Title:
Nightmares
Author: Danielle
Rating: G
Pairing:
Dustfinger/Farid (mild and innocent)
Summary: Farid always woke
Dustfinger from his nightmares. Adn then they talked.
Notes: This
was written at work in under half an hour and then posted directly.
But the world needs more Dustfinger/Farid!
When the nightmares came to Dustfinger, it was Farid who woke him. The dark-skinned teen would shake him awake from the depths of what he could imagine. Sometomes he would yell, he knew, yell from his sleep and jerk himself awake. But the more often Farid woke him, the less Dustfinger woke himself. But he would wake easily at the touch to his shoulder of warm fingers and then the worried dark eyes that greeted him when he blinked out of the darkness of his dreams.
"You were having another nightmare," Farid would whisper. The ghosts were always listening and he didn't want to give them fodder with which to weaken Dustfinger. It was bad enough that they floated there, just beyond sight. And then he would turn, shifting position so his back was pressed up to Dustfinger's chest and he would grab the book of matches that he'd been playing with while the other slept.
The disapproving look Dustfinger sent the back of the boy's head had no effect as the fire was lit. But the warmth, the glow of the fire in the night, had a much more pronounced effect on both themn. The crackling, popping language that the fire spoke swept away parts of the nightmares, swept them to the side behind other memories. And Farid could almost, almost, see the ghosts fading away from the brilliant light and heat.
"What are nights like where you come from?" The first question always came from Farid; Dustfinger was lost in nightmares and memories and dreams. A pause would come, silence save the fire, before his head would turn down slightly, forehead resting against the dark hair before it.
And Dustfinger would speak. He described the faeries and the dwarves, the brownies and the trolls, the woodland folk and the river folk, the moon and the star s, the trees and the grass, all the parts that made night in Inkworld. With his lips pressed to the other's head, he would draw a picture of the forests and the meadows, homes and villages and people. The Wayless Woods were not wayless when Dustfinger told of the paths that wove the way through the forest.
Late in the night, when the fire had grown less and even Dustfinger could come up with no more words for the beauty of his land at night, then Farid would speak. With no pretty language, no dream-like quality, he spoke of the desert and the thieves who mastered both it and him. He spoke of the cities with people but he never spoke of the people as more than a simple part of the setting. There was no life in his stories, no spark of adventure, no longing nor joy.
Only ashes would remain by the time they lay together beneath Dustfinger's jacket, Farid's head on the other man's shoulder. The moon was hidden behind the trees when their eyes closed. And when they slept, neither dreamt. Together they slept in a tight embrace, drawn together beneath alien skies.