Dreams
In His Dreams
In his dreams, he still had two eyes, and two parents, and they never fought. In his dreams, his mother hadn't walked out of the tenement one night and never returned; instead, she smiled and sang him lullabies even after he was too old to need them. In his dreams, his father didn't drink or yell; instead, he had a respectable job and they played baseball in the park on weekends.
In his dreams he never starved or slept on the streets or ran from police. But then Blink would wake up and realize that dreaming just made things worse.
Never
Mush never knew when he'd started having that same dream, but by the time he was sixteen he knew it by heart. It was the dream where he was selling papers in the park, and Blink came over to talk to him. And then they'd kiss and walk hand-in-hand over to a vendor to get lunch, and spend the rest of the afternoon together, kissing and selling papers.
There were lots of days when he and Blink sold together in the park, and lots of days when talked, laughed and split lunch. But never like they did in Mush's dream.
Nightmare
"So tell me what you dreamed."
"I can't tell you what I dreamed!" Dutchy answered, annoyed. "It don't make no sense."
"But you woke up all scared."
"I know I did! And I can't tell you, 'cause I barely remember why. I just know it was scary."
"Okay, well... You were screaming, so I thought..."
"But like I said, I just don't remember most of it... Or why it was so scary... And anyway. You'd just laugh at me."
"I promise I won't laugh."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Okay... Well... It all started when I dreamed Itey's sock began talkin' to me..."
Insomnia
Oh, God.
Race shook his head to try and clear it, and reached for his deck of cards. As he shuffled he tried to shove the images out of his mind; the jumble of faces and noises that made up the nightmare. It was the same thing he'd been dreaming for years, and he still didn't know what it was or what it meant.
He took a deep breath and concentrated on the cards.
He went days without sleep, got so damn exhausted it should have been a relief, but...
Nightmares like that made a guy want to stay awake.
Santa Fe Dreaming
The summer sun was excessively heavy and there was nothing around for miles. Jack panted, desperate for water, but there was only a great excess of sand and more sand, with the occasional cactus and tumbleweed to break it up. The sky was blue and cloudless, and there was no shade or protection from the blinding sun.
All he had was the path in front of him, that stretched out into oblivion, and the single signpost to remind him why he was doing this. Santa Fe. And an arrow. That was all.
He had to make it. He had to.
Painting Mush
When Blink closed his eye, he could see clearly. Skittery had told him once that the last thing you pictured before you went to bed, you'd dream about. Of course, Skittery said a lot of things, and almost none of them were true, but still. It was worth trying.
So Blink closed his eye and painted Mush's face in his mind. His smile, the kindest and gentlest smile Blink had ever seen; his chocolate brown eyes, which were so deep Blink thought he could fall into them; his perfect features, his flawless skin, his curls...
Blink slept well that night.
Bodies
In his dreams, he saw people. People everywhere; they would do anything to get to his wealth. To get his money, his success, his fame. He saw the people he passed on the streets everyday; their dead, hollow eyes, sunken in bitterness. Those people, he dreamed of not as standing and watching his carriage roll by, but as a giant hill--a pile of bodies, squirming and breathing and crying, and in his dream he had to climb over them all.
It wasn't until he was sitting in his study and heard them that he knew who he dreamed of.
Deja Vu
Blink woke up. He shook the hair out of his eye and groaned. "Am I the only one who ever dreams that I woke up?" he asked.
"...Yes," came the definitive answer from Specs.
Blink made a face and walked towards the bathroom.
*
Blink woke up. "I could swear..." he mumbled.
"Swear what?" Specs asked.
"I could swear I just dreamed that I woke up."
"Weird."
*
Blink woke up and groaned. "I can't believe..."
"What?" Specs asked curiously.
"What's the word for... for when you think something's happened before?"
"Deja vu?"
"Sure." Blink shook his head. "Weird."
*
Blink woke up.
Historical
Kid Blink Ballatt woke slowly and shook his head a little. He'd had the oddest dream... He couldn't quite remember it, though. It had been something about... He frowned. Something about a strike. But it wasn't real, it was just strange. There had been some boy named Jack and everyone kept singing all the time, and dancing too. Too weird.
He helped herd his fellow newsboys out of the lodging house--six cents a night, another six for food--and down to newspaper row, and saw everyone gathered, shocked. "Kid... They raised the price."
At least no one was singing.
One Dream
For all the hundreds of newsboys in the city, there was just one dream. Everyone dreamed it differently, of course, but it boiled down to the same thing. Jack dreamed of Santa Fe, a city out west where he'd find a place to belong and a real future in front of him. For Mush it was dreams of the mother he barely remembered, smiling down at him, loving him. Blink dreamt of a girl to fall asleep with at night, to raise a family, to grow old with.
But it was the same dream: to love, and to be loved.
Radio Alarm
The dream was very intricate and seemed to involve a lot of 80s pop. Dutchy wasn't quite sure why; beforehand, he'd been having a fabulous dream about Specs, and that had involved less 80s pop music and more whipped cream. It was such a nice dream.
"Dutchy."
Dutchy groaned as the song in his dream changed to Like A Virgin. He was dancing badly, flailing his arms, as Specs just stood there with the ReddiWhip...
"Dutchy, wake up."
Wake up? He couldn't do that, he had to keep dancing.
"Dutchy!"
*
Dutchy sat up. Specs had shut off his radio alarm.
Naked Dream
He walked down the hallway and people stared at him. David didn't know why; it was just a regular day of class. He stopped at his locker to pick up his book for calc, his next class, and started down the hallway again. But when he walked into class, all he got were very confused looks.
"What?" he asked, confused.
No one answered, so he sat down. It wasn't until the end of class David realized.
Jack Kelly, the cutest boy in school, reached out to pinch his butt. "Nice ass, Jacobs."
David looked down. He wasn't wearing any clothes.
Double Life
At school, Jack Kelly was known as a jerk and a bigot. He harassed the geeks, he harassed the queers, and he especially harassed the geeky queers. But he was the captain of the football team, so no one cared.
But at night, Jack had dreams of curly brown hair and lovely blue eyes, and a dorky smile. He dreamt of that damn, dorky gay kid in his math class.
At school everyone wanted to sit at his lunch table.
And at night, he dreamt of sitting down at that dork's table.
Jack Kelly hated school. But he loved dreaming.
Precog
I've had dreams like this before, and now I'm scared. I dreamed once about a fight that was going to happen, but it didn't seem like a regular dream, it was brighter and I could swear I felt it when I got hit. And that day, I got into a fight it definitely hurt.
That was the first. It's happened since then. I see things--I saw the strike. All of it, night by night before it happened. And it did happen, exactly as I dreamed.
Last night I dreamed that Jack got knifed in the back.
Now I'm scared.
Soulmate
Jack had always had that same dream, but he used to think he was dreaming of his guardian angel. When he'd fall asleep scared, he'd dream it, just those blue eyes, watching over him, comforting him, smiling down at him. And he'd feel safe, and protected. He tried to imagine the angel's face, but that never came. It was always just the blue eyes.
Until the day Jack saw the new boy with those same clear blue eyes and he knew for all those years, he hadn't been dreaming of a guardian angel. He'd been dreaming of his soul mate.