xp_logs | Doug's nightmares

Backdated to last night. Overnight, Quentin experiments with the diluted Kick and finds that he can connect to the other guests of the hotel telepathically without having to touch them. Naturally, he uses this to torment Doug.

Quentin sat back in one of the expensive leather recliners, closing his eyes. The drug that Milan had given him was definitely kicking in, and it felt like he could reach out with his mind and touch the thoughts of anyone he wanted.

Two floors below, a Saudi businessman was just finishing up a call with his wife and thinking of missing his daughters. Boring.

Down the hall from him, a French flight attendant was descending into sleep, her dreams betraying thoughts of dissatisfaction and disappointment. Lame.

They weren't who he was looking for. Reaching out with his mind wasn't like he thought it would be, like flying through walls or anything. Instead it was like trying to move one of those stupid carnival games with the motorized claw, getting it in the right place and then descending...

...right into the dreams of one Douglas Aaron Ramsey.

Eyes still closed, Quentin smiled and exhaled, rejoicing in the drug's euphoric rush before he dived in.

Doug's dreams had a definite disjointed quality to them, that sort of helter-skelter logic that only made sense in the context of a dream. Friends and coworkers took roles that were wildly different from their true personalities, but the dream-Doug thought nothing of it within the construct his brain was supplying.

The strangeness of actually being able to watch someone else's dreams unfold was almost more of a rush than the drug, Quentin thought. Smiling to himself, he figured as long as he was here, he might as well indulge himself a little bit.

"Show me Marie-Ange..." he said, trying his best to nudge Doug's brain towards the girlfriend he so obviously didn't deserve.

Doug's mind spun backward through memories, still somewhat fragmented from the reintegration Emma had helped him through. And with dream-logic being what it was, that sort of meta-awareness of his memories' fragmented state led his dreams to the events that had caused it. The sensations of wooden doors slamming shut, the sound, sight, and skin-tightening feeling of air compressed by the movement. A brief flash of drowning in the dark as he rolled to one side and his pillow briefly impeded his breathing. And then Quentin's direction finally bore fruit as Marie-Ange and Emma sliced into the darkness and pulled him into the light. Marie-Ange looked haggard and rumpled, her concern for Doug obvious on her face.

"GAH!" Quentin mentally recoiled from the images and sensations that came through too vividly from Doug's subconscious. He could almost smell the rotting flesh cocoon, feel the sticky amniotic fluid coating him. "What unholy shit is this?" he asked, prying further into the dream. "What are you afraid of..."

Then realization came to him, as if the memories were his own. "Who's Natalya Ignatova, hmm?" Quentin cackled. "Some other girl you cheated on? Oh, she got to you, didn't she? And she... Russian? Well well well... oh, this will do nicely..."

The young telepath's body smiled as his mind delved further into Doug's. "Let's go deeper, Ramsey. Show me what you really fear..."

Doug's deepest fear could be neatly summed up in a single word.

Bees.

Every sense was inundated with input. The sight of a swarm, shifting and swaying as if under the guidance of some malign intelligence. The muted scent of pollen clinging to the feet of the drones that hovered and darted around him. The metallic taste of adrenalin and panic heavy on his tongue. The constant buzzing drone of wings, with the sense that there was some sort of verbal meaning hanging just out of reach behind it. But most of all, the vivid sensation of insectoid legs crawling up and down his arms, the sharp pinprick of stingers stabbing at his flesh, the feeling of being swarmed under.

Quentin flinched instinctively from the memory - no, the nightmare he'd stirred up in Doug's brain. "My my my," he hissed, rubbing his hands together. "Diddums someone have a pwoblem with nasty bees? How terrible..."

By focusing, Quentin could almost see himself standing in front of Doug's dream self - only instead of his body of flesh and bone, he was made up of a million wings and compound eyes and stingers. And he could almost feel his hands closing around Ramsey's neck...

Doug jerked upright with a startled gasp, clutching at his neck and flailing in an attempt to brush away something that wasn't there, the vague remembrances of his dream with him for a moment. Sweat beaded on his brow and he kicked violently at his sheets, spilling them to the floor in an untidy pile. He brushed his hair out of his face and concentrated on slowing his breathing as reality slowly asserted its hold on his brain. He shuddered and pushed himself to a standing position, walking off to the bathroom to get himself a drink of water.

Quentin jerked upright with a startled gasp, his hands clutching at empty air in front of him. He blinked, then brushed sweat away from his brow. "Wow. Holy shit. That was awesome..." he breathed. Sniffing, he wiped a hand across his nose, frowning at the small streak of blood. "Huh. Weaksauce. Oh well, nothing useful ever came without a little pain. Time for you to feel my pain, Ramsey."

He resisted the urge to cackle like a James Bond villain, but only for a moment. After all, he was in one of the most opulent hotels in the room, and about to finally get his revenge on his nemesis.

Who could blame him?