Dreaming of White ✔ [Completed]

Chapter 10 - A Touch of Fire Burning Bright

The world was dark gold. And warm. And smelled like Riddhima. During the last remaining moments of sleep, Vansh pushed his nose deeper into the scent, her hair tickling his face. Her sleeping body responded by mirroring his, shifting, pushing, wriggling, until her nose was pressed deeply into his neck, a sigh escaping her lips, perfectly in tune with the one he breathed into her hair. The sound made his mind finally follow his body back into the waking world.

Five. It's five. There's one more thing that needs to go on that list.

It was the kind of weird first conscious thought, that he suspected only he could come up with.

But it was an important one. He had to add one more item to his list of fears. For the sole reason of crossing it out again.

Because it was gone.

Finally gone.

This fear was the least serious in terms of actual harm either to life or general sanity. But what it lacked in physical danger, it made up in recurrence. It was something he couldn't escape from, something he had no control over and something that happened almost every morning. It was the moment between sleeping and waking. The moment in which the mind, already conscious, but not in control yet, tried to get its bearings. The moment when dream and reality collided and for a fraction of a second the mind, even his superior one, didn't know which was which and convinced itself 85 percent of the time that the two were reversed.

Often, when he dreamed of red terror and death and loss, his mind would flood his body with relief, while at the same time initiating the bubbling up of laughter at a silly nightmare. Sometimes, when he dreamed of love and laughter and endless summer, his mind would fill his body with warmth, while at the same time forming sweet, grateful words of love he was going to whisper to her upon waking.

When consciousness took finally over and reality was restored, the laughter turned into something that pushed all the air from his lungs or the words of love crumbled to dust on his tongue. Both scenarios ended with a strangled sound of pain and regret and loneliness. Always. And with his hands desperately reaching for her, but only grabbing cold linen. Or nothing at all.

It was the only time he still felt truly broken. And lost. Every time he woke up. Every single time.

Except.

There was warm skin under his hands. Real and soft. Warm breath on his neck. Tickling and caressing him all at once. He pressed his hands experimentally a little harder into the warmth, terrified for a last fraction of a last second that she might still disappear and his hands would touch nothing but cold air.

The only thing she did, though, was to snuggle closer and make a tiny purring sound.

He rubbed his cheek softly across the side of her head, her hair drying the tears that suddenly ran down his face. He pressed a light kiss behind her ear, his lips on her skin preventing the sobbing, choking sound inside him from leaving his mouth. He brushed his thumbs over her skin, trying to distract his hands from giving into the almost irresistible urge to grab her harder. Because he needed to try to breathe, feel, navigate his way through this strange moment of pain and relief and clarity and fear without waking her in the process.

Trying not to let her see a crying, shocked mess of a man upon waking.

She might draw very wrong conclusions from that.

Her left hand, until now firmly attached to a fistful of shirt at his waist, let go and wandered over his chest and up towards his neck, until her fingers found something much softer than fabric to slide into. The choking sound finally escaped his lips, when he felt her hand in his hair, unable to keep it in at the soft, warm touch. She frowned, still asleep, but at the distressed sound he made, her hand slid out of his hairs and came to rest on his wet cheek. The frown deepened.