☮ = waking them up after a nightmare .
send one for my muse’s reaction.
THE AIR IS HEAVY WITH dread; the cold feeling of denial has seeped its way into her bones and wrapped its insidious arms around her limbs, constricting her movements only to small, subtle motions. He’s SCARED, she thinks, and that makes her scared, too. But he’s trying to be brave, so how can she do any less? A decision had been made, a horrible decision, and she had even given a word of support for the idea, not knowing what else to say or how to counter it with anything other than illogical arguments. And the fact that she’d be by his side the entire time is little consolation in the face of what he is about to do. The Chameleon Circuit wraps around his head like macabre sort of crown and he’s about to initiate the process. She whispers a few last minute encouragements, a gentle caress of his cheek, and then it begins. His screams cut through her mind like razors and she cringes, not wanting to watch but not being able to look away - her fingers are itching to make it stop, but it grows louder and louder and the sound is wringing all the blood from her hearts until ——
The first thing that brings her back to herself are his hands, blissfully cool against the heat of her cheeks. He’s gently shaking her head, pushing wayward curls back from her forehead, trying to wake her up. ‘Mellie, Mellie,’ his voice pleading quietly with her to wake up, ‘It was only a dream. You’re fine. You’re safe.’ After a few more seconds of this, she begins to calm down, her eyes adjusting to the relative darkness of their room. Sheets are twisted around her and now being pulled softly away from her limbs by her husband as he continues to shush her, smoothing down her hair as she sits up, drawing her knees to her chest and doing anything not to look him in the eye. Because if she looks him in the eye, she’ll see a dear face that believes a lie, a lie that she’d helped fabricate. For his safety, for the safety of the universe, she tries to remind herself, but that doesn’t make it easier. It doesn’t make it any less painful.
After her heartbeats calm, she decides she must risk a sideways glance, if only to reassure him. She smiles weakly, making eye contact for a fleeting moment, then leaning over to give him a soft kiss on the lips. Then her head falls to the space above his heart ( his single, human heart ), and rests upon a cushion of curls as she listens to the rhythmic heartbeat. His arms wrap around her and he lowers the pair of them back down so that she lays as close to him as she can possibly be, pretending everything’s alright, pretending to promise herself that this is the only way to keep him safe.