Chloé x Jean-Jacques

Dream of a Nightmare

Chloé woke with a start. It was not because of any disturbance to herself personally, she had not had a nightmare. He had. She looked at Jean-Jacques, raised up on one elbow, hand clutched over his rapidly beating heart. He was in disarray, stinking of sweat and fear, hair flying in every direction, eyes unfocused.

When he woke he hadn't made a sound or even touched her. She'd still known he was in distress anyway and had automatically left her own slumber to be beside him in his time of need. Over time she had become attuned to Jean-Jacques. When there was a change in his heartbeat or a hitch in his breath she knew. Instantly.

It wasn't a skill she had developed on purpose, although she had grown rather proud of it. It meant she was always ready to protect him from any threat, even if the threat was his own mind. The least she could do was protect him after all.

He didn't seem to notice her staring at him.

"Jean-Jacques, can you look at me?" She said quietly.

The tension seemed to slough off of Jean-Jacques's shoulders immediately as he turned to look upon her with his big guileless eyes.

"Chloé, are you... real?"

He blinked at his own statement and opened his mouth to elaborate, then closed it again with a furrowing of his brows. Then he started to reach out to touch her, eventually hesitating halfway, about to drop his hand back to the bedsheets. Chloé didn't let him, grabbing his wrist and smoothly guiding his hand to press against her cheek. She liked when he touched her thusly. It was a familiar, familial sort of touch.

A lot of people had held her like that. Sometimes even the shadow put her hands on Chloé in the same way. She hated that. No matter how tender it was it felt violent. But she liked when Jean-Jacques did it. She always liked when Jean-Jacques did it. It was such sweet agony, grounding her in the moment while still remaining bitterly nostalgic.

"You're real, right?"

Chloé realised she hadn't answered his question. The correct answer would have been yes, of course I am. Are you still asleep, my silly boy? She did not say that. Instead she said, "I'm as real as I've always been."

His thumb moved across her cheek, caressing and tickling her skin as he mapped out its shape. Then one of his fingers traced the shape of her ear, painstakingly feeling out the cartilage. He seemed half in a trance as he poked and prodded at one half of her face, his hand warm and textured.

"Do I feel real?" Chloé asked, genuinely curious.

"I don't know," Jean-Jacques admitted as his thumb brushed down her nose, making her wrinkle it in mild discomfort. "Everything feels real, even when I know it isn't. This whole place feels real."

"Some of it is."

"The trouble is I can't always tell the difference."

"There's no problem with that." Chloé pet his head. "One day everything here will be like a bad dream to you. It might be easier to think of all of it as temporary."

"It hasn't all been a bad dream, Chloé." He rested his forehead against hers. "I've been safer and happier in your world than I ever was outside of it."

Without leave her lips twisted into a small smile. Jean-Jacques set the bar far too low, she really should feel guilty hearing him praise such meagre blessings. Still, he had made her happy. It was nice to know she hadn't failed him entirely.

When she had been a child nightmares had been a solitary experience. She'd wake in the night and find herself utterly frozen in her bed. She had no one to go to, no one to call out to. All she could do was lay as still as possible and hope anything that turned its gaze upon her did not notice she was alive and vulnerable. She couldn't even bring herself to close her eyes, despite the shadows twisting and warping as though they were alive and hungry. It always felt like she was about to die alone in the dark.

As she'd grown up monsters had stopped appearing in her dreams, replaced by a more sickening, subtle dread. They tore her insecurities from her chest and forced her to choke on them. She spent days thinking about those sorts of nightmares afterwards. Unlike monsters, the dread wasn't a made up threat conjured by her bored mind. It was real and terrible and it never went away, only faded into the background before rearing its head when she let her guard down.

For Jean-Jacques she'd always been sure he didn't have to face nightmares alone. He should never experience the awful terror she had. He would never deserve it. The only time she'd failed was when a nightmare that should have been hers alone to handle had wrapped itself around him. Had she faced it more readily perhaps it wouldn't have stolen his true name.

She was still half-convinced she was mad. Even if the monster in her nightmares had turned out to be real and evil and out to get her Chloé's sanity was still in question. Jean-Jacques had asked if she was real and she couldn't honestly answer in the affirmative. She didn't feel like she was truly next to him, touching him, talking to him. Everything seemed so dreadfully far away all the time, like she was already dead and all her senses were just memories.

"Are you still afraid, Jean-Jacques?" She asked.

He nodded and she felt his hair tickle her head. "I'm ashamed of my immaturity. I cannot get my dream out of my head."

"There's no shame in that. It's good to feel fear." She didn't feel fear much anymore. "Fear keeps you alive."

"There's no need to overindulge my cowardice."

"Stop that. I hate when you self-deprecate and I loathe when you talk back. Now, are you well enough to return to sleep or should we occupy our time elsewhere for now? We could play a game or go to the kitchen for a snack or something else entirely. Anything you decide."

"I will be able to rest, but while you're agreeing to suffer my childishness I do have a request. Sing me a lullaby."

Jean-Jacques was already settling back into the covers, pulling her with him so he could rest his head on her chest. His arms wrapped tight around her as he shamelessly made himself comfortable on her side of the bed. Not that that was an unusual occurrence. Rarely did they manage to make it through a night without some sort of physical contact.

"You know," Chloé said mildly, "it will be difficult to sing with you crushing my body."

"Would you like me to move?" He mumbled, nuzzling her like the overaffectionate dog he was.

"No. Stay right there."