Kai's POV

Thank goodness this was only a dream, because if this were real, I would be dying. The man held me at the throat still, spitting promises to break both Tao and his little boyfriend.

“So you think we make a nice couple too.” I said with as much cockiness as I could get across, seeing as how I could barely breathe. Interesting how even in a dream, you need to breathe to speak.

Next to me, Tao stood and raced to the phone. The instant he touched it, the force pinning me down completely vanished and the memory reset itself to play properly where it left off – Tao ducking thrown objects while dialing for help and the man coming steadily closer.

“This is your dream, Tao.” I reminded him. “You can change it however you want.”

“Easy-” he flinched at a thrown picture frame that had nearly hit him. “-for you to say.”

“I'm serious, Tao.” I thought quickly, remembering back to an old conversation of ours. “Remember when I said I'd teleport that guy into a shark tank if I saw him?”

“Can you do that now?” he shouted back, and I began panicking as I saw his mother's last wine bottle shatter and stain the carpet and surrounding walls deep red. I knew that after this part of his memory that the man would come forward to throw him to the floor.

“No, I can't.” I had no control here, and it was killing me, because what if my plan didn't work? I'd have to leave Tao alone while I left to go wake him up in the real world, and there was no telling if I'd be successful or if things turned out for the worst during the time I was gone. “This is your dream,” I reminded him, voice cracking in desperation. “I can't change it; but, Tao, you can! What would you have done if you had your powers back then?”

“I- I would freeze him.” And with that, Zitao held a hand before him and hastily gestured turning a key in a lock, effectively turning the man a mere two steps ahead of him into a terrifying statue with bulging veins and clenched teeth.

It only lasted but a second. With a snarl, the man unfroze and launched himself at Tao.

There was no ing way I was going to let him get hurt again. Without a second thought, I teleported in front of my soulmate to take the blow to the ribs meant for him. The force knocked me down to the carpet like I knew it would and it wasn't long before I felt myself being roughly to my stomach and punched directly between the shoulder blades to slam my sternum to the floor.

The pain felt real, the terror in perfect clarity. I found it kind of ironic that Lay's ability was able to perfectly bring back this old memory when the boy himself had the memory of a goldfish.

“Kai!” Tao grabbed fistfuls of his own hair before shaking his head quickly. “I didn't have my powers back then!” he sobbed. “I didn't even have the energy to fight. I-”

The man pulled back an arm with a particularly large shard of glass taken from the floor earlier and Tao's eyes narrowed in on it.

“No!” he yelled and lunged forward, struggling to rip the shard from the man's strong fist. “Don't you touch him!”

Swinging his arm out, the man was able to throw Zitao off and leave a long scratch on his arm, but the teen got up immediately again to halt the attack as best as he could.

“Tao-” I had to stop to cough, my lungs burning – and I had only gotten punched to the floor once. In my own memory, I had a copy of the ones I had temporarily stolen from him, so I remembered the hell he'd been through. There was still so much more pain ahead of me if the memory were to move on with me as it's substitute focal point. “This isn't the past.” I rasped. “You have power. You have energy. You are bigger than you were back then – wiser too!”

The man paused in his rage, looking confused with the glass he held onto going limp in his hand.

“You're right.” Straightening his back as he trembled, Tao continued. “I was a little smaller back then. This was before I hit my last growth spurt. I was only about this tall-” He places a flat hand in the air to about where his nose is. That must have been some growth spurt. He better not grow even taller – we already had too much of a difference. “-So then... he is smaller than this.”

At these words, the man seething with glass still in his hands shrunk to a less intimidating size.

“And he's been stuck in prison. I bet he's been beat to by the other inmates.” I added and he nodded enthusiastically, big ugly bruises and scars suddenly appearing on the image of his old attacker.

“What if he's been working out in prison?” Tao asked suddenly, nervousness showing again.

I snorted at that. “He doesn't seem like the type.” With difficulty, I flipped over onto my back and got up on my elbows, pointing to the man's flabby lower stomach. “That's a beer gut if I ever saw one. He's probably fatter than he was back then.”

“And more grey.” Tao added.

“And wrinkly.”

“And I bet that prison food isn't very nutritious.”

Bit by bit, his mother's ex-boyfriend became chubby, middle-aged, fatigued, and much, much less threatening.

“By this point, wouldn't he be scared to hurt you?” I asked and was met with a soft smile. “For fear of being thrown in jail again?”

“It's possible.” he agreed.

Tao's old attacker took a step back away from the two of us with his newfound fear, so I freely pushed myself up to stand side by side with my soulmate. The pains in my torso were rapidly fading – a sign that he was feeling much better and focusing less on the past and more on the present.

“Shall we drop him into a shark tank?”

Tao shook his head no. “I have a better idea.” Lifting his open palm to the man with fingers splayed wide, he quietly crooked those fingers in and turned whatever it was he was grabbing counter-clockwise.

And the man in front of us grew less wrinkly, less grey and fatigued, less beaten to , and far too strong and healthy for my liking-

“What are you doing?” I panicked.

“Just wait, Kai.” Tao laughed, continuing to turn the years back on this man so he was pimply and awkward, then shorter and more full of energy, even shorter and having trouble standing on two legs, and eventually he became a small babe lying on the floor. “I'm giving him a second chance, a new start. This is what I would do if I had my power back then.”

“Holy .” I whispered in awe, walking to the bundle of clothes on the floor, wrapping the small, fragile creature in the large shirt left behind, and picking him up to admire this ingenious thought. Turning a prison inmate back into an innocent baby, to live his life differently?

In front of me, Zitao's image began to blush and shy away.

Adjusting the weight of the child in my arms to cradle it gently, I asked, “What is it?”

He smiled. “Nothing. You just look good like that.”

Why did he have to say that? I began blushing too. Blushes shouldn't be possible in dreams, I thought grumpily. Then the baby laughed, a soft gurgling sound that stole my attention. “The way you think is beautiful, Tao.” Smoothing a thumb over a chubby little cheek, a thought came to me that I wished weren't true, for it was sad to think about. With a sigh, I asked, “You know what I think?”

Tao came closer to see the baby in my arms. “Hmm?”

“I think that this little guy here-” I smiled at the cute face blinking up at me and adjusted the babe to play with a tiny arm. “-doesn't actually represent your mother's ex-boyfriend. It's a symbol, isn't it?” The baby stopped being happy and instead looked very confused. It was then that I knew I was correct. “He represents your fear of not being good enough, of being-”

“Unlovable.” Tao finished for me. How did he know the exact word I meant to use? I looked up and found him to be very vulnerable. His feelings seemed exposed fully through his eyes, of fear, grief and sorrow, and the quietest beginnings of hope. “But you love me.” he added with confidence. “So I can't be unlovable.”

“You're right. I love you.” Arms came up around me, underneath my own, and it made it easy to think that I might be able to one day, have him love me back.

“And you saved me.” The words felt like a sigh against my temple.

“I didn't do anything. You saved yourself.”

“Does that mean you don't want to be thanked?”

Thanked? The last thanks Tao gave was in the form of a kiss-

“You should thank me.” I said instantly, nodding insistently. “You should very much thank me. I- I got punched in the back for you. The ribs too. You know, he was this close to-” A hand pressed over my mouth and cut me off. Then I wasn't going to be kissed? I groaned in disappointment.

“What you deserve is a real thank you, Kai. Let's wake up.”

How was it possible for my heart to beat so hard in a dream? The thought of being kissed for real had me grinning wide, and the small bundle in my arms reminded me of all the things I wished I could do with this boy. So many different futures in so many different places came to mind, a boundless journey of possibility if he would only say yes.

And he might just say yes. It could happen. I really believed it could.

“Hold up, hold up. I do not approve of this.” came a deep voice that really needn't be there.

It was Kris. What the hell?

His image appeared and stepped in between us, pushing us back away from each other with both his huge hands.

“Zitao,” Kris continued. “What are you doing dreaming about babies? You are far too young for that – you're still in high school!”

“No one asked for your opinion.” I grumbled, holding the child closer. This Dream baby was a precious symbol that was drawing me closer to my soulmate and Kris' words were ruining it. “Tao, let's do this for real.” I said, doing my best to talk around the giant teen between us. “I'll take you up to the prison and we can visit that and raise him into a better person. We'd be doing the whole world a favor.”

“No. I won't stand for it.” Kris disagreed. That damn crush of his. If only it could be strangled out of him, because he was really starting to piss me off. He continued, oblivious to my silent threats, “I'll do everything in my power to stop you two.”

I smirked at him. “You really think you can catch up? Last time I checked, my power was instantaneous and bug-free while yours is slow and leaves you stuck to the ceiling.”

“And your power exhausts you, Jongin.” he replied calmly. “It wouldn't be too hard to take Tao somewhere you can't reach him while you nap.”

Tao edged in around us until he was looking at us both. “Why are you two fighting? Kris, what are you even doing here?”

“The wolf said to bring everyone here, so Lay is doing that right now.” he answered.

“Why here?”

“It said that your mind was the only one that could handle so many intrusions, because you know how to keep it clear of distraction.”

It made sense. Visiting Tao's mind now in his dreams, I couldn't hear any ticking. But why was Kris getting in between us? He already knew it was pointless to pursue Tao – it was kind of pointless for me too, but I was determined to stay stubborn about that, no matter how useless.

What if he felt the same way?

The infant in my arms disappeared, shooting icy panic through me at once. I couldn't stop staring where he had once been.

“He's not gone.” said Tao, much closer than I remembered him being. “He's a part of me, so he's not really gone. Kai, Kris is right. We're still too young to raise children, but maybe...” He bit his lip and half-shrugged shyly. “... in the future?”

“Don't say that unless you mean it.” I warned him, voice low in acceptance that it was time to be rejected again. Quietly, I braced myself for the pain I knew would come, all my confidence from before draining away with the absence of the baby. “I don't want to help you raise a child if you don't love me. That's a lot to ask for.” I scratched at an itch on my right forearm absentmindedly, only stopping when it suddenly hurt.

Tao looked about to reply when two more people came and interrupted the dream, Luhan and Xiumin.

But Luhan's image was crying.

And there was blood on my fingertips - seeping through my right sleeve too. When did that happen?

***

Author Note:

I didn't want to leave you guys hanging for a super long time again, so here's an update that is not a month or two after the last.

It's not super long, but I hope you can accept it anyways!

(first the wolf interrupts and now Kris and Xiuhan? hahaa)