He dreams of red sometimes.
Often, it's more. Red hair, poison green eyes. Sharp jaw, angles everywhere from nose to pointed elbows. Long, skinny arms that hold too tight, skin hot to the touch. Thin lips that taste like spicy cinnamon when they kiss.
He dreams of fire, too; dancing within a circle of flames, a steel blade in each hand, sweat on his brow. Those thin lips are always grinning when they fight, acid eyes fiercely aglow with challenge, excitement. Heat. It's always heat, when they look at each other, the kind that consumes from the inside out.
He feels listless when they aren't touching, somehow. Empty. Just a faceless person in a crowd of people who are beautiful in their own way, but so, so cold.
When he dreams of them, he wakes up trembling, sure he'll find himself dressed in a long cloak the color of dark, deep shadows, though he never is.
After these dreams, he goes about his day; sees his friends. Laughs. Plays, though it somehow feels like a strange thing to do, to be a kid in a small town with the same three friends he's always had.
He reminds himself that they are just dreams, though the aching pulse in his chest dares to protest each time he watches the sunset on the clock tower, sky-blue ice cream bar in hand.
And he wonders, sometimes - before he begins to dream about a boy with chocolate hair and ocean eyes;, before his world begins to crumble around him - if they were really ever dreams at all.
Because he dreams of red, and his heart beats, and he sighs the name "Axel," into his pillow each time he wakes.
Author's Note;
Title credit goes to the song of the same name written by Jack Lawrence and Sammy Fain for Sleeping Beauty, although I had the Lana Del Rey cover in mind while writing.