Bad Dreams
Squall & Yuffie
for Muffin’s challenge :)

- - -

She was having one of those dreams that you can’t wake yourself up from. It was as if she was watching a car collide with another; she just couldn’t look away. It was all just a bad memory reoccurring in her subconscious mind, and even she knew it as she lay there in her bed completely helpless as the nightmare gathered behind her eyelids.

She had been picking flowers with Aerith in the garden behind her friend’s house; Aerith’s mother used to take care of them in the springs and summers of Radiant Garden. They were Aerith’s favorite too: daffodils. She handed them to her with her gentle, sweet smile. A contagious giggle slipped from her lips and she began to laugh with her.

As she brought them to her face to catch their wondrous aroma, the pale gold petals disintegrated as they brushed her cheeks. She looked at Aerith in pure horror, but the girl had disappeared by now, running out of the garden shrieking like a banshee. The sky churned, the wispy white clouds turning black. She ran now too, heading down the cobblestone streets back to her house.

The wind whipped her thin, short hair into her face, covering her eyes. The streets were empty, and she was alone.

Alone and terrified.

Black voids mixed in with the clouds and revealed millions of glowing yellow eyes. They stared down at her, like thieves of the night. She ran faster because there was no hero that was going to save her. As she reached her home at last, she saw that the front door was already ajar. Cautiously, she reached out and took the knob, pulling the door the rest of the way.

And there were her parents, already lying on the floor dead.

- - -

Her eyes jolted open, tears dripping down her face. She threw off her covers and grabbed the little stuffed Moogle Cid had gotten her for a birthday present last year. It was just a dream, she kept telling herself. It was just a dream.

She exited her bedroom and turned right down the hallway where she could hear quiet snoring coming from Leon’s room. Carefully, she peeked inside to see that he laid on his bed, sprawled out and asleep. She bit down on her lower lip, not wanting to wake him from his slumber (which he so desperately needed nowadays because he was a workaholic).

“Squall?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and shaken. “Squall?”

The man stirred and opened a single blue eye. “What, Yuffie?” And then he saw the expression on the girl’s face. She looked like she had just seen death.

But that was only because she had.

She struggled not to cry. She didn’t need Leon to worry about her too aside his other issues. “Can I sleep with you tonight, Squall?” she asked quietly, clutching her Moogle closely to her chest. The man seemed to hesitate for a second, but then he moved over to the left side of his twin bed and patted the right.

“Come here, Yuffie.”

Yuffie slid into bed beside him and adjusted the covered, careful not to get too close. She didn’t want to make things awkward, even if she wanted comfort in a bad kind of way. “Bad dream?” he questioned, closing his eyes again.

He felt her nod against his shoulder.

“Yeah.”