#morpheus needs to learn to use his words
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Carpe Diem
Status: One-Shot
Series: the Hob Adherent series
Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse (including the Good Omens and Lucifer television shows), but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death.
Relationships: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)
Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Lucifer, Patrick the Bartender, Crowley, Aziraphale, Johanna Constantine, Matthew the Raven
Summary: Hob turns six hundred and sixty-six, invites some fellow Immortals to his bar to celebrate, and receives a gift from Satan herself. Or, the Key to Hell was always going to Be a Problem(tm).
Set between the epilogue and chapter one of Cling Fast.
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Hob tells Patrick he’s turning thirty-six.
About five minutes before the party is set to start, he takes immature delight in adding a tiny little x2 between the 3 and the 6 on the poster wishing him a happy birthday with a sharpie. Normally Hob doesn’t make much of a fuss about his birthday–it’s too easy for his fellow, aging humans to start tracking them that way–but it’s May 1st in the Year of Our Lord 2022, and Hob Gadling is turning six hundred and sixty-six years old.
He figures that deserves a party.
They close The New Inn for the private event, and Patrick, grumpy bastard that he is, refuses to hire in a catering staff so he can enjoy himself, too.
“It’s your birthday, Bob,” he says, as Hob is tying off the last of the bunting above the banquettes. “I’m not having a stranger back here screwing up your orders.”
“We do need to hire a server before the summer, though,” Hob points out, jumping down and wiping the tread-prints from his shoes off the leather seat. “And a new kid for the kitchen.”
“Well it’s not happening any time today, so just… let me celebrate you from my happy place.”
“Fine, fine,” Hob grants with a smile. Patrick is very, very good at his job. He also has an anxious fear of crowds, when there isn’t wood and fridges and pint-glass washers between him and other people. “But tell me you’ll try to relax a bit, please. It’s my party, and I want you to have fun.”
Patrick gifts him with a set of bowfingers and turns his back to resume prep. Hob wonders what the Signature Cocktail du Jour is going to be, with that many sliced limes, peaches, and strawberries.
Hob is generally very pleased with himself and the world. He’s in a university and profession he loves, he’s inspiring young minds and hearts towards kindness and generosity to their fellow humans, he’s very slowly restoring the White Horse one city council fight at a time, he is master of The New Inn and it’s domain, and he is swiftly becoming best friends with a magical talking raven.
And, of course, in the nine months since Morpheus has broken free of his prison and returned to Hob’s life, he has become a fixture of his Tuesday afternoons and no small part of his attention and affection besides. That's something worth celebrating, too. Hob's Stranger has somehow, wonderfully, become his friend. And he’s agreed to come today, which is even better. Hob has been getting better at couching his requests in dares, and highlighting his pleas with sad puppy eyes. The two things Morpheus, humanity’s facet of Dream of the Endless, seems to be weak against are a bet, and Hob showing any unhappiness or disappointment.
These facts are carefully recorded in his mental List of Things I Know About The Stranger. The list is growing longer, slowly but surely, which is thrilling in itself. Hob is starting to feel like he knows Morpheus, for a given value of ‘knowing’ when it comes to interacting with a singular facet of anthropomorphic personifications of vast universal concepts.
He’s also not above using this knowledge to his advantage, although he’s careful to deploy this hoarded wisdom to his own advantage very, very sparingly. No point in tipping his hand this early in their fragile friendship.
Hob is immortal, he’s happy, he loves his life and the people in it, and it’s his birthday.
What isn’t there to celebrate?
The first guests arrive around happy hour, and clump together on one of the banquettes. They’re his colleagues in the History department, with the addition of a PhD hopeful who’s clearly tagged along in order to get into Doctor Gadlen’s good graces before the mad race for a thesis supervisor begins in the summer. Patrick knows some of them, as Hob’s dragged them here from the university often enough, and is happy to take care of them while Hob fiddles with the music.
He's curated a playlist of his favorite songs from the last six and a half hundred years (the ones he could find recordings of, of course), and damn anyone who complains that the mix is weird.
Hob’s offering up beer and wine on the house, as well as soft drinks for those who prefer it, and platters of nibbles. Word must get back to the school because soon a second wave of professors and TAs slide through the door. The maxim is entirely true: academics are cockroaches and will pop up anywhere free food and booze are on offer. Hob’s happy to welcome them in, even if he only knows a few of them on sight, and even less by name.
A party is a party, and it fills him with joy to know they’ll be going home full and happy. Hob is High Priest of the Last Temple of Morpheus. It’s his duty to ensure everyone who comes through the doors of The New Inn leave in a state of mind and body to rest peacefully and fully.
Hob’s colleagues are joined soon enough by some of the bar regulars, folks from the social charities and organizations that Hob works with to keep the people on his little patch of city well-cared for and housed, and a few people who serve on the same Heritage Protections board as he’s a member of on behalf of the White Horse.
But there’s one particular person he keeps craning his head around to see, every time the little bell above the door jangles. The one particular person who has not yet arrived. Hob distracts himself with gracefully accepting presents he very specifically told people not to bring, offering up cheek-kisses and handshakes in return for the collection of cards, wine bottles, and novelty teacher mugs.
The sun sets, bringing along with it Johanna Constantine, and Ric the Vic, both of whom Hob knows peripherally through the Goings On (™) of London. They offer him their congratulations, and slide into one of the tables in the corner to enjoy their free libations and pretend strenuously that they’re not not planning to leave to fuck in the next few hours.
Hob had spread word through what passes for a grapevine in the sparse community of Otherfolk of the city that they, too, would be welcome at Hob’s birthday party. After all, they’re the only ones who’d understand–and enjoy the irony–of the number. He doesn’t actually expect many of them to take him up on it, but manners are manners.
All the same, he’s fairly sure he sees some of the Doors slipping in and out between his supply cupboard and the bar with a platter of pigs-in-a-blanket, and Bod Owens chatting up the PhD hopeful by the loos. The Marquis de Carabas’s coat catches his eye and Hob turns to welcome him, only to come face-to face with a very different imposing nobleman in a long distinctive coat.
“Happy Birthday , Hob Gadling ,” Morpheus greets him. He’s got the world’s tiniest potted cactus cradled in his palm, and he holds it out awkwardly to Hob. The tips of his ears, mostly hidden by the puff of his dark hair, are delicately pink. They’re the same shade of the seductive-slick curve of a conch shell, of the secret inside curve of his lips when he pouts, the tip of his tongue when he chases a stray drop of wine in a startlingly mortal gesture.
It’s adorable.
It’s not fair .
Hob really needs to get this stupid crush under control.
“Aw, is this for me?” Hob asks, delighted, as if the cactus pot wasn’t already embraced by a silky red bow.
Morpheus just raises his eyebrows, as if to say, Are you daft? so Hob takes it. He wonders if it would be too forward of him to buss a kiss off Morpehus’ cheek in thanks, as he has been doing with all of his other gift-givers this evening.
It’s a step more intimate than the hand-holding they do when one or the other of them needs comfort during a difficult confession. But Morpheus is Hob’s friend now, and it’s how he greets his other friends. Morpheus deserves no less. He decides to go for it.
The King of Nightmares takes the kiss with startled good grace, and Hob pulls back quickly so he’s not imposing on Morpheus’ personal bubble. His friend can get prickly when he feels his sovereignty threatened, or his independence violated, for very understandable and obvious reasons.
He fiddles with the cactus, turning the pot around in his fingertips and admiring the single dusty-purple bloom at its apex. He hopes it’ll get enough sunlight in here.
“Where’s Matthew?” Hob asks, to fill the awkward silence.
“Behaving extremely poorly for a denizen of his station. ”
“Come again?”
“ Out front, entertaining some of your regulars by repeating filthy words for peanuts,” Morpheus says, amusement and disdain warring in his tone. Morpheus is forever despairing over Matthew’s constant desire to be in the spotlight.
Hob laughs, delighted, and chivvies Morpheus over to the bar for a glass of his teeth-suckingly sweet wine. He directs his friend around to the empty place where the bar meets the wall beside the tiny area cleared of tables and chairs for dancing. No one has moved to that side of the pub yet, so it's empty of the press of dreamers that Morpheus sometimes finds overwhelming.
Hob slips behind the bar to pour Morpheus's libation himself, ignoring Patrick’s eye roll. He doesn’t understand why Hob wants to be the only one to touch the wine. Sure it’s expensive, but it’s not like Patrick is going to pour it wrong or something.
But for Hob, it’s a ritual. It’s a gift.
It’s an offering to his friend and god.
It means something that Hob is the one who pours, who presents, who proffers.
Morpheus takes the cup with all the dignified grace that the gesture demands, and backs into the shadows to enjoy it in peace. Hob moves the cactus to pride of place on top of the coffee machine, and goes about fetching himself his own first drink of the evening. Now that Morpheus is here, he can finally relax and indulge.
“Don’t get any ideas above your station,” someone hisses at the little plant, and Hob peers around the machine to find The Bentley Snake hunched forward on his elbows, propped up behind the hidden corner of the bar, whiskey in hand. His dark red hair is shorn short on the sides this time, a long standy-uppy flop at the top, and he’s wearing the latest in a long line of painfully slim-cut black suits.
Sometimes Hob wonders if he’s doing Immortality wrong, being the only one of the lot who seems to like wearing more than black or white.
“Please don’t threaten my new plant friend,” Hob asks him.
“Needs ssssssome threatening,” the Snake says, sunglasses trained on the cactus. “Thinks its high n’ mighty just cause it sprouted in the Dreaming.”
Hob processes this as he pulls a pint for himself. “You know about the Dreaming?”
“Sleep, don’t I?” the Snake mutters.
Hob refills the Snake’s whiskey glass, and clinks his pint off the Snake’s tumbler. “I don’t like to assume.”
“Oi, I sleep, don’t I, Lord Shaper?” the Snake says, with a jerk of his chin at where the bar meets the wall.
Morpheus is little more than a black shadow and starshine eyes. He must be feeling a bit crowded, to have retreated so thoroughly. Hob doesn’t blame him–it’s starting to get stuffy, what with all the bodies and the salt-rank whiff of booze and sweat. The music is a touch loud now that there's so many voices competing to be heard over it, and Hob is thinking that now’s a good time to open the windows, let the pre-storm breeze that’s kicking up wash the place fresh.
Though he doesn’t point it out to the man, Hob’s Stranger has been different since his return.
While before he was reserved and formal, now he’s skittish about touch, always buttoned up to the throat in whatever clothing he manifests for himself, and reluctant to allow himself to be crowded or contained. They're working on it, with long walks along the quay or visits to farmer's markets, but overcoming trauma is never a fast process. Even the occasional therapeutic hand-holding Hob imposes on him has to be well telegraphed, or Morpheus will shake him off without realizing he’s done so.
These are all very understandable and normal reactions to the torture he’d suffered at the hands of Burgess. But while Hob has done his best to comfort and guide Morpheus toward healing in his limited, mortal way, it’s not like he can he can force the God of Sleep to make an appointment with a headshrinker.
Hob flashes a glance over at Colonel Williams, by the front door, who is one of the social support folks Hob knows from helping the unhoused get back on their feet. She specializes in suppressed trauma and PTSD, and Hob wonders if there’s a way he could maneuver Morpheus into an ‘accidental’ conversation with the woman sometime tonight.
“ So deeply that I cannot oust you from my realm for decades at a time, Serpent, ” Morpheus rumbles, and right, Hob’s forgotten that he’s supposed to be mediating between two otherworldly entities. Morpheus turns his gaze to Hob. “What is he doing here?”
Morpheus sounds two thirds curious and one third jealous.
He doesn’t mean it like that , Hob tells himself. It may be my birthday–well, the date I chose to be my birthday–but I’m not going to get that lucky.
An odd tension frazzles the air, and the Snake rolls his impossible spine backwards a bit, not retreating, exactly. Just not standing so close to Hob.
Huh.
Who knew that Morpheus would be so territorial with his head priest?
Hob laughs, trying disperse the feeling that if he’s not careful, he may inadvertently start a supernatural brawl. “Come on, my friend. You think after six and a half centuries, you’re the only creepy-crawly I know?”
“I am not a creepy-crawly, Hob Gadling,” Morpheus rumbles, with all the theatrical offense of a maiden-aunt. “But I did not think you would consort with the likes of him . Not with your upbringing as it was–”
The Snake bristles. “Hey! I was invited!”
Morpheus steps out of the shadows just enough for his face and hands–and empty wine glass–to be visible in the dim pub lighting. Night has well and truly fallen outside. He sets the glass on the bar top with a challenging tink .
“ Invited ,” Morpheus repeats flatly.
“I just let it be known among the Othered set that they were welcome to drop by,” Hob hisses, low enough that Patrick won’t be able to catch it over the conversation and music around them.
“It’s a special number, you know. I felt like it should be celebrated with everyone , especially those who really know what it means.”
Morpheus inhales sharply and turns narrowed, laser-focused, glacier-blue eyes to Hob’s face. “ How did you phrase this invitation? ” he asks with no little urgency.
Hob blinks.
“Uh, something something freely welcome to partake of my hospitality, all those who know the number something something?” Hob says, nerves flooding him. He tugs on his ear. “Did I… um… say something I shouldn’t have?”
“ All those who know the number ,” Morpheus groans. “The number of the beast.”
"Six-one-six," the Snake says.
"Six- six- six," Hob corrects, "According to modern translations. Which is also the number of years I've… oh. No. No, it's my birthday ,” Hob says, sweat beading by his hairline and trickling down the back of his shirt. “That’s… that’s what I meant.”
“But that it is not what you said .”
The Snake straightens up all at once, eyes popping wide behind his glasses if the sudden height of his eyebrows are anything to go by. He slams back the rest of his whiskey and chokes: “That’s me out, then. Many happy returns, you poor doomed bastard. If you ever get any.”
“That’s not ominous at all,” Hob says, and chugs half his beer.
The Snake wends his way to the front door and is gone in a gust of chill spring breeze, and the sound of the rain just starting up outside. Hob hopes Matthew has found a good roost under one of the table umbrellas. One of these days, he's going to make good on his threat to get the raven a Service Animal vest, just so he can come inside in weather like this.
Morpheus fully manifests, posture tense, nostrils flaring. He scans the crowd. For who, Hob can guess, but he doesn’t like to think on it.
Morpheus has, after all, told him all about his trip to Hell.
And then the lights flicker.
Hob is… well, he’s almost disappointed by how dramatic the Devil’s entrance is.
In the last six hundred years, he’s come to learn that people like him tend to lay low and not bring attention to themselves. Even Morpheus, with his fine clothes and fist-sized ruby, behaved as a mortal might at their meetings–walking into the White Horse, sitting down, no excess displays of power or even wealth, really, save for the handful of dreamsand he’d blown in Lady Constantine’s face.
But Hob has to give the Devil their due. When they play, they don’t play small.
The storm that’s been brewing since sunset suddenly, and violently breaks. Rain cascades against the roof like the rush of an oncoming train. A clap of thunder loud enough to rattle the martini glasses in their hangers above the bar shakes the room, making more than one person yelp. The crack of lightning that follows flares like an atom bomb, white light blasting in through the windowpanes, casting everyone in harsh, dramatic black-and-white chiaroscuro.
Ears ringing and eyes sparking, Hob sets down his beer and scrubs at his face.
(Okay, so he’s also a little disappointed there’s no fiddle sting to accompany their appearance. But then again, the New Inn is hardly Georgia.)
When his vision has cleared, Hob whirls around to check on his friends and colleagues. There’s probably something dangerous about turning your back to Satan, but he’s got the King of Nightmares guarding it. He’s more worried for the humans than the two celestial entities that are, if he knows his friend, puffing up and posturing. Hob skims out from behind the bar, heading for Patrick, who has stopped a few steps away from the service gap.
And he's… he's just standing there.
Fear seizes Hob’s throat, and for a terrible second, he worries that the light really was an atom bomb, that everyone he’s ever known and loved in this life are nothing more than people-shaped pillars of ash, and it’s his fault. He invited them here, and then he invited the literal Devil as well, and now they're—
But no, when he reaches Patrick, his friend is alive. He breathes, he blinks, his flesh is soft and warm. But he’s frozen. Hob looks around and… yes, the humans in the room–well, the mortal ones, at least–have simply stopped moving.
“Are they…?” Hob crackles.
“ They will be fine,” Morpheus assures him. His hair is sticking straight out, like a furious cat, and he’s starting to lose coherence around the edges. His coat swirls off into shadow like heavy ink in water, his eyes are as fathomless as deep space, and his fingers elongate into razor-sharp and obsidian-tipped claws. “Time has stopped for them. When it resumes, it will be as if the lost moments never happened. ”
Not all of them, Hob thinks, seeing Johanna’s eyes darting around the room with terrified fury. He decides not to point it out, though, in case the Lightbringer decides to do something permanent and terrible about it. He just gives her a long look, and tries to put as much reassurance in his expression as he can. I’ll get us out of here safely, don’t you worry.
Johanna blinks back once, slow and squinty like a cat. Message received.
A quick glance also confirms that the rest of the Otherworld denizens have made themselves as sparse as the Snake. He doesn't blame them.
Then, finally, when he’s assured himself that everyone under his roof and thus in his care is as safe as they can be, with the literal Ruler of Hell sharing that selfsame roof, he skirts around the bar to join Morpheus on the empty dance floor. Only then does he allow all of his attention to settle on his new visitor.
They are… tall . ‘Grand’ is the adjective that comes to mind first, followed by ‘statuesque’ and ‘ literally awe-inspiring’.
That’s an angel , Hob things. Or at least, they used to be. Of course they’re so… present. So overwhelming.
It’s like having all of his senses buffeted all at once–all he can smell is the acrid tang of sulfur, all he can hear is a high-pitched screech, all he can see is an overwhelming brightness that might actually be an overwhelming darkness, and his skin feels like it’s covered with biting fire ants. He gasps, reaching out clumsily behind him to clutch at the bar, the crush of the gravitas emanating from the corner stealing the breath from his lungs.
One of Morpheus’ fingers stretches out, impossible and eerie. It taps Hob gently on the forehead, right where his third eye would be, if he was that kind of spiritual. The drowning rush of screaming discomfort snaps off, like a faucet cranked shut. Air rushes back into the room.
“Be not afraid,” my hairy arse , Hob thinks, as he coughs and scrubs his eyes again. It’s a wonder the blessed virgin didn’t shriek her head off and go running off into the night.
“I’m… I’m fine,” he reassures Morpheus, as his friend shuffles a step closer, hand resting protectively on Hob’s shoulder.
It takes him a few seconds to actually see what he’s seeing. Satan themself is presenting as a white woman, with fair, severely arranged golden curls that resemble nothing so much as a crown of thorns across their forehead. What Hob took for giant bat wings is actually a luxuriously patterned black pashmina, draped artfully over across one shoulder, over a rich white tea-length dress.
For being the ruler of Hell, Hob has to admit that they actually look… well, glamorous .
“Hello, Robert Gadling,” Lucifer Morningstar purrs from the empty stage in the corner of the pub. It’s little more than a triangular riser jammed against the wall, just big enough for a tall stool, a mic stand, and some folksy performer on Sunday afternoons. But it gives them an even greater height from which to look down their nose at him, so of course that’s where they manifested. “I am ever so grateful to be included.”
“Er, yeah,” Hob says, pushing himself upright and wiping his clammy hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Welcome, then.”
“ Hob ,” Morpheus says, scandalized. Shadows writhe anxiously in a puddle by his feet, the Nightmare side of Dream closer to the surface in his worry.
“What?” Hob says. “Doesn’t hurt anyone to be polite.” Hob steps forward and holds out his now-dry hand for the Devil to shake.
“Certainly not,” Lucifer agrees, and takes his hands between theirs. They pull him forward a few more steps, pressing his fingers between their palms as if they could taste his sins on his skin, and peers down at him with intelligent eyes the same color of the storm clouds outside. “And it’s been ever so long since I’ve been to a party .”
Hob cranes his head back to look up at them. They’re just a handspan away now, only their entwined arms between them keeping them parted, and for an absurd moment, he thinks that Lucifer is going to kiss him. Morpheus must think so too, because he lets loose a ripping growl, warning and threat in the sound to rival the thunderstorm outside.
Lucifer laughs and lets Hob go. They take a dainty step down from the stage, and sashay their way toward the bar on totteringly-high bleach-white pumps.
“I, uh, I‘ve got wine and beer,” Hob says, spinning around and scrambling to catch up with them. “Or anything harder. Or softer. Whatever you like, really. What can I pour for you?”
“Red wine, naturally,” the Devil purrs.
They stop at the bar just an arm's length from Morpheus, a clear challenge. They lean elegantly on one elbow against the padded edge, eyeing him up like they’d either like to eat him alive or gouge his eyes out. Possibly both. Hob slips between them like a fleshy immortal shield. Maybe it won’t actually keep them from lashing out at each other but, meh, he can’t die if they do.
He reaches over the bar, grabs one of the open bottles of Syrah, a glass from the rack above their heads, and pours a generous measure. He holds it out genteely to the Devil, and they accept it with good grace.
Hob then immediately refills Morpheus’ abandoned glass with his Vinsanto, and tops up his own with an awkward backwards reach for the amber tap.
“So… are you gonna release them?” Hob asks, once Lucifer has raised their glass for a clink, and he’s very cautiously obliged. It feels like bad luck to drink from it right away, though, so he turns to offer the same toast to Morpheus, who stares hard at Hob as they clink glasses, as if he’s drilling a blessing into Hob’s skull.
“No, I think not,” Lucifer says, taking their first sip, and offering Hob an appreciative eyebrow bounce at the taste. “No need to cause a panic. But don’t worry; I shan’t stay for long. I only wanted to pop in and wish my new friend many happy returns.”
“Is that what we are?” Hob asks, with a huge gulp of beer. “Friends?”
“Of course!” Lucifer says, their eyes narrowing a little, shoulders tensing up, lips slimming tightly and… “We are friends, aren’t we Robert Gadling? Why else would you have extended your invitation to all who know the true number of your years?”
Which is… a bit of an odd thing for the Lightbringer to be worried about, honestly.
Hob looks again. There’s nerves there. There’s concern. Why would…
Oh . Hob thinks. They’re lonely, too.
Hob risks a glance back at Morpheus, who is clutching the stem of his wineglass tight enough that it’s creaking. His eyes are leaking purple-black starstuff around the perimeters, which whisps away like the leading edge of a fast-moving cloud. Otherwise, he's perfectly still, posture ramrod straight.
“Yes,” Hob answers, turning back to Lucifer. “Yes, we are friends. Why not? I’ve no quarrel with you, unless you’re here to drag me to Hell?”
Whatever it was the Devil was expecting Hob to say, it wasn’t that. They look first genuinely surprised, then flattered, then secretly pleased, then distraught in such quick succession that Hob barely has time to pass each expression as they pass over their face.
“Of course not!” Lucifer says, so quickly and so completely surprised that it comes out in a rush. They sound genuinely hurt at his assumption. “My kingdom only contains those human souls who believe they should be there. They send themselves to Hell. Please. I have better manners than to drag anyone against their belief and will.” They narrow their eyes at Hob and take another sip of wine, struggling to regain their teasing nonchalance. “Why, have you done something worthy of punishment?”
Many things, Hob thinks. Terrible things. Things I just hope one day I live long enough to be able to atone for.
“Ah, well, this isn’t about my death,” Hob hedges. “Which I am still not interested in, thank you very much. This is a celebration of my life!”
“It is indeed. Happy six hundred and sixty-sixth birthday, Robert,” Lucifer says, and they clink glasses once more.
“Hob,” he offers up. “My friends in the know call me Hob.”
“ Hob, ” Morpheus hisses again. “ You are being unwise. ”
“I’m being personable ,” Hob corrects, but takes a tiny step back, closer into Morpheus’s orbit, to appease him. One of the swirling black shadows wraps around Hob’s ankle.
“Dream Lord!” Lucifer greets him, sounding as if they have just noticed him behind Hob for the first time. “What a delight to see you again so soon.”
“Lightbringer, ” Morpheus growls in return.
“And how do you know our dear little birthday boy?”
Morpheus lets out another grumbling snarl, all without changing the placidly haughty expression on his face.
“Robert Gadling is my head priest, as well you know, ” Morpheus intones, voice as deep and dangerous as the fathomless darkness at the bottom of an ocean. “ You stand in my temple uninvited. ”
“Just as you bullied your way into Hell?” Lucifer asks silkily. They sip their wine showily. “Besides, I was invited, wasn’t I?”
Both pairs of eyes fall on Hob, their weight like a physical blow, and he buys himself some time by taking a long drink of his beer. Which, of course, goes down the wrong pipe, and leaves him coughing like a complete tit in front of two of the greatest powers in the universe.
Oh yeah, that’s me. Hob “embarrassingly human” Gadling.
Morpheus sets down his wine and hastily lays a hand on Hob’s curved back. It’s probably meant to be as possessive as it is calming, but at this point, Hob doesn’t mind. It feels good to have the comfort of his friend’s proximity. And the very visible gesture of his claiming and protection.
“I see I am in danger of wearing out my welcome,” Lucifer sighs, as if put upon. They finish their wine in a serpent-like gulp, opening their jaws wider than the mouth of their human-shape ought to allow, and set the glass aside.
“Quite.”
"In which case, allow me to present me with your gift unto you now, Robert Gadling of Essex," Lucifer says.
With a flourish, they're suddenly cupping something spindly and large in both their palms. It is the ivory of old bone, gnarled and pitted, and looks nothing so much as a big, eldritch key. There’s a circle at the top, crowned with four spikes, and the teeth on the shaft look as if they may be made of actual fangs.
And, of course, much like Morpheus’ cactus, it is topped with a whimsical, cheery red bow.
Morpheus lets out a horrified gasp.
“I��had intended on bestowing this differently,” Lucifer drawls, eyeing Morpheus meaningfully. “But as it is in poor form to attend a birthday party with no gift for the celebrant.”
She turns the full weight of her gravitationally heavy gaze on Hob.
“Er… thank you?” Hob asks.
“You will not, soon enough.”
Yeah, okay, that sounds like a trap , Hob thinks. But with no clue how or even why he might refuse the gift from a literal fallen angel, and what the eternal ramifications of that action might be he does, Hob reaches out to take the key.
“ Do not accept! ” Morpheus all but wails. “ If you become ruler of Hell, you will never again cross the threshold into my realm.”
That’s saying a little more than I think Morpheus means to , Hob thinks, fingers frozen in the air, hovering above the ribbon. It sounds less like “you’ll be barred from my realm” and more “I’ll never see you again.”
“Is that true?” Hob asks. "This will make me ruler of Hell ?"
Lucifer smirks triumphantly. “I have already emptied Hell of all its demons. The gates are shut. Even now, the fires ash and grow cold. I have renounced my crown. A new King is required. They who next touch this Key will become that King.”
Hob shudders, short hair springing up, skin crawling with horror. Demons. Loose on Earth. Loose everywhere . And unable to be commanded to return to Hell by exorcism or spell, for the gates would be barred to them.
He cuts a look to Johanna, who is clearly following all of this. There are tears running down her cheeks. Sweat breaks out on Hob's brow, heart pounding hard behind his ribs, dread creeping down his spine. He hasn't felt this sunk with terror since he first came face-to-face with a machine gun in a muddy trench.
He's being given a choice.
It's not much of a choice.
Hob licks his lips, hoping his voice is steadier than his trembling, hovering hands. “What happens if I don’t accept your gift?” he crackles, voice barely above a whisper.
“Then I will think that you have very poor manners indeed,” Lucifer pouts.
Hob's breath shudders out of him, leaving his skin cold and nerves on high alert. “That’s all?”
"Of course, I will then have to bestow the Key upon the next most worthy candidate,” Lucifer says, eyes slinking up to Morpheus over Hob’s shoulder like toxic honey and, ah, there it is.
There’s the trap.
If Hob accepts the Key, he will become King of Hell, and never see Morpheus again. But he could command the armies of the damned back into their pits, and possibly, like he has in his little kingdom here on Earth, find new and better ways to help those there punishing themselves.
But if Morpheus accepts the Key, then Dream of the Endless will become King of Hell, plunging every sentient being in existence into unspeakable horror every time they fall asleep.
Which makes Hob’s choice a very, very simple one.
Before Morpheus can stop him, Hob plucks the key out of Lucifer’s hand.
" Hob !" Morpheus wails.
He reels back, as if all the places he was touching Hob suddenly burn him. The floor shudders beneath their feet, the foundations rumbling without warning. Thunder? Hob guesses, then, No, earthquake!
The room shakes with the power of Morpheus' fury and agony. Hob grasps at the bar to stay upright, and wonders if now that its head priest has become overlord of another realm, the temple of the New Inn will defile and crack apart around them all.
Morpheus keens like a wounded hart, clutching at his chest. He staggers, rocked by the judder of the floor, what little color he had manufactured for this humanish form draining away entirely. Outside, Matthew is cawing furiously, battering against the window in a desperate attempt to break in.
Hob's stomach heaves, and he's not sure if it's from the shaking of the building, or the enormity of what he's just done. What he's just accepted.
“What, no kiss for my gift, your Majesty?” Lucifer laughs, shrill and triumphant.
They seize Hob's face between red-taloned hands, and press a fire-hot, acid-slick mouth against his. Hob screams , the crawling burn of his flesh melting from his lips outwards throwing his animal mind into a mindless, terrified panic. Someone's hands fist in the back of his jumper, yanking at him, but the Devil's grip has seared him down to the bone, fingers embedded in his cheeks, nails scraping against the side of his teeth and tongue. The searing agony reaches his eyes, sizzles in his tears, so all he can see is the poisonous green steam of his own eyeballs boiling in their sockets.
Glass shatters, a bird cries out, a door slams open, cracking against a wall, a sonorous voice calls his name, and Hob flails, kicks, screams, and screams, and screams and—
"Forgive me, I am a titch late. I got caught up reading and… goodness me!" a prim voice gasps. "Well, this won't do at all!"
A loud noise, like a fleshy crack, rings out.
As suddenly as a snap, the pain is gone.
Hob gargles on the tail end of a scream that aborts somewhere behind his teeth.
His nose is filled with the scent of the rain and the petrichor from the gravel drive beyond a broken window and a wide-standing door, not with the reek of burning flesh. His heart races wildly, but it is still within his body. The rigid tension of his hell-electrified muscles ceases and Hob flops backwards, dropping against Morpheus' chest. Strong arms come around his chest Morpheus tilts his pelvis to cradle Hob's sacrum, one strong thigh behind his legs to keep from folding. He plays one hand up Hob's throat, caressing, paling his face, checking for damage and soothing all at the same time.
Hob pries his aching lids open, and finds his eyes have not boiled away after all.
The New Inn is unshaken, all in one piece, save for the way the front door is hanging off its hinges, cracked straight down the middle. The person who did it is obscured by Hob's view by the coffee machine, and the little, forlorn-looking cactus.
"What did you do to him?" Matthew caws from the mic stand, puffed out to twice his size, wings spread and a murderous gleam in his eyes. "What the fuck did you do to him?"
" I will end your miserable existence! I will throw you into the sulfurous lake from which you should never have crawled, you worthless, lothesome, hateful—"
"I'm fine!" Hob chokes out, feeling like he's vomiting up half his esophagus with every syllable. "I'm fine! "
" Your dare! I will tear your atoms apart and scatter them across so many universes that you will never again—"
" — peck your fucking eyes out — "
"Oh, dear! I do apologize, I believe I broke your door in, I'm so sorry, my dear boy—
"Guys," Hob gags. "Just let me catch my breath…"
And before him, unmoving and unperturbed by the overlapping, rising threats and verbal assaults, Lucifer watches him with a knowing, miserable look on their face.
"Enough! Quiet!" Hob thrust the Key into the air, and silence drops like a guillotine. He heaves on a few more breaths, then swallows hard, licking his lips. In an agonized, throat-shredded whisper he adds, "Please."
Because it never hurts to use one's manners.
Slowly, agonizingly, with the gentle help of Morpheus, Hob gets his feet back under him. The first thing he does is reach for his half-finished pint and drain the glass. The alcohol burns its way down, and Hob tastes the faintest touch of blood. Christ's nails, how loud had he been screaming?
Feeling more settled, he turns to face Lucifer.
Whose lipstick and painted fingernails are still utterly pristine.
They… they didn't kiss him.
"You…" Hob pants. "You didn't do that?"
"No," Lucifer says softly, and folds their hands together with elegant contriteness, fingers pointed downward in a reverse prayer.
"But you," Hob starts, then has to stop to swallow the bloody spittle that his screaming has produced. "You know what just happened?"
"The Key does it," Lucifer whispers. "Changes you. Every Devil needs a Face."
"I don't want a Devil Face," Hob says stubbornly.
Lucifer smiles, but it's thin and pained. "You don't get to choose."
Hob snarls and drops the Key onto the bar top. He half expects it to be stuck to his palm, or burned into his flesh. But it falls from his grip easily and lands with an unsatisfying clack . Morpheus, still hovering at Hob's side like Peter Pan's shadow, reaches out for it.
Hob smacks his hand away. "Don't you fucking dare."
" I would not see you suffer—"
"And I would not see all of humanity suffer, so you just fucking back right up there, friend."
Morpheus lowers his arm, but utterly fails to back up. If anything he presses closer. If the skinny little fuck had any bodyheat to speak of, Hob was sure he'd be feeling it through his own clothes right now.
The man by the door steps out of Hob's blindspot behind the coffee machine, and comes around to stand a respectful distance away, and peer at the Key. It's the queer little Bookseller of Soho. Late to the party, because he got caught up in reading, and Hob couldn't be more grateful for his perpetual absentminded tardiness.
“Well!" the Bookseller exclaims. "That’s where that silly old thing has gotten to! You would not believe the fuss that has kicked up in The Silver City. If you’ll give me just a moment…” He snaps once, a downward motion, as if yanking on an old-fashioned Edwardian-era bell pull.
A golden chime rings through the air and the Bookseller nods as if he's done some sort of momentous good deed. "Help is on the way, dear boy. But, ah, I would be ever so grateful if you did not tell them it was me who alerted them? I couldn't bear the paperwork."
And with that, the Bookseller is straight back out the door, which, miraculously, isn't actually broken off its hinges like Hob had thought it was. Turns out the window isn't broken either; it must have been a glass Matthew knocked over on his desperate flight inside.
Lucifer, very graciously, and very apologetically, refills Hob's pint glass by reaching over the bar for the tap, as Hob had done. Hob takes the pint (half head and spilling over the side; Hob guesses the Devil can't be good at everything ) with a nod of thanks. His hand is shaking so badly that Morpheus has to steady his arm just so he can drink.
"Well, friend," Hob says to Lucifer, once he's had a few long pulls on the cold fizz. "That was a hell of a party trick."
Lucifer snorts extremely inelegantly. "Pun intended?"
"Entirely."
" After what you suffered, you would still call the Morningstar friend ?" Morpheus asks, horror in every syllable.
"They didn't do whatever that just was to me," Hob points out. "The Key did. In fact, if that's what it feels like to hold it, then honestly, I don't blame you for wanting rid of the literally damned thing."
Lucifer's red, red, red lips part in gentle shock. They touch one lacquered nail to their own soft, pale cheek, then brush their palm across their neck as if double checking that the flesh there is indeed intact.
"You are generous in your forgiveness, sire," Lucifer says demurely.
"No more generous than all those who punish themselves in Hell for their past deeds deserve, I think," Hob says back. Including you , he doesn't add. But he doesn't need to.
Lucifer offers Hob a grateful bow.
Matthew makes a confused sort of snorfle sound. He hops his way down and across the room to Morpheus, who stoops to allow Matthew to perch on his hand, then transfers the raven to his shoulder.
"So now what, my lords?" Matthew croaks tentatively.
"Now we wait for whatever help was supposedly—"
Another unexpected surge of light interrupts Hob, and he squints against a golden flash-bulb flare of it. When it clears, two male-presenting beings that could literally only be angels stand before them.
This corner of the pub is starting to get awfully crowded, Hob thinks with all the hysterical sarcasm his ordeal allows him to muster.
The angels are both statuesque, both blonde, both clad in raiments of glowing white, with enormous golden wings. Hob glances at Lucifer, who rolls their eyes as the pompous way the angels carry themselves.
"Dream King," one of them says in deferential greeting. Both of the angels bow low to Morpheus.
" Remiel, Archangel of Hope. Duma, Archangel of Silence. Your presence in this moment is most welcome."
Morpheus inclines his head in a shallow bow, not letting on that it was the Bookseller who called them here, as asked. Hob doesn't know much about the hierarchy of celestial beings, but if the depth of their bows and nods to one another are anything to go by, Morpheus is a lot higher on the celestial pecking order than Lucifer's address to him has made it seem.
"Thank you," the one who is clearly not the Archangel of Silence says. "And our gratitude, also, for summoning us."
As one, the two archangels turn to the fallen one.
"Lucifer," Remiel says.
"Brother dearest," Lucifer sneers.
"The Divine Creator demands that you take up the Key and return to your throne."
"It's not my throne any longer," Lucifer sneers. "It's his now."
Remiel spares a glance over his shoulder at Hob that makes it very, very clear that the imperious twat thinks Hob is not much more evolved than pond gunk. The angel turns back to Lucifer.
"A mortal cannot rule Hell."
"Not mortal," Hob speaks up, just because he does not appreciate being snubbed in his own pub. And on his own birthday, to boot.
"Still human , though," Remiel sneers, the facade of literally-holier-than-thou superiority cracking a bit.
"And what's so wrong with being hummmuph," Matthew harrumphs as Morpheus reaches up and pinches his beak shut.
"Oh, well, guilty as charged then," Hob sneers right back, shoving his hands into his pockets and slouching his shoulders in the most insolent way he knows how.
Duma strides silently to Hob's side. Gently, but inexorably, the angel takes Hob's chin between his fingers, and holds his face still for his gaze.
"Doesn't hurt any more," Hob answers the ethereal creature's silent question. "But now we've got a bit of a problem, if you say a human can't rule Hell. Because it looks like it's either me, or Morpheus, and we all know what will happen if Dream of the Endless is forced to don that crown."
Duma's gaze grows tearful and sad. He shakes his head, just once, then releases Hob. Then, with the same hand, he reaches for the Key.
"Brother!" Remiel gasps, grabbing at his draped sleeve to stop him.
Matthew shakes free of Morpheus's fingers and, in a resounding voice that is clearly not his own, booms: "Hell cannot be entrusted to other than those who serve the Name directly… I shall take over Hell." The raven shakes himself all over, blinking rapidly. "What the fuck was that, boss?" He turns his sharp beak toward Duma. "Hey, don't use me as a puppet, man, that's violating!"
"Duma, no ," Remiel protests, but halts in the face of Duma's implacable silence. Remiel curls into himself in shame. "Very well. I cannot allow my fellow to drink from a cup I have refused. I will go with you."
"Have fun, boys," Lucifer sing-songs. "Oh, and there's a bit of a trick to getting the cold water in the palace pipes. There isn't any! Ha!"
Remiel sends Lucifer the stinkiest stink-eye Hob's ever seen in six hundred and sixty-six years.
Duma reaches for the key again and Hob is struck with a sudden flash of inspiration.
“Wait!” he shouts, throwing out a hand to block the Key. He doesn't touch it again though. He's reckless, not stupid.
"Wait?" Remiel echoes, agog. " Wait ? Who are you to command the Host to—"
"I'm the King of the Hell," Hob challenges back, puffing out his chest. "At least until you touch this Key."
"You are no Demonic Monarch, you lowly—"
“Oh, stuff it,” Hob snaps at Remiel, sick to the teeth with being polite to Celestial entities to clearly don’t feel the same courtesy toward him. “Before I give you the key, I want something in return. And I'm not giving up my one and only chance to do a deal as the Devil.”
Lucifer laughs, overjoyed. Morpheus makes a worried, confused sound. In the corner, Johanna's eyes narrow in concern.
But none of that matters. Because Hob’s remembered, all of a sudden, what Matthew had gossiped about, when he was recounting the parts of Morpheus’ trip to Hell that his friend had left out.
The boss stopped at this… this window in a spire, and a woman had called out for him with a name I’d never heard before, the raven had slurred, deep in his cups one evening while Morpheus had been trapped in the Library and sent Matthew for Tuesday Hangs in his stead. She’d reached for him through the bars, tugged on his coat, sobbing. She thought he’d come to rescue her and instead he just left there, like some heartless– He’d mantled his feathers then, shaking his head in a very human gesture like trying to disperse a bad memory. I asked Lucienne about her. She was sixteen, man, she was a kid, and the boss did her pretty dirty. She was heartbroken. It’s ugly.
Remiel bristles, the small feathers along the upper curve of their glossy white wings frazzling in irritation. “You do not bargain with God,” they hiss.
“But our absentee parent not here, my sycophantic sibling,” Lucifer purrs. “And Robert Gadling has not yet abdicated. Hell is his gift to bestow. Or to hoard. Oh, do say you will hoard it instead, little man. It will vex our creator so.”
“No,” Hob says, horrified by the idea of being sole ruler of all suffering for the rest of eternity, and being barred from Dream and the Dreaming to boot.
Lucifer shrugs, like it was worth one last try.
"Very well," Remiel grits out, sounding like every word is costing them a gallon of golden ichor.
“Nada,” Hob says. "She goes free."
Morpheus clutches hard at Hob's shoulder in his shock. " How do you know her name? How—"
"Not now," Hob says gently to his oldest friend, taking his hand from his shoulder, and twining their fingers together behind his back. Then turns his best flinty, bandit's glare at the angels. "Nada is released in exchange for the Key. Those are my terms."
"We cannot simply release a soul from Hell," Remiel says slowly, as if explaining to a toddler. "Without a corporation, it will be naught but a ghost."
"Then give her a corporation," Lucifer says, studying their nails as if bored. "We both know the paperwork is not as persnickety as the Quartermasters make it out to be. There's stacks lying around, waiting to be inhabited."
"Sibling!" Remiel hisses at Lucifer in warning. The former devil just bares their teeth at him. Remiel tries a different tack: "The Dream King condemned her to Hell himself. We cannot give her leave until he recants—"
Hob steps on Morpheus's foot.
Hard.
" I recant!" Morpheus yelps, glaring daggers at Hob. Then he clears his throat and resumes his customary haughty expression. "Nada has been unjustly punished, and it has gone on far too long. I recant my oath, and rescind my ire. Nada is no longer prisoner by my will, nor my pleasure."
Remiel gawps.
"A new life for Nada," Hob repeats firmly, bringing the conversation back to its point. "Reincarnation. A chance to do it all again, without suffering, in return for the Key. Are we agreed?"
Duma looks between Remiel, Morpheus, and Hob.
" Agreed ," Matthew booms, and then squawks: "Man, fuck off!"
"It is done."
Hob removes his hand from the bar.
Duma grasps the Key.
The only indication that it is paining him, that it is burning his face off even as Hob is staring at him and nothing is happening outwardly, is a slight squinching of his features. Remiel makes a disgusted sound and gestures with his hand, and the faint echo of a newborn baby's cry vaults through the room, perfectly audible over the susurrus of the gentling thunderstorm.
New life.
And she shares Hob's birthday.
How about that.
"The bargain is fulfilled," Remiel spits with disgust. "Brother, come."
Both angels snap their wings out—one of Remiel's slapping Lucifer in the face, clearly intentionally by the snarl they let loose—and in the powerful thrust of a gong-like wingbeat, are gone. The Key is gone with them.
Hob immediately squeezes Morpheus's hand tight and turns to gauge whether he's fucked up their friendship forever.
Surely, surely, Morpheus must be furious at Hob for overstepping so completely. Nada had gone to Hell because she'd died by suicide, but she'd only killed herself because Dream of the Endless had seduced her against the rules that forbade him for lying with a mortal ( Do I count as a mortal? Hob wonders frantically, Would we be punished if—focus, Gadling! ) and her people had been slaughtered in retribution. And Morpheus, in his pride, had left her to rot there when she refused his hand in return for rescue. It had all been, quite frankly, some epically toxic masculinity bullshit , and Hob is prepared to square off with his friend about it if he has to.
He doesn't want to, of course, but for the sake of a soul left suffering through no wrong of her own, he will.
But instead, he finds Morpheus limp with shock, silently weeping.
"Hob," Morpheus gasps. " Hob, my priest, my devoted one." He surges forward, anoints Hob's forehead and palms with holy, reverent kisses. The last of the lingering pain from the Key's hold is washed away in the cool calmness of deep sleep and deeper night. It flows down his skin, making him shiver as Hob is consecrated Head Priest once more. "How beneficent your human heart is. And how shamed I am, that it took you to force me to do right by one I had scorned unjustly and unkindly."
"Yeah, well, don't you forget it," Hob says, when Morpheus pulls away. He rubs his face, weary in a way that he hasn't felt in… well, ever. "So, are we done now? Can we… can we be done now, please? I have a party to—" he looks around the room, at all the people here under his invitation, under his burden of care. "To save."
"By all means," Lucifer says. "They will awaken as soon as I go."
" Then go," Morpheus invites, with no little amount of bitchy snark.
Lucifer offers him a hard stare, but after a moment, relents without retaliation. "I shall make my farewells to you then, Robert Gadling, from one former Monarch of Hell to another."
They lean forward and buss a gentle, warm kiss off of Hob's cheek.
“Where will you go?” Hob asks, as they withdraw. “If Hell isn’t your domain any more, what are your plans?”
“Why, stay here, of course,” Lucifer says. Then they look around at the cramped room, the stuffy air, the frozen mortals. “Well, perhaps not here , here. But as I said, it’s been ever so long since I’ve been invited to a party. I’ve forgotten how fun they can be. Perhaps I will find some space to host my own sinful little celebrations.”
“Like… a nightclub?” Hob asks, wracking his brain for what they may mean.
Lucifer’s eyes spark with intrigue. “Now that is an idea,” they murmur. “A nightclub . There’s all sorts of wicked things a soul may get into there. I’ll send you an invitation to the grand opening, Hob dearest. In thanks for tonight.”
“You know what,” Hob says, finding he really means it when he says: “I look forward to it.”
The former Devil blinks, obviously not anticipating or expecting his favorable response.
“See you then, my friend,” Hob says, holding out a hand to shake.
“Is that a binding promise?” Lucifer asks slyly, reaching back.
“Absolutely not,” Hob laughs. “I know better than to make a deal with the devil. Again.” He cuts a wink at Morpheus, who wrinkles his nose petulantly. “But you tell me when and where, and I’ll try.”
“That is acceptable,” Lucifer acquiesces, and shakes his hand not to seal a deal, but in a companionable farewell.
“Oh!” Hob says, as a dark cloud of absolutely rotten-smelling smokes begins to billow around their smart white pumps. “I used to play some violin, in the 18th century. Should I bring it?”
Lucifer breaks into a wide, frankly dorky grin of sheer delight. “No, friend. I haven’t picked up a fiddle since I lost that bout. I’m more of a piano man, now.”
And before Hob can think of anything clever to say to that, the cloud envelopes the Devil, and they are gone.
“-- the hell was that! ” Patrick shouts from beside Hob, right in his ear, and Hob startles away, nearly falling on his arse in surprise.
Hob catches himself on a bar stool, heart hammering in his throat, as all around him the humans resume moving and talking as if the massive clap of thunder that had shaken the Inn had occurred just a second ago.
“Someone should go check if that hit the pub!” one of Hob’s colleagues says, and grabs an umbrella from the stand of forgotten ones by the door and ducking outside before he can see who it was. “No! All good! No fire!”
Johanna Constantine bounds across the room like she's a bolt of lightning herself. Hob braces for a punch in the nose, and gets wrapped in a tight embrace instead. "You mad bastard," Johanna hisses in his ear. "You mad, incredible, pig-shit bonkers bastard ."
"Yeah, that's me," Hob says sheepishly, squeezing her back.
"Happy birthday!" she says, smacks a ridiculous kiss off his mouth, and then crosses back across the room, grabs Ric by the sleeve, and pulls her through the kitchen and—by the sounds of the slamming door—into the back where the bins make a conveniently shadowed corner.
"Yeah, nobody go back there for a while," Hob announces to the handful of people watching what had just happened with open curiosity.
"Ew," Patrick grumps. He does a double take when he catches Morpheus and Matthew on the far side of the bar, several empty glasses before him that he obviously didn't put there.
For a moment, Hob is worried that his co-owner is going to put up a fuss about the live animal in the building, but then Patrick shrugs in the way that mortals encouraged to overlook Morpheus' oddities by the very nature of his existence do. He busses the empties, and moves on to the next customer.
Hob, not inclined at all to overlook Morpheus, leans on the bar beside him, and grins up at his oldest, and strangest friend.
" Are all your birthday celebrations this eventful, Hob Gadling? " Morpheus asks, eyebrow raised coyly, as Matthew attempts to preen the last of his wet feathers into laying right.
"Nah," Hob promises. "Just the milestones."
" Then I already dread the party you will throw to mark your first millennia."
Hob, who has just enough beer left in his glass to toast Morpheus and toss back the mouthful, does so. Then he chuckles ruefully. "I don't, my friend. Not in the least. As a former Monarch of Hell, I have a feeling my life will be even more interesting in the decades to come." He drops Morpheus a cheeky wink. "And I have so much to live for."
On the far side of the pub, someone shuts off all the lights. A spark of candlelight goes up, and, raised in chorus, everyone that Hob holds dear—in the here and now—begins to sing.
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#Cling Fast#Cling Fast adjecent#The Hob Adherent series#Losyark#Sandman#The Sandman#The sandman fanfiction#the sandman fanfic#dreamling#dreamling fanfic#dreamling fanfiction#hob gadling#lord morpheus#dream of the endless#lucifer morningstar#pre-slash#matthew the raven#morpheus needs to learn to use his words
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Symphony of dreams
Morpheus x Female Reader
You are his lover. When Morpheus was captured, you fell into the deep sleep. He has no idea until he returns to his realm where Lucienne tells him what happened. Unable to help you until he gets his tools back, he is more determined than ever to get his full power back.
{Masterlist}
{Next Chapter}
Warnings: None really. Just the start of the story.
Chapter One - See you soon
☆☆☆
The Dreaming. The place people go to at the end of the day. When they're all tucked up in bed and drifting off, they come here. A realm full of stories and adventures. A realm where dreams and nightmares thrive.
The Dreaming is also home. Home to many creatures and beings. It is the realm of the lord of dreams and king of nightmares. Dream. That is how he is commonly known. Morpheus, to those who really know him. He's Darling to his wife.
His wife. A woman he met many years ago. She was a gift to him. A gift he fell in love with once he learned how to open his heart to her. She has been by his side for many moons now.
This is their kingdom. Their life. Their home.
Now, Morpheus was about to leave his realm in search of a rouge nightmare. It wasn't often anyone left The Dreaming, but occasionally, Morpheus had walked among the mortals.
He stood on the steps of his throne, tools in hand, preparing to make his leave. The Corianthian was free, and he had to stop him. Beside him, his wife stood with his helm in hand. She looked just as beautiful as she always did. Lucienne stood at the bottom of the stairs, a glint of worry etched into her gaze.
"My lord, you are coming back, aren't you?"
"Why would I not return, Lucienne?" Morpheus asks.
"Of course he will come back," you say, looking at your husband. "He will always come back."
Morpheus looks at you with a gentle gaze in his eyes. His hand is being held by your free one. He loves the way your fingers curl around his.
"As powerful as you are here in your realm, dreams rarely survive on the waking world." Lucienne explains.
Morpheus takes his helm from you and puts it on. You take a few steps down to stand beside Lucienne. Morpheus takes his leather pouch out and pours some sand into his palm.
"Nightmares, on the other hand, seem to thrive there."
With a quick gesture, Morpheus throws the sand up, and it swirls around him. You do not take your eyes off him until he is no longer standing on the steps of his throne.
You sigh softly.
"See you soon, my love."
☆☆☆
"My lady, if I may?" Lucienne approaches you as you read in the library. Morpheus had been gone no longer than 45 minutes so far.
"Yes? What is it, Lucienne?"
"If I may say, do you really think it was a good idea to let him go?"
You smile as you close the book in your hand and look up at her. "Morpheus is capable. He can bring our nightmare back home. Have trust in him, Lucienne. He will come back to us soon."
Lucienne offers a smile and nods. She leaves you alone to continue reading. However, the book no longer holds your interest. You look at the ring on your finger.
"Come back to me, darling."
☆☆☆
2 hours have passed. There has been no word nor a whisper about what was happening in the Waking World.
You were sitting on the steps of the throne room, waiting. In your hands, you played with your ring, needing to feel aome aspect of him. The ruby sparkled, but it showed your nothing of where he was.
"My lady."
Jessamy flew in and landed nearby.
"Jessamy."
"He will return. He would never just leave."
"I know. I'm just worried."
The raven cocks her head to the side as she looks at you. She can see the worry on your face. Your eyes focus on the way you turn your ring between your fingers.
"The Corianthian is a complicated being." Jessamy tries to softly remind you. "Perhaps Morpheus is just having a hard tike locating him."
"Perhaps..."
Or perhaps something has gone wrong.
☆☆☆
A whole day passes. Morpheus has not returned home. You're pacing the floor of your chambers. You grow restless with each hour that passes without a word from him. Morpheus has never left you without a word before. He would have contacted you by now.
The worry seeps into your bones as you whisper his name and try to calm your racing mind.
A knock sounds at your door.
"Yes?"
Lucienne comes in and looks at you. The expression on her face tells you that there is still no news.
"I need to find him."
"My lady, you must not leave the realm. Please, rest."
"How can I rest when I don't know where he is? Morpheus would have sent word if he needed mkre time. Something has gone wrong, I can feel it."
Lucienne reaches out to rub your arms gently. She tries to get you to focus on her, needing you to calm down a little.
"I am aware Lord Morpheus would never leave you this long without sending a message back. I, too, fear something may have happened, but we must remain calm. This realm needs a ruler until his return, and he has bestowed that role to you. Please, my lady, get some rest. Who knows, he may be by your side when you wake." She offers you another smile.
You take her words to heart and nod. Lucienne leaves you in your room. You can not help but worry. However, you do as she suggests and get some rest.
You climb into the bed, which feels colder without Morpheus because you, and close your eyes.
"Come home, Morpheus."
☆☆☆
Lucienne knocked on the door to your chambers. No one had seen as of yet that day. It was unlike you to sleep in unless Morpheus had kept you up.
"My lady?" She calls, knocking on the door again.
No answer.
"My lady?" She tries once more.
Still no answer.
"Forgive me, my lady." She whispers as she opens the door herself. She is greeted by the sight of you in bed, fast asleep.
Lucienne approaches the bed. She would never dare enter your chambers without permission before, but it seemed you needed slight assistance in getting up today. Perhaps your heart was saddened by Morpheus not being present and needed the extra rest.
She felt for you.
"My lady, you must wake."
You did not stir.
"My lady?" She frowns as she takes in your current status. Something feels wrong. Lucienne reaches out and touches your hand lightly.
Something is wrong.
"My lady?"
☆☆☆
Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. Months turn into years.
Morpheus sits in his glass cage, trapped by the circle around him. Rodrick Burgess did this. He had tried to summon Death but instead received her younger brother. Now he was trapped.
Rodrick Burgess kept Dream down in his basement, stripped of his clothes and his tools. Morpheus had no way to contact The Dreaming. He had no way of contacting you.
His beloved wife. He missed you. He missed the sound of you voice. He missed your eyes. He missed the touch of your hand.
His ring. It was missing. They had stolen that, too.
Morpheus was without you entirely. These mortals had taken him away from his kingdom and away from his wife.
Vengeance.
He needed it.
☆☆☆
A century had passed. Morpheus had seen Alex Burgess grow old. Rodrick had since died, and Alex took over.
Morpheus could only hope his imprisonment would soon end. He had to return home. He had to return to you.
Alex had come down to the basement one last time. He pleaded once more. Morpheus, as always, said nothing. He just watched. Alex used the same words they had told him for decades. It would change nothing.
Alex gets back in his wheelchair and Paul takes him away, the wheel of the chair rubbing away a line from the circle. They had no idea what they had just done.
Morpheus waited.
He watched the two guards currently watching over him. One of them was talking about a holiday. Sun, sea, sand. Perfect. Morpheus looked at him. The guard yawned.
Today was the day Morpheus went home.
Using that dream, Morpheus escaped into it.
In the Waking World, the guard was shooting at the glass of his cage. It cracked and weakened. Soon, it shattered, and Morpheus was able to get out. In his hand was sand that he had taken from the dream. He blew it gently. The guard went to sleep, and Morpheus turned around to enter the portal back home.
But first, he had to deal with Alex.
☆☆☆
Alex Burgess would never wake up again. Eternal sleep was his punishment. For now, that was good enough. Morpheus was free to return to his realm and see the damage that had been done from being away so long.
He mostly just wished to see you again. A century was far too much time to be away from your side. His heart ached to be with you again.
Lucienne knew he had returned. She felt it.
Far out from the gates of his realm, he lay in the sand. Lucienne ran all the way out there to get him. She had never felt such relief before.
She ran over and shook him gently, waking him up. His blue eyes opened, and he saw her familiar and friendly face. He was home.
"Lucienne," he whispered her name.
"Your home, my lord." Lucienne was beyond happy.
"I am." He smiled.
She helps up to his feet. He takes a moment to look around. Lucienne is alone. He can only assume you are waiting back in the palace for him. The thought of seeing your smile again made his heart burst with joy.
The two make their way to the gates. Morpheus opens them. They slow open.
"Forgive me, sir, but the realm, the palace, they are not as you left them." Lucienne says, looking at him solemnly.
Morpheus looks at his realm.
Everything was in disarray. The palace was crumbling, falling apart. The luscious greens that surrounded his palace were gone. The realm looked... empty.
"What happened here?" He asks. His home, his realm, was nothing like it was. "Who did this?"
"My lord, you are The Dreaming. The Dreaming is you. With you gone as long as you were, the realm began to decay and crumble."
"And the residents? The palace staff?" Morpheus asks.
"I'm afraid most have gone."
"Gone?"
"Some went looking for you."
"And the others?"
"They thought, perhaps, you had grown weary of your duties, and..."
"What? Abandoned them?" He didn't want to believe such a thing. "Had they so little faith in me? Had my own subjects not known me?"
"If I may, sir, there is one other thing..." Lucienne said, not sure exactly how she was going to break this news to him.
"What is it?"
"It's about your wife, my lord."
Morpheus felt his blood run cold. Had you abandoned him, too? Had you, the woman he adored above all others, lost faith in him?
"Where is she?" He asks.
"Inside, sir."
Morpheus turns back to his palace. You were still here. You hadn't left. He cursed himself for even doubting you. You would never leave him, not willingly.
He makes his way toward the palace, or what's left of it. Lucienne follows him, knowing he does not yet know the full extent of what happened.
"Where is she, Lucienne?" He asks.
"In your chambers, my lord. But sir -" Lucienne doesn't get to finish what she wants to say before he is at your door. He knocks, but there is no answer. He opens the door, ready to scoop you into his arms and never let go of you again.
However, the sight the greets him is far from what he expected. Morpheus swears he hears his own heart shatter.
"No..."
You lay in the bed, peaceful, quiet, asleep. He walks over to the side of the bed slowly and looks down at you. He reaches out to touch your hand.
"How long?"
"My lord-"
"How long has she been asleep?" He looks up at Lucienne.
"I assume, from the moment you were trapped. I told her to rest while we waited for your return. She... did not wake again."
Morpheus turns back to you and caresses your cheek lightly with his finger.
"I will bring all the dreams and nightmares back home." He says softly. "I will fix this." He does not take his eyes off of you. "I will wake you from your dreamless slumber, and we will be together again. I promise," he whispers.
Lucienne can only watch her king gaze at his beloved. She had done everything she could to keep things going in his absence, but she knew this would hurt the most.
The Dreaming would be rebuilt. That much, he was sure of.
☆☆☆
@missdreamofendless - @mischievousvillainy - @kpopgirlbtssvt -
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Bring Me To Life| Sandman Imagine
Summary: Y/N is part of the Burgess family, somewhat of a black sheep, when she finds the prisoner her family has kept for 90 years, your father finds a way to dispose of his own daughter. Imprisoning her with The Dream Lord.
Pairing: Morpheus x Burguess! Reader
Requested: Yes
Author’s note: Will be updating my tag list so please comment if you want in on out of it!
You were always aware you were different from your family, they were always so shallow, empty, even.
Your father was nephew of the wealthy Roderick Burgess, and if Roderick was cruel and despicable, your father Maurice was much more worse.
For starters, he had way too many children, you were clearly the one in the middle, having many responsibilities that no child should have at your age, and even when you did everything you could to earn your father’s love and acceptance, you only got hatred in return.
He genuinely hated your guts.
His words, not yours.
But still someone a part of you was holding onto hope that maybe one day he would learn to love you.
While you waited for that day to come, you did your best to blend into the background, which for the record, wasn’t hard at all with six teens running around the house screaming all day long.
By your twenties you were a master of truly “minding your shit” as your father used to tell you, one particular day, everyone had gone hunting as the only female, it was easy to leave you behind.
You would be lying if you said that you weren’t bored out of your mind after a while, and then like a light switch, you remembered the house had a basement.
As any forgotten part of the house, you were told multiple times to leave it, to never even think of it, but at least the mysterious basement had to be more interesting than this empty mansion.
What you did not prepare for, was to find some… being trapped in a glass prison, he seemed like a man but something about him felt supernatural, extraordinary even.
His eyes followed even the slightest of your moves. As your fingertips merely crashed the cold surface of the glass, the eyes of the “man” opened wider, a distorted reflection of your father’s knowing figure, holding s large object, but before you could turn to face him.
All was suddenly black after a sharp pain hit the back of your neck and a buzz on your ears.
As you regained consciousness, your senses buzzed, everything somehow felt colder, lonelier, wrong…
When turning your head, you noticed the being you were staring at on the other side of the glass; only this time, he was right beside you.
Completely startled you backed away, until you met the cold surface of the bubble you were now trapped in.
You noticed more now the nakedness of the man (that is to refer to him because quite frankly, he was anything but human), which made your cheeks turn red and more than ever you appreciated your own clothes.
Tears were streaming down your face quietly and you wiped them away as soon as the left your eyes, embarrassed for this stranger to see you at your very worst.
“Morpheus”.
A voice inside your head spoke calmly but loudly, you turned to see the man beside you, empathy could be seen in his features, his hand softly grazing yours.
It had been so long since he last touched anyone, your skin felt soft and warm to the touch, it was something that now his heart longed for.
You didn’t know what it was, maybe the despair of being trapped here for God knows how long, the confusion and anger that came as to why you were here or the overall sadness.
Whatever it might’ve been, you found yourself embracing Morpheus softly by the neck, hiding your face as you sobbed lightly.
The Dream Lord was startled at first, but delicately his hands found a place in your back and to your waist he was letting you have complete control over this moment, he did not wish to touch you in any way that would make you uncomfortable.
He let you hold onto him as long and as hard as you needed to, but he knew his role there was only to contain your sadness until it went away.
“It is nice to know you, Morpheus” you whispered in his ear after a long period of sadness.
Ten long years had passed since you were trapped in the bubble prison with Morpheus, and you would be lying if you said you hadn’t developed a particular affection towards each other as well as a complex non-spoken communication between the two, he would let his voice echo your mind every now and then, but mostly, by simply looking at each other it was enough to know it all.
It hurt to think that nobody was looking for you, but then again, you would not be surprised by this, yet, a naive part of you thought maybe they were looking. Truth be told, if they were, they would’ve found you by now. After all, you were still in the same damn house.
But today something happened, Alex Burgess, your uncle, had gone down to see you two, it had been years since you saw him, but he was indeed, fragile and old, almost at the end of his days.
His eyes fell on you, you could see the sense of recognition in his gaze but quickly his eyes diverted to the King of dreams, completely disregarding your presence.
You held onto Morpheus’ arm trying to hold back on your anger as Alex Burgess went on his monologue to the King of Dreams about how he had done wrong in not wanting to be free all those years ago.
But you understood his motives as to why he didn’t chose freedom, his companion deserved that the perpetrators of her cold blooded murder paid the price.
Truth be told, it also did rub the wrong way to Morpheus how your own blood ignored you, after spending a decade by your side, he had gotten to know your very essence and in full honesty, you deserved something better than the rotten tree you were born in.
But something happened, as Alex turned his wheels to leave, the restraining runes were slightly wiped off.
You both looked at one another, acknowledging the window of opportunity you were given by the neglect of Alex.
For the first time in a decade you recognized in the eyes of the other, the almost foreign sentiment of hope, you step aside, letting Morpheus concentrate as you understood the only one who could set you free now was him.
Everything to you, seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, the cracks, the breaking, the shots fired and as Morpheus conjured some sort of vortex, he stretched out his hand for you to reach.
Going with him, was tempting, but you knew now as you stood in front of him, your journeys were very different, he had a kingdom to restore while you had to figure your own identity outside of the Burgess last name, to find if, you had any other living relatives, to find answers to all your questions.
You smiled at him, in a way which he understood it all.
“There will always be a place for you in the Dreaming Y/N Burgess” he finally spoke, after all those ages of silence, it wasn’t just a voice echoing in your brain, it was real.
You nodded, at the very edge of tears, the mixture of relief and nostalgia for this chapter of your life ending becoming all so overwhelming.
“I’ll come and find you, King of Dreams” you promised to him, the corners of his mouth lifting in the ghost of a smile.
“Till we meet again” he said taking your hand and planting a subtle kiss on it before going back to his world.
Leaving you be in yours.
But even as the chapter of your imprisonment came to and end, you knew, deep in your heart, your story with the myth in the flesh, was far from over.
Taglist: @emiemiemiii @ladyfairenvale @hungrhay @aurorarevenclaw1927 @adishax @meganmayhem89 @mrs-captainsteverogers @hb8301 @sarahbullet235 @bambooing-shenanigans @queenshelby @characterxreaderimagine @emarich7 @carolcrysis @sister-of-stars @coolsnowker @vvsdreaming @jesllianaquilesrolon @supermegapauselouca
#the sandman comics#sandman imagine#sandman netflix#dream of the endless#morpheus dream#sandman x reader#dream of the endless x reader#sandman shitpost#sandman dream#sandman x y/n#morpheus sandman#morpheus x reader#morpheus x you#lord morpheus#lord morpheus x reader
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Hellooooooo
Alright I got a weird AU idea not sure what to call it but it involves one of our favorite things ✨pregnant dream✨
So Dream decides he would like to retire and become an immortal human like Hob. one problem though, he’s got no heir to the dreaming and he can’t use Daniel (for plot reasons idk) so Hob hearing “heirs” has something light up in his old peasant brain and he’s like “what if we make em the old fashion way?” Dream agrees under the condition that if the child is not fit to usher the dreaming they will keep having children until one of them is ready and willing.
The first child is Determination of the Endless (I mean he’s Hob’s kid after all) they also give their children human names because they will spend about equal amounts of time in the waking as the dreaming (and Dante looks less suspicious on a birth name than Determination does) the next kid is Deception of the Endless (hob blames his mercenary days for that one) he’s a really sweet kid though, they name him Dimitri, (might as well stick to a theme at this point) they learn that the children have developed their own realms albeit smaller than their older Endless family members. Then something happens. Delight is born, this reassures them that a new being can take on an old endless moniker and Auntie Delirium is happy to show Delia (Delight) the ropes. They get another sweet docile baby girl and are surprised to learn she’s Destruction (it makes more sense in her toddler years) her name is Daphne. Than Hope is born. (This is ENTIRELY Hob’s Fault) Hob is a little confused as to why she is the only endless without a D at the start of her function. Then it’s time to name her.
“I mean we could just call her Hope, it’s a human girl’s name and it would be one less name to remember.” Hob chirps cuddled up with dream and the new baby who is the spitting image of Hob.
“Hmmm” Dream rumbles.
“I was thinking she doesn’t need to follow the tradition of a D human name.” He says shifting closer to Hob.
“Really? Do you have any suggestions?”
Dream hums in response like he hasn’t been planning this for the past nine months.
“I was considering perhaps…Roberta?”
Hob gasps softly. “Really, you want to name one of the little ones after me?”
“Look at her, she has your light, Hob”
Hob and Roberta become thick as thieves after that. A nearly inseparable father-daughter duo. Hob and Rob (although she prefers Robbie)
Then the sixth baby arrives, Dante is in his twenties at this point, (they had the kids farther apart so each of them could get proper attention but still close enough for a proper sibling bond)
This baby to everyone’s shock is Dream of the Endless, at least dream of the endless jr.
“Hob!” Dream calls from his bed.
“Yes darling?” Hob immediately runs into the room, he’s at dreams beck and call (I mean he ALWAYS is but especially after a new baby is born)
“What’s wrong? Is everything alright?”
Dream beckons for Hob to climb into bed with him and hands him the baby. He’s an absolute carbon copy of dream.
“Oh, he looks just like his father,”
“That means he’ll have the attitude of his Papa” Dream retorts.
Hob sticks his tongue out, “you love me.”
“Now what’s this one’s function?”
“Dream,”
Hob stares at his husband in awe, “you mean this is it? You’ve got a proper heir now? Aw, I was hoping to at least get four more hoblings out of you,”
Dream snickers, “just because I have an heir doesn’t mean I want to stop having children, Hob Gadling,”
Hob lights up, “you mean it?”
Dream nods, “besides it’s quite odd to only have six new endless, it should be seven like the original,”
“Seven? I can do that!”
They nickname the baby Drowsy of the Endless so no one gets confused, his human name is Dorian.
“No Dream I’m not putting Morpheus the second on a birth certificate that’ll get us flagged for sure”
The final child, the seventh endless is…
“Danger”
“You’re kidding,”
“No this child is Danger of the Endless”
“You just ran out of D words tell me his real function you git,”
“This is your son, Danger, Hob Gadling”
Hob sighs, “We just got all of Destruction’s stuff cleaned up, you’re telling me I have to parent a toddler whose natural tendency is towards danger?” Hob groans.
“Isn’t that all toddlers?” Dream smirks as Hob buries his face in his hands.
They name him Damien and he is a proper little hellion but the perfect edition to their little family and the next generation of Endless.
I just think the giant family dynamic is fun. I’d write a fic but I’m retired from fanfic writing. Thought I’d drop this off as an another Hob and Dream have a large family au.
-🦎
The Hoblings 😭😭 I'm absolutely in love with this whole au!!! I love the idea of a new generation of Endless, its so lovely.
Imagine their interactions with Dream's siblings! Ollie would be so good with the new Destruction and Danger, and Desire would have great fun with Deception. I bet Delirium would be so overjoyed to meet the new Delight. It takes a village to raise a child and it will certainly take the whole family to raise a gaggle of half human, half Endless kiddos.
Dream and Hob are wonderful parents, which is to say - they fuck up a lot and the house is always a mess, but they love their kids so fiercely. Hob and Roberta and Determination are an absolute disaster trio. Dream and little Drowsy spend most of their time silently judging the shenanigans.
I just love the idea of the new generation of Endless getting this loving, amazing childhood that Dream and his siblings never really had. Of course things aren't perfect, but there's so much love in the house. Hob is so proud of Dream and their kids, and he feels so grateful to get this second chance at a family. Watching their children grow and become the best versions of themselves is a reward he knows he doesn't deserve, but he's endlessly thankful to the universe anyway <3
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•Being in a Relationship with Dream•
Although Morpheus has had many a past relationship you're the first one where he's felt like he couldn't exist without you. Like he really, truly needs you and he's never needed anyone before.
He may be an endless, anthropomorphic being but you make him feel like a simple man very much in love.
Now, it is no surprise that Dream's job has to take first priority most of the time. That's just how it is and has to be and you knew what you signed up for.
Though still he always tries to include you in everything he does. Learning from past relationship mistakes that even if he's preoccupied with work that by having you beside him he can still spend time with you.
So, if there's a runaway nightmare that needs taking care of, you'll travel to the Waking World with him. If there's a problem in the realm or someone else's dream, then you're coming along for the ride as well.
There is no part of his realm he won't show you. He rather delights in showing you every nook and crevice of the Dreaming and seeing your reactions.
Morpheus loves telling you everything about his world and his long existence. He is incredibly open with his infinite knowledge and abilities.
One of his favorite pastimes is visiting your dreams but he never disturbs them. Rather he just likes to quietly marvel at what your imagination has come up with. And, of course, he will personally destroy any nightmare that dares enter your head.
Dream's nicknames for you will be "love" or "darling" but he especially enjoys when he can introduce you to someone so that he can say "this is my partner" or "my wife." He likes when he can openly call you his.
The King of Dreams and Ruler of Nightmares is definitely one who let's his actions speak louder than his words.
He will face off against Lucifer and all of Hell for you should the need arise and he will not hesitate to battle even his siblings should one of them be foolish enough to mess with you.
He would dismantle the universe and lay waste to humanities unconscious just to keep you safe but saying "I love you" is a rarity reserved for only the most special of times.
You don't mind of course because every starry eyed gaze he gives you is a constant reminder of his everlasting love for you. His is the kind of love you can feel with every look and touch.
You're getting a raven whether you like it or not. Even when he's not near you he likes having a way to check up on you and make sure you're safe.
Matthew and Lucienne are your besties. Death is like a cool older sister to you as well.
Morpheus will not hesitate to offer you his coat if you're ever cold or if you fall asleep in the library or his throne room while he's still working he will cover you with it like a blanket.
He knows all too well the effect his voice has on you and though he'd never admit to teasing you with it, he does and does it all the time.
No matter how long you've been together nothing pleases him more than how his captivating, deep voice can still make your heart pound like a drum in your chest and bring you to your knees.
Despite Dream's more reserved nature he is an incredibly passionate lover. He is also gentle and kind. Your every wish he will fulfill. Your every dream will come true. He will give you pleasure far beyond what you could even fantasize about.
He uses his past relationship failures as cautionary tales to ensure that he doesn't repeat the same mistakes with you.
Morpheus tries, he really tries to always make you feel loved and above all else, valued. He makes sure that though he is Endless, without you he would feel like nothing.
Not a day goes by where you don't feel cherished.
#the sandman#the sandman netflix#the sandman tv#morpheus#morpheus x reader#morpheus headcanons#morpheus imagines#morpheus x reader smut#dream#the sandman dream#dream of the endless#dream x reader#dream x reader smut#dream imagine#dream headcanons#the sandman x reader#the sandman x reader smut#the sandman imagine#the sandman headcanons#tom sturridge
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The Mixup
Dream of the Endless/Morpheus x Reader
Summary: Matthew goes sticking his beak in places it shouldn't be, and finds what he believes to be some shocking news.
Word Count: 2.2k
A/N: This is a complete and utter crack fic, fight me about it. Based on this post I made. Matthew died right before the pandemic in this, bc it's my fic and I decide the rules :)
As Dream of the Endless’s Official Raven™, Matthew had developed a special set of skills to help him complete the tasks that only he could successfully accomplish. One of these skills, and arguably the most useful one, was the ability to gather evidence from the smallest of clues. He was like the most diligent of spies, and he took his job extremely seriously; James Bond had nothing on him.
Part of being the greatest corvid detective a number of realms had ever seen meant that it was sometimes difficult to turn his investigation mode on and off. After all, he was expected to be at Dream’s beck and call at the moment that he was needed, which could come at any time or any place. What if there was another John Dee-type emergency and he wasn’t on his a-game? That wasn’t an experience that Matthew was willing to repeat, so he was always on the lookout for any potential situation that might require his expertise.
Today, he had just finished an errand tracking a couple of newer dreams as they learned how to walk through dreams. It had been pretty successful, and since he was already out and about, Matthew decided that he would go and drop in to say hi to you. This was solely out of the goodness of his heart and the desire to see a friend, and most definitely not because you kept your kitchen stocked with sour gummy worms and raspberries just for him.
When Matthew arrived at your home, though, swooping in through the window you kept cracked open just enough for a smarter-than-the-average raven to crawl through, you’re nowhere to be found. Not in your kitchen (which is the first place he checks, for obvious reasons), not in your living room, and not in your bedroom. That’s odd. Normally, you’re home at this time and on this day.
After grabbing a second, third, and fourth helping of some very delicious snacks, Matthew remembers that he hasn’t checked your bathroom yet. Though you’re probably not in there, it won’t hurt to check; maybe you’re taking a shower or something?
The lights are on in the bathroom, but as it is everywhere else, nobody’s home. Frustrating, because Matthew had his mind set on coming to say hi to you, and he hates not fully accomplishing his goals. Oh well, that’s just how things go sometimes. Matthew takes a perch on the counter, deciding that while he’s here, he should preen his feathers of the sugar crystals and raspberry juice that his snacking has left on him. When he turns his head to try and smooth a feather near his wing, he sees it.
Two small, boxy tests, each with two lines on them.
While it had been a few years since Matthew had been a human, he very much remembered the basics of a pregnancy test. And those? Pregnancy tests.
His surprised squawk sends him falling off the counter, and he has to furiously flap his wings in order to not land on the floor. When he gets his feathers under him, he takes a second look at the tests, just to make sure that his beady eyes don’t deceive him. They don’t, because he definitely sees two tests, with two dark lines on each of them. Positive.
As Matthew retreats to the Dreaming, he finds himself a little mad. He can’t believe that Dream’s managed to hide this from him! He really thought they were closer than that, or at the very least, that they had a good-enough working relationship where something as life-changing as a pregnancy would be shared as good news.
It really be your own boss sometimes.
Said boss is sitting on the steps leading up to his throne, surrounded by books and stray scraps of paper. It’s been one of his missions, as of late, to read up on popular literature that he missed during his captivity for ideas for new dreams and nightmares. When hearing about this, you had told Dream that if he was looking for nightmare inspiration, all he had to do was watch the news for an afternoon—something that he was less than amused by, even though you were being completely honest.
Matthew landed on the step next to Dream’s leg, affectionately nipping at the outside of his thigh until he looks down with one of his barely-there smiles.
“How did our new dreams do?” he asks.
“They did good! Got lost a couple of times, which you expected, but after they got the hang of it, it was smooth-sailing from there.”
Dream nods before going back to the paragraph he was reading, proud of his creations, though Matthew keeps watching him closely for any sign of…something. A glow, a happiness, something that expecting fathers hiding the news from their beloved ravens would carry. Matthew can’t let this stand, and so he attempts to bait Dream into telling him.
“I haven’t seen Y/n around lately,” Matthew begins.
“We have both had our own various tasks keeping us away from each other the past couple of days. I have felt her presence in the Dreaming each night, though, and she knows that she may call for me if she had need of me.”
Hmm, a painfully normal answer. Not what Matthew was hoping for. “Awesome! Yeah, awesome.”
“Matthew,” Dream calls impatiently.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you choose this topic of conversation?”
“Well, I just, y’know…stopped in to say hi earlier. She wasn’t home, but.” Matthew’s not a good talker, and he needs to just rip the bandage off. “When were you gonna tell your old pal Matthew that you two were expecting?”
Dream looks at Matthew again. “Expecting?”
“Yeah.”
A moment. “Expecting what?”
“Uh, a baby?” Matthew wants to add “duh” under his breath, but he restrains himself.
Dream’s fingers, which had been slowly and methodically tapping on the book he was reading, froze. No, that was wrong. Dream, in his entirety, froze. Literally, it was like someone had hit ‘pause’ on a remote. Though Dream didn’t need to, when in his human form, he found himself in the habit of doing human functions like blinking and breathing. Seeing them stop so suddenly is extremely jarring for Matthew, and he’s a little worried that he’s going to have to try and rouse the King of All Night’s Dreaming from a stupor by throwing water on him or something.
Thankfully, he doesn’t have to when Dream asks, slowly and as though the air has been punched out of him, “A baby?” Matthew was hoping he’d get more than just a repetition of his own words, but he’ll take it.
“I mean, if the positive pregnancy tests were anything to go by, then yes.” Matthew now feels like the biggest jerk in the world. He had thought that Dream was keeping a secret from him, not that you were keeping a secret from Dream! “I’m sorry, I thought you already knew.”
“No, I knew of no such…development.”
Uh oh.
“Oh! Well, then I guess she just found out! Heh. Congratulations?” Matthew’s working desperately to try and spin this, even as Dream stands up so unsteadily that Matthew worries he might pass out. “Maybe she’s figuring out a fun way to tell you the news.”
Dream nods, but his mind is already in the Waking as he tries to digest what he’s just been told. “Matthew, please inform Lucienne that I will be in the Waking.”
“I can do that! Do you know how long you’re gonna be there, or–” Matthew’s cut off by Dream disappearing in a swirl of sand. When it’s just him in the throne room, a frantic Dream Lord long since gone, Matthew sighs. “Shit.”
•••
The lights in your bedroom are off in order to combat the pressure in your head, the only source of light coming from the random show that you’ve seen fifty times, turned on so that you can have some sort of background noise. You’re only half paying attention as you scroll through your phone, having just woken from a nap and trying to fully wake up so that you can drag yourself to a shower before you try to go to bed.
You’d like to say that this is why you throw your phone in fright when Morpheus suddenly appears in your bedroom, but the reality is that you’d have been just as caught off-guard if you were completely aware and knew that he was coming.
“Hi!” you greet with a smile, pushing yourself to sit up in bed. “What are you doing here?”
He looks off when he makes eye contact with you, but you can’t tell if he’s actually distressed or if it’s just his normal brand of weirdness. When he runs a hand through his hair, that’s when you realize that he’s actually distressed. Morpheus almost never does any sort of human mannerisms, especially something as visibly anxious as mussing up his own hair.
Finally, he remembers to answer your question. When he does, though, you’re absolutely not expecting him to say, “Why did you not tell me that you are with child?”
“What?”
Morpheus takes a seat next to you on your bed and grabs your hands in his. You just hope he doesn’t realize how clammy they are. “If you were…scared of how I would react, then I must sincerely apologize. Though we have never discussed this topic, you must know that I would be happy and support you in whatever you decide.”
“I mean, that’s great and all, but…” you squeeze his hands, which are as cold as they usually are. “Morpheus, I’m not pregnant.”
He blinks. “You’re not?”
You shake your head slowly, wary of the double vision you’ve been experiencing when you move too fast. “No. One-hundred-percent not pregnant, sorry to disappoint.”
“Oh.” The relief on his face is so palpable that it almost makes you laugh.
“How did you come to the conclusion that I was?”
“When Matthew came by earlier to visit you, he saw what he said were…” he thinks for a moment, “‘pregnancy tests’ on your counter.”
You huff. “Matthew needs to mind his own business. They were covid tests, and that’s probably why I wasn’t here when he was. I scheduled a pickup order at the pharmacy so that I could get meds and other ‘sick person’ stuff before I got too sick.”
“Covid?”
“Coronavirus. It’s the pandemic, people have definitely dreamt of it before.” His gaze goes foggy for a moment, and you can tell that he’s drawing on the knowledge of the Dreaming in order to learn everything about covid in the span of a second. When he comes back to you, he nods.
“Yes, they have.” Then, he gets panicked again. “You are ill, then?”
“Unfortunately. It’ll be okay, though. Just have to rest and hydrate for a few days.” You cough, your body deciding to punctuate your point about being sick and needing rest.
“Is there anything that I may do to help you in your recovery?”
“Yeah, you can call your little sidekick so I can yell at him for going through my stuff.” You won’t actually yell at him, because you’re not actually mad. Still, it’ll be funny to see how he reacts to the knowledge, and you can’t miss out on getting to be the one to tell him how wrong he is.
Morpheus holds his coat open to reveal the starry lining within. Through some link that you haven’t quite been able to figure out yet, Matthew flies out of the galaxies and into your room seconds later. He settles himself on your nightstand, looking about as visibly awkward as a raven can.
“Hey, there’s the happy couple!” When you both do nothing but stare at him, he clears his throat. “Congratulations?”
“I’m not pregnant, dumbass,” you say.
“What?” Matthew exclaims. “But I saw the tests!”
“First of all, don’t snoop through my stuff. Second of all, how the hell did you mistake a covid test for a pregnancy test? It literally said what it was on the test.”
“First of all, I was looking for you and, when you weren’t here, I was trying to make sure you weren’t in any danger. It’s what being a good raven is all about,” he retorts. “Second of all, maybe it’s because I don’t know what those are!”
“A covid test?” He bobs his head up and down in a nod. Just as you’re about to use the new roast material you think you’ve just acquired, you pause and think. “Wait, when did you die?”
“Uh, February of 2020?”
Suddenly, it all made sense. Matthew didn’t know what a covid test was, because when he died, covid was neither widespread nor a public health emergency. Hell, in February of 2020, at-home tests wouldn’t even be available for another half of a year.
“You get a pass this time for your lack of knowledge,” you say before pointing at him. “But don’t go through my stuff anymore. Just…wait around next time! Enjoy some snacks!”
“Oh don’t worry, I still enjoyed plenty of snacks before looking through your stuff.” Matthew looks back at Morpheus. “Can I go, or am I still needed here?”
Morpheus sighs and holds his coat open again, still trying to wrap his head around the conversation he just witnessed. “You may return to the Dreaming, Matthew.”
“Sweet, thanks!” He flies up into the air, and right before he disappears back home, he calls out, “Make sure you use precaution!”
You’d throw a pillow at that damn nosy bird, but you don’t want to hit poor, confused Morpheus with it.
#dream of the endless x reader#dream of the endless imagine#dream of the endless#morpheus x reader#morpheus imagine#morpheus#the sandman#the sandman imagine
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okay, well, apparently, dreamling + kink negotiation + gentle dom hob is about to take up rent-free residence in my mind and i don’t know how i’m going to survive that
like... dream, who hasn’t had a whole lot of sex but has seen enough dreams and subconscious wishes to sort of understand kink as a vehicle for Processing Things, coming to the conclusion that what he needs is to show up at hob’s door in the waking at three in the morning with a pair of handcuffs and wordlessly hand them to him, like that’s just something you do every day
poor hob, who’s been dream’s lover for all of a month, and is only half awake, is like, whoa, i’m going to make us some tea and we’re going to talk about this—much to dream’s chagrin, because of course, his kingly self hadn’t factored in having to explain, and even this carries with it a vulnerability that is an Exercise for him
so they’re sitting there in hob’s little warmly lit kitchen and dream is reluctantly drinking the very strong tea hob has made him and bristling at the prospect of having to talk about Why He Is Asking For This
hob is like, “my first question... why me?”
“you are my lover.” dream pauses. “you have my trust.” he says it like it’s so completely simple, and hob has to take a minute to deal with the rush of tenderness he feels for him then, because dream of the endless, who was locked up for more than a century, is sitting in his kitchen looking at him like that and placing his trust in hob, of all people, for this
“second question. do you understand what you’re asking for?” hob looks at the handcuffs lying on the table between them and thinks about dream, naked in burgess’ cage for over a hundred years, and wonders if he can even do this, can give this to dream
dream lifts his chin imperiously. “of course.”
“good. tell me what it is exactly.”
dream stares at him, expression cloudy, and hob stares back. a few minutes pass like that in silence. dream’s eyes drift to the metallic gleam of the handcuffs, too, and he swallows—a tiny, very human motion
hob takes pity on dream. picks up the handcuffs with a clink and rests them in his own lap, where dream can’t see them; the chill of their metal seeps through the fabric of hob’s pajama pants
“if we’re going to do this together,” he tells dream, gentle but firm, “anything at all like this, i’m going to need you to use your words for me.”
dream spends a few more minutes looking mutinous, like he’s on the precipice of getting up and leaving entirely. but hob is intimately familiar with this look, by now, and has learned that these days, dream’s internal battle with himself tends more often than not, to end in him staying, so hob settles in to wait it out
finally: “i ask,” dream says, very deliberately, as though each word costs him, “to submit to you.”
hob has to focus very hard for a moment on keeping his reaction to that in check, because he is, after all, only human. “...go on.”
morpheus glares at hob, as if to say, what more do you want? after another eternity, he speaks. “it is my wish to be—” he cuts his gaze away from hob down at his cooling tea, wraps his fingers around the handle of the mug so tightly that his pale knuckles go even more white. “—restrained.”
hob eyes him, the tension in his shoulders, in his hands. “well,” he says evenly, “we’re not starting with these,” and he gives the handcuffs a little rattle; watches dream flinch at the sound and knows he’s made the right decision for both of them
dream doesn’t say anything like why not? but he draws himself up in his chair, and his eyes flash dark and starry, and his mouth purses, and hob knows that inside, dream is roiling
“now, don’t get all in a huff,” hob says, leaning in and resting his forearms on the table. he holds dream’s black gaze. “you aren’t ready for them, and that’s just the truth.”
etc etc etc
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So the Corinthian helps Rose with her homework, but I like to think he also keeps the tradition of getting ice cream with Jed. And Jed has questions.
"So...you like boys, right?"
Corinthian pauses with his ice cream cone midway to his mouth and lowers it a bit to get a better line of sight on Jed across the little outdoor table they're sharing. Jed, in turn, is staring intently back at him. So intently, in fact, that there’s a line of blue ice cream melting towards his fingers. Cotton candy flavored — disgusting.
“I guess that’s one way to put it,” Corinthian says, licking around the edge of his own cone again. Strawberry, which is much better. “You’re meltin’, by the way.”
Jed blinks and looks down at his cone, making an aborted sound of concern before diving in to protect his fingers and the table from errant dribbles of dessert. Once that particular crisis is averted, however, he frowns again. “But like. You like like them?”
Corinthian raises an eyebrow over his sunglasses. “What’s the difference?” he asks, and nearly laughs at the frustrated huff it earns him.
“You know,” Jed says, using that tone of voice Corinthian has learned means he thinks something is very obvious and can’t fathom why the “grown ups” around him don’t get it. “Like…you don’t have girlfriends. You and Mr. Gadling and Uncle Morpheus are boyfriends instead.”
“Boyfriends?” Corinthian repeats, eyebrows winging up. “Who the hell called us that?”
“Rose did!”
Corinthian leans back in his chair and hums around his ice cream. “Not sure that’s the word I’d use, but…okay, I guess. Why’re you asking about all this?”
And despite the one-sided game of twenty questions he’d been spearheading all of thirty seconds ago, Jed immediately goes quiet. Well, not quiet, exactly. More like he tries to cram as much neon blue ice cream into his mouth at once as he can.
“Okay, I can’t sit here and watch you do that,” Corinthian says, reaching across the table to tug Jed’s wrist back. “It’s bad enough you chose that flavor. I’m gonna put you in an Uber home if you throw that blue shit up.”
“It’s good!” Jed protests, giggling.
“It is not.”
Jed scoffs. “Last week you got rum raisin! That’s like…a grandpa flavor!”
“Grandpa flavor!?” Corinthian repeats, offended, and it doesn’t help that Jed giggles again at him for it. “Who the hell are you calling a grandpa?”
“I mean, your boyfriends are also like super duper old, right? They’re probably grandpas too. It makes sense,” Jed reasons.
Corinthian snorts before taking a physical bite out of his ice cream, smirking when it makes Jed cringe. “So we’re talking about the boyfriends thing again, huh? You got something you wanna tell me, Jed?”
Jed slouches in his seat across the table, but thankfully he doesn’t try to choke himself on cotton candy flavoring again. “….I thought you said people only use your name when you’re in trouble.”
He’s very obviously deflecting, but Corinthian sighs and leans forward on his elbows, tilting his ice cream a bit to the side so he doesn’t drip anything pink onto his jacket. “You think you're gonna be in trouble if you tell me you like like boys? Me? The guy with two boyfriends, apparently?”
Jed glances up and shrugs slightly, a look on his face that reminds Corinthian, briefly, of of the first time they met. Remnants of the boy in the basement. He thinks, absently, that he might need to make something bleed later, feels the itch in his fingers for a weapon. But for now he settles for snatching a napkin out of the dispenser on their table and reaching over to wipe a streak of blue off Jed’s face.
“I don’t give a shit if you like hims, hers, or theirs, Jed,” he says, and the kid’s shoulders slump in obvious relief, his smile coming back easily enough. “But what I am concerned with is that your taste in crushes had best be better than your taste in ice cream. So tell me who this boy is that’s got you asking all these questions.”
Corinthian spends the rest of their weekly ice cream date learning all about André Montgomery, who is “super smart” and “like the best striker on the soccer team.” He also learns what the hell Jordans are and that the politics of a middle school lunch room are more complicated than fucking congress. He makes a note to figure out exactly how much shit he’ll get in with Dream and Hob if he spends some time over the next week stalking a 7th grader.
“So why don’t you ask him out?” he asks when they’re making their way back to the car, and Jed jolts like he’s been shocked by a livewire.
“I can’t ask him out!”
“Why the hell not?”
“I don’t even know if he likes boys!” Jed says, throwing his arms out. “And even if he does like boys, he’s way too cool for me!”
Corinthian reaches over and pulls Jed to a stop by his shoulder before they reach the car. “A kid who can kick a ball around and wears nice shoes is not too cool for you.”
Jed wrinkles his nose, clearly unswayed. “You have to say nice stuff like that,” he says, and Corinthian barks out a laugh.
“You must have me confused with your sister and Hob. I don’t have to be nice to anyfuckingbody,” he says.
“….I guess that’s true,” Jed admits after a moment, pursing his lips.
“Look, whether you ask this André kid out or not is your call. But I don’t wanna hear anything about you not doing it cause you think he’s better than you, you hear me, Jed?”
Jed is visibly fighting a smile when he nods. “I hear you.”
“Attaboy. Now come on, we’re gonna be late,” he says, motioning him towards the car.
“You’re not…gonna tell Rose or anybody, right?” Jed asks once they’re on the road, and Corinthian glances over.
“You know I don’t go blabbing about our ice cream talks.”
“Not even to Mr. Gadling and Uncle Morpheus?”
Corinthian laughs. “Especially not to them,” he says, flashing him a smile at a stoplight. “You can tell them whenever you’re ready to.”
Jed smiles back. “Thanks.”
“But if anyone does ever try to give you shit about this, you come and tell me first, all right?”
Jed squints, suspicious, across the car at him. Smart kid. “…How come?”
“Remember our talk about plausbile deniability?” Corinthian says, waiting until he nods. “So you don’t have to ask any questions. You just let me know if anything happens.”
“Is this one of those things I don’t tell your boyfriends?” Jed asks.
“Bingo!”
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#corinthian definitely stalks a middle schooler#he thinks jed can do better#at some point he will definitely commit homicide for this child#again#if any more of these happen it's gonna end up a series#the walker family guide to the care and feeding of supernaturals#jed walker#the corinthian#hobrintheus#the sandman#fic#long post
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𓅨 Shifting Wings: Chapter Ten
Shifting Wings: Before the Raven Matthew, there was Jessamy, and Jessamy came with a little sister by the name of Adrienne. Dream adores his two little Ravens, but after over a hundred years of imprisonment and the death of Jessamy, Dream will find that he has not just lost his companion, but his beloved little Raven Adrienne no longer brightens the halls of his Palace. None of his staff wish to speak of where the Raven has gone, but the silent new resident of the palace is cause for question. After all, she was the one who aided in his release. If none of his subjects would help him find Adrienne, perhaps she could lead him to the whereabouts of the missing Raven. If only the woman wasn’t so flighty and hard to track down.
Warnings: Angst, Language.
To Note: Morpheus/Dream x FemaleRaven!Reader, NAMED Reader (I like the name).
Word Count: ~2.3k
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She has not shown herself to you, because she does not wish to.
Lucienne’s words haunted Morpheus in an Endless pain he felt within his being. He had expected you to seek him out the moment he returned as you had always been faithfully by his side. Not to mention he had made a promise to you that he was not able to keep. Surely you were upset by that. No, he had expected everything to be as it was when he had left. He’d been wrong. Lucienne changed. Cain and Abel changed. Fiddler’s Green changed. It was a naive notion to think that you wouldn’t change. Stewing in his morose thoughts, Morpheus decided he had brooded long enough. It was time he tracked you down, for Morpheus needed your comforting presence, even if you held nothing but animosity towards him. Even if all you’d allow was for the Endless to merely gaze upon you, that would be enough.
Rising from his throne, Morpheus stepped down the stairs and strode for the one place that would have the most clues regarding your whereabouts. Your studio. Striding through the palace, Morpheus pondered your absence some more, disturbed by your lack of appearance. Did you not love him as he thought you did? Had he not made his affections clear to you? Jessamy had certainly threatened him plenty over his intentions towards you. 106 years. How much could a person change in that time? Had your love dissipated and resentment taken shelter? Were you angry? Were you unconsolable? Did you want nothing to do with him and the palace after Jessamy’s death? Did you hate him? Perhaps you did if you refused his company.
He reached the door to your studio and paused. He couldn’t feel your presence within, but several light orbs were softly illuminated indicating that you had been within your studio recently. Opening the door, Morpheus stepped into your art studio and ventured forwards. There were paintings and sketches scattered throughout the studio, you were clearly still painting and drawing… but all of your works now held a darker tone. Your artwork reflected a darkened mind crippled by pain, agony.
Walking around your work bench, Morpheus eyed the luxurious bed, expecting to see your nest of pillows, feathers, and down. But all he saw was a neatly made bed, devoid of indication that anyone used it. The studio was used, yes, but clearly you did not use it as you once had. He looked closer at your sketches, many of which were sketches of Jessamy, beautifully sketched and detailed. Your skill had only increased. It only felt like a night ago in which you were just starting to learn how to draw in your new body.
“You look quite concentrated, little one,” Morpheus observed as he sat for you while you struggled to hold a pencil with your foot and draw his likeness. You growled under your breath and spit out a few curses which made Morpheus’s lips twitch. He doubted you noticed, but you truly came alive when you were focused on your art. The melancholy on your face faded and a spark of determination sparkled within the depths of your black eyes.
“That’s because I still sometimes have a hard time grasping this stupid pencil,” You huffed back, gripping the small instrument in your tiny foot. You hopped several places and flapped your wings. “I can control it pretty well at times but then it get’s away from me and everything starts going awry!”
You let out a caw of frustration and threw the misbehaving pencil across the room. It was much easier to paint, in your opinion, than to draw. You’d taken to the brush much quicker than the pencil, and your frustrations were starting to get the better of you. Morpheus rose from his seat and walked over to where you were standing, trying not to let your frustrations get the better of you.
“Why am I even doing this?” You asked with an exaggerated sigh. Morpheus lifted a finger to your beak and tilted your head up.
“Because you are determined, Adrienne,” He reminded you with a small smile. “And you are not one to give up so easily, your perseverance has brought you this far, has it not?”
You eyed your lord, seeing his provocative eyebrow raise. It ruffled your feathers and you huffed.
“I never said I was gonna give up, I just—I feel like I am not making any progress and it’s been decades.”
“And you have eons more to hone your skill, for I shall always look forward to your creations.” You eyed him carefully. Sometimes you really wished that you had your human body rather than a birds.
Don’t be envious. Don’t be envious. It wasn’t like the dreams and nightmares throughout the realm had the pleasure of painting Morpheus’s portrait with the Endless sitting right in front of them. It wasn’t like the Endless actively sought out their company.
“Fine, fine, sit back down I’m almost done with your general profile.” You ordered, having no issue ordering the Endless around. Morpheus, pleased that you had finally perked up, returned to his seat and watched as you fluttered to where your thrown pencil had ended up. Grasping it in your foot once more, you swooped back up to the easel and focused back on your sketch.
You were not a conventional lover, certainly if your relationship with him had grown more intimate. But at the time your company had been more than enough for him. Now all Morpheus wanted was to hear your comforting voice and see the familiar splash of midnight and pearl. Even if it was only to hear your thoughts of envy and yearning for what you had once had. He also owed you an apology. Not just for the fact that he had broken his promise to return with an hour, but your sister had been killed while in his service. It had been voluntary, but you would still feel betrayed.
Morpheus was about to leave the studio, not having garnered any new information from inspecting your studio, but then caught sight of a brighter light peeking out the trim of the small closet. Curiosity peaked, for why would you have the closet light so bright compared to the rest of your studio? Morpheus drew the slightly cracked door open and found his answer. Compared to the rest of the studio, the closet was far more homely and lived in. Down and feathers littered the floor, and there was a nest tucked in the corner. That was where you slept. But what Morpheus took notice most of all, was the obsessive amount of drawings of Jessamy.
They were everywhere, pinned on the walls, stacked on shelves, stuffed between books on a small bookshelf. He moved over to a stack that sat next to a bowl full of charcoal, clearly being used. On the top of the pile was a sketch of himself with Jessamy, the drawn lines darkened and clear, sharp. His eyes were the only hint of color on the page, an illuminating blue. By far your best work yet, not even Morpheus had seen you draw this beautifully. As Morpheus stared at the sketch, he spotted something at the edge of the page that should not be there. A charcoal fingerprint.
All who knew you, who lived within the palace, knew to never touch your artwork unless permission was given. Who would even think to enter a place so small and intimate, one you took shelter in, and touch your work? Certainly with charcoal on their fingers? Morpheus reached for a journal he had given you, inscribed with your name in gold lettering, and opened it. More pictures of him and Jessamy greeted his gaze. It was just as obsessive, and Morpheus could see your mental breakdown over the years. But even as he witnessed your breakdown through your drawings his eyes kept returning to the fingerprint upon your sketch. So journal and sketch in hand, he strode from your studio and headed for the library, determined to finally get answers.
Lucienne had been speaking with Mervyn about the newly rejuvenated gardens when their lord came striding into the library with a swirl of anger. Her brown eyes saw that he carried a leather-bound journal she often saw you drawing in, and a piece of parchment.
“Sir,” Lucienne greeted, trying to keep herself calm. “Is there something you need?” Morpheus strode up to her and held up a charcoal drawing of him with Jessamy perched on his shoulder. “Ah, I see you have discovered Adrienne’s artwork? She has much improved over the last century.” Lucienne said pleasantly, ignoring the charcoal fingerprint on the edge.
“Tell me, Lucienne, who enters Adrienne’s studio and touches her work when we all know that is an egregious event?” Morpheus asked, his voice poised with a lethal edge of a dagger. Both Mervyn and Lucienne shifted where they stood.
“I— I am not aware that anyone has entered Adrienne’s studio without permission let alone touched her work. We know she does not like it when her work is touched.” Lucienne replied evenly, reverting back to what was well known about you. “Not even to admire…” Morpheus shifted his gaze to Mervyn.
“And have you, Mervyn, witnessed anyone trespassing these halls? Surely you have seen something, as Adrienne does not possess hands.” He was enunciating his words now, his patience dwindling at the lack of information on you. Where were you? Why had you not appeared before him? Did you truly hate him? Did you despise him for Jessamy’s death? Were you in such anger that you would refuse to grace his presence ever again? Mervyn rubbed the back of his head, not knowing what to say. The promise he made to you all those years ago to treat Adrienne as dead was still strong… but lie to his lord? That he could not do.
“Well…” Mervyn sighed dramatically. “No one has gone into her studio who shouldn’t have, I can tell you that. She’d eat ‘em alive if they did… kinda anal about keeping people out actually. She’s gotten mean the past few decades,” He muttered while Lucienne forced herself to not facepalm herself in front of Morpheus. Mean. Adrienne had gotten mean. That was the first piece of true information Morpheus had gotten since coming home. But how could you have turned mean? You didn’t hold one mean bone in your entire body.
“Mervyn,” Your quiet, flat voice shattered the tension between the trio as you came striding into the library. The pumpkin headed janitor looked at you as you came to a stop. Your hair was ruffled and your clothes looked hastily put on. “I retrieved the sprite lantern from the relieving arch.” You announced. “If you want the Hesperides to stop throwing the lantern up there, may I suggest moving it? They despise each other.”
“Move it?” Melvyn repeated, insulted at the idea. “The whole point of having the spite lantern there is because of the water— ah fuck, I’m really gonna have to find a new place for the lantern, ain’t I?”
“Indeed,” You echoed, knowing that the janitor hated when he had to shift the homes of the residents of the palace around. They were quite persnickety about their place of home. You contemplated where the sprite lantern could be moved. “Perhaps the east end garden? I believe Lord Morpheus put in a new pond there.”
“Yeah, yeah, good idea,” Mervyn agreed before glancing at Morpheus. “Speaking of which, you met whitey here?” He asked, jerking his stick thumb at you. “She’s kind of mean and never smiles, not that she can, but is one hell of a worker to have around. She’s kept this place running while you were gone.”
You blinked at Mervyn before looking at Lord Morpheus.
“We have met before, though never the chance to formally speak,” You confirmed, then gave Mervyn an unimpressed look. “And I believe you mistake my frankness for me being mean, because that would imply emotions which you are aware that I do not experience.” As you stared at Mervyn who was scowling at you, you felt Morpheus gaze wearing heavily on your body. “If you will excuse me, retrieving the sprite lantern from the receiving arch is not the only task I have do to this day,” You said before giving your lord a respectful nod. “Lord Morpheus,”
You strode out of the library, heading for your next task. Morpheus stared at your back as you strode away, still feeling like there was something off about you. No, there was. He just couldn’t put his finger on it, and it wasn’t that you lacked empathy. It was something else. Something about you was hauntingly familiar, yet entirely foreign.
“Where did she come from?” He asked, settling his gaze back on Lucienne and Mervyn. They shifted uncomfortably. “She might be a resident of the Dreaming, but I have no memory of her. So tell me, exactly where did she come from? You say she has maintained my palace diligently all these years, yet I do not know her.”
“I just realized that I left the sprinkler on in the desert garden so I’m just gunna…” Mervyn rambled while edging his way out of the library, Morpheus made no comment, his eyes locked with Lucienne’s, who was staring back and trying not to be daunted. A nearly impossible task, even for her.
“Only a creature with wings, is capable of retrieving something from the relieving arch,” Morpheus stated, his eyes now hard. He was done asking questions. Yes, done with asking questions, worrying about where you were, wondering if you hated him, needing you… and would now demand answers. He demanded to know where you were, he demanded your presence. The secrets had gone on long enough. Even if you did in fact hate him, he still demanded your presence. “I expect Adrienne in my throne room tomorrow morning at ten o’clock exactly,” Morpheus decreed, then his eyes glowed silver in warning. “Or I shall summon her directly with my sand regardless of her wishes.” With that he strode away, coat billowing just as much as his anger.
Date Published: 7/5/23
Last Edit: 7/5/23
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#dream the endless x reader#morpheus x reader#dream of the endless x reader#sandman x reader#the sandman netflix#morpheus#dream of the endless#dream the endless#lord morpheus#the sandman#dream x reader
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Hold Tight (1/6)
Status: Complete. Unbeta'd, we die like Hob doesn't.
Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse, but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death. Also includes some erotic content. Please curate your internet experience accordingly.
Relationships: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Past Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past), Hector Hall/Lyta Hall (past)
Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Matthew the Raven, Desire of the Endless, Lyta Trevor-Hall, Daniel Hall, Rose Walker, Jed Walker
Summary:
Hob is tasked with his first quest as Vassal of the Endless, Morpheus is bad at using his words, Destiny thinks he's so clever, Desire makes a confession, Rose Walker meets her Uncle's boyfriend, and Lyta Hall punches Dream of the Endless in the nose. Or, the one where Hob Gadling turns into everyone's therapist, and honestly, he ain't mad about it.
Set at the end of Cling Fast - after the premiere of “Elizabethan Manor”, but before the Epilogue.
READ ON AO3 or below:
~~~
It’s not like Hob’s been walking around with a ring in his pocket.
After six-hundred and sixty-seven years of… well, he wouldn’t call it pining, obviously he hasn’t been steadily and consistently lusting or moping after Morpheus for the better part of seven centuries. And he’d been married and very much in love with his late wife, thank you very much.
Maybe better to call it ‘carrying a torch’, or ‘wistfully wondering’ or, or any other euphemism to explain the tender affection and exasperation he felt toward the King of Dreams and Nightmares before he actually got to know the anthropomorphic personification.
The point is, Hob hasn’t spent the greater part of his life wishing he could formalize the tying together of his life and heart with that of said affectionate and exasperating anthropomorphic personification.
At his most bold, Hob had imagined himself as a liegeman, or a romantical knight-errant experiencing the adventures and quests of human life on behalf of his otherworldly Lordling Stranger. He’d worn his Lord’s colours in gallantry without knowing his name, and ached for their once-a-century meetings, and never dared to daydream for more than that. Except for in 1789. But if you had seen Morpheus in those breeches, you’d hardly have been able to keep your lewd little fantasies from springing into existence, either.
But then had come the TV show, and the resultant scouring of Hob’s soul, and the missed messages of flowers, and hideous bouquets, and vaguely kinky monsterfucking sex on the shores of a sea full of dreams and nightmares. And after that had come a year of experiencing the joys of the Dreaming together, exploring the Waking together, and reaffirming their passions in the liminal space between the two that was Hob’s bed, and then a promise of retirement and domesticity, and honestly, you can’t blame Hob!
Being both Unaging and Immortal, and therefore obligated to move on from his established life every forty-or-so-years, Hob Gadling gets to keep so little: only his name, his memories, and his word. So now that he has Morpheus to call his own, he wants to keep him as close as possible, for as long as possible.
Hob Gadling is, and always will be, a clingy bastard.
But it’s not like he’s carrying a ring around in his pocket.
“Uh-huh,” doctor Harriet Butler says from the other side of the table in the university’s canteen. Everything about Harri’s expression–the twinkling gaze, the mirthful curl of her lips, the little shake of her head–makes it very clear that she’s taking the piss.
She’s popped by the school to pick his brain and leave him a copy of her new manuscript for him to review. It’s a narrative nonfiction about court life in the heyday of Elizabethan England, and while Hob didn’t personally know the courtier the tale follows, he knows that his red pen will likely be of some use to Harri. And he’s delighted to do it, besides. He can’t wait to see what their time together on set has wrought in her prose.
“Should I be getting a ring?” Hob asks, derailing himself when he realises that he’s been banging on about this for the whole of their little lunch date. “I mean, he was married before, but that was to a Grecian goddess.”
“The ancient Greeks wore wedding rings,” Harri points out.
Hob lets the noise of the crowded canteen wash over him as he contemplates that… that Morpheus would know what it meant if Hob ever presented him with a ring.
It’s too soon!
Is it too soon?
Hob’s already pretty much demanded that Morpheus move in with him. And to be fair, while he hasn’t been pining for the last seven centuries, now that they are together, he is as sure about Morpheus as he is about not wanting to die.
But does that mean that Morpheus is sure?
The rambunctious shouts of excited students, the clatter of lunch trays and flatware, the muszak playing gently over the tannoy, it’s all just so noisy. He sometimes forgets how quiet the world used to be. Taverns were loud. Festivals were loud. Full churches were loud. But the ever-present music and white noise permeating every moment of existence hadn’t been woven into all the terribly small and mortal parts of his life.
It reminds him, all of a sudden, of how… well, how not grand Dr. Bob Gadlen’s academic little world is. What time isn’t taken up by marking and preparing lectures is devoted to guiding malleable young minds, or to influencing city and historic councils (which takes a lot of research and a lot of passionate speeches at after hours meetings), or to researching and practicing guest lectures, or to spending a weekend with cobwebs in his hair and a hammer in his hand and sweat on his brow as he personally repairs the disintegrating parts of The White Horse, or putting on a stupid suit to go into the City to sort out his real estate investments and charitable donations, or taking a spare shift at the Inn to cover for a sick employee, or… or any manner of small, boring, uninteresting mundanities that make up the life of Doc Bob.
And maybe that’s not something that Dream of the Endless, Morpheus the God of Sleep, the Lord Shaper, the Prince of Stories, the King of Fantasy and Nightmares, the Oneiromancer wants.
“Maybe he doesn’t even want a ring, maybe that’s not something that…” Hob says, slouching back in his chair and feeling very suddenly like a small, silly, over-excited child. “That anthropomorphic personifications of the human unconscious do.”
Harri points at him with her salad fork. “You also said that you didn’t think that he would want down-and-dirty sweaty animal sex and–”
Hob groans and covers his face with his hands. “I can’t believe you got me drunk enough to tell you about that.”
He could drown himself in his soup. That could be a thing. It would get him out of this conversation. Unfortunately, it would not deter the only mortal friend who knew what he was. She’d just wait around for him to wake up, probably with her camera out to catch the pieces of noodle sliding from his cheeks.
“Be honest, Hob, is this angst about Morph maybe not wanting a ring? Or is it about your fear that Morph may not want to be tied down before he’s even really lived as a human? Or are you worrying that once he is human and free of his function, with all the world at his feet, he may not want marriage with you?” Harri asks, painfully astute, as ever.
Painfully.
“Godswounds, I didn’t even think of that,” Hob groans and swirls his soup dejectedly. “I mean, I told him that I’d take care of him, when it was all done and he was… you know…”
“Dead?”
“We’re not using that word,” he says sternly.
Harri shrugs and doesn’t let his grumpiness get to her.
Hob tugs on his ear. “But it never occurred to me that… that he might deserve the chance to live apart from me, you know, get his own flat, cook his own meals, travel, maybe meet someone else, someone–”
“Okay, okay, this is spiraling,” Harri says, and slips around the table to wrap Hob in a crushing hug.
Hob lets his verbal torrent dry up, and presses his forehead into her shoulder. She gives him another good hard squeeze, and then sits back to meet Hob’s eyes.
“Listen, you asked him to move in, and he said yes, so don’t second-guess yourself. He’s made it abundantly clear how much he enjoys being yours,” she adds with an eye roll. “I’ve never ‘accidentally’ caught sight of so many bruises and hickies in so many interesting places as I have in the last six months.”
“He could make them go away, you know,” Hob mimics Morpheus’ dramatic sand-flinging finger wiggle. “Before he wears a low-cut shirt or reaches up for something on a high shelf.”
“And he doesn’t, so what does that tell you?” Harri squeezes his shoulder once and shakes him a little. “Come on, Doc Bob, you’re supposed to be the wise old one here.”
The thing is, Hob is human. And therefore he has that very human urge to find love and cleave to it. And Morpheus is very slowly, very gradually becoming human himself. Night after night, a little more of Morpheus’ power trickles from him into the infant Morpheus has only ever called “the child” or “my heir” as the little boy sleeps.
It’s literally a trickle, and Hob knows this because the day the baby was born, a massive hourglass appeared in the middle stained glass window behind his lover’s throne.
In the left-hand pane, a stylized depiction of Morpheus-as-Dream gazes magnanimously down upon any who enter the hall. The rightmost pane depicts an infant dressed all in white, hair and skin as colourless as his clothes, eyes the colour of shamrocks. And every night, when Hob meets Dream at the seat of his power, the lad in the right-hand pane appears older, brighter, his gaze more otherwordly. And every night, the Morpheus in the left-hand pane appears more human, his eyes less fathomless, his skin less eldritch-white and more pink with health.
And every night, there is more sand in the bottom of the hourglass than there was previously.
Hob still hasn’t met the child, nor Morpheus’ mortal niece and nephew. He hasn’t insisted either, figuring that Morpheus will share his family, and his successor, with his lover when he’s ready. But he’s becoming less and less the master of the Dreaming with each passing hour, and Hob can’t help but wonder if maybe Morpheus doesn’t want him to meet them. That maybe he’s deliberately keeping his Endless life separate from his soon-to-be-human one.
So that when it’s all… all over, then there will be nothing tying him back to his Endlessness.
Maybe that’s what Morpheus wants.
Or… or maybe Morpheus just doesn’t trust Hob with his own Endless family. Maybe he’s keeping them from Hob, the way that Hob hoarded Eleanor, and Robyn, and Wee John (though he hadn’t, not really; if Morpheus had appeared in the welcome hall at Gadlen House at any point of his marriage and demanded to be introduced to Hob’s wife and children, he would have fallen all over himself with pride to do so.)
No, Hob’s being ridiculous. Morph’s just busy. Turning over the entirety of your kingdom and selfhood to an entirely different person, while also training that other person how to be you, while they are already, in essence, completely you, is… well, it sounds like a lot. Morpheus has just been distracted, that’s all.
“It’s too soon for rings, anyway,” Hob hedges, voice rough and brain spinning. Although, Too Soon has a different meaning nowadays. He’d met and married Eleanor within the span of three months, and they’d only waited that long because the banns had to be read on three consecutive Sundays before they could be trothed.
But in the twenty-first century, it seemed like dating for anything less than a year before popping the question was considered inordinately fast. And as much as Hob likes to tease his lover and call their centenary meetings’ ‘dates’, they weren’t. Not really. Not in the way that it means now.
“And there’s so much happening, I don’t want to be a distraction, or a… a burden, or–”
Harriet pinches him.
“Okay, okay,” Hob capitulates. “I’m overthinking it.”
“You are,” Harri agrees, and goes back to both her seat and her salad. “You want to be with him. And he wants to be with you. You will be. You are. So there’s no rush. You both have literally all the time in the world.”
If Hob had to bet which of the Endless would ask a boon of him first, his money would have been on Desire. He knows Desire and Dream have a rivalry, which Hob figured the former would have capitalised on the second they had free reign.
And to be honest, Hob spends a lot of time in their realm since he’s worked out how to translate Morpheus’ overdramatically, swoony Victorian flower messages. Hob is obviously pretty well known to the each of the Endless, and thought Desire in particular would have a favour or just a prank or a snipe they’d want to pull.
Yet, it’s been months, and none of Morpheus’ siblings have formally introduced themselves to him. That he knows of, of course. He wouldn't even begin to guess at what they looked like in human form—though he figures they’d all be as Otherworldly beautiful and easy to pick out of a crowd as Death and Morpheus had been.
No one has approached him for strange little favours, or pulled him aside for awkward conversations, or appeared mysteriously over his shoulder while he’s marking in his office. The only folks who’ve buttonholed him lately are some of his students wanting him to sign autographs or chair their Alphabet Army Club, now that it’s been splashed all over the media just how terribly queer Hob is.
(Hob had been right, and that photo of him smoldering at Morpheus on the red carpet had put Oscar Issacs and Jessica Chastaine’s similar shot to shame. He’d had it professionally printed and framed to hang in his bedroom.)
But like the tinny, annoying buzz of the fridge on days when a headache or stress has made the white-noise impossible to ignore, every once and a while, Hob remembers that he’s pledged to service to six entities he doesn't know, doesn’t trust, and doesn’t have any way to contact. Having been made vassal to each of the Endless, Hob was at their beck and call, sworn to serve them where he could, in exchange for permission and approval to be courted by Morpheus. And yet…
Hob hadn’t actually been party to those negotiations, which at that time had felt insultingly high-handed of Morpheus. His lover had not only made promises of subjugation on his behalf, but did so without Hob even knowing the talks were happening. Acts of Service, especially in the guise of feeding people and wheedling his lover to try new foods, might be Hob’s love language, but being sworn to serve something and someone without his consent had been… he’d been well and truly miffed.
Especially since he hadn’t been present to negotiate limits. Hob was willing to do pretty much anything and everything Morpheus asked of him (or any other iteration of Dream of the Endless who came calling, honestly), Hob was not about to fuck someone for Desire, or kill someone for Death, or slip roofies into someone’s drink for Delierum, or… or whatever else an anthropomorphic personification may ask of a human.
He was absolutely unwilling to harm anyone else.
But Morpheus had reassured him that whatever boon may be requested, it would not be in service of hurt or pain, either to other sentient beings, or to himself. Mollified by that at least, Hob had begun to envision what sorts of heroic quests or deeds he may get to embark on in the name of his de facto in-laws. Perhaps saving some damsels, or participating in a spy sting, or going on an epic adventure to retrieve a lost artefact.
So far though... nothing.
So when his first Endless comes knocking, so to speak, it takes Hob a few minutes to figure out what it is that he’s looking at. He had assumed messages from the other Endless would come on scrolls, or sealed letters written on parchment, or through some sort of animal herald like Matthew.
But no. And it is not via a herald.
It is not Desire.
Destiny contacts Hob through, of all things, text message.
Hob is enjoying the mild evening out back of the Inn, in the section of the property that is Hob's private garden.
Out front and around the side of the building, the gravel parking lot is peppered with more picnic tables, bike racks, and flower-choked planters than spaces for cars, which is Hob's subtle way of encouraging his patrons to not drink and drive. The forsythia that Morpheus' regard had caused to spontaneously grow all along the borders is just starting to show little yellow buds, and it's quite pleasant out there this year.
Pleasant. But busy.
At the back of the building, Hob's garden is ringed in with an old-fashioned bramble hedgerow, planted with blackberries, raspberries, and roses. Matthew had eaten his roly-poly fill the previous autumn, competing with the New Kid, who'd foraged fresh ingredients for cocktails and tarts. The carpet of clover that makes up the yard is thick, resilient and just beginning to spring back to life from its time crushed under the winter snow. In the centre of the little green field sits a circle of flagstones and fine red graven, just large enough for three curved loveseats and a small fire cairn.
It's an excellent place to watch a brisk spring sunset, and right now Hob is torn between wanting to start a fire, and being terribly comfortable cozied up on one of the loveseats under a blanket. Morpheus won't be back from his heir’s afternoon nap for at least another hour, and it's starting to grow too dark to proofread any more of Harri's manuscript.
Hob's just decided that maybe he'll pop inside and pester Patrick for a laugh when his phone pings. He doesn't recognize the name or the number, and when he swipes the message open, he has to read it three times over before he clues in who it might be from.
Vassal - I task you with this quest: heal the rift that lies between Rose and Jed Walker’s friend Lyta Trevor-Hall, and Dream of the Endless. It would behoove us all to strengthen the ties that bind.
The contact appears in Hob’s phone as D#1, which makes Hob snort. Sure enough, when he opens his Contacts, he’s got Ds 1 through 7 listed, though D#4 has no associated phone number. He immediately changes D#3 to Best Beloved. Morpheus has no cell phone, of course, that Hob knows of, so he wonders how the Endless are actually managing texting.
He considers showing the text first to Morpheus, and then to Matthew, and after deliberating both possibilities, decides to undertake this doing for Destiny on the sly. After all, if he’d wanted his brother to know, the Destiny would have looped either one or both of the fussy black birds Hob calls his own into the communication.
This is a task for Hob, and Hob alone.
The call of adventure thrumming in his blood, Hob collects up the manuscript, blanket, red pens, phone, and empty pint glass, and patters inside. He knows Rose Walker and her brother Jed live in New Jersey, are the grandchildren of Desire and the late sugar heiress Unity Kincaid, and they became the sole benefactors of her fortune when she died. Beyond that, he has no idea where they might be, or what they might look like, or even how he would go about getting in contact with them.
And through them, this Lyta Trevor-Hall.
But he is a researcher in profession, and a horrible nosy busy-body in life, and wealthy enough to hire all the private detectives he might need. So he drops his stuff on the sofa, slides his laptop out of his hunter-green leather satchel, and gets to work.
Turns out, though, that Hob needs none of those advanced research skills or wealth. A single Google search turns up Rose's social media profiles, a dozen news articles about Unity and the Sleepy Sickness, a further seven articles in industry magazines about the Kincaid Sugar Trust, an announcement in Publisher’s Weekly about Rose’s forthcoming YA novel, and a single newspaper article about the brutal serial-killer death of a couple named Barnaby and Clarice.
He spends the next hour reading and making notes. He stops only the once to punch a sofa cushion while wishing it was Barnaby's face, then pour himself a careful measure of whiskey. Not too much, though. He wants to do this next bit sober.
Hob writes and deletes about five different versions of an introductory email before deciding to YOLO FOMO YEET whatever-it-is-the-youth-say-today is, and slides into Rose Walker's DMs.
Hi! You don't know me, but my name is Bob Gadlen and I'm a professor at the University of York in London. I'm reaching out because my boyfriend is a buttoned-up, emotionally constipated twat, and though he'd never say it, I think he misses you.
It’s enough information for Rose to Google him, and get a good idea that he’s who he says he is, and is a public enough a figure that he may be trustworthy. Hob then attaches a selfie he took downstairs in the pub of The New Inn. In the photo, Hob is laughing with crinkled cheeks and an open-mouthed smile, leaning back against the banquette. Morpheus is tucked in behind his shoulder, scowling at the camera with glacier-blue eyes, face resting against Hob's neck. Matthew is visible in the corner of the photo, perched on the sill of an open window, beak stuck in Morpheus' glass of wine.
It's just coming on the end of the work day in New Jersey, so Hob assumes that he's not going to get an answer right away. Especially if Rose has her privacy settings jacked all the way up. So he sets down his phone and starts researching flight costs and hotels.
A few seconds later, though, his phone pings.
Yeah, Rose Walker has replied. That sounds like Uncle Dream.
NEXT PART
#scifrey#losyark#hob x dream#dream x hob#hob gadling#hob adherent#the hob adherent series#the sandman#sandman fic#dreamling fanfic#dreamling#dreamling fanfiction#dreamling fic#sandman au#professor hob gadling#monsterfucker hob#dream of the endless#morpheus needs to learn to use his words#lord morpheus#hob x morpheus#morpheus x hob#morpheus#netflix the sandman#rose walker#jed walker#daniel hall#lyta hall#lyta trevor-hall#desire of the endless#destiny of the endless
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Symphony of dreams
Morpheus x Female Reader
Once upon a time, a loving sister gave her brother a gift. That gift would be the most important thing he ever had, but it took a while to get there. Dream had no intention of falling in love, but when he fell, he fell hard.
{Masterlist}
{Previous Chapter} - {Next Chapter}
Warnings: Cuteness overload. A single use of Y/N.
Chapter Six - When the stars aligned
☆☆☆
Loneliness was not something Dream thought much about. He was very much focused on his role as the Dream Lord. There was not much else he took pleasure in.
Death was fond of humanity. All their quirks, wishes, and pleas. Each one was unique and different. They reminded her of her own family. Each with a different role to perform.
When Death looked at Dream, she saw the loneliness buried deep within but knew better than anyone, not to mention it. Yet, she couldn't ignore it. How could she pretend her brother was not suffering in silence.
Death swore to herself she would change this. She would help dissolve his loneliness. At first she attempted to simply spend tike with him, but she soon realised it wasn't enough.
As humanity began to grow, and learn, and love, she saw what he needed.
What could be more romantic than dreaming of love? Human or not, every living being was capable of such an emotion, even if they denied it.
To deny love was to deny yourself the pleasure of experiencing such feelings.
Dream pushed such feelings away.
Not any more.
Death was determined to find someone special. To find him his soulmate. He would know what happiness was in its purest form.
Death gave him a gift.
You.
A woman so warm and pure. You were not judgmental. You did not hold ill feelings without reason. You were not cruel, unkind, or dishonest. You were pure. You were true. You were perfect.
Death visited you with a wish.
"My brother is lonely. He does not know love. I want you to show him."
You had listened to her request.
☆☆☆
Dream had no idea why he had been summoned by his sister. When he came to her, he was not expecting to see her with anyone. His eyes lingered on you for a good few moments before he sat down in front of his sister.
"Brother."
"Sister."
The two looked at each for a moment. The silence was strange, heavy. Death smiled. You relaxed.
"What is it?" Dream asked.
"This is Y/N."
Dream turned his blue eyes back to you. You stated back at him. He was not quite what you were expecting. Long dark hair, sharp eyes, and sharper cheekbones. His skin was pale and smooth looking. His lips turned down in the corners as he looked at you.
"And?"
"I am giving her to you."
"I do not require a slave."
"Not a slave, brother."
"Then what?"
A few moments of silence pass between them. You remain quiet, watching.
"A companion?" He asks.
"A friend," Death smiles.
"I do not need friends."
"No? She is quite something. I think you'll grow fond of her. Quite fond of her."
"What are you implying?"
"Nothing," Death says, looking at him.
"You do not fool me, sister."
"Nor am I trying to."
Dream's eyes glide back over to you. You have not said a word. You have been watching, listening. He looks you up and down, not so subtly. You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
He was so intimidating.
How were you supposed to show him love? This would not be easy.
"My answer is no."
Death sighs and looks at you. "I'm sorry about my brother. He is a moron. He will see sense."
Dream narrows his eyes slightly at you both.
"I understand." That's the only thing you say. You do not speak again. Dream does not want you. He knows Death knows he does not want you.
However, his sister was nothing if not persistent.
☆☆☆
"What are you doing here?" He asks, seeing you standing in his throne room.
"You sister let me come here."
"That was not her decision to make."
"I am sorry."
Dream looks at you. You avoid his eyes. Your hands are entwined in front of you. You look guilty.
"Jessamy will show you the way out."
"Jessamy?"
"My raven."
The raven in question came flying in and landed by your feet. She looked up at you with curiosity. Her master gave her a look, and she understood.
You looked back at Dream.
"Your sister told me you would try to get me to leave. She said to hold my ground. So I shall stay."
Dream narrowed his eyes at you.
"And who are you to defy what I want?"
"No one. I am no one of significance, but your sister is kind, and she asked me to do something. Do it, I shall try." You stand there determined.
"Do what?"
"Show you love."
Dream goes quiet. Your words go round in his head. Show him love? Nonsense. What would Death get out of that?
"Pity."
"Hm?"
"Does she pity me?" He asks softly.
"I do not think so. I think she worries."
"Worries? What for? I do not ask for such pointless things. My realm and I are doing just fine. She need not interfere."
"I do not see it as interfering," you say.
"Then what do you see it as?"
"An experience."
Dream falls quiet again. He regards you cautiously. A few moments of silence pass before he turns around and walks away.
☆☆☆
You stand on the bridge to the palace, looking out at The Dreaming. You have never seen anywhere so beautiful before. All these magical and wonderful things.
Dreams. Adventures. Stories.
It was wonderful. It's just simply wonderful.
"You may leave. You need only keeping following this road."
You do not turn around as he approaches from behind. You keep your eyes on the wonderful things around you. The bright sky, the dragon above you, the fairies flying over the bridge.
"I have no intention of leaving."
Dream looks at you. His face does not give away anything, but if you look hard enough in his eyes, you may catch a slight glimpse of amusement.
"No?"
"I was given to you by your sister as a gift. It would be rude to return a gift."
"People are not usually gifts," he says firmly.
"I'm special."
"How?"
"I shall live forever."
He looks at you curiously. Immortal? You truly were a gift then. One his sister intended for him to have forever. How interesting.
"I see."
You turn to look at him. "Can I explore?"
"The Dreaming?"
"Yes." You smile. "Can I see your realm?"
"Fine, but be careful. Dreams are not the only things that roam my kingdom. There are plenty of nightmares too."
You stare at him. "I am not afraid."
His lips twitch. "No?"
"Will you not guide me around your kingdom?" You ask.
"No."
You appear to deflate slightly. His rejection puts a damper on your mood. For some reason Dream does not like that look on you.
"Do as you wish."
With that, Dream walks away.
☆☆☆
You walk into the throne room and look up at the tall stained glass windows. Just below them sits a throne. You stop at the bottom of the steps to see the king sitting in his throne with a book in his lap.
"How was your walk?"
"What are you reading?" You avoid his question.
"A book."
"Yes, but what book?"
His eyes lift from the pages and focus on you. He closes the book carefully and holds it up in one hand. "Your book."
"My book?"
"Your life. I wanted to know where my sister found you and why she brought you to me."
"I told you."
He says nothing. Dream puts the book down and stands up. Slowly, he descends the stairs. "Do you know what I am? What my sister and I are?"
"You are Endless." You confirm. Death had told you all you needed to know. "There are others too. You are siblings."
Dream says nothing as he comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.
"You are Dream. The lord of dreams and nightmares. When people go to sleep, they come here. You keep their dreams alive."
He remains silent.
"I think that's wonderful."
Dream looks like he wants to say something, but his attention is drawn to something behind you. You turn to fine Lucienne waiting to talk to her king.
You excuse yourself.
His eyes follow you.
☆☆☆
You have been in The Dreamkng for a little while now. Dream has since stopped suggesting you leave and find his sister. He just let's you be. He does not spend much time with you.
Dream works a lot, you have discovered. He puts a lot of his time into his realm and his duties. You do not see much of him. Just fleeting moments here and there.
One day, you find yourself in a gorgeous field. Grass so green it looks impossible. Trees so tall they do not look real. Life thrives in this meadow.
"How did you get here?"
You turn slowly and find the Dream Lord watching you. He looks so out of place here.
"I was walking and then... I was here."
"Impossible."
"Hm?"
"This is Fiddler's Green. Not just anyone can be here." Dream looks at you curiously. His mind is running with thoughts.
"I told you. I'm special."
Your smile stirs something deep inside him. As he looks at you, he feels like he is seeing you for the first time. True beauty in its purest form. He has never felt anything quite like it.
"What are you?" He asks.
"Human, or I was."
"Why did my sister grant you immortality?"
"So you would never be alone."
"Why?" He asks. He almost sounded like he was pleading.
"She wanted me to show you love."
He stares at you. He feels... lost.
"What is love?"
You smile again. Dream can not look away. Your smile is... beautiful. Why was something so small affecting him so much?
"Let me show you."
☆☆☆
Everything you did was unexpected to him. You had reached for his hand and did not let go. There was a smile constantly on your face as you walked with him through his palace.
He had never just walked through his realm before. He normally walked with a purpose, a job to do. You were walking with him simply because you wanted to.
"What are we doing?" He asks, not once taking his eyes off of you.
"Just walking."
"Where to?"
"No set destination. We're just going to walk together."
Your hand was smaller than his. So soft. So gentle. So warm. He glances down at your entwined hands, fascinated by the way they looked together.
"Sometimes you just need to walk and see."
He doesn't say anything as you both keep walking.
"What do you wish for?" You ask him.
"I have no wish."
"Everyone has a wish."
You look at him to see his expression as stoic as ever. Those eyes were hard to read, but somehow, you could understand him.
"Do you want to know my wish?"
"I feel you will tell me either way."
You giggle.
"I wish you were happy."
Now that caught him off guard. Of all things he thought you might say, that wasn't one of them.
"Who says I am not?" He asks you, his voice stern.
"Your sister. I also see that loneliness in your heart. Is it such a bad notion to let someone in?"
He stares at you.
Perhaps not.
"I don't need someone."
You smile.
Yes, you do.
☆☆☆
Dream sits with his back up against the tree. Your head rests in his lap. He's not sure how he came to this, but here he was. You were looking up at him with bright eyes.
"Do you not believe in love?"
He looks down at you. His lips slightly parted. You ask him the most strange questions sometimes.
"Of course I do. It is a fundamental part of human life."
"What of the Endless?"
"We do not need it."
"Is that what you think? I don't agree with you. I think you're scared of falling in love with someone."
"Scared?"
"Yes. It's foreign to you. You're not used to receiving it, nor giving it."
He states at you silently.
"I have so much love to give," you tell him. "Can I give it to you?"
Dream finds himself unable to think. He feels his heart racing in his chest. Why do you keep making him feel like this? What is this spell you have cast on him?
"Why?" He asks.
You smile. "Because I want to."
Dream states at you, breath caught in his throat, thoughts running wild in his head.
What if he let you?
What would happen?
☆☆☆
You smiled as you ran up behind him and hugged him from behind. He was startled by your sudden hug. Your arms wrapped around his torso and settled on his chest. He could feel you hide your face in his back.
Slowly, he reached up and placed his hands over yours.
"You sound happy."
You smile and look up, but remain behind him where he can not see you.
"I am."
"What happened? Why has such happiness befallen you?"
You chuckle.
"Jessamy told me something."
"Did she? What did she tell you?" He asks, curious about what his raven was sharing with you.
"She told me you were jealous when I left to visit Death. She said you were lonely without me."
Dream says nothing. He does nothing.
"Did you miss me?" You ask.
More silence.
"I'm back now. We can spend some time together. Shall we visit Fiddler's Green again?"
His hands remain enclosed around yours. A small smile appears on his lips.
"Yes please."
☆☆☆
Dream was in love.
You were dancing among the flowers singing a happy tune. You were so carefree and happy.
He was falling in love with you. Hard.
You took a deep breath, taking in the fresh air. The sun was shining down on you. This was your dream. It was beautiful, just like you. You looked... phenomenal.
You stop when you catch him looking at you.
You have been living in his realm for quite some time now. You had made this place your home. You belonged here, with him.
He loves you.
His heart yearns for you.
"What is it?" You ask, looking at him.
Dream walks over to you slowly. You stand there watching him. You're trying to read the expression on his face, but it is unlike any you have seen on him before. He reaches out and gently pulls you closer by your waist.
Your cheeks tint pink. You can feel your heart racing.
"Marry me."
Your eyes widen. You stare at him. Did he say what you think he said? You're not quite sure. He's staring at you intensely.
"Huh...?"
"Marry me," he says again, even more firmly.
You stare at him for a moment before you smile and wrap your arms around his neck. He leans into your touch and closes his eyes.
You take the chance to kiss him.
He loves you.
☆☆☆
You look up at your husband with a smile. He smiles back at you. His arm is snug around your waist as she holds you close to him. The light filters through the stained glass windows, casting you in a beautiful glow.
"You're beautiful."
You blush softly.
"You're beautiful," you tell him.
Dream paused. He had never been told that before. He began to smile again.
"I love you," he whispers.
You smile and caress his cheek. "I love you too, Morpheus. Now and always."
Dream leaned into your touch.
The Dream Lord did believe in love. He believed in your love. He would have to make sure to thank his sister when he saw her next.
For now, he was going to show you just how much he loved you.
☆☆☆
@missdreamofendless - @mischievousvillainy - @kpopgirlbtssvt - @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy - @emarich7 - @lollipopsandlandmines - @mouth-whore -
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Being the daughter of Hades & forced to marry Morpheus would include…
Author’s note: Someone requested this and as someone obsessed with Greek mythology and Hades I just HAD TO. But Dark Morpheus ahead 👹
Part II
Daughter of Hades and Persephone you went by many names, Melinoe, Y/N…
Morpheus had certain affairs with your father Hades, so he usually came around often
He was aware that Hades had children but he hadn’t had the pleasure to meet you properly since you were always on duty
Until one day, your father had asked you to deal with the affairs he had with Dream on his behalf.
When Morpheus’ eyes laid upon you it was as if the whole universe stopped.
You were simply breathtaking, perfect, immaculate, all words he could think of were not enough.
Being Goddess of Ghosts, nightmares and lost souls he believed you could understand him better than anyone.
He showed interest in you like no one had and that was flattering but you didn’t think much of it.
His obsession grew with each passing day, he was consumed by thoughts of you.
You were perfect for him, he was so sure of it.
The more he observed you, the more he convinced himself
You had to be his, no matter the means.
So, he stole your dream catcher, the ultimate symbol of your power and powerful enough to summon you.
When you were summoned you were greeted by the sight of your father and Morpheus who was holding your totem.
By universal laws, whoever possessed your totem would own you.
“You will be the perfect queen to the Dreaming, my wife”
Persephone, your mother. Cried helplessly knowing there wasn’t anything she could do to stop this madness
“You’re a monster!”
You couldn’t believe that history was repeating itself
You were such a free soul and now you were nothing but a possession of a man
You were sickened to your stomach thinking how could Morpheus do this to you.
You were miserable on the of your wedding
The ceremony was elegant and the arrangements were beautiful but you didn’t love Morpheus
You hated him for depriving you of your freedom
You refused to let him touch you, even when he tried you would hit him or scratch him.
“I will never love you”
“We have eternity ahead my love, you will eventually realize all I’ve done is out devotion to you”
He would make all sorts of gifts to you, which you returned completely torn apart
You didn’t speak to him in a whole century
Dream found your resistance amusing
Being now married to him you had been sharing responsibilities with Dream over the kingdom.
Which meant you had to speak to each other if you wanted things to be done.
He returned your totem to you as a vote of confidence
“I know someday you will learn to love me”
You started to open up to him
After all, you had become his wife and while you didn’t agree to this marriage, you did recognize you were meant to spent eternity with him.
You might as well try to know him.
Eventually you let him be close to you and to touch you.
He was so eager to possess you fully, but he did understand you needed time
He would give you all the time you needed. You were worth the wait.
When you finally condoned that type of physical interaction he practically went at you like a lion hunting on gracious gazelle
He was starving and you were the only thing that could satisfy his hunger.
You would be lying if you said you didn’t adored every minute of that.
There was something empowering about being craved and owned with such fervor and urgency.
“A husband should comply to every single demand of his wife”
That’s when you understood. This marriage wasn’t about him putting you on a leash, it was about Morpheus fully giving himself to you.
His love for you was blinding, suffocating.
He would commit on the most atrocious acts just for you
Dream was using this marriage as an oath to you, to become your devotee for eternity.
He wanted to worship you, to surrender himself to you, he was a tool for you to use however you consider fitting.
It was good having your needs taken care of
You were the most addicting drug to him
He dropped everything for you, the minute you asked.
As long as you stayed with him, nothing else mattered.
Nothing in the world mattered more to him than his queen.
#the sandman comics#dream of the endless#sandman imagine#sandman netflix#sandman x reader#morpheus dream#sandman x y/n#tom sturridge x reader#dream of the endless x reader#morpheus#morpheus imagines#morpheus x reader#dream headcanons#morpheus headcanons#morpheus sandman
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Morpheus Relationship Headcannons
I have a series coming soon, here's something small to hold y'all over. We need more sandman content on here.
Let's start off by saying that this man loves you totally and completely. Anything you are insecure about he sees as perfect. Because of this, he will never use his powers to alter your appearance. Instead, he will help you to overcome your insecurities.
The only exception to this is if you are trans. If this is the case, he will give you gender affirming alterations. This will not include weight and things like that.
My man lives for simple domestic things. Come up behind him and give him a hug when he's talking with Lucien, brush a stray feather from his cloak, bring him snacks during long, tiring meetings. Sure he doesn’t need to eat, but he is very starved of affection and relishes in acts that show him how much you care.
He loves to spoil you. He’s very bad at words, so he will show how much he loves you by giving you gifts no mortal man could. It’s not like he just absentmindedly pulls hins out of the fabric whenever he wants, he really takes his time with each gift. He’ll spend hours shaping each and every one to perfection. You deserve nothing less than the best.
Going off of that, his proposal? Oh my gods. He spends months crafting the ring. He would finish one design, then spot one slight imperfection and scrap the whole thing. It needed to be as perfect as you, but he eventually learned that wasn’t possible, and settled for the best he could get. (Let me know if you guys want an entire set of headcannons on your and Morpheus’s engagement/wedding. I have severe brain rot).
Please for the love of the gods call him by his name. Not my lord or Dream, but Morpheus. Pet names are okay (Darling, Love, or anything that has to do with an inside joke are his favorites) but nothing tops the sound of your voice saying his name.
If you choose to live in the dreaming with him, you will share his quarters. He’ll let you do anything to alter them to make them more comfortable for you. He loves to walk into the once bare rooms to find a new plant added to the collection by the windows, or a stack of books next to the overflowing shelves.
On that thought, he loves seeing the remnants of you throughout the dreaming. A notateted bookmark in the pages of a book he hasn't opened in months, a jacket forgotten on a chair in the library. Or, if you're an artist like me, smudges of dried paint on desks or a crumpled up sketch in the dining hall.
If you choose to spend the day in the mortal world, then he will provide you with the house of your dreams. Again, he loves to spoil you.
After Lucien and Deaths encouragement, he finally learns to give you less extravagant gifts as well. Maybe every once in a while you’ll even find simple handwritten notes. Often, they are book recommendations or something small like that. His handwriting is either very elegant or very messy. No inbetween.
Very old fashioned lover. Holds the door for you, leaves you flowers at your doorstep, covers the corners of sharp tables with his hands when you lean down.
I’ve talked about gift giving, but I think his main love language would be quality time. He’s a very busy man, and doesn’t have the time to spend on a lot of one on one with you. Please please please sit with this man while he works and do your own thing. Lay across his lap as he studies in the library, come with him as he visits various dreams across his domain. Spend as much time with him as you can, even if he can’t give you his full attention. I promise it will pay off.
If you have a period, you will be completely cared for. You’ll be relieved of all your duties (if you have any in the dreaming) and get to relax in Morpheus's unfairly comfortable bed. You’ll have heating pads, painkillers, and food galore. Anything you could possibly want he provides. He will spend every moment he can with you (as if he doesn’t already).
If you get along with Death, that’s automatic bonus points for you. Same with Hob, but more so with the former. Death absolutely loves you, and tries to knock some sense into Morpheus whenever he’s being petty or oblivious. She is also the one who convinced him to ask you out in the first place, if you weren’t the one to initiate it.
Speaking of his siblings, the only other one he would want you to meet is Delirium. If you treat her like an endless and give her the proper respect, that is another huge green flag in his eyes. She will really love you if you’re willing to hold friendly conversations with her.
He’s very bad at communicating. You need to force him to sit down and have a civil conversation when there’s a problem, and he often ignores or blows you off. Just keep pushing it, and he will eventually get it through his thick skull. Often, you will recruit Death to help you.
Despite being one of the most powerful creatures to ever exist, he is incredibly insecure. Please give him reassurance whenever you can. Tell him that you love him and that he’s everything you could ever want and more.
Overall, he’s a dense but incredibly caring lover
Let me know if you guys want more :)))
#the sandman#sandman#lord morpheus#dream x reader#morpheus x reader#death#delirium#lucien#dream of the endless#death of the endless#neil gaiman#im in love with this man#queer#trans
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Hello, could I request a Morpheus x reader, where reader is an immortal like Hob and has been friends with Dream( and has helped him through some trouble from time to time) but through the years reader developed feelings for dream (but he doesn't know that) but can't confess (thinking they are not good enough for him) and just watch helplessly as Dream falls in love for every other being, until one day this recent lover of his was only using him to gain power, reader found out about it and confronted them (and was about to have a smackdown), until dream intervined and fought with reader. Reader tried to warn him but he didn't listen and banished reader from the dreaming, before reader leaves the dreaming for good she finally confessed to dream and was out of sight.
Soon after, Dream realized that reader was right and tried to find them and found them living with Hob (as best friends), confronted reader, they talked (realization of feelings ensues)and they got together.
Angst and fluff please, I recently read your Morpheus fic I love the subtlety and gentle showing of affection, I'm sorry also that this message is so long. Have a great day/night ✨
A/N: misread it and wrote an ending where the Corinthian tries to shoot his shot but I fixed it and all is well in the end!! The thought is still there tho
"Snooping" - Morpheus x Immortal!Reader
WORDCOUNT: ~ 3.1k
Sandman-inspired playlist
London, autumn of 1763
Attending a ball at your love's fiancee's home sounds like a black comedy theatre play until it becomes reality - a reality you had, unfortunately, found yourself in. To make the matter slightly worse, Morpheus was indirectly the reason for throwing the party in the first place: one of his nightmares escaped and the current plan was to lure them into a closed space and then catch or whatever it was Morpheus had in store for them. Truthfully, you felt better not knowing exactly what he was going to do with the escapee. Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.
In a funny way, Morpheus treated you like a god - came to you only when he needed something but you never minded that. He was great company, always making your endless life a little more exciting as days turned into bland centuries. As a word of explanation, it should be said that through "exciting" you should understand "with consequences possibly detrimental to all of humanity". And that one fateful ball wasn't anything else:
It was fairly recently that Morpheus had learned about one of his nightmares going rogue and leaving Dreaming on their own accord. His biggest concern seemed to be the fact that no one could tell him even approximately how long the nightmare had been gone. That, in turn, suggested the existence of a whole different can of worms - it was possible to leave Dreaming without his knowledge. No one's knowledge, for that matter. There was no way Morpheus could even guess the extent of the damage his own creation had caused in the Waking World, which was partially why he was all the more unnerved that night. His patience wasn't limited, it was completely gone. As much as you disliked his tense attitude, you had to admit that his sense of responsibility was to be applauded. He had to be a good king...
"Are you sure about this?" you asked him as you inconspicuously looked around the hall. The problem with nightmares, dreams and Morpheus himself was that all of them generally looked like humans. It was impossible to just vaguely look around and point at the right person. Additionally, the more time the wanted nightmare had spent in the Waking World, the more seamlessly assimilated he'd become, making it virtually impossible to tell them apart from the regular crowd unless they had a characteristic trait in their appearance that could hardly be hidden.
"Do you not trust me?"
"You're a few centuries and near-death experiences too late to be asking this. I'm just not very fond of a rogue nightmare going berserk at a banquet for so many important people or us getting into a brawl with the wrong person. This can end in an international disaster."
"Which is why we have to be thorough and quick."
Morpheus had gotten you into many more dangerous larks throughout the years but weirdly enough, it wasn't something one could simply get used to - each adventure was filled with so much supernatural it could hardly be considered anything else than a fever dream. No matter how much you've talked to him, his domain remained a great mystery to you and so did all things connected with it. Perhaps, that was part of his charm.
"Lady Ruth and I will look on this floor. You have to go upstairs."
"You want me to do some snooping?" you said with a small grin on your face. His expression remained unmoved - your continuous effort at making him use slang wasn't amusing. "Sleuthing?"
"Infiltrate."
"One day I'll get you to say 'snooping'."
"I will not."
"We have a lot of time." Morpheus sighed at your words and was about to leave your side to join Ruth who was chatting with some of her guests but you grabbed the sleeve of his jacket to stop him for a moment. His face looked strict when he looked at you but he was far from reprimanding you. "Just be safe, alright?"
"You need not worry about me."
You let go of his jacket and Morpheus marched away to play the greatly inconspicuous role of a loving fiance. His arm shamelessly wrapped around her waist and had she not been the lady of the house, guests surely would have pointed out the social faux pas. Ruth, however, remained no less affectionate and leaned her head against him. It's vital to notice that Morpheus was not an affectionate man in any way and so such a show of intimacy felt even more serious. He stood there, among the Kingdom's elite and looked like he was in the right place: similar clothes, proud poise and seriousness characteristic of people who had a little too much to lose. The fact that he fit right in was a low blow to you, mainly because you knew you didn't. Morpheus and you belonged to completely different worlds and there was no point in disputing that. As simple and crude as it may sound, he was just the wrong person at the right time for you. Perhaps, that's all it takes for a disaster.
"Put on your adult shoes and get over with it," you whispered to yourself. The sooner you find the rogue nightmare, the sooner you can leave this place and dwell on your heartache in comfortable and befittingly pathetic loneliness.
Pushing pasts lords, counts and viscounts you made your way up the stairs. Thankfully, the string orchestra was loud enough to deafen the creaking of the wooden contraption. It was one of those rare occasions where not fitting in was a blessing in disguise - no one was paying attention to you. Should anyone ask about you, most of the guests would simply shake their heads in confusion. Being invisible was something you had grown quite used to.
Most of the rooms on the first floor were locked but it could hardly be surprising - Ruth didn't want guests wandering around her house. Despite the mild disappointment at your detective work being cut short, you were thankful that you didn't have to waste your time and possibly let the nightmare escape. Trying each pair of doors, you had finally found one that opened but what you saw inside was nowhere near your expectations.
"What in God's name is this madness?" you said to yourself as you looked around the room.
Quite obviously, there was no nightmare in sight but another horror had welcomed you. There was a giant map of the world with certain locations marked in red paint. Next to those circles were pinned articles and charcoal drawings of people you didn't recognize. In front of the map was a table littered with random items and an open leatherbound notebook.
Skimming through the book, you found yourself strapped for words. It was something like a diary but with notes on Morpheus, his habits, people he knows and every instance the author watched him use his powers. Granted, their analysis was quite thorough and proved the maniac an intelligent person.
"Wait a goddamn minute," you whispered to yourself. Reading again through the witness 'miracles' Morpheus had committed made you feel like they had something in common. Some of them you had seen yourself and if your memory wasn't failing you, there was a third person present during those events. "Ruth..."
Hurriedly, you went through the rest of the notebook, still in disbelief at your discovery. It felt almost too out of character for the Ruth you knew to do something like this. Maybe that's why her scheme had gone undetected for so long... To your own horror and utter disgust, she had even prepared notes on you:
"Sceptical. Convince Morpheus first?"
"Difficult to intimidate. Try coddling up to them."
"Follows him around when they're together. Friends or unrequited love?"
"Oh my, you shouldn't be here, dear." Ruth's voice made you turn around in panic. It was like a scene from a thrilling book where the hero finally stands face-to-face with the villain. Unfortunately for you, good authors rarely make such confrontations beneficial for the protagonist. "I must have forgotten to lock this room beforehand. Come on, the mare is surely not hiding in here."
"Have you ever wondered what's going to happen when he finds out?" you asked. You could feel your whole body becoming instantly warm as blood boiled in your veins. For the first time since you've met her, Ruth's stereotypical lady-like attitude irritated you beyond comprehension: you knew it was just a sleazy facade. "Because he's not stupid, although plays that role very well, I admit. If you want this masquerade to fly, I'd suggest you already start working on a sobby explanation."
"Whatever do you mean, my dear?" she continued playing her role.
"Oh, drop this facade, Ruth. You and I both know your relationship with Morpheus is only transactional even if he doesn't know about that."
"You know nothing about it either." It was strange to hear her speak naturally and not in a pretend damsel in distress voice. "It's not like you have proof, do you? Those notes?" She vaguely pointed at the desk behind you. "Well, perhaps his fiancee has missed him dearly and wanted to know if she can contact him more often."
"Do you honestly think he's going to believe that?"
"Think about this yourself. Would the great Morpheus, king of Dreaming believe his soon-to-be-wife or a less-than-presentable circumstantial acquaintance who has been pining for him for centuries? What, did you think you're hiding your affections well? A blind fool could tell you love him and luckily for me, he's worse than that. Perhaps it's better for you that you've never told him. You've spared yourself utter humiliation."
You didn't quite know what Devil had possessed you but you suddenly found yourself smashing Ruth against the wall. Your fingers were digging into the expensive material of her dress, making the material stretch out and crumple. Instead of a grimace or a wince, a grin appeared on her face. You were playing right into her game.
"Did I strike a nerve? Good. Tell me, what do you bring to the table? Centuries of moping?"
"I don't give a damn why or for what you're trying to use him, you tasteless wench" you were gritting through your teeth with a mere inch separating your faces, "but be sure I will make him see you for what you really are. You worthless, lit-"
"Hold your tongue. I have seen enough."
You whipped your head around only to see Morpheus's brooding physique. His normally expressionless face was now reeking of contempt with the way his cheeks were raised.
"Oh, love! Thank the Lord you've come!" Ruth exclaimed as she got out from your clutches and run towards Morpheus. In an irritatingly protective manner, he quickly pushed her behind himself. "They threw themself on me, accusing me of all sorts of wickedness. Jealousy has made them into a monster! Yes, jealousy, my love. They've told me of their affections themself!"
"You... I have considered you a friend but you're just a treacherous beast."
"You can't be serious about this, Morpheus! Just look around!" You made a vague circular move with your arms. "It's a whole dossier on you and your power. Not something a loving wife-to-be does in her downtime, is it?" You stepped closer to him but Morpheus only further pushed Ruth behind him. "Come on, you know me like no one else. I've never lied to you, never had a reason to."
"I will hear no more of your poisonous words. You have meddled enough in my affairs. If you wish ill will on my future wife, there is no place for you by my side. I shall not see you in Dreaming either."
As much as it hurt, it was the last chance to save an ounce of your dignity and walk away without further driving a wedge between you two. In some way, you had expected that moment to come one day, when Dream has to choose between his royal duties and you. It simply would have been nicer if you had any sort of indication that this fateful day is approaching.
"My heart breaks for you Morpheus, for how blind love has made you. How you'd rather set the world aflame before a blemish fell on the one you love. I understand it. Even your harsh words that I do not deserve can not make me hate you, I can't even bear the thought of holding a grudge against you, Morpheus. Because I understand. Because I'd rather set the world aflame."
"Leave," he gritted through his teeth.
It was the last thing Morpheus has ever said to you - or so you thought.
London, winter of 2023
Hob was kind enough to let you live with him, the two of you bonding over the rollercoaster your lives had become after meeting the King of Dreams. With time, you had grown quite attached to him and ever since leaving Morpheus behind, Hob and you had spent decades pretending to be closely-knit siblings. Somehow, people never quite questioned your lack of similarities.
The inn wasn't in a busy area, so you had become used to rather moderate traffic on a daily basis. Outside of lunchtime, not many people visited the bar but it was just enough to keep the business afloat without raising any suspicions. It was the end of the day, which meant making a list of products you needed to order. Hob had a habit of sitting at a table in the corner, beside the bar counter, while preparing the said list - close enough to you to hear you counting all the ingredients he should order.
You were cleaning the counter as well as checking the shelves and cupboards for any alcohol you were close to running out of. "We're low on spiced Captain Morgan, Hob, so mark that... "your voice hung as you automatically looked towards the entrance upon hearing the bell ring," down," you finished quietly. "What are you doing here, Morpheus?"
He looked different than the day you had met him. Although he was an ageless entity, cursed to live until the end of the universe, Morpheus appeared older but more so mentally than physically. His skin was more grey than simply pale and his eyes appeared more stern and lifeless than ever before. He was wearing a long, heavy black coat - something strikingly different from the embarrassing rococo fashion of the 18th century.
"I have come to make amends," he stated.
You didn't answer right away. For a moment, you simply stared at him, perhaps partially in disbelief that this reunion was actually happening and out of his will. Despite his change in appearance, a certain tactless pragmatism still stuck to him. "You're not even going to ask?"
"Excuse me?"
"Two hundred and sixty years we haven't talked and you show up expecting me to listen and forgive you but you refuse to even ask how I've been?"
"How have you been?" Surprisingly, he didn't show defiance. The past two hundred years really must have changed him.
A scoff of disbelief left your mouth. "Awful, miserable, not good at all but Hob is a lovely person to be around. If you think that saying 'I'm sorry' is going to fix anything, you're so wrong I lack the words to express it."
"Are you angry with me?" He sounded... surprised. Maybe he really did believe that with humans 'time heals wounds'. What an awful saying that was! Time, at best, makes one forget the pain or even the existence of the wound. The scar, however, never forgets the wound it once was and it refuses to disappear simply because its owner hadn't scratched it open in a while.
"I was once. Over two hundred years ago. Now I'm just hurt and disappointed. I thought we trusted each other. Have you ever counted how many times I nearly died while helping you out?"
Morpheus stared at you in silence and you could already tell he did know. He kept count.
"I do not expect you to forgive me, although I do wish for that."
"Believe me, Morpheus, I want that too. But I have suffered enough, don't you think?"
"I was wrong."
"About?"
"About Ruth. You were right and I refused to listen. I was too blind to see through her lies and schemes. I never should have doubted your loyalty and honesty."
"And what does that enlightenment have to do with me?" For someone who explicitly came to apologize, he was very good at avoiding commitment to that resolution.
"I'm... sorry," he spat out. As a king, he wasn't quite used to making apologies but if he so desired to commune with humanity it was high time he learns to.
"I told you that this isn't going to fix anything."
Morpheus sighed heavily as if he knew what he had to do but refused to commit to it all the same. "Snooping," he murmured under his nose.
Your lips curved into a grin. "You really are desperate to be saying that." Truthfully, it was difficult for you to hold back laughter. After so much heartache and lack of closure, that was the one thing Morpheus thought would get you to forgive him. But, maybe, if he was willing to do that one thing he refused to do for many centuries he was honest and truly desired your forgiveness.
For the first time in so long, he looked you in the eye. His normally intense stare was now slightly vacant as if he was still pondering something, weighing out the chances of success of whatever it was he had on mind.
"It was either that or setting the world aflame," he finally said. "Have me back, please."
Did you... hear that right? A complete emptiness took over your mind. You remembered your confession very well as if you had spoken it no earlier than yesterday. Truthfully, you never really thought he would pay it any attention. After all, if he was happily married like you had assumed until today, why would he? Turns out, he must have thought about so many times that not a word of it slipped his mind.
As if taking advantage of your sudden moment of confusion, Morpheus reached out to grab your hand. Once he cradled your palm with his, he placed a chaste kiss on it. His confession was about as honest as an eldritch king can get.
Hob only craned his neck further to get a better look at the two of you. A smile of relief appeared on his face - he had been waiting for that moment ever since he saw Morpheus and you together.
#the sandman fanfic#the sandman imagine#the sandman netflix#the sandman fanfiction#the sandman#the sandman x reader#the sandman x you#dream of the endless imagine#dream of the endless fanfiction#dream of the endless x you#dream of the endless x reader#dream of the endless#morpheus imagine#morpheus sandman#morpheus x you#morpheus x reader#morpheus
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Younger Gods: IV
Younger Gods Master List
Dream x fem!reader
Chapter 3
Morpheus and Taliesin put their plan into action, and a storm god learns to dream.
Warnings: language, choking
A/N: First of all, this is BARELY edited, so I may come back and fix it later, but I wanted to get something posted tonight for personal reasons (that I'll discuss in a separate post). Secondly, you all continue to blow me away! I'm so happy to share this story with you, and I hope you enjoy as we slip into the next phase of the journey.
I definitely see/hear Taliesin as Michael Sheen, just in case you need a face.
The one-shot/new fic contest is complete, and the first will appear in the next few days. Super excited, so stay tuned for more details (and stories).
Chapter 4: This is an Intervention, Darling
She breathed in the endless dark, asleep but not dreaming.
Though it was kinder than the last visions she endured, it wasn’t pleasant. The hollow dark held her as she waited to wake, and the collar waited with her. Even in a space lacking all form, and barely aware as she was, the curse still whispered into place, chafing over old scars and biting into flesh gone soft. Once upon a time, she had callouses to protect the edge of her jaw, her chin, the tender places where neck and shoulder joined. But her dreaming self had no defenses, and she suffered fresh pains every time she surrendered consciousness.
She didn’t need the Nightmare King’s persecution to suffer.
Caught in the sticky dark of her subconscious, she had no idea of time. Maybe she rested a few minutes. Maybe days. The collar flexed, but it let her breathe when she kept still, and she had nothing to reach for.
It dawned on her – this might be the Nightmare King’s punishment. He’d promised kinder dreams, but she knew the shades of grey in every bargain, and this limbo fulfilled his words. With his sand locking her away from the waking world, he could leave her body to rot. She could die and stay trapped in his purgatory, wearing her collar forever.
She didn’t understand why, but her fear rushed to assure her the idea had weight. He didn’t need a good reason to punish her. Kings never needed a good reason, barely even an excuse.
The collar reacted, cinching tight until her breaths wheezed desperately through the empty nothing. Would it last forever? Would she fade alone? Could she suffer enough to satisfy them all – the dead fae king, the collar, the Endless?
If she’d learned anything, it was that she could always hurt just a little more.
“Oh, my little darling.”
The voice pressed through the shadowed fog like a touch, more sensation than sound. She felt the words and the warm voice behind them.
“How is she this far gone? Even if… she should still be eating, but she’s so thin.”
Her body gathered weight, remembered gravity, and a palm lined with musician’s callouses held her cheek. Smoke from a fire and rain on the window pulled her back to her senses, and she slowly blinked awake to find Taliesin’s bright, worried eyes anticipating her focus.
“There we are.” His thumb swept back and forth across her cheek, smoothing away the tears she’d shed in her sleep. A glittering rim of his own tears hung along his lashes, threatening to spill over, and she tried to reach out and comfort him.
But her arm was too heavy. She couldn’t move under the weight of familiar blankets piled over her.
She couldn’t even move her head, which felt impossibly dense, but she looked past her friend – to the fire she smelled and the rain she heard. She knew them. It was her cottage, the quiet home she’d abandoned after Dream’s shadow threatened to swallow her on the shores of the Dreaming.
“Home?”
“Yes.” Taliesin smiled. His voice trembled as he continued petting her, touching her like he could make everything better for everyone if he just kept holding her hand, stroking her cheek. “I used the key you gave me. You’re all safe and cwtched up on the couch. Everything’s going to be alright.”
But she’d been in the waking world. Hiding. And the Nightmare King had -
A sharp breath, she jerked the final inches to full consciousness, and jolted up. Fear made a potent stimulant.
And there he was, near the door, taller than the entrance, looking down on her with passive disdain that could flare into rage without warning.
Taliesin pushed her back down into the couch, pinning her into the cushions by the shoulders. Her hands flattened over his, trying to translate the threat with nothing but winded gasps and wide eyes. He shushed her, twisting his hands to hold hers once she stopped struggling. All the while, he kept murmuring assurances.
“He isn’t going to hurt you. No one’s going to hurt you. It’s safe. I’m here, and I won’t let anything happen. Can you hear me? Can you trust me?”
“I trust you,” she gasped. She didn’t necessarily believe him, but she trusted him.
“Good, good.” Stroking the sweaty hair off her face, he looked towards the Nightmare King. The back of the couch blocked him from view, but at Taliesin’s signal, he deigned to approach the fire.
As he stepped into the flickering light, his eyes fixed on her again, and Taliesin felt her quaking in his grip.
“He’s going to help.” Taliesin pet her hair faster, burning off nervous energy. “We’re going to get the collar off of you.”
It would be the perfect moment for the King of Dreams to contradict the bard, raise his hand, and end them both. To invite nightmares into her home or fill their lungs with his sand. But he did none of those things. When he understood she was watching for his reaction, he offered the faintest nod, something so shallow it could’ve been mistaken as a trick of the light by anyone watching less closely.
“Why?”
She couldn’t trust him until she understood his motives. Mortal, fae, or Endless, the desires of the powerful mattered most, and he wanted something to do with her, something that required keeping her alive.
She couldn’t understand what he wanted when he advanced on her in the apartment, why he forced her to relive the worst of her past. This sounded like an answer. Something she may even believe. He’d thanked her for returning Matthew, and she knew he didn’t like the collar. He’d said as much. Maybe she could finally breathe easy – while she was awake, at least – if he offered a path forward, a plan, some future with intent and goals clearly communicated and understood.
Taliesin knew the question wasn’t directed to him, and he kept his own counsel as the Nightmare King considered. But he listened very, very carefully.
Heavy drops struck the window, and the ceiling rumbled with the storm’s percussion. But the thunder remained distant, an echo of fears Taliesin soothed with hands and words and warm blankets. Dream of the Endless tilted his head, ever so slightly, listening to both woman and weather.
“The bard speaks truly.” His voice felt like the dark clouds heralding a storm. Ominous and heavy with promise, but soft. “I mean you no harm, and we have entered an agreement to end the curse’s hold over you in order to protect the Dreaming.”
Yes, she could understand. He didn’t hunt her anymore; he hunted the magic that had so insulted him. Her hand rose to her neck, happy to find a scarf, but well aware of the horrors beneath.
“Taliesin?”
“Yes.” He squeezed her hand with a watery smile. “I volunteered, and I’m staying to take care of you until this is over.” Fingers traced the back of her wrist, over the scarf. “Until you’re free.”
“Taliesin.”
“Yes?”
She felt so much, and she had nothing left to cope with the relief, which weighed even heavier than the fear. Her voice came soft and small, like the child he would always see in her. “I’m very tired.”
He laughed, and she could hear all the tears and snot he’d swallowed in his voice. “I know you are. Go to sleep. I’ll be right here.”
It felt like her mind was slowly turning into lead. Heavy and malleable, it dragged her down into a place where only dreams and a persistent curse could find her.
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Taliesin watched her slip under, felt her hand go slack, and released a wavering sigh. How close did he come to losing her this time? Failing her? He couldn’t stomach the thought. Literally, his stomach turned and he swallowed down bile as he looked at his poor, starving rain cloud.
He sorted through his guilt with cautious hands, pulling up the blankets around her shoulders, ensuring the scarf wouldn’t strangle her if she turned – petting, and tutting, and generally making a fool of himself in front of the Dream Lord.
Well, let him look. This was his fault, too.
Matthew the raven spoke to him while his master followed Taliesin’s spell to the storm god’s hideaway. If Taliesin was a fool, he wasn’t the only one, and he at least had the good sense to acknowledge his mistakes. No wonder she’d fled. No wonder she’d snarled and clawed against sleep like her dreams were coming to kill her.
“Let her rest this time,” he said, eyes still on his friend.
“She is… weakened.”
It could almost be an admission of guilt, but only in the right context, only when held up to a waning moon in the first quarter on the seventh of June and tilted just so.
“She’s strong,” he corrected, finally looking over at the gaunt lord in the shadows. “Something is very wrong. The potion couldn’t have caused so much damage so quickly.”
Lord Morpheus straightened, and Taliesin was grateful he took the concern seriously. They’d need to trust each other to achieve their aims.
“You believe the collar is responsible.”
Even with the scarf, Taliesin could see the filigree edge of old scars above the fabric. Compared to the worst marks on her neck, they were nothing. He only noticed them because he knew where to look, what to look for, but his rain cloud couldn’t hide them all, no matter how hard she tried.
“I think it’s feeding on her.” He closed his eyes, giving his hope free reign to wrestle down his obvious faults. Punishing himself wouldn’t help his rain cloud, and she needed him. “I think it has been for a very long time.” He dropped his head. “And I didn’t even notice.”
What could she be, he wondered, without that curse? How far could she fly when a dead man’s will wasn’t choking the life from her?
The Dream Lord stepped closer, peering into the sleeping face of his raven’s savior. Taliesin couldn’t read the thoughts behind those star-bright eyes, but he practically heard them ticking over.
“If it can feast on the life of a demi-god,” he murmured, “it is indeed a threat to the Dreaming.”
“Glad to hear you’re invested in its destruction, then. So long as you’re equally invested in her preservation.”
“As I have said – ”
“You’ve made no promises and said precious little.” Taliesin stayed on his knees, embracing the position of a humble supplicant without surrendering to the king’s mercy entirely. Their tentative arrangement would only hold as long as they stayed honest. Forthright. No easy thing for a king. “You’re a monarch. I have served many, though few as seasoned as you. It is your right and your role to protect your domain, but I would remind you, Dream of the Endless, that whatever else my little storm cloud may be, she is a dreamer, and as such, she is under your protection.”
Lord Morpheus’s face shuttered, but not before a frown plucked his lips just a little lower and his brows pinched close.
Taliesin had given him something to ponder.
Finished with the king for the moment, the bard returned to his watch over the sleeping storm god, listening to the rhythm of rain on the window to ensure her dreams were easy. He had nowhere better to be, and nothing he’d rather do than keep her snug and comfortable in her world apart.
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As the storm god slept, Dream wandered the library. His eyes raked the endless shelves, looking for nothing in particular, hoping for every answer to his half-formed questions. It was not a task with which Lucienne could assist, though he hoped she could aid the bard in his quest for understanding.
Taliesin would come to the Dreaming when the girl woke, after he’d gathered information to guide their research from her next dream. The man took his vigil seriously and wouldn’t leave her side while she rested, defenseless, even in her own little realm. The bard’s words had given him pause, and though Morpheus hadn’t intended to harm the man’s rain cloud, he did make a point. And he had more interest in her future than the bard knew.
Had they cleared the crossroads?
He doubted it. Perhaps he’d pulled her back to a shared path, but he did not know where it led, and she did not stand at the crossroads alone. Some great doom still lurked ahead, and it would benefit them all if the demi-god walking the road beside him didn’t flinch at his shadow.
Matthew flapped down the aisle, falling naturally into step with his master.
“How’s the storm god?” he asked. “You find her?”
“Found and retrieved.” His eye didn’t leave the books, though his mind continued wandering. “She is in her realm with the bard. Asleep. At last.”
Matthew croaked approvingly, hopping by Morpheus’s boots. “You talk? She get it? She not scared of you now?”
If only it were so easy. She was a broken thing. The bard’s panic told him more than the starved body in his arms or the snarling storm she’d called to frighten him away. He knew the way of damaged creatures, but in the Dreaming, he could fix them – imperfect nightmares, shattered dreams. He could chase away night terrors from overwrought sleepers and ease their rest.
He’d broken things as well. He’d become the night terror and twisted the petty minds of mortals until they warped and bent to new and terrible shapes. But in this case, he had not meant the hurt he inflicted, and he must fix it to fulfil his function.
“We spoke, but we will have to see if she has conquered her fear when she next dreams.”
Clinging to a shelf a few feet ahead, the bird angled his head, like he needed a thought to tumble into a better position before he could voice it.
“Do you… want… ideas?”
“For what, Matthew?”
The bird sighed, fluttering to his next perch as Dream strolled past him, determined in his pointless search.
“For, I don’t know, starting off on the right foot? Scaring her just a little less this time?”
“Her fear is her own challenge to overcome.”
“Sure. But what about something new? The bard said she doesn’t sleep much. Always has nightmares. I get you need to study the collar, but if you throw her off with some kind of distraction first, she may let you get close enough to – you know – do that.”
Morpheus raised an eyebrow, pausing to give the bird the attention he clearly craved. “A distraction?”
“Dreams get weird sometimes. If she’s trying to understand what she’s experiencing, she’ll have a lot less bandwidth for panic.”
“It is an idea,” he said. “Perhaps.” Continuing through the library, he wondered what could distract the desperate little storm god from her fear of him.
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“Good morning.”
She woke again to Taliesin’s face, beaming without tears this time. He’d pulled up a chair beside the couch so he could keep hold of her hand without losing all feeling in his legs. An open book balanced on his knee, and a cup of tea sat on the end table at his elbow.
“Is it really morning?” The words felt gummy, and she licked her lips, cringing at the stale taste of a long sleep.
“It’s your world, so it’s any time you want it to be.”
The blankets held her down comfortably, and the couch felt better than she remembered. The beds in the hostels and bedsits must’ve been worse than she realized. Not that she used them often.
“How long was I asleep?”
Taliesin pursed his lips, glancing away to the naked beams along the ceiling, like he’d find a calendar there. “Three days, give or take.”
“Wow. Fuck.” She let go of his hand, bending up in an enormous stretch – fingers and toes splayed, every joint popping.
Taliesin patted her knee through the covers in time with his words. “You did very well, and I’m very proud of you.”
Frankly, she didn’t know what to do with his praise. Never had. She spent too long learning when one hand offered a gift, the other delivered a slap. Taliesin would never hurt her. She knew that. She held both truths in her heart, and they fought each other.
She kicked off the blankets to sit up and change the topic. But she moved too quickly, and her head spun.
“Steady.” Taliesin balanced her by the shoulders, waiting for her hand on his wrist – a gentle signal to let go. “You’ve slept, but now you need food.”
She wanted to argue purely for the sake of her dignity. He was in her home, and technically her guest, but he was bustling about, moving furniture, and fetching soup he’d made in a pot over the fire like their roles were reversed. But if sitting up made her dizzy, she didn’t want to guess how jumping to her feet would feel. He meant well. He was trustworthy. She’d settle for petulant glares.
When he returned with a bowl of broth and lifted the spoon for her, though, she drew the line.
“If you try to spoon-feed me, I will bite you.”
Taliesin grinned, returning the spoon to the bowl as ordered. “There’s my rain cloud.”
With a pillow in her lap to support the bowl, she managed to feed herself perfectly well. Taliesin hovered, ready to intervene if the bowl shifted to an angle he didn’t like, but she didn’t spill it, and she returned the empty crockery with entirely too much pride.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For?” The high, drawn-out word demanded more.
“The soup.”
“And?” He used the same tone. Now that she was fed and rested, he’d be taking his pound of flesh from her hide.
She ducked her head, muttering at her knees as she traces vague shapes in the pillow over her lap.
“Oh, you can do better than that.” He took a seat beside her on the couch, warm and solid but demanding, too.
“I should’ve… let you know…”
“That you were on the run from Lord Morpheus? That you were letting the potion kill you? That you only slept once in the three months prior to our meeting? Why, yes! You should have.”
“Sorry.” And she was sorry that she worried him, that he had to get involved. She was grateful to be breathing, too. But she couldn’t muster the right attitude to really apologize for it all. She had too much respect for her sense of self-preservation. It had kept her alive too many times before.
Taliesin shifted closer, so their shoulders pressed together, and took her hands to hold between his roughened palms. “I’m not blaming you. He’s terrifying. I am stopping you. This is an intervention, darling. You are very trustworthy with other people. You are not so trustworthy when it comes to your own needs.”
This time, she prepared to argue. She even opened her mouth. But Taliesin just lifted his eyebrows and her valiant defense of her questionable life choices evaporated. Instead, she cleared her throat, breaking eye contact like a coward. He won the round. He won the war, really.
That was okay.
No storm raged. Precious little rain fell. Only the rare tear of condensation rolled down the windowpanes, and the precipitation was easiest to see in the puddles, where tiny drops echoed out in perfect circles over the gray sky’s reflection.
She did eventually manage to stand without help, and Taliesin let her clean herself up in the cottage’s little bathroom after her three-day nap. But after that, she had to sit again. He brought more soup, and she slowly finished the second bowl, stomach uncomfortably full. It was like a stiff muscle, he explained, and she’d only reclaim full function if she was willing to suffer a little. The vague ache didn’t even count as suffering, as far as she was concerned.
Eventually, the hazy grey sky turned orange and red. Her pocket world had no cardinal directions, and the colors ringed the horizon. They watched the blue evening creep in together, tea in hand, until she felt drowsy again. When Taliesin ushered her back to the couch, she groused, “I just woke up.”
“You’re healing.”
He didn’t go back to his chair, but sat at the far end of the couch, settling pillows along his knees and hip. She wondered – with a frisson of fear up her spine – what horrible thing he thought she would need so much comfort over. But she’d missed touch, and warmth, and comfort from someone else’s arms, so she curled up with her head on his lap anyway.
As he arranged the blanket to better cover her shoulders, he said, “Lord Morpheus will meet you in your dreams this time.”
She froze, and his hand wandered up to her hair, keeping contact as he reminded her by touch of his presence. He was her sentry, a guard against anything and everything if she’d let him.
“None of us understands why the collar manifests in the Dreaming,” he continued, “but he wants it gone, and that’s good for us. For you. To be painfully blunt, he could kill you in the waking world and never worry about the damn thing slipping into your dreams ever again, but he hasn’t, and that tells me we can trust him.”
He gave her time to process, but he didn’t allow time to spiral back into mindless fear. “Do you trust my judgement, rain cloud?”
She shifted, trying to find a position that would force her heart to slow down. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad. All you have to do is sleep.”
“What if he takes me back to the grove?” Her face felt hot, and her voice sounded wet. In another minute she’d be crying into the pillow. “I can’t go through that again.”
His hand froze for a moment, but he recovered quickly, brushing away her anxieties with a level head and steady tone. “He won’t. He didn’t find what he needed there. But if he tries, tell him no.”
Snorting, she rolled over to hide her face in the back of the couch. “Like that would stop him.”
“It had better.”
Iron underlined those words, and that was the most comforting thing she’d heard all day. Taliesin would go to war over her, would face up against an Endless to keep her sane. If Taliesin wasn’t afraid of a fight, then she had nothing to worry about.
“Okay.”
He hummed. “Okay.”
After the jolt of adrenaline he’d caused, it took a while to drift off. She stared into the fire until the wavering flames hypnotized her, listening to Taliesin’s old Welsh lullabies as she tried to find her way to the gentle, heavy feeling that marked the gates of sleep. Every time she came close, the path veered, and she found herself staring into the flames again, twitching towards consciousness and Taliesin’s voice.
But, eventually, guided by fatigue, she drifted away from the warm cottage and the careful hand. The collar grew into place, and she slipped into a waiting dream.
A quarter moon peeped between the trees. The nocturnal forest shone bright as day to her sensitive eyes, and she stretched to feel her claws sink into the loam. Grey paws all but disappeared into the shadows, and her ears perked at the susurrus of wind and small animals creeping through the leaves. She’d been still for too long – in all shapes – and she pounced after the first dry leaf to tumble past. It crunched beneath her with a smell like the sleeping death of late autumn, and she lunged after another and another, batting them with abandon until a soft, red maple leaf caught on her claws.
She shook and shook her paw, but the damn thing wouldn’t come free until she ripped it away with her teeth in frustration. It did not taste as good as it smelled, and she sat up, licking her whiskers to chase away the flavor of tree.
A rumble from above startled her sideways, and she leapt on all four paws away from the sound.
Looking up, she saw an enormous cat resting in an oak with eyes brighter than the moon watching her. His gaze struck her like a car’s headlights, and she froze, the hair on her back pricking up in alarm.
“You make a clumsy cat.”
She knew the voice and the presence. When the King of Dreams leapt down from his tree, she recoiled. Her own short hiss startled her, and she cut it off with choked sound of confusion. She was a grey barn cat, and that made sense, but she was a demi-god asleep on the couch, too. As she worked through her confusion, the great cat came a step closer. She forced herself still, remembering Taliesin was with her, even if she couldn’t sense him, that he’d keep her safe and fight an Endless if he pulled the same stunt twice.
She sat, though the raised hair along her back wouldn’t fall flat again.
The Dream Lord mirrored her, peering literally down his nose, and she could tell without words that her hiss had displeased him.
At least she hadn’t run.
Yet.
“You know me, little dreamer.”
Her tail curled around her feet. “Yes.”
“And you know yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She could hear he meant it in the bright note folded around the word, and she imagined his regular shape may even have smiled. But only a little.
He rose and turned, walking into the woods. She followed the implicit command and pattered after him, keeping low, wary of his big paws and glinting claws. Tree frogs sang around them, filling the silence with a throbbing drone. For a little while, he let her trail behind him, but when they reached a clearing, he looked back for her.
“Walk beside me,” he said. “I would speak with you.”
She moved lightly through the long grass, all silvery under the moon, and wondered that the Dream Lord’s eyes didn’t cast shadows in the dark. His strides covered much more ground than her little legs could match, and she trotted to keep up with his sedate pace. Though he towered over the weeds, they swallowed her entirely, and even though she drew even with him, she couldn’t bring herself to draw any closer to his side.
He stopped, looking out over the grass with another rumble. “Are you hiding? Shall I hunt you again, little dreamer?”
The bright note hung in his voice, but even if he was teasing, any idea of the great cat with glowing eyes springing down with claws out terrified her.
“No! No.” She slunk closer, sharing the narrow track he followed, ears pressed back, belly nearly scraping the ground. “I’m right here.”
His long tail swished behind him as he studied her, unmoving. “Do you still believe I wish to harm you?”
“I don’t pretend to know what measureless depths of pain the Endless can endure,” she said, “but if you pull me back through all that one more time, I don’t think I’d survive it.”
One mighty step closer, and she dropped flat. Even though those luminous eyes had already fixed on her, every instinct insisted she make herself smaller.
He responded by lying down, literally sinking to her level.
“I find it interesting,” he said. “You do not perceive yourself as others do.”
What did that mean? She relaxed enough to lift her head, curious. “Who?”
“Your friend Taliesin dreamed of you as a kitten. A playful little thing he tried to coax out from under the steps.”
She looked at her paws again, sinking her claws into the earth just to watch them curl out from the pads. “And this is how you see me?”
“No. This is how you’ve dreamed yourself.”
Could that be right? That couldn’t be right. She’d never seen or felt things like this when she slept before. Even when the Sandman kept the nightmares back, she rested in darkness.
“But – I don’t think I know how to – dream, I mean.”
“This is a shape I chose,” he agreed. “But once I’d drawn the shape of the dream, your own mind added the details, including your vision of yourself.”
“Oh.” She relaxed a little more, dropping her chin to her paws as she watched a firefly blink above the long grass. The frogs weren’t so loud, away from the trees, and when her ears twitched around, she was sure she could hear running water. A stream. She might even smell it. “I’ve never… dreamed like this before.”
“I know.”
Slowly, telegraphing every motion, he climbed to his feet. She stood with him, calm again and ready to continue.
“There is something I would like to try.” He turned back to the path. “Follow me.”
Instead of sauntering along like before, he bounded across the meadow, and she nearly lost sight of him before she jerked into motion.
He was right. She was a clumsy cat. Clumsy and small, but she did her best. Springing over hidden logs, pouncing up to see over the grass when he drew too far ahead, winding along the shortest routes to catch up again.
The sound of water drew nearer, and she saw the edge of the meadow, where the water had worn it into a little cliff. The Dream Lord cleared it easily, leaping over the chasm without pause. She, however, had spent most of her energy over the wide meadow, taking half a dozen steps for every one of his, and she hesitated at the brink. But she couldn’t stop herself, and she threw all of her strength into her hind legs as she left the ground.
The golden collar around her neck squeezed. She flinched midair and knew she would fall short of her goal. One paw caught the bank, scratching deep into grass and loose rock that wouldn’t hold. She slipped back, heading towards waters roaring more like a raging river than a gentle stream.
And then she wasn’t falling. Teeth gently pinched the back of her neck, just below the collar. They lifted her up and away from the danger. As she dangled from the king’s mouth, he moved a few dozen yards back from the crumbling bank. Frozen, she only squeaked when he finally set her down again.
She hunkered in a cat loaf, too embarrassed to look up at him. “Sorry. I just got tired, and then the collar – ”
“Tired? In a dream?”
She blinked, at once both human and cat – and terribly confused. “Is that not supposed to happen? Don’t people rest in dreams?”
“No. Not like this.” He hadn’t backed away after he released her, and she’d been too shaken to put space between them. Coming even closer, he looked at her neck. “Taliesin told me a theory.”
He hadn’t shared it with her before she went to sleep. It must be bad, then. “What theory?”
The King of Dreams settled back on his haunches. He looked regal. Severe. “He believes it is feeding off of you. I think I agree with him.”
The collar squeezed again, like it could hear them, and she tried to paw it off without thinking. Its revenge was swift. Brutal. Thorns pierced her fur as it pulled even tighter, strangling and bleeding her as payment for her offense.
Actual animal sounds of distress peeled through the twilight dream world, and she rolled through the weeds as she struggled to free herself, to stop the pain, to breathe properly. It was a good thing they’d moved so far from the water or she’d have tumbled in.
A rumble very different from the others – more growl than purr – thundered above her, and a massive paw settled on her ribs to force her still. She could barely keep her eyes open, and she looked frantically into the patient light of the Dream King’s gaze.
“I promised you kinder dreams, little storm god. But I’m afraid this dream is over.”
A blink, and the golden eyes disappeared.
She woke in the grey pre-dawn, the fire burned to embers, Taliesin snoring with his head thrown back on the couch.
Safe. Whole.
Just as they’d promised.
Chapter 5
#morpheus x reader#dream of the endless x reader#dream x reader#the sandman#sandman x reader#sandman fanfiction#Younger Gods#youngergods
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H– hear me out. Found family.
but it's Rose and Jed and the Corinthian is the cool uncle who pops by and takes Jed to eat ice-cream and amusement parks and just accidentally leaves the thing that Rose happens to be needing that week around. Oh, a sandwich and... candy? Oh, nice the hole in the wall is repaired. Oh a new fridge. Why is there a jar of eyes–
And then discussions happen "yea kid gotta do what it takes to survive. I know how it is when parents ain't around."
Rose stresses out for her law school exams so the Corinthian asks her questions on the material. He thinks it's all bullshit because
"No problem that can't be solved with murder or sex."
It actually really puts things in perspective for Rose. Just maybe there are worse things in the universe than potentially failing law exams (she won't).
"You're so perfect all the time kiddo, gotta unwind a little." And The Corinthian just takes her and Jed to the places he's been to he thinks are the coolest.
He shows Jed his collection of portraits of people who have the most perfect teeth.
"Do you have to brush yours? Eye-teeth I mean? Cause I hate brushing my teeth couldn't imagine doing it three times."
"Jed–" Rose tries to interrupt. But Jed has questions.
"Do you have three oesophagi ? I learned the word oesophagus in biology today."
Increasingly bothered Corinthian rakes hand through his hair. "Uh–"
What was he thinking.
"Can you laugh with them? Are they connected or can you use them like independent one from the other. How can you even ACTUALLY SEE"
"I DON'T KNOW AIGHT– ask Morpheus."
Rose is not a vortex anymore but these kids attract trouble, petty criminals, flaming sofas on wheels, and malevolent entities like the Corinthian has never seen.
Rose doesn't know of course.
The Corinthian always gets to them first.
Once Dream visits and Rose almost calls him granddad.
#you're safe with me#i#have no idea where that came from#don't hurl stones at me ok#the corinthian#rose walker#jed walker#the sandman#actually I think I do know it's cause#i feel like when he said#he was genuine#also genuinely cool with jed#like yea adults are warped and fucked but children? leave them fuckers alone#i... just think#given Rose's previous roommates if there was one person who can tolerate a little weirdness it's her lol#maybe she gets the Corinthian to only eat eyes of really bad people idk#(Jeff Bezos)
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