Dreaming Author: Elsa Frohman Rating: PG. Spoilers: Post NFA In bed, his lack of body temperature is never a problem. Under a sheet and a coverlet, he warms to her temperature quickly, and when she wakes in the dark hours of the morning, he is always warm anywhere they are touching, which encompasses a grand expanse of pleasured skin. It isn't temperature that reminds her at such moments that he is a vampire. It is his stillness. His chest doesn't rise and fall as he sleeps. Breathing is something he does when he talks, smokes, inhales faint scents, snorts his disgust, laughs in derision, good humor or joy. Breathing is what he does when he is awake. In their bedroom, as the clock on the wall ticks off seconds before or after 3 a.m., as distant sounds of the city filter in through drawn curtains, as the house settles and creaks -- he is as still as death; and that's when she remembers. There were occasional moments of brief, irrational panic, when she woke aware on some instinctual level that there was no heartbeat or steady inflow and out rush of air in the body next to her. He is dead. But, then she remembers that death is not necessarily wrong. It is as much a part of her life as eating and breathing. And she reminds herself that when he woke, there would be no death in him. He would be a bundle of perpetual motion and continuous chatter. He would talk when there was nothing to say, he would move when there was no place to go. He would shine with a force of life that she had never been able to equal. Death only took him when he slept. And even then, he twitched and huffed when he dreamed. As often as not, it was his dreams that woke her. Then, as quickly as it had started, he was still again, leaving her to look at him in the dim light filtering in through the curtains, and wonder how someone who couldn't be still to save his life in his waking hours could be so completely motionless in sleep. A pale stripe of moonlight stealing in through a tiny gap in the curtains cuts across his face. The window faces west, so this small incursion wouldn't be a problem when the sun comes up. His hair, slicked and gelled into submission in the daytime, is tousled now, separated into platinum curls by her fingers as they lay together making love before sleep. His skin is bleached paler than normal by the silver moonlight. His cheeks and brow are smooth as porcelain. As she watches, he twitches and gulps a bit of air. She can see his eyes moving beneath closed lids, and his head jerking slightly. Another dream -- she wishes she could see what he sees. Does he dream of sunshine and green grass? Or maybe carriages and women in corsets and starched petticoats? Those times when she asks, he always says he can't remember. Perhaps the dreams are drenched in the blood of the innocent, though she hopes that those kinds of dreams are fading. She can't command the legion of victims to leave him in peace, but she tries to believe that she holds them at bay by staying at his side. He gulps a bit of air and a word slips out between his lips. "No," he mumbles, caught in some unimaginable dreamscape. Then she sees his smooth brow wrinkle, folding into monstrous ridges and valleys. His teeth lengthen into fangs that distort his gentle mouth. She knows now that this dream isn't a pleasant one. She knows the eyes beneath his closed lids are an angry yellow, and somewhere in the dreamscape, he's fighting for his life. She smoothes her hand over his furrowed forehead and whispers in his ear, "I'm here. It's all right." The words are a balm, and the eyes that open are crystal blue. He relaxes and his face returns to its smooth, untroubled, though slightly confused state. "Sorry, love," he whispers. "Did I wake you?" "It's all right," she replies, lowering her head to his shoulder. She knows that he remembers this dream, having woken while it was still in progress, but she doesn't ask. He doesn't need to dwell on it. He stares at the ceiling for a moment or two, but his eyes flutter shut, and he is once again as still as death. And as the clock ticks away the seconds before dawn, she reflects that a gift of death is surely a mystery, but far from the worst thing one finds in life.