True Blue ✷ Leo Valdez.

04: Please, Can We Stay Here Forever?

BLAIRE, ODDLY ENOUGH, found herself eagerly awaiting the series of nightmarish flashbacks that taunted her subconscious mind each time she slipped into the faux-alluring comfort of sleep. Of course, the dreams were terribly cruel and always rattled her immensely past limits she thought possible. But, most of the time she found the subject of her dreams was the one person whose presence she craved the most.

Sunny Garfeild almost always appeared before Blaire Sullivan in the realm of her resting subconscious mind. The final memory she wielded of her best friend was one tainted with blood, his own blood that had spilled from his fatally wounded body. Usually, his physical appearance was disheveled— disheveled as he was the last time she saw him.

    However, this time, when he met Blaire within the confines of her subconscious mind, he didn't look like he'd been stabbed or faced any sort of misfortune whatsoever. He looked happy, in a bittersweet sort of way that tugged on her severed heartstrings.

    Sunny Garfield stood above Blaire, peering down at her figure, which was sprawled across the sandy Camp Half-Blood beach, where the two of them usually met up when he was still alive and well. She was wearing her pajamas, a camp t-shirt and too-big athletic shorts. And her dark hair fell in messy swirls around herself.

  Blaire wasn't fully aware she was dreaming yet. The sensation of the sand, warm beneath the tips of her fingers— baked by the rays of the sun, felt entirely too real. And the cold tide that soaked the tips of her rowdy hair did not differ greatly from reality.

  However, she was quick to wake from her trance and realize she was merely dreaming when she saw the son of Apollo. He was gone, she'd never see him again. Blaire had not fully accepted this though, because the cruelty of the truth was too much to bear.

  When the daughter of Hecate caught a glimpse of her friend a wave of peace washed over her, before receding as quick as it came.

  Sunny was gone, he'd always be.

  "Sunny?" Blaire's voice wavered on his name, trying to hang onto the syllables, just like how she tried to hang onto him.

"Blaire..." Sunny spoke, kneeling beside his friend. "Hi."

The boy looked well, Blaire noted. He wasn't garnished in his torn, war-bloodied outfit that had witnessed his demise. Instead, he was wearing a camp t-shirt, zipped under the dark blue, mostly faded windbreaker he wore daily without fail. His hair was wayward, whipped by the sea breeze. And his face was flushed, full of life and color. Not tarnished by the ruins of war.

Blaire had not seen him like this in so long, she nearly forgot the way he looked free of tragedy.

Blaire wanted to say something to him. Something with enough meaning to convey exactly how she felt, to convey how his absence did nothing if not further the dramatics of her feelings for him. To convey how the root of her problems spawned from the yearning her heart did for hers.

"I know about your prophecy and your quest," Sunny plopped down fully beside the girl, crossing his legs awkwardly. "All of it. I know the crucial role you'll play."

Blaire wanted to hug the boy, to reach out and stroke the boy's cheeks, to subliminally connect the array of freckles dusting his face. But she couldn't. She couldn't move at all, it was as if a magic force was rooting her in place, keeping her joints locked.

"Sunny," she repeated again, as if his name was a chant, a prayer. And to her it was. She worshipped him, filled the dismal area of her brain with knowledge concerning the boy, and allowed the concept of him to warp her everyday life. Her love for Sunny was something that rivaled religion. Because, perhaps he was her religion.