Work Text:
Dream reached for the book, pen ready to sign it, head aching under the fluorescents, and joints making various complaints heard.
"Um, Mr. Aeternus? My name is Zia. I know this is probably weird and personal, but I just. Thank you for having trans characters in your books. I can't transition yet but –"
Dream paused, finally looking up to make eye contact. The teenager? University student? Dream was not good at telling ages, honestly – ducked their head away, hair a riot of purple. "You're welcome, Zia. And… a little secret. When I started writing those books a decade ago, I didn't know who I was yet, either."
The expression that lit up Zia's face could only be described as glowing, with the knowledge of you're like me, you're like me –
"Was it hard?" Zia asked, and Dream – hesitated, flashing back to decades of misery before he even had an inkling, lost and miserable and constantly on the verge of ending it all, but the shining lights that had been pouring himself into those characters and finding himself reflected right back, the friends he had made since then, the more accepting members of his family even if he did not speak to his parents –
He still struggled, sometimes, with his depression and PTSD; those would never fully go away. But Dream thought of what he would have wanted to know. That people would still love him. That he would be able to choose how to change his body. That he was not broken.
"It can be," Dream said, "but there will be people you meet who still care for you, and love you, and you will find new ways to change and shape your body, and there will be so many choices that will be yours. And. No matter what anyone says. You are not broken or wrong."
He didn't know if he'd said the right thing, as he finally opened the young person's copy of his book, to write a message and sign it.
"Thank you," Zia said, eyes shining.
****
"How was the book signing?" Hob asked, as Dream meandered back into the flat that evening.
"Existential," Dream mumbled, dropping his bag and shuffling over to sit on Hob's lap like a cat. "There was a young person. Newly discovered trans. I hope I said the right things. I hope I said what I would have wanted to hear."
"If I know you, you did," Hob said, kissing his cheek. Dream bared his throat, and Hob kissed the five-o-clock shadow of Dream's chin before peppering them down, loving every inch of Dream, his fluffy black hair and pointy chin and chest with his top surgery scars and everything down below and his gangly arms and legs, while Dream squirmed and tried to not giggle as he blushed.
People still loved him. He fervently hoped Zia would find whatever kind of love they wanted someday, be able to make the choices they wanted to make.
****
To Zia, wherever your path may lead,
This is your story. There are no fixed endings, and in your story, you can write that this is who you are.
-Dream Aeternus