A/N- Wow, have I been gone for a while or what? More than two months, yeesh... I tell ya, it was like a creative desert over here. Nothin' was happenin'. Nothin'. ...But I'm back! With more PH angsty-fluff, no less! No one's surprised, right? Anyway, I had the initial idea for this ficlet months and months ago, but never got real inspired to write it until...uh...about two hours ago... So, yeah. It's short, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! -OA
Nightmares
By ObsessedAuthoress
Disclaimer: I do not own Pandora Hearts. Nor do I own the quote in the summary; it belongs to Monsieur Shakespeare, from his play Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3, in case anyone wondered).
Dusk descends, the silver-purple of twilight falling over the land. A crescent moon rises in the sky, its pearlescent glow bright against a backdrop of black velvet. The soft murmurs of nighttime creatures sound in the far reaches of one's hearing, faint as the bubbling of a small brook.
Night: so calm and peaceful. So beautiful.
…Deceptively so. The naïve may think it gives way to a world of happy dreams, wants and desires paraded cheerfully before the slumbering mind's eye (that's why they're naïve, after all), but the truth should bring a shiver of trepidation.
For the realm of Night can be a terrifying place.
Within its borders another dimension comes to life; demons walk unimpeded, mankind's greatest dreads are given shape and form, fears deeply buried are dragged, kicking and shrieking, into the harsh light of realization.
Oz knows this quite well.
The Dream-giver has never been kind to him. As a child, it was visions of ghosts and monsters hiding under the bed, or the persistently reoccurring one where he was running after a tall figure that remained always just out of reach ("Otou-san…!"). Now, years later, with his life having been turned upside down and shaken violently several times, well…there's just so much more horror to work with.
Sometimes Oz dreams about the Will of the Abyss, hovering over him and wearing Alice's body, with her hands wrapped around his throat. He feels the fingers tighten with unholy strength, crushing every last trace of air from his lungs; the strength drains from his limbs, stilling his struggles for freedom. He can only lie there beneath her, staring up at that malicious grin stretched across a parody of Alice's face.
Sometimes she appears as herself (or another one of her selves), a grotesque caricature of a stuffed rabbit, ears flopping as she tilts her head mockingly, blood dripping in fat scarlet beads from those awful black circles that stand for eyes. He can't decide which version he hates more; it's horrible to be strangled by "Alice", but there's something deep inside him (perhaps a piece of his childhood left over) that abhors the mutilated toy with its bleeding eyes and taunting smile.
(Yes, the one thing that's always the same: that hideous smile…)
In the end, though, it doesn't really matter which one he despises more.
He wakes up screaming either way.
(And there are others, many others. Alice, Gil, Break, Sharon, Ada, Eliot, all crumpled on the floor around him, their blood seeping over the carpet to stain his shoes. Or the seal on his chest completing its deadly rotation and summoning forth roiling darkness to suck him down, down, down, into the Abyss, where there are none to greet him save that white rabbit again…)
Oz isn't sure if it's because he's so loud when he comes out of the nightmares, or if it's that Gil has some sixth sense to let him know when Oz is going to wake up, but almost every night like this, Gil comes to him. In the beginning, right after Oz and Alice returned from the Abyss, Gil used to knock before he entered his master's chamber in the middle of the night, a perfunctory rap of knuckles against wood before he hurried into the bedroom, force of habit from his days as a servant of the Bezarius household.
Now, he doesn't bother (not that Oz minds), merely opens the door and rushes to Oz's side, gathering the shaking blond into his arms and rocking him gently.
"It's alright," Gil whispers every night. "It's alright, you're safe. No one can harm you here, Oz…"
Oz doesn't believe him, doesn't think that even Gilbert truly believes what he says. Night is not safe, can never be safe. But even so, it's comforting to hear in the wee hours of the morning, when darkness still blankets the sky, and his terror is real and vivid before his eyes. It's comforting to be held in that strong embrace, to be soothed and reassured, to be told that everything will look better once the sun rises.
Which is more or less true. Nothing seems to haunt him so well in the hours of daylight, when hope is free to bloom and there are no midnight apparitions to stifle its growth. Dawn can banish the cruel, grasping claws of Night, unhook its talons from his mind, provide the antidote for its poison.
And when Dawn is too long in coming, Oz keeps Gil in his bed for the rest of Night's duration, curled up stubbornly against the dark-haired young man's tall, slim frame, face pressed to the smooth, warm chest where he can hear a steady heartbeat. It takes some time, but eventually Gil's hands rubbing against his back make the trembling stop, cause his own heart to slow its frantic, hysterical pace. Eyelids droop over glazed emerald, and the young blond falls asleep in Gil's arms.
Dawn might bring an end to Night, but only Gil can keep the nightmares away.
(…Until the next time the white rabbit visits.)
A/N- Seems like these keep getting shorter and shorter...huh. Oh well. Reviews? Reviews? Anyone? Words of love for my poor, dried-up, writer's soul? -sob- Okay, I'm done. Thanks for reading! -OA