ds_flashfiction | sea of waking dreams by Isis (isiscolo)

For the Cave-In challenge. Fraser/Victoria, PG, 630 words of angst and allegory. Dialogue verbatim from Victoria's Secret. With many thanks to

secret_garden for most excellent beta, and the title as well.

When he first sees her in Chicago, a glimpse of long, dark curls going through a revolving door, he remembers the dream.

--

They are in the lean-to he'd constructed from his rifle and his coat, huddled together while around them rages the storm. The wind shrieks in his ears, all but drowning out the steady thrum of her voice, reciting a poem. He can't quite make out the words, just the rhythm, tones rising and falling and rising again.

The snow swirls into their shelter, and the urgency in her voice increases. Something is wrong. If only he could understand the words she's chanting, he knows he can make it all right, but he can't and it isn't and the snow piles up around them, the howling wind gets louder, and with a crash it all falls down: the snow, the coat, the rifle, Victoria.

He is standing in the unnatural silence after the storm has blown itself out. The sky is blue. In front of him is the snowdrift, and under the snow is Victoria. She, too, is silent, but the words spill from his mouth: he won't leave her, he will save her, it's not too late, and he scrabbles at the snow frantically, fruitlessly, until his fingers are raw and bleeding. Until he wakes up.

--

It's always the same dream. In the weeks after he'd turned Victoria in to the authorities, he'd dreamed of her every single night. Years have passed; now the dream comes perhaps once a month.

The woman in the revolving door troubles him. He wonders whether the dream has begun to invade his waking hours; but then he sees her again, climbing into a taxi, and this time it is Victoria.

- Did you think we could pretend it didn't happen? How could you do it?

- I'm sorry.

He has begged her forgiveness a thousand times in his dreams. He made a mistake once, and he can't make it again. When he holds her close to him that night, the only snow falling around them is in his memory; and when he sleeps, he does not dream.

He wakes almost giddy with joy; maybe he has saved her, after all. Then there is Jolly, and the world goes to pieces. He was trying to kill me, Victoria tells him, and he nods.

- I promise you I will do everything, I mean everything in my power to help.

- You mean you won't go away?

- Never. I won't let you down.

- Not this time. Okay? Okay?

Instead it is Victoria, who drags him down, below the surface and into the snow, until he is disoriented and gasping for breath. Somehow he has become a murder suspect; somehow he has become an accessory to theft; somehow she has done this all to him, but he will save her, he has to save her, because he made a mistake once, and he can't make it again.

- Ben. Come with me. Come with me. You'll regret it if you don't.

He runs; he jumps; there is a gunshot, and he falls endlessly into the snow. She is there beside him, shivering, and he puts his arms around her as the storm builds outside the lean-to. He strains to hear the words of the poem she's reciting, and when he recognizes it he whispers along with her:

- dapple-dawn drawn falcon, in his riding of the rolling level underneath him steady air…

The snow piles up around them, the howling wind gets louder, and with a crash it all falls down: the snow, the coat, the rifle, Victoria.

He is buried beneath the snowdrift. Somehow he knows that outside, above him, the storm has blown itself out. The sky is blue. And Victoria is walking away.