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fauxraven · 1 year ago

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The Time Paradigm [VI]

pairing: Dream of the Endless x fem!reader

summary: the death of a Dream, the anguish of another

warnings: gore, Dream’s endless (but hot af) anger, character death

word count: 2.9k+

Enter the Dream, weary traveller

Chapter VI: Mutually assured salvation

GaiaPrime-57, Londinium, Half the Lifetime of the Universe,

A window snaps shut.

A droplet drops.

A zipper zips shut.

Zips open.

Chipping nail polish cracks further with every slide of the zip. Zip up; zip down. Zip up; zip down.

The suitcase slams on the floorboards. A frustrated groan leaves the chipping nail polish.

‘’Yes. Yes, I understand that too, Mr. Harris.’’ Up and down and up and down again until it jams. The phone gives a groan under cheap nail polish and exhausted fingers. ‘’Pedro, come—hop on my suitcase.’’

The curly head of a child pops around a corner; small, for his age, smallest of his class, in every aspect. He holds a soft toy that’s half bunny half elephant and about 5% extinct species. He hops on the suitcase silently.

‘’No, obviously, I don’t expect you to hop on my suitcase, Mr. Harris.’’ The zipper draws back, jams again. ‘’Pedro? Remember the Chuck E. Cheese ball pit?’’

The child throws himself onto the suitcase. The zipper is still stuck.

‘’Yes, I know. But the lease said—just one really. Yes, the other intends to stay. I don’t know, a few months. Yes, just me. She’ll stay. Yes—yes! Perfect, thank you, so much!’’ The phone drops on a red faux suede beanbag. ‘’Kid, this isn’t working.’’

‘’It was zipping a bit funny when Aunty Anna tried it too.’’

‘’Anna was within a file-mile radius of my suitcase?’’

The half-elephant half-unicorn dips a head of a cotton into a nod. She pulls him up and throws the suitcase open.

‘’You have got to be kidding me!’’

A pink garment falls to the floor. Followed by a white veil and a cable knit stitch the colour of ebony. Footfalls draw closer with every piece she plucks from the intestines of the suitcase.

‘’Pizza’s ordered. What? You said healthy; veg—what the bloody hell are you doing?’’

‘’You tell me. What part of ‘going there for work’ do you not understand?’’

‘’I understood perfectly! Blimey, I even packed you nice professional clothes.’’

‘’Lingerie? That’s what you call professional?’’

‘’Pleasure and business. Precisely in that order,’’ a lacy thong drops, adding to the growing pile forming on the floor. The child has gone away, thankfully. ‘’What if you meet a hot and loaded British bugger? What then? You’ll be glad I packed the essentials, that’s what.’’

‘’It’s a job in a quiet countryside house; the closest village is eight miles. The only guy I’ll see is pushing ninety and I’ll spend my days wheeling him around—passionately.’’

‘’Just loaded then?’’

‘’Business. I’m going there for business. I’m not like you, Jo. Hell, how many did you—okay, who needs this many thongs?’’

‘’That one’s a stray, actually.’’

On cue, the top layer of the unholy pile shifts into a ginger Tabby cat.

‘’Tell me you did not keep that thing.’’ Johanna snags in a beanbag, hissing at the cat when it tries snuggling up against her leg. She plucks a magazine from the coffee table and starts thumbing through gibberish. She isn’t really paying attention to the words; she isn’t paying attention to anything.

‘’I let you keep the kid!’’ The woman fires back, sitting on her haunches.

‘’Kids aren’t strays, love. Besides, this one’s just using ya for food and free snuggles, hope you know that.’’

‘’Since you’re missing the point, I’ll just cut to the chase—where did you find a whole kid? Where are his parents?’’

Johanna spares her a coy look over the magazine. ‘’Don’t you mean when are his parents?’’

‘’No, I really just mean where are his parents, the people who are supposed to care for him and report him missing should you decide to keep him any longer than you already have.’’

Johanna opens her mouth, tongue fit with a quick retort, but a zipper zips shut and a bell tolls; and life goes on. Without her. Always without her. She ought to move on too.

A sharp snap! rescues her from grim thoughts. A luggage handle is drawn and a decision is made.

‘’Looks like I’m all set. Walk me to the door?’’

‘’Promise to visit for Bommy Night?’’

‘’Sure. Why not Christmas or Easter or any other normal holidays?’’

‘’I want you on Bommy Night.’’

A suitcase is wheeled over the threshold of a small London flat. A dream leaves through the door.

‘’Hun, it happened four hundred years ago, think you can let it go, eventually?’’

‘’Bommy Night?’’

‘’Bommy Night.’’ She sighs. ‘’And do clean up while I’m gone. This place is a mess.’’

A door shuts behind an idyllic picture, a semblance of normalcy, a modicum of love.

In all her lives, Johanna Constantine has never particularly enjoyed loneliness. But loneliness far outweighs death, grief, sorrow, work. So she lets it go. She lets love overflow. She lets her only friend forge her own path through the world. A world cleansed of any demons, ghouls or whatnots that come bump into the night.

Still, she hangs onto the knob. Still, she pauses before the door. Still, she glances at the quiet flat.

A piece of paper and a mess of clothes strewn about a dust-covered couch.

All that’s left of her.

There’s a child in there somewhere, but she doesn’t bother finding him. She knows it won’t last. She knows nothing ever lasts.

An orange cat pushes its head against her calf, purring lightly through her bones.

She might take that gig at Saint-Anne’s. She might blow up the Houses of Parliament. She might phone Rachel.

Endless possibilities.

⌛︎ ⌛︎ ⌛︎

GaiaPrime-57, Edge of the Worlds, Mytikas Peak, Two Millennia Before the End,

He isn’t sure she is breathing.

Granted, his kind do not need to breathe, but nearly all living things do.

In the beginning, breathing was surviving.

Breathing was new, invented by some higher power, meant to be the latest trend in a series of many; holy gifts bestowed upon humanity before it even became humanity.

But in humanity breathing has found meaning.

One’s breathing tells a tale of life—of life and of love and of sorrow and of pain.

In times forgotten but not forgiven, he’d relish in the steady breath of sleepers.

He’d watch the ephemeral rise and fall of a passing chest with great fascination, overcome with a strange mixture of relief and indifference when the fleeting moment inevitably ended.

He’d listen to the soft thrumming of a laboured breath fanning across his own lips, bodies tangled, hearts mingled, minds miles apart. He’d pour his heart into everything that he was and everything that he wanted and he’d breathe them all into his arms… and they would always end up drowning. He’d choke the breath right out of them.

His sorrow was great; but his love was suffocating.

To add insult to injury, evolution has made breathing mandatory; essential.

But she has defied every rule, every law, every principle and sacred promise from day one.

So he is almost certain she is not breathing at all.

And he needs her to breathe.

He isn’t sure why—perhaps because she’s got a kind smile and she’s happy and she’s wounded and she’s saved his life.

A debt he can never repay, to his dismay.

He cannot stand between a flying sword and her lovely face. He cannot mend her wounds with a flick of his wrist. He cannot call out her name so sweetly and stir something buried within the depths of a blazing nova.

But he can save her life.

The hopeful thought digs, and soft golden grains of sand guide him to Chiron’s bedchambers.

He finds the Centaur reading. He calls to him, nearly falls to his knees.

Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, Oneiros, the Shaper of Form and everything he has ever been and ever will be—is utterly devastated.

Strangely enough, nothing gives the King away.

Nothing on the hard face, the wild hair nor deep eyes, nothing in the dark billowing robes and the shining ruby; it’s a feeling in the air, a rapture through time itself that tells Chiron something dreadful has happened.

That, and the dying girl in his arms.

For his usual aloofness, Oneiros proves to be very cooperative.

He lowers her to the cushioned table, per Chiron’s orders and stands aside to let him work.

He watches, powerless, as the doctor tears through fabric and blood-marred skin and frowns.

‘’What is it?’’ His voice is cutting, demanding, that of a sovereign hanging onto his crown with one hand. In the other, lie his wants and desires. Duty warring against something barely blossoming. Something deadly. Something very nearly dead.

‘’The stitches hold still.’’

‘’Is that not a good thing?’’

‘‘Terrible. Very terrible, Milord.’’

Gilded scissors cut deeper, digging into raw flesh and crusted meat alike, dragging unintelligible pained murmurs from the victim’s throat.

‘’She’s coming to, my lord.’’

‘’Not quite. Faster.’’

Scissors chop away, blood bursts everywhere, screams rip free, golden liquid bearing the smell of spoilt milk leaks through veins.

‘’By Zeus—’’ The Centaur curses; the Dream Lord hears it—neither moves an inch.

‘’What is that?’’ Oneiros rasps, anger lacing his even tone as he stares deeper into the leaking wound.

‘’Adiona—‘’ Chiron stammers, wide eyes burning a hole into a gaping canyon. ‘’Go, find Adiona, and any servants and willing gods.’’

Oneiros does not move. His star-filled gaze has darkened; the stars are slowly dying as they gawk at the trickling drops of blood and the large puddle of liquid gold pouring from the wound.

‘’Oneiros, go!’’ Chiron calls to him, they share a glance over the woman and then his eyes sweep over her fevered form again. A pale hand he hadn’t noticed falls from a limp grasp. He is gone in a swirl of sand.

What happens in the split second of his absence is a secret kept between the doctor and the universe.

But for clarity’s sake, the scene is as follows; this tale is not for the faint of heart.

Blood pours.

As a doctor, surgeon, centaur, son of a ruthless beast, he has seen blood. Some might say he is used to the sight of it. Blood and pus and bodily fluids, all fascinating in their diversity. After its inevitable loss, the human body can produce nearly one liter per day. That's two gallons full of pungent blood. He fears she might fill up five pitchers of wine with her blood alone.

But the blood doesn't bother him. It is terrifying.

Blood pours, pours.

Vicious droplets gushing from a gaping wound—a Sunday to him.

He'd operated during the Dhorian Invasion and all that followed humanity's first brush with extraterrestrial forces. He'd served as a soldier for a time, a nurse, a brother, a friend, a gravestone. He thought he'd seen all the world had to give and take.

He hadn't.

He probably still hasn't.

Blood pours pours pours.

Red splotches dot his skin—her skin, the difference is hard to tell anymore.

He reacts mechanically, his body switching to auto-pilot. His arm lifts, a hand reaches and nibble fingers dig through shining flesh and golden remnants of bone. He knows what this is, this gilded ambrosia spreading through her veins. He knows what it is and he knows what it does, so he carries on, hands digging through her entrails as her screams overpower the wet squelching of his crass ministrations.

He digs and he digs until the voice that comes from her throat is nothing but a distant echo carried by a Roman breeze, a flutter of a butterfly's wings.

By the time the doors to his antechamber burst open, he's elbow deep into the angry flesh of her.

A flurry of gods and goddesses and servants stand arrayed about him, gawking eyes narrowing at the sight of the carnage.

''Chiron,'' a voice calls to him, and then two, and then three and a thousand and one. They pierce through the silent spell in the room and noise comes back to him at once, a moist, most disturbing noise.

He carries on; acutely aware that somewhere along his ministrations, she had stopped screaming.

''Chiron, there's too much blood.''

''Is this all from the... inside?''

‘’I could not find Adiona.’’

‘’No matter. Hold her hand.’’

Wordlessly, he gives commands. A world of gods and servants obey, gathering tools and knowledge, changing bandages and spoiling cloth after cloth with dried pungent blood. It just never stops, the flow keeps pouring, rushing over all of Mount Olympus. The rivers of blood spread like gossip on Haloa, splitting into narrow paths, designing warped veins on the pristine floors. The irony.

The servants still the traveller. It is useless. The violent writhing has subsided, only slight tremors remain, faint whimpers and an assembly of gods.

Hephaestus beats her chest repeatedly with brawny arms.

A Cherub's small rounded fingers are pressed against her pulse. With every passing second, they press harder still.

Calliope, ninth daughter of the Hecatae, is sponging up blood and gilded pus from a corpse.

A painting that will never make it to a museum.

Oneiros knows she is no longer breathing. Her hand lays slack in his palm.

Chiron perseveres. Delicate fingers pry him off the body carefully.

The stranger-traveller-lover-of-dreams is... dead?

''It's alright, Chiron. You did your best.''

''You were very admirable. As was she; she shall be remembered as such.''

''Really nothing you could do.''

''Try again.''

A death knell drops. A pipe organ is playing somewhere deep within the bowels of the palace. The eerie melody cannot reach them. Nothing can save for sorrow and grief and the Dreamlord's quiet anger.

''My Lord?''

''Try. Again.''

Chiron holds his haunted gaze. The ninth daughter of the Hecatae raises a graceful hand to the side of his face. ''Oneiros—''

''Save her.'' he repeats, rasping voice never changing in tone. ''You owe her that much.''

''Do I?'' The doctor's eyes sweep over her form again. Just a moment ago she'd been laughing, mocking his customs and reminiscing gibberish. Just a moment ago, she'd been carried in by the prince of stories for whom she obviously harbored a strong inclination. ''Do you?''

Just a moment ago, she'd been more than a cold lump of meat on a decorative table.

''I know when to admit defeat, Dreamlord. Please, forgive me.''

''No.''

''Oneiros, he did all he could.''

Cold, starless eyes barely brush against some ninth daughter. Under his stare, she feels smaller than a grain of sand.

''No,'' Chiron says before the Dream Lord can retort. ''No, I did not.''

''Chiron—‘’

His shoulders deflate, turning away from Calliope's comforting touch. ''She came to see me this morning. After the feast.''

''Well, what did she want?'' a rough, gravelly voice asks. The Cherub hops on a corner of the table, bare legs brushing over the tip of her dead sandaled feet. She is a corpse now, everything about her is dead, expect, perhaps, her heart. It shall live endlessly.

''She asked me to check the wound. I had to remove the bandage and cut her up, I'm afraid.''

The temperature drops, the air turns crisp, burning the doctor's lungs when he draws a deep breath and looks into Morpheus' eyes.

''Tell me, is this your doing?''

''I wish,'' he surrenders, summoning all the strength left in him. His hands are covered in blood, his arms reek of death and his scalp is as damp as that of the victim. The blood has gilded vein-like streaks stretching across his arms. ''This—this is something else. Something impossible.''

He orders the blood-covered servants to leave. As they fill out wordlessly, he watches, scrutinizing them one by one. The doors close on blood and fabric and a forbidden glance.

To the remaining world, he whispers one word.

''Δηλητήριο.''

''Poison?'' Calliope echoes, frowning. ''It cannot be. Zeus had all the hemlock shrubs removed after the Phaedra incident.''

''Only this isn't hemlock, Calliope. This is something else. Something new.''

''Could it be lethal to us?''

''Of course not, dimwit! Why would you even think that?''

''Look what it's done to her, Anteros! A powerful beauty, was she? I mean no disrespect my lord.''

Hephaestus considers himself a man of bravery and honor.

He isn't anywhere near as obnoxious as Plutus, or inconsiderate as Aergia, and twice the man Anteros pretends to be. But he must admit that the tendrils of pure darkness sprouting from the Master of Dreams’ shadow make him a tee tiny bit frightened.

They expand, licking across the polished floors, continuing their creeping journey toward the foot of the table, snuffing out all light and life from the closest particles of this plane. The shadows grow, shape, de-shape and reshape in a senseless and endless twirl.

Calliope has always been braver than him.

She turns and in one graceful twirl places herself between the tendrils of darkness and her half-brother. Between the god and the Endless. She stares him down. He stares right back.

The tendrils tremble around the edges.

Chiron pinches the bridge of his nose wearily. A cherub sucks a thumb into his mouth, watching the game with bright amused eyes.

A shadow stills, the air turns sour.

A gasp is breathed, a heart is released.

A stranger-traveller springs from a table, cheered on by a collective shriek. A toddler tumbles from her table. A palm is pressed to her cheek, lovely brown eyes coming into view. Shadows retreat into the darkest parts of an ancient soul.

She breathes. She lives. She cries.

''Please, please, don't send me off on a burning boat.''

A/N: yes I am alive, no, I’m not sorry (a tiny bit still).

Also… finally introducing the premise, how do we feel about that ;)

Gotta sort the rest of my drafts before I update again, but I’m currently working on a Sandman x DBD crossover so updates on this series might take a while. And since the algorithm seems to be against me, I'd recommend a follow to be sure not to miss them!

#morpheus #dream of the endless #the sandman #lord morpheus #morpheus x reader #let me know if I forgot any tags #netflix the sandman #sandman netflix #the sandman x reader #dream x fem!reader #dream x reader #the sandman au #sandman fic #the sandman netflix #the sandman comics #sandman comics #greek mythology #greek gods

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fauxraven · 2 years ago

Note

Can I request that me and Morpheus are husband and wife and I have telekinesis and I protect him from all the people who are after him but i over use them and I pass out but release a energy blast but he catches me in his arms and places me in his bed until I wake up and I finally reveal who I am and he is very sweet about it

Brave New Dream

pairing: Dream of the Endless x Powerful fem!reader

summary: a thousand lifetimes of protecting the man you love and a billion reasons to love you more.

warnings: slight spoilers for the comics.

word count: 3k+

dedicated to this lovely Anon who, I hope will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Not sure this is what you had in mind but I took a bit of a creative license ;)

Enter the Dream, weary traveller

The universe began in death.

The world as humans know it was created billions and billions and trillions of years ago.

And for the longest time, there was nothing there.

Not even darkness.

Nothing but a pile of rocks that I'd crafted from my tears, long before I even knew about tears; long before I even knew about sadness.

Long before I knew about anything at all.

Unfortunately, the concept of sadness is one I’ve become familiar with. It's a concept I completely owe to myself, lest there be a Depression of the Endless I would be unaware of.

Naturally, sadness has never only really been just sadness.

And love has never really been just love.

Sadness and love; the only things I've ever taken for granted. I drag them behind me, like one of my husband's long billowing coats, on my road to eternity.

And eternity, is unbearable.

Eternity is impervious to evolution.

Eternity is impervious to the big D.

Eternity has never been anything else but existence, uninterrupted.

Nothing but me, sitting cross-legged on a giant rock floating in endless nothingness, watching stars bursting into life.

Billions and billions of lives.

Billions and billions of deaths.

Aeons fly by.

Atoms arrange, break down, rearrange, reshape, remodel in an infinite scheme for life.

And of this new process, burst life, everlasting.

The Creator came first.

He shaped worlds and realities of incomparable beauty, worlds that I could admire from my rock in a secluded part of this new universe. For him, I was grateful.

The Designer came second.

She'd always been here, in a way, just like me, but the Elden Books only gave her life meaning when her disembodied eyes had found those of her equal. For her, I was devastated.

Mother Night and Father Time were a logic addition to this bubbling garden of life, looking back.

Night and Time.

The essence of youth, ebbing away, crumbling to dust with each passing day; the everlasting presence of darkness itself, allowing thought to mankind, spawning fear and wonder in equal parts.

Night and Time. They never even knew I was there.

Night and Time and their children.

Seven Endless, seven beings, just as lost as I. Seven creatures of obedience and rules and death and destiny and dream and destruction and despair and desire and delight and—

Love.

So much love.

At first sight really; at first heartbeat.

But they were meant for inspiration, these beings, nothing else. Never anything else.

Whereas I was meant to watch.

From the darkest yet untrodden corner of a burgeoning universe, in a form that was not my own and thoughts that never sparred with anyone nor anything else. For them, I became everything that I am today.

But the beginning is important to this story; perhaps twice as important as the end. As it was from this very rock of oblivion, that I witnessed the purest thing yet.

The universe began with a dream.

A tiny dream, the first dream ever dreamt.

A fickle thing born of love.

A firstborn daughter, dreaming of her father, long since dead in battle. Fuzzy around the edges, the dream had no tangible contender, nor substance.

The father had no face to look at, no eyes to stare into nor voice to listen to; he was only as strong as all the men in her village, but the babe had no use for a face, only for a feeling.

She saw herself as older, fuller, running into his arms and laughing—laughing is not quite the opposite of crying, you see, but it is a merciful lie, one we tell ourselves to preserve our hearts, if only for a moment.

And the newly-born Dream Lord, barely more than a babe himself, was the sole puppeteer of this blooming hope.

And he was beautiful.

I loved him instantly for it.

I loved him for hope, I loved him for dreams, I loved him for love, even. I loved him for everything he could do and everything he could be. I loved him because when I thought of him I didn't feel quite as alone anymore.

I loved him because he gave me the courage to leave my rock and set sail for the stars. He'd never admit it, but Earth had always been his favourite of all worlds. And so it became mine.

Every waking moment, I sought to protect him. To love him from afar, rather than to not love him at all.

These days, it proved harder a task than usual.

The turn of the Twentieth century had offered me many things.

Semi-security, as a traveller, a woman, an impossible being. I'd been burnt as a witch, drowned as a witch, scalped as a witch, wheeled as a fae and hanged as a thief. I did not enact revenge. All of these were true, to some extent.

I'd established various homes across the aeons, found others like me, befriended some, hated nearly all of them. Always loved him.

Human beings are selfish by nature, but they have a knack to come about it that is just so ethereally beautiful and insightful and... magnificent. Just so uniquely human.

My love was just as self-absorbed. My friends themselves had some choice words about my aeon-long pining.

But of those friends, I particularly resented one.

Madame Klare was nothing particularly graceful nor spiteful. Only horrifyingly, tediously decent.

She knew of my shameful feelings, naturally. I reckon her exact words were A worthless waste of cosmic time, or some such lines.

The jab wasn't strictly intended to my feelings but rather to the unconventional way I chose to deal with them.

You see, I wholeheartedly believe that ire and hate are driving emotions, but there comes a time when the well of hate has run dry, when ire is no longer burning away in a pit but dying out in a shallow pool.

But love... love is infinite.

And when you love something as much as I love Morpheus, you protect it. It's the most... natural thing in the worlds—all and every of them worlds.

And time and time again, I protected him.

It began like a drawl; a slow, steady choreography that I practised alone from behind a one-way mirror—the Selena Gomez to his Drew Seeley.

He was a dark dot on a map, followed by a burst of light—life and love, everlasting.

My entire lives, I kept running after him.

After billions and billions of years, I was awarded a holiday by my dear friend.

A centennial thing—every three hundred years, she would kick my ass to the curb. I would leave for a century; go off-world, love myself, love the stars, come back and resume my duties to my one true love.

It was also during this century of lenience that my love was stolen from me.

I encountered him again some time later in a park in England, feeding the pigeons, of all things. I found him changed, in an odd, less tormented way.

The sun was showing her glowing head, burning brightly on an amateur soccer game. A fevered child ran past Dream of the Endless—he glanced at it with disdain and I stifled a laugh.

Needless to say, in this picturesque landscape, the broody dream Lord stood out like a sore thumb.

Something in him called out to something buried in me. For the first time, I decided to break my own rules.

He didn’t notice when I sat beside him.

‘’I love pigeons. They only ever need you for food but at least they’re very straightforward little bastards about it.’’

He gave me a sideway glance—sapphire blue and decaying hopes—and flicked another crumb to the surrounding flock.

There have been many an occasion, many a cause for his sadness over the years.

Sadness swallowed him whole every time.

Which is why I’d promised myself that I would never be the source of it.

Sadness was a default setting for both of us, but his was an infinite whirlpool, a tiny part of an endless ocean, extinguishing all hope of light it came across. And for a very long time, I thought this was all there was. But his sadness was so much deeper, so much stranger and so much more beautiful than that. Than mine. He was it. He was my everything.

My hand found his knee; only for a second, only for a tiny speck of comfort magic to weave through the dark jeans, through muscle, make-believe tissue and bone and there—the heart of an endless.

He looked at me then. At the smile I unknowingly offered him and the warm touch of my hand on his knee. And panic set in. Like every time for the past ten billion years, I scrammed.

⚭ ⚭ ⚭

The universe was playing a cruel joke on me.

The cruelest yet.

I simply kept seeing him everywhere, without even looking.

I wasn’t being strictly honest with myself either.

I knew about Hob and the New Inn; I had known about everything for a very long time.

I just didn’t expect he would see me right away.

I didn’t expect Hob to point a finger to the standoffish girl who’d been stalking his old friend for hours. I didn’t expect the man himself to look over. I didn’t expect my legs to be such traitors in the nick of time.

‘’Hi,’’ Keep it cool. Keep it together. Oh, god. He’s looking at me. He’s really looking at me and seeing me and I’m standing there, not doing anything. ‘’Can I… buy you a drink?’’

I’d done many stupid things over time. Hurt a lot, broke my own heart, shadowed him dutifully.

Loved him with everything that I had.

Of that, I said nothing.

I spoke of awkward things, shallow things, lively things, shiny things and funny things.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t say much at all. He just kept staring and listening and I was entirely convinced that by the end of the evening I would scramble off back to my rock.

But I did not.

And he asked to see me again.

From there, something blossomed. Something beautiful and unlikely and ultimately based on lies.

But life went on.

And we… we fell into this lie so easily—he, digging deeper into the clumsy courtship and I, burying myself in a grave made of my own rules. It looked an awful lot like the underside of a cosmic rock.

He believed me human; of all things.

He saw my messy flat, and my boho friends and he showed me his realm and his love and it all absolutely terrified me.

I began by lying to my boyfriend.

Before long, I kept lying to my husband.

In all fairness, I’d denied him, the first time.

And despite his sadness and anguish, and my own self-loathing, I kept denying him until I just couldn’t anymore.

The wedding itself was all very briskly. Unexpected.

Right after I’d said no for the fifth time and just before I’d said yes for the first.

Something blue, something stolen, an immortal best man and his sister Death, officiating a small barely-put-together ceremony in the middle of an English park. It was perfect. It was everything.

I tried to convince myself that I was happy. I tried to live in a lie. I chose to kiss my husband every day, to chase his touch, to listen to the voice in me that needed him nearly as much as he needed me.

But every story, if you keep it going long enough, ends in death.

Death, is no beautiful lady on a languid trek through Brighton.

Death, is a burst of light, with a twist.

It’s a blonde woman who’s just lost a son and will take it out on anyone.

On the love of all my lives.

My physical form is used to these instincts by now. I should know better. I really, really should know better.

My mind follows, leaping from the confines of a rock at the borders of a forgotten universe.

I stand between a broken woman and a tattered dream—and I burst. I let it engulf all parts of me in every world that I’ve ever known. My power reacts on its own, fuelled by instincts and a dreary endless life without him.

This life remembers aeons of solitude.

It remembers bright skies and a dream of love. It remembers an otherworldly burst of light and a bewildered dream and a fuzzy mother.

This death remembers an endless embrace of sinew and a bed of starlight and wobbling bookshelves coming into focus.

‘’Boss? I think she’s coming to.’’

‘’My dream? Can you hear me?’’

A fuzzy dream of love and a talking raven.

A throbbing head and a loving hand in the small of my back, helping me up.

‘’What’s happening?’’ No. Wrong question entirely. ‘’What happened?’’

‘’It seems you’ve used up your… energy. Trying to help me.’’

‘’He means that you totally kicked ass today.’’

The raven isn’t an unusual sight. The bite in my husband’s eyes however…

It’s not that I haven’t seen this gaze before; this cool, unperturbed, assessing gaze. It’s just that I have never seen it in relation to me. This is death, for the first time in fifty billion years.

‘’Leave us.’’

The master’s orders are seldom discussed, and I am eternally grateful to Matthew for his slight twitch and dubious glance but I reassure him with a small smile. The bird flies away through a window; a window I recognise. Dream’s window. Our window in our little cosmic alcove, here, in his kingdom.

‘’It’s nice to see you still consider me enough to spare a pillow for my head,’’ I observe, stretching on the silk sheets and throwing him a coy smile. ‘’But whatever should we do with this insanely large bed?’’

‘’You lied to me.’’

The bite is cutting, gritted through a carefully crafted mask of indifference. It hurts more than the fleeting ghost touch of brushing against him in a busy street. More than shoving sixteenth century robbers with a wandering eye for rubies against a wall of a tavern with the force of my mind. Far more than nudging an engagement ring towards the man I’ve always loved, painfully aware that he would be gifting it to another woman.

‘’I’m not human, Morpheus.’’

The words are painful; they clog in my throat, and I wish to take them back immediately. A teardrop glistens in his endless eyes. I want to reach up and collect it before it falls.

‘’What, then?’’

‘’I don’t know. Not exactly. I never have. I just know that I’m old. Older than you.’’

He chuckles bitterly. ‘’That is impossible.’’

‘’Nothing is impossible. You taught me that.’’

‘’It’s all been a lie, has it not?’’

‘’Yes.’’ I’m desperate. Pathetic. His. ‘’You have to understand, I just wanted to protect you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, baby.’’

‘’You lie.’’

‘’I live for you.’’ I put his hand over the last beating organ I have left and kiss his tears away. ‘’I burn for you. I die for you.’’

‘’You’ve killed for me, my love. And you almost did die as well.’’

‘’I’ll do it again. Tomorrow if you’re free. I might have to sneak out, though. My husband gets awfully jealous; in this very hot very red-flaggy way.’’

He gives a snort—even that is dignified—and takes my face into his hands. ‘’You’ve overwhelmed yourself.’’

‘’Happens once every millennia. Only with you though. Always with you.’’

And then I read it. The confusion in his face. Dream’s always been an open book to me; an open books of books, Destiny’s own damned tome of forged tales. Dream is my fate, I know that now.

‘’When? When did you start…’’

Complete and unabridged truth. In sickness and in health. For now and until forever ends.

‘’Do you remember Alianora?’’

He remembers. He remembers everything.

‘’She needed a bit of a nudge to cross over. Took care of those lousy gods though, did she not?’’

I did it. It’s done. Out in the multiverse.

I’ve just admitted to indirectly saving his life and his realm. I’ve just admitted to unknowingly third wheeling in one of his earliest relationships. I’ve just admitted to loving him, for eons past.

‘’That was you? You helped her then?’’

‘’And a few more times across time. Once or twice or a billion. You, mister, are a magnet for trouble.’’

‘’You should have shown yourself.’’

‘’I had no wish to trample on your happiness. I wanted you happy, even if it wasn’t with me. That’s what love is, isn’t it?’’

‘’I love you.’’ He says after a drop. His admission has my own eyes watering. ‘’I think I loved you even when I didn’t know you.’’

‘’I don’t,’’ I sob into his jaw. ‘’I hate myself. I hate myself for not being there, for not being by your side when you were imprisoned.’’

‘’Do not fret. I was released and then—I met you.’’

He’s lost his eloquence somewhere in this mess of tears and snot that we share, and the kisses I keep peppering along his jaw and the thousand truths I haven’t told him yet. But I purposely pause to tell him this one.

‘’That wasn’t easy, you know.’’

He pauses as well to look me in the eyes properly.

‘’A real hurdle. There were guards everywhere and I can’t reach that far on my own. I just had to make it look like an accident—a misplaced swipe of a tired wheel. But it worked. It set you free, and I am so glad that it did, because then I wouldn’t have had these glorious years with you. I peaked, I really did.’’

He stands frozen for a moment.

My dream king, prince of stories who’s just been told an entirely new one that he doesn’t understand.

I stare deeply into those starlight eyes only to find that I can read him no longer. It frightens me beyond compare.

‘’Please, say something.’’

He inhales deeply, nostrils flaring as he brushes my temple with a soft thumb. The moment drags on with the sweetest touch before I catch his fallen tear with my trembling lips. Against those, he whispers shakily.

‘’Can I… buy you a drink, Dream Queen?’’

A/N: Some soft, out-of-character Dream, but who’s complaining?

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