Is This Real?
To @thatlesbeanjew. I love your ALL CAPS, your kick-the-door-in energy, your tough-girl/soft-core soul, ready to go to bat for everyone even though the weight of it would hurt, I see you and I know why you like Darlin hurt/comfort the way I like Darlin hurt/comfort.
<3
Darlin/Sam. Darlin&David. Darlin&Pack.
After being attacked by a dream walker, Darlin is trapped in a nightmare.
tags: dreamscape violence and terror, hurt/comfort, angst, pack feels, dreamscape quinn, dreamscape character death, SERIOUSLY dark nightmare, be warned.
Elliot cameo! I think this is my first time writing Elliot...
Is This Real?
Darlin stood in the hospital hallway, the harsh lights on the white walls and floors impossibly bright and the voices and machines slamming their eardrums until they swayed on their feet.
They closed their eyes, trying to focus—trying to make the world settle.
“You should go,” Asher said, barely pushing the words up from his chest.
Darlin opened their eyes and stared at him. He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t, his jaw tight and his gaze fixed on something through the doorway down the hall. His hands were curled into fists and his eyes swollen from the tears that still rolled down his face. He shook and Darlin knew it was grief and rage mixing into something toxic.
They took a step closer, reaching for him.
They froze, their hand bright red with blood.
No.
They looked down at themself and the reddish brown soaked into their shirt and smeared on their jeans. A handprint on their arm where the little boss had grabbed on.
It came crashing back to them.
They’d found them, not anywhere they belonged, but right there in Darlin’s own apartment, left like a card, a love letter written in blood.
Their chest squeezed, tears blurring their vision. They had carried them to the hospital. They had tried…
David slumped out of the hospital room and into Asher, his beta holding him up. Asher spoke fast, lips pulled back from teeth in a snarl even as he tried to soothe his friend.
Darlin took a step back, pulse high in their throat, choking them.
No.
Nonono.
David swung his head to the side and locked his gaze on them. He pushed off of Asher and started toward them, taking up the whole hallway.
Darlin stumbled back another step, crying harder. They could smell alpha mini’s death, in the way the blood scent had turned and the sheer agony in David’s core. He was broken and Darlin had broken him, had ruined everything, had brought all of this to his doorstep.
He knew it too. He had tried so hard to deny it until then—to pretend that Darlin was just another member of his pack… that he could fix them, protect them, love them.
He grabbed the front of their jacket just when they were about to fall, hauling them up higher and then slamming them against the wall. Darlin almost grabbed at his wrists but stopped short, Angel’s blood still on their hands. They couldn’t touch him with that. They wouldn’t.
“It’s your fault!” he roared.
He let go and they stayed standing long enough for him to punch them, bouncing their head off the wall.
They wanted it to hurt, wanted it to knock them out, but they were numb. The punch had an echo, every punch like it rippling across their mind. A dozen punches like it, head hitting different walls each time.
They sagged down to their knees and blinked blearily. Hardwood, not tile. Dark house, not bright hospital.
“It’s your own fault,” Quinn said, smiling around the words, as if it was more amusing than frustrating.
Darlin looked up, mouth bleeding from his knuckles. Where had everyone else gone? How had they gotten there? And how had he? “What?”
He pulled them to their feet and curled some of their hair behind an ear, flicking his gaze over the side of their neck just like he always had. A jolt of panic shot through them. No. Not this again. When had he come back? Why were they in that old apartment again? “You’re such a fuck up…” he cooed and then fisted his hand in the back of their hair and pulled them into him.
-
It wasn’t like they hadn’t known the job would be dangerous. There were threats made and Shaw Security took that seriously. They had been hired to protect the client while they were in Dahlia. They had been prepared for the possibility of attacks. They had planned for all sorts of empowered threats.
They just hadn’t been ready for a dream walker.
They split up just the way they had planned to in this scenario, Milo and David and a few others taking the client to a secure location while Asher, Darlin, and half a dozen of the pack hunted down the runners. Rabbits, as Darlin like to call them.
Asher loved when Darlin called them rabbits. It always sent a shiver along his spine, urging him to shift and chase.
They had two runners after they brought down three attackers on sight, before splitting up. Darlin peeled off after one, the one with a quiet core, while the others closed in on the air elemental.
The wind kicked up as the asshole tried to get away.
Asher was about to turn to help the others with the elemental, certain that Darlin could pick off that one on their own, but just before he did, they fell.
Darlin fell.
Not tumbled or collapsed. They fell.
One second they were running on all fours, the nightmare powerhouse they had been since they were a teen, and the next they dropped into the grass in human form.
He would never forget the way they hit the ground.
For one horrific second, Asher thought they were dead. Just dead. Like a reaper had reached out and taken them.
It was like someone had thrown a switch and their lights went out.
He couldn’t see the empowered they were chasing anywhere nearby. He shifted when he reached them, on his knees over them and gently rolling them onto their back. Breathe. Breathe. Please, god—
Darlin twitched, breathing, eyes moving behind closed lids.
Asher exhaled relief so hard that his chest hurt. He grabbed their shoulders and gave them a shake. What the hell was wrong with them?
They didn’t wake.
The wind thrashed between the buildings, twirling leaves and litter up into the air. He could hear the others communicating with one another, coordinating their attack as they struggled to bring down the air elemental.
Asher gave Darlin another shake. “Wake up!” he snapped. He couldn’t leave them like that, and as much as he wanted to make sure things went well for the others, the panic in his chest had yet to abate over Darlin’s state. Why—
Darlin twitched, it was small at first, like a muscle shaking out, and then they kicked and groaned deep in their throat, like they were trying to twist away from some awful pain.
Oh fuck.
Dream walker, he told the others over their link.
“Darlin?” Asher tried again, holding their shoulders. He looked around, trying to spot the dream walker. They could still be close. He could find them… But then he’d have to leave Darlin alone and unprotected. No. Absolutely not.
Asher growled, trapped. “Buddy, you gotta wake up…”
Darlin didn’t.
Christian howled in triumph when they brought the air elemental down, wind still thrashing but higher and less focused now.
Darlin strained and kicked their boots, like they were running or fighting. Their arms shot up, clawing at their own neck. Asher grabbed them and pushed them down but that only made Darlin breathe faster and struggle harder.
“No. Nonono,” Asher ground out, pulling the other wolf into his arms until he had their back to his chest and his arms pinning theirs to their sides. “Wake up. Please, please, wake up.”
They didn’t.
But they did start screaming.
Asher had never heard them scream before. He’d never even heard them cry, but soon they were begging, and he felt a rising sick in his chest.
Chrissy got there first, the others trussing up their captive elemental and delivering them to the authorities. The wolf shifted and stared down at Asher and Darlin, his mouth hanging open in some sort of terrified confusion.
Asher growled. “Call David,” he snapped, arms still clamped around Darlin to hold them as they struggled and choked on fear. He couldn’t send Chrissy to look for the dream walker—couldn’t risk this happening to him too. But he didn’t know what to do or how to make this stop. “Call David!” he shouted, and Christian jumped, snapped out of his shock and fumbling his phone from his pocket.
Asher nuzzled his head into the side of Darlin’s, even as their screams made his ears ring in pain. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” he promised, praying that they could hear him on some level. What was happening in their head? What the fuck had that dream walker done? “Hang in there, Darlin. You’re okay. No one’s getting to you. Nothing is happening. You’re okay.”
-
Darlin couldn’t get away.
His arms were around them, holding them to him, his teeth in their neck and their blood everywhere.
They were back in the old apartment. That wasn’t right. None of this was right, but they couldn’t get a thought clear of the panic and the pain. How had they ended up there? When had he come back?
He squeezed them and their ribs cracked, making it impossible to breathe. He sucked at their neck, at their life, like a leech.
“You’re okay,” they heard Asher’s voice saying, calling, whispering, screaming. But they didn’t feel okay. They felt like their heart was going to beat right out of their chest and they would be relieved to see it go.
Wait.
Asher?
They had been on a job with Asher. They had been chasing some rabbit and… and…
“Darlin?” Sam said softly, his breath against their cheek, his arms around them.
Their head felt light, and they relaxed into him. Sam was safe. Sam would fix whatever this was and…
His tongue stroked up their ravaged neck, his chest rumbling behind their back. “I always knew you’d taste amazing.”
Darlin choked on a cry and struggled anew, kicking and thrashing to get out of his arms, to see him. It couldn’t be Sam. It had to be a trick. It had to be…
He laughed like he had a hundred times before, like they’d just said something funny.
They practically fell out of his lap, crawling away and twisting around. Sam smiled at them, their blood still on his lips and chin. He moved languidly, like Sam but also like Quinn. He crawled after them, like this was a game.
“No… No!” Darlin screamed, twisting around and trying to get up. He grabbed them by the hair and pulled them back to him, his breath on their ear.
“You’re mine.”
Darlin swore, hesitating to throw an elbow because it was Sam. Their Sam. Wasn’t it? No. No, how could it be? He would never do this.
He let go and they fell forward, landing on hardwood. The light shifted and they felt a wave of dizziness again. They weren’t in their apartment anymore. They were… They…
Darlin got up on shaky legs and looked around at the empty living room. David’s house. They had never seen it empty before. “Dav—” they started, choking on his name and coughing hard. They tasted blood and their hand flew to their neck, finding it still ripped open. Only, it was so much worse than it had ever been before. They stumbled to the wall mirror and stared at themself—at the grotesque side of their neck. It had been scars before but now it looked like every scar had been a bite take out of them, not spread over years of their life but all at once. They couldn’t still be alive…
A floorboard creaked down the hall. They gravitated toward it, desperate to find someone—to find David. He would tell them what to do. He would know. They stumbled down the hall, grabbing at the wall and knocking over photos of the pack, of David and alpha mini.
They practically fell through the bedroom door, knees hitting the plush carpet and feeling it sink soggily under them like mud.
The little boss was right there in front of them, on the floor, with a neck to match their own only… only they weren’t moving. Darlin gasped for air, tears making their vision swim. This couldn’t be real…but they could smell the blood and David’s mate was right there.
“What have you done?” David screamed and Darlin jumped.
He fell over his mate, his face rippling in pain and betrayal, and through the fog of terror and fear, they felt like they had been here before. Déjà vu.
“No. I… David, please…” Darlin tried, one blood-wet hand going to their head. This didn’t make sense. They didn’t understand.
“How could you do this to me? I trusted you! I loved you!” He shifted and lunged for them, and Darlin couldn’t even think to shift and defend. All they could do was cower and scream as he ripped them apart. They felt small and helpless, unable to get away or make it stop.
And then everything went black.
“Darlin?” Sam’s voice fluttered against their senses. Far away. “Darlin, hang on. You’re okay,” he said.
Darlin stayed curled up, hands over their head and forehead to the floor, just like when they were a kid. Stay down and wait it out. Disappear.
“Can you hear me, Darlin?” Sam asked, his voice full of worry.
They could still smell David’s mate’s blood. They could still hear the way his voice broke like an echo of his heart. They could still feel his teeth.
“Please, you need to wake up.”
His hand stroked up their back, so gentle, like they were breakable in a way that was so much more real than bones and skin. “Hey. There you are,”
Darlin opened their eyes. They weren’t curled up anymore. They were lying on their back in the bed they shared with Sam, in their apartment.
His smile was full of relief and his face drawn with exhaustion. He cupped their face gently. “Oh, thank god, Darlin. You had me scared.”
Darlin swallowed and this time didn’t taste blood. They inhaled deeply but didn’t smell any either. Sam took their hand, holding it in both of his. “Take it easy. You were attacked by a dream walker.”
Dream walker.
Darlin nodded slowly, sitting up.
Sam scooted back to give them room, his hands always on them. “You were out for a few days.”
“Days…” Somehow it had felt like an hour and like lifetimes.
“I’m sorry, Darlin. There was no other way to get you out.”
“What?” Darlin looked around. They didn’t feel right. They felt jittery and light. Too much healing magic, maybe? They touched their shirt and their neck. No blood and no new wounds.
“I had to do it,” Sam said, his voice full of remorse. The sound of it had Darlin reaching for him automatically, wanting to reassure him that whatever it was, it was okay. They never wanted him to feel bad. “When you died the dream stopped and you were able to wake up.”
Darlin went still. “What?” They looked around the apartment again. “Where…Where’s David? I need to talk to David…”
Sam held their hand tighter. “Oh, Darlin… I’m sorry. He doesn’t want to see you.”
Darlin tried to pull their hand from his, to press at that growing ache in their head, but Sam didn’t let go. “What? No… He’s…”
“Asher died trying to protect you,” Sam said, voice still so full of gentle worry. “He couldn’t leave you while you were unconscious, so he couldn’t get away. He was all alone. Shaw said you can’t come back to the pack.”
Darlin shook, trying to absorb everything but it was too much. Asher was dead?
Sam pulled them into him, wrapping his arms around them no matter how they tensed and tried to lean away from him. “It’s okay. It’s for the best. It’s not like you could go back to them now anyway.” He stroked them like he was soothing, pulling them into his arms until their back was to his chest and his breath on their neck. “Do you want me to make it better? I can make you forget. I can make you do anything…”
“What? No!” This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be Sam. He would never… They tried to get up. He pulled them back down, arms like restraints now. Like before. Before.
They were still dreaming. There really had been a dream walker.
The job. They had been on that job with Asher.
They cringed, imagining him dying because they were unconscious. It was true, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t leave them like that. He would have to stay and defend them. No! No, that might not have happened. That was the dream.
Was it?
Fuck!
Quinn kissed their neck, his arms around them. Not Sam anymore. “You always ruin things…” he cooed like something sweet.
Darlin shuddered with the effort not to struggle. It wasn’t real.
“Oh, don’t fight it,” he said, but it wasn’t exactly him now.
Darlin stayed very still.
He bit their neck again, but his blunt teeth only threatened to bruise. He laughed. “Man, you’re so fucked up, I barely even had to do anything. I just nudged and let you go on your own…”
The dream walker.
“He really is dead though, your friend, the one that came when you went down… Asher.”
Darlin choked back a cry, trying so hard not to believe him, not to see Asher’s body suddenly on the ground next to them.
He knew Asher’s name, they realized. He knew it because he was in their head. What else had they given away? What else could be used against them?
He smiled against their neck. “You mean, do I know all the weak spots in your pack now? Yeah, I do. Human mates and a temperamental alpha? One dead human and your pack would collapse…”
Darlin bit into their tongue. Even if it wasn’t real, it felt real and it tasted real. They focused on all of that to keep from thinking about how wrong this dream walker was. He was taking their feelings for reality. David wasn’t temperamental just because Darlin was terrified of falling out with him. That was them, not him, but they’d already given this enemy enough.
“I can’t stay and play all day,” he said, squeezing them to him. “So, let’s settle you into a long-term situation.”
His hands shifted, changing size and shape against their skin. “Who do you want to stay with, Darlin?” he asked, voice changing between Sam and Quinn, between David and Asher. “What nightmare should I leave you in?”
Darlin bit their tongue again, trying not to give anything away, not even letting themself think about which idea was worse. How long was long-term? How long would they be in this nightmare?
“It’ll be better this way,” he whispered sweetly. “I’m going to kill your alpha’s mate and he’s going to know it was you who made that possible. If you ever wake up, you’ll have to face a real nightmare.”
Darlin gasped, trying to get up and turn around, trying to lunge for him, but he was gone and they were suddenly alone on the floor of their old apartment.
The door thumped with three heavy knocks that shook the wall and fear cut through Darlin so fast and so deep that they forgot it was a dream—they forgot about the dream walker—all they knew was that something awful was on the other side of that door.
A fist slammed the other side and the wood splintered.
Darlin kicked the floor to slide back, away from it, but there was nowhere to go.
Another knock and the walls cracked. It was coming through.
Darlin closed their eyes and curled up.
-
The dream walker blinked a few times, rolling his shoulders and refocusing on the world around him, the real world.
From his spot, he could just barely see where Darlin had fallen and the other wolf, Asher, was still holding them. There had been a third, but he had left. He wasn’t even looking for the dream walker, having gone the wrong way.
He laughed to himself, clawing a shaking hand through his hair. He’d spent a lot of energy on that wolf. He could have been sparser in his use of magic. He didn’t have to weave so many stories, delves so deep into their fears, or build that final repeat construct to keep them under. But it would make for a good distraction. They’d have to find another dream walker to undo that mess, and a good one at that.
Still shaking, head throbbing, he took a step back and finally turned. Time to get some distance and regroup. Stopping had been a risk but it had also been fun. Teach that dog not to snap teeth at him again…
Not that they would have a chance.
His head was still buzzing from the mess in theirs.
Were all wolves that fucked up? It was almost too easy to torture them. He didn’t really have to make anything up—just make everything they were thinking take form.
He rounded another corner, daylight too bright for his headache. He needed to rest and recover and then get the fuck out of town before—
He almost walked right into a wall, coming up short and jerking his head back because it wasn’t a wall at all. It was a person. A huge person. He blinked up into that familiar face, for a second remembering him the way Darlin had, and David looked like a fucking titan. Before the dream walker could react more than to inhale and begin to reach up—begin to pull at his already exhausted core—one meaty fist slammed into his face and knocked him on his ass on the pavement.
A stealth slapped a power dampening cuff on him, materializing as they did.
Well, damn.
-
“Make him fix it,” Asher growled, pacing the living room.
Darlin was on their bed down the hall, but the door was open. No one had said anything about it, but somehow everyone, even Sam, knew not to close it. They needed eyes on Darlin. They needed to be close and looking out of them.
David had his arms folded and his head down, jaw so tight that it looked painful.
“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “We can’t let him in their head again.”
They hadn’t woken up. The asshole was across town in a cell and they still hadn’t woken up.
“I’ve called a friend of mine, a dream walker,” Stealth said.
“Does he work for DUMP?” Asher asked.
They shook their head. “Private contractor. I’ve known him for years. He’s really good.”
Sam nodded.
It had been a few hours and the sun was still up. They had taken Darlin to a department clinic first, expecting the healers to be able to wake them up, but when they hadn’t and they admitted that they had no idea how to, David had picked Darlin up and carried them back out. The whole pack was there by then.
They’d driven Darlin home to Sam. It was only right, since Sam couldn’t come to them.
Asher wondered if Sam knew they wouldn’t be leaving until Darlin woke up. They couldn’t.
“When will your friend get here?” David asked, voice tight.
Stealth sagged. “A couple hours.”
Asher bit his tongue to keep from growling. It wasn’t Stealth’s fault.
David and Sam both nodded, but neither was looking up.
They all heard Darlin gasping in the other room, like they were drowning. They did that almost every thirty minutes. Was it the same dream on repeat?
Milo was in there with them, his voice a low constant murmur reassuring them like each of them had, just in case it made it through the nightmare.
-
Sam was going out of his mind listening to them in pain, feeling the tug on his core that told them they were hurting, they were in danger, they were scared. He could do nothing. He stood there, digging fingers into his own arms, and watching David sit with Darlin on the bed, touching their head and telling them it was going to be okay—that they were safe.
Sam was relieved when David had taken up the position after Milo, and he hated himself for that relief. But he knew, to some degree, what Darlin’s nightmares would be. He knew. And the idea that they might feel his hands on them only to have their brain turn it into someone else…into something else…turned his gut in a way that nearly brought him to his knees.
He was so grateful that the pack had brought Darlin home to him, rather than anywhere else. He would have had to wait for sundown to see them and as bad as listening to their struggle was, being apart from them would be a thousand times worse.
Milo, Asher, and a few others were in the living room. The front door was constantly opening and closing. Sam didn’t care. He stayed in the bedroom, back to the wall, watching Darlin—trying to will them to wake up.
He sensed the dream walker when Stealth brought him down the hallway toward the open bedroom door.
It felt like a wake, Sam realized with a jolt of horror. The room was dim and Darlin was laid out on the bed. They all spoke softly and carefully, walking around grief.
David didn’t get up to greet the dream walker. He didn’t budge from that spot on the bed next to Darlin, his back to the headboard, but he thanked him for coming. It sounded difficult for him to say but Sam was grateful he’d done it, because he couldn’t quite look at the dream walker himself—afraid he’d react badly if he did—afraid he’d treat this man badly for the crimes of another.
Sam squeezed his own arms, leaving bruises that healed and bruised over and over.
Elliot, was this dream walker’s name.
He inched closer to the bed. Everyone tensed.
-
Elliot stopped short, lifting one hand in a replica of surrender. He had been aiming to sit on the bed but that wasn’t necessary and obviously not welcomed. “I don’t need contact,” he assured. They were scared. It wasn’t often he did work with any wolves, let alone scared ones. And he hadn’t dared to look at the vampire in the corner and try to figure out what he was doing there.
It didn’t matter.
He was just there to undo whatever that other dream walker had done.
Elliot would have to be oblivious not to realize just how distrusting everyone but the Stealth had been of him. He understood. They were only letting him into their space, and into their friend’s head, because they had no other options.
He sat down slowly, settling on the floor with his back to the wall.
He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, and then on the breathing of the werewolf on the bed…not the alpha, not the vamp in the corner, not the stealth near the door. The room quieted, emptying out.
And then he opened his eyes. He was in a different apartment. An empty apartment. He got up and started walking. He wouldn’t have to search, he would naturally move toward them. It was their mind.
There was an oiliness to the construct, a wrongness of something created in a rush.
Something thumped down the hall. The dream had the vibe of a horror flick. He could almost hear the music, the tension physical in the air and pulling at his chest. It was designed to cause terror even before knowing why—to help make the dream feel real, to keep the dreamer from being able to think clearly and make sense of it.
Elliot hated horror flicks.
Sunshine liked to tease him about it.
He pushed that thought away. It wasn’t smart to think about Sunshine or himself in a place like this.
He stepped into the main room and froze.
The door was busted in and hanging sideways on the one hinge that held on, blocking the exit into a void beyond.
There was blood on the floor, and scuff marks, and cracks like something had been slammed down into it again and again.
He found them in the corner, and they weren’t alone.
A vampire. Not the one in the room with them, at least.
Quinn.
He had never heard the name before, never met the vampire, but he knew because Darlin knew—because it was built into the web of this construct. He had teeth in their neck, bent on draining them. Again, Elliot realized. This was a loop. How many times had it played out?
“Stop.” The word jumped out of him, powers flexing to make it a command against this dreamscape. It would be easy to stop a true dream, to change it and rearrange it, but this wasn’t a true dream. It ground slowly to a stop, like being hit by a wave that slowed and slowed until it finally froze.
The wolf jerked free of the vampire while he was frozen and fell over onto their side, curling up with one arm over their head.
Elliot clenched his teeth and took a step forward, not reshaping but peeling back the dreamscape and erasing it a piece at a time. First the vessel. He wasn’t a threat anymore, but the sight was grotesque. The other dream walker had taken someone Darlin was already afraid of and made them unstoppable. It was so cruel.
“My name is Elliot. I’m going to fix this.”
Once the vessel was deconstructed the rest came apart pretty easily, but Elliot was meticulous in getting rid of every bit of it. He crouched on the floor near the wolf. Darlin. He could feel their name in here. He got rid of their wounds, and the moved them to another room, to the room they were in in real life, only now it was just the two of them.
Darlin hadn’t moved, had stayed curled on their side, arms protecting their face and neck. It looked automatic.
Elliot waited. They weren’t waking up. They were just…waiting.
“Darlin?” he asked gently.
Nothing. He could feel the stillness of their mind around them. They had retreated.
“You were attacked,” he explained, looking for some recognition and trying to jar them into a sense of reality. Any sense of reality. “You’re dreaming right now. It’s time to wake up.”
Nothing.
Oh god.
Elliot leaned down, almost laying his cheek to the floor to bring his face level with theirs. He wasn’t sure if he should add the voices from their pack in the other room or not. Would it confuse them more to see more dream? Maybe. “My name is Elliot,” he said again. “I’m a friend of Stealth. Your pack asked me to help get you out of this. They caught the dream walker that attacked you. Everyone is okay.”
Their eyes flicked toward him then but that was it. No reaction. At least it was something.
“You’re in this apartment.” It was their apartment, he knew now. Theirs and the vampire in the corner out there in reality. Sam. He knew these things because he was in their mind but saying it could be jarring and intrusive. It was polite to pretend not to know until he was told. “You’re safe now. You can wake up.”
Darlin stared at him, far away.
His heart broke for them. “You just need to wake up.”
Darlin closed their eyes and didn’t wake up.
They might wake from external stimuli now, if someone in the waking world were to give them a shake or maybe go so far as to prick them with a needle. But that could do more damage than waking on their own. They might have trouble believing they were awake. They might already... He had seen the layers of the dreamscape before the loop. The other walker had made them think they had woken up before. Darlin didn’t trust it anymore, didn’t trust that he wasn’t just the same dream walker or another part of the construct.
“I get it, I do. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I can give you another dream if you want? Something nice?”
They jerked a little, like he’d threatened them.
“Or we could just wake up?”
They cringed, pressing their eyes shut.
He waited, sitting with them in that quiet space. He could feel them thinking but he didn’t press into those thoughts—didn’t try to hear them for himself. It might be helpful, but it would also be another invasion and he wasn’t sure Darlin could take that.
“Your alpha and your mate are both in the room with us… in the waking world. Your pack seems really nice. I saw a lot of them in the building on my way into the building. They’re all really worried about you.”
Darlin didn’t move.
Elliot waited.
Darlin sighed. “How do I know it’s real?” they whispered.
Elliot’s heart ached. They sounded so tired. They should have been crying and screaming after what he’d walked in on, but they were just…tired. “I know it’s hard. I know it’s a lot. But I promise this time you really will wake up. Right now, it still feels real, but the farther you get from it, the more it’ll feel like just a nightmare—just like any other nightmare. And if you want, I can build you a maze to make it hard for a dream walker to get in again.” It wasn’t likely they would need it. This had been bad luck. Wrong place wrong time wrong enemy. But Elliot built lots of people mazes and walls. He was paid well for it. He would do it for free for Darlin if it helped them feel safer.
Darlin opened their eyes and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time. They were weighing their options and trying to convince themself to trust him. “Everyone is okay?” they asked again.
Elliot got the terrible sense that if they weren’t all okay, Darlin might not be interested in waking up. “Yes. Just really worried about you.” He was glad he didn’t have to lie.
Darlin sighed, tense like they were preparing for another fall, but they nodded once. “Okay. Wake me up then.”
-
David hadn’t moved from where he sat on the bed, one hand on Darlin’s shoulder, listening to their heartbeat and the way their breath caught sometimes. They had been running through a cycle since they brought them to the Department clinic, and for the first time that had changed. They hadn’t gasped and jerked the way they usually did at this point. Something had changed and their breathing had evened out.
Sam stayed where he was, focus fixed on Darlin.
David wasn’t sure how he managed to keep that distance. He held himself like he was restraining himself. Did he think he couldn’t come closer while David was there? Did he think he had to wait his turn to sit with them? David distantly wondered if he should be giving up his spot beside Darlin to their mate. He wouldn’t have cared if Sam pressed in or took up the spot on the other side of them. But David couldn’t give up nearness himself. He needed to be close to them. He needed to know they were safe. It was instinct and love. Darlin was his pack, his family, and he was so deeply responsible for their life that the idea of them never waking was a knife twisting in his chest. There was no way it wouldn’t be his fault, there was no way even if it absolutely wasn’t his fault that he could feel anything but crushing loss.
He had never tried to explain it to anyone, but it had been one of the reasons he was afraid of being alpha after his dad passed. Every loss, even natural deaths by age, felt like having a piece cut out of him.
Sam jerked a step closer to the bed, away from the wall, drawing David’s focus for a split second before he felt it too. Darlin was awake.
The dream walker sighed, eyes opening and head tipping from one side to the other to stretch.
Darlin’s eyes opened slowly, but they didn’t move at first, just casting their gaze warily around the room. They tensed the instant they registered David’s hand on their shoulder, but he didn’t move it.
The dream walker got up, looking at them but not trying to get closer.
“Troublemaker?” David spoke first, voice shaking a little.
Darlin nodded once, tightly, but didn’t quite look at him. “Everyone… Is everyone…”
David sighed heavily, almost laughing. “You’re worried about the others? They’re fine.”
Sam finally unfolded his arms, letting himself go. He came closer to the other side of the bed, dropping to his knees beside it and sliding his arms along the bed, toward them but not quite touching. Sam never touched without permission or confirmation of some kind that it was wanted. David had noticed it over the years. Wolves wanted contact, craved it and spoke through it sometimes, but in a lot of ways, he was glad Sam was so careful with Darlin.
Sam and Darlin looked at one another. In any other situation, David would have at the very least looked away. Darlin nodded once and Sam exhaled hard, his arms stretching to close the distance and his hands settling against their arm and side.
Footfalls beat up the hallway.
David groaned. “Ash—” he started but it was too late.
Asher burst through the doorway, narrowly dodging Stealth, and threw himself onto the bed. “Fucking, finally!” He practically crawled on top of Darlin, pawing their head and shoulders like he was checking again for injuries. “Where the hell have you been? Do you know how scared I was?” he went on, until Darlin was squirming under him, half-heartedly shoving his hands away. Until Darlin huffed a thin laugh that broke into a sob. Asher hugged them, messing up their hair and nuzzling their head, letting them cry under him and between David and Sam, like it would contain them, like they were safe.
As much as Asher drove him nuts sometimes, he loved his beta.
After a while, Darlin dragged a few clear breaths and then shoved again at Asher. “Okay, get the fuck off me,” they grumbled.
Elliot and Stealth had slipped out of the room, David realized.
Milo was at the door, waiting.
Asher flopped back onto the foot of the bed, still across Darlin and David’s legs. He opened his arms to Milo. “Come on, you want in on this too, right? How often do we get to pile on Darlin?”
Milo hesitated, looking at Darlin’s grumpy pout.
“Don’t you dare,” Darlin growled, but it didn’t have any edge to it.
Even Sam was trying not to laugh.
David nodded once and Milo jumped onto the bed, crawling over Asher to bop his head against Darlin’s.
“Just get used to it,” David muttered. The whole pack was going to try to get close to Darlin today, instinct driving them to confirm that they were okay.
Darlin huffed like they hated it, but he felt them relaxing. David understood, because he would have done the same. Even if he craved the contact of his pack, he would grumble about being fussed over.
-
Darlin wasn’t what was real, but they knew they wanted this to be.
They ended up in the living room, hearing the stories of what had happened with the other elemental, the dream walker, and the client who was now safely out of Dahlia and off their hands. They let others push food and water at them and pretended not to notice when they leaned against them, touched their back or their head, or thumped their temples to theirs. They pretended to be annoyed, but really they wanted to cry with relief.
They almost did when they saw alpha mini. It was like the moment they’d seen Asher come rushing into the room. Safe. Alive. Nothing like what they’d seen in their nightmare.
And Elliot had been right about the nightmare, it was getting foggier the longer they were awake.
But every so often Darlin jumped at a touch or a sound, afraid that the foot had dropped and this false sense of safety and happiness was about to be turned on them.
Sam didn’t say much, but he stayed close, and they worried he saw everything. He always saw through them, even if he didn’t always call them out.
Eventually everyone was gone and it was just the two of them.
The next few days were weird. Darlin couldn’t sleep. Or maybe they wouldn’t sleep… They had tried, really, but they just lay there awake.
On the first day, they cut their hair for the first time since they met Sam. They cut it short. Real short. Short like it had been when they met him, short enough that it would be hard for anyone to get a grip on those strands. He stared for long seconds when he first saw it, and Darlin worried he’d put pieces together and somehow see their nightmare in their eyes.
But he just smiled softly and told them he liked it, asked to touch it, and ran his palm along the side of their head.
On the second day, Sam came up behind them, wrapping his arms around them, and they just about jumped across the room.
He stared at them and they stared back. He didn’t move closer or reach for them. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” they said just as fast as he asked. They’d almost forgotten the details of the nightmare until it all came flooding back. Quinn’s arms. Sam’s arms. Their teeth. No. Nope. Did not want to talk about that shit.
Sam nodded slowly. “Okay. But Darlin…”
The way he rolled their name always made them calm and flustered in the best way. It was different than how anyone else said it. They gravitated to him again, reaching for his hand but waiting until he reached back, their fingers tangling. “I’m—”
“Don’t apologize,” Sam nearly pleaded. “You don’t have to talk about anythin’ you don’t want to, but you can. Even if it’s bad. Even if… it’s me.”
Darlin’s gaze flicked up to his. They shouldn’t have been surprised he’d guessed that.
He almost managed to hide the cringe when he saw confirmation in their eyes.
Almost.
They had to bite their tongue to keep from apologizing. It wasn’t his fault, but it wasn’t theirs either.
“If you want space—”
“No,” Darlin said, squeezing his hand.
His shoulders slumped in relief.
Darlin stepped closer, right into his chest. No one had ever loved them the way Sam did and they couldn’t imagine loving anyone more. “It was just a dream,” they said, trying to believe that this wasn’t part of that anymore. It would get easier, that was what Elliot had said. That anxious feeling would fade and reality would feel real again.
And he was right.
Eventually they stopped thinking about it.
Eventually they made jokes about it.
Eventually, months later, sitting in Sam’s lap with his mouth gently dropping kisses against their neck, they would tell him that it was impossible not to think they were dreaming when he was always acting like that. And they would feel his smile against their skin and know that it was real, because only the real Sam smiled like that, felt like that, and made them feel like that.