#hermit is still bawling from jjk

[pininghermit]

Dreams with no Name

Request: @queenondeezmatatas Have you ever heard of the time traveler’s wife? I’ve been thinking about a similar concept with Adrian lately. A time traveler randomly starts appearing in his life who comes and goes and eventually he finds out they’re married in the future and omg. Or what if Adrian himself time travels into the past, before his partner died when they were both much younger, and seeing her again and so young breaks his heart…

Pairing: Adrian x Reader

Genre: Angst man angst with a possible happy ending 🤭

Summary: You were a fleeting dream in his life. An achingly sweet dream.

AN: I am so sorry for this massive delay but I struggled with this prompt. I don't know I wanted to write something different. Blend stories of time travel and I do plan to give it another try but this is based on the second part of your request. Hopefully, I can plan a good time travel story.

Adrian couldn't close his eyes. He couldn't allow himself to witness all that was lost. But like a bruise that tempts someone to press on it, Adrian's grief forced him to the thorough of the past.

Of all that he had lost, there was one loss not known to many.

It was a quiet chapter. Despair he gifted to himself.

He did not possess anything but fleeting images of you. All that he had was burnt to ashes. All that remained were memories of the past.

So, alone in the dark rooms of his castle, he replayed those memories. He reminisced about the feel of your lips, the tilt of your eyes, the bridge of your nose.

Some days he could feel it under his fingertips. He could hear the chimes of your voice in his dreams. It was better than losing you, he reasoned with himself.

He could still see your eyebags, your sunken cheeks, and hear the struggle of your failing lungs. Even in his dreams, he reached for your hunched form.

His mother was there in those dreams. Holding you with him. She fed you the best of the draughts. Anything to ease your agony. He remembered how hard his mother had tried to save you.

You were a fleeting dream in his life. An achingly sweet dream.

He was young back then. Lisa had found you battered, gasping in an unlit alleyway with a number tattooed on your wrist.

She brought you to Castle Dracula. And Adrian had been intrigued by the new addition.

You were frail. His mother told him, stuck with an infection in your lung. An infection from frequent drowning, forced drowning.

You never mentioned your past. Even the name he knew you by seemed to be made up.

Yet, despite the wounds on your body, the decline of your vision, the struggle of grasping for air, you were beautifully in love with living. You were easygoing with your smiles, never stingy with laughter that left you in pain.

Somehow all the cruelty that the world forced on you failed to erase your kindness.

Even in his dreams that seemed to take him back to the past with you, Adrian failed to notice even an ounce of grief. You sat next to him, talking for hours.

He'd heard all those words several times; after all, he did not possess enough figments of you not to be able to memorize everything about you. But every time your words seemed to settle into his heart with the same fervor.

"You know the snow and freezing wind won't be doing you any favors," Adrian repeated the words he remembered from the past. He dusted the snow gathered in your hair before his arms wrapped around you, picking you up.

Just like every other time, your arms circled his neck, and you rested your head on his chest. Your hair softly fell on your face. "Just because there's a danger of falling, birds don't stop flying, just because winter comes every year, greenery doesn't give up on blooming in spring. Then what do I have to lose," you spoke in riddles as always.

Adrian loved to listen anyway. He knew his next words, his tone, his expression so he followed it, playing the part of his past self. "You're losing comfort. Why are you so set on accelerating the speed of your demise?" His past self couldn't understand your inability to protect yourself from the inevitable pain.

You chuckled teasingly, warming your freezing hands on his nape. He irritably shifted you in his arms. Even in these dreams, your hands felt so real. "It isn't pain that scares me, Adrian. It's the inability to escape it. Every time I feel it, I try to find a way to free myself from the helplessness of enduring it," this was the closest he ever came to your past. Looking back at him, you smiled. "And you always come to get me, don't you?" You kissed his lips.

In the desperation of his dream, he clung to you longer. He kissed you deeper. His kiss wavered only when he felt your quivering lips. He stopped, looking back at you.

This felt different, as if his loss of control had reshaped his past. "How long will you keep rescuing me, Adrian? When will you save yourself?" His steps faltered as he looked at your words.

He stared at you. He didn't remember this. Was he forgetting you? Did he remember the past wrong?

Your hand rested on his cheek, turning his face to look at you.

Just then, passing by the corridor, he saw himself carrying a shawl, heading the same way he had brought you from. He looked at you, still in his arms.

"How long will you continue forcing yourself into a past long gone? Adrian," you cupped his face, "It's time to go." You smiled at him despite your words.

"I… let me stay here," he begged you. "Everything but this is gone," he barely gathered the courage to look in your eyes. "Please… please keep me here," he pulled you closer despite his trembling arms.

"Life isn't meant for past darling," you wipe his tears with you sleeve. The lingering fragrance of herbs fills his senses. "Go back to your present and let me find you again." You kiss him again and the world fades into the dark.