Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:59:35 -0600
From: Katya_Dee <concertoind@gmail.com>
Subject: The Dreamtrap - chapter 20

This is a story of fiction, all resemblances (dead or alive) are eerily
coincidental. Everything in the story is owned by myself beloved. Contains
descriptive sexual scenes between males, if you are not supposed to read it
then don't. Feel free to e-mail me.

****

 - 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 he 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 tapping fingers of his phone-free hand on sleeping
Gabriel's shoulder absent-mindedly.

   "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 barbeque 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 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 the 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 has 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 probably 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 whom 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 blood-curling 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 makes 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 blood-curling 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 kid's back, wasn't sweater or any
other clothing article at all. It was a startlingly big grey cat, and it was
tearing kid's spine apart, it seemed. For one nightmarish minute, Desmond
firmly believed that he was looking at young Gabriel again, but then he
realized that it wasn't Rayhe. This kid had 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, digging his fingernails into his palms
helplessly 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 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 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 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-looking 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 has 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
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 put Raven on the bed hurriedly. 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,
staring at the kid's neck intently.

   "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, sat 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.

****

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