Chasing Dreams - Chapter 5
Title: Chasing Dreams
Author: raven_kerry
Beta-reader: onthaedge
Artist: marsmaywander
Word-count: 44’038
Rating: M
Summary: Growing up as a psychic in Ohio is difficult. Throw in being gay and a dream-boyfriend and it’s that much more difficult.
Kurt has always been able to see things through other people’s eyes, hear their thoughts and feel their pain and emotions as if they were his own. It’s difficult to go on when you literally feel how much people hate you. This is his story.
Pairing: Kadam
Warnings: suicide attempt and ideation, mentioned non-con towards adults and children, violence, pagan beliefs
Author’s Note: A thousand thanks to my beta and artist for choosing to work with me. It’s been amazing. :)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Epilogue | Excerpt: Of Meetings
Chapter 5
Kurt sighed as he dangled his feet into the cold water of Lake Erie. He was at his weekend visit to Eliza up in Toledo. His father would busy himself, as always, leaving Kurt and Eliza to talk.
That day, Eliza had brought Kurt down to Lake Erie. It was a fairly warm spring day, but the lake was still way too cold to attract lots of visitors. So they had plenty of privacy, sitting on one of the docks off of a summer house that belonged to a friend of Eliza’s.
Kurt looked over and saw her roll up her trousers to dip her toes in as well. The sunlight hit her wavy auburn hair, making it light up like a reddish halo around her roundish face. Her clear blue eyes were close to the color of the sky. If he had been interested in women, Kurt was sure that he’d have found her attractive. As it was, he wasn’t sure how his father had been able to choose between her and his mother and had never dared to ask.
She smiled at him and pulled out her notebook. “So, Kurt, how have you been doing this week?”
Kurt shrugged and answered neutrally, “Okay.”
“How are things at school?”
Kurt answered morosely, his eyes downcast, “Everyone either hates me or doesn’t give a damn about me. The weirdest rumors were flying around about what I was home sick with so long, but only a few of them actually were close to the truth. And those weren’t stated out loud.”
“Do you still think that it’s better that they don’t know?”
Kurt nodded. “Yeah. It would be a nightmare if they knew. I already have Jacob Israel hounding me trying to get the true story out of me.”
“You know, often people attempt suicide as a last-resort cry for help. They don’t actually want to die. Don’t you think it would be better if your teachers at least knew, so they could watch out for you?”
Kurt shook his head. “It wasn’t, in my case. I just wanted everything to stop. The visions, the mid-reading, the empathy… and I know it won’t. As long as I’m alive it’ll be there. It’ll never go away. If I survive that long, I’m never having kids. I don’t want to pass this curse on to them.”
“You will survive, Kurt.”
He shook his head. “I can’t promise. He’s the only reason I’m here and didn’t stay in my coma.”
“Your knight-in-shining-armor from England?”
Kurt blushed slightly and drew circles in the water with his toe. “Or something.”
“Why haven’t you given him a name? It’s been about seven and a half years since you’ve been meeting and talking.”
Kurt frowned, “I can’t give him a name that isn’t his.”
“What about a nickname then?”
“A nickname?” Kurt snorted. “What would I call him? Dream-Lover? That is so many levels of cliché.”
“What about ‘Adam’?”
“Why Adam?”
“Because, he’s the first man in your life.”
Kurt snorted. “Isn’t that a little too religious? I’m an atheist.”
“Well, if you wanted, you could try calling him Homo Errectus, but somehow I doubt you want to associate him with something prehistoric like that.”
Kurt huffed. “Word associations like that are reserved for the Neanderthals at school. Not for him. He’s better than them.”
“Then why not call him by the name of the first human? Your own personal Adam. You don’t have to be religious to pick up an idea from them.”
“But… what if it’s wrong? What if I get used to calling him that and when I finally do meet him, I can’t stop calling him that instead of his real name?”
Eliza patted him on the shoulder. “From what you’ve told me about him, I don’t think he’d really mind that much. However, if it makes you feel better about it, you can talk to him about it next time you meet. That way you’ll know for certain.”
Kurt paused to think before nodding slowly. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Now, tell me what visions you’ve had the past week or so.”
Kurt smiled. “Well, I think I had another vision through his eyes on Sunday. He was in church and bored to death. So, while his parents weren’t looking, he’d secretly play cards with his little brother and sister, helping to keep them entertained as well. It was kinda cute.”
“That is sweet. What else?”
Kurt bit his lip. “I saw through the eyes of a serial killer as he cut up a woman, saving only one of her feet, which he embalmed and put on display with several other female feet. That was disturbing.”
“How did you feel when you were watching it and when you woke up?”
Kurt gulped. “When I was watching it, I enjoyed it. I felt his emotions and they swallowed my own - they almost always do. When I woke up, I threw up. It was horrifying to watch that and enjoy it. I don’t understand… how could you enjoy doing that to another person?”
Eliza smiled wryly, “I don’t think we’ll ever completely understand serial killers. They all have a different reason for what they do, Kurt. Some are trying to get revenge for something out of their childhood. Some just want to inflict pain on others. Maybe this guy has a foot and amputation fetish that just went too far. Did he jerk off on the body?”
Kurt shook his head. “No, he raped her while he was still cutting her apart. She was still alive and conscious and screaming through the gag he put on her. I think she might have been a prostitute with the way she was dressed - or what was left of her clothes anyway.”
“Have you ever thought about helping out the police or FBI with the information you receive in your dreams?”
Kurt shook his head. “My dad has called a few times on an untraceable line when I see through the victim’s eyes or recognize the victim. But what would the officials think? They’d think that I was insane and lock me away instead. Or they’d figure out I was right and use me or experiment on me. I don’t want that.”
“My husband is an FBI agent, you know, Kurt. He’s told me about some strange stuff he’s dealt with - including psychics. Once or twice he’s gotten tips from them that helped him solve the case he was working on. He never seeks them out though.”
“So, you think…”
She insisted, “I won’t tell you to do anything, Kurt. But the option is there. It might be that you don’t even realize that you saw something of importance to the case. If nothing else, then he knows what questions to ask to get all the information that might be relevant.”
Kurt hesitated. “I don’t know… my dad said…”
“Kurt, you’re old enough to think for yourself now. You don’t have to always follow through on what your dad told you. He isn’t always right, you know.”
Kurt hesitated again before asking, “What was it that you two fought over?”
“You.”
Kurt blinked. “Me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Your father wouldn’t let me talk to you as a psychiatrist. I’m your godmother, you know, and he wanted us to keep that relationship. I saw that something was bothering you though, when you’d woken up from a nap. So I confronted you on it. Just when I was making headway in getting you to talk, your father barged in and got upset at me because you were crying. I tried to explain but then he got angry at me for treating you just like one of my patients, when you were hardly more than a toddler. Shows him what he knows.”
“Oh.” Kurt took a moment to digest the information. “And when he realized he was overreacting he had his pride involved and couldn’t fess up to it.”
“Yep. Typical man.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t actually expect to hear from him again. I sure as heck hoped he’d never need me.”
Kurt insisted, “He said you were also jealous of my mom.”
She tilted her head back and forth. “Well, kinda. He and I were childhood sweethearts, you could say. We grew up together because our fathers were best friends. Everyone expected us to get together. We did too, in our freshman year of high school - when we were your age. Then your mother’s family moved into town the next year. They moved into the house next to where your father lived. It was love at first sight. As he later explained to me, the moment he met her, he knew that she was going to be the mother of his children. So he dumped me for her. And, yeah, sure I was upset. Find a girl who wouldn’t be. Granted, he could have been meaner about it. He could have waited to break up with me until he knew she was interested. Instead, he broke up with me so he could pursue her. Try explaining that to a teenager though. I hated your mother with a passion until she and I were alone together and out of the blue she just apologized to me.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “She said that she felt my pain. She told me she would wait for me to be over him and give her permission to date him. At that moment - I couldn’t hate her. From scanning my thoughts, she knew that I knew about psychics. She offered to try and change your father’s feelings back into love for me. I couldn’t agree to that though. Not when I saw the yearning on her face for him. She was the most selfless and loving person I’d ever met - and I knew that if there was anyone else who was worthy of him - it was her. So I let go of him and gave her permission. It hurt so much. She was so careful not to rub it in my face, always toning it down when I was around. I grew to love her in a way over time, even if I never fell out of love with your father.”
“You still love him?”
Eliza nodded. “Yeah. He was my first love. I mean, I’m happy and I love my husband. I’d never try to take her place - even though she’s dead now. Even if your father were ready to try dating again and I wasn’t married - we could never make it work. Her shadow would always be looming between us.”
Kurt asked, slightly hopeful, “You said that she offered to try and change my dad’s feelings. Is that even possible? Could I make people at school hate me less?”
She sighed and shrugged. “I’m not sure. Your mom never talked about it after that. But I have the feeling that that would be frowned on. You’d be manipulating people to your will; forcing your will on them. I know for certain that your mother would have never done that for herself though. So don’t go trying, okay?”
Kurt nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I just wish they were less homophobic. More accepting.”
“So, you’re gay?”
“I didn’t say that…” Kurt looked away from her.
“But you are?”
Kurt nodded minutely. “I haven’t told my dad yet though - or anyone at school. But they all think it. And they all bully me for it. What’s the use in coming out if everyone leaps to their own conclusions?”
She patted his shoulder and gave him an earnest look. “Your dad will support and love you no matter what. And the point of coming out is being true to yourself. You don’t come out for other people - you come out for yourself. To be able to stand tall and be proud of yourself.”
Kurt bit his lip. “I don’t think I’m ready for that though.”
“Then you aren’t. There’s no hurry. No hurry at all. As long as you don’t start lying to yourself about it, you’ll be fine.”
Kurt frowned. “Lying to myself?”
“Pretending to be straight. Telling yourself that you are straight and that being gay is just something you imagined or because people pushed you into the role.”
Kurt looked slightly aghast. “People think like that?”
“A lot of people don’t want to accept their orientation, so they make up excuses. If it gets bad enough, they’ll try to eliminate the cause of their confusion. To them, that might seem easier than redefining themselves. People will do a lot of strange things to escape the truth, Kurt.”
“Oh. I don’t get it.”
She gave him a half-smile. “I hope you never do.”
There were a few moments of silence before she continued, “So, back to our earlier discussion, now that you’ve had a chance to recover, what else have you seen?”
“I had a nightmare of my mom dying again. I still remember the pain she felt in the short time it took her to die. I remember what it felt for her to lose control over the car. I remember it better than any of my other visions - including the other ones I’ve had of dying in someone else’s body. Why?”
“Because she was special to you and you love her.”
“But I want to forget that. I want to remember her when she was alive, not dying.”
“I know you do, Kurt, but unfortunately, that isn’t the way the mind works sometimes. Tell me the one thing you don’t want to forget about it.”
“Her last thoughts were of us - dad and me - and how much she loved us. She was so sad that I was going to grow up without her.”
“And that’s why you’ll never really want to forget it. Because it reminds you how much she loved you.”
Kurt smiled sadly. “Yeah, she did.”
“So, I think our session for the day is over. Do you want to come home with me and talk to my husband? His name is Jacob, but most people call him Jake, Agent McLaughlin or dad.”
“How are the kids doing?”
“As rambunctious as ever. Little Simon is still getting into trouble right and left. I get calls from the kindergarten teacher almost every other day, but he still hangs onto his older sister’s every word like it’s the word of god. Julie, on the other hand, is starting to go into her pre-teens. She’d love to talk to you about fashion. I can ask your dad over and he can talk to Jake. That way he can assure you that it’s okay to talk to him.”
Kurt smiled. “I’d like that. Not that I don’t trust you,” he backpedaled, “but…”
“Your dad has been looking out for you thus far; I don’t see why you can’t let him take care of you a little while longer. Keep in mind, though, that you won’t always have him to help you make decisions. I’ll let your father give his input, but you make the final one. How does that sound?”
Kurt smiled widened slightly. “Sounds great.”
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Author: raven_kerry
Beta-reader: onthaedge
Artist: marsmaywander
Word-count: 44’038
Rating: M
Summary: Growing up as a psychic in Ohio is difficult. Throw in being gay and a dream-boyfriend and it’s that much more difficult.
Kurt has always been able to see things through other people’s eyes, hear their thoughts and feel their pain and emotions as if they were his own. It’s difficult to go on when you literally feel how much people hate you. This is his story.
Pairing: Kadam
Warnings: suicide attempt and ideation, mentioned non-con towards adults and children, violence, pagan beliefs
Author’s Note: A thousand thanks to my beta and artist for choosing to work with me. It’s been amazing. :)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Epilogue | Excerpt: Of Meetings
Chapter 5
Kurt sighed as he dangled his feet into the cold water of Lake Erie. He was at his weekend visit to Eliza up in Toledo. His father would busy himself, as always, leaving Kurt and Eliza to talk.
That day, Eliza had brought Kurt down to Lake Erie. It was a fairly warm spring day, but the lake was still way too cold to attract lots of visitors. So they had plenty of privacy, sitting on one of the docks off of a summer house that belonged to a friend of Eliza’s.
Kurt looked over and saw her roll up her trousers to dip her toes in as well. The sunlight hit her wavy auburn hair, making it light up like a reddish halo around her roundish face. Her clear blue eyes were close to the color of the sky. If he had been interested in women, Kurt was sure that he’d have found her attractive. As it was, he wasn’t sure how his father had been able to choose between her and his mother and had never dared to ask.
She smiled at him and pulled out her notebook. “So, Kurt, how have you been doing this week?”
Kurt shrugged and answered neutrally, “Okay.”
“How are things at school?”
Kurt answered morosely, his eyes downcast, “Everyone either hates me or doesn’t give a damn about me. The weirdest rumors were flying around about what I was home sick with so long, but only a few of them actually were close to the truth. And those weren’t stated out loud.”
“Do you still think that it’s better that they don’t know?”
Kurt nodded. “Yeah. It would be a nightmare if they knew. I already have Jacob Israel hounding me trying to get the true story out of me.”
“You know, often people attempt suicide as a last-resort cry for help. They don’t actually want to die. Don’t you think it would be better if your teachers at least knew, so they could watch out for you?”
Kurt shook his head. “It wasn’t, in my case. I just wanted everything to stop. The visions, the mid-reading, the empathy… and I know it won’t. As long as I’m alive it’ll be there. It’ll never go away. If I survive that long, I’m never having kids. I don’t want to pass this curse on to them.”
“You will survive, Kurt.”
He shook his head. “I can’t promise. He’s the only reason I’m here and didn’t stay in my coma.”
“Your knight-in-shining-armor from England?”
Kurt blushed slightly and drew circles in the water with his toe. “Or something.”
“Why haven’t you given him a name? It’s been about seven and a half years since you’ve been meeting and talking.”
Kurt frowned, “I can’t give him a name that isn’t his.”
“What about a nickname then?”
“A nickname?” Kurt snorted. “What would I call him? Dream-Lover? That is so many levels of cliché.”
“What about ‘Adam’?”
“Why Adam?”
“Because, he’s the first man in your life.”
Kurt snorted. “Isn’t that a little too religious? I’m an atheist.”
“Well, if you wanted, you could try calling him Homo Errectus, but somehow I doubt you want to associate him with something prehistoric like that.”
Kurt huffed. “Word associations like that are reserved for the Neanderthals at school. Not for him. He’s better than them.”
“Then why not call him by the name of the first human? Your own personal Adam. You don’t have to be religious to pick up an idea from them.”
“But… what if it’s wrong? What if I get used to calling him that and when I finally do meet him, I can’t stop calling him that instead of his real name?”
Eliza patted him on the shoulder. “From what you’ve told me about him, I don’t think he’d really mind that much. However, if it makes you feel better about it, you can talk to him about it next time you meet. That way you’ll know for certain.”
Kurt paused to think before nodding slowly. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Now, tell me what visions you’ve had the past week or so.”
Kurt smiled. “Well, I think I had another vision through his eyes on Sunday. He was in church and bored to death. So, while his parents weren’t looking, he’d secretly play cards with his little brother and sister, helping to keep them entertained as well. It was kinda cute.”
“That is sweet. What else?”
Kurt bit his lip. “I saw through the eyes of a serial killer as he cut up a woman, saving only one of her feet, which he embalmed and put on display with several other female feet. That was disturbing.”
“How did you feel when you were watching it and when you woke up?”
Kurt gulped. “When I was watching it, I enjoyed it. I felt his emotions and they swallowed my own - they almost always do. When I woke up, I threw up. It was horrifying to watch that and enjoy it. I don’t understand… how could you enjoy doing that to another person?”
Eliza smiled wryly, “I don’t think we’ll ever completely understand serial killers. They all have a different reason for what they do, Kurt. Some are trying to get revenge for something out of their childhood. Some just want to inflict pain on others. Maybe this guy has a foot and amputation fetish that just went too far. Did he jerk off on the body?”
Kurt shook his head. “No, he raped her while he was still cutting her apart. She was still alive and conscious and screaming through the gag he put on her. I think she might have been a prostitute with the way she was dressed - or what was left of her clothes anyway.”
“Have you ever thought about helping out the police or FBI with the information you receive in your dreams?”
Kurt shook his head. “My dad has called a few times on an untraceable line when I see through the victim’s eyes or recognize the victim. But what would the officials think? They’d think that I was insane and lock me away instead. Or they’d figure out I was right and use me or experiment on me. I don’t want that.”
“My husband is an FBI agent, you know, Kurt. He’s told me about some strange stuff he’s dealt with - including psychics. Once or twice he’s gotten tips from them that helped him solve the case he was working on. He never seeks them out though.”
“So, you think…”
She insisted, “I won’t tell you to do anything, Kurt. But the option is there. It might be that you don’t even realize that you saw something of importance to the case. If nothing else, then he knows what questions to ask to get all the information that might be relevant.”
Kurt hesitated. “I don’t know… my dad said…”
“Kurt, you’re old enough to think for yourself now. You don’t have to always follow through on what your dad told you. He isn’t always right, you know.”
Kurt hesitated again before asking, “What was it that you two fought over?”
“You.”
Kurt blinked. “Me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Your father wouldn’t let me talk to you as a psychiatrist. I’m your godmother, you know, and he wanted us to keep that relationship. I saw that something was bothering you though, when you’d woken up from a nap. So I confronted you on it. Just when I was making headway in getting you to talk, your father barged in and got upset at me because you were crying. I tried to explain but then he got angry at me for treating you just like one of my patients, when you were hardly more than a toddler. Shows him what he knows.”
“Oh.” Kurt took a moment to digest the information. “And when he realized he was overreacting he had his pride involved and couldn’t fess up to it.”
“Yep. Typical man.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t actually expect to hear from him again. I sure as heck hoped he’d never need me.”
Kurt insisted, “He said you were also jealous of my mom.”
She tilted her head back and forth. “Well, kinda. He and I were childhood sweethearts, you could say. We grew up together because our fathers were best friends. Everyone expected us to get together. We did too, in our freshman year of high school - when we were your age. Then your mother’s family moved into town the next year. They moved into the house next to where your father lived. It was love at first sight. As he later explained to me, the moment he met her, he knew that she was going to be the mother of his children. So he dumped me for her. And, yeah, sure I was upset. Find a girl who wouldn’t be. Granted, he could have been meaner about it. He could have waited to break up with me until he knew she was interested. Instead, he broke up with me so he could pursue her. Try explaining that to a teenager though. I hated your mother with a passion until she and I were alone together and out of the blue she just apologized to me.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “She said that she felt my pain. She told me she would wait for me to be over him and give her permission to date him. At that moment - I couldn’t hate her. From scanning my thoughts, she knew that I knew about psychics. She offered to try and change your father’s feelings back into love for me. I couldn’t agree to that though. Not when I saw the yearning on her face for him. She was the most selfless and loving person I’d ever met - and I knew that if there was anyone else who was worthy of him - it was her. So I let go of him and gave her permission. It hurt so much. She was so careful not to rub it in my face, always toning it down when I was around. I grew to love her in a way over time, even if I never fell out of love with your father.”
“You still love him?”
Eliza nodded. “Yeah. He was my first love. I mean, I’m happy and I love my husband. I’d never try to take her place - even though she’s dead now. Even if your father were ready to try dating again and I wasn’t married - we could never make it work. Her shadow would always be looming between us.”
Kurt asked, slightly hopeful, “You said that she offered to try and change my dad’s feelings. Is that even possible? Could I make people at school hate me less?”
She sighed and shrugged. “I’m not sure. Your mom never talked about it after that. But I have the feeling that that would be frowned on. You’d be manipulating people to your will; forcing your will on them. I know for certain that your mother would have never done that for herself though. So don’t go trying, okay?”
Kurt nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I just wish they were less homophobic. More accepting.”
“So, you’re gay?”
“I didn’t say that…” Kurt looked away from her.
“But you are?”
Kurt nodded minutely. “I haven’t told my dad yet though - or anyone at school. But they all think it. And they all bully me for it. What’s the use in coming out if everyone leaps to their own conclusions?”
She patted his shoulder and gave him an earnest look. “Your dad will support and love you no matter what. And the point of coming out is being true to yourself. You don’t come out for other people - you come out for yourself. To be able to stand tall and be proud of yourself.”
Kurt bit his lip. “I don’t think I’m ready for that though.”
“Then you aren’t. There’s no hurry. No hurry at all. As long as you don’t start lying to yourself about it, you’ll be fine.”
Kurt frowned. “Lying to myself?”
“Pretending to be straight. Telling yourself that you are straight and that being gay is just something you imagined or because people pushed you into the role.”
Kurt looked slightly aghast. “People think like that?”
“A lot of people don’t want to accept their orientation, so they make up excuses. If it gets bad enough, they’ll try to eliminate the cause of their confusion. To them, that might seem easier than redefining themselves. People will do a lot of strange things to escape the truth, Kurt.”
“Oh. I don’t get it.”
She gave him a half-smile. “I hope you never do.”
There were a few moments of silence before she continued, “So, back to our earlier discussion, now that you’ve had a chance to recover, what else have you seen?”
“I had a nightmare of my mom dying again. I still remember the pain she felt in the short time it took her to die. I remember what it felt for her to lose control over the car. I remember it better than any of my other visions - including the other ones I’ve had of dying in someone else’s body. Why?”
“Because she was special to you and you love her.”
“But I want to forget that. I want to remember her when she was alive, not dying.”
“I know you do, Kurt, but unfortunately, that isn’t the way the mind works sometimes. Tell me the one thing you don’t want to forget about it.”
“Her last thoughts were of us - dad and me - and how much she loved us. She was so sad that I was going to grow up without her.”
“And that’s why you’ll never really want to forget it. Because it reminds you how much she loved you.”
Kurt smiled sadly. “Yeah, she did.”
“So, I think our session for the day is over. Do you want to come home with me and talk to my husband? His name is Jacob, but most people call him Jake, Agent McLaughlin or dad.”
“How are the kids doing?”
“As rambunctious as ever. Little Simon is still getting into trouble right and left. I get calls from the kindergarten teacher almost every other day, but he still hangs onto his older sister’s every word like it’s the word of god. Julie, on the other hand, is starting to go into her pre-teens. She’d love to talk to you about fashion. I can ask your dad over and he can talk to Jake. That way he can assure you that it’s okay to talk to him.”
Kurt smiled. “I’d like that. Not that I don’t trust you,” he backpedaled, “but…”
“Your dad has been looking out for you thus far; I don’t see why you can’t let him take care of you a little while longer. Keep in mind, though, that you won’t always have him to help you make decisions. I’ll let your father give his input, but you make the final one. How does that sound?”
Kurt smiled widened slightly. “Sounds great.”
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