Work Text:
The air was blistering on the North coast today - the wind whipping Ezra’s hair to the point that he chided himself for not bringing a wool hat. You seemed set on waking your way down to the beach front from the top of the cliff, following a treacherous path that looked to have been ventured by few, featuring small ledges topped with gravel and heather. You were adamant that you’ve done it before. Every time he peered over the edge, it made Ezra’s stomach swirl.
But you’re not scared. You tear forward, and then bend round when the path goes back on itself, a determined look on your face that sometimes breaks into a smile when you turn back to look at Ezra while he talks.
He’s trying to distract himself. Usually these walks that you drag him on are spent in loose but mutual conversation, accompanied with stops as you both admire the compositions of the land that Ezra points out. But now he’s launched into a story of a three legged dog he’d kept seeing on his street when he was a boy and how he’d arrived at the conclusion that it was a ghost. He’s squeezing every single minute detail he can out of his memories to prolong it, calling out to you against the howl of the wind and only feeling safe to slow when his feet are finally on sand.
That’s when you truly smile - looking at him in victory while a backdrop of a sea that disappears to the horizon and the ever muted greyish blue of Cornwall act as a perfect compliment to you. He knows he could never capture the beauty of that expression on a canvas because his skill couldn’t do it justice. He’s painted you plenty of times and has shown them to you now. He’s proud of his work but the only depiction he’s capable of reigning as true to your smile as possible like this is in his dreams.
And he can’t help himself from speaking. He rarely can.
“I dreamed of you.”
Your smile is then joined with a small frown for you don’t know the context of his thoughts. He supposes even he wasn’t prepared for the realisation that comes after he says it - he has always dreamed of you, he is always dreaming of you and he will always dream of you. It’s a slip of the tongue while his heart is recovering as it hammers in his chest from a fearful walk and it sounds like the wrong tense. But your eyebrows level out in recognition so he thinks it fits. He hopes you’ve dreamed of him too.