The Desire to be Loved-3
Summary: Love is Desire's first creation. As Cupid she shoots her arrows of love and rips them from people's hearts too. Occasionally, shooting a soulmate arrow. What does she do when her first Soulmate arrow in 100 years is between Cupid and Dream?
Pairing: Dream of the Endless x OFC Love/Cupid/Venus (you know how these beings have millions of names) (Also technically it could be an x reader because love is sort of anthropomorphic but in this story a she)
Warnings: Manipulation, threats, crying, cliffhanger, unedited, kind of like enemies to lovers, soulmate au, cursing, tell me if I miss any
Word count: 1,7k+
Dividers by: @hyelita
Tags: @intothesoul @briskesby coffeebeforewater
Masterlist
(I've moved next part to the bottom)
Love’s steps are usually much more graceful. Like a bird so carefully landing on a tree branch. So lightly that the branch doesn’t even move. It looks like nothing but the wind breezing through the careful sway of the tree.
Or maybe her movements are more like a spider. Slicking up buildings, perching and waiting to shoot the arrow of love. She has wings but more often than not she doesn’t use them. She likes climbing things and sneaking around. Pretending that the human’s can see her and she needs to hide. Some childish game to distract her from the loneliness.
Her loneliness of not being seen. Over a billion people on earth. And not a single one can see her. Maybe, sure, the ghosts can see her. But why would ghosts want to talk to her? Can ghosts even love? How would Cupid shoot them with love-arrows if they can’t be touched?
Since life has been breathed into her lungs, Desire has been the only being she’d ever talked to. And when they did, he usually did most of the talking. Scheming, rather. Talking about every possible way, left and right, to take down his siblings. Or just something more to mess with the humans a bit.
Cupid doesn’t like messing with the mortals. Or the thought of hurting the other Endless. She’s never really thought of hurting anything. She wasn’t made with the ability to think of harm. She liked watching the humans. They’re so social. Even the ones who claim they like to be alone, they always have another human close by.
And those who don’t... they eventually die the same way she lives. But that’s her least favourite part. She doesn’t like thinking about it, it makes her feel weird... Her favourite is watching a couple with one of her arrows between them. The first shy looks between them, red cheeks that she’s never had. She tries to always be there for the first ‘I love yous.’
But watching her now, is pathetic at the least. She looks exhausted, all her power is gone. Dream of the Endless has been out of action for 100 years. All dreams are gone, no dream of desire, no dream of love. No arrows showed up in her quiver. Desire stopped talking to her, after all there was no need to.
And one day in utter frustration, she pulled too hard. What gave her power was the love and hope between people. It brought her power to see people happy together. More people in love, the stronger Love is. But in the last 100 years...almost nothing. All she’s done is pull out her arrows from people’s hearts. Weaker and weaker.
And one day she just snapped. Seeing the human shatter and break, some new emotion she never felt before rised...frustration. She knew how fragile the humans are but her anger got the worst of her. It had been the 50th arrow that day that she had to take out. She had to watch how they’d wail and cry when their heart rip apart.
She’d hacked the arrow along with the heart out. In the human world it just looked like a normal heart attack, but to her it was something much more horrific. The human heart beat in her hands and the blood poured and poured. She knew Desire would just laugh at her and there was only one other person who could even see her.
But this, where she is now is even worse. The walls are blood red, the obvious realm of Desire of the Endless. She looks barely on the brink of life. Her everything looks grey and dull. “D-Desire?” She mutters hoping for some sort of life force grant from him. A loan until dreams reappear in people. Until love has some sort of meaning again.
But when she finally limped her way to the throne she got the exact opposite response. “Hello, pet, could there ever possibly be something you want to say to me?” His tone is harsh like a bee sting. “I-I don’t feel so good.” He just scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“You...you...sly minx! You’re like a fucking viper!” He has a cruel grin on his face. But Love has given up after years of psychological torture and isolation. She is just as quick to snap back. At him “The first words he spoke to me was a thank you. That’s more I’ve ever gotten from you!” Something seems to actualise up for Desire.
“Oh, I see that’s how it is. You think he cares about you.” He grins and stands up from his throne. His sharp claw once again finds the sensitive skin under her chin. “I don’t understand why you hate him so much.” She mutters turning her face away. But he grabs her right by the cheeks and keeps her exactly in place.
“I thought that you wanted your master to rule? I’ve been so so good to you haven’t I?” His mouth grazes across her jaw. Her breathing hitches. This is how he gets her. “He doesn’t care about you. He didn’t even know you existed before you stumbled your way into that fucking basement. And didn’t I tell you not to go back there?”
“He didn’t hurt me like you told me would. Not once, he’s been nothing but soft and-” suddenly his hand wraps around her neck. She’s weak, and even before she only had a fraction of his power. She can‘t fight back. “’not once’? Not only did you free him from his cage you visited him more than twice?”
His fingers become tighter around her neck. His claws draw blood and it drips down her chest. Her hands flail around his. Her breathing becomes raspy and painful. “I could make a million more of you if I wanted.” He whispers into her ear. But his other hand comes up and scrapes a line across her cheek.
“But you’re oh so beautiful.” His pink tongue drags over the line of blood dripping from her cheek. Then he places a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You were meant to be my perfect creation. But now look at you. Weak and fucking useless...” They let go of Love.
When she crumbles on the floor he just coos. “Such a shame. Too sickly to fly, to teleport. I’m sure you couldn’t even pick up your bow if you tried.” He bends down to the girl struggling to get up. He grabs her by the hair, he can’t help but admire how beautiful he made her again. “I think I should try again, don’t you...?”
Feelings are such a conflicting thing. Something that the Dream of the Endless never thought that he’d be one to deal with. Black and white and no in between, right? Make dreams, make nightmares, deal with the things that shouldn’t be. Sure, once in a while one of his many siblings would irk him or send him one of this in between things to deal with.
But now things are different. Now he’s been caged up for over a century. Now for some odd reason there is something more than the repeating thoughts of cruel revenge against the Burgesses. Seeing Alex stuck in an eternal nightmare did warm the soul but just not enough.
When the sand made contact with his skin and he opened his eyes to see Lucien staring down at him, it made his heart sink. More so seeing the shambles his kingdom had come to. And as he sat on his throne, breathing in the dust of his castle there’s only thing he can think of.
In his lap sits the arrow left by Love. The arrowhead is glowing bright red. He inspects it closely, there are as always names written on it. But, even in his authority as an Endless, only Cupid knows who this arrow belongs to. But why did she come to him with it...?
She looked to be in utter disbelieve about the contents of the arrow. Like she feared it contents. Why did she keep coming back to him? Why did she leave the arrow with him and not take it with her? Doesn’t this arrow have a time and place to reach it’s target? Won’t the scales tip, the fates must know this.
But in the sights he’s stuck in, he needs his powers now more than he needs Cupid. And there is always one person to ask, who would know where his own creation is. But what feels more cruel is the utter fear behind her eyes at the thought of Desire finding out where she is and who she’s talking to.
It can wait...right?
“My king, what is that you have?” Lucien asks, picking at her fingers. The deep vibration of his voice echos. “Lucien, what books do we have on Cupid?” The librarian’s brows furrow, “Desire’s first creature? Is that...?” She asks, holding out her hand to inspect the object. “It is...she was the first non-human to find me.”
The creature isn’t sure what to say. She doesn’t know her master to be one with much sentiment. “Why didn’t she inform anyone?“ She asks, it would’ve helped to keep all creatures in the Dreaming. “She knows her place. She’s submissive, she was made that way.” Lucien goes to speak again but Dream interrupts her.
“What confuses me more is why she went against him? And what will happen if Love itself has gone missing from the human world?” Lucien’s brows furrow. “My lord you have been gone for a century, don’t you wish to get your power back before we focus on different issues.”
Suddenly his voice sounds stern and his eyes go dark. “Lucien. My devotion lies with the dreamers and if they have no love there are no dreams. If there are no dreams there is no love. Do not question me.” The woman looks taken back and seems to gulp. She keeps her head down and keeps out of the way.
A pang of guilt hits him seeing Lucienne cower from him. He sighs and lets the arrow disappear again, somewhere easy for him to grab and hide again. “But-” he stops her from walking away. “-you’re right, Lucienne. If I go charging into Desire’s realm, without my tools, I’ll be captured again.”
Dream stands up from his steps, his long black coat billowing behind him. “I need to find my tools.”
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Part 2~Part 4
