"Just because it seems too good to be true doesn't mean it is."
Sleepy, half-lidded eyes flutter open, his lashes easily filtering out morning rays of sunshine from an open window. A faint breeze stirs the pulled curtains and brings along with it the scent of flowers and the gentle tinging of wind chimes.
Aimlessly, his gaze falls to the form face to face with him. He can’t make out much – the sunlight is near blinding – only hair seemed spun of the finest silks, warm, loving eyes, and a soft, contented smile.
He should know this man, his brain concludes very abruptly. He should be able to place his name, why he was beside him, and why his gaze is filled with so much adoration. But no matter how much he combs the recesses of his mind, he can’t put a name to the face. If he weren’t feeling so… at peace with everything, he might even feel a little frustrated.
As it was, though, he just blinks slowly, never breaking eye contact. After some time, he asks sleepily, “Am… I dreaming…?”
The ever familiar stranger just smiles a little more, and threads his slender fingers through Gaius’s outstretched hand, skin feeling warm and soft and utterly smooth to the touch. “Just because it seems too good to be true doesn’t mean it is…”
He leans forward gingerly kisses each of his eyes closed, and Gaius is coaxed easily back into the darkness of slumber.
Bloodshot eyes sprung open, and Gaius sat bolt-upright with a startled gasp, hand clutched to his chest as he looked around in panic. He was in his own place now, on the outskirts of Ylissitol. It’s still night – he could only see by the faint glow of the moon shining outside of his window, as it illuminated his own, dreadfully barren room. He was alone.
He frowned, still trembling slightly as fuzzy details of his dream came back to him like a slow, persistent trickle. Who… was that man? Who was he, and why did he make Gaius feel so… like whatever this weird, brand new emotion felt like? Why did he appear in his dream, and why did his kisses feel how chocolate tasted, and how did he know their hands fit so perfectly, woven together like that, and, gods, why was he crying, of all things???
He forced himself to take a deep breath, blinking away the tears that had somehow found a way to well up and spill over without him really noticing it. And another shaky inhale, and out… He looked down at his hands, still feeling that same confusing fluttering of warmth and aching in his chest. Slowly, hesitantly, he fit his hands together, in the same way the stranger had done in his dream. It… wasn’t the same. Was it possible to even feel a sense of loss for something you’d never had in the first place?
After much deliberation, he squirmed under his blankets and sheets again, still grasping to whatever parts of the dream he could still recall – already he’d forgotten most of the details that made up the stranger’s face. Sunlight. Warmth. The smell of flowers. Spun silk. He thought back to the answer the man in his dream had given him once he asked if he was dreaming – “Just because it seems too good to be true doesn’t mean it is…”
“… I guess it can…” he murmured to no one in particular.
Somehow, he drifted off to sleep again, and when he awoke, the dream in its entirety was forgotten aside from a distant feeling of malaise.
