Moving Past

(540 words, cw for grief and implied anxious depression.)

Me: I should write a fluffy little fic for the first day of Brennaolin week.
Also me: Why not a meditation on grief?

It wasn't often that Brennan dreamed of Naolin.

If anything, it happened more often now than it had at first. Right after everything, there had been only nightmares and sleeping droughts, and then long patches where he dreamed nothing at all even without something to help him sleep, and now…

Something had changed, but he didn't know what.

At first they were short, simple dreams, but the became longer and more detailed. Naolin visiting him at Basgiath, the two of them walking by the Iakobos. Brennan rushing through Aretia in search of something and then seeing Naolin, who waved him over and took him down streets Brennan didn't recognize to somewhere they'd been together - a quiet teahouse in Resson they'd frequented while there were posted at Athebyne, a library in Lewellyn where Naolin had taken him when they visited his mother.

The conversations were so much like the ones they used to have, talking about everything and nothing, both the things they'd discussed then and what Brennan was doing now in Aretia.

When he was awake, Brennan wondered what it meant that he was having them now; maybe that he was able to remember the good things instead of the grief?

That seemed like an improvement. He was getting better. But when he was getting ready to sleep after midnight, he thought about how it would be nice if he saw Naolin in his dreams tonight. Right behind that came a thought that plowed through the first, guilt hitting him like a boulder.

He hadn't thought about Naolin all day. He'd thought about Assembly business, about Xaden and Bodhi's reports, about the intelligence they'd gathered, about Violet and Mira and even his parents, but not Naolin.

Brennan laid down and stared at the ceiling, suddenly unsure if he'd be able to sleep.

Was he forgetting? How could he do that, when he owed Naolin his life? Fuck, what was wrong with him?

He would have sworn he was still awake when he heard the voice, a whisper in his ear with that sweet lilt that Naolin's Navarran always held. "Are you worried about moving on, love?"

"Naolin?" his voice was barely above a whisper. He wasn't sure if he'd fallen asleep after all or if this was some kind of guilt-induced hallucination. He'd had some of those, though it had been a while. He really didn't want them back.

"I'm here," Naolin said, combing his fingers through Brennan's hair. He was pressed up against Brennan's back, and the heat and solidity of him felt real, certainly. A dream, then.

"I don't want to… it's not fair to you," Brennan murmured out loud.

"I love you, Bren. I wanted you to live. You don't need to feel guilty for that." Naolin continued to massage Brennan's scalp until Brennan felt himself relaxing, as if he actually was falling asleep now.

Brennan blinked a few times, losing track of whether he was awake or asleep now. "I am living."

"Living means moving forward, love."

And then Brennan closed his eyes, either in the dream or out of it, and the next thing he knew the only warmth on his back was the sunlight that tried to blind him when he rolled over.