![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
umbralilliumTitle: What Dreams Reveal
Author: DaniKitten![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dollydani
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Charlie/Colby, Don/Cassandra
Warnings: mentioned character death, m/m slash
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were mine, never will be mine.
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
words_fly_up. My quote was ‘Think but this, and all is mended: that you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear; and this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.’ From A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Well, it’s not exactly set in the middle of summer, it’s actually mid-winter around New Year’s. Please don’t kill me, I only write what pops into my head. Set in my Watching You 'verse. Takes place after A Memorable Evening and Fresh From the Fight.
Beta:jestana, also thank you to the folks on my flist for giving me their feedback. Love ya’ll! MWAH!
What Dreams Reveal
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
Blankness. That's all there was; no color, no light, nothing to indicate where they were, just the feeling of open space, but with the knowledge that there was someone dear close by. He reached out a hand and felt a familiar hand reaching out to him in return. They moved closer to each other in unison, their arms wrapping around each other's bodies, clinging to one another as if they were drowning at sea, except they weren't drowning in water; they were drowning in nothingness.
Finally, one spoke. "Colby?" one asked, his voice husky, wavering with fear and uncertainty, and muffled from where his face was pressed into the curve of the other man's neck.
"I'm here, Charlie," Colby replied, and Charlie could feel Colby's breath stirring his curls.
"Where are we?"
Charlie felt Colby's shoulders shrug. "I don't know and I don't like it,"
"Me neither."
Both men gasped softly as memories spiraled through their minds.
Don laying on warm asphalt, his eyes staring sightlessly at the nearly cloudless winter sky, a bullet hole giving him the illusion of having a third eye.
Alan and Cassandra standing in front of them, facing a gleaming casket, watching as it is lowered into an empty grave.
Colby crying in Megan's arms.
Charlie crouched on the garage floor, his hands clamped over his ears and eyes screwed shut, vainly trying to shut out the pictures and sounds that are in his own head.
Colby carrying a sleep-deprived and malnourished Charlie up the stairs.
Charlie and Colby wrapped around each other in Charlie's room while they cried for Don.
Donald Frederick Eppes
1965-2006
Loving brother, friend, and leader
The pair clung to each other even tighter as the flow of memories ebbed away.
"Fuck." Colby whispered.
Charlie chuckled weakly. "Yeah," Charlie pulled back slightly, his eyes searching sightlessly for Colby's. "Was that--? Did..." He took a deep breath, steeling himself to ask the question that they were both thinking. "Did that really happen?"
"I, I don't know," Colby took a deep shuddering breath. "But, God, I hope not."
"Me, too," Charlie whispered back, leaning his head on Colby's chest. "If this is a dream, I want to wake up now."
"You and me, both." Colby agreed moments before a blinding white light filled the void and a cacophony of noises filled their ears.
"...waking..." Dad?
"...impossible..."
"...Dad?" Don?!
"Miss Granger..."
"Charles..." Larry?
"Please, just wake..." Cass?
"Charlie, can you hear me?" Oh god, DON!
Charlie's eyelids fluttered before opening slightly, only to slam shut again from the bright light. "Bright," Charlie whispered, his voice rough.
"Someone shut the blinds!" A faint rattling sound, then, "Okay, Charlie, go ahead."
Charlie's eyes slitted open then opened all the way. He blinked a few times before focusing on the face hovering in his line of sight and drew in a sharp breath in surprise. "D-Don?" He asked, voice faint.
Don's brow crinkled in confusion. "Yeah. Something wrong, Charlie?"
"You, you're dead. I saw you." Charlie whispered, eyes wide and taking in every detail of Don's face.
Don jerked in shock then settled, shaking his head. "I'm fine, you and Colby are the ones that gave us all a scare, buddy," Don's head turned to look to the left and Charlie followed his gaze to see Colby lying in a hospital bed, looking back at him with Cassandra in a similar position to Don.
Their eyes locked and they could both see the relief in the other's eyes, a single thought in both their minds. 'It was a dream!'
Charlie looked back at Don; his eyes closing as pain suddenly hit him. "What," Charlie licked suddenly dry lips. "What happened?" He asked, his eyes sliding past Don's shoulder to take in the people ranged around the room.
Alan stepped up to the side of the bed opposite from Don. "You two were in a major earthquake, Charlie," Alan explained softly, brown eyes haunted.
Charlie's eyes slammed closed as memories overtook him.
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
They'd been house-sitting for Cassandra while she and Don were in Yosemite for a week in celebration of their six month anniversary. The couple had been planning the trip for a while and Cassandra had asked Colby and Charlie to watch the house once they’d decided what they were going to do so that Don and Colby could get the time off while Charlie was on winter break. Technically, it was the week after Don and Cassandra’s anniversary, but they didn’t mind all that much.
Colby had told Charlie that when Cassandra went on her usual jaunts up into the local mountains, she’d ask one of her neighbors to keep an eye on the house and take care of the cats, but since Cassandra would be farther away than the local mountains and she had a couple major commissions set up in the studio, she was reluctant to leave the house unprotected for a majority of the day. Charlie had understood and had agreed to housesit with Colby.
Charlie and Colby had been curled up together on the family room couch having a The Santa Clause marathon, bickering contentedly on whether or not Charlie really did look like the actor who played Bernard, when Charlie had faintly heard the tell-tale rumbling.
“Oh, no.” He muttered, scrambling up from the couch, tugging Colby with him. Colby followed; slightly puzzled until he felt what had alarmed Charlie. “Earthquake. Fuck. Come on!”
Colby followed Charlie across the room to the archway that separated the hall from the living room and entryway. Colby pressed Charlie against the edge of the wall, protecting Charlie’s smaller frame with his larger build, and tucked his face into the crook of Charlie’s neck, not quite sure if his legs were really trembling or if it was the earthquake that seemed like it would never fucking stop.
Outside, Colby could hear car alarms going off, he was fairly certain that one of them was his 4-Runner, then he heard a noise that made his blood freeze in his veins.
CRACK!
“Oh no.” he whispered, terrified.
“What? What was it?” Charlie yelled over the rumbling moments before there was a horrendous crash and a blast of cold air before darkness descended and all sound ceased.
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
Charlie’s eyes opened with Alan and Don watching him with concern, and he realized he was panting for breath. “How, how long have we been out?”
“The doctor said that you were out for a few hours until the rescue team cut away the branches from Cassandra’s pine tree, Colby woke up briefly before that, but I don’t know if he remembers much,” Don told him. “You regained consciousness when they shined a flashlight on you, but you were pretty out of it,”
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, remembering a bright light and hazy voices, but not much else. His eyes shot open when part of what Don had said struck him. “You, you said branches, where, where did the trunk land?”
Don winced visibly and he looked over at Cassandra, the pain in his eyes telling Charlie what he needed to know.
“Oh, god. The studio.” Charlie whispered, shock, worry, and concern in his voice.
Don nodded and Charlie looked over at Cassandra as well, who was wrapped in Colby’s arms, crying softly. “What about…” Charlie trailed off, unable to continue.
Charlie saw Don nod again out of the corner of his eye. “Belle and Beau are, are missing,” he answered, his voice weary.
Charlie looked back over at Don. “She’s had you out looking for them,”
“Yeah,” Don said quietly before standing and walking the few steps to touch Cassandra on the shoulder lightly. Almost immediately, she stood and wrapped her arms around Don’s waist, her hands clutching his shirt, her face hidden against his chest.
Charlie watched them, aching to be held as Cassandra was, but his injuries, and Colby’s, prevented it. He looking back over at Colby, meeting Colby’s eyes, and seeing the worry and longing that he was fairly sure were apparent in his own eyes. “I love you,” he whispered, not looking away.
“I love you, too,” Colby whispered back.
Charlie smiled faintly, a smile that Colby returned, before looking back at Alan. “Tired.” He said wearily, eyes half-closed.
“I’m not surprised,” Alan replied with a slight smile. “You two get some rest, we’ll be here when you wake up.”
“M’kay.” Charlie mumbled, his eyes slipping the rest of the way closed as he gave in to the exhaustion that was dragging him back into the darkness.
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
As soon as Charlie was asleep, Don’s head tipped forward until his chin rested on Cassandra’s head and his eyes closed, two words that Charlie had said spinning through his mind like a leaf in a whirlwind. “You’re dead,” What did it mean? Was it a dream Charlie had had while he was unconscious?
“They both thought you were dead,” Megan said softly into the silence that had fallen on the room like a comforter on a hot summer day.
Don’s eyes shot open and he looked over at Megan who stared at him through haunted eyes. “Both of them?”
Megan nodded. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but they did. It could have been dream, but how could both of them have the same dream?”
Don shook his head, puzzled. He squeezed Cassandra lightly, catching her attention. She looked up, the red and puffy skin around her eyes emphasizing how haunted they were. “Did Colby say he thought I was dead?” He asked, wishing he didn’t have to ask when he saw and felt Cassandra flinch.
“He, he said you were dead. That he s-saw you die,” she replied, her voice hoarse and paradoxically as soft as a whisper and as loud as a shout.
Don felt numb. He didn’t know what to feel about his brother and a man he considered a brother thinking he was dead. He looked around at the people in the room. People he trusted with his life; his father, Cassandra, David, Megan, Amita, and Larry; their eyes all held worry and confusion warring for dominance with relief flitting through whenever they looked at the men in the beds. What had happened? What had they seen that had made them believe one of their own was dead?
End.
A/N: I know, major twist, yeah? Don't feel bad, even I didn't see it coming! From now on, any stories/drabbles written where Don was dead are considered dreams. The events in Everything were dreamt by Charlie, the other ones (don't ask me to link them all, you'll know them when you read them) were dreamt by Colby. I'll have another new fic for ya'll out in the next day or two once the kerfuffle from this one has settled a little.
Author: DaniKitten
dollydaniRating: PG-13
Pairing: Charlie/Colby, Don/Cassandra
Warnings: mentioned character death, m/m slash
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were mine, never will be mine.
Notes: Written for
words_fly_up. My quote was ‘Think but this, and all is mended: that you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear; and this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.’ From A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Well, it’s not exactly set in the middle of summer, it’s actually mid-winter around New Year’s. Please don’t kill me, I only write what pops into my head. Set in my Watching You 'verse. Takes place after A Memorable Evening and Fresh From the Fight.Beta:
jestana, also thank you to the folks on my flist for giving me their feedback. Love ya’ll! MWAH!*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
Blankness. That's all there was; no color, no light, nothing to indicate where they were, just the feeling of open space, but with the knowledge that there was someone dear close by. He reached out a hand and felt a familiar hand reaching out to him in return. They moved closer to each other in unison, their arms wrapping around each other's bodies, clinging to one another as if they were drowning at sea, except they weren't drowning in water; they were drowning in nothingness.
Finally, one spoke. "Colby?" one asked, his voice husky, wavering with fear and uncertainty, and muffled from where his face was pressed into the curve of the other man's neck.
"I'm here, Charlie," Colby replied, and Charlie could feel Colby's breath stirring his curls.
"Where are we?"
Charlie felt Colby's shoulders shrug. "I don't know and I don't like it,"
"Me neither."
Both men gasped softly as memories spiraled through their minds.
Don laying on warm asphalt, his eyes staring sightlessly at the nearly cloudless winter sky, a bullet hole giving him the illusion of having a third eye.
Alan and Cassandra standing in front of them, facing a gleaming casket, watching as it is lowered into an empty grave.
Colby crying in Megan's arms.
Charlie crouched on the garage floor, his hands clamped over his ears and eyes screwed shut, vainly trying to shut out the pictures and sounds that are in his own head.
Colby carrying a sleep-deprived and malnourished Charlie up the stairs.
Charlie and Colby wrapped around each other in Charlie's room while they cried for Don.
Donald Frederick Eppes
1965-2006
Loving brother, friend, and leader
The pair clung to each other even tighter as the flow of memories ebbed away.
"Fuck." Colby whispered.
Charlie chuckled weakly. "Yeah," Charlie pulled back slightly, his eyes searching sightlessly for Colby's. "Was that--? Did..." He took a deep breath, steeling himself to ask the question that they were both thinking. "Did that really happen?"
"I, I don't know," Colby took a deep shuddering breath. "But, God, I hope not."
"Me, too," Charlie whispered back, leaning his head on Colby's chest. "If this is a dream, I want to wake up now."
"You and me, both." Colby agreed moments before a blinding white light filled the void and a cacophony of noises filled their ears.
"...waking..." Dad?
"...impossible..."
"...Dad?" Don?!
"Miss Granger..."
"Charles..." Larry?
"Please, just wake..." Cass?
"Charlie, can you hear me?" Oh god, DON!
Charlie's eyelids fluttered before opening slightly, only to slam shut again from the bright light. "Bright," Charlie whispered, his voice rough.
"Someone shut the blinds!" A faint rattling sound, then, "Okay, Charlie, go ahead."
Charlie's eyes slitted open then opened all the way. He blinked a few times before focusing on the face hovering in his line of sight and drew in a sharp breath in surprise. "D-Don?" He asked, voice faint.
Don's brow crinkled in confusion. "Yeah. Something wrong, Charlie?"
"You, you're dead. I saw you." Charlie whispered, eyes wide and taking in every detail of Don's face.
Don jerked in shock then settled, shaking his head. "I'm fine, you and Colby are the ones that gave us all a scare, buddy," Don's head turned to look to the left and Charlie followed his gaze to see Colby lying in a hospital bed, looking back at him with Cassandra in a similar position to Don.
Their eyes locked and they could both see the relief in the other's eyes, a single thought in both their minds. 'It was a dream!'
Charlie looked back at Don; his eyes closing as pain suddenly hit him. "What," Charlie licked suddenly dry lips. "What happened?" He asked, his eyes sliding past Don's shoulder to take in the people ranged around the room.
Alan stepped up to the side of the bed opposite from Don. "You two were in a major earthquake, Charlie," Alan explained softly, brown eyes haunted.
Charlie's eyes slammed closed as memories overtook him.
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
They'd been house-sitting for Cassandra while she and Don were in Yosemite for a week in celebration of their six month anniversary. The couple had been planning the trip for a while and Cassandra had asked Colby and Charlie to watch the house once they’d decided what they were going to do so that Don and Colby could get the time off while Charlie was on winter break. Technically, it was the week after Don and Cassandra’s anniversary, but they didn’t mind all that much.
Colby had told Charlie that when Cassandra went on her usual jaunts up into the local mountains, she’d ask one of her neighbors to keep an eye on the house and take care of the cats, but since Cassandra would be farther away than the local mountains and she had a couple major commissions set up in the studio, she was reluctant to leave the house unprotected for a majority of the day. Charlie had understood and had agreed to housesit with Colby.
Charlie and Colby had been curled up together on the family room couch having a The Santa Clause marathon, bickering contentedly on whether or not Charlie really did look like the actor who played Bernard, when Charlie had faintly heard the tell-tale rumbling.
“Oh, no.” He muttered, scrambling up from the couch, tugging Colby with him. Colby followed; slightly puzzled until he felt what had alarmed Charlie. “Earthquake. Fuck. Come on!”
Colby followed Charlie across the room to the archway that separated the hall from the living room and entryway. Colby pressed Charlie against the edge of the wall, protecting Charlie’s smaller frame with his larger build, and tucked his face into the crook of Charlie’s neck, not quite sure if his legs were really trembling or if it was the earthquake that seemed like it would never fucking stop.
Outside, Colby could hear car alarms going off, he was fairly certain that one of them was his 4-Runner, then he heard a noise that made his blood freeze in his veins.
CRACK!
“Oh no.” he whispered, terrified.
“What? What was it?” Charlie yelled over the rumbling moments before there was a horrendous crash and a blast of cold air before darkness descended and all sound ceased.
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
Charlie’s eyes opened with Alan and Don watching him with concern, and he realized he was panting for breath. “How, how long have we been out?”
“The doctor said that you were out for a few hours until the rescue team cut away the branches from Cassandra’s pine tree, Colby woke up briefly before that, but I don’t know if he remembers much,” Don told him. “You regained consciousness when they shined a flashlight on you, but you were pretty out of it,”
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, remembering a bright light and hazy voices, but not much else. His eyes shot open when part of what Don had said struck him. “You, you said branches, where, where did the trunk land?”
Don winced visibly and he looked over at Cassandra, the pain in his eyes telling Charlie what he needed to know.
“Oh, god. The studio.” Charlie whispered, shock, worry, and concern in his voice.
Don nodded and Charlie looked over at Cassandra as well, who was wrapped in Colby’s arms, crying softly. “What about…” Charlie trailed off, unable to continue.
Charlie saw Don nod again out of the corner of his eye. “Belle and Beau are, are missing,” he answered, his voice weary.
Charlie looked back over at Don. “She’s had you out looking for them,”
“Yeah,” Don said quietly before standing and walking the few steps to touch Cassandra on the shoulder lightly. Almost immediately, she stood and wrapped her arms around Don’s waist, her hands clutching his shirt, her face hidden against his chest.
Charlie watched them, aching to be held as Cassandra was, but his injuries, and Colby’s, prevented it. He looking back over at Colby, meeting Colby’s eyes, and seeing the worry and longing that he was fairly sure were apparent in his own eyes. “I love you,” he whispered, not looking away.
“I love you, too,” Colby whispered back.
Charlie smiled faintly, a smile that Colby returned, before looking back at Alan. “Tired.” He said wearily, eyes half-closed.
“I’m not surprised,” Alan replied with a slight smile. “You two get some rest, we’ll be here when you wake up.”
“M’kay.” Charlie mumbled, his eyes slipping the rest of the way closed as he gave in to the exhaustion that was dragging him back into the darkness.
*4*18*5*1*13*5*18*
As soon as Charlie was asleep, Don’s head tipped forward until his chin rested on Cassandra’s head and his eyes closed, two words that Charlie had said spinning through his mind like a leaf in a whirlwind. “You’re dead,” What did it mean? Was it a dream Charlie had had while he was unconscious?
“They both thought you were dead,” Megan said softly into the silence that had fallen on the room like a comforter on a hot summer day.
Don’s eyes shot open and he looked over at Megan who stared at him through haunted eyes. “Both of them?”
Megan nodded. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but they did. It could have been dream, but how could both of them have the same dream?”
Don shook his head, puzzled. He squeezed Cassandra lightly, catching her attention. She looked up, the red and puffy skin around her eyes emphasizing how haunted they were. “Did Colby say he thought I was dead?” He asked, wishing he didn’t have to ask when he saw and felt Cassandra flinch.
“He, he said you were dead. That he s-saw you die,” she replied, her voice hoarse and paradoxically as soft as a whisper and as loud as a shout.
Don felt numb. He didn’t know what to feel about his brother and a man he considered a brother thinking he was dead. He looked around at the people in the room. People he trusted with his life; his father, Cassandra, David, Megan, Amita, and Larry; their eyes all held worry and confusion warring for dominance with relief flitting through whenever they looked at the men in the beds. What had happened? What had they seen that had made them believe one of their own was dead?
A/N: I know, major twist, yeah? Don't feel bad, even I didn't see it coming! From now on, any stories/drabbles written where Don was dead are considered dreams. The events in Everything were dreamt by Charlie, the other ones (don't ask me to link them all, you'll know them when you read them) were dreamt by Colby. I'll have another new fic for ya'll out in the next day or two once the kerfuffle from this one has settled a little.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 06:06 am (UTC)*rereads*
wow
so so very cool
*does happy dance that don isn't deeaadd*
yay!
no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 06:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 06:12 pm (UTC)Em
no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 10:30 pm (UTC)A: Love the Santa Clause reference, good way of getting that in there.
B: Whoa!! Plot twist!! *does my little dance. I so did not see that coming. This is awesome. I cannot believe Don didn't actually die. This is awesome! I am so freakin' Bill and Ted right now, I can't function.
Charlie and Colby, sigh....I love them together, I think you need to write a part after they get out of the hospital with a little- how to put this- well, they need to have sex. I'm just saying, just saying. Just putting that out there.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 10:37 pm (UTC)Re: B: MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
*snorfle!* Yis, the boys do need some 'we're still alive' sex, Don/Charlie doesn't quite have the trademark on that. ;D