Work Text:
i.
Sometimes, in her dreams, she'll see a boy; a brother she never had.
(He's all wispy, candlewax blonde hair and warm freckles splayed across reddening cheeks, eyes hidden behind treasured aviators and an expressionless face that tells her so, so much more than he ever wanted her to know.)
She writes her stories about him, drowns her loneliness in swathes of imaginary companions, and though she also spins tales of adventurers, wizards and martyrs, she writes about the lonely boy from her dreams the most.
(He's not a hero; he's clad in red fabric, a cape hanging loosely off his back, and he insists that he will never be a hero, he's always sitting in a puddle of shadows and self-doubt.)
She ventures outside at the insistence of her mother, and she goes everywhere: the beach, her favourite café, an art gallery, and the national history museum, where she stops, because she can't stop wondering.
(Palaeontology is a word he's known since he was seven and tried to dig up dinosaur fossils in his back yard. He collects things in jars, keeps quirky little relics, bones and preserved animal corpses. People say he's creepy but he's just a child, a child fascinated by the remnants of what was once alive.)
She closes her eyes, and she can see him.
(He's all angles and sharp edges, too many beginnings and no endings. He's tied up in his own confusion, knotted and frayed and helpless. When she looks at him, she sees that he's composed of regrets and second chances, a web of irony knit tightly around him so he never gets hurt, except that web is what clings to him so tightly and pushes the blade deeper.)
Her heart aches because he's so familiar in his loneliness. She looks out onto the slate pavement, rain licking at ashen slabs, and sees strangers' feet make little splashes. She catches herself looking out for a pair of red sneakers she's never seen before, and goes home the long way.
(The rain is unfamiliar because it is clear and cold and not iridescent or pastel; but its wetness and the way it claws down her skin is something she realises she is sickeningly accustomed to.)
ii.
When the nightmares aren't tearing into his mind during the night, she appears in his dreams, crisp and completely clear.
(She's soft and sharp; a tiny, delicate stature coupled with the wisest, most piercing eyes he's ever seen and flowery, poetic, cutting words.)
He's not scared of her, no, he could never be scared of the quaint little girl who was always meant to be a sister, but he will never deny that she is a frightening presence, uncanny and impossible to read, and she always knows what everyone else is thinking.
(She guides everyone, uses her perception for good, and yet her own road to Hell is literally paved with her good intentions. Those intentions are disguised, shrouded in billowing black mist and smog, inky clouds of poison hiding the purest, purest heart.)
His brother doesn't pay attention to him, but it never matters. He scours every face of the Internet, and uncovers all kinds of websites; sites filled with writing, walls of prose upon prose, and he searches up something else because it's not something he'd ever read.
(She teases him for it, though; because she knows that he always reads her stories, and he's always surprised when she takes some of his critiquing into consideration. He ignores the brief surge of happiness that accompanies her grace.)
He sighs and opens the blinds in his room, flinching a little at the immediate beams of relentless sunlight crashing through the glass.
(Sometimes, he looks at her and sees too much of his own expression reflected in her eyes. It's the only thing about her that scares him: himself. She's always such a mystery; slightly intangible, like the comfort derived from drinking milky tea in the morning and waking up to lazy warmth spilling through the windows, because sunrise is always the best. He sees her in terrifying clarity, sees the loneliness stitched into her veins and her rare moments of vulnerability.)
A dull sense of aching writhes inside him like a candle flame; he watches the pitch plumage of the crows give off its slight sheen as the birds screech and dive past his window. The scenery is nothing new, just birds and rusty buildings, but the sunlight that day is rose-tinted and he wants to stand there for a little bit longer.
(There is a clock ticking in the background, even though he doesn't own a single watch and only ever uses digital devices in order to tell the time. It isn't quite familiar to him, and it's far off from the grating and twisting and winding of oversized gears whirring into life, but the nauseous feeling of time crawling by is exactly the same.)