The Bizarre Breeding Habits of Anthropomorphic Personifications: Chapter 9
It's a tale as old as time.
Two idiots fall in love. Two idiots fall out of love.
Neither one of them is expecting a baby to come along and derail their unhappily ever after.
Chapter One here, AO3 here, Masterlist here
When first he had discovered that May carried his child, after the initial shock had faded into something manageable, Morpheus had briefly (very briefly) entertained the idea that perhaps her pregnancy had been intentional. After all, such things were rare for both the Endless and makers, often requiring resolve from one or the other to spark a life into existence.
The timing of the development had been entirely suspicious as well. All their many decades together and they had, until then, avoided the outcome of an unexpected pregnancy. He had suspected, as he grappled with the news, that May might have done something to allow this catastrophe, something to possibly even encourage the outlandishly low probability of his seed taking root.
His consideration of these silent accusations had been far from his proudest moment in the course of their rather long relationship. He can admit that they had been far from his most generous either. The mere thought of what he had assumed of her now makes shame roil viciously in his stomach.
If he had applied a little more sense to his reasoning at the time, he might have understood more clearly how ridiculous he was being then. To what end might she have orchestrated such a thing? What would she gain by having his child? As more and more of the dire circumstances surrounding her life outside the peace of the Dreaming are revealed to him, he's very quickly coming to the realization that by being pregnant, she is instead losing a great deal. Not gaining. No. Not anything so kind as that.
Prior to learning of her part in crafting spells for the grimoire, Morpheus would not have even imagined her capable of something so deceptive. Simply put, he had thought differently of her then. In his eyes, she had never been the type to engage in manipulation nor the type to approach him with anything other than her usual straightforward bluntness. But now the knowledge of her betrayal tends to color his perception of her, leaving him to regard her in suspicion as he wonders what other secrets she might be keeping from him.
And in hearing her thoughts, he had learned many of them, though none of her hidden truths had been what he might have guessed them to be. May is stricken with fear, overwhelmed and near hopeless with the way that it is consuming her. She's terrified at the prospect of having a baby given the current chaos of her life, terrified of bringing a child into a world where it will know wariness and struggle and running from those that would harm it, terrified of…
Terrified of him.
The understanding that she views him as dangerous, as a threat, as nothing more than yet another enemy she must make herself safe from, stuns him. But then he wonders how he can blame her for such a belief given that while she carries his child, while she struggles under the weight of it, he offers her nothing more in return for this sacrifice than to heap the burden of his animosity atop her. He has driven her further and further into the throes of her anxiety when he thinks that he should instead be… assisting her in some way. That he has not been doing so is a failure on his part, a sorry dereliction that he knows he must address.
As he stands in the kitchen of the siblings' shared house, however, he attempts to rein in his wayward musings, focusing instead on the task at hand.
That task being Viego's possible rescue.
Granted, his concern at this moment is not for the maker. He had wanted to return immediately to the physician's office and wreak vengeance upon that loathsome creature, Viktor, who had so arrogantly dared to attack May. Morpheus would have gladly ended him during their confrontation, would have relished tearing him apart atom by atom, but May's sudden disappearance had forced him to follow her. In all honesty, he had assuredly panicked, more so when that strange hum had started up along the edges of his awareness, the one that he has come to associate with May drowning in the waters of the dreamscapes.
He remains unsure as to how she had survived the shift and doubly unsure as to how she had broken through the surface of his sea, an aspect of his own being that she should not have been able to emerge from.
Still, he cannot think of this now. Viego could be in danger. Not that Morpheus would typically care overly much whether or not the maker was in peril, but he had promised May to see to this, had promised even to save Viego if the situation called for it.
And so Morpheus is intent on doing just that.
The residence is empty, and as he glances around, he takes note of the usual orderliness of the place. Every chair, curtain, picture, and mundane knick knack is where it should be. As such, it certainly does not appear as if a struggle occurred here. He stretches his senses out, feeling past Viego's many magical shields and wards until he at last detects the signature of his power. Once that is found, it is less than nothing for Morpheus to locate him. Without wasting a moment, he shifts to an abandoned building on the outskirts of this town, and what he sees when he arrives utterly shocks him.
There are a group of makers here, their clothes little more than tattered rags, their eyes shining with a terror that speaks of being hunted and hurt. Several of them are injured in various ways, from burns to bruises to weeping wounds that are scattered along the visible parts of their bodies. Viego is crouched before a small girl, and as Morpheus watches, he stretches one hand out towards her face as he wipes at the tears streaming down along her cheek with the pad of his thumb.
"You're safe now, kid," the maker murmurs, his tone soothing in a way that Morpheus has never heard from him. It's odd to hear, this gentle attentiveness from one he thinks of as a monster.
"Mithrate," the child sobs before she shoves a fist against her mouth, presumably in an effort to silence herself. Mithrate is the maker word for mother, Morpheus knows, as May had taught it to him many years ago when they'd come across a whole family of her kind in the Waking. Has this child lost her mother? Has her parents died or been left behind? He cannot say. Normally, he has no difficulty feeling out through an individual's mind and parsing out at least some details of their life, but makers are different. Their mindscapes are vast, oftentimes unruly spaces where even the freshest, most traumatic events of their existence can be nearly impossible to find.
"I know, sweetling. I know." Viego's voice is low and smooth, and as the girl trembles with her sadness, he gathers her up into his arms before shushing her softly. His hand cups the back of her head as she buries her face into his shoulder, the fabric of the shirt there muffling her pitiful cries.
The sorrowful moment is broken when Viego glances up and seems to notice at last that Morpheus is standing mere feet from him. In an instant, his previously sympathetic expression hardens into the impassiveness that Morpheus has come to expect from him. It doesn't stop the maker from carefully pulling away from the girl, from offering her a comforting smile as he takes her hand and walks her to another woman in the small group. Leaning closer to her, he relays something in hushed tones, and Morpheus thinks he hears the phrase watch over her, but he cannot be certain.
It occurs to Morpheus then that Viego has helped these individuals escape from somewhere horrid, and in any other situation he might find such a thing commendable. In this one, however, he finds himself seething with rage. Is this how they found May? Had Viego's well-intentioned but careless actions here been responsible for the attack?
Viego's manner when he stalks to where Morpheus waits is decidedly less pleasant than it had just been with the mourning child. He crosses his arms over his chest, looking weary and worn even as he levels an irritated glare at Morpheus.
"What are you doing here, Dream?"
Morpheus' hands clench at his side in an effort to avoid visiting violence on the maker. Even the possibility that he might have been responsible for the risk May was put in is rage inducing to him. "Your sister," he begins roughly, "is in the Dreaming."
Viego's eyes narrow, all of him visibly tensing as if he's preparing for a fight before he walks past Morpheus.
"Not here," he relays brusquely as he gestures with two of his fingers that Morpheus should follow him, and Morpheus does as he's requested. From the fidgety state of the makers assembled here, he imagines it is not too large a leap to assume that Viego does not wish to expose them to their soon-to-be argument.
After they've both made their way to a secluded spot between a stack of crates and a single wall of this building, Viego turns to him, worry writ plainly on his features. "What do you mean by that? What's happened? Is she okay?"
Morpheus cannot help his derisive scoff. "That is singularly amusing coming from you, given that your actions could very well have been what put her in danger this day."
Viego's jaw tightens. "My actions? My actions? The only reason she's even in harm's way at all right now is because you knocked her up and threw her out of your realm. And what the hell do you mean about her being in danger today? What happened?"
Morpheus feels that shame from earlier grow considerably, becoming more vitriolic inside of himself. Viego is… not entirely wrong. Had he not cast May from him, she would still be content to stay in the safety of the Dreaming throughout her pregnancy. But she had betrayed him, and so in this matter he knows that she is as least as responsible for their separation as he is. "Who is Viktor?"
The maker goes rigid, his shoulders bunching up as if he is readying for a physical blow. "Where did you hear that name?" he asks, his voice deepening to nothing more an emotional rasp, and it occurs to Morpheus that he sounds… frightened almost. "You need to tell me what the fuck has happened right this goddamned minute."
"Viktor is the name given to me by her would-be abductor only an hour or so ago. She is physically unharmed, but I cannot help the feeling that this utterly shortsighted undertaking of yours is what led them to her."
"It's not shortsighted, Dream. For fuck's sake, they're innocent people."
The anger that overwhelms Morpheus at that statement is nearly staggering, rising up within him so quickly that he worries he might retch with the suddenness of it. In a flash, he grabs hold of Viego's shirt, shoving him back into the wall of the warehouse behind him with so much force that cracks appear there.
"And your sister? Our child?" he snarls. "Are they not innocent in all of this? And yet you might have condemned them to discovery by-"
Viego grasps at Morpheus' hands on him, no doubt trying to free himself from the ironclad restraint he's in. "Yeah. Let fuckin' go of me. You can stow that shit right now. I've been doing this for thousands of years, and they've never tracked us this way. Never."
"Tell me of Viktor, Viego. Who is he? What does he want with your sister?" At Viego's infuriatingly stubborn silence, Morpheus tightens his grip. "Speak. Or I will be forced to put my questions to her."
It's an empty threat, one that he would never follow through with due to the other devastatingly horrible thing he had learned from May's thoughts earlier.
Namely that someone had cursed her by way of a memory spell.
He's known for some time that something was affecting her remembrance of certain events, the curious dungeon nightmare having been an all too alarming testament to that, though he had not understood then why she should dream of her past and not remember anything of it in her waking hours. Today when that light had flared in her thoughts as she tried to recall who Viktor was, when her own mind had gone blank afterwards, he had understood the cause of her very specific forgetfulness in a revelatory second. And as he had, he had felt sickened to his core.
Memory spells are intricate, malevolent things. They get inside of a victim and twine about their mind like some poisonous, invasive weed. And like a deadly weed, they have the ability to choke out anything near them, to render their host's thoughts into naught but a mess of nothingness. Sometimes even permanently, leading to an eternity of their sufferers being left as little more than a hollowed out shell.
Which is why that while Morpheus indeed requires answers as to what has happened to her, he would not press her for them. He will not risk her. He cannot risk her. And he is painfully aware that however he might wish to deny it, that sentiment is not due to the child she now carries.
"She… doesn't know about… about him."
"By which you mean she does not remember him," Morpheus corrects in a growl. He'll have no half-answers from the maker concerning something as important as this.
Viego stops struggling, glancing away with so much heartbroken sorrow on his face that Morpheus finds his own hold of him slackening slightly. Viego does not discount his accusation, does not deny that her memories are compromised, and the implications of this render Morpheus nearly stricken. It's true. It's.... true. "Viego… What has happened to her memory?"
Mulishly, Viego's jaw clenches anew, and as he turns his attention back to Morpheus, his eyes are burning with fury. "It's none of your business. You gave up any right to that when you fucking banished her."
Morpheus' anger swells to match the maker's. "Need I remind you that she carries my child?" he hisses. "And you dare to say that I have no right to know who might bring harm to her? I will ask you only one last time, Viego. Who. Is. Viktor?"
"He's… He's the being who… assumed kingship of the Bloodless Lands," Viego supplies at last, "after… after our father was killed."
Morpheus huffs out a bitter, caustic laugh at this dissembling. Everyone in the supernatural community knows that it was Viego himself who ended Hadrius King, his own sire. "Am I to gather that you were unable to take the throne due to your part in murdering him?"
The guilt in Viego's expression is rather expected, but Morpheus still can't help the feeling that something seems... off about it.
"I was kicked out of the realm, okay? May… was left behind with… with him."
Morpheus feels as if the core of him, as if his very power itself, is twisting fearfully in response to this information. "For what purpose does he seek her now? Does he wish for her to fight in his-"
"No," Viego cuts in quickly. "It's… It's not that."
"Then explain all of this that I might better understand," he orders, the material clenched in his fist nearly disintegrating from both his power and his strength. "Elaborate, Viego."
The maker looks away again as if he cannot bear to meet Morpheus' eyes, as if he is ashamed, and an insidious wave of alarm skitters over the edges of Morpheus' awareness. What could be so horrendous that Viego is obviously troubled to even speak it aloud?
"I only know what… what I've heard as rumors. He… The… I've been told that he was trying to force a bond with her, to marry her so that his rule would be seen as more… legitimate."
Morpheus recoils, finally releasing Viego as he takes a step back from him. That vile creature seeks to… wed her? To force her into such a union? And all to solidify a claim to a throne? "Forced bonds… are impossible," he murmurs, the words tumbling from his mouth before he even has a chance to think on them.
Viego straightens. "That didn't stop the crazy fucker from trying anyway."
Morpheus thinks he might retch, his imagination supplying him a disgusting batch of possibilities for how one might go about trying to accomplish something so heinous as forcing the twining of power, awareness, and very essences of two entities when one is unwilling. He knows, as appalling of a realization as it is, that such a thing would amount to little better than enslavement.
"And what did these attempts… entail?" he asks in a harsh voice that he scarcely recognizes for all the panic within it, unsure as to whether or not he truly wants to hear what Viego might soon tell him.
"That is actually none of your business. You found out what you needed to know. I gave you the who, why, and when. I abso-fucking-lutely refuse to go into the how with you."
It does not take a great leap of logic to understand in that moment that Viego likely knows exactly what was done to her, exactly what abuse was visited on her for the simple crime of who she was, and that he will share none of these details with Morpheus. "Her memory? Did he… Did he take that from her?"
"All I can tell you is that she was… really messed up afterwards, Dream."
That is a wholly unsurprising admission to Morpheus. That she had been messed up afterwards is not a fact he has any difficulty believing. She had apparently been through something horrific, through an ordeal that altered the very workings of her mind, and so Morpheus can very easily imagine that she had indeed been overwrought then. How has he never heard of this, never caught so much as a whisper of this catastrophe. Could she have even told him of it? Did she have any remembrance of these events at all? Would she have breathed a word of it to him were she able? Not for the first time that day, he feels as if he's failed her in some vague way that he doesn't understand, as if he should have done more for her despite that he hasn't the first clue of how to approach this.
"How do we keep her safe?" Morpheus demands. This must be his concern now. His own maudlin musings aside, May is in very real peril, the kind that could see her taken or killed, and Morpheus knows that no matter what has happened in their past, he can never allow such a thing to come about in their present.
"The same way I've always kept her safe. We'll go to ground." Viego glances towards the direction where the survivors are. "I'll get these guys to the next checkpoint and start setting up new identities for us. Our old ones are obviously compromised."
"Perhaps while you manage this, it might be prudent for her to stay with me in the Dreaming."
Viego seems to study him then, his brow furrowing as he blatantly scrutinizes Morpheus. "She's… really not going to like that."
"Have you a better suggestion?"
A look of pure defeat crosses the maker's face before he sighs. "No. I don't."
"It would be safer for her to remain there permanently. If you could persuade her to make her home in my-"
Viego holds up a hand, palm out as if to urge him to stop. "You and I both know she's not going to do that, Dream. Not anymore."
"No.... I suppose she will not." Resignation churns inside Morpheus' mind at that bleak acceptance. He knows all too well that May distrusts him, that she might always distrust him, but he knows not how to change her views regarding this belief of hers.
"Not unless the two of you patch things up," is Viego's hesitant response, and Morpheus fixes him with a wary stare despite how shocking the words are.
"Viego-"
"Just listen. Things are bad between you guys, but they're not so far gone that they can't be fixed."
As much as Morpheus might dislike Viego (loathe if he's being less generous) the sound of hope in the maker's voice is still bittersweet. That he thinks there is anything remaining to fix in the aftermath of the blazing inferno that destroyed May and Morpheus' relationship is strangely and foolishly optimistic of him. After all, it matters not that Morpheus loves her still. She has betrayed him, deceived him, and in doing so set fire to what they had. Everything between them has burned away to ashes so that there is nothing left of their relationship to save. Resolutely, Morpheus tells him, "Your sister and I are finished."
Viego snorts out a laugh as if what Morpheus has spoken is an absurdly humorous lie. "Says the entity that slips into her room every night to watch her sleep."
Which… Yes, he is not incorrect regarding that. Morpheus does regularly observe her as she rests, but he has a valid reasoning for doing such a thing. "She is suffering from nightmares, and I merely wish to-"
"Yeah. I don't buy that for a second. And I don't think you do either. You loved her. You loved her more fiercely than I think anyone ever has."
"An irrelevant conclusion given that I love her no longer." The second it is out of his mouth, Morpheus knows it to be false. In truth, he worries at times that he will never free himself of the love he has for her, that he is cursed to always feel this crushing wave of sentiment for a woman that had hurt him so gravely.
"Really? That's… You know what? Just never mind. Tell yourself whatever you want."
He does not address that, feeling incapable of even putting to words the complicated knot of emotions he has concerning May and how fervently he still cares for her. "After your task here is complete, you might come to the Dreaming. She will likely take the news of her necessary stay there more readily were it to come from you."
"Of course."
Morpheus feels himself falter. The concession he is soon to give is a difficult thing to come to terms with, one that he is regardless driven to make. He tells himself that he does not do this out of love but more out of practicality. May is quite obviously ill, worn down both emotionally and physically from the toll of the recent upsets in her life. All of which, he's painfully aware, stem from her pregnancy, a condition she neither sought out nor seems to want much to do with now. He owes her more help than the nothing he has currently supplied to her, and while this gesture will not mend things between them, it might reduce some of the strain of what she's grappling with.
"If you should like to visit while she resides with… in my realm, then I would not be opposed to you doing so. It would… likely lessen her fears to maintain contact with you, to know that you are hale and whole. I am aware that she worries when the two of you are separated."
"And you're… cool with that?" Viego questions in audible disbelief. It is a fair reaction, Morpheus thinks, since he has never been exactly welcoming where Viego's occasional appearances in the realm were concerned.
"I would not have offered otherwise. I… do not wish for her to be anxious during her time in the Dreaming."
Though the truth is slightly more complex than that. In all honesty, he does not wish for her to be anxious in any place she might be, but given that Viego is staring at him as if to say see, you love her still, Morpheus is unwilling to confess this to him. Thankfully, the maker does not draw attention anew to the matter of Morpheus' feelings for May or how much this reluctant invitation smacks of the selflessness inherent in love.
"Then… yeah. I'll, uh… I'll try and stop by every day if that's okay."
The sound of the little girl crying ratchets up again, drifting across the warehouse to reach them both where they're at, and Morpheus allows Viego a small nod as he prepares to leave. "Very well. I will return to your sister and see you shortly."
On the pier in the Dreaming Sea, May sits and stares out at the water. There's a faint blue-green glow coming from the sky here, the galaxies and stars above shining where they spin slowly, lazily amidst the darkness above her. Thick plumes of fog roll in from the sea all around, and May watches the way that the wisps of it rise and roll and undulate against the surface as she tries to muddle through her own wildly unsettled thoughts.
She had known upon first discovering her pregnancy that she had completely and irrevocably fucked up, but the events of the day have only driven that point home to her with all the force of a goddamned sledgehammer being wielded by the Hulk. Comfortable as she tends to be with owning up to her mistakes (and she has had lots of practice with those in her very long life), the realization that the baby growing inside of her could actually be one is a bitter pill to swallow. What kind of mother can she even be given that she can glance down at where her child is growing and think: Oops, probably shouldn't have done that?
The truth is that she's always wanted kids, always wanted little ones of her own to raise with all the love she never got as a youth herself, but faced with the possibility of actually having a baby in the near future, she can't help but to wonder if maybe that was… selfish of her. It doesn't feel like a particularly good or even acceptable reason to bring a kid into this world, especially given how royally fucked everything in her life is at the moment.
The air gets heavy behind her, the atoms there swelling with the telltale energy of a shift, and May turns back just as Morpheus materializes there.
"Is Viego-"
"He is well," Morpheus cuts in as he walks to where she is and sits gracefully beside her, mere inches of space between them. To be completely fair, though, the pier is on the smallish side in terms of width, so she guesses she can understand the lack of distance now. He draws his knees up and rests his wrists on them, staring out at the sea just like she'd been doing only minutes before. "He will arrive soon to speak with you concerning your temporary living arrangements."
Temporary living arrangements. May's stomach twists so violently that she has to swallow down bile. Though she might occasionally do idiotic things, she is, in fact, not an idiot. And she knows all too well what Viego's probably going to tell her. "What are you talking about," she asks anyway.
Morpheus hesitates, as if he doesn't want to say whatever he's about to, and that alarm she's feeling kicks up to eleven billion on a scale of one to ten. His voice softens fractionally as he answers, "You will need to remain in this realm for a time while your brother establishes a new residence for you both."
Tears gather in her eyes as she glances away, unwilling for him to see how truly terrified by that prospect she is. Staying here? In this place? It's not that May hates the Dreaming. Not at all. It's actually quite the opposite. Once, she had loved it here, had known peace and happiness and safety for the first time in her life within the walls surrounding this realm. But that's really the problem with being thrust back into it, isn't it? Her emotions already feel like they're being held together with the thinnest thread imaginable, and she's afraid that having this memory of what almost was, this stupid dream of hers, taken away again might just tear through that thread like the fragile, delicate thing it is.
"I… see," she murmurs just to fill the sudden awkward silence. She tries to keep her voice even, tries to force herself calm though the slight wobble she can hear in her voice is probably a dead giveaway to him of how she actually feels about this.
"I am sorry if this is… disagreeable to you." He sounds so genuine, so soothing, that her tears start to well up faster and then fall down her face. Hastily, she wipes at them.
"Yeah, well it's not your fault that there are makers after me," May offers with a sniff. She keeps her gaze focused on the distance in an effort to avoid him, embarrassed that he might catch sight of her crying. It's not so bad, right? It's just for a little while, and shacking up with her ex isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to her. Not that she can honestly remember what that worst thing is, but she's sure there was something. It's more like she just knows she's been through a very terrible ordeal at some point in her existence.
"Yes… Viktor is assuredly a threat."
Confused, May looks over at him. "Who?"
Morpheus goes still, guilty like a kid that's been caught with a can of spray paint in their hands next to their parents' spray painted car. "I… No one. It is nothing you need to concern yourself with."
Viktor. Viktor, he had said. She turns the name over and over in her mind. It seems so… familiar for some reason, like she ought to know instantly who that is.
A memory flashes in her head, something painful and violent that rips through her thoughts with all the lethal ferocity of a serrated blade coming down hard onto her.
(Blood coating her thighs. The bite of too-tight shackles about her wrist. Her screams muffled in the suffocating fabric of the gag shoved into her mouth. A man's voice taunting her as she cries. The thought that she would gladly accept death over what was being done to her in that moment.)
"Vik… Viktor," she breathes out, a feeling of desolation taking root in her stomach and wrenching it savagely.
A white light creeps into her thoughts, slow and steady until it flares brightly, washing away everything in its brilliant shine. She hears Morpheus inhale sharply, and when she glances at him, he seems… wrecked. There's a suspicious shine to his soft blue eyes, and he's regarding her like he wants nothing more than to reach out and embrace her.
What the hell had they been discussing that's got him this worked up? They'd been talking about… about…. It's hard to concentrate for some reason, and it takes her several long minutes of intense focusing before she eventually remembers that they'd been on the subject of her stay here.
May frowns, thinking that he's probably just as nervous about the idea of all this as she is, that for all his repeated invitations to come and live here, he might actually be just as put off by the idea of sharing a roof with an ex as she is. His hand twitches, and May has the strangest feeling that he wants to touch her, that he wants to take her into his arms and comfort her even. It must be instinct for him, something he's actively fighting against. It had been his habit to do that in the past, to gather her up and console her when she got too overwhelmed, and she is definitely overwhelmed right now.
Despite that the thought of an embrace is all too tempting, May's glad that he doesn't try to offer her that kind of solace then.
After all, she doesn't really know how she'd handle that. Hell, she doesn't even know if she could handle that in this moment. All of her feels brittle, like she's a vase made of the shoddiest, most breakable glass, sitting on the edge of a counter as the ground shakes from a fucking massive earthquake. One more tremor, and she's going to topple over, probably just to shatter into a million pieces when she hits the floor.
"Right. I…" She scrambles for the words in her mind, for the correct thing to say that might somehow make this whole shitty situation less horrible. "Thank you for opening your home to me."
He tenses visibly. "It is not only… my home, May. We will share a child, and as such you will always have a place here."
It's only with a gargantuan effort that she doesn't scoff at him for this. He'd offered her this realm once before. When he'd proposed, he'd gotten down on one knee in front of her and promised he would love her for eternity, that he would make her his queen and that this… this splendid world would be her kingdom as well as his. That was before he'd changed his mind and thrown her out of it like trash, of course, before he'd judged her past actions and found her wanting.
"Don't say that. Don't ever say anything like that again," she snaps, her heart beating faster and faster in a furious staccato as anger rises within her. How dare he. How dare him place that possibility in front of her like it's just the most plausible thing in any world. Doesn't he understand how pathetically hopeful it makes her? Does he really not get that it reminds her of things she's trying desperately to never ever think of? She had his love, and they were content. Her future had been beautiful, and now they're apart despite the fact that she can't even remember why that is most days.
"It is merely the truth of the matter."
"No. The truth of the matter is that this isn't my home. I don't belong here. I don't belong anywhere, Morpheus."
And that, she thinks, is much closer to honesty than whatever bullshit he'd just been trying to sell her. He'd cast her out, had flung her away from his life and this realm like she was just a speck of filthy mud on the bottom of his boots, and there's no coming back from that. For either of them.
"I understand that-"
"You don't understand anything," May interrupts, unwilling to listen to his serene calm while he lies to her about how things are now. Her body trembles with the blazing inferno of everything going on in her head. She's fucking heartbroken, heartbroken and afraid. There are literally people trying to kill her, and he's dangling the prospect of being able to leave that behind forever over her like it's the universe's juiciest steak and she's just a starved dog.
"You are frightened," he goes on, studying her as if he's trying to figure her out, as if the idea that she's scared shitless is surprising to him or something.
May feels the air rush out of her lungs when she recoils slightly. "Of course I'm frightened, Morpheus. I'm powerless right now and… and I'm at your mercy. You. The same entity that cast me out like I was nothing and very clearly hates me. Add that into the fact that there are insane makers trying to fucking enslave me, and I'm…. It's not exactly an ideal spot to be in, okay?"
A normal man might leave it, might wander off and give her a minute to process the enormity of how terrifying a turn everything in her life has taken, but not Morpheus. Oh, no. The universe, in its infinite wisdom and all around assholishness, can't even allow her to have that.
"I have told you before as I will reiterate anew: I do not hate you. It would perhaps be for the best if you disabuse yourself of that notion immediately." There's an edge of frustration to his tone, like she's being annoying by thinking his actions couldn't spell out hatred any more plainly than they do.
"Yeah, sure."
"As you well know, I do not often bother with lies."
May scoffs, and it's a bitter, hollow sound. "You're saying that to me? Me? When you've lied to me more times than I can count?"
"Of what do you speak?" His voice is low enough that it's practically little more than a growl.
"You don't do to someone that you love what you did to me. So, I know now every time you said that, every time you confessed your love for me, you were really just bullshitting."
He rears back as if she's smacked him. "You… cannot truly believe this."
"I don't just believe it, Morpheus. I know it."
Magic starts to filter in on the pier behind them, the molecules growing denser and denser as it does. Morpheus, however, does not turn his attention towards the disturbance, instead keeping his intent gaze on her, his eyes burning with some emotion that she can't name. It almost looks like regret or longing or sorrow or maybe just a mishmash of all those things together.
And May just resolutely ignores it, getting to her feet as the blanket tumbles from her shoulders to land in a heap on the wood planks beneath her. Not far from her stands Viego, and she doesn't waste a second in going to him, in wrapping her arms around his neck so that she can cling. Viego is safe. Viego has always been safe, and the relief she has at knowing he's okay is the best thing ever amidst all the contradictory feelings currently threatening to overtake her.
He gathers her up in one of his big bear hugs, dropping a kiss in the tangled mess of her hair. "I'm fine, sis. Dream told me what happened, though. Are you all right?"
No, she's not all right. Why does everyone seem to think she should be? Why the hell do they all keep asking her that? May disentangles from him. "Of course I am," she lies anyway.
His answering grin is a wide one for all that she can see how fake it is, like he's putting on a mask of playfulness for her benefit. "Fibber," is his teasing accusation.
It surprises a small laugh out of her, and she's so caught up in her happiness at the small win of Viego not being dead, in seeing that he's well, that she almost doesn't notice as Morpheus stalks past the two of them.
"Viego," he starts, his voice rough, "I will see you on the morrow," he throws out over his shoulder, the energy of a shift amassing around him.
May frowns at Morpheus in complete confusion. "Wait… What?"
"I have invited your brother to visit you here. I thought this compromise might lessen your anxiety concerning this situation."
He had…. He had invited Viego? He hadn't even liked to do that when they were happy and in love. And now he's offering it just because... because she's stressed? It doesn't make any sense. "I… Do you mean that?"
Finally, he turns back, his eyes meeting hers, softening somehow in a gentleness that makes her breath catch. She's taken aback by how haunted his expression seems, by how much sorrow is coming off of him in great shuddering waves of sheer melancholy.
"I would not have spoken it had I not meant it, May."
And then he's gone, leaving her behind to stare at where he had just been, a sharp pain radiating out through her heart as if something between them has been sundered anew. She tells herself that it's not her fault, though, and that it really doesn't matter. After all, things are already broken between them beyond repair. What's one more crack in the demolished foundation that their relationship had been built on? Maybe he had loved her in the past, but right now… Right now they are very much in the present, and she has way bigger things to worry about than upsetting him.
For some reason, however, none of her attempts to convince herself otherwise actually do much about that dull, throbbing ache in her chest, the one that reminds her curiously enough of heartbreak.
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