The Dreamtrap - 20. Chapter 20

- XX -

He woke up with a gasp and sat up, blinking rapidly. The dimly glowing clock showed 6:02, and Desmond ran his shaking fingers through his short hair. He sat still for a minute or two, and then reached for his phone that was resting on the nightstand. He grabbed the phone, flipped it open, and quickly punched in the number. He waited for several long minutes, biting his lip and absent-mindedly tapping fingers of his phone-free hand on sleeping Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Blair...!” he said quickly after he almost started cursing at those long, bored ‘beeps’ on the other end of the line. “It’s... Errr, right...” he rolled his eyes. “Put Sam on the phone...!”

He listened somewhat patiently to Blair’s long and heated tirade, which contained four non-obscene words – ‘six in the morning.’

“I know it’s six in the morning,” Desmond said when the man on the other end of the line paused for air. “I need to talk to Sam! Put him on the... Blair...? Hello...? Shit!”

He snapped the phone shut in frustration and got out of bed.

“Where are you going?” Gabriel asked sleepily after a minute or two when Desmond was pulling on his pants.

“I need to see Sam...” Desmond muttered and reached for his shirt.

That statement made Gabriel open his eyes all the way and he sat up in bed.

“Why?”

“I dreamt of him,” Desmond threw him a quick look. Rayhe’s eyes widened.

“You found a new victim finally?” he asked in disbelief. “Oh, thank God...!”

“You are so selfish, Rayhe,” Desmond grimaced and shoved his phone into the back pocket of his pants.

“You would be too if you were me,” Gabriel nodded firmly. “What did you see?”

“He...” Desmond paused for a few seconds, and then sighed. “He was contemplating suicide,” he said in a quieter voice, and Gabriel started blinking rapidly.

“Now...?” he started saying, and Desmond immediately shook his head.

“No,” he said. “He was sixteen.”

“What did you do?” Gabriel’s forehead was one tight frown right now.

“I talked him out of it,” Desmond sighed. “I think...” he muttered quickly.

“You interfered,” Gabriel said slowly, and Desmond looked at him again.

“Yeah,” he nodded sharply. “And I didn’t give a shit...! Still don’t,” he added with another sharp nod. “But I need to see him, to make sure that I didn’t change anything.”

“You wouldn’t know if you did,” Gabriel said in the same slow manner. “Even if you did screw something up, your memories would change as well, not just Sam’s,” he explained when Desmond gave him a questioning look.

“Crap,” Desmond muttered. “I didn’t think of that... But I want to see him anyway,” he nodded and headed towards the door.

“Have fun with Blair,” Gabriel sighed and got off the bed as well. “I’m gonna make coffee and wait for you.”

“Uh huh,” was all Desmond said before leaving the bedroom.

...He rang the bell for five minutes straight, and then the door jerked open, revealing a very pissed off man.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled, his hair wild, feet bare. “It’s six in the morning...! Are you getting off on waking me up? Goddammit, I am going to...”

“I need to talk to Sam,” Desmond interrupted him impatiently. “I am not here because of you, you are not that important, so don’t flatter yourself!”

Blair’s eyelid started twitching quite forcefully.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” he growled even louder than before. “Get out or I swear to God, I will barbecue your ass...!”

“I’ll knock you out before you can reach for a single spark!” Desmond snorted darkly. “I need to talk to...”

“What’s going on?” there was another voice, which sounded confused and sleepy. “Desmond...?” Now the voice didn’t sound as confused, and it was a lot less sleepy.

“Sam!” Desmond almost shoved Blair aside, but at the last moment, he decided against that. They didn’t get along as it was, and he didn’t want to make it even worse. “Sam, you okay? I just wanted to see you...”

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly, his eyes somewhat narrow. “I am fine. Why are you here...? Oh...” He closed his eyes for a second. “Holy hell, you really were there, weren’t you?”

That statement made Blair turn towards him.

“He was where?” he asked with confusion.

“Yeah,” Desmond muttered, ignoring Blair’s question.

“Sam, what are you talking about?” Blair asked again, ignoring Desmond with the same skill and passion that the other man demonstrated several seconds ago. “He was where?”

“In my dream,” Sam answered with a serene look on his face, and Blair frowned at that. “He was in my dream,” Sam nodded slightly. “I dreamt of one time when I was sixteen...” He looked at Desmond without blinking. “I felt like I’ve had enough, so I was...” He hemmed and shifted his gaze towards Blair. “I was saying goodbye to the fish,” he let out a small smile. “I loved that pond,” he glanced at Desmond again. “My mind was made up,” he continued thoughtfully. “I was ready to do it... I would do it,” he nodded slowly. “But then Desmond showed up,” he looked into Blair’s darkening eyes. “Except, in my dream, I didn’t know who he was... Anyway, he showed up and...” He smiled again. “Gave me hope... I hated that,” he sighed. “Because it made me change my mind, which meant that I would have to deal with... Doesn’t matter,” he shook his head.

Blair slowly turned around and looked at Desmond without saying anything.

“How is it even possible that we had an identical dream?” Sam frowned, and then he stared at Desmond without blinking for a minute or two, understanding reflecting on his face. “Holy hell...” he said slowly. “You’ve got another ability, huh...?”

“Yeah,” Desmond said unwillingly; Gabriel and he never told Sam about dream manipulations.

“That’s your new ability,” Sam said in the same slow manner. “Dream-hopping...”

“Yeah,” Desmond said again. “Well, I had to make sure that you were fine,” he sighed and rubbed his temples. “I was afraid that I changed something by interfering... I shouldn’t interfere,” he nodded after seeing Sam’s confused look. “It can change things... Long story,” he sighed.

“Maybe you were supposed to interfere,” Blair muttered, and Desmond looked at him very thoughtfully.

“Maybe,” he said with a frown as if the idea had never occurred to him until Blair said it. “Maybe... Anyway,” he sighed again. “Sorry for waking you up. I’m gonna go home now and go back to sleep...”

He turned around, and then thought of something.

“What happened in reality?” he asked, looking at Sam once again. “I mean, what made you change your mind back then?”

“I had a dream,” Sam said simply, and Desmond just stared at him. “Except, I didn’t dream about some random guy... I dreamt of my Mom. I would dream of her often,” he nodded. “Even though I only knew her from photographs...”

Now it was Desmond’s turn to nod; he knew that Sam’s mother died while giving birth to him.

“Anyway,” Sam continued in the same thoughtful manner. “It’s funny, but she said exactly the same thing you did... Word for word.”

All three of them were silent for a few minutes, and then Desmond sighed.

“I’m gonna go home,” he said. “Sorry for waking you up,” he said again and turned around.

He almost made it to his car when he heard:

“Desmond!” behind his back.

He stopped and turned his head. Blair stared at him with a frowned, almost torturous expression, biting his lip. Desmond nodded slowly before he said anything; Desmond didn’t need to hear his words – he knew what the Fire Guardian was about to say.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah... I’ll see you later.”

****

Since then, dreaming stopped being something that both, Desmond and Gabriel, slightly dreaded. Desmond made sure that he would change the scenery immediately once he realized he was in Rayhe’s dream yet again. Calling forth that ripple (that’s what Desmond called that shimmering air – ‘ripple’) was getting easier with each call.

He kept himself under control every time he would feel the desire to get involved into some nasty situations; not interfering wasn’t always easy, but he would grit his teeth and simply leave that particular dream before he did something he would regret doing later.

After he figured out how to slip from dream to dream, the range of his ‘victims’ started to expand noticeably. He would still dream of Gabriel once in a while, but it wouldn’t happen anywhere near as often as it did in the beginning. He dreamt of Sam a couple more times, had several dreams about Tess (which made her roll her eyes the next time she saw him), visited several of his colleagues (who never thought of it twice, since they had no clue about Desmond’s ability), and he had one dream about Blair.

That particular dream happened to be about Blair’s (who was fifteen at the time) first intimate experience, and once Desmond figured it out (took him less than two minutes to realize that), he made himself comfortable and made sure he didn’t leave until the very end, managing to stay out of Blair’s sight. Then he made sure that he did reveal himself to the startled and extremely embarrassed then-teenaged future Fire Guardian, and after he woke up, he found out that it took Sam everything he could possibly think of to keep Blair from driving to Desmond’s house and murdering him on the spot.

“You know, you could leave his dream,” Gabriel said to him later that day after he and Sam managed to prevent the catastrophe from happening. “Or at least not to let him know you were there... You stayed hidden for the entire process, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” Desmond nodded with quiet but very clear satisfaction, feeling no guilt whatsoever. “And yes, I could’ve done both of those things. I just chose not to,” here he nodded again, and Gabriel just sighed melancholically, correctly figuring that it would be a while until all four of them gathered under the same roof again.

Then, a couple of weeks before Desmond’s sudden slide into that strange, frightening lethargy, he dreamt of someone who at first, he believed was Rayhe. He was in someone’s yard, and the sun was blazing high in the sky. Desmond winced when he realized that his ability gave him the usual long-sleeved shirt.

“Take the weather into account next time, would you?” he muttered with annoyance while rolling up his sleeves. “Bloody hell, go ahead, and throw a sweater on me as well...!”

He looked around after he finished with his sleeves, and suddenly, there was a bloodcurdling scream piercing the lazy, oozing heat air. Desmond frowned and quickly walked towards the back of the house; it was obvious that the scream came from the backyard. “Do not interfere,” he kept thinking while he walked. “Whatever you see, do not interfere...!”

Then he walked around the corner of the house and stopped dead in his tracks. He saw some dark-haired kid standing on his knees not too far from the shed with his arms stretched upwards by a thick rope. The same rope ran around kid’s neck, and the end of it attached itself to the open door of the shed. Desmond immediately realized that if the kid made a single move, the rope would shift, thus causing the door to close. If that happened, the kid would be strangled to death.

The kid let out another bloodcurdling scream, and Desmond shook his head in shivering, icy astonishment when he realized that what he thought at first, was some bizarre-looking sweater on the kid’s back, wasn’t a sweater or any other clothing article at all. It was a startlingly big grey cat, and it was tearing the kid’s spine apart, it seemed. For several nightmarish seconds, Desmond firmly believed that he was looking at young Gabriel again, but then he realized that it wasn’t Rayhe. This kid had a much smaller frame than Gabriel had, and the only resemblance between them was hair color – Rayhe’s hair was the same shade of dark-brown.

Desmond stood frozen in his spot, helplessly digging his fingernails into his palms while watching the cat bathe itself in kid’s blood. It kept producing low growls of pure satisfaction, and Desmond bit his lip hard, forcing himself to stay put. He almost called forth a ripple, shaking from his own helplessness, when the kid screamed one last time, and then he fell facedown, his arms twisting above his head in a grotesque fashion. The door of the shed creaked, swayed, and slammed shut, pulling the rope into a straight, tight line. The cat let out a shriek of triumph, and Desmond realized that it was about to go after the kid’s throat.

“Oh, fucking hell...!” he growled. “Get off him, you fucker!”

He lunged at the cat, which didn’t even realize that someone was getting close to it, since it was lost in ecstasy of tearing apart the kid’s body. Desmond kicked the cat as hard as he could, and the animal let out a surprised, loud yelp while flying across the yard and smacking into a tree with full force. It fell onto the ground and lay there without moving. Desmond pulled the rope off kid’s neck, which took him longer than he expected – the damn rope was twisted into some strange, creative knot, and it was impossible to rip it apart.

By the time Desmond finally untied the knot, he could’ve sworn that the kid wasn’t breathing.

“Son of a...” he said desperately, interference being the last thing on his mind.

He pressed his fingers into the side of the kid’s throat, and to his greatest relief, he felt weak pulsation against his fingertips. He gritted his teeth when he realized that the kid was kneeling in what seemed to be very sharp gravel mixed with glass; not just his back was one bloody mess, but his knees matched it as well.

Desmond gritted his teeth again and easily picked the kid up, ignoring all the blood that immediately got onto his white shirt.

“Shit, kid...” he muttered. “Who did this to you?”

Suddenly, the kid let out a small, whimpering moan, and then his eyes slowly peeled open. Desmond looked into those eyes and muttered an astonished obscenity – one of kid’s eyes was light-blue while the other was deep-brown. There was only one person he knew with such bizarre eye color.

“Bloody hell...” he muttered and started walking towards the house. “Raven...?”

The kid looked like he was trying to say something, but then his strange-colored eyes rolled backwards and he passed out for good. Desmond walked faster, and several minutes later, he was pushing open the front door of the house.

“Hello...?” he called sharply when he walked inside. “Anyone here...?”

He nodded at expected silence and walked into the living room where he carefully laid the unconscious kid onto the couch. He stared at him thoughtfully for a couple of minutes. He could not see Raven in the kid’s features, but it was Salamander’s future mate in front of him, all right. Desmond narrowed his eyes and thought that the reason for not recognizing Raven right now, was probably all that blood on his face. Blood and scratches – when he fell down, his face went right into the middle of that glassy-graveled mess.

“Who did this to you?” Desmond muttered again.

Raven remained still and unresponsive, and Desmond sighed and went into the kitchen. He grabbed one of the towels hanging on the rack and held it under cold water until it was thoroughly soaked. He turned off the water and went back into the living room where he sat on the edge of the couch and slowly started cleaning kid’s face and chest.

Desmond frowned when he noticed that Raven was wearing some bizarre vest-like garment with short sleeves. Then he cursed quietly again. It wasn’t a vest, he realized; it was whatever was left of his shirt – the goddamn cat shredded it into pieces.

“Whose damn cat was that?” he thought, and wondered whether he should go outside, find the bastard, and break his neck, but then he sighed and decided against that. He had already interfered more than enough in this particular dream, he shouldn’t do anything else.

He was about to roll Raven onto his side so he could clean his back, when suddenly, the front door of the house opened, and then there were quick footsteps. Desmond sighed and put the towel next to the couch, knowing that whoever just walked into the house wouldn’t be able to see him – it was Raven’s dream or rather, nightmare. He expected to see the owner of the house (he assumed it was the owner) walk into the living room, but to his surprise, the person headed into one of the bedrooms instead. Desmond frowned a minute later when he heard soft humming – the voice definitely belonged to a woman.

“Get in here, will you?” he thought irritably.

The woman kept humming without getting out of the bedroom. Finally, Desmond let out a short, annoyed sigh, rolled his eyes, grabbed a small decorative saucer from the table, and threw it into the wall. The saucer broke into pieces with sharp, bright noise, and humming immediately stopped.

“Finally,” Desmond muttered with yet another eye roll.

He stepped away from the couch and folded his arms in his chest, waiting for the woman. She almost ran into the living room, glancing around warily.

“Rufus?” she called somewhat shrilly and Desmond frowned. Rufus...?

The woman frowned deeper when there was no response.

“Rufus!” she called louder when she saw the broken saucer. “Rufus, are you hurt?”

She quickly walked towards the couch, and when she saw Raven, she froze in her tracks. She stared at the unconscious kid with a strange mix of fear, confusion, and hatred. Desmond frowned again.

“Was that your doing?” she demanded finally without taking her eyes off Raven’s face. “Was it one of your jokes...?”

Desmond blinked at that quite rapidly. “Jokes...?” he thought dumbfoundedly. “Does he look like he is in a joking condition right now? What the hell is wrong with you, woman?”

The woman walked closer to the couch, her expression tight.

“I don’t know how you got out, but...” She stopped talking when she noticed the bloody towel on the floor. Then she slowly shifted her gaze towards the unconscious kid, and her eyes grew wider when she saw blood emerging from underneath him.

“Goddammit, Raven...!” she muttered and lunged towards the couch.

“Now it’s hitting you...” Desmond thought darkly, watching her pick up the kid’s limp body, and then he didn’t even blink – he just stared at her with disbelieving eyes when she hissed through her clenched teeth:

“Goddammit, Raven...! You ruined my couch! Bloody hell!”

Desmond watched her quickly walk out of the living room with kid’s head hanging backwards in her impatient, somewhat clumsy grasp. “Damn...” Desmond muttered and followed her reluctantly. She kicked open one of the doors and went inside a small bedroom where she hurriedly put Raven on the bed. Then she straightened up and propped her arms on her sides.

“How did you get into the house?” she muttered with a dark frown. “And how did you even get out of there...?”

She stopped talking, narrowed her eyes, and leaned somewhat closer, intently staring at the kid’s neck.

“Holy hell,” she muttered finally and slowly ran her fingers over the red welt on Raven’s throat – the result of that rope almost strangling him half an hour ago. “I guess you didn’t get out of there, huh? You managed to fall... Someone brought you into the house... Crap,” she closed her eyes briefly. “The last thing I need is for some bleeding-heart to start spreading some nasty stories about me mistreating an orphan in this neighborhood... I’ll lose my clients...! Shit!”

She stood still, biting her lip for a minute or so, and then she whirled around and left the bedroom without closing the door. She came back a few minutes later with a small jar in her hand. She perched on the edge of the bed and quickly applied some cream from the jar on the scratches on kid’s face and chest. Desmond expected her to get his back as well, but she never did. Instead, she sighed, set the jar onto the nightstand next to the bed, and stood up.

“At least you heal fast,” she muttered gloomily. “Goddammit...” Here she frowned. “Where is Rufus?” she asked mostly herself. “Dammit, I need to find him...”

She threw last quick look at Raven and left the bedroom, shutting the door after her.