Work Text:
Amber. Cerulean. Violet.
Hues spiral in and out, each swirl a different scent, a different taste or texture. Flour spills over a counter as red bursts out; the scene fades to lilac with the heady scent of vanilla. Clumsy hands brush over a bowl, sparks of staticky black emanating from their palms.
He dreams in colours, this man. Intangible, fleeting things, no definitive scenes that Adam can really sink his teeth into, for want of a better phrase. Of course, he would never use such a glaringly obvious figure of speech, but c’est la vie. Even in dreams, Matthew’s work flows from his palms, kneading his talents like dough into something malleable, comforting.
Matthew glances up (or as close to a glance as that indeterminable face can muster), the black swirls of his face contorting into something familiar, a cursory smile. Adam smiles back, lifting his star-shaped glasses in greeting as somehow, a man without eyes or even a face rolls his eyes. He laughs, fangs exposed as Matthew turns back to his bowl. The scene turns a pale chartreuse, puffs of powder-blue light spreading from the citrus-bright scent of the bowl.
Somewhere, Adam imagines, the sky pales with Matthew’s dreams, its colours shifting over and over. He hopes he can share that sky with him, someday. Until then, this strange dream-rapport they tentatively share will have to do.
The flavours of the air are hollower in this place, nothing as definite as the real world. Though when dreams are the only thing they have, Adam can make do with this fraction of Matthew’s cooking. Matthew shakes his head fondly as he takes a piece of dough, his disapproval punctuated with sparks of magenta and grey. Adam grins. Surely he won’t suffer any ill-effects from raw shortbread dough in a dream?
It’s light. The flavours dissipate as soon as he takes them in, leaving a faint sweetness in his mouth. Without the real-world substance of food it’s a shadow of its buttery glory, yet somehow its beauty translates, its taste and mouth-feel evidently the work of an expert chef. He nods unsophisticatedly, grinning as he gestures wildly at the baking tray, hands flicking from one expression to another. Matthew glows in this enthusiastic approval, and the haze surrounding them turns a soft orange. A colour vivid yet muted, not unlike the lemon zest gilding the sweet dough of the shortbread.
Leaning against the counter, Adam kisses Matthew on the cheek. No blush comes to the chittering, shifting mass of his staticky face, impossible with the lack of skin for the blush to grace. However, the orange changes further, now tinted with a roseate hue. Clicking his tongue, Matthew picks up the tray and places it in the oven, its mechanical hum a cool mauve. For a while, there is peace, and Matthew is more than content to remain silent. Despite Adam’s ability to understand his windchime-like voice (definitely a cool grey, with a blueish cadence and almost silver musicality), they tend to find themselves in comfortable silence more often than not, Adam filling in the empty gaps with his words when needed.
The counter sits in a certain space. Whether it was initially long enough to occupy Adam leaning against it is irrelevant. All that matters now is that it exists in this state, in this place that is neither void nor clouds, neither ground nor a kitchen. It’s an inhuman place, the hazy form of Matthew’s dreams something far from logic. To people as disconnected from humanity as them, it’s comforting. Something befitting for their peculiarities, Adam muses as he turns Matthew’s hand over and over in his. A respite from what to most people is a regular world; such is the ever-malleable nature of dreams.
The timer beeps, a jolt of blue. One beautiful thing about Matthew’s dreams is the way that time warps and bends, stretching a second of peace into an eon, and condensing a dull waiting period into mere moments. The biscuits are hot from the oven, the air around them becoming citrussy and sweet. Adam gestures for Matthew to wait, and picks one up. The heat almost burns his lips, almost singes his tongue with its intangible taste. Perfect. He nods, beaming over at Matthew.
Admittedly, they aren’t as good as any real shortbread. They taste like shortbread deconstructed and put back together identically, but with something missing; a Theseus’s ship of sorts. Still, warmth and love is kneaded into the dough, a familiarity shared over Adam’s many visits to Matthew’s dreams. It tastes of honeyed yellow, a dusty pink and vibrant green. It tastes of black static and red paisley. It tastes of what a more sentimental man may call home.