The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Three (Draft 3) "Hello, Pretty Pretty"

"Julien."

He blinked rapidly to clear the tears. "There are things I didn't realize until recently. There could still be things the future you hasn't told me. I hope I haven't said too much."

"C'mere." Morpheus lifted his arms and twisted in his seat. Julien was quick to fall into his embrace. "No one's cried for me before. If you are trying to convince me not to feel for you, you are doing a terrible job."

Julien cry-laughed against his shoulder. After a time, Julien lifted his head. He wiped a knuckle beneath each eye.

"I should tell you something."

"Yeah?"

"OK. This might sound cheesy, but I mean it sincerely. I want you to remember." Julien took a deep breath before he continued: "It gets better."

Morpheus shook his head. "Better than what?"

"Just remember it. If, in the future, one of us is hurting. Just say it to yourself: It gets better."

"It gets better," Morpheus repeated.

"So, now that I've made a stellar first impression...You wanna get some air? Watch the sunset or something?"

Morpheus went a little slack-jawed at that. "I'd like that."

Julien smiled, not a trace of tears on his face.

"You're OK in sunlight?"

"These days."

They rose from the couch and went to sit outside the tent. There was no immediate need to speak, so they sat together in silence.

"I should have guessed something like this happened," Julien said after a while, "You've always seemed to know how to handle Vampyres."

"Like I had a teacher?"

"Yeah, but you grasped things she couldn't have taught you." Julien's face was in profile, the corner of his mouth quirked, as if he were trying not to smile.

"Lord," Morpheus whispered, "You're talking about making love."

Julien laughed. "Sorry. I used to think it irritating you couldn't talk dirty, but now I think I miss this."

"I can talk about sex."

"In the politest of terms."

Morpheus shrugged. "Why should I be vulgar? I know I'm not purely hedonistic. If I care to share myself, I ought to also care to show respect."

"Well, yes, you should, but I haven't always been so respectful or worthy of respect."

"Worthiness is something others see in us."

"If we're lucky." Julien made a beckoning gesture with the first two fingers of his right hand.

"Worthy." Morpheus inclined towards Julien and gave him a kiss.

The look Julien wore then was one Morpheus had seen on other faces, but only once that he'd appeared in his own body. A moment passed and Julien shook his head.

"It's still weird?"

"Little bit."

Morpheus nodded. "So, can I ask you? How did you know? Your first time."

"Oh my Gawd." Julien laughed. "OK. Trial and error? Like, I had a girlfriend for—a few months, in high school. We had this lame love triangle—I had a crush on this guy from our soccer team, but he was into Jen, my girlfriend. There was all this teen drama. But, I ended up with this other guy from the team. And, I liked him. I did. We didn't listen to the same music or anything, but, like, I wanted to be all over him. I had no idea how things should go, but it just felt good to get close. We...did just about everything hands and mouths can do."