![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: i never promised you a rose garden
Prompt: insomnia/sleeplessness
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 403
Content Warnings/Notes: violence
Summary: This is a dream, he tries to tell himself, one of his own: but dreams are dangerous, now.
Liam awakens in a garden, years overgrown, flowers and vines growing everywhere, lotus petals scattered across the ground, blown on the wind. This is a dream, he tries to tell himself, because the last thing he remembers is being in the medical lab, looking though the charts: this is a dream, one of his own, no more and no less, and a very vivid one, because he has no power, will never touch the Astral, and can be nothing else.
It's very serene, more serene than the dreams he remembers: his dreams haven't been quiet in years, since Aamin disappeared without a word. He hasn't slept well in years, his dreams tangled things of drowning and loss, looking in his dreams for what he can't find or let go of waking. It's been so long since he's had a peaceful dream, and even longer since he's had restful sleep, and while he knows the danger of dreams now, everyone does, he can't help but enjoy it, even a little.
A hedge grows through the garden, a rose hedge grown high, higher than he can see, even standing on a rock, and he's reminded however briefly, of a fairy tale, of the princess sleeping where no one can find her, roses guarding her enchanted sleep. There are lotus blossoms, here, too, growing among the roses - black, not red, though. Beautiful, but dangerous, he's suddenly certain, no matter how serene the dream seems.
He doesn't reach out to touch one: instead, he slips, the rock he's standing on is more unsteady than he realizes, and falls into and onto the hedge, thorns piercing his skin. It's agony, even in a dream, being hung on the hedge, and he can't manage to free himself, stuck fast like all the princes who died bleeding to death in those fairy tales. It hurts, even more than being hung on this hedge, but he can't really bring himself to care much. And he'll never find what he's looking for, either, hidden beyond this hedge, beyond the walls in his dreams where he can't get past.
He's bleeding, too, he sees, bleeding black instead of red, onto the roses. Instead of blood, his pain and bitterness and sorrow are bleeding away, the white flowers turning black: and he wonders, sighing quietly, what will happen to him once it's all bled away, and there's nothing left.
Prompt: insomnia/sleeplessness
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 403
Content Warnings/Notes: violence
Summary: This is a dream, he tries to tell himself, one of his own: but dreams are dangerous, now.
Liam awakens in a garden, years overgrown, flowers and vines growing everywhere, lotus petals scattered across the ground, blown on the wind. This is a dream, he tries to tell himself, because the last thing he remembers is being in the medical lab, looking though the charts: this is a dream, one of his own, no more and no less, and a very vivid one, because he has no power, will never touch the Astral, and can be nothing else.
It's very serene, more serene than the dreams he remembers: his dreams haven't been quiet in years, since Aamin disappeared without a word. He hasn't slept well in years, his dreams tangled things of drowning and loss, looking in his dreams for what he can't find or let go of waking. It's been so long since he's had a peaceful dream, and even longer since he's had restful sleep, and while he knows the danger of dreams now, everyone does, he can't help but enjoy it, even a little.
A hedge grows through the garden, a rose hedge grown high, higher than he can see, even standing on a rock, and he's reminded however briefly, of a fairy tale, of the princess sleeping where no one can find her, roses guarding her enchanted sleep. There are lotus blossoms, here, too, growing among the roses - black, not red, though. Beautiful, but dangerous, he's suddenly certain, no matter how serene the dream seems.
He doesn't reach out to touch one: instead, he slips, the rock he's standing on is more unsteady than he realizes, and falls into and onto the hedge, thorns piercing his skin. It's agony, even in a dream, being hung on the hedge, and he can't manage to free himself, stuck fast like all the princes who died bleeding to death in those fairy tales. It hurts, even more than being hung on this hedge, but he can't really bring himself to care much. And he'll never find what he's looking for, either, hidden beyond this hedge, beyond the walls in his dreams where he can't get past.
He's bleeding, too, he sees, bleeding black instead of red, onto the roses. Instead of blood, his pain and bitterness and sorrow are bleeding away, the white flowers turning black: and he wonders, sighing quietly, what will happen to him once it's all bled away, and there's nothing left.
