The Dreamtrap - 3. Chapter 3

- III -

They didn’t get home until very early on Saturday morning, and Raven didn’t feel a slightest pang of guilt. Ever since a month or so ago, guilt that would be gnawing at him every time after they came back from one of the ‘parties,’ started to diminish immensely. By now, it disappeared completely – Raven wouldn’t feel even a shadow of remorse. At first, it bothered him somewhat, but finally, he shrugged it off, figuring that the absence of pangs of conscience was a rather good thing, at least in his book.

It seemed that Julian was aware of that as well (which didn’t surprise Raven in the slightest), and now they were back on their original schedule – the ‘parties’ would happen every Friday of the month, instead of just two.

Raven drifted off to sleep two or three hours after they finally made it home, his head on Julian’s chest, blond’s heartbeat matching his own, a faint scent of blood tickling his senses with lazy comfort. He thought of the painting and about the fact that he would need to tell Julian to run a scan on it, just in case, when he fell asleep.

He dreamt of the day he was almost choked by the rope around his neck – the ‘punishment’ from his Aunt. He dreamt of falling facedown into the pile of little sharp rocks, crushed glass, and broken plastic, feeling the cat’s sharp claws digging deeper into his spine. Somehow, the pain didn’t bother him anymore; neither did the blazing heat nor the black-and-purple darkness in front of his eyes. “It’ll be gone soon,” he thought hazily, sliding into thick-cotton-filled nothingness. “It’s going away now...”

Then he dreamt of hearing someone’s voice, which sounded as if it was coming from very far away. The voice screamed something out, which ended with, “...you fucker...!” Then Raven felt the tightness of the rope leaving his neck and drew a quick, sharp breath, which immediately made his throat hurt. He opened his eyes when he felt someone lifting him up, but all he could see was just a dark outline of someone’s head and shoulders against the bright July sun. The same voice said something he failed to hear, and then Raven closed his eyes, once again sliding into the cotton-wrapped darkness.

When he opened his eyes again, he realized that he was lying in bed, and he was quite uncomfortable. He blinked, trying to figure out why, and then realized that somebody was rolling him onto his side and rubbing something onto his back. He mumbled something incoherent when someone said:

“Lady, you should’ve used a hell of a lot more of this... And you didn’t even touch the back,” the voice added darkly, and there were more unpleasant rubbing sensations on his wailing with pain back.

He managed to turn his head so he could finally see the owner of that voice, and when he did, he started blinking rather rapidly. The man glanced at him and smiled tightly.

“You’ll be all right, kid,” he muttered and rubbed more cream on Raven’s back.

“What are you doing here?” Raven muttered, recognizing the man immediately.

“It’s a dream, kid,” the man said quickly, and let go of Raven’s shoulder. “Just a dream...”

Raven slowly lifted his arm and looked at his hand. Yeah, he was indeed still a kid, he thought when he saw his small fingers. Why the hell was he dreaming of this person then? He was never there when the entire unpleasant thing happened...

“But why are you here?” he winced when he tried sitting up. “You were nowhere near me back then, Desmond...” Then he slightly frowned – the man’s long black hair was now quite short. “You cut your hair?” he asked dumbfoundedly.

The man’s green eyes stared at him without blinking.

“You recognize me?” he asked incredulously without answering the question, and then frowned. “This is new...” he muttered mostly to himself.

“What...” Raven started saying when Desmond turned his head to look at something behind his back.

Raven followed his gaze but he only saw the wall. Desmond quickly stood up.

“I gotta go,” he said. “It’s just a dream, okay?”

“Wait...” Raven reached for him, but the green-eyed man shook his head and took several steps back.

“I gotta go,” he repeated. “See you later, I guess...” With that, he turned around and quickly walked towards the wall.

Raven blinked several times when all of a sudden, the man simply ceased to exist. He tried sitting up once again, ignoring the throbbing, sharp pain, and then there was a monotonous, loud sound right next to his ear. He immediately recognized the sound of Julian’s alarm clock and looked around, trying to find it. Then everything around him slightly swayed, and suddenly, the world started rapidly losing focus. Raven squeezed his eyes shut when he felt dizzy all of a sudden, and when he opened them again, he stared at the sleepy blond who was blindly reaching for the ‘off’ button on the alarm clock.

“Goddammit...” Julian muttered after shutting up the screeching alarm. “I completely forgot to turn it off on Thursday night...”

“That’s fine...” Raven said slowly, trying to make sense of his dream. “I had a nasty dream anyway...”

“What did you dream about?” Julian yawned and pulled him closer.

“That one time when I almost got strangled because of the damn rope...” Raven said slowly, and Julian kissed the side of his throat. “It was weird though...” Raven continued as slowly. “I never knew what happened after I passed out, and yet, that’s what I dreamt about...”

“Subconsciousness is a funny thing,” the blond said softly and nibbled on Raven’s earlobe.

“Subconsciousness had nothing to do with it,” the brunet replied, half-closing his eyes at the sensation. “That particular event never happened.”

“How do you know that?” Julian murmured and slid his mouth farther down Raven’s neck. “Maybe you just don’t remember it, that’s all...”

“No,” Raven completely closed his eyes, letting his hands wonder all over Julian’s chest. “It never happened because it would be impossible... I dreamt of some guy rescuing me from that damn cat and pulling the rope off my neck... Mmm...” he turned his head slightly to the left, giving Julian better access to his neck – a thing the blond took advantage of with great gusto. “Then apparently, he carried me into the house...”

“Makes sense...” Julian said in a muffled voice, his face glued to Raven’s neck.

“Not really...” Raven breathed, digging his fingernails into blond’s shoulder. “That guy... Mmm... Yeah, right there.... Ohh... That guy... You know who he was...?”

“Mmm...?” Julian asked without raising his head while slowly traveling across Raven’s neck.

“It was... Oh, go left... No, your other left... Yeah, right there...! Mmmm...”

“Who was it?” the blond asked after Raven stopped talking for several minutes.

“Oh, right...” Raven muttered and half-opened his eyes. “It was Desmond...”

Julian finally raised his head just so he could look at Raven intently. The brunet sighed.

“Specter,” he said mildly.

“I remember his name,” Julian nodded slowly, his expression somewhat dark and thoughtful.

“What is it?” Raven frowned. “It was just a dream...!”

“Did he look younger?” the blond asked, and Raven frowned deeper.

“No,” he said slowly. “He looked exactly the same as he did a few months ago... Except his hair was short,” he added thoughtfully. Then he shook his head. “The weird part was that I knew who he was,” he continued. “In fact, I remembered everything, except I still looked like a kid,” he shrugged.

“You recognized him?” Julian asked with unexpected relief.

“Yes,” Raven said slowly. “What is it?”

“Oh,” the blond muttered and leaned closer. “For a second, I thought that he got another ability, but since you recognized him, then it’s not the case...”

“What ability would that be?” Raven sank his fingers in Julian’s hair and closed his eyes again.

“A rare one,” the blond muttered. “Has to do with dreams... However, if that was the case, then you wouldn’t recognize him; that’s not how it works.”

“Good enough...” Raven said and slightly shifted, changing the angle. “Before I forget...” he briefly opened his eyes. “Check out that painting later, will you? Make sure it’s spell-free... Just in case,” he added after Julian raised his head again.

“Will do,” the blond nodded, and his fingers started doing their own sweet thing, making Raven’s back to arch off the sheets.

****

According to Julian, the painting was clean, and Raven was relieved immensely. He firmly believed that the blond would definitely find something wrong with it. When that didn’t happen, Raven decided to find a better frame for his newly beloved piece of art. He was amused and frustrated when he couldn’t find anything he liked; therefore, in the middle of following week (on Wednesday, to be exact), he decided to make a design himself and simply have the damn frame custom-made.

Julian seemed to be genuinely surprised when he saw Raven’s drawings.

“That is pretty good,” he said when he saw the design.

“Yeah,” Raven hemmed without looking away from the sheet of paper in front of him. “I am a man of many talents...”

“I’d say...” the blond muttered. “So, were you always this good or did it just surface?” Here, he threw a cautious look at Raven.

“I was okay at it for as long as I can remember,” the brunet answered absent-mindedly, narrowing his left eye a little, while staring at the design.

“You never told me,” Julian said with a slight frown, and Raven shrugged and looked up.

“I never cared much about it,” he said. “It wouldn’t make any difference.”

“It would keep you occupied,” the blond said pointedly, and Raven laughed.

“Hardly,” he returned his attention to the sheet of paper on the desk. “I don’t usually care about drawing... It’s just...” He sighed and straightened up. “The frame on that painting is ridiculous to say the least, and I couldn’t find anything that would sit right with me, you know...? Therefore, I decided to make the design myself and to have the damn thing custom-made.”

“You really like that painting,” Julian didn’t even try to make it sound like a question.

“You can tell, huh...” Raven muttered, concentrating on the design once again.

“You show quite a few signs of mild obsession,” the blond nodded seriously, and Raven grinned at that.

...He finished the design the next day (Thursday) and took it to the frame shop that very evening. The frame would be ready on Saturday morning, so Raven headed back home just so he could get into the study and stare at his new obsession yet again – he has been doing that a lot lately. He would just lean on the desk, studying the painting, looking at every single small detail.

He looked at all those mirrors for almost fifteen minutes when suddenly, he narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. Then he frowned and let go of the desk, walking closer to the wall.

“What the...” he muttered and carefully touched the canvas. That strange bluish splatter that Julian said represented an exit was gone. Raven stared with disbelief at the mirror on the farthest right where the splatter used to be, and then he walked to the window and jerked the curtains apart, letting the sunlight to flood the study. He walked back to the painting and stared at it with painful intensity. The splatter of blue color wasn’t there.

Raven muttered a scrambled, quiet obscenity and shifted his gaze towards the woman. She looked exactly the same as she did before – the same rigid posture, the same turn of the head. He carefully studied the painting for the next hour or so. Everything was the same except for that one mirror on the farthest right with the missing blue splatter of color.

“Dammit,” Raven growled finally and stepped away from the wall. “I knew there was something wrong with the bloody thing! But Julian said it was fine...” he frowned. “Yeah, but where did that reflection go then...? Son of a...”

He threw another glance at the painting, hoping to see that bluish splash of color, cursed when there was none, and walked out of the study, thinking that he would have to tell Julian about that later in the evening when the blond came back home.

Julian returned at his usual time – 7:30 – and Raven was about to tell him about the painting and the vanished reflection when the blond exhaled with unexpected frustration and threw his keys on the coffee table rather harshly. Raven frowned at that.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Julian kicked off his shoes and headed towards the kitchen.

“This damn merger is more frustrating than I thought it would be,” he muttered while filling a short glass with amber-colored liquor. “Too many factors...” he sighed and drank some of the liquor.

“Seems to me like you need to blow off some steam,” Raven said with a small smile.

Julian glanced at him and set his glass on the counter.

“Yes,” he agreed with a dark smile. “And you are going to help me with that.”

Raven gave him another smile of his own and stepped closer. He pushed the blond against the counter, the painting and the vanished reflection completely escaping his mind. He harshly nipped at Julian’s lower lip while running his hands over blond’s hips.

“Before I forget,” Julian muttered and pushed the brunet away slightly. “I have to leave tomorrow morning. I will be back on Saturday afternoon.”

“Leave?” Raven frowned at that. “Where are you going?”

“This goddamn merger,” Julian nodded darkly. “There is something I have to attend. You won’t be interested, believe me on that.”

“I could always go with you,” Raven said pointedly, and the blond immediately shook his head.

“I will be gone the entire day on Friday,” he said in a low voice. “Knowing you, you’ll be bored again... I do not want you to repeat your stunt, not at that meeting. It is rather important. I will be back on Saturday afternoon,” he nodded, and Raven let out a small, disappointed sigh.

“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” he asked in defeat.

“My plane leaves at nine in the morning,” Julian said, running his fingers through Raven’s hair.

“You’d better wake me up before that,” Raven murmured and pushed the blond against the counter again.

“Believe me,” Julian nodded without shifting his gaze. “I will.”

Raven smiled without baring his teeth.

“Strip,” he ordered, and Julian slowly shook his head.

“No,” he said quietly. “You are the one who is going to do all the stripping tonight.”

Raven immediately knew that right now, the blond was craving more dominance than usual, and he felt a jolt of dark heat shoot through him. When Julian introduced him to this particular mood of his for the first time a while ago, Raven hated it. Well, for the first twenty minutes or so, to be exact. Following Salamander’s orders and doing everything he was told, felt incredibly humiliating. Raven almost stopped that game right then and there, when to his astonishment, he realized that the entire ordeal was turning him on so much that his hands were shaking.

Therefore, he decided to give it another twenty minutes, figuring that he could always stop this later. He knew that Julian would not pursue the matter any further if Raven didn’t want it. “If I still hate it, I will just call it quits,” he reasoned back then. Well, twenty minutes later, Raven wouldn’t even think of calling anything quits. This mood didn’t hit Julian too often – once a month if that – and every time it happened, Raven would get into it from the very beginning.

...“Strip,” Julian ordered in the same quiet voice. “Do not speak until I let you,” he added a second later.

Raven slowly blinked once for ‘yes’ and started undoing the buttons on his shirt, knowing that he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight, and that was just fine with him.

...He was right. After several very intense hours, and after they relocated onto the couch in the living room, finally leaving the kitchen, Raven was standing on all four, biting the back of the couch, growling loudly while the blond kept delivering unexpectedly hard, abusive blows onto that spot filled with stars and sparkles, making brunet’s back arch tightly and his hips rock harder.

He was thankful that Julian didn’t order him to be completely silent – Raven doubted it was even possible for him to do that. His throat could never be tamed, no matter what the circumstances would be. It has been at least an hour after Salamander’s breathless ‘On your hands and knees!’ order, and Raven ached for that tantalizing, final release. Julian, however, acted as if he was completely oblivious to brunet’s urgent, begging growls, keeping up the ruthless, maddening pace without even a hint of slowing down or softening those hard blows.

Raven dug his fingers deeper into the couch, swallowing all the words that were dancing on the tip of his tongue, knowing that if he spoke without the blond’s permission, this sweet torture would last for a hell of a lot longer. He groaned desperately when Julian picked up the pace even more, and his back twisted into impossible arch, making the blond to sink deeper yet – a thing Raven didn’t think was possible. He bit onto the back of the couch once again, thinking that he would have to endure God knows how much longer of this sweet madness, when all of a sudden, Julian muttered:

“Talk to me... Raven, talk to me...”

The minute Salamander said his name, Raven knew that the game was over. He turned his head, staring at the blond above his shoulder, locking his gaze on those lilac eyes.

“Tell me what you want,” Julian panted without shifting his gaze.

“I want... You on the couch...” Raven managed to say in a stuttering growl. “I want... to face you... and I want... Your hand...!”

The blond nodded, and suddenly, he pulled out, making Raven grimace at the very unpleasant stinging emptiness. Julian threw his body onto the couch, pressing his back into the cushions, and pulled Raven on top. The brunet impaled himself on Salamander’s body with an impatient groan and tightly wrapped his legs around blond’s waist, immediately latching onto the side of Julian’s throat, hungry for his taste and scent.

He moaned, “Go slower...” when he felt a hand wrap around his throbbing length, and Julian obliged, knowing that right now, Raven wanted to stretch the grand finale for as long as he could possibly handle. He made his hips to slow down drastically without reducing the brutal strength of his blows, and his hand started moving in the same slow, tight tempo. Raven briefly raised his head, just so he could assault Julian’s mouth for a minute, and then he returned to blond’s throat, latching onto a different spot.

He managed to keep his body moving in Julian’s tempo for a while, but finally, he couldn’t do it anymore. Julian’s hips and hand immediately followed Raven’s accelerando-ing rhythm, and when the brunet mumbled something incoherent into his throat and when his teeth sank even deeper into Julian’s skin, the blond knew that the grand finale was maybe a minute away.

He was right – a minute later, Raven groaned, “Julian...!” into blond’s neck, and then that very familiar maddening dance of brunet’s convulsing body threw Salamander into overdrive. He called out Raven’s name several times in a raspy, breaking voice, feeling the smaller man spill all over his tight hand and chest, spasming in his palm, and Julian’s hips thrust forward, lifting both of them off the couch for several long, shuddering seconds, his spasms eerily identical to the ones of the brunet.

After all the convulsions finally flatlined, Raven mumbled something in a very weak voice and dropped his suddenly limp body onto Julian’s still slightly shivering lean frame. Julian buried his face in Raven’s dark, disheveled, somewhat longish by now hair, and closed his eyes, inhaling the familiar scent deeper without unlocking the circle of his arms.

“Let’s get to bed,” he muttered after a while.

“Mmm,” Raven replied without lifting his head. “The couch is big and comfortable enough...”

Julian let out low, satisfied laughter.

“You can’t even move, can you?” he asked in his usual purring manner.

“Mmm,” Raven said again without moving.

Julian let out another low laughter, kissed brunet’s temple, and got up, never letting go of Raven’s limp body. Raven wrapped both arms around Salamander’s neck, managing to keep his legs locked around the blond’s waist, and slightly turned his head, just so he could run his tongue over Julian’s still bleeding, abused throat.

The blond slowly made his way to the bedroom, and after he kicked the door closed, he lowered Raven onto the sheets, sliding next to him, and quickly setting up the alarm clock.

“Do you have to go tomorrow?” Raven muttered sleepily and wrapped his arm around Julian’s waist, resting his head on the other man’s shoulder.

“Uh huh,” Julian replied, entwining their fingers together.

“Damn,” Raven sighed and closed his eyes.

Right before he slid into sleep, there was a shimmering, crystal sound of the doorbell ringing, coming from afar. He almost said something, but then noticed that the blond didn’t even stir, so he ignored the chiming intrusion, scooted even closer to Julian, and several minutes later, he was asleep.