He is in the forest, it's raining and the cloak on his back has become so sodden that it feels almost as though weighted with rocks.
A breaking branch so close that he hesitates, turns his head down for what can only be a minute in compulsive need to know, to be sure. Still the monster is there when he again looks up, all scales, hawk gold eyes and endless, endless, smile.
"Why are you running, lad?" The monster enquires, his stolen voice edged in the same sugar all adults try because they believe it makes them seem nice.
A voice that would steal you away in the night if you let it.
Panic now and he tries to run the other way, the sodden ground, the weight of the cloak making it all so very fruitless.
The monster is there again in the rush of a heartbeat, smile dangerous now and moon catching the dagger clenched tight in fingers.
"Are you scared of me lad?" It enquires as it walks towards him, all predator in sure confidence of a kill.
Yet as it comes close enough to smell it is all comfort, safety, and for a moment his heart slows.
"I was only trying to help you, to keep you safe," The monster states as he slips an arm about him in firm, firm, hug. It smiles as he relaxes, all tooth and threat and he knows then, cold and certain, that that shall be his last sight.
The sharp sting of blade and, "But if you can't see that I can't trust you and if I can't trust you then you can't live," as the world focuses in on that smile…
He is all but soaked as he wakes to the sight of Emma's beautiful eyes and the warmth of her hands smoothing gently across his forehead.
"Bad dream?" They've been together for so long now that he knows that's all she wants to know, trusts implicitly that she's not trying to nose her way into things he's no want to talk of.
Still he wishes sometimes that she would, that she would push him into leaching the poison from his soul and that perhaps then, at last, he might be free the nightmares.
She'd think him crazy, of course, likely abandon him in fear of somehow catching that supposed madness and it's why he keeps quiet. Why he simply kisses her hands and responds, "Yeh, but I'm all right now." Because loosing her is fast claiming monopoly over his darker dreams, wiping away the memory of the monster with his father's face that'd haunted him even Before.
In an odd way he's glad for the fact because at least now he can cling to Emma and prove it all simply dream where as Before…Before it'd been so very, very, true.
But it also means he's let her so much closer than he'd intended, closer than was likely sane or safe for the either of them and that he's so very, very, afraid that these new nightmares shall also become reality.
A thought that has his very soul frozen and, instinctively, he pulls her that little bit closer. She's suspicious, of course, but sleepy enough that she still doesn't question, that she'll likely have written this all off as dream by the morning. Which makes him brave, has him telling her that he loves her the very first time, which gains him the reward of one of her smiles and, "love you too," before she's gone completely.