In the night, he will call for her in his sleep.
She comes to him, and cradles his head against her, kissing his hair and patting down his sweaty mess of hair to his forehead, whispering hushed, calm words, begging him to sleep, to stop shaking.
Just as any mother would.
But she is not his mother, and he is not her son. They are friends, some might say the best of friends, others say not; some say that they are more, and others say not. Neither group is right though, they are neither of these things anymore. Though she still showers him with an affection that resembles that of a mother to her son, platonic is an issue for her now.
She doesn't have the tension with him as she does with the redhead. Some say it is sexual tension, and others say not. She knows that they don't share anything of the sort, they did try after all.
But when she is with the other, she does not know what to feel anymore. She has always felt the sense of dread when she is around him, she doesn't like not being able to know what will happen to him, nor how to protect him from the world. Instead she just has to bear with him, with his tantrums, with his introverted self, and just try to crack his shell, to break down the barrier so she can finally see the person she knows is hiding away until the storm has passed. He'll shut himself off from her when she nags at him, and she will try not to again, but she can't help but do it, it is instinct, yet somehow she feels nothing but motherly towards him.
She used to feel humbled in his presence, to be able to admire him, but to see him as an equal and as his true self. She still sees all of that, but now something will light up inside of her when he is around. When he looks at her, his green boring into her brown, somehow she can forget about everything, and so can she.
Maybe she loves him, but she doesn't know.
He, however, does. He has for a long time. While he denied it in his fourth year, and continued on his fifth year, by sixth year his capacity to deny himself seemed to disappear, and he spent weeks avoiding her as he confronted the new sensations, cliché and all.
He is not always having nightmares when she comes to him, when he calls out her name. Sometimes he dreams, dreams about her, and when he does he knows no other way to describe it but bliss. They will talk, laugh, and kiss about everything and nothing, and eventually sprawl out together on a rug, or cough.
But they are only his dreams.
He never tells her this of course, with a red eyed devil chasing after you, hell bent on your death, it is best not to get attached. And besides, he enjoys the feeling of himself so close to her, huddled and crouched against her and she rocks him back and forth, so close he can feel her warm breath dancing across his neck, her supple lips pressing against his hair every once in a while.
After all, he is still just a boy, a boy with a very pretty girl pressed up against him in the dead of his night, her rather lovely girl parts pressed up against him, on his bed, in the middle of the night...
But he must not think like that, because that would give it away. He has to be noncommittal, ignore her pleas and nagging, and try to do something about it when she is not there. He has to close himself up to her, as he fears if he ever did open up to her, he would not be able to stop the flood of emotion that would be released from the invisible barriers. He can not do that, at least not yet, maybe not ever, everything he decides has to be determined by someone else, someone else with a wand held to his neck from his birth.
He hates it, but he accepts it.
And so he will wait, but one day, their time will come, and that is his reassurance.
He will wait.
A/N - Just the first part of some small ficlets about dreams. The next is basically finished, and is not related to this in any way. Do review if you have got this far :)
- Carl