The Dreamtrap - 21. Chapter 21

- XXI -

Desmond muttered a quiet obscenity under his breath after he was alone with Raven, and walked closer to the bed. He grabbed that small jar from the nightstand and unscrewed the lid. Then he sighed and started rubbing the cream, which faintly smelled of mint balm onto all those cuts and scratches on Raven’s body. He made sure he got everything on kid’s face, chest, and arms before rolling him onto the side, so he could get to his back.

“Lady, you should’ve used a hell of a lot more of this...” he muttered under his breath. “And you didn’t even touch the back,” he added gloomily after a few seconds, rubbing more of that cream into Raven’s still bleeding back.

Suddenly, the kid let out a low, tortured moan, and then he slowly turned his head to look at Desmond. The minute he saw him, he started blinking rapidly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Desmond thought with a small sigh. “Who the hell are you, I know...”

“You’ll be all right, kid,” he said with a tight smile and applied more cream onto those scratches.

“Wh... What are you doing here?” Raven muttered, wincing from the sensations.

“It’s a dream, kid,” Desmond sighed. “Just a dream...”

Raven blinked again and slowly brought up his arm, staring at his hand as if he saw it for the first time. Finally, he lowered his arm and looked at Desmond again. “Who are you?” was the question Desmond expected.

“But why are you here?” Raven asked instead, and Desmond frowned at that. “You were nowhere near me back then, Desmond...”

Desmond stared at him without blinking, jar of cream forgotten. Did he just say his name...? Suddenly, Raven frowned deeper – this time, with more confusion.

“You cut your hair?” he muttered, and Desmond finally blinked.

“You recognize me?” he asked incredulously. “That’s new...” he muttered under his breath, immediately remembering Tess’ words about the fact that dreamers would never recognize him, since their mind would be re-living the past while believing it was the present.

“What...” Raven started saying, when suddenly, Desmond felt that familiar impatient breeze. He turned his head. Sure enough, there was his bedroom, behind the transparent wall.

He sighed, put the jar onto the nightstand, and stood up.

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

“Wait...” Raven tried to sit up, and the breeze increased somewhat.

“I gotta go,” Desmond quickly shook his head. He looked at Raven one last time before going back to his reality. “See you later, I guess...” he muttered and walked towards the nonexistent wall without looking back, just so he could let that familiar blackness to envelope him yet again.

****

He opened his eyes, registering that he did it on his own, without any interference from the alarm clock. He frowned into the ceiling for several minutes, and then jerked in surprise when the alarm started shrieking urgently.

“Shut up...” he muttered and slammed the top of his hand onto that annoying button.

The alarm immediately obeyed, but it seemed that the amount of screeching noise it made was just enough to get Gabriel out of his snoozing oblivion.

“Mmm...” Rayhe said. “Kill it...”

“Just did,” Desmond said slowly, still replaying the events of his strange dream in his mind.

Gabriel yawned and opened his eyes. He studied Desmond’s thoughtful expression for several minutes, and then sighed and said:

“What was it this time?” correctly figuring that Desmond’s silent stare was caused by yet another dream-visit of his. “Actually, who was it this time?” he corrected himself after a second.

Desmond looked at him in the same thoughtful manner.

“Raven,” he said finally with a slight nod, and Gabriel stopped yawning.

“Raven?” he repeated with a small frown. “As in Julian’s Raven?”

“Uh huh,” Desmond nodded again. “He was getting torn to pieces by some huge-ass cat...”

Gabriel blinked at that.

“He looked like he was ten,” Desmond absent-mindedly scratched his shoulder. “He was probably older though,” he shrugged. “Just looked younger. Anyway,” he left his shoulder alone. “It was strange... After I got him inside and after he finally woke up...”

“Oh, God, you interfered again,” Gabriel briefly closed his eyes.

“Yeah...” Desmond twisted his mouth into a thoughtful line. “He fell, and that rope started strangling him, and there was nobody around, and then that damn cat...”

“What...” Gabriel shook his head. “What rope...?”

“Never mind,” Desmond sighed with a small grimace. “His childhood wasn’t peachy, let’s just leave it at that. Anyway, after he woke up, he recognized me,” he looked at Gabriel. “Said my name, and then noted that I cut my hair. He definitely recognized me,” he nodded.

“You said that was impossible,” Gabriel said slowly without looking away.

“That’s what Tess said,” Desmond nodded again. “I just repeated her theory.”

“Ask her...” Gabriel started saying, but Desmond interrupted him.

“It’s the third week of June, Rayhe! She won’t be back until the last week of August. She never stays in the city for summer break...” He frowned just a little. “I don’t even know if she stays in this world,” he snorted. “I mean, she can go anywhere she wants, and she doesn’t have to pay the bus fare,” he hemmed. “Believe me, it would be very difficult finding her right now.”

“Well, but what does this mean...?” Gabriel’s expression stayed the same – puzzled and somewhat worried.

“No clue,” Desmond answered honestly. “I think that since Tess doesn’t really know much about this particular ability, there is a chance that she didn’t know about such possibility... Some random dreamer recognizing me once in a blue moon...” He shrugged. “I am going back to sleep,” he nodded firmly and fell back on the pillows. “Have fun at work, Rayhe...!”

Gabriel sighed and got out of bed, figuring that Desmond was probably right – this ability of his was rare, therefore, there was a good possibility of it demonstrating something unexpected. By the time he finished his shower, coffee, and usual toast, Desmond’s latest dream left his mind for good.

****

Everything went back to its normal self after Desmond dreamt of Raven for the first time. Not a single dreamer would recognize him, he wouldn’t have any problems with controlling his interfering urges, and he never dreamt of Raven again, to his satisfaction. Well, not for the next two weeks, to be exact. Two weeks after their first dream encounter, Desmond repeated his usual transparency-crossing travel and found himself in some room he had never visited before.

He looked around with mild curiosity, wondering whether he would dream of Blair again – he hadn’t had a single dream about the man ever since that one memorable occasion. “If it’s his dream again, I’ll just leave,” Desmond thought with a small sigh, remembering Sam pleading him to stay the hell away from Blair’s dreams. Apparently, it took Sam almost a week to get Blair to calm down enough so he wouldn’t start throwing fireballs (literally) the minute he heard Desmond’s name.

“We don’t have a single tree without burns in our yard anymore,” Sam was saying gloomily. “And don’t get me started on the fence! Desmond, just please...”

Desmond sighed again, remembering his “Yeah, yeah, kid, I promise,” response to that. He looked around again and saw that there was someone lying in bed. He made several silent steps towards the bed, ready to call forth a ripple in case if he saw Blair, when he finally saw the dreamer. The person was thoughtfully staring at his right hand while his left arm was stretched above his head with handcuffs digging into his wrist. The other ring of the handcuffs went around the bedpost.

Desmond frowned at that, noting that the person was rather young – sixteen at the most – and when he looked closer, he realized to his frustrated astonishment that he was staring at Raven yet again. He let out a short, irritated exhale, and Raven immediately turned his head. The minute he saw Desmond, he forgot how to blink, it seemed.

“You again?” he asked finally with disbelief, clearly recognizing Desmond immediately yet again. “Bloody hell, why...?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” Desmond thought gloomily.

“Well,” Raven said after a few seconds. “I guess it makes sense somewhat...”

“How?” Desmond thought with slight interest.

“...you saved me once,” Raven shrugged and tried sitting up; it didn’t work and he fell back onto the pillows with a frustrated sigh. “So I suppose that whenever I dream about some nasty shit that happened in my past, my subconsciousness throws you in as my savior...” he continued without looking away from Desmond’s face.

“Uh huh,” Desmond said, thinking that this theory actually did make sense; it would be a perfect explanation if these were normal dreams, which wasn’t the case.

“Well,” Raven sighed after a minute of silence. “Since you are here, uncuff me... I seriously don’t want to go through this again...!”

Desmond gritted his teeth. He had a pretty good idea what Raven didn’t want to re-live again, but he would not interfere, not this time. It seemed like the incident with the cat didn’t cause any major consequences, but Desmond didn’t want to test his (or rather Raven’s) luck again. He bit his lip and slowly shook his head, which made Raven’s bizarre-colored eyes to grow wide with frustrated disbelief.

“Did this actually happen?” Desmond asked without looking away from the helpless kid on the bed. “I mean, did someone uncuff you back then?”

“No,” Raven answered evenly. “I did it myself eventually. Why does it even matter?”

“Then I’d rather not get involved,” Desmond said firmly without elaborating any further.

“What do you mean, ‘not get involved’?” Raven demanded angrily. “You are part of my goddamn subconsciousness! You are in my dream, for crying out loud! Uncuff me!”

“I am sorry,” Desmond shook his head again, and Raven closed his eyes, his jaw locked tightly.

Desmond cursed silently in his head. “Hate doing this to you,” he thought, watching Raven’s tight expression. “But this is the lesser evil, believe me...”

Finally, Raven opened his eyes without unlocking his teeth.

“This had already happened!” he said in a strained voice. “This is nothing but a dream...! Hell, you are not even real...! Plus, I don’t remember you hesitating while getting me away from that bloody cat,” he narrowed his eyes, and Desmond sighed again.

“Yes,” he agreed mildly, and then frowned. “It bothered me for a while... What happened in reality? With the cat... What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Raven said in the same tight, strained manner. “I passed out after I fell. When I woke up, I was back in the house.”

“I see,” Desmond muttered, thinking that was probably the reason for his interference not causing anything major – Raven didn’t know what happened in reality. He shook his head.

“I am sorry,” he said again. “You do remember what happened in this particular event, and I am not taking any risks...”

“What in the bloody hell are you talking about?” Raven exploded. “Just do it, dammit...!”

Desmond opened his mouth, and he was about to say yet another ‘I am sorry,’ when the door of the bedroom opened, and someone walked inside.

“Uncuff me!” Raven said with wild desperation, and Desmond looked at whoever just walked inside.

It was a man who seemed to be in his late forties, his light hair receding on top of his head, his form somewhat chubby, as if he used to watch his diet, but let himself go a while back. He was wearing that specific small smile that made Desmond grit his teeth – it was obvious what he came in here for, he thought darkly.

“All in good time, my boy,” the man said in an unexpectedly deep voice. “All in good time...”

He came closer to the bed, oblivious to the fact that Desmond stood maybe three steps away from him, and Raven blinked at that. Desmond sighed.

“He can’t see me,” he explained quietly. “This is not his dream; he can’t see me.”

“Uncuff me,” Raven whispered pleadingly.

“I am sorry,” Desmond muttered, hating this goddamn dream, his helplessness, and his ability. He slightly narrowed his eyes, concentrating on calling forth a ripple – he is not going to stay here and witness whatever was about to happen. He glanced behind his shoulder, nodded slightly to himself when he saw the familiar shimmer, and threw the last look at the helpless kid on the bed. “I gotta go,” he said quietly and quickly walked towards the shimmer.

He stepped into that shimmer, hearing the man say, “I said, all in good time,” and then that hateful dream disappeared. Desmond quickly looked around, trying to figure out where he ended up now, and when he saw familiar light-brown, almost red hair, he cursed silently in his head and called forth yet another ripple before Blair turned around and saw him.

He succeeded, and the next destination turned out to be a dream of one of his colleagues – the math teacher, to be exact. That particular dream wasn’t anything special – it was something about planning vacation and taking a loan – and Desmond sighed, and decided to stay here until his ability decided to throw him back into his own reality.