January 14th: Rossi's Dream of Dying

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January 14th: Dream - Super Saturday wordcount - - pay an escalation cost for each add-on.

400 words- Your character sees someone that they NEED to see in a dream/vision/hallucination.

+200 words- This is your setting. Describe it in detail.

+200- Other person reveals a massive secret that character would have no way of knowing... unless this is... REAL?!

+200- The mood is: tearjerking, bittersweet, and hopeful (optional song inspiration: Los Angeles - Peter Bradley Adams)

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A single tree stood alone on the verge. The night sky splayed behind it, misty purple with a promised dawn. Rossi stepped back, wary, wispy white flecks of falling stars scattered around him and painting the dark grass with spots of burning orange that flashed and burned out in seconds.

"Nope," he said, recognising the hill. "Nope nope nope. I want out. Out now please."

The last thing he needed was to be trapped in a dream, and a dream this absolutely was. From the stupid whimsical tree to the ozoney taste of fancying, he knew it. Shit, he'd spent long enough here, in the past. So he turned away from that familiar tree, furious with himself for walking into some kind of trap—and a little worried about Hotch who he knew had been at his side—and almost tripped over the man standing behind him.

"Fuck off," Rossi told the man—more of a boy, really—immediately, folding his arms. "I don't talk to dreams."

"You just did," the boy said quietly. "Except I'm not a dream. And you need to believe me… David." He stumbled over Rossi's name, wincing at the sound of it. Rossi examined him; the sharp eyes, the jawline, the shape of his nose.

Something cold and horrible twisted into his gut.

"No," he said again, and turned to look at the tree. "No, fuck off. Not now. Not with Hotch—" With Hotch alone, somewhere, and no one knew where they were. Not the team, not Strauss, no one. If he was dying, Hotch was alone. "Get me out of here!"

But he didn't want to leave. Not now. Not once he'd recognised that face, or rather, once he'd recognised who that face could be. The last time he'd seen that tree, he'd just been shot in the chest. But there was no Gideon here this time to drag him back. And that time—

"You were here then, too," he said, looking back at the boy. "Just… watching."

"Waiting," the boy corrected him. "But this isn't right. You don't feel like you're supposed to be here yet. I think I can lead you out… I saw the way you went last time. If you trust me." He pointed to a hill behind the tree, where storm clouds roiled. Rossi squinted at those clouds. They looked… familiar. Almost apologetically thunderous.

"Reid's cloud," he breathed, and began to run despite everything inside him screaming stay with the boy. Grass whipped at his legs and the air tried to push him back, the dream folding in on itself to pin him down in this place of dying. But David Rossi had never laid down on the job when his team needed him. "I can just follow that!"

"You can!" the boy called after, running with him. "But it will fight you—look out!"

The world shifted, trying to show him something cruel. Something to slow him down until his heart stopped beating, until the curse that they'd stumbled into finally won out. And maybe it would have worked if the boy hadn't put his hands on Rossi's spine and shoved him past the memory of a silent hospital room, a tiny blanket-covered body motionless under a younger him's palms.

"Keep going," the boy urged. The memory shifted back and Rossi couldn't help but pause again, staring in horror. Despite the grass under his feet, he could smell the acid-bleach tang of the hospital. He could hear Caroline crying.

He could see the baby struggling to live. Small fists flailing weakly. He couldn't look away. "Jesus," he gasped, and stepped back. The boy grunted and tried to shove him into that memory. Through it. He'd have to pass right by the baby's bed to escape this dream, and he knew if he did, he'd see his son die again. "I can't…"

"You can," the boy coaxed, voice almost drowned by a rattle of rain beyond the vicious memory. "Please… I didn't suffer, you know. I don't remember dying. I remember you, and Mom, but not… not dying. Just your hands. And your voice... and how much I loved you, even then."

Rossi looked at him then. Stared. Memorized.

Swallowed hard and let James take his hand. "I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling the tears and the hurt like it was new. Behind him, in the memory, he heard the cry that meant his son was gone.

"Don't be," James said roughly, and dragged him past the once-again silent room. "Just don't die, old man. This dream isn't big enough for two Rossis. There—that's the curse. It should have killed you both already, I don't know why it didn't. Your body is in there." He pointed to the storm, yawning ahead. It spiralled around, dark enough that Rossi couldn't see the centre. He'd have to throw himself blindly into it and just hope.

"Damnit," he said, after examining the storm for a moment longer and realizing just why he'd been given the option to have a second chance. "Reid is going to be unbearable when I tell him his weird-ass cloud is saving our lives." James laughed once, and then it was time. He had to let go of his son's hand once more and step into the storm, back to living.

James let go first. "Cya," he said with forced casualness, and stepped away. "In a long time, I hope." Rossi, his throat tight and impossibly dry, nodded. "Oh, and Dad? One question?"

With one foot in the storm and his hand still warm with his son's touch, Rossi paused. Around him, the storm was ripping the dream away, shoving him back into his body with frantic hands that felt like the weirdest mix of Reid and Hotch. But he still heard the final question, and he woke up laughing in a dark room with a bloodied and frantic Hotch crouched over his body.

Why is your goatee blue?