A/N: This is my entry in the NFA King Me! challenge. We were to take the title of a book by Stephen King and use that as our inspiration. I chose Dreamcatcher, but it has nothing to do with that story. I just use the imagery of a dreamcatcher. I also use the lyrics from the song "Dreamcatcher" by Secret Garden. This is part of a series and there are enough details that you might get a little lost if you jump in here. Tim is what is called a knower. He was chosen as a child and given a tattoo of a three-headed dragon which is not visible to most of the world. Tony got dragged into his crazy world on accident and then chose to help Tim where he could. It's a horror/supernatural buddy series. :) Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS, its characters or the lyrics to "Dreamcatcher". I am not making any money off this story. Alas.


From the Wings of Madness
by Enthusiastic Fish

"Today I felt pass over me a breath of wind from the wings of madness."
Charles Baudelaire

Chapter 1

It was a cave. It had a very large opening. A strong breeze blew into it constantly. Carried on the breeze were wisps of...of something. They were caught, however. Caught in a web of material that covered the entire opening. Each wisp almost seemed to struggle to escape the web at first.

...but then, a hand reached out and pulled the wisps away from the webbing. The wisps were taken and stored in a basket.

There was a woman sitting behind the webbing, watching it with white eyes. Her eyes were white. Her hair was white. She herself was essentially white. She was smiling as she caught each wisp and secured it in the basket. She had been saving them for months.

There was another test coming. The knower had taken on every challenge thus far, but he was still not reaching his full potential. He had to reach his potential in order to have a chance of saving the world. The knower was fighting against his nature, but it had to become second nature to him. He had destroyed Mongothsberd. He had sealed off the demon world. He had been introduced to Sleep and Death. (Here, she smiled, knowing how ambivalent the knower was about her.) He had even taken the dreamer into himself and was learning to control the dreamworld as well as reality.

Now, he would have to fight those dreams...and not just dreams. He would have to fight nightmares. Not his own. She almost had a full basket now. That was what she was needing. How would he deal with them? She didn't know.

The breeze picked up and began to swirl. The webbing began to tremble as the breeze became a gale.

"You are disturbing the dreams," she said calmly.

"This could be wrong," the dark figure said as he took shape.

"It is necessary."

"The world will not understand."

"He will not, either. So?"

"So...you know what they can be like."

"Yes."

"You are not worried?"

"No. When the time comes, it will be fine, but if we do nothing, he will fail."

"And yet, is this process the right way to go?"

She stood and gestured out through the webbing. The dark figure joined the white figure and they stared out at the world.

"The world is breaking. He is the one who broke it. He is the one who must repair it. Are you prepared to die when the world does?" She turned to him. "Is Death ready to die? I am not prepared to sleep for all time."

"No, but I think this could go badly."

"It could, but we will watch."

"And do nothing?"

"He has others who also watch."

"And this?" he asked, gesturing to the web.

"It appeared when I made my plan. That is the danger."

"What is it?"

"A dreamcatcher. It is a tradition within some human groups. For some they are meant to catch the good dreams and leave the bad ones. For others, they are supposed to trap the bad dreams and let the good through. I am using it to trap the bad dreams."

"For him?"

"Yes. For him. The knower does not yet know enough."

"When will you begin?"

"Soon. My basket is full. It is ready to be loosed."

"Like Pandora."

"She let her ills out on the world. I am letting the dreams out on one man...for the good of the world."

The breeze brought another wisp to the dreamcatcher. It was trapped. She caught it and smiled.

"This is a nightmare of the companion to the knower."

"Will you use that?"

"Yes. I will use them all."

"It may break him."

"It will not. It will teach him. He will learn."

"And if he does not?"

"Then, he is weak and would fail in any case. Better that we know now."

"You do not think he will?"

"No. I do not think he will fail."

"When will he receive these dreams?"

She smiled. "I will begin and use them all."

"When he is awake?"

"Yes. The world will not break at his convenience."

"I will say it again. This could fail because it will not be understood."

"It does not matter."

Death swirled the darkness around him and disappeared.

Greta was left behind, staring at the dreamcatcher as another wisp became lodged in it. Carefully, she reached out and pulled it away, looking at the nightmare she'd trapped. It was a particularly bad one. Some people managed to have nightmares that were more terrifying than anything they ever saw in their lives. Sometimes, nightmares were frightening for reasons unknown to her. This one, for instance. The emotion associated with it was sheer terror, but the dream itself was nothing more than darkness.

She smiled and added it to her basket.

It was full.

Time to go and begin the games.

She swirled the air around her. The webbing of the dreamcatcher detached from the cave and wrapped around her as well. In seconds, she was gone.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim opened his eyes and woke up, breathing heavily. He couldn't think of what had just happened. He hadn't had a genuine nightmare in a long time, but this had definitely been a nightmare.

...although, now that he was awake, he wasn't sure why it had been so frightening. It had just been darkness. Still, he couldn't rid himself of the sheer terror he had felt. It made him a little shaky.

"Jethro?" he called.

In moments, his dog was on his bed, licking his face.

"I don't know where that came from, but I'm glad it's over," he said. "Would it be too much to ask for a normal day, Jethro?"

Jethro barked at him.

"You're probably right. Well, I can't avoid it by staying in bed. After that nightmare...I don't really want to anyway."

Tim got up and got ready for the day, unable to shake his feeling of foreboding.

He was sure that something would be going wrong today.