fic: those who tread the path of dreams
Aug. 7th, 2010 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonnefoisTitle: those who tread the path of dreams
Series: Hetalia
Character/Pairing: Greece/Japan
Rating: PG?
Word count: 2008
Summary: Prequel to Hypnagogic. In dreams, he meets a beloved stranger. Greece/Japan.
Author's note: kink meme: a request involving someone meeting Japan in a dream, ala the way Italy did. I chose Greece because...yes.
One scene is a reference to this art
Yielding to a love
That knows no limit,
I shall go to him by night --
For the world does not yet censure
Those who tread the paths of dreams.
-ono no komachi
For the past few weeks, his dreams have been sleepless. He is alone now, his mother laid to rest. Now it is him who takes over the mantle. He feels too young, too bony with thin shins and stringy muscles.
This time what he sees when he sleeps is not the golden haired boy who has always guided him into the morning. There are no wings, no poppies, only fish. Silver scales of them about him. He's been walking a while. He steps out onto an unfamiliar island, his feet still wet with salt from the sea. He's walked the length of two oceans and more and yet his clothes are still dry.
The buildings are elegant in a way he's never seen before. This isn't the columns of his mother's time with their marble, open-air magnificence. Their roofs tilt upwards at the edges. He feels awed as he looks around at all this beautiful newness.
He's standing in a garden free of any chaos. Everything is neatly trimmed. There is a bridge to a teahouse, and a small pond filled with koi.
It's cooler here than he's used to. He walks through this order, the eternal wanderer. He catches sight of someone in the distance. He's wearing a type of clothes unfamiliar to him, robes of some sort of a faint greenish shade.
Above is a oracle's weaving of clouds. How many futures could be cast here, in shapes of cats and rotund old grandmothers? Flying machines and flowers in white, soft clouds. He is framed by perfection. No tree is overgrown, no flower is out of place. He walks through there, finding himself in pink snow, no, it's petals of the trees above them. He sees them now, outside the garden, outside this space they call their own.
He opens his hand and red poppies fall to there.
The stranger he's seen is unlike the men he has known. He has stayed around the training grounds, still thin and youthful with barely the hint of a beard, watching the men swing their swords, their spears and fight in hand to hand combat. He has been taken and taken some of them to his bed. The stranger is slim and small. He wears delicate robes of intricate patterns and colors, his hair is dark and very straight, and he is shaven. It isn't at all like the men he is used to knowing and loving, with their thick curly beards and thick hair he twists between his fingers as their bodies rub together. Sometimes he gets bruises from rubbing too hard, or rocking back too much. His mother has always been faintly amused by this, him coming home smelling like other men. She'd bring balm for him and murmur Not so hard, now. I want you to be able to walk tomorrow.
But she isn't there anymore. It always feels like a knife has been shoved into his side when that happens. This isn't merely a metaphor, for he has felt such things. In training, in wars he has survived. Young as he is, his mother didn't want to spare him such things, even if he would've preferred to sleep and listen to the complexities of Epicurus bit longer.
He is aware that this is a dream, for Hypnos has come and visited his bed often, and yet another part of him is sure that this is in some sense, real. The stranger seems too bizarre and intricate to have simply come from the recesses of his mind, placed there in poppy dust kisses by Hypnos.
He follows, his skin tingling with anticipation. The stranger turns, but does not look frightened. He can't entirely read this expression, so enigmatic and subtle that he will ponder over it for a hundreds of years, like a philosophical concept.
And then, the image is stolen as he wakes, a cat landing on his thigh and digging its claws in. The stranger is gone and he feels a profound sense of loss, as deep as the loss of his mother.
And yet, deep down there is a certainty that they will meet again.
*
When they meet again he is closer to manhood. His mouth is dry with poppy dust as he walks below the waves. He's standing beneath the sea. He wonders, idly, where Poseidon is. Not here. Above him are brilliant rainbow colors of fish. Living fish. Dead fish with skeletons, long extinct swimming languidly in their afterlife. The stranger stands before him, looking down at him, walking through the bubble of this world. The coral seems to glow in this light. It's sharp, so he keeps his distance, weaving between the coral.
He looks back, and the stranger has laid down on the sea floor. He's idly tracing circles in the water with his fingers.
He lays down on top of him until he can hear the steady firmness of his heartbeat. Where he settles is about his abdomen. He clasps their hands together.
What an intimate gesture, but the stranger does not draw back or even seem surprised. It's as if he's been expecting him, waiting for him. Dreams need not contain the constrictions of logic. So what if they don't know each other's names? The body speaks its own language, one deeper than words.
He opens his mouth, but only bubbles come out. He doesn't drown, for drowning itself seems impossible in this surreal half-world. The stranger closes his mouth with a touch to his lips.
They stare at each other for a long moment, locked in the embrace of their mutual dream. Above them is a world of sea life.
He closes his eyes and listens to the sound of underwater, of the stranger's heartbeat. He falls into another fragment of a dream from this, they arc out long after he has woken, hazy with grit like sand still in his eyes.
If he closes his eyes at any moment though the day he can see him, the stranger looking up, trimming his trees or waiting for him in the garden while sipping tea.
*
All the windows are shuttered. He enters through the darkness, his feet making no sound on the floor as he comes. The stranger is still in the dark.
He leans down and feels him through the instinctive way he has felt men and women, but mostly men through the centuries. The stranger shivers at his touch, and he cannot tell if it is truly fear, anticipation, or cold. Still, he dares and comes a bit closer, brings his lips gently to the stranger's.
He lays there, devoid of color, waiting for a response. Through the cocoon of his robes and blankets, the stranger reaches out and touches him.
They lay there, grey and touching, feeling in the dream so lucid that when he wakes, he is surprised at the heat and light and absence of the stranger in his bed.
*
The dreams about the stranger even when he's awake. When he's with other people, human's usually, whose names and faces blend together. He doesn't call out his name at climax because there is no name, at least none he knows, so it's just a silent gasp to fill the space where he would, and should be.
He's been searching out. When Rome was alive and during his visits, he'd talk of China and The Silk Road. He thought for a moment that he might have met China in all his age, wisdom and beauty, but the actual meeting showed only similarities.
So he keeps looking. Not fast, not desperate for he is none of these things. All slow. If it takes a hundred more years, then so be it. He is a country. By all means he should have all the time of the world.
(Except she didn't, he thinks.)
*
The year is eighteen ninety-nine. He sits in a garden all too familiar to him. He's pinched himself three times to ensure that it's not a dream. His host has been in the other room, for some reason or another. He has simply lain in the sunlight, like a very large cat, convincing himself he can wait a little longer for his afternoon nap.
His host returns with tea which he sets before him.
It's hot, don't burn yourself, his host murmurs.
Have we met before? He says.
The beloved stranger shakes his head, he bows and introduces himself. Honda Kiku...Japan.
He follows, mimicking this social dance he is not familiar with. Herakles Karpusi...Greece.
He walks in the same garden he has walked in dreams. He thinks of dream kisses, of moments spent under the many colored fishes at the bottom of the sea. He's never bedded Kiku but wanted to every night and day since that first meeting when he was still a youth. Kiku is much unchanged, though he has grown into a man. He is no longer stringy and too tall, but balanced and strong.
He looks for hints of hiding, to see if there is a nervousness, a secret kept. There is no sign, but Kiku reveals little. He is reserved, a closed hand. He watches and tries to piece together these mysteries which has haunted him in these dreams of hundreds of years.
What is it he can say in this situation?
I have traveled the world with you in dreams. We have slept at the bottom of the sea and walked through your gardens hand in hand or I have wanted with you for years, I have loved you for years."
But no, those won't do.
Instead he says Pleased to meet you.
Kiku inclines his head and accepts this greeting.
He wonders how many more dreams he will have of Kiku, now no longer a stranger, and yet just as distant. Many, surely. How many hundreds of years before they sleep together, before Kiku falls in love with, and remembers him?
Even all the sages and the old gods of his mother's time cannot tell. But he is slow-paced and a few hundred more years is nothing.
And he knows when he is lonely, he will have his dreams to keep him company, for Hypnos can be merciful at times, cruel at others.
It is only a matter of time.
Series: Hetalia
Character/Pairing: Greece/Japan
Rating: PG?
Word count: 2008
Summary: Prequel to Hypnagogic. In dreams, he meets a beloved stranger. Greece/Japan.
Author's note: kink meme: a request involving someone meeting Japan in a dream, ala the way Italy did. I chose Greece because...yes.
One scene is a reference to this art
That knows no limit,
I shall go to him by night --
For the world does not yet censure
Those who tread the paths of dreams.
-ono no komachi
For the past few weeks, his dreams have been sleepless. He is alone now, his mother laid to rest. Now it is him who takes over the mantle. He feels too young, too bony with thin shins and stringy muscles.
This time what he sees when he sleeps is not the golden haired boy who has always guided him into the morning. There are no wings, no poppies, only fish. Silver scales of them about him. He's been walking a while. He steps out onto an unfamiliar island, his feet still wet with salt from the sea. He's walked the length of two oceans and more and yet his clothes are still dry.
The buildings are elegant in a way he's never seen before. This isn't the columns of his mother's time with their marble, open-air magnificence. Their roofs tilt upwards at the edges. He feels awed as he looks around at all this beautiful newness.
He's standing in a garden free of any chaos. Everything is neatly trimmed. There is a bridge to a teahouse, and a small pond filled with koi.
It's cooler here than he's used to. He walks through this order, the eternal wanderer. He catches sight of someone in the distance. He's wearing a type of clothes unfamiliar to him, robes of some sort of a faint greenish shade.
Above is a oracle's weaving of clouds. How many futures could be cast here, in shapes of cats and rotund old grandmothers? Flying machines and flowers in white, soft clouds. He is framed by perfection. No tree is overgrown, no flower is out of place. He walks through there, finding himself in pink snow, no, it's petals of the trees above them. He sees them now, outside the garden, outside this space they call their own.
He opens his hand and red poppies fall to there.
The stranger he's seen is unlike the men he has known. He has stayed around the training grounds, still thin and youthful with barely the hint of a beard, watching the men swing their swords, their spears and fight in hand to hand combat. He has been taken and taken some of them to his bed. The stranger is slim and small. He wears delicate robes of intricate patterns and colors, his hair is dark and very straight, and he is shaven. It isn't at all like the men he is used to knowing and loving, with their thick curly beards and thick hair he twists between his fingers as their bodies rub together. Sometimes he gets bruises from rubbing too hard, or rocking back too much. His mother has always been faintly amused by this, him coming home smelling like other men. She'd bring balm for him and murmur Not so hard, now. I want you to be able to walk tomorrow.
But she isn't there anymore. It always feels like a knife has been shoved into his side when that happens. This isn't merely a metaphor, for he has felt such things. In training, in wars he has survived. Young as he is, his mother didn't want to spare him such things, even if he would've preferred to sleep and listen to the complexities of Epicurus bit longer.
He is aware that this is a dream, for Hypnos has come and visited his bed often, and yet another part of him is sure that this is in some sense, real. The stranger seems too bizarre and intricate to have simply come from the recesses of his mind, placed there in poppy dust kisses by Hypnos.
He follows, his skin tingling with anticipation. The stranger turns, but does not look frightened. He can't entirely read this expression, so enigmatic and subtle that he will ponder over it for a hundreds of years, like a philosophical concept.
And then, the image is stolen as he wakes, a cat landing on his thigh and digging its claws in. The stranger is gone and he feels a profound sense of loss, as deep as the loss of his mother.
And yet, deep down there is a certainty that they will meet again.
*
When they meet again he is closer to manhood. His mouth is dry with poppy dust as he walks below the waves. He's standing beneath the sea. He wonders, idly, where Poseidon is. Not here. Above him are brilliant rainbow colors of fish. Living fish. Dead fish with skeletons, long extinct swimming languidly in their afterlife. The stranger stands before him, looking down at him, walking through the bubble of this world. The coral seems to glow in this light. It's sharp, so he keeps his distance, weaving between the coral.
He looks back, and the stranger has laid down on the sea floor. He's idly tracing circles in the water with his fingers.
He lays down on top of him until he can hear the steady firmness of his heartbeat. Where he settles is about his abdomen. He clasps their hands together.
What an intimate gesture, but the stranger does not draw back or even seem surprised. It's as if he's been expecting him, waiting for him. Dreams need not contain the constrictions of logic. So what if they don't know each other's names? The body speaks its own language, one deeper than words.
He opens his mouth, but only bubbles come out. He doesn't drown, for drowning itself seems impossible in this surreal half-world. The stranger closes his mouth with a touch to his lips.
They stare at each other for a long moment, locked in the embrace of their mutual dream. Above them is a world of sea life.
He closes his eyes and listens to the sound of underwater, of the stranger's heartbeat. He falls into another fragment of a dream from this, they arc out long after he has woken, hazy with grit like sand still in his eyes.
If he closes his eyes at any moment though the day he can see him, the stranger looking up, trimming his trees or waiting for him in the garden while sipping tea.
*
All the windows are shuttered. He enters through the darkness, his feet making no sound on the floor as he comes. The stranger is still in the dark.
He leans down and feels him through the instinctive way he has felt men and women, but mostly men through the centuries. The stranger shivers at his touch, and he cannot tell if it is truly fear, anticipation, or cold. Still, he dares and comes a bit closer, brings his lips gently to the stranger's.
He lays there, devoid of color, waiting for a response. Through the cocoon of his robes and blankets, the stranger reaches out and touches him.
They lay there, grey and touching, feeling in the dream so lucid that when he wakes, he is surprised at the heat and light and absence of the stranger in his bed.
*
The dreams about the stranger even when he's awake. When he's with other people, human's usually, whose names and faces blend together. He doesn't call out his name at climax because there is no name, at least none he knows, so it's just a silent gasp to fill the space where he would, and should be.
He's been searching out. When Rome was alive and during his visits, he'd talk of China and The Silk Road. He thought for a moment that he might have met China in all his age, wisdom and beauty, but the actual meeting showed only similarities.
So he keeps looking. Not fast, not desperate for he is none of these things. All slow. If it takes a hundred more years, then so be it. He is a country. By all means he should have all the time of the world.
(Except she didn't, he thinks.)
*
The year is eighteen ninety-nine. He sits in a garden all too familiar to him. He's pinched himself three times to ensure that it's not a dream. His host has been in the other room, for some reason or another. He has simply lain in the sunlight, like a very large cat, convincing himself he can wait a little longer for his afternoon nap.
His host returns with tea which he sets before him.
It's hot, don't burn yourself, his host murmurs.
Have we met before? He says.
The beloved stranger shakes his head, he bows and introduces himself. Honda Kiku...Japan.
He follows, mimicking this social dance he is not familiar with. Herakles Karpusi...Greece.
He walks in the same garden he has walked in dreams. He thinks of dream kisses, of moments spent under the many colored fishes at the bottom of the sea. He's never bedded Kiku but wanted to every night and day since that first meeting when he was still a youth. Kiku is much unchanged, though he has grown into a man. He is no longer stringy and too tall, but balanced and strong.
He looks for hints of hiding, to see if there is a nervousness, a secret kept. There is no sign, but Kiku reveals little. He is reserved, a closed hand. He watches and tries to piece together these mysteries which has haunted him in these dreams of hundreds of years.
What is it he can say in this situation?
I have traveled the world with you in dreams. We have slept at the bottom of the sea and walked through your gardens hand in hand or I have wanted with you for years, I have loved you for years."
But no, those won't do.
Instead he says Pleased to meet you.
Kiku inclines his head and accepts this greeting.
He wonders how many more dreams he will have of Kiku, now no longer a stranger, and yet just as distant. Many, surely. How many hundreds of years before they sleep together, before Kiku falls in love with, and remembers him?
Even all the sages and the old gods of his mother's time cannot tell. But he is slow-paced and a few hundred more years is nothing.
And he knows when he is lonely, he will have his dreams to keep him company, for Hypnos can be merciful at times, cruel at others.
It is only a matter of time.
