AH collections

Slowly, then all at once, a dream

Jeremwood
Word count: 6453
Chapters: 4

Dreams at first

Ryan Haywood couldn't sleep.

He moved restlessly through his own home in silence, the heavy curtains leaving everything in darkness, anxiety thrumming through his veins. Exhaustion was weighing him down, but the fear refused to let him sleep. Fear of what, exactly, was anyone's fucking guess.

If only Los Santos could see him now, their most terrifying assassin, pacing and fretting over nothing ! Nothing, and everything.

His mind just wouldn't quiet down, and the more tired he got, the more anxious he became, the harder it was to urge his exhausted body to relax into sleep.

Ryan dropped onto the couch, rubbing roughly at his burning eyes. The motion brought his Soulmark into view, and he paused, captivated by it, as always.

It was such a delicate little thing, a tiny cat tattoo barely the length of his thumb, curled in sleep on the palm of his left hand. With an ache deep down in his chest, he stroked a fingertip along the cat's back, and watched in familiar awe as the little beast yawned and stretched before curling back up.

God, his soulmate was something special.

Not that Ryan had ever met him, not really, not yet .

Just in his dreams, when his own soul wasn't quite so bound to the bones, and he could see what the other man saw. Could feel him, intimate and immediate.

Ryan blinked away the frustrated tears that welled up, and sighed heavily. Not that he could retain enough information to actually seek out his soulmate, no, that would be too easy.

Instead, it was like waking from a vague dream, mostly nothing concrete to hold on to. Just an image here or there, moments that had made his soulmate's soul sing out in intense emotion that he'd brought back.

Many of those almost-memories are, to Ryan's eternal amusement, cats or kittens - which explained his Soulmark. A few occasions of free alcohol that made him laugh at his soulmate's earnest joy. A pang of sadness and the image of a closed casket. A sunset so beautiful he'd woke with tears on his face and his chest tight in wonder.

Ryan scrubbed his hands across his face again, and heaved to his feet as the anxiety rippled through him once more, resuming his agitated pacing.

If only he could sleep. He knew his soulmate was awake right now, knew he could abandon his own loneliness for a while, leave behind the empty house and the anxiety, could spend a few precious hours feeling something other than incomplete .

Ryan wished he could find him. Wanted it with a burning desperation that had, on occasion, driven him to brutal and murderous rampages.

It wasn't like he had a name or number he could look up, or even knew what the other man looked like, or sounded like. He only knew him by the contents of his soul, and would know him if- when they saw each other for the first time.

Ryan stopped again, a soft sigh escaping him. The other man's soul was a wondrous thing, felt of the frisson of sunlight falling across an upturned face on a cold day, tasted of happiness, sweet and bold and fierce all at once.

In the darkness of his living room, staring down at the sleeping cat on his cupped palm, Ryan wondered how he would ever, ever deserve to be loved by such a man.

And so, calm, and sleep, continued to elude him.

Jeremy Dooley was a good man. He'd never call himself that, of course, but anyone with eyes could see it. He was helpful and kind, always ready with a fond word and dumb joke, bringing in sunshine through every cloudy day.

No one would ever guess how heavily this city weighed on him.

Not just the city, if he were honest with himself.

He had to resist peeking down his shirt, had to force himself to drag his eyes to the window.

He just wanted to look at his Soulmark, wanted to stare down at the dramatic, and fucking giant , skull that lurked on his left pectoral. It was black, but wreathed in blue flames that moved gently in an unseen wind, that almost seemed to crackle and spit on his skin, a mesmerizing dance he still found himself watching frequently, these years after it had appeared.

Long fucking years , he thought bitterly to himself.

He'd come to this shithole of a city chasing his soulmate, following a tiny hint from his dreams, and his gut instinct.

This city. Fucking, Achievement City . What a joke. This place was dirty and cruel, its own set of rules cut and carved into the living flesh of its residents, many of whom lived in fear.

He hated it, actually. Hated most of all that he was growing numb to it.

Jeremy closed his eyes for a moment as a wave of grief washed over him. His soulmate was ... complicated.

Well, maybe not so much.

The man was a criminal.

Too many of the pseudo-memories from his soulmate were violence, were death and fear and destruction and rage. Too many of Jeremy's nights had been filled with the other man's murderous profession for him to even try to deny it, even to himself.

For a very long time, he'd been terrified of the man, wanted nothing to do with him, was afraid of what the other man might do to him .

But, as he grew more used to the idea, less instantly horrified, he realized his other half was hardly a monster.

Jeremy almost clenched his hands into fists, had to shove his hands in his hoodie pocket to resist the urge. No, his Soulmate's soul was dark as sin, but it contained an absolute gentleness that confounded Jeremy to no end. Gentleness and fear, surrounded by anger, and dipped in hate, the soul he could sense was at once bigger than life and small enough to hold in his cupped palm.

And lonely. Fuck, the other man was so goddamn alone .

"You with me, buddy?"

Jeremy flashed a wide and charming smile at his best friend, hiding his bone-deep despair with practised ease. "Where else would I be?"

Matt Bragg squinted at him over his glasses for a moment, then put his eyes back on the road.

"Dunno, man. You tell me?" It came out more a question than anything else, an invitation for Jeremy to talk.

Jeremy let his smile relax into something more real, "I'm okay. Just tired. They've been running us ragged since the Fakes picked up that new hacker, y'know?"

Matt nodded in agreement. Now that Jeremy was looking, he could tell the other man was exhausted, too. Tense through his shoulders and holding his body a little stiffly.

Their jobs had gotten a little more interesting of late. Working at a digital security firm in this city was a never-ending fight to begin with.

With Achievement City's bizarrest up-and-coming gang, the Fake AH Crew, letting it be known they'd hired themselves a killer hacker? Well. The banks have been desperate to contract anyone and everyone they could to beef up security. Which meant he and Matt had become hard-pressed to find a moment of peace.

To be completely honest, Jeremy was glad of the distraction.

So long as they stayed buried in work, he could pretend that he hadn't figured out who his soulmate was, could pretend he hadn't known for six months and done nothing.

So long as he spent his every waking moment being very busy , he didn't have to fully admit to himself, or anyone else, that Achievement City's biggest, baddest boogeyman was his Soulmate.

He could just keep on pretending that he wasn't fate-bound to the fucking Vagabond , of all people.