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As far as bad dreams went, a nightmare was usually something that William could stomach. Laughed at by a crowd for botching a trick, running from hounds, trapped in a dark room… None of the options were pleasant, but they were manageable and easily forgotten in the light of day.
This nightmare shouldn’t have been much worse, but it was undoubtedly different. It lasted longer than most did — longer than it had any right to, frankly — and the dreamscape seemed tinged with a morose air rather than anything sinister. The composition held neither immediate danger nor feeling of shame, only a startlingly poignant sense of reality. No mist of haziness or vague sense of incredulity so characteristic of most dreams accompanied the visions, and when William awoke in a cold sweat, he felt nothing but loss and the crippling fear he had done something terrible.
He would have preferred unbidden terror any day.
"Charlie!" he cried out to the impenetrable darkness of the room, finding his body stark upright against what he could only assume was his headboard before he’d even gained bearings enough to register consciousness. Panic rose in his throat in the form of bile when no response came. The loss he’d felt, the guilt…
"You a’right?" came more of an exhalation of hot breath than a response from mere feet to his side. William’s entire body relaxed at the familiar voice. He’d been dreaming, of course; he was silly to have expected anything other than Charlie’s warm, petite frame beside him in their bed, but the reassurance he felt with her presence was real nonetheless.
"Maxy, babe?" she pressed on in the absence of a response, now sounding less sleepy and a fraction more concerned. William’s new name still felt foreign and unseemly on his tongue, and he spent more time trying to forget it than trying to adapt to it, but it never failed to sound just right in Charlie’s lilting voice. Perhaps that was due to the amount of love she spoke it with.
"Sorry to wake you, I didn’t mean… Uh, nightmare," he explained with some difficulty, embarrassed now and feeling more guilty for disturbing her than for whatever he’d done in his dream. She’d had a much later night than he had, and if anyone worked hard enough to deserve beauty sleep, it was Charlie. She was, coincidentally, also the last person who needed it, but that thought didn’t alleviate the regret for the interruption.
A pause stretched as Charlie seemed to evaluate the situation. “You wanna talk about it?” she settled on at last, leaving the decision to either purge or ignore the well of emotions up to him.
William swallowed, looking down towards where his hands would have been visible if there were any light at all. There was nothing to talk about, not really. It didn’t even qualify as a nightmare. Nothing happened. It was just… a collection of feelings. A moment in time. An overwhelming, soul-crushing sense of loss followed by complete apathy and an emptiness where he was sure should have been shame. It was a byproduct of a collection of events without the damaging events ever having occurred. An experience. There was nothing to talk about there.
"Do you think I’m a good person?" he ventured quietly, surprising even himself with his transparency.
Charlie didn’t stir beside him, but he could feel her gaze on him intensify. ” ‘Course, Maxy, what kind of question is that?”
"You say that now." William absentmindedly picked the cuticle off one thumb out of nervous habit. "But… but do you think I’ll always be a good person?"
He felt a shift behind him as Charlie sat up. She slung one delicate arm around his shoulders, drawing his head down to her level gently, presumably so she could get a better look at his face. The room was impossibly dark, still, even though his eyes had had plenty of time to adjust, but William didn’t need to separate Charlie’s face from the shadows to feel her gaze on his own.
"You’re the most selfless man I’ve ever met, you know that? You make something out of absolutely nothing just for the sake of seein’ people smile. Literally!" A smile seemed to creep its way into her voice. "You’d give up the world for me ten times over if I asked you to. A man like that doesn’t go bad. Doesn’t matter if you do some bad stuff. I know that no matter what, you’ll always be doin’ things for the right reason."
Two hands sporting cheap, chipped manicures gripped either side of William’s face while Charlie examined him. Once she seemed satisfied that he fit whatever criterion she was searching for, she relinquished her hold and allowed her hands to rest more tenderly on his shoulders.
"You’ve got this light in ya, Maxy. I can see it, no matter how dark it is everywhere else. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, it’s always gonna be there. Casting puppet shows on the walls and drawing people to you." She leaned in close now, intent. "Listen here, big cheese: we’re in this together now and forever. You don’t have to tend that light alone, okay? As long as I’m around to remind you it’s in there, it ain’t going out. I won’t let it."
William pressed their lips together once, twice, and then their foreheads, finding his way to her solely based on the sound of her soft but assured voice. Charlie’s mouth formed the word “promise” and the air felt warm as William snaked an arm around her waist to hold steady on the small of her back. William wasn’t sure how much of what Charlie said was true, but his sense of logic in the moment led him to believe that goddesses such as the one he’d been blessed enough to hold in his arms weren’t particularly inclined to lie. Even if she had, what place did William have to question the divine?
Incalculable minutes crawled by as they held each other, both feeling the implacable urge to be close as long as possible.
When Charlie finally pulled away, it wasn’t to further comfort or confront, but to razz. “Say pal, you look ghastly,” she teased in the overly theatrical voice “Maxwell” had come to adopt on stage. William shook his head in response, grinning.
"You’re lucky you’re such a doll, Charlie."
William drifted off to sleep still sitting upright against the headboard with her held in his arms like an anchor or a lifeline or both, and the steady softness of her breathing reminded him every second of the long life that he and Charlie had ahead of them.
—
When Maxwell awoke, seconds or days later, it was in the same upright position, though his back was against an uncomfortable chair back rather than a headboard, and he certainly did not hold his love in his arms.
The realization was a slow one.
First came recognition of the cold in absence of another body. More infuriating was when he glanced down at his restrained hands to find that the room had just enough light for them to be visible. The room’s darkness was always just shy of what was necessary to see. The worst, though, was the unmistakable patch of ice he felt in his chest, as tangible as anything else. Apathy and a whole lot of insensitivity in the place of guilt.
Maxwell trembled hard enough to shake the nightmare throne he was bound to.
Charlie had been right, all those years ago. The light in him would never go out so long as she was there to remind him of it. Neither of them had ever considered the consequences should she not be around for the job.
William had also been right, all those years ago. Bad dreams weren’t really so bad, in the grand scheme of things. Not compared to the good ones.