A/N: written for timebird84's challenge on Tumblr, things I dreamt last night

a little break from my fic retirement because I couldn't get the idea out of my head

She reads Against the Tide, he reads Thanks for the Tea. It is January, and there is something unnatural about it not being cold, about the wind not cutting him to his bones, but he is hardly one to complain. He is satisfied with not having aching joints, and with being able to play the piano without gritting his teeth against the throbbing of his knuckles. Besides, there is just enough of a chill for them to justify cuddling together under his heavy blankets as they read, and when he finishes his shorter, softer book before her, he closes his eyes and presses close.

Her fingers are gentle in his hair, even as her eyes never leave the page, that wrinkle in her brow of utmost concentration.

Political history has never been his area, but there is something beautiful about watching her dedication to it.

(He could watch her all day, doing anything at all, study every minute shifting of her face.)

The books were John Henry's Christmas gifts to them (and even as he tore open the wrapping to a book he'd never heard of about something emphatically not music, Erik found himself mildly relieved that it bore no connection to one Doc Holliday; he loves John Henry, he does, but there is only so much a man can take), and Christine was sold on hers over the interaction between Church and State (more specifically, the control of the former upon the latter, and ensuing High Drama). Erik just decided the photograph of the man on the cover of his book could conceivably be his type, and that John Henry knows him too well.

In the event, book finished and set aside, Christine still engrossed in hers, his heart full of feelings that he's too tired to try and puzzle out only that most of them are love, he nuzzles closer to his girlfriend, and sighs, and resolves to try and sleep, at least until she is finished hers.

She kisses his forehead, and he smiles.

There is a ball for postgraduate students. It is not his usual sort of thing, but Nadir has prevailed upon him to attend. He would prefer to remain at his research (tuberculosis and music, an intersection between the two with special reference to Chopin and regulation of respiration by playing piano), but Nadir has rightly reminded him that he has not gone out in the last six months, and frankly, Erik, at this point it's getting a bit ridiculous.

He sighs, and sets aside his notes, and commences to getting ready.

Hair immaculately slicked back, best pair of glasses adjusted just so, best suit, his only decent suit. The face in the mirror is, he will admit, quite handsome. Straight nose, hollow cheeks, sharp jawline. Mildly severe in a dashing sort of way. An all around decent face.

He has no intention of looking for love tonight. It would distract him from his research tomorrow. But if it were to happen, he might not object.

…tuberculosis is both preventable and curable. Why then have nearly 60,000 people died of this disease in the last fifteen years?...

He surfaces towards wakefulness, a soft-spoken voice vaguely English in his ear, careful enunciation like something from an old television broadcast, but he is too tired to open his eyes, to see whose voice it is.

Tuberculosis. Why was he dreaming about tuberculosis research? It's not his area at all.

The soft voice is followed by rapid Irish in a different voice, not half as stirring, and lips brush his hair, that Irish stopped. He couldn't begin to fathom it anyway, but part of him wishes it would continue, might be followed by that careful speaker again.

Tuberculosis. Well, he knows something about spontaneously collapsing lungs.

"Go back to sleep, Erik," Christine's voice is gentle, lips brushing his ear. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I wasn't asleep." His voice is groggy and she huffs something that might almost be a laugh. He clears his throat and manages to sound aggrieved, "just resting my eyes."

Just resting his eyes, but his research topic was all wrong and there was a face in the mirror that was his and not his, his but complete, no ravaged cheek, no twisted lip, his how it might have been, and he has never been vain but part of him wants to see that face again.

He tries to conjure it before him, but it is already slipping away.

The steps outside the Aula Maxima, cigarette smoke acrid on his lips, music pounding in his ears, throbbing in his bones. He inhales deeply, the cool night air in his lungs, stars above through the trees and a flash of movement on the steps below him catches his eye.

A girl, tumbling blond hair, a pale green dress. There is something fae and elusive in her movements, and she smiles up at him, eyes shining blue.

He can't help but smile back.

Something clicks inside of him, as if he has known her before, as if he has known her in a different life, and he is grateful that his face has fixed itself, that he has chosen his finest suit, because when she is only two steps below him, she stretches out her hand, and he takes it.

Her fingers are soft curling around his, lips a sweet smile.

"I've been waiting for you," she says, and that voice is the voice of another world, wrapping around him.

"And I for you," and some internal knowledge whispers the name, Christine.

He scoops her into his arms, and her laugh rings loud and clear, as he swirls her around and onto the dancefloor, and he's grinning, grinning as she wraps her arms around his neck, grinning as the music transforms from Sam Smith to a Chopin nocturne, and he sets her down, and she steps into his embrace, and lays her head against his chest.

His heart throbs painfully, and he kisses the soft skin of her forehead, kisses her hair. She giggles and presses a kiss to his cheek, to the cheek he thought ravaged but isn't, it's just as smooth as the other one, and whispers, her voice low, just for him to hear, "I love you."

His heart swells, and he kisses her, gently, lightly, on the lips.

"I love you too."

This time, he comes slowly to wakefulness, a Chopin nocturne in his ear. His heart is full, and with his eyes still closed he curls himself around Christine. Her breathing is soft and he hopes she is dreaming sweet things too, wonders if she might be dreaming of dancing with him, the way he was dancing with her, and he can still feel her in his arms, how she pressed herself close, how they moved in time with the music.

How she kissed his cheek, and his cheek was whole.

He knows his face is not perfect, will never be perfect. He knows that better than anyone. But the memory of having had a perfect face, if only in a dream, is enough to make something wrench deep in his heart, and he shifts, and brushes his fingertips over his cheek.

Still just as cracked, just as warped as it always has been.

Mingled relief and disappointment twists in his gut.

He knew his face would never be complete, but just for a moment he thought—

Thought what? That his dream worked some sort of magic on his waking self? Even fresh from sleep he knows it is ridiculous.

But Christine loves him anyway. Loves him for being ridiculous, loves him and his warped face and twisted lip. And he loves her, too, and as long as she doesn't mind, how it is he looks…

Well, it was only a dream, in which he was whole and healthy. It does not do to dwell on dreams, and he is blessed, every day, to have her in his life.

(Even if she does snore, just as little, pressed to him like this. It is very nearly endearing.)

He chuckles to himself, and sighs, and thinks of the couple he read about before he fell asleep, who met at a dance more than eighty years ago and loved each other instantly, and thinks of Christine, and meeting her in a café, and how he loved her, too, instantly, though it took him just a little time to believe it.

And that, too, seemed like a dream, though it was wholly real.

Behind his eyes he sees shining golden hair and a swirling green ball gown, and decides, when she wakes, they will go dancing. Even if it is only the two of them, even if it is only in his room.

There is a good supply of Chopin on his laptop, and dancing with her is better than any dream he has ever had.

He smiles to himself, and dreams, half-caught between waking and sleeping, and thinks of the last ten months, and welcoming her into his arms.

A/N: Against the Tide and Thanks for the Tea are two actual books. The first is the memoir of Dr Noël Browne, an Irish doctor and politician who was diagnosed with TB in 1939 when he was 24, and though he recovered (thanks to the radical surgical treatments of the early 1940s) he suffered a number of relapses throughout the rest of his life. The second is the memoir of his wife, Phyllis Browne, about their life together, published in 1998, a year after his death.

The Brownes met at the Trinity Boat Club dance in Dublin in 1936 when he was a medical student, and loved each other instantly, and thus inspire the things Erik dreams about in this ficlet.

…tuberculosis is both preventable and curable. Why then have nearly 60,000 people died of this disease in the last fifteen years?... is a line of Noël Browne's taken from the political campaign film 'Our Country' released in 1948 by Clann na Poblachta. It was 5 minutes long, and Ireland's first political campaign film. Two brief clips of Browne speaking about the TB epidemic are included in Scannal: Mother and Child Scheme, a mostly Irish-language documentary about Browne and the controversy of his time as Minister for Health (1948-1951) regarding a free healthcare program for mothers and children. The documentary is available on the RTÉ Player.

Why did I base an E/C ficlet around all this? Because I am a nerd. And I always imagine Tinder!Erik finding some comfort in reading about historical figures who also suffered with chronic health conditions.

Please do review if you've enjoyed this!