summary: It’s easy to forget that Morpehus isn’t really human, but a quiet moment reminds her that this is, indeed, the case. She and Hob can’t really say they mind.
contents: Morpheus x reader x Hob Gadling, she/her reader, third person POV, no use of Y/N, fluff, human shaped but not human Morpheus, 0.6k
notes: written for the prompt “heartbeat” for my promptober 2022 self challenge
She finds it comforting, the sound of a lover’s heartbeat under her ear, the gentle unceasing rhythm - I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.
Hob is used to it by now, but Morpheus is still new enough to their shared bed not to realize how deeply seriously she takes the moments after, tangling her limbs with the two of theirs and making it terribly inconvenient to leave the bed until she deigns to let go.
Her head rests on Morpheus’s chest, one arm thrown over him to reach Hob. She’s gently running her fingers through Hob’s hair when she pauses, sitting up abruptly and looking down at the two of them.
“You haven’t got one,” she says, tone caught somewhere between puzzled and concerned, before leaning back down to place her head against his chest once more. “It’s so quiet.”
“He hasn’t got one what?” Hob asks, eyes half closed already and only half paying attention.
“A heartbeat,” she replies, propping herself up slightly to look down at Morpheus, who looks vaguely amused at this exchange.
“He doesn’t. Here, listen.” She half tugs Hob over, a motion which is helped along more than a little by Morpheus himself, who seems content to let this exchange play out over him as it may.
After a moment, Hob is forced to concede: there is not, in fact, an audible heartbeat below his head, no matter how he turns it. He rests his chin on Morpheus’s chest, looking up at him. “She’s right. You haven’t got one.”
Morpheus’s expression remains amused as he reaches down to brush back an errant strand of Hob’s hair. “I do not need a heartbeat.”
Hob looks unimpressed by this explanation. “Next you’re going to tell me that you don’t need to breathe.”
Morpheus raises an eyebrow, and his chest ceases its steady rise and fall. Hob waits, and she watches beside him, studying Morpheus’s face for any signs of discomfort as the seconds tick by, then a minute, then two.
“This whole time, you’ve never even needed to breathe?” she asks, incredulous. She sits up fully, sheets pooling in her lap. “I’ve seen you breathing and I’ve certainly felt it. Have you been faking it this whole time?”
“I’ve been told it can be…disconcerting, in mixed company, if I do not,” he replies carefully.
Hob rolls to his back again, stretching. “I forget sometimes, you know. That you aren’t, technically, human. It’s the logical extension, I suppose, of you not needing to eat, or sleep. I probably should have guessed it by now.”
“How on earth could you have guessed it? I wouldn’t have,” she says, laying back down, head on Morpheus’s chest again, once more rising and falling slowly with each breath, as she looks over at Hob.
“Haven’t you noticed? We match. Watch.” Hob breathes in, and so does Morpheus. He exhales, and the other man’s chest falls in tandem. “I thought it was just proximity, synchronizing with the people close to you, which is a very human thing to do—” He cuts himself off with a yawn, settling back into the pillows, and doesn’t continue.
“You mean to tell me, that this entire time, you’ve been matching your entirely unnecessary breathing to Hob, just so neither of us noticed that you don’t actually have to breathe?” She looks up at Morpheus, eyebrows raised.
“Not the entire time,” he replies. “You and I have been alone together, without Hob, and at those times, I’ve matched yours.”
What does it say about her, that her own breath catches at that, that there is something romantic in it, to her, even unintentionally? She settles against him again instead, willing to let the conversation lull—Hob is, after all, already more asleep than not again beside them—and nearly jumps when she hears it: a heartbeat, soft and steady, under her ear.
contents: established Morpheus x reader x Hob Gadling, she/her pronouns for the reader, third person POV, no use of Y/N, reader is a university professor, fluff, 1.1k
notes: written to fill “a kiss, three ways” for my promptober 2022 self-challenge
She started it unintentionally.
It was a whim, to pull Hob back down and kiss him again before he left, abandoning her to the pile of essays she still had to grade in favor of meeting Morpheus. She’d join them later, of course, and she never really minded the two of them having time alone together, just as Hob never minded the reverse.
“What was that for?” he smiled down at her, eyebrows raised.
“Give it to Morpheus when you see him,” she replied, turning back to the pile of papers and her green pen. She couldn’t look up at him, knowing if she did, she’d see the unbearably fond expression on his face, and then she’d have to kiss him a third time, a fourth, a fifth, and he would be late and she would be even further behind.
Hob’s smile widened. “I will, then. Tell him it’s from you.”
“You’d better. It’s only fair, really, so don’t forget.”
Hob didn’t forget, and kissed Morpheus twice when he let himself into the flat and found him sitting on his couch. Their shared partner, bless her, had offered to pick Morpheus up a key once, as if he needed one. He’d declined, very politely, and then proceeded to frighten her terribly by appearing, as if out of nowhere, in the middle of their living room the next morning. Although it took time, Hob’s invitation to drop in any time was eventually taken up more often than he had previously dared to hope.
In an echo of Hob’s earlier conversation, Morpheus asked, almost amused, “What was that for?”
“One was from me, because I missed you, although God knows why, when I saw you earlier this week,” Hob grinned. “The other one was from her.”
Hob could almost see him filing this information away for use at a later date, as if he kept a ledger in his head, marked with their names entwined. Perhaps he did. Satisfied that he had done his duty by her, he made himself comfortable, and settled back to ask him what he’d been doing since they last saw each other.
-
Morpheus remembered, waiting for an opportunity.
She lay with her head resting in Morpheus’s lap, looking up at him. “Are you sure you have to go?” she asked, although she already knew the answer. “Hob will be back from his trip in a few hours, you could stay to see him when he gets in.”
“I will see the both of you together, tonight,” he replied, fingers brushing gently through her hair. “But before we meet again, I have work to do.”
“I know you do.” She sat up, smiling softly. “It was worth a try.”
“You will see me again before you even have time to miss me.”
“I always miss you when you leave, you know. It isn’t bad, I just start to look forward to seeing you again as soon as you’ve gone—oh, don’t look at me like that, please, you know I can’t help it—”
When she looked at him again, he was smiling. “You are remarkable.”
She waved the compliment away and kissed him softly, although the tips of her ears and her cheeks were flushed with a tell-tale, pleased blush when she pulled away. “Go on, then, and I’ll see you tonight. I’ll tell Hob you said hello.”
“Will you give him this for me?” Morpheus reached over to cup her cheek gently in one hand, leaning in to kiss her slowly. She opened her eyes when he pulled back, blinking a few times.
“I—yes. Yes, I think I could do that,” she replied, still a little dazed. Kissing Morpheus, she thought, did sometimes have that effect, although she was never certain if this was a side effect of his otherworldliness breaking through into the Waking world, or if it was merely something intrinsic to him.
When Hob let himself in, hours later, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him twice, once soft and once slow.
“If that’s the kind of welcome home I get after I’m gone, I should travel more often,” Hob grinned down at her, arms around her waist, holding her just as tightly as she held him.
“One of those was from Morpheus. I’ll let you guess which,” she beamed up at him, head tipped back slightly to look him in the eye, and congratulated herself privately on a job well done as Hob’s eyes darkened and he steered her towards their bedroom, suitcase abandoned by the door.
-
Hob knew an opportunity when he saw one.
“You’ll see her tomorrow, won’t you?” he asked casually, walking beside Morpheus through a dream of streets he hadn’t seen since the late 1800s, if his memory served, and it usually did.
“I had intended to call on her, yes.”
“Oh, good. Would you give her something for me?”
“Anything it might be in my power to give.”
Hob could have sworn that they had been part of an evening crowd, but as soon as he looked around for any bystanders who might be paying too much attention, they were very much alone. That was dream logic for you, he reflected briefly, before pulling the other man to him by the lapels of his coat and kissing him the way he’d wanted to, two hundred years ago.
“That was for you. This is for her.” The second kiss is slower but not softer, and by the time he pulled away, he was slightly breathless himself.
“Then she shall have it.”
Hob smiled to himself. This was going to be fun.
She hadn’t been expecting Morpheus when she let herself in to her office after her last lecture of the day, but she wasn’t above appreciating a pleasant surprise. Setting her bag down, she made sure to close the door behind herself, uninterested in answering questions from well-meaning colleagues about the man waiting for her.
“You have the best timing, sometimes, I swear. Today has been—”
She didn’t have time to finish her sentence, losing her train of thought as Morpheus lifted her hand to his lips, a gesture from a bygone era that never failed to impress her and make her a bit weak in the knees.
“That—you know that’s not fair,” she lamented, no real urgency behind her words.
“I would consider stopping, if I thought you meant it. But I do have a message for you, from Hob Gadling.”
“A message? I just saw him this morning.”
When he kissed her, it took her by surprise, although after a moment, she realized she should have known by the look on his face what was coming next. She didn’t know when she’d been back against the door, only that she had, and she still had the presence of mind to be grateful that the blinds on her window were quite firmly down.
She was, she decided, quite possibly going to kill Hob, because this was neither the time nor the place for her to be feeling like this. Although…
“Shall we see if Hob’s in his office? If I have something I’d like to give him myself.”
contents: fem!princess reader, knight!steve, highwayman!eddie, eventual steve x reader x eddie, slow burn, fantasy renaissance/medieval setting, pining, implied fantasy levels of peril, significant hand touching and flexing
a/n: 3.4k because this really ran away from me, part three coming in the next week or two! find part one here
you can remember with perfect clarity the last time you rode double, before you were too old for it, before it was unbecoming. one of your many young cousins in front of you, racing your sister on your favorite horse at the smaller, summer house in the country, far from the prying eyes of the entire court and pointed words about conduct befitting a princess of the realm
{you can also remember, but would never admit, a much more recent memory: riding pillion with steve one day, chest pressed to his back, arms around him, the feeling of him slipping away as you prepared to leave the carefully maintained woods at the same summer home, dismounting gracefully and taking the reins to lead you back to your family. you would never admit to thinking about this more than you should, and you will never know that he dreams about it. he lies easily about finding you lost after your siblings had outpaced you, and no one questions this, although you have always been a strong rider}
this is much different. this - your hands bound in front of you with gentler care than you would have anticipated, with the softly braided belt from your blue gown, one that had been safely stored in your trunk; this - sitting in front so that you can hold on to the pommel as the unfamiliar horse takes the hidden path through the forest on sure feet; this - an unfamiliar man’s arms around you, his chest firmly against your back, his hands holding the reins loosely; this - your heart pounding with something other than fear, for reasons you can’t name
you look to your right, tossing your head impatiently, your hair still loose after tearing out the pins. you’re looking for steve, you need to see him, to know that he’s still there. you have always been safe when he’s with you, and even though everything about your present situation should make you think the contrary, you know with a certainty that you cannot explain that he will keep you safe now
eddie laughs behind you, just once, a soft, amused exhale as your hair hits his face. “is this a distraction, or a weapon?”
“neither,” you reply, tone a little sharp, until you see steve just a few steps behind and to the right. you relax so slightly, shoulders rounding just a bit, spine losing just a touch of its steeliness, that you don’t expect eddie to notice. he does
he’s glancing between you and steve, steve and you, eyes quick and alight with something that you think might almost be warmth and the barest hint of amusement. you don’t want to think about why this might be, and so you turn to face forward again, this time purposefully moving your head quickly enough for your hair to hit him in the face once more
“definitely a weapon,” he says behind you, voice in your ear. “highly effectively, I’ll give you that.”
you almost don’t reply. almost. “you’ve disarmed me. I do what I can.”
“I did no such thing. I disarmed your knight; if you chose to abandon your hair pins - which, if I might add, I don’t think make for much of a weapon - I can’t be responsible for that.” even without seeing his face, you know he’s smiling, which is the most frustrating thing of all. you’ve heard the stories and the songs - the knight is the one who’s supposed to be courtly and charming, and the brigand or pirate or cruel noble brash and rough and everything the knight is not. but this hasn’t been like the stories or the songs, at least, not yet
too much has happened today, and you want to spend the rest of however long this unexpected journey will take in quiet planning, because you are already afraid that your family can’t or won’t pay a ransom for both you and steve, but you can’t resist - “I still have them, you know. one’s particularly sharp”
you have a fleeting moment of regret {your mother had always told you that your sharp tongue would be the death of you one day} the last thing you expect is his laugh
turned towards the forest ahead, eyes on the trees and the faintest outline of a path as if you might memorize where you’ve been, you can no longer see steve, but you can picture the look that remains on his face if you try hard enough
it’s a look you’ve seen only once before, after he was unhorsed with more force than generally considered polite by a considerably larger rider in a tournament held for your seventeenth birthday, years ago, and you leaned down from your platform to gently lay a woven circlet atop the head of the man who bested him
if you were less focused on trying to weigh your father’s affection for you against the coin in your family’s coffers, you may have tried harder to puzzle out what this meant: the same expression in two very different contexts, but with one very crucial element in common (you, in close proximity to a man he doesn’t believe deserves to even touch the hem of your gown)
you lose track of time, riding through the forest, deeper into the trees and further off the path than you’ve ever been on land that your family doesn’t own, although it can’t have been more than an hour’s ride, judging by the position of the sun in the sky
the inn appears as if out of nowhere in a spacious clearing, the scent of woodsmoke and something roasting over a fire drifting towards you on a slight breeze as you approach. there’s barely a path leading to it, and any thoughts you may have had about someone helping you at the inn disappear immediately when the other men with your trunks are immediately greeted by a small group of people exiting the inn at the sound of the horses and helping to unload what little you had with you
eddie dismounts, slipping away so quickly that you notice the lack of heat at your back before you notice he’s gone
“stay right there for me, princess.” he pats the side of his horse, dangerously close to your thigh. “I’ll help you down once I get a few things settled inside.” he leaves before you can protest, knowing that you can’t dismount from a horse as tall as his with your hands bound in a way that won’t cause you to twist an ankle at best, or fall flat on your face at worst, and knowing that his horse would hardly listen to you if you tried to encourage her to make a run for it. you are many things, but a fool is not one of them, and you know a woman alone in an unfamiliar forest can only meet her end in one way. you have no interest in being that woman today
the other men are busy looking through your trunks and eventually carrying them inside, talking with who you can only assume are the other members of their group, and although you know you’re undoubtedly being watched, you still aren’t surprised when steve dismounts beside you and reaches up to help you down as he has a hundred times before
his hands are strong but careful as he guides you, keeping you steady as your feet gently touch the ground. his eyes meet yours, gaze as intense as always when he looks at you, and asks quietly, just for you, “are you all right, my lady?”
it’s the reverence in his voice that almost tips you over an edge you didn’t know you were close to as the stress and panic and fear {fear that you won’t be ransomed, fear that steve will be harmed, fear that you aren’t as afraid as you should be, not when there is relief that you don’t have to meet a strange prince in a strange castle, not now, maybe not ever} struggle to break their way through the walls of your resolve, but you leave your hands in his for longer than you should and whisper back, “as well as can be expected, given the circumstances. I’ve never been kidnapped for ransom before, I don’t think I know what to expect.”
he almost smiles, and you count this as a victory. “you’ve never been kidnapped at all before.”
“thanks to you,” you say, and then stop as his face falls. he starts to pull away and you hold on to his gloved hand with both of yours, still tied. “I know you’ll keep me safe, won’t you?” you ask softly, looking up at him
and without hesitation he replies, “always, my lady. always”
you start to reply, to tell him that you knew before you even asked, but movement catches your eye and you see eddie leaning against the doorframe of the inn, watching you both. you can’t tell who has more of his attention, and you tuck this information away for later. it feels important, but you can’t say why
steve is untying your hands, deftly unraveling the loose knot, his thumb brushing over the inside of your wrist. even through the leather of his glove, it sends a shiver through you.
you look up at him, struggling to form the words that you need, but you needn’t have bothered. eddie is already walking over to the two of you, eyes firmly on you, at least for now
“impatient, princess? I thought we’d had a comfortable ride,” and he smiles at you, all teeth, but in a way that you don’t find unpleasant {quite the opposite}
“I’m not going anywhere,” you reply, taking a few careful steps away from steve, one hand rubbing your other wrist, for his benefit only, because there’s barely even the slightest indentation remaining on your skin. “I think we’d be foolish to try, with your men surrounding us as they are. but it’s very rude to keep a lady waiting.”
you’d taken a gamble {your nurse turned companion always said your mouth would be the death of you}, and you know you’ve won when his eyes light up and his smile widens. “my deepest apologies, my lady,” he replies, smooth as silk, and before you know what he’s done, your hand is in his, skin to skin, his lips barely brushing your knuckles as he genuflects in front of you, a touch mocking, but there’s something genuine there too, something you can’t quite pick out
you sense more than see steve’s instinctive movement to place his hand on his sword before realizing it’s gone. his hand clenches into a fist instead, hand flexing open almost immediately again as all of the lectures about the behavior befitting a knight he ever had growing up crash down on him at once
you remove your hand from eddie’s with the slow grace that you practiced endlessly at your mother’s insistence when you would have much rather been doing absolutely anything else at all {reading one of the tiny pamphlets of stories your maid smuggled in to you, picking flowers in the gardens, walking through the woods with steve to escort you}
eddie straightens again, still smiling, as he sweeps his arm towards the inn. “your palace awaits,” he says, clearly pleased with your earlier exchange. you almost smile, but catch yourself. this man, this stranger, has kidnapped you and stolen your belongings, you remind yourself. he plans to ransom you for your weight in gold or jewels or a pardon for past crimes or whatever he decides he wants, and you should be frightened of him, you tell yourself sternly, but it’s hard to be afraid of a man with such kind eyes
you look over at steve, and he inclines his head, ready to follow you, as always. you stand straighter, spine like the sharpest lance, and sweep yourself into the inn, the small train of your dress brushing against the surprisingly clean rushes as you look around the common room
the fire is warm and inviting, and the room is filled with talk and the sound of laughter as you survey the members of the group that kidnapped you. none of them are outwardly frightening; they are only men, you think, and you can’t decide if this is better or worse than what you were anticipating
you don’t have to think about this for very long before eddie is stepping in front of you and gesturing towards the stairs. “most of your things are already upstairs,” he says. “and I’ve taken the liberty of asking them to prepare the best room for you.” he looks pleased by this, and you almost want to ask what that means, but steve is at your back, encouraging you to take the stairs without touching you
eddie goes up first, and you follow, steve flanking you close behind. eddie opens a door towards the end of the hall to a well appointed and well lit room, the last of fingers of the afternoon light streaming in from a sizable window. there’s a painted screen in front of what you assume is the fireplace. the bed is freshly made, and one of your trunks sits at the foot of it, but the wardrobe in the corner is cracked open enough for you to see the shirts and coats inside, and there are papers and the detritus of the papers’ owner scattered over the desk near the window. you realize with a jolt that this is his room, and before you can turn towards steve or open your mouth to protest, he beats you to any objection you might have
“I will, of course, be taking a different room down the hall…and I would offer the same to your pet knight, but I don’t think I could convince him to leave you.” from another man it would be an insult, but it sounds…different, coming from eddie. teasing, but not mocking. amused, but understanding
“I go where she goes,” steve replies, staring eddie down once more. “I’ll keep watch outside her door, tonight. You should keep that in mind.”
for the first time that you’ve seen, eddie becomes serious, smile fading as he looks between the two of you and says, “she’s safe here. no one would lay a hand on her, or they’d have me to deal with and one less hand. but my men wouldn’t, in any case. you have my word.”
steve looks at him for a long moment, considering. you can see his brow furrowing deeper as he weighs the word of a highwayman. “give me my sword back, and I’ll take your word.”
“you and I both know I can’t do that…but I can continue to pretend that I don’t know you have a dagger and a set of knuckles on you right now. I feel like you could do some damage with those,” he says, and he smiles slightly again, looking steve up and down
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” steve replies immediately, “but if I did, I’d tell you that I could take on every man you have even without them if it meant keeping my lady safe.”
you can feel your traitorous face grow warm at his words. you’ve always known he would do anything for you, deep in your heart, but you haven’t been in a position to acknowledge it in so many words. it wasn’t safe then, and it hurt too much, but now things are different, and you tuck his words away close to your chest to examine every syllable in detail when you’re alone
eddie nods shortly and holds up his hands. “hey, I believe you. no arguments from me. if you want to stand sentinel outside the door, who am I to stop you? but I’ll leave you alone to get comfortable.” he smiles at you again. “my lady,” he bows, lower and even more theatrical than before, and you smile before you can stop yourself. “I took the liberty of asking them to set a bath for you, if you’d like, after traveling. I’m sure your knight can keep a watch on the door for you.”
“that was—kind of you,” you reply, feeling as travel weary as you would when moving to your summer home, your body ignorant of the fact that this was not a pleasant trip but a kidnapping, at least in that regard. you have to stop yourself from thanking him. you can’t thank your kidnapper
“you are, of course, welcome to join us for dinner whenever you’d like. both of you,” he adds before nodding at steve once more and leaving, keeping the door open when he does. the small consideration for what is proper tugs at you in a way you didn’t expect
steve waits for his footsteps to fade before turning to you. you can see on his face that he wants to immediately start planning your escape, but you can see what he can’t or maybe won’t: there is no escape from this inn, surrounded by eddie’s men, with no horses to speak of
you cut him off before he can speak. “I’m sorry,” you say softly, “but you know it won’t work. I know it won’t, so you do too, even if you don’t want to know it.”
“there has to be a way—”
you step closer, take his hand, press it between both of yours. “there isn’t here, not now. maybe—maybe later, but not here. we need time. we don’t know what he wants for us, not yet. once we do, we can make a better plan. but I’m so tired, steve,” his name leaves your mouth in a whisper. “could you please stay outside while I bathe? I won’t be long, I promise.”
he looks down at your joined hands, but doesn’t pull away. “of course, my lady,” he replies, voice impossibly soft and only for you
you let go carefully and watch as he goes to stand outside the door, closing it securely behind himself. you peek behind the screen and are surprised but pleased to find a still steaming tub of water, so you waste no time in tearing at the laces of your gown {thankfully on the side, today, and not the back} and stripping out of your layers
slipping into the tub is pure bliss. the soap isn’t as fine as your own, but it isn’t as coarse as you may have expected from a roadside inn, and there is a soft linen sheet warming in front of the fire for whenever you choose to exit. you take care to keep your hair out of the water, not wanting to bother with drying it, but you spend longer than you thought you might in the copper tub, skin pruning and water cooling around you
eventually, you force yourself out, wrapping yourself in the sheet and remaining by the fire for a few moments, enjoying the warmth. you feel better, more yourself, and you realize now that you have an opportunity. the highwayman’s papers are still on his desk, and you’ve always been a curious person
securing the sheet more firmly around yourself, you walk to the desk, taking in what he’s left behind. an account book, which you flip through quickly before realizing it won’t be much use to you. with mounting frustration, you realize that all of the papers covering his desk are in a code that you can’t recognize or break, not without time, and you realize this must be why he was comfortable leaving them as they were. you pick up a few of the coins, some you recognize and some you do not, and you feel along the wood for any drawers you may be missing. none reveal themselves, but you do notice something you missed. hidden under some scraps of paper and crumpled missives is a ring
you pick it up, feeling the weight of it. it’s real gold, you can tell that much, and this doesn’t surprise you, but the crest on the face of the ring does. you sit down heavily on the bed, ring still in the palm of your hand. you’ve seen this crest before. you were always very good at keeping track of the kingdoms your family knew of, traded with, kept alliances with
you hold the ring in your palm and you remember, years and years ago, at your first ball, dancing with a boy not that far in age from yourself. you remember kind brown eyes and a hand, so nervous, on your waist, as he moved you across the dance floor. you remember, and you close your fingers around the ring, unintentionally digging the crest into your palm, as you realize that you have seen those kind eyes again, and you don’t know which would be worse: that he did remember you, or that he didn’t
summary: She would love him, in dreams or nightmares, in whatever form he chose to take. She would love them both. She always did like the story of Little Red Riding Hood, perhaps a bit too much.
rating: M
contents: Morpheus x reader x Hob Gadling, she/her reader, third person POV, no use of Y/N, slightly dark fantasy, emphasis on the Lord of Nightmares aspect, a little bit of inhuman Morpheus, adrenaline as an aphrodisiac, soft and loving smut, 1.7k
notes: written for my promptober 2022 self-challenge - “I think I’m becoming more of a hungry animal the more I see you. I want to eat you whole.”
She can’t remember the last time she truly ran: legs pumping, arms in motion, heart pounding in time with the thud of her feet. She must have been a child, playing any one of a number of games, laughing as she ran, drawing on a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy.
This is nothing like when she was young.
She is flagging already, lungs burning, legs aching, but she cannot stop, she cannot slow, because what she had hoped was only one in pursuit of her is two. She tries to speed up, to draw from the well that existed when she was a child but that seems to have disappeared long since, and she nearly stumbles, long roots snaking across the ground to appear suddenly in front of her. She veers to the left, the debris of the forest floor somehow never cutting her, although her shoes were lost long ago to those clever tendrils.
Something at the corner of her eye catches her attention: a flash of white, the bark of the birch tree in stark contrast to the trees around it, and if she could spare the breath, she would scream, not in fear, but in sheer frustration. She’s seen that tree before, taller than its brothers, branches like arms twisting up and out. She is going in circles. This is all, in the end, a game to them, one she knows deep in her heart she will lose.
There is a voice in the back of her mind, nudging, insistent, reminding her of a conversation days ago, of the way to make an end now. It is her choice, always her choice.
She pushes the thought away, forcing herself to keep moving, shifting back to the middle of the path, even as she catches a glimpse of movement to her right. Her heart stutters, her traitorous, rabbit heart, knowing that if she can see him, it’s because he wants her to. He wants her to know that he could catch her at any time, that he is simply driving her to the point of collapse, until she yields and can go no further, keeping her exactly where he wants her, the two of them waiting for him.
She has not seen the second who pursues her, but she does not need to. He is the wind on the back of her neck, warm as the breath of a lover; he is the rustle of the leaves around her, whispering her name; he is the pull of the thorns at her dress but never at her skin; he is the moon and all the stars above in an ink black sky, each point of light the heavy weight of an eye upon her.
She could bend. She could fall to her knees among the leaves and let the man running alongside her catch her up in his arms, carry her back to him, let them both win. Or—
She breaks left, crashing through the thorns and the grasping branches, twigs like hands in her hair, brushing her face, clutching at her skirts. She leaves scraps of fabric behind, trailing white like flags, surrendering herself to the forest. There is no real plan: she can’t outrun him, she can’t hide, but she can refuse to be captured so easily.
If she could only make it to the birch in the center, there is something in her mind telling her that she would be safe. This thought raises a mild alarm: what does she intend to do, climb the tree and allow herself to be cornered like a fox, hound hot on her heels, baying for blood? She pushes it away and gives in, one final push of energy that she knows she will not be able to pull on again, taking her deeper into the trees, until she reaches the center, until she throws herself against the birch itself, clinging with both arms, as if it is a sanctuary, haunted or holy.
For a moment, she is lost to the hitch of her own breath, the thunder of her heart, the fight to remain upright as her legs tremble, finally still. She does not remember closing her eyes, but now that she has, she cannot bear to open them again, not until she knows.
There is a crunch of leaves behind her. The bark beneath her arms is warm, smooth, soft as skin. She opens her eyes. There is not enough air in her lungs to scream. Instead, she stares, lips parted, eyes wide, at the man whose arms are now around her, folding her into him as easily as a rabbit is caught in a snare.
“The break into the trees was unexpected,” Hob’s voice says from behind her. She lets herself go, a marionette with strings cut, knowing that the arms around her will hold her up. She wants to turn, to look at him, to see him fully, but she is caught instead by Morpheus’s eyes on her own, pinning her there as surely as his arms around her. He is taller, here, than she has ever yet seen him, something more and less than human.
Hob continues, casual, conversational, as though he had spent his time taking a leisurely walk through the woods. “I thought I’d have to run you there myself, but you did the work for me.”
The full weight of just how they had both toyed with her, conspiring together, settles on her like a shroud, both light as linen and suffocating in the knowledge that it would have always come to this. She feels him step behind her, the soft heat of him against her back nearly unbearable as a cold sweat dries against her skin.
“You tricked me,” she says softly, breathless still, although the reason for this is shifting as rapidly as the beat of her heart, caught somewhere between terror and something unnamable and soft: they will always catch her, find her, want her.
“Tricked you?” Morpheus says slowly, and oh, his voice like this—darker, richer, impossibly deeper. “Did I not deliver what was promised? Did I not give you what you asked for?”
Her own voice, carried by the wind, echoes around her: “Lord of Dreams and Nightmares, but you’ve only ever shown me the dreams…I could handle it, you know. A nightmare…Show me what it’s like. Show me that part of you…Let me love you anyway, in every form…in every way…”
“Did I not terrify you, beloved?”
She is watching his mouth, the shape of his lips, the teeth behind them that are so infinitesimally sharper than they usually are that she almost did not notice, and would not have, if not for the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
“You did. Both of you.”
“And would you still have me? Have the two of us.”
She is sure he can hear the pounding of her heart, battering itself against the cage of her ribs. “I would.”
When he kisses her, it is with infinite care, so soft that it leaves her head spinning, even as Hob’s arm comes around her waist, drawing her back to him as well, his mouth at her neck, with just a hint of too sharp teeth. Morpheus’s teeth graze her lower lip, and she thinks, with shocking clarity: I would let them devour me whole.
When she opens her eyes again, her world has shifted, and she reaches out with shaking hands to acclimate herself again. One hand rests on Morpheus’s shoulder, once again the same in form and shape as she has come to know him, as he moves over her. His voice in her ear, low and insistent: let me, do you want me, tell me you feel the same and she does. She finds her voice, a soft and insistent, “Yes, please, yes,” as she registers that Hob is behind her, letting her lay propped against his chest, one hand holding hers, his other arm keeping her close to him as he speaks softly in her ear, a steady stream of love and praise as adrenaline continues to crash through her in waves.
They are in a bed, she thinks dimly, although she can’t tell where. For a moment, she thinks they may still be in the forest, the sky and stars above her, but it is only Morpheus’s eyes, watching her face as he asks one last time if she’s sure, if she wants this, an unspoken question hanging between them as she surges up to kiss him, her lips brushing his as she answers, “I want you.” He sinks into her slowly and, between the two of them, she feels whole, as if this is how it always should be, the three of them, together, always, in all forms, in all shapes.
The only word for it is worship: there is devotion in every touch, in every movement. She loses time, floating between them, letting them move her, going willingly each time. They can’t take more than she’s willing to give, not when she would give them both everything. When she comes, it is with both of their names on her lips.
After, Hob carries her to the waiting bath, big enough for the three of them and more besides. Still in the Dreaming, then, she thinks dimly, and is glad of it, knowing she will wake up well rested beside Hob in their own bed in the morning, getting all of the benefit and none of the consequences. She spares a moment to briefly mourn the loss of the rather impressive set of marks at her neck and shoulders, unable to tell who left which and where as she sinks into the water, eyes slipping closed.
“Next time — ” Hob begins, and she sends a wave of perfumed water splashing towards him as he joins her. He laughs and continues, undeterred, “Next time, I get to experience that. Look at you, I’ve never seen you look quite that happy.”
She hums thoughtfully as Morpheus slips in behind her, his arms around her. She takes this as the very rare gift that it is and leans into him, her head on his shoulder, her face tucked neatly against his neck. “Next time,” she counters. “I’ll be a siren, and I can lure you down into the depths below. And you,” she says, looking up at Morpheus, “You can be the sea.”
“Perhaps,” he says, with a small, rare smile, as he presses a kiss to the top of her head. As if he wouldn’t give her anything she asked. As if the three of them don’t know it to be true.
summary: Two scenes about falling in love, between Hob and the two loves of his very long life.
rating: T/very light M
contents: Morpheus x reader x Hob Gadling, established relationship, she/her reader, no use of Y/N, third person POV, fluff, little hint of fade-to-black smut, 1.3k
notes: written for “touching hands” from my promptober 2022 self-challenge. These scenes are tonally different but concern the same thing: when do you know when you’ve fallen in love with someone?
Hob would swear he was sober, but she knows better. He isn’t drunk, the man does know how to hold a drink after six hundred years, but he is tipsy, his eyes just a little brighter, his face just a little flushed as he takes her hand and pulls her with him, laughing, to the dance floor.
He pulls her close, one arm around her waist, his other hand in hers as they sway gently to the music. “That was it, you know,” he says softly, his voice low in her ear, sending a small shiver up her spine.
“What was?” she asks, shifting a bit to look at him.
“That laugh. Fell in love with you, the first time I heard you laugh. I thought, god, what wouldn’t I do to hear that sound every day, for the rest of my life?”
She moves her hand from his chest to cup his cheek in her palm, leaning up to kiss him softly. “Was that really it?” she asks with a small smile. “All I had to do was laugh, and it was all over for you then?”
“I would have made a fool of myself to hear you do it again. Have done a few times, if I’m honest,” he replies, smiling down at her.
“This was it for me.” She shifts, her thumb brushing his lower lip gently. “You smiled at me when I met you outside for dinner, that very first time, and I thought…I’d do anything he asked, if he kept smiling at me like that. I thought, I could be in love with a man who smiles like that.”
“Someday,” Hob begins, but cuts himself off to kiss her again, with infinite care. “Someday, that’s going to be us.” He nods towards the bride and groom, two shared friends of theirs from the university, dancing together as if there were no one else in the room, or perhaps in the universe itself. “The three of us, I mean.”
“I know things have changed for the better, but I don’t think we’re quite at the point of a three person marriage,” she says with a smile, trying to keep her tone light. Not for the first time that evening, she wishes Morpheus had come with them, although he likely wouldn’t have had as good a time as they were, and she knows he couldn’t have, not without raising a number of uncomfortable questions. She had already dodged the well-meaning “you must be next!” from various colleagues and, bafflingly, from a number of family members of the bride and groom, although she knows none of them.
“We can work something out. We have all the time in the world,” Hob says, still smiling, and she lets him spin her, casting her out and pulling her back in, twirling her in his arms until she laughs again, the two of them weightless as dandelion seeds on the now crowded floor.
When they are safely back at their own flat, exhausted and sober again but happy, she asks him the question that’s been on her mind for some time. “When did you know you were in love with him?” There is never any question who he is, between the two of them.
She moves her hair over her shoulder, letting Hob get at the zip of her dress, his fingers only a little clumsy. She nearly repeats herself, thinking he hadn’t heard her, when he says, “I think it was the first time I saw him. He was looking down at me with those eyes, and I knew, then, what the sky in heaven must look like.”
He kisses the nape of her neck, his lips soft, breath warm against her skin. “I could ask you the same.” His lips move against the skin between her shoulder blades, and she sighs softly, thinking, as he trails kisses down her spine, the drag of his lips and the sharp edge of his teeth as he follows the descent of her dress and everything beneath to the floor. Gently, he encourages her to turn as she steps out of the pile of silk and lace on the floor and, facing him, she slides her hand into his hair, legs parting to allow him room between them.
“The first time he said my name,” she says softly. “He said it like a lover from the start.”
“He says your name the way he’s always said mine.” The words are muffled slightly against the soft skin of her inner thigh as he slowly works his way up with lips and teeth and tongue.
“Then you know exactly what I mean.” She leans back against the dresser behind her, her head tipping back, eyes closed as Hob falls silent, the only sound the soft hitch of her breathing, the soft murmur of his name on her lips, as though speaking a prayer out loud.
———
Hob sees Morpheus several days later, and asks him a question he has considered frequently in the past, but especially over the preceding days. “When did you know you were in love with me?” he asks, stirring sugar into his tea as he glances over at him. “Because I think I know when it was, but I want to know if I’m right.”
Morpheus’s eyes are impossibly fond even if the set of his mouth betrays nothing of his mood. “When do you think it was, then?”
“The fifth time we met,” he smiles. “I think I almost got your name, then.”
“You’re a hundred years too late,” Morpheus replies. “At our fourth meeting, I recognized what I felt for you was not mere curiosity. And I pretended, for quite some time, that I did not know, because I thought I knew what it would mean if I did. But you looked me in the eye and told me that you still had so much to live for, after losing everything, and I knew that I would never feel for another person exactly what I felt for you. I could not have let you go, even if you had wanted to, after that moment. And no matter what happened at our later meetings…I would have always come back.”
“I know, love,” Hob says gently, reaching over for his hand. “I know.”
“Shall I tell you when I knew, with her, as well?” There is never any question between the two of them who this refers to, as even apart, her presence is felt. Morpheus knows the same is true between the two of them when he is absent, and feels that it is only right that this would be so.
“You have to now, I’m afraid. She’ll come asking if I don’t tell her, if she finds out I know when it happened with me.”
“And how terrible that would be,” he says, tone a step beyond merely dry to arid. “What would I do with myself, if she were to find me?”
“I’m sure I could give you a few ideas.”
“In any case—it was the third time we met. She touched my hand, and I felt the ghost of that touch for days later. It felt like a burn, like a brand. She had marked me, and I did not want it to go away so quickly. But I could not ask her then for what I wanted, and I could not offer her what I wanted to give.”
“Until we finally talked about it.”
“Until then, yes.”
“The third time you saw her? Really?”
“Hob Gadling, are you jealous?”
“Four meetings for me—”
The only thing for it is to kiss him, and as Hob abandons his tea to the side table, pulling Morpheus closer, he makes a mental note to never tell her the exact dates that he fell in love with the pair of them. He’d never hear the end of it, and eternity is an awfully long time.
summary: Morpheus reflects in the early morning light, having spent a rare night through with both of his lovers.
contents: Morpheus x reader x Hob Gadling, established relationship, she/her reader, no use of Y/N, third person POV, complete and utter fluff, vague allusions to smut, 1k
notes: downhill slide, everyone! written for promptober 2022, “if you keep looking at me like that, I’m not responsible for what happens next.”
Morpheus does not need to sleep. He finds it increasingly difficult, however, to slip away when either of them asks him to stay, and he will occasionally allow himself to be pulled back, settled between her and Hob, three sets of limbs tangled together in a bed that was not, strictly speaking, made for three people.
He stays, because what are a handful of hours to one who will live until the death of time itself? He stays, and allows himself a brief moment of rest, time to collect his thoughts, to plan, to - for lack of a better word - dream.
Dawn slips through the window, gentle at first, bathing her in sunlight and leaving himself and Hob in steadily disappearing shadow. He misses the moment she wakes, distracted by the way the advancing sunlight picks up the touch of gray at Hob’s temples, a sign of age that will never progress further, something time can no longer touch. He will forever be as he was on that night in 1389: in a solider’s body, a man just beginning the prime of his years, as arrested in his development as a moth in amber. He wonders if Hob ever wishes the face he saw in the mirror more closely matched his experience. Morpheus imagines he does not, not when he can still look like this.
When he looks back at her, her eyes, made a shade lighter by the sun, are open, and watching him.
He opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off by the gentle touch of her fingers over his lips, the barest brush of skin against skin. She smiles up at him, shakes her head once, glancing over at Hob’s still sleeping form, then tucks herself into him, her head under his chin, her arm around his waist. She radiates heat, the warmth from the duvet and sheets clinging to her, a miniature sun in his arms, and his hold tightens around her involuntarily, keeping her close. She hums softly, settling against his chest, and for a moment, time slips away from him. They may lay like this for minutes, or hours, the only indication that anything exists outside of this room, this bed, the steady progression of sunlight over them.
From his other side, Hob stirs, a heavy arm coming to rest across his own, a sleep slack mouth against his shoulder, less a kiss than an open mouthed press of the lips, breath fanning out against his skin.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” he says, voice sleep-rough and warm. “Bit early for that, isn’t it?”
“I am gathering ideas,” he replies after a moment, voice soft. Her head still rests on his chest, and although he knows she is not sleeping, he still does not wish to disturb her, or cause her to move away.
“Ideas. That sounds rather serious, for a Sunday morning.” Morpheus feels rather than sees Hob’s smile, his mouth still pressed to his shoulder.
“My work is still ongoing.” He reaches up with his free hand and brushes it through her hair, the strands shifting through his fingers, the rich color in stark contrast against his skin. “New dreams, to replace the lost and to meet new needs. New nightmares.”
Hob props himself up, looking down at the both of them. “And which are you gathering ideas for now? The dreams, or the nightmares?”
“If you say anything but dreams, I’m going to be terribly offended.” Her voice is still soft with sleep, blurred at the edges, as she sits up, her head tipping back in a yawn. When she looks back down at the two of them, they both reach for her, pulling her back to them. She settles, her head on Morpheus’s chest, her face turned towards Hob. “Good morning, by the way.”
“It is,” Morpheus agrees, one hand wandering, stroking down her back, as one might a beloved pet. He is well aware of just how much she doesn’t mind it, welcomes it, even. Someday, he will grow used to the two of them welcoming his touch. For now, he continues to marvel at it.
He glances over at Hob, watching him watch the two of them, the expression on Hob’s face caught in the nebulous space between adoration and affection. It is, Morpheus thinks, the look a man gives to a saint, or a god, or perhaps to both. He wonders what his own expression must look like to Hob.
“One of you has to stop looking at me like that,” Hob says, running his hand through his hair and only half succeeding in taming it. “If you both keep it up, I’m not responsible for what happens next.”
“How am I looking at you?” she asks, amusement plain in her tone.
“Like you’re trying to work out the shortest distance between your mouth and mine.”
“And is that how I look at you?” Morpheus asks, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes and no. You look like you’re thinking about the fastest way to get me underneath you.”
“I couldn’t think of disturbing her.”
She looks up at Morpheus, a soft smile on her lips. A moment passes between them, a resolution, and then both look towards Hob again, who has a look in his eyes that says he feels rather more like prey than he has in several hundred years, and he doesn’t exactly mind it.
They reach for him in tandem, a connection between them that has been newly formed and that Hob always seems more than willing to be on the receiving end of, pulling him closer still to them. Morpheus allows her to kiss Hob first before pulling Hob over to him, kissing him slowly as she shifts to make more room for them both.
“I love you,” she says, voice soft and easy as anything, the sentiment directed at them both, and Morpheus marvels again at how simple this seems to be for her. She loves them, and so she says as much. It has never been quite that easy, for him. Instead, he holds them both close, loses himself to the press of mouths and hands, and says I love you not in words but with each pass of his lips over sensitive skin, with the gentle press of his fingers, with the sound of their names on his lips as the three of them move together, bathed in the light of the sun.
those prompt things were made for Hob I swear???????? ok so either "I didn't know you wore glasses and I'm thinking normal and platonic thoughts about you right now I swear" (who's wearing glasses? Who knows, many possibilities!
OR
"you bought me a SWORD? OH MAN IM GONNA BE SO DANGEROUS" because... REASONS
thank you for allowing me to spread the gospel of "glasses make everyone hotter" and it isn't just because I myself am a confirmed glasses wearer I swear
Hob nearly drops his cup when he sees him, hand gripping convulsively at the cardboard in an overcorrection that almost sees him with coffee down his arm. He has seen Morpheus in more stages and types of dress and undress than he can easily recall, robes and coats in materials no human hands save his own have ever touched, but he fears this may be his undoing.
Get ahold of yourself, he tells himself sternly. There’s nothing unusual. Nothing to see here. You can and will be normal about this.
When Morpheus draws closer, his brow furrows slightly, searching Hob’s face. “Are you well?”
“Am I—yes. Yes, well,” he says. He starts to say more, stops, and drinks his coffee instead for something to do, nearly scorching his tongue. It is, he must admit, a very good approximation of what he and his colleagues wear every day, albeit in a more monochrome color scheme than he would usually see. There’s still something so very him about it all that Hob knows he would be able to pick him out of a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, but he can’t stop staring at his face.
“Do you like them?” Morpheus asks, falling into step beside him, as perceptive as he always is, now, when it comes to Hob. On anyone else, the tone would be infuriatingly casual, but Hob knows he’s enjoying this. He’s done it on purpose, the menace, and when Hob had told him he was welcome to drop in on him any time, even at the university, he hadn’t envisioned this. He hadn’t realized Morpheus would try to blend in.
The glasses he’s chosen are a bit thicker framed than Hob’s own reading glasses, and they suit his face immensely, drawing attention to his eyes and giving him an air of scholarly intensity that Hob finds entirely appealing. He looks a bit like the sort of visiting professor that he wouldn’t mind being trapped in conversation with at the annual faculty dinner, no matter what topic he’d sunk his teeth into and refused to let go of, because listening to him would give Hob the unparalleled opportunity to simply look at him and to listen to the rise and fall of his voice.
Hob aims for casual and falls somewhat short. “They’re new, I haven’t ever seen you wear those before.”
“I chose them especially for the occasion.”
He was wrong. This wasn’t blending in, this was specifically targeted at him. He stops to let them both into his office, immediately closing the door behind them, dropping his bag and coffee and hoping they both land near and on the desk, respectively, and backing Morpheus up against the door. “Well, you certainly have my attention. Is that what you wanted?”
Morpheus smiles slightly, terribly smug. Hob badly wants to kiss that look off of his face. “You do like them, then.”
“You’re keeping those on. I’ve got plans,” he says, leaning in to kiss him, thanking a god he has not believed in for a good few centuries that he thought of going to work early that morning. The essays can wait. This is far more important.
summary: In a quiet moment, she wants to confirm that Morpheus knows just how much he means to her in his own right.
contents: established Morpheus x reader x Hob Gadling, Morpheus x reader-centric, she/her reader, third person POV, no use of Y/N, soft romantic fluff, 1k
notes: written for “my life is nothing but room for you” from my promptober 2022 self challenge
Love, to her, is making room in the home of her heart for the men she loves. There is a portion of her heart that will always belong to Hob now, and there is an equal portion that will always belong to Morpheus as well. Her heart is not finite; there will always be room, ever expanding. Hob knows this, because his heart and hers are mirror images. She worries, sometimes, that she doesn’t always make this as clear to Morpheus.
It is a rare moment: the two of them alone in the Dreaming, in the glen that she tries and fails not to think of as the three of theirs alone. There is a cottage there, but today, she wanted to sit under the shade of the trees, the sunlight falling gently through the branches. She lays on the ground, surrounded by clover, her head in his lap, content to let him stroke her hair occasionally. She reads a book of poetry that never existed in the waking world, stopping to read lines aloud that strike particularly close to her heart. The poet is full of love and full of longing, for the beloved who never knew the depth of the love that could have been theirs.
It takes him a moment to realize that she has stopped reading, aloud or otherwise, and is instead looking up at him, studying his face with a look of concentration.
He brushes a loose strand of her hair back. “Yes?”
“You know, don’t you, how I feel about you?” She sits up, turning to face him more fully as she sets the book aside and cups his face in her hands. Her palms are warm against his cheeks, the cool smoothness of his skin like silk overlaying marble.
He raises an eyebrow. “I do,” he says in a tone that she feels implies that asking this of the being who contains the entire collective unconscious of every living being is a rather foolish thing to ask, but that he will indulge her nonetheless. “Why do you ask, my heart?”
“I would hate to think that you didn’t know. That you didn’t understand.” She moves her hands, taking both of his in hers. “I know I tell you I love you. But it’s more than that. I saw you for the first time and I knew that you could ruin me but I didn’t know why, not then. I know now. You have a place in my heart and if you ever left it, I would still keep it there, waiting, for you. You are a part of me as much as Hob is, and if his soul and mine are made the same, then they were both made for you.”
“You are every dream I’ve ever had. I would find you in every lifetime, waking or sleeping, because you are a part of me. I know how much I ask of you, how much I want, and I’m scared, sometimes, of frightening you away with the enormity of it. I need you and I want you, because I am not one of your creations, but I am yours all the same.”
“My light.” She brings his hands to her lips, kisses his knuckles. “My life.” A kiss, pressed to one cheek. “My love.” Then the other. “My lord.” Finally, his lips.
She is on her back beneath him before she realizes they’ve moved, and she knows that he understands by how he touches her. Reverence is the only word that could come close to describing the weight of it. The only thing she can see are the stars in his eyes above her, an entire cosmos forming and shifting as he looks down at her. The only thing she can hear is his voice in her ear, each word engraving itself upon her heart, and although he may not say the exact words, it means the same: I love you, with each beat of his heart under the palm of her hand.
“Do you imagine for even a single moment that I do not intimately know the workings of your own heart, beloved? That I cannot feel what you feel for me, every moment you are here?” He closes the small distance between them, and his lips on hers are a revelation. When he pulls away again, she is momentarily dazed, blinking up at him, her hair a halo around her head, spreading over the clover.
“I cannot deny that it is a pleasure to hear you say it. It is one you must allow me to return.” She cannot look away from him, lips slightly parted as she nods softly.
“I thought I had made my peace with longing, before knowing you. I could live quite comfortably with it, like a very old friend, alone with it in the dark. But then you came. You and Hob shine, like twin suns, and are impossible to ignore together and apart. I could no longer live comfortably with longing, nor did I want to. You occupy my mind and my heart and my soul, and it is the greatest gift that I hold the same place in your own.”
“You are not of my own creation, but you are mine, as I am yours, now and always.”
She can take no more - she is, even now, only human, and when she pulls him down to kiss her, she can feel him smile against her lips.
She wakes the next morning with clover still in her hair and spread over her pillows. She presses a handful between the pages of an old, favorite book. She keeps them, and even years later, the scent of the glen clings to them, a bright, green scent that will always make her think of love.
