The Title Will Go Here - 11. Chapter 11

Another long-ass chapter...

- XI -

He woke up, and before he realized that it was Sunday morning and that he never set up his alarm clock last night, his hand habitually reached for the smooth button. Then he slightly frowned at the absence of expected beeping and opened his eyes.

“Sunday, that’s right...” he thought and lazily glanced at the clock. 11:50, just like he expected.

He smiled, pulled his hand away from the smooth black button, and suddenly, he remembered about Gemini’s reaction to his previous alarm clock, the one that was hopelessly dead after smashing into the hard floor. The memory stirred something else in his mind; something that was about to clear up; something that was about to click together; something that...

“Don’t open that door...” he remembered suddenly, and the vague, stirring feeling immediately disappeared, replaced by a sudden recalling of the weird dream he had last night. Of course, it was a dream, he thought with a slight frown, remembering how vivid and real everything felt. It was a dream; had to be. He shook his head and rolled onto his side, scooting closer to the sleeping figure next to him.

He slowly ran his hand down the warm side, towards the slim hip and leaned forward, placing a light kiss on the corner of the soft mouth. He smiled when he saw the long eyelashes tremble ever so slightly and placed another kiss, on the side of the pale neck this time. He delivered a quick, light lick behind the pink earlobe, and smiled wider when there was a soft sigh. He traveled towards the still closed eyes and slowly ran his fingertip along one ideal eyebrow, making the eyelashes to tremble harder.

“Wake up...” he whispered and kissed the soft mouth again. “Gem, wake up...”

The eyelashes trembled one last time, and finally, they slowly untangled apart, revealing the hazy golden eyes.

“Morning...” Gemini muttered sleepily, and Stratos smiled again.

“Morning...” he said in a low voice. “Well...” he threw a quick glance at the clock. “Noon, to be precise...”

“Noon...?” Gemini repeated with mild disbelief, and then he smiled and slightly arched his back, stretching his arms and lifting his head, pointing the sharply sculpted chin towards the ceiling.

“You look like a cat when you stretch...” Stratos muttered, watching him, and Gemini looked at him with a slight, cautious frown.

“Is it a bad thing?” he asked carefully, and Stratos kissed his temple.

“Absolutely not,” he answered seriously, and let out a smile. “There is nothing bad about you,” he nodded, and loved a sudden rosy glow that immediately splashed underneath the pale skin.

He leaned closer and licked behind the pink earlobe again, soliciting another soft sigh. He pressed a little harder against the warm body next to him, feeling the quickening heartbeat, and lightly nibbled on the side of the long neck, half-closing his eyes.

Suddenly, there was a very small, sharp inhale, and he felt the shoulders that pressed against his chest to tense for a second or so. They relaxed almost immediately, but Stratos caught that tension right away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly and pulled away, just so he could look into the half-lidded golden eyes.

Gemini let out a quick, apologetic smile and slightly shook his head without looking away.

“Nothing,” he said as quickly as he just smiled. “Nothing,” he repeated a bit louder when Stratos kept looking at him with the same questioning frown. “It’s nothing...” he said yet again. “You like it, so...” He closed his eyes and stopped talking, a shadow of a frustrated apology running over his face, as if he wasn’t planning on saying those words.

Stratos frowned deeper, slowly rewinding the last two minutes in his head.

“Nibbling...” he said suddenly, and Gemini opened his eyes, his expression almost guilty. “You didn’t like it, did you...?”

“It’s...” Gemini started saying again in the same quick manner, and Stratos interrupted him.

“Don’t say ‘nothing’ again,” he said quietly. “You didn’t like it, did you...?” he repeated his previous question, and Gemini slightly bit his lip for a second or two.

Finally, he let out a small sigh.

“It’s just...” he hesitated and Stratos slowly stroked his cheek.

“Tell me,” he said softly. “Gem, tell me,” he said again when Gemini remained silent.

“It’s just...” the blond kelari started saying slowly, and then he let out another sigh. “I don’t really...” he hesitated once again.

“Tell me...” Stratos wouldn’t look away.

“I don’t really like teeth...” Gemini said quietly, his expression guilty. “But it’s okay...” His quick manner was back. “It’s fine... It doesn’t hurt, and you like it, so I...”

“No, I don’t,” Stratos interrupted him seriously, and Gemini frowned at that.

“But you...” he started saying slowly, and Stratos interrupted him again.

“Anymore,” he said with a slight nod. “I don’t like it anymore...” He shrugged. “I don’t like anything that doesn’t make you feel good...” He looked into the slightly widened golden eyes and grinned. “I get off on your pleasure,” he said with another nod.

Gemini let out a hesitant smile, and Stratos leaned closer, placing several light kisses on the side of the neck that he nibbled on several minutes ago.

“It’s just, every time I made someone angry, there would always be teeth...” Gemini said suddenly, his voice tight, and Stratos froze for a second. “And sometimes, they wouldn’t be angry, but they would bite anyway... I don’t know why people like it so much, to bite someone until they bleed... Especially on the throat... I don’t know why they...”

“Shhh,” Stratos interrupted him, pushing away the sudden memories of Leon sinking his teeth into the pale neck that one Sunday night. “Shhh...” he said again and pressed his lips against the tense mouth, swallowing the upcoming words. “Never again...” he whispered without pulling away and ran his tongue against the slightly trembling lips, tracing them one at a time.

He slid down the flushed face, caressing the sharply sculpted chin, and made his way towards the collar bones after tracing down the long neck with his tongue.

“You like this, right...?” he asked in a low voice a minute later after he slowly circled the hollow spot between the collar bones with his mouth, alternating the pressure, and Gemini let out a shaky sigh.

“Yeah...” he breathed and slightly raised his chin, giving Stratos better access to his neck. “Oh, yeah...”

“Good...” Stratos murmured and returned to the silky skin, letting his tongue to caress everything it could reach, and closing his eyes when shallow breaths and quick, quiet moans sent several strong, sweet shivers down his spine.

“Perfect...” he thought yet again and smiled to himself when he had a sudden idea.

He smoothly slid his face onto the pale chest and flicked his tongue over the left nipple several times, drinking the heartbeat that thumped against his lips as he did that. He flicked his tongue one last time, and then started slowly sliding downwards, making a sudden right turn and running his tongue in a semi-circle on the smooth, warm skin.

He was determined to write the word ‘perfect’ on the silk underneath him, and a while later, he let out another smile when Gemini shivered head to toe after he finished bending letter ‘t’ that ended up on the inner side of the slender hip. He slowly traveled upwards and placed the last crossing line across the top of the ‘t,’ and completing the word.

His hand brushed against the warm, sleek hardness, and Gemini’s back arched involuntarily.

“Oh...!” he breathed and grabbed the dark sheets into his suddenly born fists.

Stratos glanced downwards, and suddenly, he was mesmerized. He kept staring at the perfect picture for several minutes, his hand slowly caressing the silk of the skin, and then he finally blinked and slid lower once again without looking away.

He saw a transparent newborn bead that formed on the perfect tip, ready to join the others before it and start sliding down in a slow, tear-like manner, and before he even realized what he was doing, he leaned closer and his tongue darted forward, quickly lapping up that transparent bead before it got a chance to escape.

“Oh...!” Gemini’s hips jerked upwards in a hectic, uncontrollable motion when he felt the warm touch on his sensitive self, and both of his arms flew up, letting go of the sheets, and freezing in the air for a second before falling back down.

Stratos was always positive (he knew) that he would never be able to make himself to bring his mouth to this particular body part, no matter whom it belonged to. He would be slightly revolted by the idea of tasting even himself on someone’s tongue, realizing that he wasn’t fair to his partners, realizing that he was being selfish, but he simply couldn’t help it.

He almost panicked after his tongue decided to perform this particular move on its own, really not wanting to recoil away in repulsed horror, knowing that it would hurt Gemini (it would definitely wound his feelings if he was the one on the receiving end), and probably put a hell of a splinter into something that felt so perfect to him up to this point. He almost panicked, but then realized, to his own astonishment that he didn’t want to recoil away in horror; he didn’t want to start gagging and spitting as he thought (knew) he would; he didn’t want to stop. Instead, he wanted more; he craved more.

He had no time or patience to figure out what the hell was happening to him, sudden hunger for more making his hands shake, and he leaned even closer, letting his tongue to continue frantically lapping at the beads that kept on coming out of nowhere, the pure taste of them spinning his head as if he were under an influence of some weird drug.

He lapped at those beads, half-noting that Gemini’s hips were moving in some bizarre, chaotic rhythm, half-hearing every single ‘Oh...!’ that kept getting louder every time it escaped the perfect mouth, and he tried to satisfy his unusual (to say the least) hunger. A few minutes later, he realized that merely lapping was not going to come anywhere near satisfying him, and without thinking, he wrapped his mouth around the perfect tip, trying to be able to drink away everything that tip had to offer.

The tip didn’t feel enough either so he lowered his mouth farther, getting drunk on crescendo-ing ‘Oh...!’s, and feeling like he was about to come undone right there, without even touching himself. He bobbed his head up and down for a while, and then brought up one of his hands, stroking and massaging whatever he couldn’t get into his mouth – he was perfectly aware of his gag reflex, and he knew that it wouldn’t just go away on its own, no matter how hard he would will it.

Gemini let out a funny, gurgling sound when he felt that, and Stratos had another idea. He realized that one of his hands was still free, so he decided to put it to good use. He pushed the knees underneath him slightly apart, and without any warning, his finger took over the tight entrance, smoothly sliding inside, and aiming for that one electrical spot.

He found it almost immediately, and Gemini bucked upwards, his eyes flying wide open when he felt those quick, determined thrusts.

“Oh...!” he said yet again, blindly staring at the opposite wall. “Oh...!” He said louder when another finger joined the sweet execution. “Oh...! Oh...! Oh...!”

Stratos threw a quick glance upwards without slowing down and let out a low, satisfied laughter when he saw the expression on the flushed face. He minimized his thrusts and tightly rubbed the sweet bundle of nerves instead, as his laughter continued. That rubbing, all the vibrations that came from the laughing throat, and the entire dual stimulation made Gemini’s arms fly upwards once again.

“Oh...! Oh...! Oh...!” Stratos loved a merciless crescendo that was emerging from Gemini’s throat, and he was about to restart his thrusts and change the angle just a little, when crescendo reached its peak and Gemini’s arms flew all the way up, slamming into the pillows and grabbing one of the tall wooden beams that protruded on each side of the bed.

“Oh...!” he screamed out, pressing the back of his head into the pillow, and hurriedly brought one of his arms down. “Let... go...” he mewled, grabbing Stratos’ hair with trembling fingers. “Oh...! Stratos, let... Oh...! Go... Oh!!”

He managed to push Stratos’ face off him a second before the final ‘Oh...!’ had hopelessly drowned in the wave of sobbing breaths, and his back flew off the dark sheets, twisting into a tight, perfect arch. Watching the furious explosion pushed Stratos to the very edge, and he brought his suddenly free hand downwards and wrapped it around his neglected until now self. He delivered maybe five strokes at the most, and then his head snapped backwards when he was suddenly drowning in a shattering wave that hit him head-on, showing absolutely no mercy.

He gasped and shuddered, his mind nothing but brilliant-white empty canvas, when suddenly, there was a bright, shattering sound that came from somewhere on his right. He half-registered the sound without really noticing it, and then he saw small, sharp slivers of glass bouncing off the wall and spilling onto the floor, followed by another bright ‘Thud!’. He saw it with the comer of his eye, and the empty canvas of his mind somehow managed to draw a shaky image of a picture falling off the hook in the wall. Apparently, the bed hit the wall one too many times, and the picture came flying down.

He didn’t care about the picture in the slightest, still lost in the shattering wave, and some seconds later, he collapsed on top of the spent body underneath him. He lay still, trying to regain his breathing, listening to the frantic heartbeat that was matching his own, and suddenly, he realized that something was bothering him. It felt like a small, annoying splinter deep in his mind. He frowned without opening his eyes, trying to figure out the reason for that splinter, and then it hit him. The splash of broken glass bouncing off the wall – that’s what bothered him. He suddenly thought that the glass wasn’t supposed to break until it hit the floor, and yet, it burst into pieces before the picture went down.

He slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the wall without lifting his head. Then he blinked several times, as if trying to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Everything remained the same, and he finally raised his head without taking his eyes off the picture that was safely hanging on the hook in the wall, its frame intact, not a single crack on the transparency of the glass.

“What the...” he muttered, wondering whether his orgasm made him to hallucinate, and then he looked on the floor and blinked again, as rapidly as before.

“Mmm...?” Gemini asked weakly when he heard Stratos’ puzzled, slow voice, and opened his eyes when he received no reply. “What is it...?” he asked, a small, worried frown distorting the glow that enveloped his entire body.

Stratos remained silent, staring at the shattered glass of the fallen picture that spread all over the carpet. He was about to say, ‘What the...’ again when he looked at the opposite wall and noticed an unusual emptiness between two paintings. He looked at that emptiness for several dumbfounded seconds, and suddenly, the same stirring, vague feeling that he had right after he woke up, splashed inside him stronger than it did before.

“Stratos, what’s wrong?” Badly hidden alarm in Gemini’s voice made him blink without looking away from the empty spot on the wall, and all of a sudden, it hit him.

All the pieces suddenly connected, clicking into place, and making startling, perfect sense.

“Holy shit...” he said softly and looked at Gemini, whose eyes were filling up with uncertain, alarmed fear at his sudden, stiff silence. “Holy shit...”

He thought about all the events that he shrugged off into the ‘it’s-just-an-accident’ pile. The candle holder that flew off the dresser the first night Gemini spent in Stratos’ house. The liquor bottle that shattered on the floor that hateful Sunday night. The alarm clock that decided to jump off the nightstand on their first morning after. The ice-cream cake that suddenly tumbled off the plate into Katherine’s lap last night... And now the picture that apparently flew across the room, smashing into the opposite wall.

He looked into the worried golden eyes without really seeing them, the clear-by-now puzzle revealing the common denominator in every single one of those events. The candle holder flew off the nightstand right after Stratos walked into the room, startling an already freaked out Gemini. The liquor bottle fell off the shelf right after Leon unexpectedly sank his teeth into the pale neck so deeply that it drew blood on the first bite. The alarm clock jumped off the nightstand right after Gemini jerked next to him without waking up, anxious because of his sudden dream. The ice-cream cake tumbled off the plate right after Katherine demonstrated her unusual ‘cleaning’ technique, kicking Gemini’s jealousy up a few furious levels. And the picture...? Well, it flew off the wall right when Gemini was having a hell of an intense orgasm.

“You are telekinetic...” Stratos muttered dumbfoundedly, and the golden eyes blinked at that several times, reflecting not just alarmed fear now, but also deepening confusion. Stratos thought about something and slightly frowned without looking away from a very weird mix of emotions that was splashing in the golden lakes. “Why didn’t you tell me...?” he asked quietly, feeling strangely betrayed after realizing that Gemini has been hiding something from him. “Gem, why didn’t you tell me...?”

“Tell you about what?” Gemini said slowly with genuine puzzlement.

“About your ability,” Stratos said in the same quiet voice, and the golden eyes became almost perfectly round.

Gemini slowly pulled himself from underneath Stratos’ body and sat up without looking away from the blue eyes that were clouded by a bitter shade right now.

“Ability...?” he repeated very slowly. “Stratos, I don’t have any abilities... Never had,” he added a few seconds later, and Stratos frowned deeper.

“Wait...” he muttered and slightly narrowed his eyes. “Wait...” He thought more. “You don’t even know, do you?” he asked incredulously a minute later, and Gemini’s expression became as weird as the cocktail of emotions in his eyes. “Holy shit...” Stratos said again very softly.

Both of them were stunned-silent for a almost a minute, and then Gemini slightly shook his head and frowned, never looking away from Stratos’ face.

“I have no idea why you would think that...” he said as slowly as before. “I have never had any abilities... I...” he slightly stuttered. “I wished I had at least something, but it never happened... A long time ago, I was really hoping that something would surface, since I thought that only people with abilities had really fast healing, but turns out, it’s just a kelari thing, so...”

“Wait,” Stratos interrupted him quickly. “Fast healing...?”

Gemini gave him an uncertain nod without saying anything.

“How fast?” Stratos asked in the same quick manner, and Gemini shrugged.

“Fast...” he said as slowly as before. “I mean, faster than others...”

“If you would, let’s say, slice your finger open...” Stratos leaned closer to him. “...how fast would it heal?”

Gemini thought for a second.

“In an hour or so...” he said hesitantly.

“Uh huh,” Stratos nodded. “What about broken bones? Ever broke your arm?”

Gemini’s expression slightly darkened, and Stratos immediately knew the answer to his question. He sat up as well and slowly ran his fingers through the soft golden hair, making Gemini’s shoulders to relax somewhat.

“How fast did it heal?” he asked quietly without taking his fingers out of the silky trap.

“Two days,” Gemini replied in a small voice, and Stratos nodded again.

“Uh huh,” he said once more, and then frowned, thinking about something else. “You thought it was a kelari thing?” he finally asked with the same frown, and Gemini nodded. “Why?”

“My uncle told me,” Gemini said quietly, and Stratos closed his eyes for a few seconds.

“Gem...” he said after he opened them. “I don’t know much about kelari, but your fast healing is not a racial trait... Gemini,” he said just a bit louder when Gemini tried saying something. “You are telekinetic,” Stratos finished with a firm nod, feeling lightheaded from all the revelations and the sweet song that his body was still singing.

“So it just happened then?” Gemini asked in a suddenly tight voice, and Stratos gave him a questioning glance. “It just surfaced...? A little while ago?”

“No,” Stratos shook his head. “You had to have it ever since you were born. Things like that don’t just surface out of nowhere...”

“So...” Gemini said again, his eyes hiding behind his eyelashes, his voice as tight as before. “That means I’ve had it all these years...? The entire time...? I could move things around with mere thought this entire time?”

“Yeah,” Stratos nodded slowly, not quite understanding the reason for dry tightness.

Gemini closed his eyes, and his mouth twisted into a weird, almost scary line.

“That means I could’ve done something from the very beginning...” he said quietly. “I could’ve done something to stop all that from...” He stopped talking and bit his lip without opening his eyes. “But I have never even tried...” he finished in a quieter manner a minute later, and opened his eyes. “I’ve never even tried...! I just took it without...”

“Shhh,” Stratos said quickly and cupped the flushed face into his palms without looking away from the golden eyes that were clouded with unborn frustrated tears right now. “Shhh...! You didn’t know... You never noticed things moving around you when you were startled or upset because you would always think it was nothing but an accident...! You didn’t know...”

“Why?” Gemini asked a little louder, his tight frown trapping all the tears behind his eyelids. “Why didn’t I know? I mean...” He paused for a second. “I mean, I always thought that if you had some ability... Any ability... If you had it, I always thought that you would know exactly what to do with it...! You would know how it works...! You would be fully aware that you bloody had it!”

Stratos blinked at the sudden loudness of the last sentence, and then he frowned. Why didn’t he know? He was right – if you had an ability to do anything, even if it was something as trivial as changing words’ fonts on a piece of paper without touching it (he knew someone who could do that and who thought it was completely useless. Stratos kind of agreed with that), you would be fully aware of your own capabilities... And if you happened to possess something like telekinesis, you had to be aware of that! Telekinesis is not a thing that could be easily overlooked...

He frowned deeper. Come to think of that, why would Gemini’s ability only show itself whenever he experienced strong emotions? If he had it ever since he was born (and Stratos was sure of that), then it wouldn’t be hiding behind the emotional fence... He slightly bit his lip, suddenly remembering something that he once discussed with Katherine, since he was curious about the subject, and Katherine was one of those rare people who would know some very useful things about pretty much everything without flaunting it every chance they got. He looked at Gemini again. It’s almost as if he was...

“...Locked...” he muttered thoughtfully, and Gemini’s lips tightened at that.

“What?” he asked very quietly, and Stratos slowly nodded, mostly to himself, and let out a quick sigh, never taking his hand away from the silky hair.

“This is weird,” he said slowly as if looking for the right word. “Abilities don’t work like that... You are right, you should have been aware of your own capabilities, and the fact that you had no idea that you even had it...” He paused for a second. “It’s bizarre...” he continued with a slight shrug. “It doesn’t work like that,” he said again. “Also, it never develops just partially without reaching the full potential; it never works on subconscious level... If you get it, you get the full thing, not just a portion of it...!” He stopped talking again and looked into the dark by now golden eyes. “When did your uncle tell you that your fast healing was a kelari thing?” he asked a few seconds later, and Gemini blinked.

“I was eight...” he said slowly. “My mom died a few months before that, and I wouldn’t believe it... I kept thinking that she would come back one of those days... Then I remembered that she would always run to me whenever I was hurt, so I figured that if I hurt myself badly enough, she would finally come back...” He sighed and leaned on the wall with his bare shoulder. “So I jumped off a tree,” he nodded thoughtfully. “Broke my ankle, tore a hole in my side...” He glanced at Stratos. “I didn’t see there was a rock under all the leaves,” he explained. “So when I jumped, I landed right on top of it... That rock was really sharp...” He paused again. “Anyway,” he continued after a second with a small sigh. “She never came back, of course, and I thought that I would be in bed for the rest of the summer, but then I was completely fine three days later... Not even a scar... I couldn’t figure it out, and that was when he told me that being a kelari had some perks... He said that was the only reason that I healed so fast, and I wouldn’t ask him again...” He looked at Stratos. “I wouldn’t ask him about things too often,” he nodded. “He had a very short temper... Still does,” he added thoughtfully, and Stratos moved closer to him, pushing his arm between the bare shoulder and the wall and lightly pressing his fingers into the side of the long neck, looking for the steady pulse.

“He lied,” Stratos said quietly, and Gemini looked at him silently, his expression the same as several seconds ago. “Yeah, you figured that...” Stratos hemmed in a somewhat embarrassed manner. “Anyway, do you remember being able to do things when you were a kid? Like, moving things or making something fly...?”

“No,” Gemini shook his head.

Stratos bit his lip and remained silent for a few seconds.

“It sounds like...” he finally said very slowly. “...feels like...” he added in a second. “It feels like you were Locked... Not completely,” he said in a quicker manner, seeing the look in the golden eyes. “If you were Locked completely, you wouldn’t be able to do anything. You probably have one Lock on you, since everything you demonstrated so far...” He glanced at the broken glass on the floor. “Well, you wouldn’t be able to do anything like this with two Locks,” he nodded. “I have never been Locked myself, thank God for that, but...”

“Wait...” Gemini interrupted him softly. “You have an ability...?”

“Yeah,” Stratos nodded. “A music thing,” he said somewhat impatiently when he saw a silent question hiding behind the long eyelashes. “I can explain it later... Anyway, from what I’ve heard, it seems that two Locks even though they are possible to remove, they don’t let a lot of power to get through... They don’t block it completely, but whatever manages to get through is very insignificant... You would probably be able to make a picture tremble on the wall, but you would never be able to make it fly across the room,” he nodded. “So I am pretty sure you only have one Lock on you... Wonder when they put it on you...” he muttered with a small frown. “You had to be little, since you don’t remember having the power in the first place... Why the hell would they do that...?” He frowned deeper.

“I can think of a reason...” Gemini muttered and looked away for a few second, his tight frown back on his forehead. “My mom knew...” he said suddenly a minute later, and Stratos blinked at that. “She had to,” Gemini continued in the same quiet voice. “She died when I was eight and I remember things from that time... I couldn’t do anything... That means they Locked me before that, and she knew... She knew...” he repeated in a whisper, and Stratos pulled him closer.

“Maybe that’s why you are not wearing all three Locks,” he said quietly, and Gemini gave him a dark look. Stratos shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t have a choice... But she wanted you to be able to take it off when you could, and she managed to do something so you weren’t Locked completely...”

“Yeah, maybe...” Gemini muttered and straightened up. “I am going to take a shower,” he said, and Stratos sighed and let go of his shoulders.

“I’ll make coffee,” he said and placed a quick kiss on the side of the rigid neck.

“Yeah...” Gemini said again and got off the bed.

...He stood still under running water, letting his wet hair to cling to his neck, his eyes closed, arms hanging by his sides. His head was spinning from this new knowledge; images and thoughts flying through his mind, creating hurried chaos, making him frown. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and stared at the bar of soap in front of him. “Move,” he thought tightly. “Move...!” He bit his lip when the soap remained its old slippery, lifeless self, and he concentrated harder.

“Move...” he whispered without looking away, without blinking. “Move, goddamn you...! Fall...!”

He let out a frustrated sigh when nothing changed and lifted his face towards the warm streaming water, letting it to wash off unborn tears. “Forget it,” he thought gloomily and shook his head, making his wet hair to slip onto his back. “Just forget it...”

He started running his fingers through his hair without opening his eyes, chaos of images and thoughts making his ears ring, and he never noticed that a shampoo bottle behind him suddenly lost half of its contents, spitting them all over the wall.

****

Stratos pulled on his pants, listening to the sounds of running water in the shower, and quickly scanned the floor with his eyes, looking for his shirt. He shrugged when he couldn’t find it and walked towards the door, figuring that he didn’t really need his shirt right now.

He walked towards the stairs and his mind was racing.

“Holy hell...” he thought and absent-mindedly ran his fingers along the railing of the staircase when he started walking down the steps. “Holy hell... He is like some weird surprise box... You open it, and there is another box in there, and another inside that one, and another inside that one as well... How many boxes are there...? Bloody hell...” He shook his head, and suddenly, came to a stumbled, stuttered stop, staring at the carpeted steps without blinking.

“Bloody hell...!” he said out loud a minute later. “Bloody...”

There it was, on the last step, just lying there in a hurried heap. There it was – his shirt. It was exactly in the same spot where he left it last night in his disturbingly vivid dream. He slowly walked closer, as if afraid that the shirt would suddenly come to life and attack him. He stood still for almost a minute without looking away from the dark material, and then blinked and raised his head.

“No way...” he muttered and started walking again, faster this time. “No way... No way...”

He crossed the living room, heading towards the closed door.

“No way... No way in hell... No...”

He turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. Then he stopped breathing for a second or two, staring at the broken glass that splattered all over the floor. He blinked when a sudden gust of wind slapped his face, and looked at the broken window without seeing it, ignoring the trembling from the wind curtains.

“Don’t open that door,” he heard in his head, and closed his eyes.

It was real...? How could it be real? What happened last night? What the hell was going on?

“Don’t open that door...”

He opened his eyes and slowly backed out of the cold room, never looking away from the shattered glass, never shifting his gaze until he closed the door. He took a deep breath, stood still for a minute or so, and then headed towards the kitchen – he needed his coffee badly.