Sleep evaded him. Every time Azrael closed his eyes, he could feel Pavel's lips on his and his hands wandering across his skin. To escape it, Azrael couldn't help but snap his eyes back open. When he did, he wasn't in his bed. The room wasn't his.
As Azrael lay there, between sleep and wakefulness, the haze that was around him was an unwelcome, familiar shape. He was back in that bed, in that room and, as the mattress dipped beside him, that vulgar body heat permeated his skin. Azrael didn't know his body, it was too thin, too short, too young. He wasn't in his skin; not the skin he knew now.
Nothing he did could shake off what was haunting him.
Too scared to close his eyes,
Too scared to keep them open.
Hours ticked by in this limbo, eternally stuck there, until his body finally gave up. The adrenaline ran out and Azrael finally slipped out of the realm of consciousness. His body had to rest and it could no longer go without. Asleep, finally, the tension pulling his muscles taught completely unwound.
What sleep he got was not restful.
Tormented by spectres of the past, it felt like Azrael could do nothing but flee, trapped in his own mind. He knew he was dreaming; he knew it wasn't real but he couldn't break himself out of this jail.
Every time he felt free, Azrael would blink and he was back in that grand room, a four-posted bed with gauze curtains pressed against the back wall, impossibly expensive artwork leering at him from the others. It was disgustingly gaudy - the master had always enjoyed showing off his wealth and status symbols, every room dripping in gold. One would not be amiss to assume it was a room in a palace belonging to royalty.
Kneeling on a rug made from the skin of some endangered animal, his hands bound behind his back, bruises painting his skin and his ribs aching every time he breathed, Azrael stared straight forward. There was youthful fat on his cheeks, rounding out his face, giving him the sweet, innocent look he had long since lost in reality.
Heart thundering in his chest, it took everything in him to keep himself planted firmly on the ground. Even if he tried to escape, this tormenting dreamscape would not let him. While he couldn't remember this specific memory he was being forced to relive, Azrael it would not be something as simple as one of the many murders he had committed. Most of his memories of his life before he was 17 had long since faded into obscurity, only a handful still remaining completely intact outside of the faces of every dead person he had looked at. He could claim a perfect memory of all he had killed and of everything after his escape, but not of the time before.
Door hinges screeched in protest as they were pushed open, the bottom of the door dragging noisily against the hardwood floor. Azrael tensed, shoulders drawing in tight to his ears, taloned toes curling tight against the sole of his foot. He could hardly breathe anymore. The horrible vignette that always danced around the corners of a dream closed in tighter, everything becoming even more intangible.
A foot suddenly slammed into Azrael's back, right in the space against the space between his wings and he toppled forward. His face crashed into the hardwood floor, his bound hands unable to protect him and a resounding crack echoed against the wood walls of the room.
Thick blood gushed from his nose for a few moments until his body rectified the damage, the bone and cartilage of his nose becoming even more deformed from whatever it had originally looked like. It had been many years since he'd seen his nose without it being slightly diagonal with a larger-than-natural bump at the bridge of it.
Azrael bit back his sob, almost choking on the remaining blood sloughing down his face.
Even as he desperately, unconsciously flapped his wings in an attempt to pull him off of the floor, he could do nothing but writhe in numb pain. Hands suddenly grabbed onto the thin skin of his wings, wrenching them backwards so hard it felt like they would tear and he was stunned into stillness. Azrael did whimper now, terrified.
He'd survived this memory before, but he couldn't remember what was going to happen. His inability to flee even if he tried made it all feel the more pointless. As his face mushed further against the hardwood, tears fell from his eyes – at least Azrael knew these were tears from the memory, his young self not yet hardened against this hardship. Azrael had figured out how old he was now.
14 years old, the last year he ever remembered crying at the hands of Master Lynch. He didn't know how but he remembered that he stopped crying when he was older than that – Azrael was certain it was because he'd become numb, at that point, to the pain.
"Do you know what you did wrong?" That voice that had been gone for so many years drilled into Azrael's ears. It was condescending and cruel, but somehow entirely detached as if the man talking didn't even care that he was about to rip a child's wings in half. "Answer me, Azrael. Do you know?"
He winced at the way his name sounded coming out of Master Lynch's mouth. Everything was muddled together now but he knew someone had said that name in a much gentler, kind way at some point. Someone who made it seem like it belonged to a man, not a monster.
Why couldn't he remember now?
The longer this went on, the more his vision blurred and the more entrenched he became in the feeling of those hands on his wings. Azrael was forgetting this wasn't real.
A small, adolescent voice answered Master Lynch's question. "Yes, sir. I understand." Azrael was startled as his mouth moved without thought, without his input. Muffled from the way he was still pressed to the floor, the child that Azrael was again continued to speak. "I shouldn't have spoken out of turn. I should have accepted the offer given to me. I was selfish and stupid."
That vice-like grip on the delicate part of his wings dropped and Azrael relaxed slightly, though he didn't even allow himself to breathe as he waited. The foot that had kicked him before was now pressed back onto Azrael's spine crashing his stomach against his knees, his knees cracking against the thin rug on the hardwood floor. A thin gasp escaped his lips.
"Good. You know what you did wrong." Even though those words indicated satisfaction or pleasure, the tone Master Lynch used was frosty. It was like he was moments from wringing Azrael's neck and killing him while he was down. Azrael's bound hands clasped into fists, his talons carving into the palms of his hands. Master Lynch's poisonous, slimy voice muttered, "What should I do with you? I've raised you since you were born and you still insist on biting the hand that feeds you. I should rip out those goddamn fangs of yours down – maybe that would teach you a lesson for once."
A shiver racked Azrael's body. He could endure anything that was thrown at him but the idea of him losing his teeth, something that kept him protected, was horrifying. It would be like losing a limb. Azrael clamped his mouth shut and hoped that the punishment he had to endure was anything but that. The harder that foot pressed into his spine, the bony protrusions halfway to breaking, the harder it became for Azrael to bite back his pained whimpers.
Master Lynch's weight still firmly pressed onto Azrael's back, he hummed in contemplation. Minutes ticked by before he bothered to let Azrael know what his fate would be. "No, those fangs of yours are more helpful than not. I won't cripple you – I don't want a useless dragon in my home." That was a small note of relief, barely tangible in the fear Azrael felt. The foot on his back finally moved away and Azrael could breathe until he heard Master Lynch speak. "Take him away. Do whatever the hell you feel like doing until he can't move – just don't kill him. I need him to heal."
Blood heavy as lead, Azrael was yanked back by his bound hands and dragged across the floor by the guards that always stood by whenever Master Lynch went anywhere. Their faces were ones known by Azrael – they had long since become involved in the torture he would endure whenever he made a mistake.
The large, ornate oak door slammed shut and Azrael's vision went black as he began to panic. Hyperventilating, pain shot through his body, unknowable, indescribable torment cutting into him again and again and again and-
-
Azrael shot awake, sweat drenching his skin. He panted like he'd been running from a vicious monster and his heart pounded so hard it could be heard from a mile away.
His eyes slowly began to focus on the room around him and a welcome feeling of safety finally blanketed him. The duvet that had once covered him was flung to the floor and the pillows he'd been resting on had been strewn across the bed.
He was back in his room.
Alone.
Letting out a long, low sigh, Azrael brought his knees up, rested his chin up them and wrapped his arms around his legs. In an attempt to make himself small, he curled into a tight ball on his bed and felt silent tears falling down his cheeks.
Rarely did he actually get dreams of his time with Master Lynch. It was like there was a barrier between that time's memories and his current memories – a defence mechanism, he was sure.
Azrael knew what had kicked it off but he didn't blame Pavel for it. It was not his fault that Azrael was like this. The only people at fault for it were long since dead but, now closing his eyes once more, it felt like they were standing behind him, surrounding his bed again.
He knew he would be unable to sleep tonight.