Far Away

He’s lost. Maybe lost isn’t the quite the right word… he wasn’t lost, but he wasn’t home.

He was Far Away.

He was in a magical place. The air was humid and heavy; but that was okay, in this world, he didn’t have to feel it if he didn’t want to. His dry dark brown hair was sleek, straight and shiny. His face was long and thin, just like his body. He is nothing but bones in this world, a smiling walking beautiful skeleton.

He walks the streets of the magical place - there's flowers and smiles and sunshine, and it's not filtered with smog and the whisper of traffic - it's quiet and clear, clear and beautiful. Here, in Far Away, there is a lot of beauty.

He took his bony body through all the beauty, knowing that somewhere out there, there in Far Away, there was another beautiful bony little boy. He just had to find him - the other boy, with mischievous eyes -- he liked to hide from him, hide among all the pretty flowers and trees.

His legs took him where he wanted to go and he was never tired of running, walking, searching. If he strained his ears, he could sometimes hear the other boy’s giggle. He chased the giggle, smiling and laughing to himself. Far Away was like this every time he visited -- happy, bright, shining.

He jumped over tiny creek, nearly falling, when he finally found the other boy.

Took you long this time, the small mischievous boy said, his lips moving but no real sound coming out - that wasn’t how it worked in Far Away. In Far Away, the taller boy had learned, everything was muffled, quiet. He could hear him in his head, though, distantly.

I followed your giggle, he said in return, taking the smaller boy in his arms and feeling him, trying to make him real.

The boy wasn’t real. Nothing in Far Away was real.

What were you laughing at? He asked, raising his hand to brush away the hair covering the small boy’s eyes.

You, the small boy said, smiling his mischievous smile. He was so small, so small - skeletal. Still smiling, he started to slip out of the taller boy’s arms walk backwards.

Where are you going? The taller boy asked, trying to hold onto the little boy, scratching at the air he was just in, trying to keep him close, his voice frantic - because the small boy walking away was getting smaller and smaller the farther away he got, and he started to scream at the little boy -- Don’t leave, don’t leave me! because he was sure that the bony body of the boy was fading, becoming less solid, more wispy… he was fading, fading.

---

“Brendon!”

With a scream, Brendon jolted out of his dreams, hot and sweaty, his eyes bloodshot and wide open.

“Brendon?” The voice that had awoken Brendon spoke again, and Brendon felt a hand on his chest. He looked over, his expression still frantic, but it melted once he saw Ryan’s face. He fell back on the bed, trying to catch his breath, trying sort the images of the dream from the real images he saw now - Ryan’s face, their bedroom clock, tangled sheets.

“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Ryan still seemed frantic.

“Nothing… nothing… just a dream, Ry, just… just a dream.” Brendon sat up and did his best to smile convincingly. Even though the land in his dreams was beautiful and unreal, something about that beautiful boy fading away from him was terrifying and real, and that terror was lingering in his chest and the back of his mind and throat.

“Just a dream. Bad dream?” Something in Ryan’s tone made Brendon blush -- he didn’t believe Brendon. Ryan always knew when Brendon was lying.

“No, no.” He didn’t want to tell Ryan about what he had really dreamed about, afraid Ryan would think he was crazy and leave. He was always afraid Ryan would leave.

“So, a good dream that made you do this?” Ryan sat up, pointing to his flat stomach. Brendon looked down, confused, when all of a sudden he saw it - scratch marks on Ryan’s side, red marks in the middle of his torso.

“You did that,” Ryan said, matter of factly. “You grabbed me, Bren, and started screaming at me not to leave you while you dug your nails into my side, pulling me closer and closer.” Ryan rubbed at one particularly long nail swipe and winced.

“I’m sorry, Ry.” Brendon said, softly, agonized inside, thinking over and over again -- I hurt him I hurt him he’s going to leave I hurt him I hurt him.

“Tell me the truth, Bren. What did you dream about?” But Brendon didn’t know anymore - it was all faded wisps of beauty, mixed up images of tall trees and bones and… a beautiful boy. The beautiful boy was familiar, very familiar.

He knew who the beautiful, small boy was now.

“I dreamt about you.” Ryan raised his eyebrows when Brendon finally spoke.

“You faded away,” Brendon said, memory hitting him. He started to cry a little, realizing why the dream had terrified him so badly. “I tried to hold onto you but you… just faded away. I asked you not leave, but you just smiled and faded, Ry, smiled and faded.”

Ryan stared at Brendon for a while before laying back and pulling his crying boyfriend onto his ravaged stomach, letting Brendon’s tears sting the scratches he put on him.

“I’m not going to leave you, Brendon,” Ryan said simply, once Brendon had calmed down a little. “I don‘t know why you think I will.”

The moon shined onto Brendon’s face, and though he couldn’t see himself, Ryan could, and he felt a surge of affection as a tear slid down Brendon’s highlighted nose. He reached down and wiped it away.

“I don’t know.” Brendon said quietly.

“Because I won’t,” Ryan said again, pushing Brendon up into a sitting position. “So stop being afraid, okay?”

Brendon thought again of the fading little boy from his dreams and realized that while the mischievous little boy in his dreams would run away from him and fade, the real little boy was right next to him solid and real, breathing and beautiful, and he believed every word he said. He realized that the beauty he lived in Far Away could never match the beauty of reality, the beauty of Ryan.

“Okay,” Brendon whispered, smiling. “I’m not afraid anymore.”