I Would Have You In My Dreams Forevermore (Bruno Madrigal x female reader)

I'm not Fine

The wonderful thing about dreams was that I couldn't upset my wounds. I walked around, the muscles in my legs aching as I searched for my husband. I had to have walked through the mist for some time before I saw the figure curled up on the ground.

"I did this. I hurt her. I HURT her." He muttered, his ruana hood up.

Laying on the ground next to him I wrapped him in my arms. He began to lucid dream, breaking him from his subconscious' mutterings.

"How are you?" He asked looking me over.

"I am hurting, Bruno. But not physically. My heart hurts, and that is because you weren't here."

He thought for a second and an arepa con queso appeared and he handed it to me. "I don't know if this will work. But things in dreams affect you differently. It won't fix your heart but maybe, maybe I can heal you."

I took a bite of the arepa and scooted closer to him. I put my head on his shoulder and he flinched. "You can heal my heart as well."

"Yeah. Like that's possible." He said, clutching his ruana.

"Why do you think that you can't?"

"Because I left and ruined us. Because I am Bruno Madrigal, family screw up and bad husband!"

"Then do better. Be the man I know you are."

"What do you mean 'the man you know I am'?"

"Here, can you put a blank version of yourself in front of us?"

He nodded and an exact replica of himself stood in front of us. I got up and I looked at Bruno. "When I tell you something, change what you think needs to be changed, ok?"

He nodded, sitting up.

"You are kind." I said and Bruno made the copy of himself smile. "You are caring." A few rats popped out of the copy's ruana. "You are an amazing writer." The journal popped into his hands. "You're handsome." Bruno looked between the copy of himself and me and shrugged, giving me a "meh." Leaving the copy the same.

I smiled at him. "You're an amazing lover." He blushed and looked at the copy of himself.

"I can't really show that with a copy of myself."

"Exactly. Because you are you, flaws and all Bruno."

"This was one of those self love exercises wasn't it?" He groaned and I grinned.

"I wish I could show you how I see you." I said wistfully. "I have seen how you see me, and it helped me admit that I loved you to your face. But I don't have that gift."

"Try, please. You have spent enough time here in my dreams, I'm sure you could dream at least a little something." He looked at me and I nodded.

I thought about Bruno, when he quietly wrote as I did beadwork, his smile, his eyes alight with passionate love. The moments when his courage outweighed his anxieties and he would straighten his back and stand up for himself, for us. The smell of campfires and sand, along with the comfort it brought me. I looked over and smiled softly. His soft hair with streaks of grey, and the feel of his stubble as he kissed me everywhere.

Bruno tugged my arm closer as a figure stepped out of the mist with Bruno's view of me. Both of us formed by the other's perceptions. Beside me Bruno gasped.

"You see me like that?" I looked at the Bruno in the dream and I nodded.

To me they looked the same. "I don't see any difference to what I dreamed up and the man I know is asleep in my arms."