Disclaimer: On my own, pretending he's beside me. All alone, I walk with him till morning...
A/N: *laughing* Actually, I should change that to claimer. The song ain't mine, it's from Les Mis, but that's not the point. Anyhoo, yeah. I love that song. And I'm really finding that I have more interest in this story than I first thought. Anyhoo, do me a favor and review. On with BD: Between Dreams (or Bedtime Drama, if you will, heh).
Between Dreams
chapter 4
He arched his back, curling his shoulderblades toward the ground as his shoulders and hips supported him.
He had fallen asleep on the roof again.
His eyelids twitched, and then one eye opened, followed by the other. Dawn was just starting to stretch her pink and yellow fingers across city and surrounding forests, the deep purples of night retreating to the west.
Why was he so tired? He had slept straight through the night, slipping into dreamland before the moons had even begun to grow radiant with the magic of midnight. His body felt as if he had slept standing up, his mind felt as if it hadn't stopped at all. And yet, he had never felt so rested in all of his life...crazy how that worked.
How did it work? That dream about Hitomi, it hadn't...
Van blinked, then subsided back onto the shingles, relaxing his muscles and cupping the back of his head in his hands. Had that really been a dream? She'd seemed so real...her voice had been so clear and so animated, he could swear he felt her when she had verged hysteria before leaning into his arms. He had smelt her, that clean scent of...what were those flowers called? Allen had once told him their name meant one who cannot be forgotten...
And then there was the fact that they had reached the world between dreams, the one spoken of in stories and hushed whispers...
Was that it? Had the dream not been a dream at all? Had, because they had slipped past the world of dreams to a world between them, had they really been awake in some sense all night? But then...
Van shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. It had been a long time since his mother had told him those stories. Folken had merely laughed them off, always saying that he would never meet anybody from the Mystic Moon, and had often spent those times studying, his eyes watching Van almost knowingly from across the room.
His missed his brother and mother dearly, his father too. He also missed Hitomi.
With a sigh, he smiled and stooped, picking up his sword from where it had lain next to him, before he walked to the edge of the roof and grabbed the edge, swinging down onto his balcony. Falling gracefully and landing on both feet, knees bent and one hand on the ground before him steadying himself, he straightened and moved quietly into the room, ready to bathe, dress, and start the day.
For a wonderful and yet terrifying moment, she thought she was still with him, that the light hadn't claimed them both, that they had been left there on that world between dreams.
She breathed deeply, feathers, field, and summer invading her senses, but when she opened her eyes, she was back in her room, her door across from her, her window at her back. She leaned back, peering over her shoulder, for half a second thinking she'd find him there.
Finding no one, she rolled onto her back and gazed out the window.
Sighing deeply, Hitomi turned back onto her side and buried her nose into her pillow, where the smell radiated from. She smiled to herself.
"I guess that dream really got to me," she laughed quietly before pushing back her covers and setting her feet on the floor.
She froze and looked down.
She was still wearing her sneakers, that didn't surprise her...more often than not, she crashed before grasping the mindset of PAJAMAS. But still...
They were tinged greenish-yellow, the laces wet and the soles slick, as if she'd been running through tall field grass all night. Slightly confused, she raised a hand to her head to scratch at her temple, only to find the source of the itch.
Almost stalky...she grasped the thin object caught in her hair and pulled it away, her eyes widening as a blade of field grass came into her line of vision.
She blinked, stood, and immediately had to sit down, a wave of dizziness flooding over her. She blinked again, then laughed and flopped back into her bed, arms spread to her sides, head hanging off the edge to look out at the warm tendrils of pink sunlight spilling through the window onto her ceiling.
She should have known...only visions had ever left her so refreshed and so exhausted at the same time. Her dream of Van--or rather, with Van--hadn't been a dream at all; it might as well have been a vision. She had had that feeling all night; that it wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't have sensations or feelings, but visions did.
Arching her shoulderblades, she rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself to her feet.
Despite the dream, the vision, today was no different than any other.
Except that, for the first time in a long time, she was up early enough to race dawn.
A/N: So there ya go. Review with anything ya gots ta say, critisism, compliments, it's all good, yo.
-Belle
www.angelfire.com/anime4/angelica