Hello everyone! I've been writing a fanfic based on the TV show "The Sandman," and I've finally decided to upload some chapters as I'm writing them to get a feel for what people think of it. Have fun reading and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
Chapter 1: She Who Wakes, He Who Dreams
——— (Y/N’s POV) ———
Walking through the aisles of an endless library, you drag your fingers across each book you pass. You aren’t sure of what book you’re looking for, but you have a feeling you’re close to finding it. You look up and notice long arches reaching toward the ceiling, and stained-glass windows paneled along the walls, giving the library an ancient and regal atmosphere. Looking around, you see rows of shelves filled with books–some withered, some beautifully decorated, and others in languages you’ve never seen before. You walk further down, exploring the endless library, and stop in front of a shelf that draws you in. You walk toward a book and read the title on the spine, “Metamorphoses.” You pull the book from the shelf and glance through the first couple of pages; this is the book you are looking for. The book feels aged and delicate, as if one wrong touch will make the pages crumble and disappear. You start to read the first page when you suddenly hear a door open and close. You look in the direction of the sound, thinking you were alone the entire time. You head towards the origin of the sound, slowly and silently, until you hear someone speak.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
You hear a woman’s voice echo through the bookshelves. You hear her footsteps come closer to you. Scared you shouldn’t be here, you quietly walk in the opposite direction of the footsteps coming your way. No matter how far you go, the footsteps seem to come closer and closer, and out of nowhere, you bump into something around the corner of a bookshelf. It was not something, though; it was someone.
“Who are you?” said the person you bumped into. The voice was deep and steady, but carried an unmistakable authority, as though the world only answered to them. As you were about to look up at the voice, you hear a blaring sound all around you. You jolt up from the noise and find yourself in bed, littered with articles you were reading the night before.
“Y/N? Are you ready? We’re going to be late for the seminar!” you hear your roommate, Harper, yell from downstairs. You look at the time on your phone and jump out of bed.
“Give me a couple of minutes! I’ll be ready in a bit!” you yell back as you get out of bed, shuffle all your papers from the bed into your tote bag, grab a random outfit from your closet, and get yourself ready for the day. Before leaving your room, you do one final look at yourself in the mirror. Your hair is half-pinned up with a hair clip, letting your natural curls hang off your shoulders. You smooth down your top with the fabric settling neatly against your frame, fitted enough to show the natural lines of your figure without drawing too much attention. You head towards the door where Harper is waiting, looking at the time on her watch and tapping her foot lightly on the floor.
“Sorry about that! I’m ready to go,” you say to Harper as you grab the keys to your moped and push her out the door.
You and Harper are third-year doctoral students at University College London. You are originally from the United States but moved to London due to UCL’s prominent doctoral program in classical studies, where your dissertation–Where Dreams Lost Their Gods: Tracing Oneiros Through Ancient Religion and Modern Interpretation–focuses on ancient Greek religion and the cultural evolution of dreams. You met Harper at a random pub when you first moved to London. You learned that she attends UCL just like you, and she helped you navigate London during the first couple of months moving here. Now, you are best friends and share a flat near campus.
You both hop on your moped and start driving to campus. As you are weaving through the streets, Harper asks, “Why did you wake up late today? You never wake up late on seminar days.”
“I was up late last night reading the articles for today. I must’ve fallen asleep while reading them. Funny enough, I had the weirdest dream.”
“Oh, really? You? Having weird dreams? Isn’t that the whole reason why you are here?” Harper joked as you got closer to campus. You chuckled at her comment since she wasn’t wrong. You’ve always been fascinated with dreams and what they mean. When you were a child, you would always have the same dream of being in a luscious field of green, bright blue skies, flowers blooming everywhere, and waterfalls in the distance. This was your favorite dream as you felt safe and calm whenever you fell asleep, knowing you would always return to this haven. As you grew up, you stopped dreaming of this place and always wondered why you had dreamed of it for so long and what it meant.
You parked the moped near the lecture hall, and rush with Harper to your seminar. You both find seats and wait for the professor to start the class. “So, what was your dream about?” Harper whispers next to you while taking out her laptop from her book bag.
“I was in this library that went on and on, filled with books I’ve never seen before. I grabbed this one book called ‘Metamorphoses’, but I bumped into someone and woke up before I could read it.”
As you reach into your tote bag for your articles, your hand brushes against a rectangular object you are unfamiliar with. Before you could pull it out, Harper interrupts your train of thought.
“Metamorphoses? By Ovid? That’s good source material for your dissertation. Did your committee recommend it to you?”
“No, I’ve never heard of that book before. How do you know about it?” you whisper to Harper while pulling out your materials.
“I came across it when looking up sources for my topic. Ovid wrote one of the most detailed accounts depicting Oneiros in Roman literature. I think that’s pretty relevant to your dissertation topic.”
“I’ve scoured the library for all sources I could use for my research, but I haven’t heard of this one.”
“Really? Isn’t that the book in your tote bag?” Harper whispered as she pointed to your tote, the book slightly peeking out. You pulled out the rectangular object, which turned out to be the book you were looking at in your dream. Your fingers traced the outline of the cover, feeling the same texture and fragility from the mysterious library. Looking at the book, you recalled the feeling of being inside the library and yourself being pulled in. Before you could inspect it further, your professor walked in to start the seminar. You quickly pushed the book back in your tote and focused on the chalkboard. You wished she was late so you could look at the book further, but class started, and you needed to focus.
——— (Lord Morpheus’ POV) ———
In The Dreaming, Lord Morpheus was looking for Lucienne. He summoned her to his throne room, but she never appeared, so he went to look for her. Thinking she would be in the library, he walked inside to look around. His eyes slowly scanned all the books on the shelves he passed by. Pausing every couple of minutes to glance at books that caught his eye. While skimming through a book, he heard silent footsteps coming his way. Thinking it was Lucienne, he slowly walked in the direction of the footsteps. As he was about to turn the corner of a shelf, something bumped into him. If only it were something–it was someone he had never seen in his realm. Confusion showed in his eyes, but was quickly replaced with measured focus.
He stared at the stranger in front of him and spoke, “Who are you?” Before he could see the intruder’s face, they disappeared. A few moments later, Lucienne turns a corner toward him.
“Oh? My apologies, my lord. I didn’t know you were in here. Did you summon me?” Lucienne looked at his face, sensing something was off with him. “My lord…is everything alright?” she gently asks.
“An intruder was here mere moments ago. A mortal.” Morpheus states, looking at Lucienne with his jaw clenched.
“A mortal? How could a mortal enter the castle?” Lucienne asked, gauging Morpheus’ reaction. As she turned to look around, she spotted a gap in the bookshelf. She looked at the books on the shelf, trying to think of which one was missing.
“Is something wrong, Lucienne?” Morpheus asked, focused on her stiff body.
“My lord…there appears to be a book missing. Metamorphoses is not on the shelf anymore.” Lucienne calmly states, turning toward Morpheus.
“Really…? I am not favorable to Ovid’s…depiction of myself in that book.” Morpheus stared at the gap, unaffected by the missing book. As he walked closer to the shelf, he felt a weird sensation. His mind flickered back to when you bumped into him, feeling a zap of electricity throughout his body. His whole body stiffened, thinking how this has never happened to him. The thought of being affected by a mere mortal started to frustrate him, granting a dark expression in his eyes before he calmed himself down.
“I’ll look into who this intruder is. They might come again.” He walked toward the door, thinking of ways to punish the mortal who dares to trespass on his castle. Lucienne watches Morpheus walk away, thinking of a possibility she dares not speak out loud. Once he left the library, she whispered out loud.
“Maybe the mortal took the book with her…No, that couldn’t possibly happen!” She chuckles at her own thought and walks away from the shelf to attend to her duties.
Morpheus sits on his throne, trying to deduce how you entered his castle. How he could not sense a mortal in his own realm. The Dreaming is a part of him, and he a part of The Dreaming. To every shift in the wind, every drop of rain, and every citizen on his land, he was aware of all movement within his realm. But to think a random person–no, a random mortal–could snake their way into the castle under his watchful eye did not sit well with him. As he was pondering what to do, a raven flew to his throne through the windows.
“Is everything ok, boss?” asked the raven, looking at Morpheus’ perplexed expression.
“Matthew, I may require your assistance with a matter. A book has gone missing in the library. A mortal may have taken it.” Morpheus softly spoke, annoyance seeping through his voice.
“A mortal stole a book from you? Wow, how did that happen?” Matthew questioned, with a hint of disbelief in his voice.
“I will guide you to where the book is. Keep an eye on the mortal until I call for you.” Morpheus reached for a crystal orb sitting next to his throne, intensely staring inside. Slowly, your face came into view of the orb; it showed you at a coffee shop working on your laptop.
“Alright, boss.” Matthew cawed, flying outside and into The Waking. Morpheus looked at your face, the sensation from before creeping on his chest. Quickly, he looked away from the orb and set it down. It was only a matter of time until he found the missing book…and you.
Epilogue Part 1: Euphemisms, Self-Sabotage, and Only Children
Summary: A set of snippets about your time in the Dreaming following the events with the Fates.
Tags: mentions of imprisonment, trauma, sexually explicit content (18+, MDNI)
Series Masterlist
A/N: I figured these two deserved a little more time together, so here's a two-part epilogue. I also decided to incorporate the recent poll results that voted to have my next fic be more fluffy. So here's a bit of angst (for fun) and a whole lot of fluff to give Dream a break.
<- Prev. Chapter
It was the chatter you noticed first. The castle was typically silent, with the odd conversation or scuttle of palace staff, but this night when you arrived in the Dreaming, the halls were filled with raucous laughter and chatter. You peeked out from the corner you had appeared in to find swarms of people roaming the halls and Lucienne at the entrance, marking their attendance.
A group of men in matching gray suits carrying a box passed by you with a look of disdain, and you frowned at them before looking down at yourself. Whatever was going on in the palace, apparently penguin pajamas were not the appropriate attire. So you closed your eyes and a maroon ripple transformed them to a stand collar V-neck gown that was far more fitting for the event. Matching heels appeared on your feet, your hair curled and pulled off to the side, and your make up appeared at your whim. You went in search of answers, passing the gray group of men with a snide smile now in your changed attire.
The palace was always a bit of a labyrinth, and you were often lost without Dream beside you, so you exhaled a breath of relief when you encountered Matthew.
“Whoa-ho!” He chuckled, hopping backwards to take a better look you. “Look who’s all dressed up!”
“Yeah, yeah,” you rolled your eyes at him. “I just needed to fit in. I just got the evil eye from a bunch of guys in gray holding a box,” you laughed, jerking a thumb behind you. “Like I’m the crazy one for showing up in the Land of Dreams wearing pajamas.”
“I guarantee you they’re not the weirdest group here.”
“Really? What is going on here?” You asked, looking around to find palace staff prepping tables in the hall around you.
“He didn’t tell you?” Matthew cocked his head.
“No,” you said, watching the staff setting plates and glasses. “Is he here? He stopped by my shop in the Waking World this morning, and told me I might not see him for a while.”
“He didn’t tell you where he was going? Or why?”
“He didn’t tell me anything, and now I’m a little worried. Should I be worried?” You asked, glancing back down at Matthew.
“Well, he’s basically out of the woods now,” he assured you. “He went to Hell to free Nada, but he didn’t find her, and Lucifer gave him the Key to Hell.”
You simply blinked at the raven as you processed his news and decided to question the news chronologically. “Who’s Nada?”
“Matthew.”
You both turned to watch Dream descend the stairs to the hall and approach you, with his eyes set on his raven.
“I believe Lucienne could use your assistance at the palace entrance,” Dream ordered, and Matthew glanced at you for a moment before taking flight in the direction of the entrance. “Dear witch,” he smiled softly, as he turned to you. “You look… radiant,” he remarked, taking in your elegant attire and beguiling looks.
“Thank you,” you blushed with a downward gaze at his compliment, tucking a strand of hair behind you rear bashfully, before you recalled Matthew’s news. You looked back up at him with a frown as you spoke. “Hey, no flattery,” you warned, as you narrowed your eyes at him. “I’m mad at you.”
His throat bobbed as he worried Matthew had told you too much about Nada.
“You tell me that I might not see you for a few days, and then you go to Hell?” You questioned him, as you crossed your arms. “And you don’t even have the decency to tell me that you made it back alright?”
“Dear witch, were you concerned about me?” He wondered with a smile playing on his lips.
“No!” You scoffed, as you looked off to the side. His teasing smile persisted and you sighed. “Yes,” you admitted, and his smirk only deepened. “I really don’t like you,” you muttered, with narrowed eyes.
“No, but you were deeply concerned about me,” he reminded you, as he passed by to observe the banquet preparations. You followed after him a moment later with pursed lips and a furious breath.
“So what’s all this for?” You questioned, eager to shift the conversation from the concern you felt for his wellbeing.
“As Matthew told you, I have been bequeathed the Key to Hell by Lucifer, who has abdicated the throne,” he explained, as he straightened out a napkin. “Many interested parties have flocked to my door to earn possession of it, and I must decide whom to reward it.”
“Wow,” you breathed, watching the rigidity of his shoulders. He was always fairly tense, but his words seemed strained and posture more so. “Any forerunners?” You asked, lightly. Of course Dream of the Endless didn’t need your advice, but perhaps you could unburden his stress by helping him reach a conclusion.
“There are a few,” he answered shortly, and you took his limited response as a suggestion to abandon this line of questioning.
“Right,” you nodded softly with a downward gaze, as you traced lines on the table linen. He turned then at your low tone to watch your quiet dejectedness with a furrowed brow. You centered a plate slightly and realized that you were already in the hole and might as well go for broke. So you decided to ask the question you had asked Matthew before Dream interrupted you. “Matthew said you went to Hell to find someone named Nada,” you asked slowly, as you peeked up at him.
“Matthew spoke out of turn,” he responded, shortly. “Nada is none of your concern.”
You turned to him, taken aback by his irritation and dismissal. “I see,” you replied, before clearing your throat. “I should go,” you explained, before moving past him.
“Dear witch,” he began, as he followed after you.
“I wouldn’t want to get in the way,” you clarified, as you looked back at him with a thin smile. “After all, I’m sure it’s none of my concern.”
“Wait,” he called out, reaching for your wrist, but you woke then and disappeared before him.
He wanted to ask you to stay. To attend the banquet physically, not just in your dreams, and offer him the advice he knew you’d give. That he would value your outside perspective and, more urgently, your presence. He knew that if you were here, if you were by his side, he could weather the complexity of this task. But instead, he let his fear of you learning about his trespasses against Nada and condemning him for them.
You felt very silly by the next night. That morning you had awoken quite cross with him for dismissing you and your interest so lightly after all the time you had spent with him. But then you realized he was Endless: he had existed for eons before the human race even existed, so of course he would secrets he’d wouldn’t want you to know about. And of course, topics like whom to bequeath the Key to Hell and this mysterious Nada person were most likely above your pay grade and beyond your concern.
So when you arrived to the Dreaming the next night, with your tail tucked between your legs, you were quite pleased that he had seemingly elected to ignore the whole incident and pretend it hadn’t happened. He, in turn, was relieved that you had the grace to overlook his slights and return to him. Unbeknownst to you, he had spent the last day of the banquet worrying more that he wouldn’t see you again than about his decision for the Key.
The days were so tranquil, so perfectly uneventful, that almost two weeks passed by before you broke down. You knew it was coming; the uncomfortable feeling was buzzing just under your skin, like your magic and your mind was telling you it wouldn’t be long now.
You had pushed it all away: Declan’s kidnapping, your short-lived death, your eternal confinement to the Dreaming. And you had pushed it all aside the same way you did after Dream finally released you after two weeks in that stone room. You still couldn’t put the words to it. You still cowered behind the euphemisms, the uncharged words that made it all seem less than it was: “stone room”, instead of “dungeon”, “two weeks” instead of “imprisonment”, “released” instead of “realized the extent of his abuse and finally came to his senses.”
So of course when you returned to stay permanently in the realm where it had all happened, your body and mind couldn’t help but remind you of the danger this place once held for you.
Unfortunately, it finally happened when you were chasing Declan on the palace grounds.
You followed quickly after him with a giddy grin, your dress in hand, your shoes kicked off somewhere behind you when Declan first started to flee. But he turned a corner then and you couldn’t see him. Your heart beat loudly and it wasn’t from the unanticipated cardio of running after your son. And then it dropped. The same way it had dropped when you found his bed empty in the Waking World.
“Declan?” You called out, as you searched behind a set of hedges. You moved frantically, from the hedges to the wisteria trees, calling out desperately for him, when he finally appeared from behind a rounded corner of the castle. Your body slacked with a breath of relief as you ran over to him. “Oh, thank god,” you sighed, as you knelt down to hold him tightly against you.
“Doesn’t count,”he piped up, in reference to your finding him. “Only came out because you were scared.”
“Alright, I suppose that’s fair,” you laughed, as you pulled away to look at him. But your gaze fell behind him to a small, rectangular window.
The bars and the mesh hadn’t changed, you noted. The afternoon sun still filtered in and you could almost see yourself down there, basking in the warmth that he allowed you to have after days of darkness.
“Mommy, hurts!” Declan cried, as you held him tighter than you meant to. You released him without a word and he turned to find your lips parted and tears racing down your face. “Mommy?” He asked, as he poked you, but you didn’t respond. “Mommy?” He asked again, his tiny hand gripping your shoulder as he begged you to answer him. But all you could feel was the cold night air nipping at your skin like it would every night you were down there. “Mommy!” He sobbed, at your unresponsiveness.
“Daddy!” He cried out, turning towards the palace, and Dream appeared a moment later, looking over his son for any sign of injury.
“Declan, what is it?” He asked, kneeling to his son’s height and wiping his wet cheeks.
“Mommy!” He sobbed, pointing to your kneeling form before the small window.
Dream turned and his heart dropped when he realized what you were staring at. He swallowed thickly before turning back to Declan. “Mummy’s alright,” he assured him, as he picked him up. “She’s alright,” he soothed, waiting until his tears had subsided before disappearing in a cloud of sand to lay him in his bed.
He returned to you a moment later to find you still kneeling by the window, staring vacantly at the cell you called home for two weeks. He approached you gingerly, calling out to you with no response.
“Little witch?” He called for you gently, before placing a light hand on your shoulder.
You turned immediately at his touch, shuffling backwards on the grass until your back hit the stone wall. The soft grass suddenly felt like coarse stone to you as you recalled the night you first came here and he left you in the stone cell that lay behind you now.
He watched you look up at him with fear shaking your body and wild, frenzied eyes. And he could almost hear your words from that night: “What’re you going to do to me?”
“Dear witch,” he cried softly. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured you, as he stepped forward, but you pressed further into the stone wall, turning in on yourself in a way that broke his heart. “Alright,” he agreed, taking a step back with his palms turned out towards you. With the space he gave you, your breathing began to even and you eyed him carefully as he knelt down to your same, lowered height. “You’re not in there,” he reminded you. “And,” he closed his eyes, as he forced himself to say the words, to admit to what he had done. “I will never put you there again.”
You swallowed thickly as you considered his words and you gripped the grass at your hands tightly. You let yourself cling to the blades, the soft dirt underneath, and you believed him. You weren’t in that dungeon anymore, and he wouldn’t put you back there again.
“Then why is it still here?”
He swallowed thickly at your small voice and the way you couldn’t seem to look away from him, watching his every move carefully for any sign that he’d go back on his word.
“It’s not for you, dear witch,” he shook his head lightly at your fear that he would put you back there. “I – I kept it as a reminder to myself. Of what I’d done to you. And why I shouldn’t look for you, after you left. How after what I’d done to you, you deserved to be free of me,” you listened to him carefully, and your gaze dipped low. “And whenever I considered giving it all up, it served as a reminder of what you suffered at my hand simply because I no longer wished to be Dream of the Endless.”
You watched him carefully, considering his words and the truth behind them for a moment, before you spoke. “Then you can get rid of it,” you countered, hesitantly. He furrowed his brow, and you continued. “If it was a reminder of why you shouldn’t look for me, then you don’t need it anymore. And you told me you plan to keep being Dream of the Endless, so you don’t need it for that, either. So, you can get rid of it now, can’t you?”
“I – I suppose I can,” he realized. When you returned, he didn’t know what to do with it. He wanted to keep it as a way to remind himself that he had so much to make up for with you. But with the way those memories remained etched in his mind, and the way the cell’s continued existence wounded you, he realized he didn’t need it anymore. So he looked past you, and the cell filled with stone as the small window disappeared, as you turned to watch it fill and disappear.
Your hand went to wall, feeling where the window used to be, and when you felt nothing but stone, you breathed deeply before wiping your tears with the back of your hand.
“Where’s Declan?” You asked quickly, as you turned back to Dream. He was with you one moment, and the next, Dream had appeared.
“He’s fine, my love,” he assured you. “I left him in his bed.”
“Oh god, I must have scared him,” you realized, unsure of what happened in your missing time. “I should go check on him,” you decided, as you pushed off the ground, but Dream followed after you with a hand on your arm.
“He’s alright, dear witch,” he explained softly, before moving to stand before you. He peered down at you with worried eyes at how you seemed to move past this incident so soon. “Are you?”
“I guess I didn’t really think about what it’d be like to be back here after what happened,” you realized, with a distant gaze. “I thought I was over it, but seeing that room again,” you breathed softly, as you glanced back to where it had been. “I spent so long trying to let go of what happened because I never thought I’d be back here again. And ever since I’ve been back, there’s just been this aching, this nagging feeling that it wouldn’t be long,” you admitted softly, before pushing the words out. “Before something happened and you put me back there.”
“I would never,” he breathed.
“I – I know. I know that, Dream,” you nodded, looking up at him with a hesitant smile. You reached a hand out to his arm to steady yourself and assure him that you didn’t doubt his affections for you. “But fear isn’t always a logical thing,” you explained. “I know you’re not going to hurt me, but I can’t help feeling scared of what happened.”
“Perhaps with time, your fear of this place, of what happened, will fade,” he offered, hopefully. You nodded with a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes and he let it pass, unwilling to pick at the delicate resolution you had found.
You rolled over in your sleep that night, and when you moved to drape an arm over Dream, you frowned at the absence of his body next to yours. You called out for him with no response and grabbed a robe before beginning your search for him.
“Dream?” You called out, as you descended the stairs to the deepest parts of the castle. You had searched Declan’s room, Dream’s study, the library, your chambers, the throne room, but all to no avail. There was once place you thought he might be, one place you knew he’d never expect you to go.
You stared at the solid metal door for a moment. You had only seen the other side of it, but by the relative location of this room and when you had seen it from outside the castle, you were fairly certain this was it. So with a shaking hand, you unbolted the door and stepped inside to find Dream sitting on the mattress you called a bed for two weeks.
“Dream?” You called out gently. “What’re you doing here?” You asked, as you tightened your robe against the chill of the night air. “I thought you got rid of this place,” you muttered as you recalled how he had filled it with stone soon after you arrived here.
His head hung low and his arms rested on his knees, unable to look up at you when he spoke. “Go back to bed, little witch,” he warned you.
“No,” you shook your head softly. “Not without you,” you added. You tried to approach him, but an invisible barrier prevented you from getting any closer. You tested the shield with your hand, before conceding that Dream didn’t want you near him.
“Leave me,” he demanded, but you simply looked down at him with your hand still against the boundary.
“Not when you’re like this,” you told him. “Dream, I can’t stand to see you like this,” you pleaded, and you yearned to reach out and hold him.
“Then leave,” he insisted. “And you won’t have to.”
“That’s not what I meant,” you scoffed. “I can’t stand the thought of you –”
You appeared in your chambers at that moment to your surprise. “Hurt,” you finished as you glanced around. When you realized what he had done, you let out a breath of fury before heading back down to the stone room and swinging the metal door open.
“That was not cool, Dream,” you berated, as you approached him. The barrier was still in place and kept you a short distance from him, but you didn’t let it deter you. “And before you decide to send me back to our chambers again, just know that I will be right back down here again.” You placed a hand to the barrier and sighed, “So, will you please just talk to me, Dream?”
He turned away from you and the bubble disappeared. Moving slowly to the bed, you sat beside him before gently laying a hand on his forearm.
“Is this because of earlier? When I found this place again?” You wondered softly, and when he didn’t respond, you took his silence as confirmation. “Oh, Dream,” you sighed softly, before moving to wrap your arms around him. He didn’t move though; as desperately as he wanted to hold you, he knew he didn’t deserve to. “It’s alright, my love. I’m alright,” you assured him, before pulling away enough to look at him. You brushed his hair from his eyes and turned his face towards you before continuing. “I know how much you regret what you did. I know you want to make up for it, and you have,” you explained, but he remained unconvinced.
“I could spend eternity trying to make up for it, but it wouldn’t change what I’ve done. And how it’s affected you,” he remarked, before letting out a breath of disbelief and twisting out of your hold. “Everything that I did to you, that I put you through in here, I can never undo it. I can never make up for it because it’ll always haunt you.”
“You might not be able to undo it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make up for it, Dream,” you assured him, and you tried to turn your head to catch his gaze, but he couldn’t bear to look at you now. “Because you have. I might occasionally remember something from then, and it might hurt, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you now.”
“Shouldn’t it?” He wondered, turning to you only for a moment before shutting his eyes against the doubt in your eyes. “Do you remember the banquet I held to appoint the Key to Hell? You asked me about Nada. The woman I had gone to Hell to find,” he began. “She was someone I loved very much, very long ago. And when she rejected my affections, I reacted harshly,” he paused, taking a breath before he could admit this to you. “I sentenced her to damnation for ten thousand years.”
Your breath caught in your chest at his words. You had thought your imprisonment was cruel, but this was something else entirely. If you had known what he had done to this Nada, perhaps you wouldn’t have let him catch you all those years ago. Perhaps you wouldn’t have tried to save him, either. But you watched him eye you carefully for any sign that your perspective of him had changed, and you sighed. Of course you would have saved him still, and of course you would have let him catch you. For better or worse, you were still terribly, desperately in love with him. So you merely let your hand slide over his and squeeze gently.
“When I finally found her, she told me that if I truly loved her, I would never have sent her to Hell. That I could never do that I did to someone I loved,” he explained. “And she was right. So, if I truly loved you, how could I do what I did to you?” He asked slowly, as he turned to you.
“Dream, what are you saying?” You asked in a low voice, as you clung desperately to his hand. But your heart dropping and the tears rolling down your face were proof that you already knew what he was going to say.
“I don’t think I love you,” he stated softly, before pulling his hand from you.
“Dream,” you whispered, brokenly, peering up at him with red eyes.
“I deprived you of food for two days. I didn’t let you see the sun for days. I wouldn’t let you speak to another soul for weeks,” he recounted. “You – you sought to end your life because I left you down here with no hope for escape. And even then I didn’t release you,” he whispered, and you looked away from him in shame. “If I loved you, I should never have been able to do those things to you.”
You wiped at your eyes and sniffled sharply, but you couldn’t seem to find fault in his words.
“You can’t deny it, can you?” he wondered simply, as he stared vacantly at the wall. You rolled your lip between your teeth as a heavy silence filled the space between you. “You should go. I don’t love you, little witch, and it won’t be long before you realize that yourself.”
“No,” you insisted, before clearing your aching throat. “I don’t believe you,” you sniffled, wiping harshly at your nose. “I think you’re afraid that I’m going to leave you like this Nada did, so you’re pushing me away before I get the chance. But I’m not leaving, Dream. I could never leave you,” you assured him, as your hand moved over to his. But he pulled it away as though you had burned him.
“You’ve left before,” he reminded you. “Perhaps you should have stayed that way and remained without me.”
“This is ridiculous,” you scoffed, as you rose form the mattress to face him. “Dream, I love you. I know you love me. So you can keep at it with this stupid, brooding, pushing-me-away-before-I-leave-you act, but I’m not going anywhere.” You moved to leave, but his next words stopped you in your tracks.
“You don’t love me, either,” he scoffed to your turned back. “You said you didn’t have any choice but to love me after you learned you were carrying my child.”
You recalled the words you had uttered to him in a teasing tone when he had asked why you loved him so deeply, and your eyes narrowed as he weaponized such a simple, silly moment. “It was a joke!” You shouted.
“It was the truth!” He responded in kind, rising to his feet. “If it weren’t for Declan, you never would have let me back into your life. He’s the only reason you’ve forgiven me. He’s the only thing connecting us.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, but this is a new low, Dream,” you scoffed. “Bringing our son into this petty little self-sabotage? Using him as a reason to try and get me to leave? Unbelievable.”
“You didn’t deny it,” he bristled, as you turned to leave. You looked up to the ceiling, sighing exasperatedly before shaking your head and turning to him.
“I deny it, Dream; If it was just me, I would have gone back to you in a heartbeat. Declan was the reason I hid from you for three years. Because I was scared of what you’d do to him after what you did to me,” you admitted. “Happy? Is that what you want to hear? Or do you want to hear how I hate myself for being so weak that I slept with you, had your kid, and fucking moved in with you?”
He looked at you with parted lips and a broken breath escaped you as you realized you had gone too far. “You hate yourself for having my child and reconciling with me?” He asked, in a small voice, and you knew he expected you to say something, but not this.
His quiet heartbreak caught you off guard with how aggressively he had been pushing you to leave. Your gaze dipped and your body slacked with dejection as you moved to sit on the mattress. “Not for Declan,” you sighed. “But sometimes,” you began, as you pulled at your fingers. “Sometimes I think about what it must look like to everyone else and I feel… stupid and weak. Like I’m giving in to you. Like I’m letting you get away with what you did to me. Like anyone with a spine would have left.” A bitter, breathy laugh left you before you continued. “Sometimes I can’t even look at myself with how little I respect myself now.”
You sat in a quiet humiliation after your revelation as Dream moved to sit beside you. “Do you regret having a child with me? Or being with me?” He wondered softly, trying to keep his voice even despite the heartache he knew your words could cause him.
“No, Dream,” you breathed, with a light smile. “I don’t regret having Declan, or getting back together with you,” you assured him, as you took his hand into your lap. “I just wish it all happened a little differently,” you added, as you turned his hand over to interlace your fingers with his. “That maybe I could have kept even a scrap of my dignity. Maybe I should’ve been like Nada,” you huffed a bitter laugh. “And had enough self-respect to tell you off and walk away.”
“You still could,” he offered. “I would understand,” he assured, as he looked cautiously to you. “You may not be able to return to the Waking World, but I could build you and Declan a home, anywhere you’d like in the realm, and I’d never bother you. The damage I’ve caused you is irreparable. You’ll always bear it and it’ll only worsen if you stay here with me.”
“It’s not about where I am,” you explained. “Even when I was in the Waking World, I couldn’t escape what happened. I – I had the lights on 24/7 because I was so scared to surrounded by darkness again, I had to have the TV on because I could bear the sound of silence, and I ate that porridge for months because I was so used to it.” You sighed and leaned forward to wipe the tears from his face. He leaned into your touch and it broke your heart. “But I had to deal with it all on my own back then,” you added, softly. “I have you now, and seeing how much you care about me, how much you regret what you’ve done really has helped.”
“Does it really help?” He asked, in a small voice. “Having me with you?”
“Well, I used to cry myself to sleep every night back then,” you recounted. “And now, this is the first time I’ve cried in months. So, yeah, I’d say that’s an improvement,” you joked. It didn’t seem to lift his spirits or convince him in any way, so you continued in a more genuine way to reassure him. “I could never leave you, anyway,” you sighed, and a sad smile ghosted over your face. “I love you too much. And I’d hate myself far more if I left you.”
He looked at you for a moment as he considered the weight of your words and the truth to them. “What do we do, then?” He wondered. “If you can no longer respect yourself for staying with me, but you’d hate yourself for leaving?”
“I don’t know,” you realized. “Maybe we just keep going, and hope that along the way, it doesn’t feel as bad. And we agree,” you turned to look directly at him as you squeezed his hand. “That even if things get really bad, even if we’re really hurting, we don’t push each other away. Because I know I’d be far more miserable without you, Dream. I was far more miserable without you.”
The months afterwards seemed to pass the way they had before you rediscovered your stone room. Taking your words to heart, he trusted that you wouldn't leave him, but he still worked desperately to give you every reason to stay.
You woke at the instant you felt him shift in the bed. You reached forward then, your arm wrapping around his waist and pulling him towards you.
“No,” you grumbled, as you turned your face against his back and wrapped your leg around him.
He chuckled softly, before letting the covers fall over him again. “You do know I have a realm to oversee?” He asked, as he craned his head to glance slightly at you.
“You also have a wife to hold,” you reminded him, your grip on him only tightening as your arm and leg pulled him flush against you.
His arm went to rest over yours and he took your left hand in his, eyeing the ring he had placed there only a few weeks ago. “Five more minutes,” he conceded and you agreed with a contented hum, though he knew you wouldn’t let go of him for at least another ten minutes.
And at the end of those ten minutes, when he shifted to move from the bed once again, your arm trailed down from his waist, your fingertips grazing lightly over his chiseled abdomen, before dipping even lower to wrap around his length. His breath hitched, his eyes shooting open at the contact, before trying admirably to keep his voice even and determined.
“I have duties to attend to,” he managed to grit out, as your leg tightened over his hip, keeping him flush against you as you peppered kisses across the smooth planes of his shoulder blades.
“Go, then,” you whispered, against the shell of his ear. “Tell me to stop, and I will,” you challenged him, as your fingertips ghosted along his hardening length. But his body betrayed whatever words he could utter, as the head of him began to leak and your thumb swiped at the wetness before spreading it along his length.
You bit back the contented moan that threatened to leave you at the feel of him in your hand. You couldn’t see over his shoulder, so you let your hand be your eyes: your fingers slid along the smooth marble that comprised his cock, the velvety head that flared his tip, and you just wanted to taste him. As you felt him harden in your hold, your thigh tensed around his waist as you longed to feel the weight of him, the girth of him inside of you. But the thought of him leaving you to attend his duties had pettiness coursing through your veins and slowing your movements. Your hand moved along him languidly then, but you maintained a tight grip, squeezing in just the right way to have his mouth falling open.
“Little witch,” he spoke, in something between a warning and a plea that you decided to test. Your pace increased infinitesimally, and he knew you would only hasten if he begged you to. You watched over his shoulder as he considered giving in to you, and your coy smile deepened when you caught his throat bobbing.
“Would you like me to stop, Dream?” You asked, innocently, batting your lashes, even though you knew he couldn’t see you. Your pace slowed then, and he forced himself to answer you by shaking his head against the pillow. “What’s that, my love?” You asked, despite watching from behind him with an indescribable sense of achievement as his locks shuffled side-to-side with his shaking head.
“Don’t stop,” he rasped. “Please.” Your hand moved faster upon his length until you felt him swell in your hand. His eyes fluttered closed as the warmth of your hand tightened around him with a welcome speed, but they shot back open as your ministrations slowed unexpectedly.
“But what about your duties?” You wondered with a smirk that soon faltered when a grunt of frustration left his lips as he finally grew tired of your teasing. His hand closed around yours with a force indicative of his impatience before moving your hand up and down upon his length even faster. With your hand pressed between his hand and his cock, you gasped lightly as his grip tightened around your fingers and he used you to achieve his release.
“You never know when to stop, do you, witch?” He gritted out, and you whimpered softly as his irritation began to show in the way his fingertips dug into your hand. You felt his thigh tense under the leg you still had wrapped around him and you inhaled sharply in anticipation as his cock jumped in your hand. But he didn’t spill over your hand then, and you frowned as he released your fingers instead.
He rolled over sharply then, pinning you flat on your back and caging you in below him, as he grabbed your wrists and trapped them above your head with one hand.
“Oh, little witch,” he shook his head as he peered down at your surprise and confusion, before dipping his head low against you. “Do you think I would cum anywhere else when I have you?” He whispered roughly against your ear. You didn’t have even a moment to try and plead your way out of this before he let his frustrations get the best of him.
He pushed through your entrance harshly then, splitting you open in a single, brutal movement that filled you completely. You cried out at the burning stretch, your eyes shut against the pain, and he took pride in the sound as it turned to a low moan and the way you strained against his hold. He held your wrists tighter, pinned your hip harsher then, as you squirmed at the unexpected intrusion with pleading eyes.
Your heavy panting filled his ears and just as your breath began to even, your walls beginning to adjust around him, he pulled out momentarily, only to slam back into with a force that shook the bed.
“Dream!” You cried out, struggling for purchase as he set a brutal pace that was sure to bruise. With your hands pinned above you, you moved to wrap your legs around his waist instead. He longed to pull you down onto his cock, so with a thought, his hand at your wrists was replaced by a strip of satin that kept you pinned down against the bed. “Dream, please,” you whined, as you longed to wrap your hands around his arms or lock them at the back of his neck or anywhere, really, just as long as you could touch him.
“With how you’ve teased me just now,” he whispered roughly, as he leaned forward against your ear. You leaned your face against his, urgently seeking his touch. “Do you truly think you deserve to touch me?”
“Please,” you cried softly, locking your ankles behind him as you desperately sought to pull him in deeper. You rolled your hips against him, begging him wordlessly, before leaning forward to try and kiss him. But he pulled away then, just out of reach and smirking at the saddened tremor of your lip.
“No,” he refused, and you whined softly before resigning to his demands and falling limp against the bed. He reached behind him then to pull your ankles from their locked position at his waist and you whined as the loss of pressure. But he used his new hold to fold your legs in and pin your knees to your chest. He pushed back even deeper into you then and you cried out as he struck the deepest part of you.
He felt you squirm in his hold at his forceful thrust, and he simply held you tighter, eager to leave you with bruises on your hips. He watched your chest rise erratically, the soft, whining moans that rose in pitch with every beautiful whimper that fell from your lips, and he knew your orgasm was just within reach. So he let himself go, spilling into you with one final thrust that was sure to bruise you inside the way his hands had bruised you outside.
His movements stilled then, as his breath evened, and your eyes fluttered open in silent confusion as your orgasm remained just out of reach.
He sighed contentedly as he pulled out of you, before using one hand to push your knees in towards you and put your ruined cunt on full display for him. He watched intently as his release trickled out of you, and you whined softly as you felt your climax fall away. He swiped at the thick droplet that dared escape from you and placed it at your lips. You stared up at him as you parted your lips and took his finger into your mouth before licking it clean for him. The corner of his mouth twitched as he realized how he had you wrapped around his finger, both literally and figuratively.
He shifted away from you then, and you watched him with disbelief parting your lips and widening your eyes.
“Where are you going?!” You called out, incredulously, as you watched him rise from the bed and move towards his dressing chambers. Your legs fell down from their pinned position at your chest as you sat up slightly to watch him leave you.
“I have duties to attend to,” he reminded you, and the length of satin at your wrists dissipated as he returned with his clothes in hand. He smirked lightly at the disappointed expression you wore as you watched him clothe himself. You watched his cock disappear beneath black boxers and you couldn’t help the soft, disappointed cry that slipped from your mouth. You looked up to plead with him, but when you caught the self-satisfied expression he wore, you pursed your lips and narrowed your eyes.
“Fine, go,” you huffed, as you turned on your side, facing away from him. Your thighs rubbed inwardly and you winced at the slight ache and the sticky essence of him that reminded you that while he had finished, he intended to punish you for your earlier teasing by ensuring that you did not. He finished dressing with a thought then, frowning at the way you seemed to give up so easily.
He watched your silent, angered form carefully, before approaching your turned back. “I’ll see you and Declan for breakfast later?” He checked slowly, and when you didn’t respond, he placed a hesitant hand on your shoulder.
“Go tend to your duties, Dream Lord,” you spat, as you twisted out of his grasp, without turning to him.
“Dear witch, I didn’t mean to upset you so,” he apologized softly, before lifting the covers and sliding back into the bed behind you. His clothes vanished in an instant, and his arm snaked over your waist to reach for your hand, but you pulled it from his grip.
He knew your anger was legendary and your ability to hold a grudge impressive, even to him, so he sought to dissipate your fury before it grew out of control and he found himself deprived of you. So he wrapped his arm around your waist, just as you had done to him earlier, and paused to see if you would deny him the contact. When you made no attempt to stop him, his hand slid down your hip, his fingers pressing gingerly at the inside of your sticky thighs.
“May I?” He asked, softly, as his fingers slid inwards before tracing along your leaking slit.
“What about your duties?” You scoffed lightly, but your resolve wore thinner by the second as his fingers delved between your folds and toyed with your clit.
“They can wait,” he assured you, as he pressed harshly against you, eliciting a soft gasp as you felt his renewed erection at your back. “At the moment, I have a wife to please,” he gritted out as his arm moved from within you to close around your waist and pull you even tighter against him.
“Then go ahead,” you told him, as you rolled over to face him with a coy smile playing on your lips and your hands on his chest. “Please me.”
He rolled you over onto you back then, settling between your legs with one hand on your hip and the other holding your face delicately before leaning down to pepper soft kisses over your face. You giggled softly at the feather-light touches and the sound relieved him.
“Are you still upset with me, my love?” He smiled, before leaving a kiss on your nose.
“Yes,” you lied, biting your lip to keep a smile from forming. He trailed a line along your jaw with his lips, and your hands moved to sift through his dark locks.
“Even now?” He wondered, his eyes connecting with yours as his other hand traced around your dripping core. You gasped softly at the caress and he knew he’d won you over.
“Yes,” you insisted, despite the way your thighs tensed. “You were about to leave me here,” you reminded him. “Of course I’m still upset.”
“I see,” he hummed, before pulling his hand from your face to open you up wider for him. He entered you slowly, pushing through his previous release and watching as it seeped slowly from you at his intrusion. He watched your head fall back and a soft breath of amusement left him at the moan that fell from your open mouth as he filled you. “And now?”
“Yes,” you rushed, closing your eyes and trying desperately to maintain your displeased expression despite the inexplicably perfect way he stretched you open. You clenched around him desperately though, your need for him disputing any words you could possibly utter. Your pleasure returned to you quickly, and with the way he had denied you earlier, you knew it wouldn’t be long before you came.
He withdrew from you then, and you leaned up, watching nervously to ensure that he wasn’t going to leave you again. But he thrust into you again with a force that caught you off guard and stole your breath.
“I’m not leaving, my love,” he assured you, leaning forward to press a kiss to your lips. “Not until you admit that you’re no longer angry with me,” he informed you, before pinning your hips tightly to the bed and picking up with a brutal pace. You yelped in surprise at the first thrust at this new speed, and your hands shot out to grip his biceps to steady you. You bit back the moan that you knew would feed directly into his ego and convince him that you had forgiven him so easily. But he caught the way you squeezed your eyes shut and bit your lip, so he thrust into you even harsher then, and a strangled whimper fell from your lips. You squeezed the taut muscle of his arms with an iron grip as you cried out and came in a shaking mess around him.
He waited for your breath to even and your hold on his arms to loosen before brushing your hair from your face gently. “Are you still upset, dear witch?” He asked softly, with a knowing smile as he watched you come down from your high.
You opened your eyes slowly to find him peering down at you with soft words and an adoring gaze. But then you remembered how he had almost left you here with sticky thighs, an aching core, and no prospect of release, and you steeled your expression while pressing your fingertips into his arms.
“Yes,” you maintained, with determined eyes and a conviction that surprised him. He had expected you to call it even after achieving your release, but your willfulness seemed to fuel your petty conviction.
“Is that so?” He challenged, watching as you pursed your lips and nodded. He picked up his pace again, his hips snapping against yours with a force that was certain to bruise. You were already so sensitive, still sore from the first time this morning he had penetrated you, but you refused to give him any sense of satisfaction. So despite the way your walls strained around him and your abdomen ached as your pleasure built, you grit your teeth and let him fuck you in an attempt to return to your good graces.
“Y-yes!” You squealed, amid the shaking of the bed frame the obscene sound of skin against skin. He pushed even deeper into you, and you bit your lip against the moan you knew would escape you when he struck your cervix. He shook his head lightly at the way you squeezed your eyes shut and bit your lip all to avoid giving in to him. He struck the same delicate spot again and a strangled whimper sounded from you as you came once again, leaving you a pathetic, whining mess beneath him.
He peered down at you, silently awaiting your words of concession, as you fell from this climax. Your breath evened once again, your eyes fluttered open, but no words of concession came, and he sighed softly at your stubbornness. He reached for your thigh then, and you inhaled sharply as you realized his next move.
“Admit that you’re not angry with me,” he challenged, as his eyes connected with yours. You watched him carefully for a moment, weighing the possible defeat against the devastation another orgasm would cause you. He caught the indecision in your eyes and leaned his forehead gently against yours. “Admit that you could never be angry with me, my love,” he whispered softly. The act was so delicate, so gentle compared to the brutal way he was putting you through orgasm after orgasm, and you longed to embrace more of tenderness. But something inside of you refused to let him win.
So you simply shook your head, before looking up at him with fortitude burning your eyes. “I’m still angry with you, Dream,” you insisted. “And I will always be angry with you when you threaten to leave me like that.”
“Oh, little witch,” he sighed, as he shook his head at your insults and futile conviction. His hand went to your face and you frowned at the caring act, before he thumbed away at the tears you hadn’t noticed crying. “I assure you, those won’t be the last tears you cry if you continue this,” he warned.
He hitched your leg over his shoulder then, and you cried out as he folded you in half, slamming into that spongy spot inside of you with an accuracy that had his threat actualized.
“Dream!” You wept, and the tears streaked down your face, as your core ached with a frustrating mix of pleasure and pain. Your hands went to tangle in his hair and you pulled weakly at his tresses, begging him wordlessly for some form of relief.
“Are you still angry with me?” He gritted, as you heard a crack you were certain was the splitting of the bedframe. You squeezed your eyes shut, but he pressed continuously at that perfect place inside of you and your eyes shot open. The unyielding look in his eyes had you whining petulantly as you realized he could keep this up far longer than you could.
Your lip trembled and your body burned at his relentless pace, but you just couldn’t let him get away with this. “Yes, y-yes!” You cried, pushing forward despite your revelation, and at the sight of the excessive tears this overstimulation was causing you, he actually considering stopping. But he slammed particularly forcefully into you then, and the resulting sob was too beautiful for him to pass up. So he willed the bedframe whole, conveying to you that nothing could save you from this.
“Are you certain, little witch?” He wondered, condescendingly, as you looked up at him through your teary eyes with a quivering lip. A deflating sigh left him as you nodded your head, wordlessly expressing your refusal to give in to him. He pulled out of you then, and a relieved sigh left you as your heart rate and breathing began to stabilize.
Your slowly closing lids shot open when his hand gripped your hip tightly before tossing you over on your stomach. Your hands moved to prop yourself up before he slipped inside of you once again, but he was faster. He pushed through the mix of your arousals as he entered you roughly and you couldn’t help but cry petulantly at the thought of him putting you through another orgasm. He kept you tight against him with his hold on your hips and your body slacked in his hold.
Kneeling behind you didn’t give him a very good look or your face or, but if the pathetic whine that seeped from your lips as he pushed through your swollen folds was any indication, you wouldn’t last much longer. He pistoned into you, meticulously striking that spot that had you whimpering and crying out for him.
“Dream, please,” you sobbed, clutching desperately at the sheets beneath your palms, as you felt your pleasure build exponentially. Every touch was too much, your body far too sensitive for the brutal way he was bruising your hips or the unrelenting way he slammed into you repeatedly.
“Aren’t you still angry with me?” He wondered, as he held himself deep within you. “Because you don’t sound particularly angry,” he smirked, at the whimpering sounds of your defeat.
“No!” You wept finally, and his hold loosened. “I’m not angry with you,” you sobbed, quietly, and he rewarded you by fucking you slower then, moving with smoother thrusts, highly aware of your oversensitivity. “God, no, Dream, I love you,” you moaned, as he eased out of you. “Fuck, Dream, I love you so much,” you breathed, as he pushed gently through your swollen folds to press against that perfect spot with a feather-light touch. Your head fell back with a soft, extended moan that made him smile.
“I know, little witch,” he whispered, as he smoothed back your hair. “Just as I love you,” he sighed. You reached one hand back to tug at his locks in a wordless reply to his sweet sentiments. His hands returned to your hips and he gradually picked up his pace until you were coming yet again, as a shaking, mewling mess around his cock. He emptied into you as you tightened around him, pulling every ounce from him desperately. You fell limp in his arms as he withdrew from you, and he placed you delicately against the bed, facing him.
“Are you alright, my love?” He murmured, as he brushed the tears from your face. You simply nodded, far too tired to speak, or even open your eyes. He smiled softly at the exhaustion you wore, before pulling you in to him. You whined softly as he pressed inadvertently at the still-forming bruises on your hip and he apologized quickly as he withdrew his hand from you. You moved closer to him with your eyes still closed and buried your face in his chest just the way he had wanted.
His hand went to your back then, rubbing soothing circles there as he hummed contentedly at the feeling of you in his arms. His duties could wait, he decided as he pressed a kiss to your forehead, for as long as you needed him.
“Dream?” You wondered, softly, as you pulled away from his chest to look up at him with concern knitting your brows together, and he frowned at the uncertainty you wore. “Were you really going to leave me like that?” You asked, quietly.
“With how you tested my patience earlier? Yes,” he confirmed, and your gaze dipped low. He sighed then, and his hand moved to your cheek to raise your gaze to his. “But then you were so upset and I couldn’t stand the thought of you angry with me,” he admitted, his thumb brushing lightly against your cheek.
“So, I just have to pout and pretend to be mad at you and you’ll do whatever I want?” You wondered, with a slow smile. He blinked at you and you grinned as you both realized you were right. “I am definitely keeping that in mind,” you assured him.
“I really wish you wouldn’t,” he pleaded, hesitant to let you know exactly what kind of power you held over him.
“Oh, that is too bad,” you laughed, as you leaned up to brush your nose against his. “I am so using that against you,” you teased, before planting your lips on his.
“He seems sort of lonely, doesn’t he?” You spoke up after a moment. Dream turned to you with a frown, before looking back to Declan, who was petting Goldie. “I mean, sure he’s got us, and Goldie,” you gestured to the gargoyle. “And Matthew, and Lucienne, and yada yada yada, but he hasn’t got many friends his own age.”
“He interacts with child dreamers every now and then,” Dream remarked. “And he still sees Sara from the park.”
“Yeah, but that’s only for a few hours. Otherwise, he’s hanging out with grown-ups most of the day,” you explained. “I don’t know, I think he could benefit from hanging out with other children.”
“I suppose so,” Dream hummed, as he considered how to fulfill your request. A silence filled the space between you on the bench, and you spoke up again with a similar unprompted remark.
“And he’s an only child,” you blurted out. “Only children are weird, you know,” you nodded, with raised brows as you glanced over at Dream. “I had a friend who could tell after one conversation with someone if they were an only child. There’s always something off about them.” You rambled, and Dream watched you carefully. “And they don’t learn to share. Or they get spoiled. I mean, he’s already basically a prince, Dream,” you explained. “Do you want Declan to be spoiled, too?”
He peered at you for a moment, with slightly narrowed eyes. He recalled how your exhaustion had caused you to sleep in far more than usual, how limited your appetite had become, and lately, how you had forgone any wine.
You caught his suspicious glance with wide eyes, so you turned then, clearing your throat and trying to assume a nonchalant expression. After a moment, you glanced back towards him to find him still watching you.
“Little witch,” Dream began, a smile playing on his lips as he looked to you, slowly. “Do you have something to tell me?”
“No,” you scoffed, defensively, but mostly out of habit at his smug tone. He peered at you with a knowing look and you sighed, “Yes.” Your gaze dipped from his and you rolled your lip between your teeth. “I um, I think I might be pregnant,” you finally admitted with a breath of disbelief. You hadn’t had to admit it to him the first time around, so you weren’t really sure how to go about it now. “Is – is that okay?” You asked, uncertainty shaking your voice as you finally looked up at him.
“Oh, my love,” he sighed, shaking his head lightly at you before pulling you to his lips. He moved urgently against you, as though he were trying to communicate every ounce of excitement, and pride, and joy your news brought him. “It’s wonderful,” he breathed, as he pulled away to watch you smile, at ease now that you had unburdened yourself. His other hand moved lower, sliding down to your midsection, where you would be showing in a few months’ time. Your hand moved over his, your fingers interlacing with his over your belly, before you leaned up to kiss him.
Morpheus/Dream of the Endless x gender-neutral!Reader
Summary: You try to come to terms with what you've learned, and grapple with the concept of fate.
Word count: 8.1k
A note from the author: This is a very angsty and introspective chapter, so sorry for the paragraphs of just Reader's thoughts. One of the coolest parts of the comics that they didn't touch on in the show is how, in the days before Morpheus shows up looking for his bag of sand, music about dreams follows John Constantine wherever he goes. I had to include it in this chapter because I love it so much.
Enjoy this chapter? I’d love to hear about it! Likes, comments, and reblogs make my world go round.
*Content warning for mentions of alcohol use*
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Official String of Fate playlist
When you were sixteen, you were involved in a car accident. The car full of teenagers that you were in, heading to a school event, was t-boned by another car full of teenagers heading to the same event. Both cars—cheap starter cars purchased by parents as birthday gifts—suffered a lot of damage, but the injuries of those inside did not match: of the eight people involved, the most severe injury was a broken arm suffered by your friend who was driving. By comparison, the bruised shoulder you received from the seatbelt doing its job should have warranted barely a passing glance by emergency services.
What had the paramedics focusing their attentions on you, though, was the shock that you proceeded to experience from the ordeal. It was a surreal event, where your body almost didn’t feel like your own. You shook so violently as you were initially assessed that the crew had trouble actually examining you, having to physically guide you to sit on a stretcher because you found your legs could no longer move. It was a warm, early September evening, but the temperature mattered not to the chills that wracked you, as though you had been submerged in a cold plunge. Although it was embarrassing to look back on it in the present, the paramedic who wrapped you in a shock blanket and held your hands to ground you as you hyperventilated your way through a panic attack assured you that that sort of reaction to a traumatic event was extremely common.
Why this memory comes to you as you close your front door behind you is a mystery. After all, you made it out of the library safely. You’re alive, and that’s what matters. Yet, your hands fumble clumsily with the lock, the loud click as you finally manage to turn it jarring—you journeyed home in complete silence, with only the sound of your heavy breathing filling your ears. You turn towards the kitchen, intending to grab some water, only to find that your feet remain stubbornly in place.
Even when you do get them to move, you have to remind yourself how to walk. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, you repeat over and over again, feeling a lot like you’re controlling a character in a video game, until you stand in front of your kitchen cabinets. As you go to open the cabinet, you’re struck by how severely your hand is shaking, the glasses clinking together as you try to take hold of one. At the same time, you become aware of how fast your heart is beating, how feverish you suddenly feel.
Maybe there is a reason why what you’ve gone through tonight reminded you of a long-ago car accident.
Your body is wired like an electric current is running through it, and you’re almost surprised that there are no sparks when a few drops of water spill on your skin as you unsteadily try to make it to your living room. When you finally collapse on the couch, the shaking completely overtakes you, until you’re trembling so hard that your teeth chatter. With no one around to help you through the shock that you’re apparently experiencing once more, you reach for a blanket and pull it over your shoulders, hugging yourself tightly as you try not to fully panic over what you’ve been through tonight.
Part of you still doesn’t believe it. How are you meant to even begin to wrap your head around the fact that characters from mythology and fairy tales aren’t actually characters, and are instead very real? But with what you saw—the way Loki shapeshifted, the sudden appearance of a man with one eye and a man wielding a hammer, the portal they all disappeared through—there can be no doubt in your mind. Loki, Puck, Odin, and Thor are all very real, and it stands to reason that every ‘fictional’ creature, from gods and fae to vampires and demons, is also real.
Though it’s a world-altering discovery, it feels almost easy to handle in comparison to…what else you learned tonight.
Morpheus, the man you’ve been dating, the man that, just a few hours ago, you could see yourself falling for, is not a man at all. If the unfathomable black mass and sentient shadows weren’t enough of a clue, his confession sealed it. The exact implication of what “the king of dreams and nightmares, one of seven anthropomorphic personifications of powerful natural forces” is, exactly, makes your head throb when you try to think about it. He’s apparently a king, but how can one be a king of an action? And how can one be a king when one’s an anthropomorphic personification?
(What exactly is an anthropomorphic personification?)
Beyond the newfound knowledge that he is, somehow, ruler of dreams, lies something far scarier: his confession that he’s your soulmate.
A soulmate. You’ve heard the term, of course—seen enough gushing Instagram posts, been to enough weddings where the bride and groom tearfully call each other the loves of their lives—but only in the abstract. Nobody actually believes in soulmates. While it’s certainly nice to believe that there’s a true love out there for everybody, it’s universally acknowledged that actual soulmates are stuck in the pages of romance novels.
Universally acknowledged by humans, at least. According to Morpheus, for all of the other species that exist—and how many is that?—this is a common occurrence. He said it as though it should be reassuring, like it was nothing to be frightened by, but you’re anything but reassured. The very existence of soulmates implies that there are forces out there far greater than what you can fathom, playing with everybody’s lives like pieces on a chessboard. Is there any sort of free will? Or is every single choice that a person makes, from what career to chase down to what to have for breakfast, predetermined?
This train of thought is getting a little too existential for your liking, and you force yourself to focus on the part of the equation that most pertains to you. How is Morpheus so sure that we’re soulmates? you wonder. But even as you do, you know that there’s been something unexplainable between you from the moment that you locked eyes with him at the New Inn. Call it sparks, a connection, chemistry—it’s undeniable that you’ve felt a thrill every time you’ve met, going back to that autumn morning when you showed him to Rob’s office on campus. You like Morpheus. But love? True love?
What would it be like to be loved? Not the love of family or friends, but loved. Every part of you, from your proudest achievements to your most vulnerable faults, adored and cherished. Someone to wake up next to in the mornings; someone to laugh with, to explore with, to share a life with. To be loved has always seemed like a far-off fantasy—nice to read about, but meant for other people, not you.
Is this why you’ve always found it so hard to date, to develop crushes on another person? Have you spent your entire life waiting to fall in love with Morpheus? Has every decision you’ve ever made led you to this moment? How long has he been looking for you?
It comes to you like a strike of lightning, the memories of sporadic dreams that have starred him. Though it takes a moment to recall them, your mind twists and turns the puzzle pieces until they eventually create the whole picture. His surprised expression when you saw him in the back of the classroom where you were teaching a class whose subject was foreign to you, and the abrupt end to the dream after you tried to approach him. How he easily pulled you out of a raging ocean and comforted you about your fears of the future that, before that, you only shared with the pages of your journal.
The way he held your hand so tenderly before chivalrously kissing the back of it, leaving that as the only lingering memory when you awoke.
Was that actually him? Working in his capacity as king of dreams, getting to know you in your truest form? The thought…unsettles you, like everything else he told you tonight. From the sounds of it, he’s manufactured all of your meetings, hiding who he really is to try and—well, you don’t know. You don’t get the sense that it was malicious. But his inability to tell you the truth, and his desire to try and make you like him ‘naturally’, have made it so.
He’s got the wrong person, you decide suddenly. Some metaphysical lines got crossed, and his attention was mistakenly pinned on you. His real soulmate, some hotshot god or beautiful nymph or suave elf, is currently wondering where their other half is. Soon enough, the universe will get the message, the error will be rectified, and the connection you feel to Morpheus will dissipate like dust in the wind, as though it was never there in the first place.
The living room has grown incrementally, noticeably brighter, and you look towards the window to see that you’ve been ruminating for so long that daylight is breaking. Not only is it a reminder of how many hours you’ve wasted on the couch, but it’s also a reminder that, though it feels a bit like your world is ending, the world outside of these walls spins ever on. Work and school and lives are guaranteed to continue onward like the faithful ticking of a clock.
There’s no way that you’re fit to be seen in public today; you don’t want to be seen in public today. The moment it’s socially acceptable to send a text—in this case, 7:30 a.m.—you fire one off to Rob, whose contact also includes the helpful (DO NOT DRUNK TEXT) after his name. I’m not going to make it to campus today, I’ve been up all night sick. I shared the study guides for this week’s class with you a couple of weeks ago, but let me know if you can’t find them.
Rob is the type of person to either respond immediately or not until hours have passed. This time, you’re grateful for the chime of your phone mere seconds later. Oh no! Are you okay?
Yeah, I think it’s just some 24-hour thing, you respond. At least, you hope this is the type of thing you can get over in 24 hours.
Rest up, and let me know if there’s anything that I can do.
You heart react the text, setting the phone down on your coffee table before another question comes to mind. Does Rob know what his best friend is? Has Morpheus been hiding the truth from everybody?
You groan tiredly, slinging an arm over your eyes and sinking into the couch cushions in the hopes that the furniture will swallow you whole so you won’t have to deal with any more of these mind fucks of questions. When your phone alerts you that you’ve received another text, you’re surprised to see that it’s been almost an hour since you assumed this position. You must have dozed off—a daunting realization, since all of your problems right now revolve around the man being who has carte blanche over that action.
Instead of Rob texting you that he couldn’t find the study guides, it’s from Georgia. Should I send out a search party for you?
You furrow your brow. What do you mean?
Considering I’m sitting here in Archival Methods and you’re not next to me, I kind of assumed you were dead in a ditch somewhere. She immediately follows it up with, After all, that’s the only reason you’d ever willingly miss this class.
Archival Methods? That’s a Tuesday/Thursday class (held at 8 a.m. because Dr. Keller is a sadist), but today is—you shoot up with a gasp upon looking at what your lock screen says. Shit, it’s Thursday morning! How could you have missed the one unmissable class of your week? There’s no choice but to stick to the excuse you’ve already come up with.
I’m sick, you write.
Like hungover sick?
You could agree with her assumption. There are also a whole host of other ailments to fake. Stomach flu, strep, covid, sinus infection. But you want at least someone to know the depth of the hurt that you’re experiencing, which leads you to say, I broke things off with Morpheus.
The text bubbles appear immediately after you hit send. Oh!
Georgia is not a woman of brevity. She will gladly tell you exactly what she’s thinking, in vivid detail. So for her to respond with a singular text of one word means that you’ve truly left her speechless—either that or Keller caught her using her phone. For her sake, you hope it’s the former. Left alone now with nothing but your own despair at the mess you’ve found yourself in, you decide that the best way to take your mind off of it is by cleaning a physical mess and washing the sink of dirty dishes by hand.
(Yes, you’re lucky enough to have a dishwasher. No, you don’t want to make things easier on yourself right now.)
Her response comes as you’re finishing scrubbing the inside of your water bottle that’s been long overdue for a clean, but not in the form of a text. No, when you hear a knock at the door, you know immediately who it is.
“I’m fine,” you insist as you open the door, wiping your still-wet hands on your thighs.
Georgia looks you up and down. “You’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes.”
You open your mouth to argue, but upon second glance, you are still wearing yesterday’s clothes—down to your shoes. “Huh, so I am.”
She slides past you and inside while you’re still pondering how you ended up this way, her long magenta hair (she got tired of the platinum last month, and you helped her dye her hair in her bathroom after she used a digital spinner wheel to land on pink as her next color) gently whipping you in the face. “Go take a shower, put some comfy clothes on, and pick a movie out. I’ll order us some breakup essentials.”
“Don’t you have another class in a bit?” you ask, knowing her schedule as well as your own.
Georgia holds a fist up to her mouth and coughs weakly into it. “Oh dear, I’m feeling very sick all of a sudden!”
Though you should at least attempt to fight her on this plan, you’re just feeling thankful that you have a best friend who cares for you like this. “Thank you.”
“You literally did the same for me last semester. Now go!” She doesn’t even look at you as she makes a shooing motion with one hand, scrolling on her phone through what you can only assume is Deliveroo with the other. You smile slightly, the first time in hours that your face has made such a movement, squeezing her affectionately before following her instructions.
Georgia doesn’t pry while you’re taking a shower, door open so her FOMO doesn’t get the best of her and she can chatter at you from where she sits. Not when she returns from grabbing the bags from the delivery driver. Not when she unpacks the loot. Not as she organizes your pillows and blankets for maximum coziness.
Only when you’re lying side by side in your bed, comfort movie of choice playing lowly on the TV and bags of snacks open around you, does she finally ask. “What happened?”
You suddenly find yourself very interested in the scene that you’ve watched dozens of times. “I found out that he lied to me.”
“About what? Was he seeing someone else?”
Now you have to lie, and it’s all thanks to him. “No, nothing like that. He just…there was a lot that he told me that ended up not being true. He allegedly wanted to protect me, but to me, that’s not protection. It’s hurt.”
It’s impossible to actually look at Georgia as you say this, knowing she’d be able to sniff out the deceit just from seeing your eyes. God, you really hate lying. You hate him.
At least, you’re trying to convince yourself that you do.
“I didn’t know that things had gotten so serious between you two this fast. You only went out on a couple of dates, right?”
You nod. “Yeah, but we had an intense connection from the start. I really liked him,” you confess, your use of the past tense choking you up ever so slightly.
It’s a change that Georgia senses, nudging up even closer against you and handing you a tissue from a box you didn’t know she had. After last night, you think you’re all out of tears to cry. Still, you gladly take the tissue and hold it to you, a token of love given to you by your gallant knight.
“It’ll be okay,” she murmurs into your ear, chin resting on your shoulder. “Even if it’s not right now, it will be again.”
There’s no need to respond, and so you don’t. You simply lean your head against hers, turn your attention to the TV, and hope she’s right.
•••
Although you would love nothing more than to hide in your bed with Georgia for the next 3-5 business days, 36 hours is all that you can give yourself to avoid the world before you have to get back to your life. Still, considering it’s almost the end of the semester, even that is verging on too much moping time. You have to show up to class on Friday for a Socratic discussion that’s frustratingly graded, as if you’re first-year undergrads and not graduate students in their second year. The weekend is spent fighting the urge to never go to the library again, since you actually do need to analyze the texts you were trying to look through on that cursed Wednesday night. Another study group thankfully saves you from having to tackle that task alone, and by the time Monday rolls around, you’re fully expected to be a functioning member of society once more.
Not that you disagree. You’re not exactly expecting sympathy from people who didn’t even know that you were seeing someone, nor do you want to begin to try and explain what’s happened to somebody and drag them into the cosmic disaster that your life has become. Plus, how are you supposed to explain to anybody in your life that you’re mourning the mere possibility of a relationship with a guy you went on a grand total of two dates with without sounding utterly pathetic?
(Yes, it’s far more complicated than that, but that is a far bigger can of worms you are not currently capable of even looking at, let alone opening)
You’re busy, which is nice—you like being busy!—but it’s a cheap bandage that only barely covers the wound within you that desperately misses Morpheus. Though you try your best to put him out of your mind, your thoughts seem inadvertently to turn back to him. What is he doing in his far-off, hard-to-fathom kingdom? Does he understand your anger, your hurt? Or is he angry at you for turning him away? Will you be cursed for rejecting the advances of one so powerful as he?
You would like to say that he doesn’t seem like that type of being, but you don’t know anything about him now. Maybe he was only playing at being a kind, introspective gentleman to try to get your defenses down so that he could spirit you away to his realm and keep you trapped there forever. Is that in any way accurate? You don’t know, but there is someone who likely knows him far better than you…
And you’re already supposed to drop by his office this afternoon.
While you were under no official deadline anymore to get your rewritten third and fourth chapters to Rob before the semester ends next week, you didn’t take that as an excuse to sit back. No, you finally finished your third chapter, getting it up to what you hope is your standard, and were making good headway on your fourth, with the goal being to have the final draft ready by the time you return to campus from winter break. You handed in both your third chapter and a rough draft of your fourth to him on Tuesday, and in a matter of two days, he’s already finished going through them.
This means he either found limited issues with them or found so many that it wasn’t even worth his time to continue reading. For the sake of your mental well-being (which is already hanging on by a thread), you hope it’s the former.
“Thank you for vouching for me to Dr. Keller, though I don’t necessarily think you had to say that I sounded ‘terrible, no really, godawful,’ to sell it,” you say in place of a greeting when you enter Rob’s office, closing the door behind you. Keller had been on your ass for a doctor’s note since you missed her class without even a courtesy email, and it was only Rob’s assurances that put that crusade to rest.
He smiles cheekily when he looks at you. “She quoted me directly, did she?”
“In the deadpan way she usually does,” you note, thinking about how you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep a straight face as she said it.
“She’s one of a kind, I will say that much!” His hand reaches for what is undoubtedly your chapters, but he looks at you before grabbing the paper. “Are you doing better, though? You still looked pretty out of sorts when I saw you on Tuesday.”
“I am, thank you.” Maybe if you lie to enough people, you’ll be able to delude yourself, too.
“Good.” Rob doesn’t look overly convinced, but thankfully doesn’t press you on it. “Let’s have a look at your chapters, then.”
To your delight, the papers he presents have only limited red marks on them, which is an extremely good sign. This meeting proceeds to be much more in line with all of the other ones you’ve had with Rob, as opposed to your last disastrous one. Your third chapter is given the green light, which is an immense relief after having to scrap and rebuild the whole thing. Though there are a couple of tweaks he suggests for your fourth, they’re very easy to implement, given how in-progress it currently is. By the time you’re taking the draft and sliding it into your bag, you’re feeling much reassured that your original third chapter was merely an aberration, and not the new normal.
“How much longer are you on campus for?” Rob asks, the question on everybody’s minds right now as the freedom of winter break is fast approaching.
“My last final is next Thursday, and then I’m leaving for home right after that.” The hope is that, by putting some physical distance between yourself and the situation, you can figure out just what you want to do about it.
“Enjoy some time with your loved ones, yeah?”
You nod. If this were a normal meeting, this would be the end of your conversation, which is why you’ve stood and grabbed your bag on autopilot. But there’s something that you need to find out, even if you’re almost dreading the answer. Rob senses this and watches you curiously as you hesitate at the door.
“Is everything al—”
“Do you know?” you interrupt, looking back at him. “What he is?”
You don’t need to say a name, for he knows immediately who you’re talking about, and gestures for you to sit back down. “I do. Took me a while to learn the whole truth—all of my guesses were way off—but I do.”
“So you’re not…like him?” That’s been your fear in the hours since you decided that you would confront Rob: that he would also turn out to be something other.
“Nope. I’m a regular human, same as you. I simply can’t die.”
The reassurance that you briefly felt disappears in a flash. “You what.”
“Can’t die,” he confirms breezily. “I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten, drowned, burned—you name it, I’ve had it done to me. But every time, I wake up. Every time, I heal. Every time, I survive. In my over—”
“Please don’t tell me how old you really are or I think I might crash out,” you blurt out, terrified to learn something that will forever change how you view him.
“Another time,” he says softly, and you nod. You’re okay with learning it another time. Just not now.
“And did you also know about the…” You can’t bring yourself to say it, but he knows exactly what you’re talking about.
“That one I did figure out on my own.”
“You’ve been lying to me, too?” You don’t mean for this to come out as pitiful as it does, but it hurts to think that Rob has also been keeping secrets of this magnitude from you.
“Never!” Rob assures. “It was not my place to tell you, and I would not take that experience away from either of you. Besides, I believed that he would have told you by now. That is what happened, right? He told you, and you didn’t take it well?”
You shake your head. “Not…exactly.”
“What happened?”
“I was almost kidnapped in the library last Wednesday by a Norse god and a Shakespearean faerie.”
Rob’s an extremely expressive person, and you watch as he goes from pensieve to bewildered to understanding in a matter of seconds. “Yes, I—I definitely see why you are struggling right now.”
You explain that entire terrible night to him, so relieved to be able to share it with somebody and not have to break their worldview the same way that it broke yours. He’s always been such a good listener—the kind that ensures his eyes are always on you, making appropriate noises of reaction when the story calls for it and empathetically nodding along—and it helps more than you thought it would to simply talk about how fucking weird everything has become. When you do finish, Rob takes a couple of moments to think before responding.
“He can be quite an idiot sometimes, can’t he?” he asks.
“Yeah, he can,” you say, surprised he’d speak in such terms about his friend, whom he clearly holds in high regard.
Rob senses this. “Just because he’s my friend doesn’t mean that I’m going to try to excuse his actions. He completely bungled this, and you have every right to be upset about it.”
“Thanks. I’ve been wondering if perhaps I’m overreacting in saying that I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him again.” It feels a little ridiculous to be talking to your professor about relationship problems involving his best friend, but with quite literally nobody else in your life to turn to, it’s a potential ethics violation that you’ll let slide this once.
“Can I ask—is it the way that you found out, or the truth of everything, that has you upset?”
“Both,” you admit. “I’m mad that he couldn’t figure out a way to tell me about all of this, and that it almost ended in me getting hurt. But I think I’m mostly upset about the fate of it all. That I apparently don’t get a choice in who I fall in love with or end up with. And by virtue of who that someone is, and his…status in the universe, I likely don’t get a choice in what happens with the rest of my life.”
Rob sighs. “You’re going to hear a lot about fate from here on out. Destiny, the Fates, they’re all very real. But just because they are, and just because they do have some sort of power over that aspect, doesn’t mean that their word is the end-all, be-all.”
“Really?”
“Of course! Do you think my fate was always supposed to be that I was talking shit in a pub about never dying at the same time two of the most powerful beings in the universe overheard and decided to make a bet on it? I don’t think so. We’re not wind-up toys that are placed neatly on a track and meant to march forward at their direction. We’re our own people, with minds that are always changing their thoughts on everything. When you start seriously studying mythology and fables, you realize it’s kind of our thing.
“I’ve always thought of fate as…a guide. They’re definitely pushing you in a certain direction, and there’s an outcome that they would like, but at the end of the day, you are the only one in complete control of your fate. The only credit those forces get is that they’re good at putting both opportunities and obstacles in your way.”
“I worry that I’m being forced to care for him, to like him. That he’s being forced to do the same. It makes no sense why these Fates would see fit to put us in each other’s paths.”
“I have my own opinions, but I’ll keep those in here,” he points to his head, “because that is something you should figure out for yourself.”
You feel so much lighter now than you did when you first arrived, assured that you are still your own person and not at the complete mercy of cosmic forces. “You’re pretty good at this whole ‘talking people off the edge’ thing. You ever considered being a therapist?” you joke.
“Little-known fact, but being a professor is also partially being a therapist. You are not the first student to be having an existential crisis in my office, and you will not be the last.”
“Touché.” You stand once more, actually intending to leave his office this time.
“One last bit of advice?” Rob says, and you pause with your hand on the doorknob.
“Yeah?”
“I would encourage you to think a bit about whether what you are feeling is due to fate or if it’s due to your own thoughts and emotions.”
It’s sage advice, but it’s advice that he doesn’t need to give: you already started the moment he said that humans are known for defying fate.
•••
Not a single part of you is in the mood to celebrate anything right now. But Kylie’s birthday was Thursday, and Ryan’s is Saturday, and both of them want to go out to celebrate. Not just go out, but go out. “We’re young, we’re hot, and it’s almost finals week. Let’s live a little!” Kylie campaigned when pitching her and Ryan’s idea of a night of bar hopping and dancing to your happy hour group. If there’s one thing that you love, it’s any excuse to celebrate the people that you care about. That this will presumably be the last time you get to celebrate these friends’ birthdays, with your graduation a mere semester away, has you begrudgingly putting on clothes worthy of going out in and making the trek to the preapproved meetup spot.
Both the birthday boy and girl are thrilled to see you out, which makes your sacrifice feel worth it. Though nobody but Georgia knows what’s going on with you, all of your friends have noticed and commented on how down you’ve seemed over the past week. Your lie of being struck down with some mysterious illness wasn’t even close to being believable, but none of them pushed you on it. Instead, upon seeing you walk through the door, they all just hug you a little tighter, smile a little brighter, and check on you a little more, while you try to ignore how misty your eyes want to become at how lucky you are to have such good friends.
And even though you’re not the one celebrating a birthday, that hasn’t stopped the number of drinks that keep finding their way into your hands. You hadn’t planned on drinking tonight, but it’s rude to turn somebody down when they’ve already bought the drink without your knowledge. A drink at this bar, a shot at the next, with another drink to follow. By the time you reach the club that Kylie and Ryan have selected for dancing, you’re feeling thoroughly tipsy.
There’s also something to be said about how good alcohol is at doing its job of releasing inhibitions. Slowly but surely, you’re feeling like maybe your life isn’t completely fucked and that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel (or perhaps that’s just the bottle), enough so that you don’t decline when Georgia grabs your hand and pulls you along to dance with your friends. It’s fun to be so carefree. To be jumping up and down like a horde of preteens at their first school dance without a care as to what anybody else around you might think. It’s human in a way that you’ve desperately needed, and you lose your worries to the loud beat of the songs, playing without stopping, morphing into new ones before the previous can end.
Then, a familiar tune plays, sending most of the crowd into a raucous uproar of approval. You, however, cease your dancing entirely and roll your eyes. Like the popping of a balloon, all of your newfound joy seeps out of you, and it’s all thanks to a stupid Kid Cudi song.
Over the past week, you’ve noticed the strangest phenomenon. Wherever you go, be it grocery store or coffee shop or bookstore, you are guaranteed to hear at least one song that makes mention of dreams. The first time it happened, you thought it was a coincidence. Like those thought exercises where somebody talks to you about a yellow car and you’re instructed not to think about yellow cars, only to start seeing them everywhere; in this case, the car is the king of dreams that you’re trying desperately to avoid. But then it kept happening, over and over again. Fleetwood Mac, Eurythmics, The Cranberries, Crowded House, The Mamas & The Papas—if they had a song in which dreams featured prominently, then it was playing while you were around to hear it.
It was impossible to figure out its cause, and you can’t even begin to try. To accept it as a mere coincidence would be doing yourself and everything that you’ve recently learned a disservice. Was this just what happened when you became attuned to the fact that there is far more out there than humans—that their mere essence can affect even the PA systems of stores? Or was this the work of Morpheus himself, making sure you remember that you can’t escape him, can’t escape your fate.
You naively assumed that there would be no cause to worry tonight. After all, how many songs about shaking ass and getting shitfaced also include a refrain about chasing after one’s dreams? The gyrating dancers around you, yelling to “tell me what you know about dreams,” prove that it’s more than you would think. With your mood thoroughly spoiled, you become uncomfortably aware of how crowded it is in here and resolve to take a few moments to yourself.
“I’m going to get some air!” you say into Kylie’s ear, waiting until she looks at you and nods before ducking and weaving your way off the dance floor. This club is a favorite among your group, and you slip out an easily-missed door that opens to the back alley, propping a rock in the doorway so you don’t get locked out.
The cool night air is an immediate, welcome balm to your heated skin, and you take a few deep breaths, letting them sit in your lungs before breathing them out in visible clouds. Your ears are ringing from the throbbing bass, and you walk down the length of the building to dampen the sound from inside, thinking as you do. Is this what the rest of your life is going to be like if you decide that you don’t want to see Morpheus again? Constantly trying to outrun him, constantly faced with reminders of him? Will your life ever resemble anything close to normal again?
In the midst of your pondering, a large black bird has fluttered down from the roof and begun staring at you curiously, apparently sensing your distress. “Hi, bird,” you greet, watching as it hops closer until coming to a stop right next to your shoe.
“Uh, hi.” The crow—no, it’s too big to be a crow, it must be a raven—opens its beak at the same time as someone speaks, making it look as though it’s talking to you.
You smile at the thought before looking around to greet whoever it is who has overheard you, only to find that there’s nobody around.
“Down here!” Down you look, following the sound of the voice until you’re staring once more at the raven, watching you with eyes that are too intelligent for any regular animal. “Yep, me.”
“How drunk am I?” you wonder. Was one of your drinks spiked?
“Can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that I’m not a side effect of any bad decisions you’ve made tonight.” He has an American accent, sounding like any middle-aged man—except, of course, for the clear and obvious fact that he’s a bird.
“You’re…actually talking?” You feel insane right now, even more so when the fucking thing appears to nod in response to your question.
“Yep.”
“But you’re a bird.”
“See, you must not be that drunk! You can still correctly identify objects.” This scenario seems so ludicrous that it feels like there’s only one reason why it would be happening right now, and you smack your cheek to see if you’re on the right track. “Why would you do that?” the raven cries as you wince.
“I don’t know, kind of worried I’m…” You can’t bring yourself to actually say the word, worried it may summon him.
“Dreaming?” You nod. “You’re not, considering I just left the Dreaming to come here.”
Now the pieces are clicking together. “So you’re one of his…what? Subjects?”
“Kind of. I’m Matthew, Lord Morpheus’s Official Raven and Emissary.”
“And he sent you?” you question incredulously. Has he seriously ignored the one stipulation you set before leaving him?
“No, no! Jesus, he’d be pissed if he even found out I was here.”
“So you snuck away to…what?”
“To check on you. We’ve all been really concerned about both of you.”
“Who’s we?”
“The other members of his staff.” Staff. Morpheus has staff? And one of them is a talking bird? “I especially wanted to let you know that I get it. I was human too, up until semi-recently.”
It sounds insane, but somehow, it’s not the craziest thing you’ve heard as of late. “Can I ask if you were cursed, or is that considered rude?”
Matthew laughs, an incredibly human-sounding laugh. “Nah, not rude, and not cursed. I died in my sleep and was given the choice of what I wanted next: to go to whatever afterlife was meant for me, or to keep on living, just in a different form. It’s a lot different than what I’m used to, but I wouldn’t change my decision for anything.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a good thing going for you.”
“Not gonna lie, it’s a pretty sweet gig. Flying, going on kickass missions, running missions of my own to check on people in need.”
“But why? You don’t even know me.”
“No, but you seem great. You would have to be a good person to be his—”
“Don’t say it,” you beg softly, still not willing to actually hear the word spoken aloud. Like perhaps, if it stays solely within your thoughts, it can remain something conceptual, something not real.
“Sorry,” Matthew apologizes, feathers ruffling just slightly.
“It’s okay,” you say, because it is. Not like he knew how touchy a subject it is for you. “I’m not, anyway.”
“You’re not?” he asks dubiously.
You shake your head. “No, something went wrong in the universe. His real one is out there somewhere, but it’s not me.”
He scoffs. “Keep telling yourself that, kid. Like I said, we just wanted to check in.”
Anger flares in you at the fact that a perfect stranger has had more care for your emotions in the first five minutes of knowing you than Morpheus had in the months since you met. “I’m fine. I’m so fine, in fact, that you can tell him that I am! I’m completely, one hundred percent fine.”
“Are you?” A voice that’s decidedly not Matthew’s says from behind you.
You jump and whip around. “Connor!”
Your friend has followed your same path, out the little-used side door and down the length of the building. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation with the air. Or are you talking to Mr. Nevermore?” He laughs like the thought is absolutely ridiculous. Five minutes ago, you would have been laughing too. As it stands, you can barely muster a weak chuckle.
“Something like that.” You shoot Matthew a look that must properly convey the meaning of ‘get the hell out of here,’ because he flutters off as Connor leans against the wall beside you.
“Thought I’d find you out here.”
“I needed some air,” you explain.
“That’s what Kylie said when I told her the same thing.”
“I don’t blame you. Nice and quiet out here.” Though he likely wasn’t facing the same inner turmoil at hearing a song as you, it definitely was getting a little too hot for your liking even before that.
“It is,” he agrees. “How are you doing?”
It’s a genuine concern dressed up in idle small talk, and though you’re tired of having to answer the question over and over again, you do genuinely appreciate that so many people care enough to check in. “I’m alright.”
He nods, but doesn’t seem overly convinced. “I know you said you were sick, and I certainly don’t want to pry, so tell me if I’m overstepping, but this seems like more than being sick.”
“Yeah, I’ve…”
Learned that everything I thought I knew about the world is wrong? Been dealing with the ramifications of finding out that, not only is true love real, but mine is apparently some all-powerful cosmic being who continually lied for me to try and trick me into falling in love with him?
“Been going through some things.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Grad school is stressful enough without your personal life bleeding through. You’re safe, though? Nobody’s threatening to hurt you or anything like that, right?”
“Oh god, nothing like that, don’t worry.”
“It’s that Morpheus guy, isn’t it?” Connor guesses. You sigh, nodding. “That sucks. I know how excited you were for your date.”
“I was really hoping things would work out with him,” you admit. If the cause of your troubles is that easy to guess, then it surely doesn’t hurt to be a little honest with those who care to inquire.
“Maybe it’s a case of right person, wrong time. Or even if it’s not, there are far too many people on this planet for you not to have your right person waiting somewhere. You know…”
Connor starts to cycle through the usual breakup cliches and platitudes, and as he does, you think about how right he is. If Rob is correct, and you do still have control over your fate, then that means there are billions of chances for you to fall in love. Billions of nice, human people are walking the Earth, the vast majority likely with no idea that there is such a thing as soulmates.
People like Connor.
Connor, who’s handsome, and smart, and sweet, and funny. You know that he’s developed something of a crush on you—he’s never had the best poker face, and his mini meltdown in the library when you announced your date with Morpheus confirmed your long-simmering suspicions—but even so, he’s never made it your problem. He’s always been respectful of the fact that you might not have felt the same way, and has made it a point not to let it affect your friendship.
Why shouldn’t you consider Connor? He wouldn’t lie to you or expect you to give up your entire life to be with him. In fact, your career goals are pretty well-aligned. More well-aligned than the king of dreams and a grad student who has no clue what’s next, at least. It makes sense to date someone like Connor. Why not seize your fate and make a choice that directly contradicts the path that these forces are trying to lead you down?
“Connor?” you interrupt his monologue.
“Yeah?” he asks right before you lean in and press your lips against his.
It’s immediately clear to you that he’s a good kisser, matching the tempo you set and placing a hand on his waist to gently pull you closer. It’s also just as clear that Morpheus is far better at kissing than Connor is. It’s a nice kiss, but it’s lacking all of the heat and passion that your kisses with Morpheus have contained. You feel none of the spark that’s been kindled every other time you’ve performed this action in the past month, and as Connor tilts his head to deepen the kiss, all you can think about is Morpheus.
His eyes, that arresting blue that constantly shifts from glacial ice to stormy sea to sunny day. His hair, impossibly soft and irresistible to run your hands through. His mind, more introspective than anybody you’ve ever met, always remembers the little details most would forget. His smile, if you can even call it that—barely there, yet it makes you feel like you’ve won a prize when you catch the smallest glimpses of it.
The wrongness of this action, of kissing another man, makes tears, the first since that awful night, spring to your eyes, and Connor pulls away when he feels wetness on his own cheeks.
“I didn’t think I was that bad of a kisser,” he jokes weakly, extremely and rightfully concerned at the sight of you crying upon kissing him.
“I’m so sorry. It’s not you, it’s me,” you stutter out before pausing. “I know how cliche that sounds, but it’s true.”
“It’s alright,” he comforts you, pulling you to him in a hug and allowing you to release all of your pent-up anger and sadness onto his shoulder.
“It’s not! I’ve taken advantage of you and made you think that I wanted you in that way,” you weep, worrying that you’re just like Morpheus now.
“You did nothing of the sort,” he assures you. “We’ve both had a couple of drinks, and you’re going through a hard time. It makes sense that your emotions are making you feel confused. Besides, now I can go to the grave happily knowing what it’s like to kiss you,” he says cheerfully, making you laugh quietly through the tears.
When your crying finally slows to barely more than a couple of stray tears continuing to leak out of your eyes, Connor produces a packet of tissues from his back pocket and pulls out a couple for you, which you take gratefully. “I didn’t ruin our friendship, did I?” you ask, wiping your face clean.
“No! Not at all. We’ll just call this an experiment, yeah? Just because experiments don’t work, doesn’t mean we should throw out the entire project.”
“Didn’t you have to take remedial science your first semester of college?” you remember.
“Oh yeah, I’m fucking terrible at science.” This gets an actual laugh out of you, and Connor smiles at the sound. “Every experiment I did was a failure, which is why you should be assured that I know what I’m talking about when I say that we are still just as much friends as we were before I came out here.”
“Okay,” you sniffle, blowing your nose quickly before sliding the tissues into your own pocket.
“Okay?” he confirms, and you nod. “Why don’t we rally the troops and get out of here? There has to be a good pizza place still open around here at this time of night.”
“I like that plan.”
Connor grabs your hand, squeezing it reassuringly before leading the way and pulling you back into the club. Despite your confusion, despite your turmoil, despite the fact that you are as lost as you’ve ever been regarding a situation, you know that, at the very least, you are lucky enough to have good friends who are going to help you through this. Right now, that’s all you need.
He doesn't want to risk losing you because relationships between the Endless and humans are forbidden
He's either going to be very distant because of this, or very sweet (Explanation at the end)
Morpheus doesn't need sleep, but if you ask him to lay with you he will stay there all night resting
You would be immune to nightmares once the two of you get together
Morpheus would secretly love having you play with his hair
He loves physical touch, but will never admit it
Will very slightly lean against you if you're sitting next to him
He is a possessive man, but respects your autonomy
He will step in the second he thinks it's getting out of hand
If you are planning to get drunk, he's either going to have Matthew watch over you or he will be there himself
Morpheus will not put you to sleep with his sand unless you ask, or it's completely necessary
He will pop up out of nowhere to see you when he's gotten enough of his work done
If you are non-binary, genderfluid, trans, etc. he will use whatever pronouns you prefer, just make sure to tell him when they change
Explanation: He would be distant because he's trying to push you away. However, he would hate every second of it and depending on where he is in life, he may stop being distant. I think around the end of season one and after would be where he stops being distant. At which point he'd probably start being the softie he is around the people he cares for.
You're half awake cuddling with Morpheus after a long night when you both hear a knock at the door. You groaned and buried your face in his chest, just wanting to savor the morning with him.
"Boss, I've got something for ya." Matthew's voice registered in your mind briefly, before your brain decided on something else.
"Five more minutes, Remy." You called back, voice muffled by Morpheus's skin and the door to his chambers.
"I am not a talking rat!" He cawed back indignantly, followed by something else, but you didn't have the energy or braincells at the moment to listen.
A quiet chuckle came from above you, jostling your head slightly.
You loved to hear it, and the little smile on your face told him so.
Summary: Morpheus spends a summer afternoon in the park feeding the birds, looking entirely too dramatic for the weather. What begins as teasing ends up more dreamlike between the two of you.
Warnings/Tags: Morpheus x GN!Reader, fluffs and whatnots, holding hands for the first time
Notes: ~1.7k words, I literally cannot be bothered to study for the finals worth 50% of my grade. Not edited past spellcheck.
Main Masterlist || One Shot Masterlist
“Don’t you get hot wearing black all the time?”
Morpheus looks up from where he sat on the grass, a stale loaf of bread in his hands and a swarm of pigeons and robins swirling his still body.
A pigeon pecks at his shoe lace as he ponders an answer. He’d been sitting at the park for a good few hours now, his still and calm nature making the birds fearless of him. Or perhaps it was the 3-day-old bread loaf he took with him from The Dreaming. A robin perches on the toe of his black boots, chirping a series of notes as it waits for a few more crumbs.
He, ancient and terrible though beautiful as midnight, regarded the question and you with the expression of a king being interrupted at court.
“I am not uncomfortable,” he finally mutters, the slightest suspicious eyebrow twitching upwards.
“That’s not what I asked.”
His gaze leaves you as he returns to feeding the birds. A breeze moves through the park, soft and bright, carrying the sound of childhood laughter with it. Grass was freshly cut, and the nearby lake glimmered like the gems of a hoard guarded by a fearsome dragon, all while the air felt slightly heavy from the melted sugar of the nearby food vendors.
None of it did anything to Morpheus, who sat there in his long, black coat despite the day being aggressively sunny; it almost made him light up like a beacon.
“You asked whether I become hot,” he restates, as if repeating the question slower would make you realize how absurd it is. “I do not.”
“Sounds like a fake answer.” You narrow your eyes at the back of his head.
“It is not.”
“You’re telling me you don’t feel temperature?”
“I feel many things. I am the entire subconscious of the human mind, king of dreams, and can feel the emotio–”
“But temperature?” You cut him off.
“Not as you do,” he finally answers after a dramatic pause.
You sit down beside him on the grass, close enough that your shoulder almost brushes his. The birds all but scatter at the movement, but then second-guessed their judgment before fluttering back. The fat pigeon that was pecking at his shoe laces gives you a look before returning to eating a fresh wave of crumbs.
“I just didn’t expect you to show up in the park, in the middle of summer, dressed like you’re ready to star in a teenager’s emo garage band.”
His brows draw together, and his lips pucker with displeasure. “A what?”
“You heard me.”
“I am Dream of the Endless.”
“Soooo edgy,” you teased.
Morpheus looks away first, crushing the loaf up to its last crumbs, and you count it as a victory.
The birds once again descend in a flurry of wings and tiny, bickering chirps. For someone who could summon nightmares and could walk through minds like doorways, he fed birds with a startling sense of tenderness. His fingers moved carefully, making sure some of the larger pieces were broken into small enough pieces.
Morpheus always looks out of place in the waking world. Not necessarily because he failed to blend in, but because people passed him without staring too much, though a few did glance back with that unconscious human awareness of something beautiful and strange. But, he seems less like a man sitting in a park and more like a shadow that just learned manners.
Yet, here he sat. Grass and pigeons and robins.
“So then… why black?” You lean back on your hands.
He stills for a second and you wonder whether you had asked something too personal. Morpheus didn’t always understand casual questions as casual. Sometimes the smallest human curiosity became an excavation, sometimes a joke lands too close to an old wound.
But, he answers. “It is familiar.”
You tilt your head at him. “That’s it?”
“It is sufficient.”
“That’s not an answer,” you scoff.
His eyes flicker to yours, a swarm of galaxies under a fan of soft eyelashes. Stars lived in them when he let them, an impossible distance to travel when you meet his gaze with purpose, and looking directly into them felt like standing at the edge of sleep before falling forever into the abyss.
“You are persistent today,” he says.
“You like that about me.”
“I have not said so.”
Yikes. “You haven’t denied it either.”
He looks back at the birds, who now wander further now that the bread is all gone. Your hands grow slightly sweaty, awaiting your doom.
But then you see it. The smallest shift to the corner of his mouth. Tiny and almost nothing, but you see it, and your heart does something frankly embarrassing in your chest.
“I wear black,” he finally says, slowly as he often does, “because it is the color of the space between stars. Of ink before it is shaped into words, and of the moment before sleep takes hold.”
You blink at him. “Well damn. That was annoyingly poetic.”
“Merely the truth.”
“Yeah, well, there’s your problem.”
“My problem?” He asks, his eyes returning to yours.
“You make everything sound like a prophecy. I asked if you were sweaty.”
“I am not sweaty.”
“Again,” you shrug, “suspicious.”
Morpheus’ expression turned long-suffering, though you were beginning to suspect he enjoys this more than he admits. With anyone else, he might have risen in a swirl of coat and offended dignity, leaving behind only a cold breeze and the faint feeling that reality had been judged and found lacking. With you, however, he stays.
A child runs past along the nearby path, laughing wildly as a parent calls after him. A dog barked at the pigeons and was promptly ignored by every bird except for one robin, who hopped back and forth with theatrical disdain. Somewhere in the distance, bicycle wheels clicked over pavement.
The world was painfully ordinary.
Well, until it wasn’t.
At first, it was nothing obvious. Nothing grand enough to split the sky open or to make the ground tremble beneath your hands. It was only a soap bubble drifting from somewhere near the path, likely blown loose from the sticky plastic wand of a child’s new toy. It floated lazily past the two of you, catching the sunlight in its thin iridescent skin.
But when it passes in front of Morpheus, the reflection inside it changes. Instead of seeing a warped version of your surroundings, you see the stars. A whole field of them, deep and endless, scattered across the inside of the fragile little sphere as though someone had trapped a piece of night in a breath.
You’ve stopped talking, the next witty quip dying at the back of your teeth and getting stuck like taffy.
The bubble bobs once in the air between you before popping into nothing. For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then the robin, who was still offended by the dog, hopped closer to Morpheus’ boot again. Its shadow stretched beneath it, too long for the angle of the sun. For half a second, the shape on the grass wasn’t a bird at all, but something winged and vast, made from smoke and starlight.
Then it was gone.
Just a robin again. Just grass and the park and the summer afternoon.
You slowly turned your head towards him.
Morpheus’ face remains composed, but there was a slight tension at the corner of his mouth now. Not exactly irritation, something closer to embarrassment (though you’re sure he’d rather turn into sea foam than admit to something so mortal.)
“Forgive me,” he says.
“For what?”
“The Dreaming is…” he pauses, his gaze drifting to the place where the bubble had burst. “Nearer than I intended.”
You look around but the park continues as if nothing happened. The child laughs, the dog barks, and the pigeons resume their petty war over imaginary crumbs. A breeze moves thorugh the trees and for a strange second, sounded like distant bells.
Morpheus looks at you carefully, as though bracing for unease. “Are you not disturbed?”
“No,” you smile. “I like it.”
“You like it,” he repeats.
“Yeah.” You lean back on your hands again, trying very hard to seem casual despite the way your pulse suddenly picks up. “For someone who rules dreams, you’re weirdly good at making real life feel less boring.”
“And you,” he says quietly, “make the waking world less foreign to me.”
Oh.
Your fingers curl into the blades of the grass, green and warm from the sun. “That’s… a very intense thing to say in front of a pigeon.”
“The pigeon is indifferent.”
“He’s nosy.”
As if summoned by insult, the pigeon puffed up and waddled between you two with the entitled confidence of a landlord.
You glance down at it. “See? Nosy.”
You expected Morpehus to say something grand. Something old and devastating, the kind of sentence that sounded like it belonged written in silver across the inside of a tomb.
Instead, his hand shifted beside yours, knuckles brushing yours in the grass.
It could’ve been an accident if it were anyone else. But he was Morpheus, and Morpheus did very little by accident.
You glance down, and his hand remains there. For all his titles, all his power, all the endless darkness folded into the line of his coat, the gesture felt almost shy. A question without words.
And you answered by moving your hand the rest of the way, fingers sliding against his.
Morpheus did not immediately close his hands around yours. For a second, he simply let the touch exist, as if learning its shape. Then, slowly, carefully, he laces his fingers through your own.
The world did not become less ordinary.
The child still shreiks with laughter, the dog stil strains against its leash. The pigeons are still fat, the vendors still sell sugary confection. But the grass near your joined hands shimmers faintly, dark as midnight beneath the bright afternoon sun.
You flex your hand in his, looking down at the intertwined fingers.
“It’s sweaty,” you murmur.
Morpheus looks down at your joined hands.
“I am not hot.”
You sigh.
Ohhhh you want me to update my ongoing series? Umm... bye.
Chapter 7: The Myth of Tantalus and Happily Ever Afters
Summary: Dream deals with the fallout of the Fates cutting your string.
Tags: death, fluff, hurt/comfort, explicit sexual content (18+, MDNI)
Series Masterlist
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The morsel of bread landed softly among the grass, attracting the attentions of a pigeon who hopped closer to Dream to collect the grains. He looked out over the park, watching a couple share a picnic, a group of men playing football, a pair of women chatting lightly as they walked past him. His gaze dipped as they took the bench beside his to watch the pigeon finish the scrap of bread and cock its head at him, eager for more.
“Well, a friend of mine met the so-called ‘devil,’ actually,” one of the women noted, pointedly. “He wasn’t actually the devil, though, and Burgess knew it! He knew who he had down there and he didn’t care.”
He stilled at Burgess’ name and the realization that it was him the two women were conversing about. He turned his head slightly, just enough to listen closer, but not to alert them to his eavesdropping.
“What was it? If it wasn’t the devil?” The other woman questioned.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” the first one laughed. “I almost didn’t believe my friend when she told me. But I just can’t believe Burgess locked someone up like that,” she sighed, with a distant gaze. “I mean, can you imagine? A century locked up in that sick fuck’s basement. How do you even recover from that?” She wondered, softly. “How could he do that to another person?”
He swallowed thickly as he recalled over a century of imprisonment, stuck in a glass sphere. But he listened closely to the disgust she held for Burgess’s actions, and the concern she felt for him.
“It wasn’t a person, though, was it?” The other added with a short laugh.
“Does it matter?” The first woman questioned. “What, just because he wasn’t human, he didn’t deserve to be treated humanely? It’s disgusting what Burgess did,” she scoffed, in disdain. “You know what?” She realized after a moment, turning toward her friend. “I’d bet he was far more human than that sick old fuck, Burgess.”
He smiled softly at that memory of you in the park, and when he fell for you the instant he heard you speak with such compassion for him, someone you’d never even met. And how your actions echoed that same compassion when you met him for the first time in your shop. And how that compassion for him had never swayed, even when he wronged you. But his smile turned rueful when he realized that it was his selfish pursuit of you that had led to all of this.
He glanced down at the weathered book that he had found in your flat amongst your things. The spine was cracked thoroughly and the pages worn with use. He flipped through it carefully to avoid damaging it any further.
“Mommy’s favorite,”Declan noted, as he looked up and spied it in his father’s hands.
“Is that so?” Dream wondered, softly, as he smiled down at him.
Dream looked down from the book to his son who had abandoned his building blocks at the sight of the familiar book in his father’s hands. Dream left the soft comfort of his son’s new bed here in the Dreaming to sit on the ground beside him, closing the book as Declan constructed a small castle with his wooden blocks.
The palace staff had been quick to furnish his child’s room, eager to welcome the new prince to the realm. Dream had taken all of his belongings from your flat to offer him some familiarity and sense of the home he had known in the Waking World.
“Always with her,” Declan nodded in response to Dream’s question. Dream’s fingers traced over the cover: The Galdrabók, and he smiled at the thought that you had treasured it so.
It was too fast, Dream thought. One moment you were begging him to pick Declan and let you go, and he was about to accept, then Calliope was reconsidering her actions, and then you were on the ground. You laid Declan down as carefully as you could before you fell down yourself, caring for him even in the few moments you had left. It wasn’t long before Declan missed the warmth of your arms around him when faced with the cold, stone floor and he woke, wailing immediately at your unseeing eyes and gaping mouth.
Calliope, to her credit, rushed forward to break Dream’s warding circle and yours, pulling Declan from your body and allowing Dream to rush over to you. He dropped to his knees, his fingers moving to your pulse point to search futilely for any sign that you were still there.
“Dear witch, wake up,” he cried, as he held you in his arms and his hands stained scarlet with your blood. “Please,” he wept as his hand went to the side of your face.
“Mommy!” Declan bawled, as he twisted out of Calliope’s hold and ran towards you. Dream turned at the sound and caught him before he could reach you. He held him tightly, keeping his head tucked into the crook of his neck and shielding him from seeing you like this.
“I know,” Dream consoled him, through his aching throat. With the close way Dream was holding him, Declan’s sobs were fairly muffled, but it didn’t keep Dream’s heart from breaking at the way he couldn’t seem to console his son without you.
“I’m sorry, little brother,” a bittersweet voice called from above him, and he turned, a spark of hope lighting within him as he saw a way to desperately recover you.
“Sister,” he spoke, looking up at her from his kneeling position with his son still in his arms. “Please, I beg you, do not take her,” he wept.
She pursed her lips at the tears in his eyes and the blood that stained his hands, and the wailing child he held in his arms. “It was her time, Dream,” she explained, smiling ruefully. “You know how this works.”
“There must be an exception!” He begged, and to his surprise, Calliope approached his side to plead with her as well.
“The Fates had intervened, Telleute,” Calliope interjected. “I withdrew the knife, but they forced my hand anyway!”
“Whether they cut her string by commanding it or doing it themselves,” Death began, apologetically. “It’s been cut.”
“You know, I gave this to her,” Dream explained as he opened the book, and Declan added another block to his construction. “Before you were even born,” he added and smiled lightly at the fascination you had worn when he first showed you his copy. But it dropped when he recalled the circumstances in which he gave this translated version to you. “It was in another language and I translated it for her. I didn’t think she had kept it,” he remarked, as he skimmed through the worn pages filled with his handwriting.
Declan dropped the block in his hand to peer over his father’s lap and glance at the handwritten text. “Yours,” he realized. “That why Mommy kept it.”
“Do you think so?” Dream wondered with a small smile as Declan’s hand traced over the pages of his handwriting. Declan nodded and Dream’s smile deepened at the way his son seemed to study the pages with a new interest after learning the origins of the book. And he breathed softly at the way his fascination of this book echoed yours exactly.
“Hey, you do know there are a whole bunch more boxes to unpack, right?” You asked, entering the room with one such box in your hands. You placed it down and drew the attentions of both of them, who looked up at you with matching expressions of joy at your presence. And you sighed, your frustration dissipating as you remembered their matching pleading expressions from the first day Dream returned to you.
But it could be respun, Calliope thought at Death’s words, as she recalled the tale of Tantalus' Banquet. She turned from Morpheus as he continued to plead with his sister, and called desperately for the Maiden, who reappeared with her sisters.
“Why have you called us back, dear?” The Mother wondered.
“Have you sought for us to view the fruits of our vengeance?” The Crone asked. “Because we have quite a good view of it from the comfort of our home,” she added.
“I have not called for you to witness the heartbreak and grief of this family like the vulture you are,” Calliope spat at the Crone, before turning to her youngest sister. “I’ve called you to ask that you spin this witch a new string.”
“You dare insult us and ask for a favor in the same breath?” The Crone scoffed, indignantly. “You have become quite brazen, muse.”
“Clotho, I know you can renew a string once cut,” Calliope began, ignoring the Crone’s abuse. “You did it before for Pelops after his father took his life. You knew his life was unjustly taken and you sought to correct that wrong,” Calliope recounted, watching as the Maiden looked to her sisters with pursed lips.
“Sister-self, we tolerated you extending her string without our approval,” the Mother reminded her.
“But if you act without our approval again,” the Crone warned. “We will act to put right what you have altered.”
“You spun Pelops a new thread without their help,” Calliope interjected, pulling her attention from them. “You can renew hers without them. And,” she sighed, closing her eyes before she continued. “If you need to take a life to balance the scales, then take mine,” she plead, as she fell to her knees. “Take mine and restore this family.”
“The scales are never balanced so easily!” The Crone laughed.
“And Pelops was a special case,” the Mother added. “His father sought to trick the gods and she revived him to offset his father’s trickery.”
“Did you not trick me?” Calliope questioned with a breath of indignation. “Did you not convince me that she was an evil seductress out to seek her own fortune by killing my son?”
“Had our sister-self not extended her string by granting her child life,” the Crone began. “We would not have had to trick you.”
“It was never just to cut her string short in the first place!” The Maiden countered, as she faced her oldest sister. She turned to Dream who held Declan tightly as he continued to plead with his sister for your life. She revealed herself and her sisters to them as she voiced her decision and long-held resentments to her sisters.
“The business with the Dream Lord and Circe should have been forgotten ages ago. He had repented and moved on and so should we have done,” the Maiden began, and Dream looked up from his knees at her. “Spinning her thread as some device to cause his downfall was cruel. Perhaps not to him, but to her. I extended her string because she deserved to enjoy a life outside of being used simply to hurt someone else. And I’m renewing it now because our revenge has been sated and they deserve peace,” she concluded, as her distaff and spindle appeared in her hold. She glanced over at Death and nodded to her as she spun you a new thread, and the older Endless disappeared.
“Oh, she’s right, sister,” the Mother sighed, as she turned to the Crone. And as she took the string from the Maiden’s spindle, Death reappeared and you took in a gasping breath. Dream looked down at the sound with a broken smile, a relieved breath falling from his lips at the sight of your blinking eyes and heaving chest. And his tears fell anew at your revived form. “The business with Circe was ages ago. And I think he’s suffered enough, don’t you?” She asked, looking down as she measured the string against her rod.
“Dear witch!” He cried, as he helped you sit up with one hand and clutched Declan tightly with his other. “My love,” he breathed with a gentle hand to your face, feeling the warmth of a body that had just gone cold and taken his heart with it. You were still putting the pieces together, but the sight of him made you smile, as always.
“Mommy!” Declan squealed, and you laughed softly at the joyous sound and the way he escaped his father’s hold to jump to you. You closed your eyes against the feel of him in your arms once again and Dream still holding you, but the Crone’s weathered voice cut your joy short, just as her shears aimed to do to your newly-spun string.
“No, I don’t think he has!” The Crone hissed, and you looked to her with desperation in your eyes. “He deserves the guilt her death has caused him! No one shall act against us and go unpunished! Be they mortal, or god, or Endless alike!” She spat, as her dreaded shears appeared in her hand and neared your string.
“Take her now, Dream Lord!” The Maiden cried, as she looked to Dream, whose attention the Crone already had. “Go to your realm where my sister’s wrath cannot reach her!”
“Mommy!” Declan grinned as he looked up at you, his wooden blocks forgotten at the sight of you, and you smiled at his excitement.
You stepped closer to the two of them sitting on the floor when you saw what they had both been looking at. “And that,” you began, as you took the book from Dream’s lap. “Is mine,” you announced, holding the book to your chest. Declan pouted as his new object of interest was taken from him, but his attentions soon returned to his wooden blocks. “And it was given to me by someone who should be helping me unpack these boxes, instead of snooping through my things,” you chided, lightly.
“Well, according to Declan,” he began, as he rose to his feet to stand before you. “Technically, it’s mine, since I wrote it down.” He argued, with a playful smile, as he moved to take the book from you, but you were faster, hiding it behind your back.
“Oh, real nice, blame our son,” you laughed lightly, and his arms snaked around your waist as he neared you, and his lips ghosted over yours. Your eyes fluttered closed as you leaned up towards him, but they shot back open as you felt the book pulled from your grasp. You let out a breath of fuax-outrageat his sly move and the smirk on his face as he held the book before you. “Unbelievable,” you muttered, as you shook your head lightly at him. You turned before he could catch the smile you were fighting, pointing to the box as you left the room. “You’re unpacking the rest of those!”
He complied in an instant, taking you and Declan from the mortal realm before the sound of sharp cutters against soft thread could be heard.
“My love, are you alright? Declan?” He asked, his eyes wide with concern as he looked over both of you. Declan nodded at him and you could breathe again, looking at both of them safe and sound.
“Yeah, I think we’re okay,” you breathed, with a quiet laugh as you looked up at Dream. You looked down at Declan, who snuggled closer into you as he laid his head against your chest. “Oh, baby,” you sighed, as you realized how scared he must have been. It was still a bit fuzzy, but you did remember laying him down before you fell down beside him. And of course, there was the way you and Dream were both in tears as you desperately pled for your lives. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Decky,” you soothed him, as Dream moved to settle behind you.
“It’s alright, Declan,” he assured him, and as his hand went to smooth over his son’s small cheek, he looked up at Dream with cautious, yet unconvinced eyes. “We’re alright. Mummy’s alright and so are you. No one’s going to hurt either of you, Decky,” he promised, and Declan offered him a hesitant smile as he accepted his father’s words.
“I think he could use some rest after everything,” you realized, as you gazed down at him and watched him struggle to keep his eyes open. “I know I could,” you scoffed, lightly as you looked to Dream.
“Of course,” he agreed, slowly. “Though, you won’t be able to return to the Waking World,” he warned you. “The Crone cut your string and she could come after you if you return there.”
“Then I’ll stay here,” you stated simply, confused by his hesitance. “Unless that would be a problem for you,” you added.
“No!” He spoke quickly. “Of course, not. I’d want nothing more than for you to stay here,” he assured you, and a slow smile spread across your face before you bit your lip to keep from laughing. “And you knew that,” he realized slowly, as he narrowed his eyes at you. “But you wanted to hear me say it,” he huffed as he shook his head at you. You nodded as your laugh finally bubbled out from you, and you leaned forward to place a hand to his cheek before pulling him down softly to your lips. He hummed softly at the contact, as his hand moved through your hair as he sought to pull you closer. But you pulled away after a moment when you felt Declan drooling on your top.
“Okay, we should probably get him to a bed,” you laughed lightly, before looking back up at Dream. He obliged in a moment, and a whirlwind of sand sent the three of you to his own chambers. He pulled the covers aside for you to lay Declan down gently, and after Dream tucked him in, you pressed a kiss to his forehead, before sitting down beside him. “I can’t believe we almost lost him,” you whispered, brushing his hair lightly.
“And you,” Dream whispered, before moving to kneel before you. “I’d only just gotten you back, dear witch,” he cried softly, as he took your hand. “And then I lost you.”
“Oh, Dream,” you sighed, and you moved your other hand from Declan to comfort Dream, brushing your thumb gently over his cheek. “I’m here now. And I’m safe. We both are,” you assured him. “And we’re not going anywhere.”
“The thought of losing you,” he began, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He looked off vacantly, swallowing thickly at the mere thought. “I love you so dearly, little witch, and when my sister took you –”
“Dream, stop,” you cried softly at his anguish. You squeezed your eyes shut and let fall the tears you had been holding back since you had been revived. “I’m alive. I’m here. I’m with you and you don’t ever have to worry about losing either of us again,” you promised him. “You won’t ever have to go through this again.” You watched the pain and doubt cloud his eyes and you sighed, “Come here,” as you stood from the bed and he followed suit. Your hands went to tilt his face down to look at you, as you spoke softly, “We’re not going anywhere, my love.”
He nodded, after a moment of studying the certainty in your eyes, and you wrapped your arms around him. As you laid your head against his chest and listened closely to the beating of the heart he didn’t need, his arms came around you so tightly, so desperately your tears almost began anew at how much heartbreak you knew he must have felt. But he wasn’t anymore, you reminded yourself.
You pulled away, taking his hand in yours, as you moved to lead him out of the room and talk to him without disturbing Declan. But the door creaked as you opened it and gave you away.
“Mommy!” Declan cried, as the creak opened his eyes and the sight of you leaving frightened him.
“Oh, it’s okay, honey,” you soothed, as you rushed back over to him. “It’s alright,” you consoled him, as you shifted the covers to slide in next to him. “Mommy’s not going anywhere,” you assured him, and he smiled as you pulled him into you. You smiled at the feeling of having him once again in your arms and knew you would never tire of it. But then the door creaked open further and you looked over your shoulder to find Dream stepping out of the room. “Where do you think you’re going?” You questioned, and he turned back to you. “Get over here,” you ordered, with a light smile.
He looked to you only for a moment before moving to the other side of the bed and sliding in on the other side of Declan. He looked from his son to you and found you gazing adoringly at him. Your hand went to his face, and you whispered the words he’d never grow tired of hearing from you, “I love you so much, Dream.”
He watched you turn left after you exited the room, and instructed him to unpack the rest of the boxes. He considered your mild irritation for a moment before he called for Matthew.
“Could you look after Declan for some time?” He asked after Matthew flew in through the window and drew a gasp from the toddler.
“Hi, birdie!” Declan waved to Matthew, who perched upon a bedpost and returned the greeting with his wing sweeping in a waving gesture.
“Uh, sure,” the raven agreed hesitantly. “Though, I gotta admit, I’m not much of babysitter,” he added, shuffling awkwardly.
“He’s not much trouble,” Dream assured him, before moving over to his son, who had once again busied himself with his blocks. “I’m going to talk to Mummy,” he informed him, and he nodded shortly. As Matthew hopped down to settle beside Declan, Dream left the pair with the translated Galdrabók in hand to walk down the corridor to your chambers. It was the one next to Declan’s as you had requested, and though he lamented your request to stay in chambers that weren’t his, he certainly understood it. But Dream hadn’t expected you follow up your request with a suggestion for joint chambers with him.
And of course it was the fastest he had ever constructed a new wing of the palace.
Passing through his chambers’ entrance, he walked through the common sitting room that filled with moving boxes to arrive at the interior entrance of your chambers, pausing only for a moment before he knocked on the door.
“Dream, you better be here to help me unpack these boxes,” you called out, realizing that the knock came from the interior door, and therefore had to be him.
He opened the door with a soft smile at your lighthearted scolding to find you unpacking your clothes in your dressing room. You stepped out at the sound of the door creaking open to watch him enter, with his hands moving from behind his back to display the book he had taken earlier from you. You walked over to take it from him, pausing when you stood before him to lean up and let your lips ghost over his, smirking lightly at the way his breath hitched at your nearness.
“Thank you,” you whispered, before pulling back and turning on your heel to leave it on your nightstand and turn back towards your dressing room. But as you walked past him, he grabbed your wrist and pulled you back to him without turning. You gasped lightly as you found yourself pressed against him with his hands secured at your waist. Your hands slid up his arms to lock at the back of his neck, as you peered up at him with a knowing smile. “You know, this isn’t what I meant when I asked you to help me.”
“I never said I came here to help you,” he countered lowly, as he gazed down at you.
“Oh, yeah? Then why are you here?” You wondered with a grin, and his hold on your waist tightened in response.
“To bring you your book,” he murmured as he glanced down at your enticing lips.
“And now that you’ve brought me it,” you began, with a mischievous glint in your eye. “I guess you can go,” you realized, as you released your hold on him. Your hands settled over his and you attempted to pry his hands off of your waist, but he couldn’t let you go.
“Why do you always seek to provoke me?” He wondered with narrowed eyes and a fond smile, as his fingertips pressed into you.
“Why do you always make it so easy?” You teased back, before you leaned up to kiss him. He smiled against your lips as one of your hands pressed flat against his chest and the other tugged at his locks.
You walked him back towards the bed with your lips still against his, pushing him down lightly before moving to straddle his lap. You gazed down at him for a moment, watching the way his pupils dilated at the sight of you on top of him. Your breath hitched as his hands ran up your thighs and you dipped your head low, eager to taste him again. Your hands tangled in his hair, tilting his head back against the headboard to kiss him more urgently as you ground down against his lap. You moaned needily at the feeling of his hardening length against you, and rolled your hips harsher then, eliciting a similar groan from him as his hands pressed impatiently at your hips.
But you pulled away after a moment when something occurred to you. “Where’s Declan?” You asked, as you looked down at Dream.
“Matthew’s watching him,” Dream panted lightly as he looked up at you.
Your eyes narrowed slightly as you considered a raven babysitting a toddler, but you figured with a palace full of people, he could find help easily if he needed it. So you shrugged the thought aside and moved back down to his lips. You leaned back to remove your pants, struggling with the awkward position before Dream allowed his impatience to get the better of him, and your clothes disappeared at his whim.
You gasped lightly at the sudden change, and as if he could sense the quip you were about to voice regarding his impatience, he thrust a finger inside of you, and the teasing words on your tongue turned to a soft moan. You ground down against his palm and your eyes shut as he worked you open, and before long, he inserted a second finger, eager to ready you before he filled you with something much larger. He was mesmerized by the way you balanced your hands on his shoulders as you rolled your hips against his palm. He curled his fingers as he watched you, enraptured by the sight of your eyes shooting open and a gasp falling from your lips. You looked down at him and smiled softly at his spellbound gaze before leaning down to plant your lips firmly against his.
His hand went to the base of your hair, tilting your neck against his mouth to bite possessive marks against your soft skin. You moaned softly at the feel of his lips at your neck and his fingers inside of you and he reveled in the sound. Your hands raked down his chest and as you reached the hem of his sweater, you tugged impatiently at the soft material, and he obliged, undressing completely at your silent urgency.
His lips trailed down along your collarbones as he withdrew his fingers from you to pump his length.
“Dream,” you whined at the unexpected loss of him.
“Patience, little witch,” he smirked, as he teased along your slit with his cock. You kissed along his jaw nipping lightly as you begged him again.
“Please, Dream,” you whispered against his skin, and he finally relented as he lined the head of him at your entrance. He placed his free hand on your hip as he pulled you down onto him and your eyes went wide at the sudden intrusion. You squeezed your eyes shut, wincing slightly as he stretched you open slowly, and your nails dug harsh red crescents into his shoulders.
He groaned at the warmth of you tightening around him and but he remained grounded by the slight pain at his shoulders. You whimpered as he bottomed out within you and you squeezed his shoulders, silently asking him to give you a moment to adjust. His hands slid up to your waist, but one paused along the way, stopping at your belly to feel the outline of his cock inside of you. He groaned deeply as he closed his eyes and longed thrust back into you.
You rolled your hips experimentally after a moment, moaning lowly at the feeling of him filling you completely. With your hands on his shoulders, you pushed off of him before slamming yourself back down on him, and his head fell back at the way your walls fluttered around him. You smirked at the sight of him so far gone before leaning forward to paint bruises of deep violet across his neck with your lips.
Your lips slid back to his as you continued your bounces, and he noticed your pace become erratic as you switched to snap your hips against his. He pulled away from your lips to watch you grind down against him as you bit your lip in concentration and tossed your hair back. You leaned your forehead against his and whined softly as you struggled to maintain your rhythm.
“Would you like some help, little witch?” He muttered, with a smug smile playing on his lips. You didn’t even care about his patronizing tone with how close but out of reach you knew your climax was.
“Yes, Dream,” you whined, as you ground down on him. “Please,” you begged softly, as you moved his hands down from your waist to your hips.
You expected a smirk or a smug reply or some other self-satisfied expression from him, but he simply smiled softly up at you and pulled one hand away from your hip to hold the side of your face. “Of course, my love,” he whispered, before pulling you down to his lips. You couldn’t help but smile against him as your hands moved from his shoulders to hold his face and kiss him softly.
His hands returned to your hips to lift you off of him before forcing you back down again, and you moaned lowly against his mouth at his actions. Your heart raced as he thrust upwards into you and your head fell against the crook of his neck. Your hand slid around from his face to tangle in the base of his hair and you tugged harshly at him when you felt you orgasm approaching. He moved you against him faster, and the room began to buzz as you struggled to keep going.
He heard you whimper lightly against his neck, and he turned, craning his head to whisper softly to you. “It’s alright, love,” he soothed you, as he ground you down on him. “Let go,” he instructed, and you did, coming around his cock with a gasping cry of his name, but his motions only quickened then, moving you to ride him through waves of pleasure as he stretched your climax out. Your head fell back and he watched your moans melt to whimpers as he slammed you back onto him one final time, holding your hips against him with a bruising force as he emptied into you.
His hand moved to the back of your head as he pulled you forward to lean against him. You complied without a word, slumping forward against his chest and panting into his neck. His other hand went to your back, soothing you gently as his hand moved along your spine. He closed his eyes then, and turned his face against yours, reveling silently in the indescribable feeling of you against him.
He smiled softly as his arms tightened around you, reminding himself this was real. You were really here. He had spent three miserable years without you, longing for you, but reminding himself he didn’t deserve you and then he finally had you back. And his son. And then as soon as he had you back, you were gone; ripped from him by the cruelty of the Fates. But now you were here, he smiled. Your string had been renewed, and he had whisked you away to his realm where he would keep you and your son safe with him for the rest of your lives.
He hummed contentedly against your skin, and you smiled softly at the sound before pulling away enough to look at him. “What?” You asked, your smile deepening at the serenity on his face, as your fingers traced light lines over the side of his face. “What’re you so happy about?” You teased, fully aware of his answer. But that didn’t stop you from wanting to hear him say it.
“You. And Declan,” he began, as he gazed up at you. “Both of you staying with me,” he sighed softly, as his hand sifted through your hair. “It’s everything I never deserved,” he admitted with a sad smile, and you rolled your eyes with a soft chuckle before you held his face firmly between your hands.
“That is stupid,” you deadpanned, as you stared down at him, before your voice melted and your eyes turned a similar level of soft. “You always think you’re so undeserving of things, Dream. It kills me to see you like this,” you confessed, and he looked down from you, unable to witness the sadness his words had caused you. Your thumbs brushed gently against his cheekbones as you continued. “And it’s not fair to you. You’ve made mistakes, I’m not saying you haven’t, but you’ve worked to make up for them,” you explained, and you tilted his head up to look at you. “You’re so good to me, Dream, and to Declan,” you assured him. “Of course you deserve this. Of course you deserve to be happy,” you smiled, desperate to convince him and to remove this weight of self-doubt from him.
And after a moment, he simply looked up at you as he considered the gentle reassurance in your eyes and the desperate way you sought to convince him he was worthy of your affections. “Why do you love me so deeply?” He wondered, with a soft smile as he gazed up at you. You rolled your eyes once again as you lifted yourself off of him. You winced slightly as you moved off his lap, pausing to answer his question before moving off the bed, as well.
“Well, I didn’t really have much of a choice after you got me pregnant,” you sighed as you stood outside of the bed, but you couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and burst out laughing at his unamused expression. You turned from him then, looking around the bedroom for your clothes.
“If that’s all it takes,” he began, as he exited the bed to follow after you, as you found your clothes draped over a chair. “I’d better make sure we’re onto our second child in no time,” he smirked, and he appeared behind you.
“Dream!” You blushed, as you slipped on your panties and fastened your bra, unaware of his presence behind you. His hands came around from behind you then and you yelped in surprise as he grabbed firmly at your hips before his lithe fingers traced over your clothed cunt. “Stop!” You giggled, as you tried futilely to wriggle out of his hold.
“Make me,” he rasped with a smile against your ear as his hold on you tightened. You leaned your head back against his shoulder to look up at him as your hands settled over his.
“We’ve gotta go relieve Matthew,” you reminded him, before placing a kiss to his jaw and prying his hands off of you. With an exaggerated sigh, he released you, clothing himself with a thought as you pulled on your pants and top. He frowned as you covered your body and you laughed at the familiar pout of displeasure. “Right, so that’s where Declan gets it from,” you shook your head lightly as you took his hand and headed over to your son’s chambers.
You moved through the sitting room filled with moving boxes, and when they caught his eye, Dream pulled his hand from yours.
“What is it?” You frowned, as you moved beside him and your hand squeezed lightly at his upper arm.
“Did I ever tell you about when I first met you?”
“Um, no,” you laughed lightly, at the strange question. Not only was it odd, but it simply didn’t make sense. “Because I was there,” you explained slowly, with a tilted head. “In my shop, when you needed help with that lucid dreamers problem.”
“No, dear witch,” he smiled softly, as he turned to you. “Before that. You were in a park in London with a friend. You spoke of Roderick Burgess and the being he had trapped in his basement.”
Your lips parted as you stared at him for a moment. “You were there?”
“I was sitting on the bench next to you two,” he smiled softly at the memory and your apparent obliviousness of the momentous event.
“So you heard all of that, then?” You wondered, as your head dipped shyly. “About Burgess and you?”
“I was so taken by the compassion you held for someone you’d never even met before,” he explained softly, but your lowered gaze didn’t budge. His thumb and forefinger went to your chin to tilt your gaze to his, as he continued. “I fell for you that very moment,” he confessed.
“You didn’t,” you denied, uncomfortable under his adoring words and gaze. Your eyes lowered bashfully and he couldn’t stand it.
“I did,” he insisted, and his hand moved from your chin to caress your face as he assured you how deeply he felt for you. “And when the lucid dreamers ravaged the realm, and I sought Johanna’s help, I asked her to pursue local purveyors of magic, because I knew you were one of them. There was no indication that witchcraft was at play, but I wanted an excuse to meet you. To know you,” he confessed, and he swallowed thickly before continuing with the admission that weighed heavily on him. “But I shouldn’t have,” he admitted, and the guilt in his voice drew your attention. His hand fell away from you and he continued in a quiet voice.
“I sought after you and it doomed you,” he admitted. “If I hadn’t gone to your shop, if I had found some other way to resolve the issue with the lucid dreamers, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have lost your life in the Waking World and be confined to the Dreaming, if I hadn’t selfishly gone after you,” he confessed, so gently, so innocently, so truthfully that it broke your heart. He looked to the boxes that held every trace of your life in the Waking World and sighed. “You wouldn’t be stuck here if you hadn’t tried to save me.”
“Oh, Dream," you sighed, smiling softly at him. “That’s so dumb,” you breathed a laugh, and you caught a flash of irritation in his eyes that you no longer feared. “Not the part about wanting an excuse to meet me,” you began. “That was actually very sweet and I am definitely keeping that in mind to tease you about later,” you added. “But the part about you finding some other way to deal with the lucid dreamers? The Fates would have made sure we crossed paths at some point, Dream,” you assured him. “And as for my life in the Waking World, it’s right here,” you smiled. “It’s you and Declan, and as long as I’ve got the two of you, I don’t care where I am.”
Epilogue ->
A/N: The final chapter! Hope you all enjoyed it and the surprise happy ending!
