(no subject)

[last_auphe]

In the dream he was always running, sometimes he was being chased, but usually he was the one doing the chasing...

And somehow that was more terrifying. Running from things he could handle, that was the natural order, but chasing them down? Aside from being something he was disgustingly familiar with it just rubbed him the wrong way. Possibly because of the disgusting familiarity.

It was different in the dreams though, in the dreams it seemed right, like it was what he should be doing.

Sometimes he dreamed of actually catching his prey, and other times, like this time, it just shifted from the chase to the few moments before the kill, when adrenaline was high, thrumming through his system, and there was blood in his mouth, holding on and riding his prey to the ground as it rolled through its final spasms.

He had one hand tangled in the prey's hair, holding the head back at a sharp, unnatural angle so that he could get at the throat, growling low and feral, his other arm locked against the prey's chest, keeping its arms pinned.

It wasn't until after he'd ripped into the throat, feeling more than tasting the arterial spray of blood that he began to realize things. Things like the color of the hair tangled around his fingers, pale, almost luminescent in the semi-dark.

Cal almost gagged, struggling to disentangle his hand from the hair twined around his fingers, the euphoria of a good hunt coming crashing down around him, feeling suddenly sick. He knew that hair, he'd tugged at that ponytail enough times that he knew exactly whose it was.

He shoved the body away from himself, or, more accurately, shoved himself away from the body, scrabbling backwards even as Niko's head lolled drunkenly, eyes glassy and somehow accusing. The previous knowledge that this was just a dream had fled, and he did gag then, the taste of blood thick and coating his tongue. He couldn't catch his breath and his focus had narrowed down to a point, he could only take in small details at a time; the few strands of Niko's hair still twined around his fingers, the unnatural angle of Niko's head, the line of Niko's nose, the shredded mess that had been Niko's throat.

He was panting, high and rapid, it was something like panic and he knew it, because the worst part of it all wasn't just that Niko was dead, and it wasn't even that Cal had killed him, the worst part was that Cal had enjoyed doing it, it had been a good hunt and as much as he tried to deny the Auphe part of him it was still there, all the time, and this was just proof that he was a monster.

He was still trying to catch his breath, trying to get away from the taste of Niko's blood in his mouth and as he backed away from his brother's corpse he realized that there were others, and it didn't take him long to recognize them either, Promise, Robin, even Salome, her head completely removed from her body. He could almost see how it had happened, even, Promise would have tried to stop him, and Robin would have tried to stop her, and he'd torn into them both to get at Niko, and Salome had just been for the fun of it.

He was still backing away along the floor, his limbs feeling useless and heavy, as if he couldn't make his muscles work properly, like trying to swim with numb arms, like everything was slowing down, stretching out.

It was only when he jolted himself awake hitting the floor, having completely rolled out of bed that the knowledge that it was a dream came back to him, and the only blood in his mouth was his own because he'd bitten his tongue in the fall.