In all honesty Donovan had no idea how long he'd been asleep. Between dreams and moments of painful lucidity he had been trapped in a state of suspension. Anger, bargaining, depression, he’d gone through every step of grief but the last. Acceptance. For him, the only thing left once all other thoughts rotted away was seething, vengeful hate. Then, all at once, eternity seemed to be coming to an end at long last.

There was something different in the air. It was pulling his consciousness towards it, seeking him out. The dreamscape he found himself in was nothing like any of his previous dreams, no, not only was the scene unfamiliar the feeling was more real than any dream he had ever experienced in his long life.

He was in a bedroom. That much was obvious. Two bloodied, mangled corpses lay on the carpet before him, staining the white fibers with their shredded flesh and twisted limbs. Far too wasteful to have been one of his kills. This was most certainly not a memory. Not his, at any rate.

A young boy, perhaps ten, or twelve, stood in the bedroom doorway staring ahead of him towards the one responsible for the mess. The man would be a remarkably unimposing vampire, if his fangs and claws weren’t drawn. Short. Slumped. Hardly enough hair left on his head even to comb over. Some people didn’t take to the change as well as others, and he was no exception. The sweater vest didn’t help.

Donovan stepped forward, over the bodies of, what he assumed were, the boy’s parents. It only took a moment for the vampire and boy to realize they had an audience and another moment for Donovan to tear the head from the body of the other vampire.

The child was fascinating. There was something different about him, “is this your dream, child?” Donovan asked, looking down at him.

The boy stared back at Donovan, his expression relieved at first, before quickly shifting to something more distrustful. On edge. He didn’t look like he was prepared to be friendly, just because Donovan had saved him from the other vampire. In fact, he was already edging away, though one of his hands fumbled over the broken door frame trying to get purchase on a large enough piece of splintered wood to use as a weapon. “Who’re you?” The boy demanded.

“Donovan. What is your name, child?”

“Gabriel,” he replied hesitantly.

The room around them seemed to shift, the carpet fibers moving and disintegrating until they’d turned to damp concrete, the walls became slate gray and stained with age. The boy was no longer focusing on Donovan, but now cradling a small girl in his arms, weeping over her limp form. There were other children in the room, some even younger, some long dead. A set of stairs led up to an exit with no door. Gabriel himself had become wan, sickly, while dozens of scabs and cuts littered his bare arms. Donovan recognized the wounds, vampire bites. If this was more than Gabriel’s dream, if this was a memory, then he pitied the child.

Slowly, he moved forward, coming up behind Gabriel and gently laying a hand on his head, “the one who did this, is he dead?” Donovan’s voice was soft as he spoke, gentle.

Gabriel didn't move as he spoke, focused almost entirely on the dead girl in his arms, “yeah. Her dad lopped its head off when he found us. Ages ago.”

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In some ways he was disappointed with Gabriel's answer. He would have loved to dispose of this monstrosity himself. “How far along with the turn were you?” Donovan knew he had at least been half, it was the only way he could have survived as long as he did. To be stuck in a child’s body was cruel.

“I dunno,” Gabriel shrugged. His tone was flat, drained. Old before his time. “He wanted to make me kill the same night Chuck offed him. I got out lucky.” He pulled the girl closer to his chest, “Lisa didn't.”

Donovan’s fingers continued carding through Gabriel’s hair absently as he spoke, “you never killed, you became human again.” That still didn’t explain why Donovan was in this boy’s dream--no, memory.

“What did you do last night?” Donovan prompted. Maybe the answer was simpler than he thought.

“Last night?” Gabriel repeated, very reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the little girl he held in order to look up at Donovan. The boy looked entirely too confused to answer the question, “I don’t remember. Hunting…” he trailed off, not noticing the little girl in his arms melting into darkness, or the way the room around them began to get brighter. Cleaner. Just another fading memory. Another shifting ghost of dreams.

Then, Donovan was at a table, surrounded by a group of people laughing, passing grease-laden slices of pizza and exchanging glasses of wine with him as if he were one of the group.

That was when he saw it; an unlabeled bottle of wine sitting off to the side. He could sense his blood in it and he knew what had happened.

“You partook of this bottle.” Donovan reached over, pulling it free.

Gabriel sat directly across from him, pouring wine into one of his friend’s glasses. No longer a broken child, but a man. His smile though, it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That?” He shrugged, “yeah. Got it from some old bastard cleaning out his wine cellar.”

“How was it?” Donovan asked, smiling as he pulled the cork, the smell filling the room. He took a deep breath, his eyes half closing as he watched Gabriel across from him.

The young man’s eyes seemed to glaze over as he leaned forward, just to get a little bit closer to the bottle, “it was good,” he admitted, “incredible.”

“Shit. It was shit,” one of his drunken friends, or really, figments of his dream chimed in before letting his head drop to the table with a loud thump.

Donovan couldn't help but laugh, “I could tell you what it was, what you drank, if you would like.” He set the bottle down between them.

“What was it?” Gabriel prompted, his fingers edging towards the bottle. Even in his dreams, the taste would likely haunt him. The siren song. The newly woken hunger.

“Better that I show you.” Donovan brought his wrist to his lips, sinking his fangs in. The fresh smell of his blood overpowered the bottle, “you want it, hunger for it, you can have as much as you desire. I won't deny you.”

Gabriel began to panic, his eyes growing wide at the sight, “no.” He tried to shove his chair back, but the pull of the fresh blood still seemed to draw him forward.

It dripped to the table, “come now, it won’t hurt, drink.” Donovan stood, bringing his wrist closer.

“I’ve been through this before,” Gabriel told him, trying to put up a front, “so you can just go fu-” he hesitated, licking his lips at the sight of blood dripping on the table, shining under the dim office light. His hands betrayed him, reaching out to snatch at Donovan’s wrist to bring it to his mouth.

Donovan smiled, stroking through Gabriel’s hair and urging him on, “I will find you when I awaken,” he said softly, “you won't be alone long, my hunter.” Yes, this one was his, whether he knew it or not. It was fate that they had found each other.