Special Episode: Dream Catcher (Part II)
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Ralph is walking up the path to Aiden and Jamie’s house. He’s going much more slowly than normal, at about half his usual pace. Tycho is wandering along at his heels.
The faint echoes of his nightmare whisper at him when he steps out of the green passage and the house falls into sight. A little shiver goes through him. Suddenly he wants to back off, get right back in the car.
Don’t be stupid, he scolds himself, taking a determined step forward.
He keeps calm by doing multiplication tables in his head until he’s through what he needed to get through. Until he’s just outside of the front door, where this time the handle doesn’t disappear.
Ralph lifts his hand to knock, then freezes. He heard something from inside the house. Jamie’s voice is drifting out through the front windows, just like in the nightmare. And he definitely said Ralph’s name.
But he’s saying something different, this time.
“Ralph really has a gift for this stuff, don’t you think? Like, he’s got an eye. I couldn’t have taken this picture.”
“Dude, I know!” Noah is here, too, apparently. “You think he even realizes how good he is? Maybe he does, since we asked him to take the pictures at the wedding.”
“Well, either way, I don’t think we should ambush him by telling him he’s talented.”
Noah lets out an affectionate laugh. “Yeah, nah, he wouldn’t like that one bit.”
“But I did spot some flyers at Mugshot for a photography exhibition happening soon in Greenrock, and I took one for him.”
“Sweet, man,” Noah says brightly. “You want to leave it with me?”
“Yeah, can you give it to him? It just made me think of him. He might want to go.”
“Hey, maybe all of us should go, right? We can bring Niki, and Ralph can teach her how to - look at photos. Huh. I never realized that was a skill. Now I know, I guess. I learn a lot of shit from Ralph.”
“Me too, honestly. And yeah, let’s all go! Sounds like fun.” Jamie’s voice makes it sound like he’s getting closer to the door. “Speaking of learning, I’ve gotta go see my favorite and only science student.”
“Yeah, don’t let me keep you. Is Aiden outside?”
“In the garden, by the weeping willow. He’s probably texting Ralph right now.”
Right as Jamie says it, Ralph’s phone buzzes in his hand. He looks down at it just in time to see a text from Aiden pop up. Hey man, me and Noah are at my house, can you come over?
Distracted by the text, Ralph only vaguely registers Noah and Jamie saying bye to each other. He looks up again too late, and finds himself face to face with Jamie.
The stupid little smile is still turning up Ralph’s lips. He drops it instantly, but he still had one hand lifted to knock, and Jamie opened the door in time to see it.
“What-?” He blinks in surprise, then scrunches up his freckled nose and tilts his head to the side suspiciously. “Were you standing out here listening to us talk about you, dude?”
Ralph scrambles for an answer as Jamie bends to say hello to Tycho.
“Nah, I wasn’t-” Fuck. That’s a lie. He catches it on the tip of his tongue. “I was just - coming over to, um…”
See some of the guys in person, for a sec. Settle the last few voices of the nightmare still prickling at him. Reassure himself one more time that none of it was real.
“Shut up, Keane,” is the answer he comes out with, but Jamie was already in movement, and didn’t hear him.
He throws his arms around Ralph and steals a fast, tight hug before Ralph can get out of the way. He steps back quickly, beaming up at Ralph’s startled, bewildered face, then shows him something in his hands.
“I meant to open my gifts on my actual birthday, but I decided I wanted to open one more, so I had Aiden get yours for me from the coffee room.”
Ralph drops his gaze to the glossy, printed photo in Jamie’s hands. “Oh, you - you opened the-?”
“Yeah, and I don’t even know what to say!” Jamie’s huge smile is shining right out through his eyes. “It’s so beautiful, man!”
Ralph took the photo at Raj, Mel, and Noah’s wedding. Jamie and Aiden didn’t notice him taking it, which is maybe why it turned out so good. They were being natural with each other, not putting on any airs for the camera.
Aiden is standing in the low glow of the rainforest garden, all of the lights and candles at his back. Gazing adoringly down at Jamie, who stands with his arms wound around Aiden’s neck, laughing at something he’s saying. Both of them are in their rumpled suits, Jamie with some flower petals from the exploded bouquet caught in his red hair.
Everyone else is just a colorful blur behind the two of them. Felt right to Ralph, because they were staring into each other’s eyes like they couldn’t see anything else around them.
“I love it, dude,” Jamie says earnestly, still beaming up at Ralph. “I’m gonna swing by the thrift shop to find a frame the first chance I get, so I can put it out somewhere in our place! I only wish I had one with all of us in it, too.”
“Oh.” Ralph shrugs his shoulders, trying not to let it show on his face how warm inside that thought makes him. “Well, I got ones like that. Just thought this one was kind of a standout, ‘cause of the symmetry.”
“The symmetry?” Jamie drops his eyes to the print, his scarlet eyebrows furrowing. “I’ve always thought me and Aiden are a pretty asymmetrical couple, actually. Since he’s a skyscraper, and I’m normal-sized.”
Ralph breathes out a laugh, then shakes his head. “Nah, not like that.”
He points to the photo, to Jamie’s amber eyes gazing up into Aiden’s.
“Earth,” he explains, then points to Aiden’s blue eyes, gazing down into Jamie’s. “And sky.”
Jamie looks up sharply at Ralph, blinking hard. Then he slowly lowers his gaze to the print again, holding it tightly. He looks at it in silence for a long moment.
When he looks up again, he’s smiling, fidgeting with the photo. “Thank you, dude. Really.”
“Sure. Happy birthday. Or - not, since you don’t like a whole thing on your birthday. I’ve always been in the same camp, personally.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jamie laughs. He carefully sets the photo down on the little table near the door, then snags his car keys from the hook on the wall. “I’ve gotta run, but Aiden and Noah are out in the garden. Aiden was just about to ask you to come over. There’s a Heliomancer thing he wants to talk to you about.”
Ralph exhales a dazed laugh, and Jamie laughs, too, like he understands completely.
“You get used to it, sort of. Well. Not really. But that’s a good thing.” He settles the strap of his bag across his chest, tosses his hair out of his eyes as he looks up at Ralph again. “Thanks for taking it so well. I knew you would, but thanks. Aiden was a big ball of relief when he got home.”
Ralph narrows his eyes at Jamie as he steps into the house. “Can’t believe you haven’t let anything slip about it, Keane, with your legendary lack of lying capabilities. An honest man has no business knowing a secret of that scope.”
Jamie flashes Ralph a smile, braces his shoulder as he steps around him to get to the door. “You’re an honest man, too, Ralph.”
He closes the door after himself before Ralph can answer, leaving Ralph inside. Ralph bites his lip, then drops his gaze to Tycho, who’s sat down near his feet. She’s looking up at him hopefully, her ears perked up.
“Don’t make that face at me,” Ralph tells her. “It’s not gonna work.”
She edges a little closer to him and puts her front paws up on his shins. Ralph heaves out an aggrieved sigh, then bends down and scoops her up into his arms.
“You’re getting too heavy for me to keep doing this,” he complains, as Tycho snuggles up against his chest and licks at his face. “It’s like a workout, lately.”
Still, he carries her through the kitchen and out into the wilderness of the back garden.
It’s a breezy, sunswept afternoon, hazy with low golden light, warm with the first traces of approaching summer. Luna, Aiden and Jamie’s big grey cat, is perched in a pool of sunlight on the sill of the open kitchen window, watching what’s happening in the garden.
Aiden and Noah are by the willow tree where Ralph and Noah talked the night that they made up. The ground-sweeping branches are rippling in the slow breeze. Sending up whispers. Making feathered, deep green shadows across everything.
Aiden is neatly bouncing a soccer ball from foot to foot. He shoots it higher up into the air, right to where Noah is sitting in front of him on the mossy stone bench. Noah leans into the arc of the soccer ball and uses his head to shoot it back at Aiden. Trying to catch him by surprise and maybe knock him back a step, based on the amount of unnecessary force he uses.
The ball bounces off of Aiden’s chest like it hit a brick wall, then flies back to take Noah in the chest, knocking him clean off of the bench and into the flowers.
“Feeling good about how that went, Noosh?” Aiden laughs, as Ralph smothers his own laughter behind one hand.
Noah reaches out of the flowers to catch the hand Aiden is offering him, wheezing a little. “To be honest, bro, that wasn’t exactly how I envisioned it going.”
“So glad I got here in time to see that,” Ralph calls, grinning affectionately as he strides down into the garden.
“You better not have crushed any of Jamie’s flowers, Noosh,” Aiden says anxiously, leaning past Noah to have a look at them. “No, I think they’re okay. But I will kill you if you do that, so watch yourself.”
“So noted,” Noah groans, rubbing his elbow. He glares venomously at the soccer ball like it betrayed him, then smiles brightly at Ralph. “Hey, Ralph! You got here fast, dude. Aiden only sent that text like one minute ago. You get a sick new ride, or something?”
“It’s frightening that you think I could get here from my place anywhere south of five minutes in any car, man.”
Noah flashes him a grin, shrugs his shoulders. “Bet I could do it.”
“Again, how have I had to save Ralph, but not you?” Aiden is staring wide-eyed at Noah, but now he looks over at Ralph for help. “Are you hearing this?”
“Trying not to.” Ralph sets Tycho down, and she instantly dashes over to say hello to Aiden and Noah. “And I was already around when I got your text. What’s going on, A? Isn’t it almost Keane’s birthday? Thought you’d be deep in preparation mode.”
“Believe me, I am.” Aiden shifts his snapback over his hair, then nervously stretches out his arms. “I’ve been running over what I’m gonna cook for him like a million times. It’s gotta be perfect, so he knows what I’m trying to say.”
Ralph’s mind suddenly goes back to all of the lovingly-made food that Aiden brought to the park when he came to talk to him and Noah. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and drops his head, smiling to himself.
“But, um - I wanted to run an idea past you, Ralph,” Aiden adds, immediately drawing Ralph’s eyes back to him.
Ralph shifts in his combat boots, glancing back and forth between Aiden and Noah. “Okay?”
Aiden looks a little nervous, suddenly. And serious, really serious. Probably why Ralph just suddenly got a little nervous and really serious, too.
Aiden moves his snapback over his hair again, then takes a deep breath.
“I really appreciate that you didn’t get upset when I couldn’t give you the magic thing that you asked me for,” he says, speaking very slowly. “But - it’s not sitting well with me, man.”
Ralph blinks at Aiden, thrown all the way off.
“I really did want to do something for both of you,” Aiden goes on earnestly, meeting Ralph’s eyes despite the nervous thread in his deep voice. “So I’ve been thinking a lot about what you asked me for, and I came up with something else I could do for you instead.”
”Yeah, and he ran it past me,” Noah jumps in, drawing Ralph’s eyes to him. “I thought it was a pretty sweet idea, so I came over here in case it turned out you wanted to try it. You were there for me when I was nervous about my thing, so...”
Ralph stares at Aiden and Noah in motionless silence, his head spinning.
He didn’t expect any of this. His mind is racing, trying to figure out what idea Aiden might have thought of. But Ralph doesn’t have enough information, doesn’t know enough about magic to come up with even a guess.
All he knows for sure is that it must have something to do with his dad.
“It’s just an idea,” Aiden says hastily. “And you can feel free to say no, if it’s not something you want to try.”
Ralph slowly takes his hands out of his pockets and sinks down onto the mossy stone bench next to Noah. Suddenly he gets why Noah was so nervous about actually getting what he had asked for.
“What’s your idea?” he asks quietly, making himself look up at Aiden.
Aiden silently hesitates for a while, running a hand over his stubble, choosing his words before he speaks.
“I… I think I might be able to put you into one of your memories with him. Your dad.”
For a long, long moment, Ralph just stares at Aiden with very wide eyes.
“Into a memory with him?” he finally rasps, blinking hard. “Put me… the fuck does that mean?”
“Ah…” Aiden winces, struggling for an explanation. “Okay, full disclosure, I haven’t exactly done this before. But I think it’ll be like you’re actually reliving your memory. Experiencing it all over again. You’ll feel everything you felt. Everything you saw and heard and touched, you’ll experience it again, the same way you did before. It’ll just be a memory, but - it’ll feel like he’s really there with you.”
Ralph absorbs that in silence, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek.
“Said - you said you haven’t done it before?”
“No, but it’s just amplifying something that’s already there, so I can probably handle it. All I’ve gotta do is throw the right amount of energy at the memory, I think. I’ve just never tried it before because I don’t particularly like to mess around with memory magic.”
Ralph takes a shallow, anxious breath. “And there’s no chance you might erase the memory by accident, or warp it, something like that?”
“I guess there’s always a chance that something could go wrong,” Aiden answers slowly, thinking it over. “But I wouldn’t offer if I thought there was a chance I was gonna erase the memory or fuck it up somehow. I’d be shocked if that happened, honestly. That’s really far from my intention, man, and intention is a big part of what the energy listens for.”
He stops and cringes, like he realizes how ridiculous that last part sounded. Ralph lets out a soft laugh, and Aiden and Noah do, too.
But everything gets very serious again very fast. Ralph drops his gaze to Tycho as she starts squirming around on her back on the grass, tongue lolling happily.
He isn’t really watching. He’s lost in his thoughts, trying to work through them and struggle his way through a hurricane of powerful, conflicting emotions at the same time.
“If I go into the memory,” he asks quietly, “Will I forget what happened to him? Like - will I have to remember it all over again when I come out of it?”
He’s not looking at Aiden, but he still catches the flash of sympathetic pain that registers in his blue eyes at this question. He closes his own, waiting for an answer.
“No,” Aiden murmurs gently. He drops to sit down beside Ralph on the bench. “I don’t think so, man. Part of you will know what’s going on. It should just feel like… like dreaming. But you’ll be awake.”
Ralph pushes a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling, his heart racing.
Noah gives Ralph’s arm a gentle, encouraging slap. “You got a memory in mind?”
“Yeah, I’ve got one,” Ralph admits, blurting it out before he can stop himself. He takes another difficult breath, glancing sidelong at Aiden. “What if it’s a memory that started off bad, but ended up really good? Can I just have the good part?”
Aiden turns it over in his mind for a moment. “Is the good part intertwined with the bad part? They’re parts of the same memory, and had something to do with each other?”
Ralph nods, and Aiden winces.
“I’m sorry, man, but you’ll probably have to go through the bad part to get to the good part, then.” He looks at Ralph very seriously, a warning expression on his face. “Only pick that memory if the good part is really worth it. And only if you’re sure you want to do this.”
It’ll feel like he’s really there with you. You’ll feel everything you felt.
It’ll feel like he’s really there with you.
Ralph bites his lip, folds his fingers around his leather wristbands, then very slowly nods his head yes.
Aiden and Noah look at each other sharply. Noah slaps Ralph’s back, breaking into a grin, and Aiden smiles warmly at him.
“Alright, it’s on.” Aiden shakes out his hands, shifting to sit better on the old stone bench. “You ready right now, Ralph, or do you want to give it some time?”
Ralph knows better than to give himself time to overthink this. “No, I - let’s just do it now. I’m ready. Are y-?”
He breaks off and draws back as frost-blue fire kindles itself in Aiden’s eyes, sparking, flickering, swirling. Casting a soft glow onto his cheekbones.
“Kay,” Ralph says unsteadily, staring with wide eyes. “Not used to that shit yet.”
“Not even a little bit,” Noah stammers, leaning around Ralph for a better look. “What the fuck, honestly?”
“Okay,” Aiden says, blowing right past that, “So, Ralph - I’m really sorry, this is about to be awkward as fuck, but there’s no way around it.”
“What-?” Ralph begins, then groans in dismay when Aiden takes his hand and weaves their fingers together. “Oh, really, man? Come the fuck on, we gotta hold hands for this? Noah didn’t have to for his thing!”
“I’ll do it with you guys for solidarity, if you want,” Noah offers reluctantly, holding out his hand with all the enthusiasm of someone about to have their fingers chopped off.
“Not necessary,” Aiden says firmly.
“Please don’t,” Ralph says, at the same time.
Noah lets out a breath of immense relief, taking his hand back. “Sucks to be you guys.”
“Don’t I fuckin’ know it. Do we really have to do it like this, A?”
“You think I’m enjoying this? I need access to your energy, dude, I don’t know what to tell you. You want to do this, or not?”
“No, yeah, I-” Ralph shakes his head quickly, then draws in a long breath. “I want to.”
Aiden’s expression softens when he hears the obvious anxiety revealing itself in Ralph’s voice.
“Okay, just close your eyes and try to relax. Pretend it’s Calla’s hand you’re holding instead of mine, or whatever you need to do.”
Ralph lets out a snort of laughter. The idea that the huge hand in his could be Calla’s is nearly hysterical. And clearly he’s not the only one to realize that, because both Aiden and Noah start laughing, too.
“Alright, maybe not that,” Aiden snickers, then pulls himself together. “But seriously, just try to go as calm as you possibly can. Then focus on the memory you want.”
The laughter helped. Ralph closes his eyes and takes a longer breath, then another.
He reaches for calm in his surroundings. Jamie’s garden is a good place for that. There’s always the whispering of leaves in movement, and a gentle rushing sound that sounds like a tiny hidden creek somewhere. Sometimes Ralph thinks he hears soft, chiming music out here, although he’s never found the wind chimes they must be coming from.
The afternoon sunlight falls across his boots, and he feels its warmth. He feels the cool of the shadows all over the rest of himself, thrown there by the weeping willow behind the bench.
He can hear a bee buzzing somewhere, and Tycho panting softly by his feet.
Eventually his deep breaths start to melt together with the sounds of the garden. With the feeling of the breeze scuffing his cheek and ruffling through his hair.
Calm slowly comes over his mind, quiets down all the thoughts pulling at him.
Warmth begins to suffuse Ralph’s hand through Aiden’s. The sensation is strange as hell, like brilliant electric sparks slowly pushing their way up his fingertips. Seems like it should tickle, but it doesn’t. Feels good, actually. Soothing and sweet and comforting. It’s just - unusual. Ralph has never felt anything like it before.
Magic, he realizes, and has to fight down a dazed laugh.
It glides slowly up his palm to his wrist, then seems to catch around his leather wristbands, somehow correctly sensing that they’re in some way related to the memory it’s looking for. Ralph feels the glittering warmth wind around his wrist, encircling it, sweeping up the length of the wristbands.
It’s doing something to Ralph, too. His head starts to hang heavy, his consciousness of the garden even starting to grow quiet.
He makes himself keep breathing deep and slow as he calls up the chosen memory into his mind.
It’s there in his head like it always was before, but as Ralph tries to think of it, to paint its colors and details and remember the words, they don’t come to him.
Instead, Ralph has a strange sense of gently sinking down into something, into - someplace. Some trance place, between the garden and the memory.
He still feels the afternoon sunlight of the garden slanting across his boots, but - he can also feel the dawn cold of an approaching sunrise on his fingertips. He’s suspended between both places, and he has the sense he needs to pick which one to go to.
Somehow, instinctively, he knows that if he focuses on the warm afternoon sunlight he’ll come back out into the garden. If he focuses long enough on the cold glow of the sunrise, he’ll go into the memory.
He hesitates, suddenly terrified.
Ralph can’t even think of how long he’s desperately wished that he could see his dad one last time. Have that one last talk they never got to have before he was gone. If Ralph could have him back even once, even for a second, if he could just get to tell him he loves him even one more time…
But Ralph never thought anything like that would ever actually happen. Now, even if it’s only a very vivid memory, Aiden is putting a form of that dream in his hands. He’s overwhelmed, and scared, too, for reasons he can’t even explain to himself. It’s definitely not just because he has to get through the bad part of the memory before he can have the good part. It’s something more than that.
Ralph knows he hasn’t moved or let anything show in his expression, but Aiden must have some way of sensing what’s happening through his energy.
Hey, he murmurs, his voice reaching Ralph as if from somewhere very far away. I can pull you out at any time. Just say the word. And don’t forget that me and Noah will both be right here. We’ve got you. There’s nowhere to fall without us catching you.
Just like always, Noah adds, his voice drifting down from the surface.
Ralph gathers all of his courage into his chest, thinking of his dad.
Then he takes a long, deep breath of cold sunrise air, and falls softly down into the memory.
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