You are my dream and home

It’s been two months since I saw him for the first time. We were standing on a beach I didn’t know, the sun was almost out of sight, and darkness was gradually enveloping us. He was drunk, hardly looked at me. And my eyes were fixed on him —on the strange guy in my dream. On the second night nothing changed, only the clouds over the sea darkened a little. On the third night, I couldn’t stand it and decided to talk to him. At first, he did not answer me and continued to look at the sea, a little later he asked the question himself: “Why do I dream about you?” I smiled. “No. I’m dreaming about you. He looked at me. “Dreaming…” We didn’t talk again that night. On the fourth night I saw him sitting on the sand with his legs stretched out, the water sometimes reached him and he shuddered. When I got closer, he turned around and looked at me happily. “I started to think that I was boring you, and you decided not to dream about me anymore.” I didn’t say anything. I did go to bed later than usual that day, but I didn’t choose sleep. I sat down next to him and stretched out my legs too. The water turned out to be very cold, and in the end I had to sit down. “Do you feel it?” he asked. “yes.” “Me too. I feel.” Fifth night, sixth, seventh… We got used to each other, didn’t ask who we were or where we were from, just sat next to each other and looked at the sea. Eighth night, ninth, tenth… I noticed how he tried to invite me to warm up together when the wind picked up, but did not dare. It became very cold, and I myself went up to him and, burying my face in his chest, hugged him. It seems to have become warmer. The next night he didn’t show up. I was sitting on the beach alone. The wind covered me with sand until I began to drown in it. I think that’s when I woke up. The whole next day I walked with the thought that I could not sleep. I was afraid. I was afraid that I would wake up on the beach alone again. Without him. Another day I went sleepy and lost. And in the evening I collapsed on the bed and immediately fell asleep. An empty beach, I’m alone again. I wanted to scream, but I just collapsed into a pile of sand and started crying. “I found us a blanket,” a familiar voice said from behind. I wiped my tears and stood up. “I thought I was boring you, and you decided not to come to me anymore. It made him laugh, and I smiled too. “Where did you find the blanket?” “The day before yesterday I fell asleep earlier and decided to look around. I found this blanket, but I lost my way back. Yesterday… I found a blanket at our place yesterday, but you never showed up. So I decided to find a new place, a little further away, because without you our place is not so warm. In fact, the whole beach is not so warm without you.” We wrapped ourselves in a blanket and sat down on the sand. I touched his hair with my hand and tucked a strand behind his ear. “There must be something here besides this beach and one blanket. Maybe a house? I suggested. He shrugged his shoulders. "We would have seen." “But isn’t this our dream?” We needed a blanket, and it appeared. "Home… I would like a home, a common home… ours…" Something told me that he wasn’t talking about sleep, and I understand him — I need a home too. The next night we both fell asleep earlier and went in search of a house. The sand did not end; we both lost strength and eventually gave up when it became completely dark. He took my hand so as not to lose me and pulled me to him. “My name is Aegon.” I told him my name. He repeated it. “Now we can call each other if we get lost in the dark.” After that, we met on the beach for many more nights and left it in search of a home, and each time we collapsed in the dark. “We can,” Aegon whispered to me before we woke up. I completely lost touch with reality and thought only about the dream, and about him, Aegon — the guy with silver hair. The next night he showed up on the beach drunk and covered in bruises. “Don’t touch it,” he pushed me away and fell into the sand himself. “It’s not real. You! All this!” He covered his eyes with his hands. “I’m real. Look, give me your hand, touch it.” I took his hand and started squeezing. “Do you feel it? Wouldn’t you feel me if I wasn’t real?” “Yes, I feel it.” he sobs softly. “I can’t do without you. I wake up and I can’t be there without you, I want to fall asleep again just to…” He pulls me closer, laying me down next to him. “Just not to be alone.” We’re not leaving this night, and we’re not leaving the next. Maybe the house we were looking for is not a building at all, maybe the blanket and our place on the beach is it, maybe the house is me and Aegon? The weather is getting better. The night is still as dark, but we are no longer covered with sand. A few more nights later, we see a small wooden house in our place. It’s warm inside, it gets even warmer when we fall on a soft bed together. “I wish I could stay here with you forever,” I whisper between our kisses. “ What a pity that it is impossible.” “Forever…” Aegon whispers back to me. The next night, when we come to the bed again, Aegon sits me down on it, and he sits on his knees on the floor. “I’ve found a way for you and me to stay here forever.” I’m smiling. “We have to go to sleep.” “But don’t we all fall asleep in our own world before we wake up here?” “No. We must sleep forever. Tomorrow I will do it, decide and…” I can’t hear the rest of his words. My head is spinning. I want, yes, I want to stay with him, but… what chance is there that we won’t just die? I wake up in my room without Aegon. I try to fall asleep again, but it doesn’t come out. I scream into the pillow. It becomes difficult to breathe. “Don’t do that. If your plan doesn’t work out…” I take sleeping pills during the day. The first pill doesn’t work, and I drink the second, the third, and finally fall asleep. A strong wind almost knocks me down. I look at the dilapidated house, at the beach that slowly goes underground. Aegon wasn’t there. No, he’s gone. I felt it. Our shared world was collapsing before my eyes. I woke up. I looked around the room in hope, but immediately buried my face in the pillow as soon as I realized that he was not there, and would not be there anymore. “Stay in my heart, Aegon, there you will find your home.”