One Shots #VariaSquad

Live Like We're Dying

We only got 86 400 seconds in a day
To turn it all around or to throw it all away
Gotta tell 'em that we love 'em while we got the chance to say,
Gotta live like we're dying oh

~ Live Like We're Dying by Kris Allen

Just as soon as he arrives at the decision to fix things, Varun realises that it's not going to be so easy.

The country is in lockdown and, given that he's been pretty vocal about the importance of staying home, it would be hypocritical of him to leave the house for the sole purpose of going to Alia's place and telling her that she may be willing to pretend she has some kind of amnesia but he isn't. 'It's not right,' he tells himself as he paces around his sitting room, 'you don't need to leave the house, it's not urgent, it's not essential.' He pauses his pacing a moment and considers the words that have just left his mouth, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair as his feet once again start tracing the path he's been walking for half an hour.

'Not essential? Seriously? We're in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and telling the girl I'm in love that I'm in love with her isn't essential?!' he demands of himself. 'If there's one thing that's been made painfully clear in all this, it's that time is extremely limited.'

'Okay so maybe talking to her is essential,' his brain concedes. 'But you don't need to drive over to her place just to talk. That's literally what phones were invented for!' He can't deny that his brain definitely has a point there. But on the other hand...

'She's not going to be willing to have this conversation over the phone – or probably at all. But if there's going to be any chance, it has to be face-to-face,' his heart refutes.

'That's what video calls were invented for.' At that, he lets out a noise close to a growl, wishing he could physically throttle his own brain.

'Because it's not like she could end a video call with the click of a button or anything right?' he deadpans. Thankfully, his brain doesn't have any smart-ass comeback for that and – finally – falls silent, allowing him to calm down a little.

As he relaxes, he realises he's spent the better part of an hour arguing with himself out loud, and he lets out a sigh. 'And I've officially gone completely insane,' he mutters, running his hand through his hair again as he throws himself on his bed. 'No surprise Alia's the one who made me crack.' He laughs at his own words, shaking his head and closing his eyes, deciding that he needs to sleep on it, have some rest and clear his head before he makes any kind of decisions.

***

When he wakes in the morning, his head is nowhere near being clearer and he certainly doesn't feel well rested – if anything, he feels even more exhausted than he did when he'd gone to bed.

It turns out that falling asleep while thinking about Alia – more specifically, the conversation he needs to have with Alia – isn't the best idea. It's not the first time he's ever fallen asleep thinking about her, far from it in fact. But, usually, his mind being filled with thoughts of her as he drifts off inspire good dreams, the dreams of a life together, a house and a family. And while those dreams might make his heart hurt with longing, they're inherently happy.

The dreams he'd had last night had been anything but.

He'd spent a lot of the night tossing and turning, in that weird place between waking and sleep, deliberating over the dilemma he's facing. But whenever he'd fully drifted off, found himself entirely asleep, he'd been plagued with what he can only call nightmares.

He'd dreamt that he'd finally managed to get his brain to shut up for a minute and managed to gather the courage to go to her and have the conversation he so desperately needed to have with her only for her to turn him away before he even got the words out.