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Hopes, Dreams, and Everything In Between (Morpheus x Reader)

Summary: Just when Morpheus finally escapes capture at the hands of the Burgess lineage and begins to make his way back to his realm, his weak connection to his power disappears completely. Left stranded in a world with no knowledge of what has transpired for over a century, no powers, and no clothes, Dream of the Endless must let down his guard and place his trust in a human whose path he was quite literally dropped in the middle of.

Word count: 10.7k

A/N: So! Here we are, with what is arguably the longest oneshot I've ever written. @glitchmeharder had left a comment on a post I made, pointing out that they wanted more fics of Morpheus getting stuck in the Waking World and needing to live with Reader for a little bit.

My mind took this sentence and RAN with it. Like, I apologize in advance for how long this is. I'm pretty pleased with it though, especially for my first Morpheus fic. I hope you're pleased with it too.

(Also, the POV jumps back and forth between Morpheus and Reader, but it alternates every other section and is pretty clear which POV is which)

(Also-also I've been staring at this fic for so long now I don't even know if it makes sense anymore)

Let me know your thoughts! Likes are appreciated, comments, asks, and reblogs make my world go round! My inbox is always open for you guys :)

*This fic uses she/her pronouns and includes the use of Y/n*

Freedom.

After being held captive for 106 long, painful years, Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Nightmares, is on the precipice of securing his freedom. The younger Burgess’s lover had erased a small part of the runes encircling his glass cage with the wheel of the old man’s wheelchair, sending little more than a sorrowful glance back towards the prisoner. So this was how he would attempt to secure his safety, by breaking the circle of runes surrounding him. Barely a scuff, really, but it’s enough.

It’s enough for Morpheus to feel the faintest bit of his power return to him.

It’s enough that it’s all too easy for him to influence one of the security guards, waxing poetically about his upcoming beach vacation, to close his eyes for just a moment.

It’s enough for a dream to form, one of sun and sea and sand. Sand that Morpheus is able to gather a handful of, right in front of the horrified guard’s dreaming eyes.

The guard, lost in his dream nightmare, shoots at what he thinks is Morpheus. In the Waking World, he’s shooting at the orb that he’s meant to be diligently watching. A bullet hits, and a crack forms. Another, and another, and another, even as the other guard screams at her colleague to stop.

The glass explodes, and Morpheus fills his lungs with his first huff of fresh air in over a century. He can’t get lost in the joy that threatens to burst like a dam at finally seeing and feeling freedom. Not when he has a job to do, not when he has a kingdom to return home to.

He steps past the broken runes, now useless at keeping him trapped, and towards the two that are commanding him to stop where he is. He does as they ask, standing still in front of them. When the female orders him to open his closed fist, he is nice enough to listen to that command as well, lifting it to his mouth and blowing the sand in their faces.

A portal forms above him, and all Morpheus can think of is home. The Dreaming. He can feel it calling to him, a kingdom beckoning its ruler back. His power lifts him, and Morpheus welcomes the sensation of traveling through realms.

Then, just as quickly as he had his power, he loses it again.

Like a spelunker who’s just had their trusty rope give out on them, Dream finds himself free-falling with no way of stopping or controlling where he’s going. He tries desperately to clutch onto the tendrils of power that have abandoned him, but they refuse to obey.

He lands harshly on cold pavement, weak and disoriented with no idea of where he is. There’s a flash of blinding lights, the sound of rubber squealing, and then…

Darkness.

•••

It’s late at night, late enough that the few traffic lights that you pass are continuously blinking red and yellow. You hadn’t intended to be out so late, but catching up with friends at a restaurant had led to all of you losing track of time, talking and laughing and reminiscing until a manager politely informed your table that the restaurant had closed ten minutes prior.

Large tips had been left as apologies and your group hustled out of the door, leaving one another with hugs and goodbyes and promises to do this again, sooner than the months it had taken to get together in the first place. You got into your car, locking the doors immediately after, and you were happy.

Still, as you watched those you know and cherish depart with their significant others, you can’t help the pang of melancholy that taints an otherwise-wonderful evening. You’re at the age now where everybody that you know is in relationships, getting engaged and married and settling down and coupling up. You, however…are not. And you’re happy with being single, truly; the best company you can have is yourself. But knowing that you’re going to return home to your quiet apartment, where you’ll go to sleep in your empty bed and wake up to eat breakfast alone before repeating the monotonous cycle that is working a full time job and being an adult in general is making you just a little bitter.

You dwell on this as you drive the deserted roads home, even though you shouldn’t be. Shaking your head at your tendency to mope, you decide to do something about it and turn your radio up with the hopes that something good is playing on the random playlist that had begun when your phone automatically connected to the car’s sound system. Hell, maybe even something bad. Anything to get you out of this thought pattern that is quickly attempting to derail your mood.

“Now here I go again, I see the crystal vision

I keep my visions to myself

But it's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams, and

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell, dreams of loneliness?”

Ironic, considering you were just lamenting your own loneliness, but you’ll forgive Stevie Nicks for almost anything, so you let it slide. Tapping your thumbs on the steering wheel, you hum along to the song and stare out at the empty, rainy landscape ahead.

Empty, until it’s suddenly not.

You don’t look away from the road, you know that you don’t. But in the literal blink of an eye, a white figure appears right in front of your car. Slamming on the brakes with a scream, you watch as the figure collapses ahead of you. You don’t hit whatever it is, thankfully, and after lurching to a harsh stop, you peer through the windshield at what your headlights illuminate.

It’s a person, or at least you think it is. They’re pale, paler than any person you’ve seen before. They’re also stark naked, which, for a number of reasons, can’t be comfortable. Should you get out and help?

You bite your lip as you consider this, stories of human trafficking ploys and hitchhiking serial killers appearing at the forefront of your mind. It’s dangerous, and probably stupid, but something in you knows that this isn’t a scheme to kidnap you. Your eyes were on the road the entire time, and this being was literally dropped down right in front of your car. Grabbing your phone, throwing your hazards on, and unhooking the pepper spray from your keys, you cautiously open your car door and walk to the front of your car.

“Are you okay?” you ask, looking down at the man.

He’s laying on his side, his face tucked into the crook of his arm. A mop of unruly, jet-black hair covers any other facial features that might have made him distinguishable to you.

He doesn’t answer, and you swallow harshly. Oh God, is he dead? You thought you didn’t hit him, and your car doesn’t have any damage, but maybe you did.

Crouching down next to him, you take note of just how skinny he is when you lay a hand on his wrist to check his pulse (which is thankfully thrumming steadily beneath his near-translucent skin). No, not skinny. The man in front of you looks emaciated. What happened to him?, you wonder as you move your hand to his bony shoulder and begin to shake him.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

This time, a muffled groan answers you. Okay, that’s better than before. At least he’s semi-conscious. Still, he doesn’t look well at all, and you should probably get him to a hospital to be checked out. When you voice this thought, you finally elicit a reaction from him. Long, ice-cold fingers grip your wrist weakly, and you stare at him in shock as he mumbles something unintelligible.

“What?” You lean down next to his covered face, trying to hear what he’s saying.

“No…” he mutters. “Please…no…hospital.”

He’s delirious, that much is obvious. Still, you find yourself mulling over his request. He really does need some sort of medical attention, but he managed to muster up enough strength to specifically tell you that he didn’t want to go to a hospital. As you think about it, you also start to come around to the “no hospital” idea.

After all, what are you going to do? Show up at the hospital and dump a naked, starving man on their doorstep while claiming that you have no idea how he got like this? At best, the authorities would probably be called and you’d be questioned for kidnapping. No, it’s probably for the best to keep away from the hospital.

Logically, you know that you’re so stupid for even considering the idea that you’ve had. But really, what is this man going to be able to do to you? Even if he weren’t in and out of consciousness, he’s so frail that you could easily take him down were he to try and attack you. Against your better judgment, you decide what you’re going to do.

“I’ll be right back,” you assure the man, who you’re not even sure can hear you, before you stand up. “I think I have a blanket in the trunk of my car.”

A quick search through your mess of a trunk does reveal a blanket, hauled around at the insistence of your mother who preached needing an “emergency kit” in your car at all times. Now, you silently thank her as you grab it and hurry back to the man, though you definitely will not mention to her what the emergency kit was finally used for.

You haul him to a sitting position, his head falling back limply as you fix the blanket over his shoulders. “Do you think you can stand? I’ll get you to the car, I just need to get you on your feet.”

He makes a slight movement that looks like a nod, so you move his arm around your shoulder and wait until you feel his light grasp on your shirt before slowly bringing both of you to stand. Once you’re sure that you’re not going to drop him, you struggle with him towards your car. He’s lighter than most adult men, but considering he’s dead weight, it’s still tough to walk with him. You fumble with the handle of the car door, nearly throwing it open so that you only have to let go of him for a brief moment.

You cringe when he falls backwards onto the seats, landing harshly across them. It doesn’t seem to hurt him at all, the only sign that he even felt anything is a groan in the back of his throat. Whispering out a “sorry,” you cover his body with the blanket and make sure all of him is in the car before closing the door and getting into the driver’s seat.

Sighing heavily, you think about your life choices as you glance into the rearview mirror to look at the unconscious man in the back of your car. You’re really going to do this, aren’t you? Taking home a naked man that passed out on the road in front of your car so that you can hopefully wake him up and get him well enough to be on his way without killing you?

Yes, you are.

•••

The first thought that crosses Dream’s mind when consciousness finally returns to him is that his limbs ache. They really, truly ache. It’s not often that an Endless has lingering pains, but it does happen. He stretches his legs out in front of him, feeling his muscles twinge as he attempts to loosen them.

The next thought that crosses Dream’s mind is that he shouldn’t be able to stretch any of his limbs, considering he’s meant to be curled up in a glass ball.

His eyes snap open when he realizes this, and he’s bewildered to find that he’s not staring at guards looking at him disdainfully from the table they’re always perched at, nor is he looking at the wrought-iron bars separating the large, underground room from the staircase upstairs. No, instead, he’s looking up at what looks to be a ceiling fan, spinning lazily around and around.

The events of what happened before he ended up here (wherever “here” is) begin to come back to him in fragments. First the runes being erased, then securing the sand from the guard’s dream. The orb shattering, sand being blown, and beginning to make his way home. That’s where his memory becomes muddled.

There were lights, and a voice. He thinks he remembers the vague sensation of being moved, but he’s not too sure. Whatever happened, he ended up here…on a couch, under a number of blankets. Certainly not in the same basement that he had been in for over a century, with its familiar cold seeping through the very glass he found himself trapped in. No, this room is warm and inviting. Comforting, almost.

Wherever he is, it’s not in the Dreaming. More alarmingly still is that he can’t sense the Dreaming at all. After that small glimpse of his power that got him out of the Burgess basement, his power has completely abandoned him. A not-unusual feeling, considering he spent the last 106 years without it, but being “free” and powerless is not something that he’s used to.

He has had a lot of time to think about what his lack of power feels like. After a few decades, the best he could liken it to is missing a sense or losing a limb. It’s something functional, something that he should have, but that he doesn’t. Cruelly, he was granted a taste of what he should have for a mere second before fate or karma or the universe itself decided to play yet another cruel joke on him.

Dream slowly takes in his surroundings, his thoughts sluggish and confused. There’s a table next to the couch he’s laid on, a glass of water placed on it. A black screen sits on a stand across the room, and he stares at his reflection in it for a moment before the sound of humming draws his attention away.

A figure – the person humming, he assumes – comes through a doorway, eyes immediately meeting his own. Curiously, she smiles at him when she notices this. Dream’s muscles tense, on guard in the presence of an unknown being so soon after escaping Burgess. Has he escaped one prison, only to land in another?

“You’re awake!” she exclaims, as though she’s happy to see this. “How are you feeling?”

He ignores the human’s question. “This is not the Dreaming.”

“No, this is my apartment.”

“I must go.” Dream attempts to stand up, but finds that he struggles to just barely sit up. “I need to return to my realm.”

“You’re not going anywhere, look at you! You’re too weak to even move.”

She begins to approach him, but the glower he sends her way is enough to stop her in her tracks. It does not matter that she was stating the obvious when she said what she did, referencing his physicality. He will not be told what he can and cannot do, where he is allowed to exist. Not anymore. “Do not come any closer, mortal.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

She puts her hands up in the air, presumably to show him that she means no harm. The move reminds him of what one might do in the presence of a frightened animal. In her mind, he is a frightened animal.

“Have you drank any of that water? I don’t know where you were before I found you, but you look like you haven’t had anything to eat or drink in a while.”

He looks at her warily, but slowly takes the glass that is apparently designated for him. After over a century, he’s more than a little parched. Though he will not show any gratitude before it is earned, he is thankful that at least one of his needs is being met.

The woman waits patiently for him to make the next move, choosing to sit on a large chair near the couch and tap at a rectangle she holds in her hands. Morpheus appreciates not being watched as he greedily drains the water that he’s been offered. Only after he places the now-empty glass back on the table does she look up at him and wait for him to make the first move.

“How did I end up here?” Morpheus asks slowly.

“When I found you, you basically appeared in the middle of the road from out of nowhere. You were passed out, and you only really came around so that you could tell me not to take you to a hospital.” She nervously plays with her hands, which rest in her lap. “I wasn’t about to leave you out there, so I brought you here.”

“Why?”

It comes out harsher than he intended, but considering the only interaction he’s had for so long with other beings involved threats and pleas for immortality, riches, and power, he isn’t expecting much. In fact, Morpheus is preparing himself to listen to her list of demands before acting. Though he’s powerless right now and unable to manipulate her dreams the way that he did the guards at Fawney Rig, he still has millenia of experience to draw on when it comes to escaping a captor.

Contrary to his belief, she looks at him in surprise. “Why?” When he nods, she shrugs. “I guess…because if I were naked and unconscious in the middle of the road on a rainy night, I’d want somebody to help me to relative safety.”

Ah. It’s at this point that Dream realizes that he is, in fact, very much still naked. Though he’s hardly shy about his form, he is aware that most humans have a more puritanical point of view when it comes to the covering of bodies.

“Are you hungry? You look like you’ve been starved, so I’m guessing it’s been a while since you’ve had something to eat.” The woman stands and takes the glass off of the table, musing to herself as she walks to another room. “We’ll probably have to start you on something light so that you can get used to eating again. Maybe toast?”

She doesn’t stop rambling even as she returns and hands Morpheus another glass of water. Though, even if she were to stop long enough to take a breath, Morpheus doesn’t know what he would say. He’s so bewildered at this entire situation that the Prince of Stories himself is at a loss for words.

He’s been left completely powerless in the Waking World, and he would have to fend for himself were it not for this random human whose path he’s been literally dropped in the middle of. A human who, apparently, has no devious intentions towards him, though he finds it hard to believe that all humans aren’t evil and heartless like Roderick Burgess and those complicit in his captivity. He finds it especially hard to believe that the first human he comes across after the Burgess affair would be the exact opposite of those he’s been around for so long.

Destiny himself must surely be breaking his stoic demeanor to laugh at his younger brother’s misfortunes.

“Seriously, when was the last time you ate something?” After a moment of silence, Morpheus realizes she’s asking him a question.

His attention is brought back to the woman, who’s reclaimed her seat in the chair across the room. Lifting his chin, and with what he hopes is a voice befitting the ruler he once was, he says, “One hundred and six years ago.”

She laughs at what she assumes is a joke, until she realizes that the expression on his face doesn’t change. He can see this mortal begin to make the connections in her mind. His mention of his beloved realm, the fact that he called her “mortal” to begin with, the century plus of imprisonment. The Waking World is so quick to dismiss magic and the supernatural as “fairy tales;” if it is beyond their comprehension, then it therefore doesn’t exist.

Yet, even with what they believe to be sound logic, humans just know when they encounter something that they can’t quite explain. Morpheus has always seen it in the way that people back up when he or his siblings or any of the many other preternatural beings that wander this plane walk past. The fear in their eyes as something primal activates within them, something telling them that they are no longer the apex predator.

Even with his lack of powers, he still carries his innate abilities that are woven into his very being. He can hear the woman’s heart beat faster, see her pupils dilate in apprehension. She knows, even if she does not want to admit it.

Quietly, she asks, “Who are you? What are you?”

“I am Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Nightmares.”

A long minute passes as she takes in the information he’s given her. She does not run away from him in fright (which has happened to him a couple of times), nor does she call for someone who will attempt to capture Morpheus and use his powers to their own advantage. Instead, she thinks over what she’s heard and nods.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Nightmares,” she smiles after saying all of his titles, apparently finding it amusing to be in the presence of a king, “I’m Y/n.”

Morpheus is not used to thanking others, especially mortals. However, this woman’s helpfulness seems to warrant that he learns how to do so, so he nods. “I thank you for offering me aid in my time of need, Y/n.”

“I’m going to get you some food.” He hardly opens his mouth to make a rebuttal before she’s pointing at him accusingly. “Don’t argue with me, you need food. Then after that, we’ll get you some clothes. Sound good?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer before she’s back through the door, presumably towards the kitchen. Though Morpheus is still wary of relying on anybody, let alone a human, he doesn’t exactly have a choice. Not when he’s this weak, and certainly not when he’s powerless. No, he has no choice but to place his trust in this strong-willed woman who was crazy enough to rescue a stranger in the rain.

Fates help him.

•••

So, the random, naked stranger you saved out of the middle of the road turns out to rule the collective unconscious of all of humanity. And he now lives on your couch for the time being (with clothes, thankfully; you had procured a shirt and a pair of sweatpants for him when he had finally agreed to let you help him), because he’s apparently lost the powers that connect him to said collective unconscious. No big deal.

You didn’t want to believe Morpheus at first. After all, just the mere idea of some being who is eons old and is, in his words, “the anthropomorphic personification of the concept of dreams” sounds insane. But the same sense that told you that it was safe to take him home tells you that he’s telling the truth. And as you get to know him more, you find that that sense was right.

From the way that he talks to the memories of empires long gone and the recollections of those great figures of history that he’s met and inspired, all of which he shares with you as the days go by and it becomes obvious that he can’t just ignore you and hope that you go away, you find it very easy to believe him. He hasn’t given you a reason to not believe him, and until he does, you’ll continue to trust what he tells you.

It’s at least a week before your new roommate is strong enough to move easily around your apartment, though he still looks half-starved. On his second day of staying at your apartment, you had offered to help him to the shower. After all, if you had been deprived of showering for 106 years, it would be one of the first things that you wanted to do. After thinking it over for a long couple of minutes, Morpheus had begrudgingly agreed. The moment he attempted to stand, he had been unable to support himself and had fallen to his knees. This left him no choice but to take your outstretched hand.

It was very obvious that the proud king felt humiliated at needing to use you to support most of his weight as you maneuvered him through your apartment and to the bathroom. You couldn’t exactly blame him, because you’re sure that it is humiliating, especially when you’re a being that’s normally more powerful than a literal god who has to rely on a mere human for help walking a few feet.

According to Morpheus, if he had his powers, he would have recovered at a much faster rate. Since he doesn’t, though, and he’s effectively human for the time being, he has to recover as a human would. When you come home from running a couple of errands one day to find him sitting up on the couch without needing to lean on anything for support, reading a book from your collection, you’re extremely glad to see that his “human” recovery is progressing nicely.

As time passes, though, you’ve found an odd companionship with him. He’s slowly become less wary of you, and you of he, which has allowed you both to trust the other and actually, dare you say it, form a tenuous friendship.

It seems like he’d been expecting you to basically tiptoe around him and ignore him throughout the duration of his stay with you. Considering you don’t want to wake up to a corpse on your couch because you abandoned him in his time of need, and because you’re a person with a conscience, you’ve done the exact opposite, much to his chagrin and bewilderment.

You’re in the kitchen chopping vegetables for a soup, still working on building Morpheus up towards being able to eat actual meals, when he actually comes to you seeking companionship. He hovers at the edge of the kitchen, watching silently as you go through the familiar motions. Finally, he moves just a couple of steps closer, like a feral cat being enticed by food from a human who’s determined not to look at them. It’s not that far off from reality, you realize.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Though it’s pretty damn obvious what you’re doing, you decide not to be sarcastic with him. “Making soup.”

He nods, leaning against the counter to watch. You feel a bit like you’re on a cooking show with the way that he’s viewing your actions so intently.

“What’s so interesting?” you ask after another moment of unwillingly being on Iron Chef.

“I suppose I’ve never really watched someone cook before.”

The knife pauses in midair, and you turn to look at him. “I’m sorry, what? You’ve been alive for as long as beings have had consciousness, but you’ve never watched someone cook?”

“It’s not often that I have to eat. If I choose to enjoy food, the palace staff typically prepares it for me.”

Oh yeah. It’s easy to forget that Morpheus literally has a castle when he’s standing in your kitchen with bedhead. You would make a joke about him being spoiled, but you suppose that if you were in his position, you also never would have taken the time to actually step inside a kitchen.

“Do you want to learn?”

“How to cook?” You nod. “Are you sure that you want to teach me?”

“I’m literally just going to have you cutting vegetables,” you say with a laugh. “It’s a pretty easy task, even for you, your highness.”

His lips just barely move upwards, and you stare at him, stunned. Did he just smile at you? You didn’t even know that he knew how to do that. You’re about to try and convince yourself that it was just a trick of the light when he says, “Being that I am a king, it’s ‘your majesty,’ not ‘your highness.’”

He did smile! And he made a joke! It’s such a small accomplishment, yet you can’t help but to feel immensely proud of yourself. Hiding your own pleased grin, you step back from the cutting board. “Okay your majesty, come over here so I can teach you to cut vegetables.”

Morpheus definitely isn’t going to be on any cooking shows of his own anytime soon. Actually, you don’t know that you’d even trust him to be in the kitchen by himself anytime soon. He nearly cuts off a finger a couple of times, and he struggles to figure out how to hold whatever he’s cutting so that it can actually be cut. The vegetables he’s been in charge of cutting are uneven, but you can see how proud he is of having completed this task himself. You’re proud of him too; though you can tease him for having never done something like cooking before, it must be hard to learn a new skill after so long.

After this, Morpheus becomes less of an unwilling house guest who’s only putting up with you because he physically can’t leave and more of a friend. It became inevitable that you would have to spend time together, since he’s living on your couch until he can figure out how to get back to the Dreaming, but it’s become actually enjoyable to be in his presence, and vice versa. Though he can still be cold, distant, and haughty, that’s to be expected. Your relationship has changed, and he’s changed.

It takes a couple of weeks, but Morpheus finally starts to feel well enough to re-enter the land of the living. At least, he’s well enough to insist that he can start researching how to regain his powers or go home. Naturally, you join him. Morpheus has long-since given up on asking you why you help him, finally realizing that this is just how you are. If he wanted to be left alone, he should have landed in front of the car of someone who didn’t care about his well-being.

You’re sitting in your local public library with him, one of your now-regular visits as you search through book after book to try and find answers. The both of you are tucked in a corner near a set of windows, enjoying the way that the sun warms your skin. Books from a variety of subjects are scattered all around you; religion and history, mythology and occult. Anything that could potentially give you an idea of how to help an Endless regain the powers that they were created with. Needless to say, there’s not a lot of material written on this topic.

Yet another book with no answers is tossed to the side in frustration, and you begin to just fire off random ideas off the top of your head. Most of them involve seeking the help of any magic contacts that Morpheus has here in the Waking World, which is made difficult by the fact that Morpheus has no way of contacting these beings. Both because of his lack of powers, as well as the fact that he’s not the most open person for one to make a contact with.

(“You? Not friendly? I’m shocked, truly,” you had said with obvious sarcasm coloring your tone. Morpheus simply sighed, turning the page of the book he’s reading harsher than needed.

“Yes, have your laughs at my expense.”)

It’s more than a little discouraging to have absolutely no answers, and you’re starting to get desperate. You tap your fingers against a book you’ve already looked through, hoping that maybe you’ll learn something through osmosis.

“You could…”

You pause, trying to think of a good idea. Your mind is racing as you turn from logical plans that could actually work to the illogical. After all, if you can’t find something that works, you’re at least going to have some fun.

“Throw me off a bridge, maybe? That’d surely get your sister to show up.”

Morpheus only looks at you. “That is not funny, Y/n.”

“I didn’t say it was!”

“I know your sense of humor well enough by now to know that you find this suggestion of yours at least slightly amusing.”

Your lips twitch, because he’s right. The mental image of Morpheus chucking you off a bridge and then eagerly waiting for his sister, literal Death, to appear while you’re screaming and falling to your end does make you want to laugh.

“Well, it’s the only idea I’ve got,” you say with a shrug.

“A terrible idea, truly.”

You roll your eyes jokingly and mutter, “Jerk.”

When you first met Morpheus, he would have taken your words and actions quite seriously and been offended at the perceived insults. Now, he simply rolls his eyes right back at you and smirks. Just one of the many things that have changed between you.

It’s here, on the floor of the library, that things majorly change between you. It’s here that Morpheus kisses you for the first time.

You had taken a solo walk around a few of the shelves under the guise of seeing if you had missed any research, but really you needed to get away from the corner of no answers before you started shredding books out of anger. It helped enough that you were able to return to the research with fresh eyes, and it seems like it’s paying off.

In a book about pagan rituals, you find the first promising information that you’ve seen in the last three library trips. You lay your hand on Morpheus’s shoulder to get his attention. “Wait, listen to this! This book talks about summoning the Fates.”

You point down to the passage.

“‘It is fitting to begin December with an offering to the Three Fates, the weavers of destiny. Put out three small cups of red wine, fruit and bread, along with three knives. This is a way of honoring the powers that will bring more provisions during the coming year. Have ready three candles, red, black and white.’ It’s not December, but I would think this could potentially be done year-round? We give them an offering, they recognize who it’s coming from, and they give us some answers. What do you think?”

When you look up at Morpheus, you find him already looking at you with his beautiful blue eyes. He’s told you that, when he has his powers, his eyes resemble two stars. With the way that they always twinkle when they catch the light just right, you’d argue that they already do. You smile at him, unable to stop the awkward giggle that escapes you as he continues to look at you with something you can’t quite name.

“What?”

His eyes look from your eyes to your lips and back again. Your breath catches in your throat as you realize what he’s about to do, a mere moment before he leans in and presses his lips to yours.

Morpheus is a really good kisser, which is to be expected since he’s been alive for longer than you can fathom. He kisses you softly and sweetly, and the butterflies that flutter in your stomach make you feel a bit like a teenager receiving her first kiss from a beau. You sigh against his lips, bringing a hand to his cheek while he places one of his on the back of your neck.

Then, it actually hits you what you’re doing. Though you don’t want to (like, you really don’t want to), you need to put a stop to this. What if the only reason he’s doing this is because he feels some sense of gratitude towards you for saving him in the first place? You can’t take advantage of him like that, even if he is a very attractive man that is currently kissing you.

“Wait.” You put a hand on his chest to put some space between you, though you still rest your forehead against his. “I don’t want you to kiss me just because I’m letting you crash on my couch.”

“Do you think that I am incapable of making my own decisions?”

“No, of course not! I just–I worry that you feel like you owe me, or something. You don’t.”

You can feel Morpheus smile under your touch. “It is chivalrous of you to refuse me because you believe that you are taking advantage of me. However, I can assure you that you need not worry.”

“Are you sure? What about, like, power dynamics?”

“Y/n, I’m eons old. If anything, I have all of the power here based solely on that.” Oh, yeah. Before you can actually beat yourself up over the stupidity of that statement, he continues. “I can promise you that I have my wits about me, and there is nothing clouding my decision-making. I care for you, and I would very much like to continue kissing you.”

“Okay,” you whisper, unable to believe that this is actually happening.

He laughs lightly. “Now, may I kiss you again?”

You nod. “Yeah, you can definitely kiss me again.”

Morpheus is more than happy to reclaim your lips with his.

It would almost be embarrassing, how quickly you’ve fallen in love with Morpheus, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s fallen just as fast. You’ve lived blissfully in your own little corner of heaven with him for almost four months now. Though getting him home is still important to both of you, it’s also become less of a priority as you’ve fallen more in love with each other.

(He’s also very happy to be sleeping in bed with you instead of on the couch.)

Laying in bed with him one night, you’re transfixed with mapping out every inch of his skin that you can touch with your fingers and watching goosebumps form in their wake. You don’t think you’ll ever get over just how unreal Morpheus seems to be. You understand, of course, that this is due to the fact that he’s an Endless, that he is physically more than a human, and thus a human form can not truly contain all of him. But to be up close and personal to such a phenomenon really drives home just how ethereal he really is. You can easily see why he’s been mistaken as a god so many times throughout history.

“What’s it like?” you whisper to him, unwilling to fully break the tranquility you’re experiencing.

In the dim light, Morpheus looks at you. “What is what like, beloved?”

Your heart jumps at the pet name, so sweet and unexpected. Fighting to keep your wits about you, you ask, “Your kingdom. The Dreaming.”

“I don't even know where to begin when I tell you that it is the most wondrous place you will ever lay eyes upon.” He closes his eyes briefly and sighs wistfully. “It has been over a century since I have been home, and yet I can still see it as if I were merely there yesterday.”

“If it’s hard to talk about, you don’t have to.” You should have realized that asking him about the home he currently has no way of getting back to would make him upset.

“It does not make me sad to talk about it. Rather, I love the Dreaming so much that it overwhelms me sometimes. I am the Dreaming, you see. It is a part of me.”

“So it’s perfect, then.” You don’t mean to say that out loud, but the way that Morpheus looks away bashfully makes you glad that you did.

“That is what some believe, yes. It’s a vast plane, considering all the universe’s dreamers use it when they close their eyes at night. The area around the palace, my direct kingdom, is stunning. Imagine the most beautiful landscape you can. That beauty would pale in comparison to Fiddler’s Green, with its orchards and valleys and rivers and mountains.”

“Really?”

“Mm. My personal favorite is a small clearing ringed by trees that make it seem as though you’re completely blocked off from the rest of existence. There’s a waterfall there, too, and I believe you’d quite enjoy the mermaids.”

All of it sounds wonderful, but that last word has your mind sparking with excitement. “Mermaids? Like…actual mermaids?”

“Of course. Mermaids are creatures of dreams. And nightmares. They are subjects in my realm.”

“That’s amazing.” You pause for a moment. “Would I be able to meet them?”

“You will be able to do anything you wish when I finally get to bring you to my realm. Though, it may be difficult to get you out of the library once you’re there.”

“I should have assumed you’d have a library.”

“Yes, and it is my sanctuary in the Dreaming. The library holds every book that has ever been written, every book that will be written, and even books that have merely been ideas in the minds of authors. It is overseen by Lucienne, without whom I fear the library would fall into permanent disrepair.”

“That sounds wonderful.” You yawn, your eyes too heavy to keep open for much longer. Morpheus notices this and pulls you closer to him. “Tell me more about it. Then maybe I’ll get lucky and be able to catch a glimpse of it while I sleep.”

It’s merely wishful thinking, considering dreams since the night that Roderick Burgess trapped Morpheus in his basement have been nothing more than fragments of scenarios. But his voice is so deep and calming, and you can tell that it makes him happy to talk of his home. Maybe tonight will be the night that the Dreaming decides to welcome its king back home. And even if it doesn’t, you’ll enjoy falling asleep in your lover’s arms.

•••

When Morpheus first woke up after his captivity, alone and confused and without his powers, he thought that he would never be able to feel anything except anger. Anger at his situation, anger towards those that had captured them. And for a few days, anger was all that he felt. But slowly and surely, Y/n had managed to chip away at the anger that had threatened to harden around his heart. Though he was not looking for love, nor did he expect to ever deserve love again after everything he had done to ruin every relationship he had been in, he had found it with her. The anger became replaced with an incandescent happiness, happiness that threatened to swallow Morpheus whole if he allowed it.

And he was certainly tempted.

It’s been approximately four months since the night he was freed, but it certainly hadn’t felt that way. Where he had spent the past 106 years counting day after agonizing day, four months with his beloved seemed to pass in the blink of an eye; an impressive feat for an Endless. Morpheus has, dare he say it, enjoyed getting to be a human, learning more about humanity and all that he had missed. Though he still lamented the loss of something so integral to his very being as his powers, his realm, he was able to recognize the gift that he had been given in spending the last four months with Y/n.

He’s sitting with her on the couch where it seems as though everything began, reading yet another book in the hopes that he might find a way to regain his powers, while she watches a movie on the television about some sort of battle in space (yet another aspect of humanity that she enjoyed teaching him, modern technology and everything along with it). She had meant to show him this movie, claiming that it was one of her favorites and that she believed every being needed to see this. Of course, it took a total of five minutes before he found himself hopelessly lost among the plot and had turned to the book next to him.

She had pouted for a moment, more to try and make him feel bad than from actually being upset. He had simply smirked in her direction, kissing her forehead before laying his arm around her and drawing her closer to him. Yet another thing that he loves about her, among many things, is that he can just exist in companionable silence with her. It’s rare, at least in his experience, when one finds another where this is possible.

Her head falls against his shoulder, and he smiles down at her when he sees she’s fallen asleep. In moments like these, he wishes more than anything that he was connected to the Dreaming once more. What he wouldn’t give to be able slip into her mind and give her the sweetest dreams that she deserves. As he closes his eyes and leans his head against hers, he imagines that he can feel that link to his realm.

After a moment, Morpheus opens his eyes and jarringly realizes that he can feel it. Her dreams, and the Dreaming itself. After 106 long years, the Dreaming returns to him as naturally as if he had simply blinked. His power suddenly twining through his veins again, something which he had taken for granted nearly his entire existence, has tears pricking at his eyes. Oh, how he has missed this.

Morpheus can return home now to reclaim his mantle and rule the Dreaming once more. He should be thrilled about this. He is thrilled about it. Thrilled, until he looks at the sleeping woman leaning against him and realizes that a decision must be made, and soon.

His power has returned, yet it’s still incredibly weak. Weak from not using them so long, and weak due to his not having his tools–his sand, his helm, and his ruby. Thus, he cannot be at his full strength until he recovers them. Will his power disappear yet again if he waits too long? If he wakes her to relay the good news, to take a moment to say goodbye, will the Dreaming escape from him? If his power does leave again, will he ever have another chance such as this?

It’s something that he cannot risk. And yet, he finds himself unsure, even though he knows what he has to do. This woman, this mortal, has managed to ensnare his heart so completely that Morpheus considers potentially forsaking his kingdom just for the chance to properly part with her in the way that he wants to, in the way that she deserves.

Morpheus takes great care not to wake her up when he moves her off of him to lay down on the couch. His fingers trace the slope of her nose, down to her lips and across her cheeks, mapping out her face. If this is to be the last time he sees her, he wants to remember everything about her. Knowing that he will have to depart without telling her where he is going or knowing if they will be together again grieves him. He has not felt pain of this kind since he helplessly watched Jessamy be murdered in front of him.

He lingers when he kisses his beloved’s forehead, not sure when, or if, he will have the pleasure of seeing her again. If she’ll forgive him for what he has to do, how he has to leave her. He whispers this in her ear, a simple, “I love you. Forgive me.”

Then, he closes his eyes and feels that tug that has always connected him to the Dreaming. He envisions the sandy dunes outside of the Gates of Horn and Ivory, the way they melt into the rolling hills of Fiddler’s Green in the distance. He sees his castle and his library, Lucienne and Mervyn, Cain and Abel, the seas of dreams and nightmares. He places himself there, and when he opens his eyes to see Lucienne leaning over him, when he feels the sands of his realm against his back, he knows…

He’s home.

•••

Waking up on your couch that day with no sign of Morpheus anywhere had confirmed your worst fears. Just as suddenly as he had appeared in your life, he was now gone without a trace. And as the hours eventually turned into days without him, you had to come to terms with the fact that he was really, truly gone.

Life without Morpheus, after having had him as yours for a few glorious months, just felt dull. Literally, it felt as though your senses were dulled now. Colors weren’t as bright, songs weren’t as beautiful, things didn’t taste as good, flowers didn’t smell right, and things that were once soft now felt harsh against your skin. He was gone, and you were alone. Things were as they were before that fateful night when he landed in front of your car.

It’s not even that he left you. Rather, it’s how he left you. Never would you have expected him to just completely abandon you, with no note left behind or anything to explain where he had gone. You assumed he had gotten his powers back, which was wonderful, truly. After all, that was the end game, wasn’t it? But for him to just…leave, after everything you had been through and shared with each other, hurt worse than you could have imagined.

You became intimately familiar with the five stages of grief in those first few days after his departure, cycling through each stage until you would come back around to the beginning and do it all over again. It felt pathetic that you were this heartbroken, but how could you not be? Morpheus had held your heart in his very hands, only to discard it as if the gift you gave him, of your love, meant nothing. You couldn’t even mope for as long as you wanted to, because you just reminded yourself of fucking Bella Swan in New Moon, and god forbid you share any similarities with her.

Eventually, you settled on feeling angry. Angry at him, angry at the circumstances, angry at yourself, angry at the world. You’re so mad, but then you feel like you have no right to be mad, because he got what he wanted! He has his powers and his realm back, which was the only reason he was with you for as long as he was. You both knew that, and still…

You really wish that you could hate Morpheus.

He hadn’t even come to visit you in your dreams, which had really sealed the deal for how little you meant to him. If he had gotten his powers back and returned to his realm, surely he would have spoken to you while you were asleep to at least let you know that he was alright? But no, you didn’t even receive that from him. And so you were left without closure, which made getting over him really difficult.

Still, you try your best to get over him, even though you really don’t want to do so. Two months after Morpheus vanished without a trace, you’re finally returning the last library book from your research sessions with him. You felt silly, holding onto it for as long as you did, but it proved that he had been here, and that what you had experienced was real. It was a tangible link to him; it was your only tangible link to him. Unfortunately, the library has only let you renew the book so many times before needing it back, and today is that day.

You stand in front of the book deposit box in the library, holding onto the book and feeling the cover that you’ve mapped out time after time as you attempt to work up the courage to let go. Let go of both the book itself, as well as the hope that Morpheus will come back to you. It’s obvious that it’s not going to happen, and you’re doing nothing but hurting yourself by continuing to hold out hope that it will. You need to live your life again, even if it means letting go of the best thing to ever happen to you.

Somebody clears their voice behind you to draw you out of your inner monologue, and you realize that a line has started to form. Smiling sheepishly at the grandma waiting for her turn, you whisper “sorry” to her before taking a breath and finally dropping the book inside. The flap of the box closes with a finality that signifies that you aren’t getting that book back. Stepping away from the deposit box to allow the line to progress, you take a deep breath as the finality of the situation hits you.

That’s it. All that you’re left with from your four months with Morpheus now is memories. You were hoping that this would feel more freeing, that you’d feel a weight lifted off of your shoulders and go waltzing out of the library like the main character in a coming-of-age movie as the end credits played to signify that you were turning a corner in your life. Instead, you just feel a pit in the bottom of your stomach, a sickness that this is really it. Now, you have to figure out what to do next.

Even as you turn to leave, you can’t help but think of Morpheus. You glance into the corner of the library that you spent many days with him in, the corner of the library where he kissed you, and you just want to cry. You miss him. You really, truly miss him, and it seems like it’s going to take more than returning a library book to get over that.

You wish you had pictures that you could burn, like every other normal relationship.

As you exit the library, you find yourself making eye contact with the fucking crow sitting in the tree across the street that seems to follow you around now. You’re probably just paranoid, because you don’t even really like birds, but it feels like you see that giant black bird everywhere you go. At first, for a hopeful second, you had allowed yourself to believe that maybe it was a sign from Morpheus. But when you had quietly said hello to it and it just did crow things, you realized that you were being stupid. Of course a random bird isn’t going to be a messenger from the lover that had left you.

Because this is already a terrible day, it gets worse when you harshly knock against someone when you’re walking in the parking lot to find your car. You stumble backwards, nearly falling from the force of it. The only reason that you don’t fall is because the person who you’ve just inadvertently assaulted grabs onto your forearm to steady you.

“Shoot, I’m sorry,” you mumble, squinting against the sun.

“I believe I’m the one that should be apologizing.”

That voice. You know that voice. Could it really be, or have you just finally lost your mind and are imagining what you want to happen?

But then your vision clears, and you look at him, and no. It’s real. He stands in front of you two months after you last saw him, looking down at you like you’re the one that left him suddenly.

Your mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. There are so many things that you want to say to him. After all, how many times have you imagined this exact scenario and all of the things that you would say to him in said scenario? Now you’re here, with his hand around your arm, and all you can think to say is, “Morpheus?”

He looks better than he did even at his healthiest when staying with you, which goes to show just how drained he was without his powers. His lips are lifted just slightly, his version of a smile, and he looks good. His coat fits him perfectly, as though it were made just for him (it probably was). He’s dressed in all black, of course, from the coat down to the black boots he wears. You finally meet his eyes, and you gasp when, for a split second, you see the stars that make up his eyes before you blink and they’re back to the blue you’ve known.

“Hello, beloved,” Morpheus says. The deep timbre of his voice sends shivers down your spine, a side effect of not hearing it every day like you used to.

You want to be mad at him. You are mad at him. He left you with no warning and disappeared from your life without a trace. He had left you so suddenly, in fact, that sometimes in the middle of the night when you were out of tears and hadn’t yet cried yourself to sleep, you wondered if you had simply imagined everything about him. Yet, seeing him again, all you want to do is fall into his arms and tell him how much you missed him.

When you lunge forward, it’s not to hug him, which is what you always expected you would do if you were to be reunited with him. Instead, you say, “I can’t believe you fucking left me!” and shove at his chest in anger, which, if the look on his face is anything to go off of, he hadn’t been expecting either.

The shove hardly moves him, but it fills you with satisfaction to be able to physically assert just how upset you are, so you shove and hit his chest again and again. Morpheus, to his credit, just stands there and takes it, hopefully because he knows he deserves it.

Even the patience of an Endless, however, is not endless. Morpheus grabs your wrists with one of his large hands and stops the physical manifestation of your rage in its tracks. You fight him for a moment longer, but eventually the hot tears building in your eyes spill over, and you look up to face him defiantly. If he’s going to make you cry, he’s going to have to see it.

“You couldn’t have left, I don’t know, a note or something? Just to let me know that you were going to disappear without a trace?”

Morpheus looks pained at this, and a sick part of you whispers ‘good, he deserves to feel bad.’ “When I realized that I could feel the Dreaming after you fell asleep that night, I was not sure if that would be my one and only chance to reclaim my throne. I had to make a choice, however difficult it was, to return to my realm through your dreams.”

“But you didn’t think to let me know that you were okay after you made it back?”

“You remember my tools? My helm, my sand, my ruby?” He waits for you to nod. “I had to retrieve those before I could return to you.”

“Don’t forget about the whole ‘dream vortex’ thing after that! Ugh, that was a mess.” You look up when another voice chimes in, only to find yourself looking at the crow that you had been mentally cursing minutes ago.

“Did–did that crow just talk?”

“Raven, and yes.” Said raven flutters down to land on Morpheus’s shoulder, who glances at his corvid companion like he’s a nuisance.

“This is Matthew, my emissary,” Morpheus introduces.

“Uh, it’s nice to meet you, Matthew.” You feel a bit stupid saying hello to a raven, but it’d be rude not to. “I’m Y/n.”

“I know!” Matthew says cheerfully.

“You may return to the Dreaming, Matthew. I no longer require your assistance.” You stifle a laugh at how obviously Morpheus wants his raven, who is apparently enjoying being a third wheel, to hit the road.

“Right, right, you don’t have to say another word. I’m off!” Matthew flies from Morpheus’s shoulder and presumably back to the Dreaming, though you’re not quite sure how the logistics of traveling between dimensions work.

Left alone now, Morpheus stares at you, and you he, for a long moment. He seems to be waiting for you to make the first move, to see if you’re going to react with anger again. Finally, you rip your hands from his grasp and throw your arms around him. “Fuck, I missed you.”

Though slowly, Morpheus returns your hug, pulling you to him and pressing a kiss to your forehead before resting his chin on your head. “I missed you as well. I have ached for you and your presence since the moment I had to leave. Believe me, if I could have taken you with me, I would have.”

You close your eyes, savoring the feeling of actually having Morpheus here and being in his arms. It’s all you’ve dreamed of, for lack of a better term, since he left, and it feels just as good as you imagined it would. You could stay like this forever, and you almost do…until a car honks at you and you remember that you’re standing in the middle of the parking lot.

Sheepishly, you wave at the car and mouth “sorry!” as you grab Morpheus’s hand and pull him towards the actual parked cars. The driver that you’ve now royally pissed off glares at you the entire time that they slowly drive past you, making you giggle nervously. When you look over and see the bewildered look on Morpheus’s face (you would love to know how he would have reacted had you been flipped off), your laughter increases.

Your laughter is cut off when Morpheus leans down and kisses you. Whether that be because he’s trying to get you to shut up or because he actually wanted to kiss you, you’re not sure. Either way, you enjoy finally getting to kiss Morpheus once more.

When you pull away, you look him in his piercing eyes and say, “I’m still mad at you, y’know.”

“You have the right to be so. However, if you are amenable to spending more time with me as I attempt to win back your affections, I would like to show you my kingdom.”

“You wanna take me to the Dreaming?” Morpheus nods, smirking at the way you try to act nonchalant and not excited. “...Can I meet the mermaids?”

This makes him chuckle, a rarity for him. “Yes, you can meet the mermaids.”

The excitement at this prospect wins out, and you grin. “Okay then. Woo me, your majesty.”

•••

Morpheus had feared the worst when he had decided that the Dreaming was rebuilt well enough to receive its (hopefully) future Queen. He worried that Y/n would have taken another lover, or that she would not love him at all anymore. A frequent criticism by his siblings is that he gives too much of himself to romantic relationships, and that very well may be true. But Morpheus knew for certain that, were Y/n to turn him down when he finally reappeared in her life (and he would not even blame her for doing so; not with the way that he left and remained away for so long), it would crush him in a way that no other rejection ever had.

He thinks it would hurt even worse than the Nada affair.

When he finally coaxed his beloved to smile in response to something that he said–a sight which he will never take for granted again–those fears were assuaged. When she agreed to accompany him to the Dreaming, Morpheus allowed himself to hope.

Hope. A word so simple, yet a word that carried so much within it that it could defeat Lucifer themself.

Hope blossoms within Morpheus as he holds out his arm for Y/n to grasp onto so that they can travel safely to the Dreaming, and it turns into a flame when she instead grabs onto the lapels of his jacket and allows him to wrap his arm around her waist.

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