her lungs, feeling trapped though his arms had not tightened and she knew she could be free of them if she wanted to. If she wanted. Why would she want to slip from their hold? Her heart hammered in her chest, and for a moment, it seemed like she was more aware of her body and its senses than she had ever been since she woke that morning. "Why not! Ah want t' touch you!"
"You can' have what you can' imagine, cherie."
All her muscles locked, holding her still, in a pale mockery of the peace she had grasped so easily before. "What ah you talkin' about? Ah want t' touch you! You said it was spring, and that the leaves had fallen, and the stahs dropped outta the skah, all 'cause ah wanted them to! Ah want t' touch you!"
"You can' have what you can' imagine, cherie."
And she'd never known what his touch was like, didn't even remember what it was like to feel skin against skin that wasn't her own.
Anger shook her. How dare he do this to her? All she wanted was peace, to love and be loved, to be happy…
"An' you were never happy, were you chere?"
She reared back as if struck. "What! Ah was happy! Ah was happy, today ah was happy!"
He stared solemnly at her, his eyes ember bright, the lock of hair dipping over his brow. "Were you happy today, chere?"
No, no, she hadn't been happy. She'd been content, at peace, loved and been loved. But not…
Why?
"You," she finally gasped, backing away. "You. Why don't you touch me?"
He stood before her, a tall, lithe shadow, beautiful and unreachable, cold and all that she had ever desired. "Remy never knew his lady love's touch. He can' give what he can' imagine."
That phrase again. That hated phrase. She clapped her hands over her ears, but she could still hear. Hear what she didn't want to hear, and heard all that was missing. The birds, the wind, the waves, the sound of other people, the sound of life and lives around them…
You can' have what you can' imagine.
Ah want t' be happy!
…can' have…
Ah'm happy! Ah should be happy! Ah
deserve t' be happy!…can' imagine…
…can' imagine it…
Yes ah can. Ah can imagine what it's like. Ah can imagine what happiness is like, what his touch is like…all ah have t' do is try a little harder…
The scent of a rose woke her.
That, and the teasing breath of air from an open window, brushing the tips of velvet petals across her cheek, like half-remembered kisses. She breathed deeply, letting the fragrance fill her mind, before reaching out and stroking the half-open bud.
She could envision it in her mind, without ever opening her eyes…